Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to assume the Democratic time.

I would just comment to the gentleman from Florida that if he would join with us in voting for this resolution, then we will avoid the crises of the Constitution that he talks about and, instead, we will shock this President into giving us a new direction in Iraq.

Point of Inquiry

Mr. Oberstar.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the very patient and the very distinguished gentleman from Minnesota, the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (Mr. Oberstar).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we are engaged in a long war on radical Islam, a war the President has analogized to the Cold War. Two roads in that war lead to disaster. The first disastrous road would be to abandon the battle, appease, disarm, blame America, and speak to Syria and Iran about what concessions we are going to give them.

The second disastrous course is to stay the course in our utter fixation on Iraq as the only battlefield in the global war on radical Islam. Those who propose that we stay the course, an erroneous course, I might add, give four different reasons:

First, they say that if we do not stay in Iraq and prevail, then terrorists will have a place to gather and plot against us. Mr. Speaker, terrorists can plot against us in the deserts of Somalia. Terrorists are plotting against us in the mountains of North Waziristan, in the mountains of Pakistan. Mr. Speaker, terrorists can plot against us in an apartment building in Hamburg. Even if we prevail in Iraq, terrorists will always be able to find a conference room.

The second reason we are given is that if we do not prevail in Iraq, the terrorists there will follow us home. Well, keep in mind on 9/11, the vast majority of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, a country with an apparently stable and obstensibly friendly government. So even if Iraq were stable and friendly, individual Iraqi terrorists might well come to the United States and carry out actions against us. Third, we are told that we have an obligation to the Iraqi people to stay there, to stay the course. We have liberated the Iraqis from Saddam Hussein, a man who killed millions in his war against Iran and against the Kurds. Now we have given the Iraqi people an opportunity to come together. We have bled sufficiently for Iraq.

Finally, we are told that we owe it to those Americans who died in battle to stay in Iraq until Iraq is a model democracy.

I would argue that instead we owe it to those who died to have an intelligent foreign policy that safeguards America. That starts with learning the lessons of the Cold War. Remember the 1960s and the 1970s, when we were told that if we didn't support every escalation in Vietnam, then the Communists would follow us home or, in the parlance of that day, there would be Communists on the beaches of southern California.

Well, we won the Cold War because we pulled out of Vietnam. The short-term outcome in Vietnam was not what we would have liked, but even if we had stayed in Vietnam another decade, it would have been no different. We won the global war on communism because we waged it globally, and we did not become fixated forever on Vietnam.

The time has arrived to pull back from daily battles on the streets of Baghdad. It is time for Iraq to no longer be viewed as the sole or exclusive battlefield in the war on terrorism. It is time instead for us to focus on the one part of the global war on terrorism that could lead to hundreds of thousands of American deaths, and that is Iran's nuclear program. We need to mobilize all of our diplomatic leverage to reshape our policies towards Russia, Europe and China, toward the single goal of putting together a coalition that will put the pressure on Iran necessary to force that country to abandon its nuclear program. We owe this to those who have died in Iraq, and we owe it to the American people.

Finally, we are told that this resolution is nonbinding, meaningless, that the President will ignore it, that the only way we have of affecting policy is to cut off funds, which is constitutionally problematic, since it involves tying in the hands of the Commander in Chief while we have troops in the field. But the very people who say this resolution is meaningless have it in their power to make it meaningful, have it in their power to avoid such constitutionally problematic approaches.

Because if the Republicans will vote for this resolution, they will make it

meaningful, they will make it decisive, the President will not ignore it, we will jolt the President into abandoning his stay the course, escalate the course approach.

Those who vote against this resolution may keep it from being meaningful. But if even a third of the Republican caucus votes for this resolution, then the President will no longer stay the course, he will be jolted, he will work with Congress cooperatively towards a foreign policy that makes sense for our country.

I look forward to having enough votes for this resolution so that it is, indeed, meaningful.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to be part of a process that shows our troops that America is a functioning democracy, and that we are engaged in discussing a resolution that reflects the views of the vast majority of the American people.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, a distinguished Member

of the Congress and of the Appropriations Committee, the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Kilpatrick).

(Ms. KILPATRICK asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I come to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to bring to my colleagues' attention the retirement of a man dedicated to the U.S. Space program. The President of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Byron Wood, has announced his retirement after 44 years of service, not just to Rocketdyne, but to the people of the United States.

Byron has seen his career go full circle, from his early work on the J-2 engine for the Apollo moon program, to his leadership today in resurrecting the J-2 for America's return to the moon. In between, Byron was instrumental in the development of the space shuttle main engine, which has served our national space program flawlessly for 25 years. Byron is the proud recipient of two NASA awards; the Exceptional Engineering Achievement medal and the Public Service medal.

During his career, Byron also made valuable contributions to the national security needs of the United States. His leadership in the development of the RS-68 engine for the Delta IV launch vehicle will help ensure that America's military will maintain information superiority through the reliable launch and placement of our national space based assets. His continued support for the development of small liquid propulsion systems has greatly strengthened our missile defense capability through Rocketdyne's contributions to the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System.

America will miss Byron's service. As we refocus our efforts to return humans to the moon and beyond, and as space systems continue to become more vital to the national security of our country, wisdom and leadership of the type possessed by Byron will be ever more essential. Please join me in wishing Byron the best in his retirement and in thanking him for his work.

Madam Speaker, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons ought to be the number one foreign policy objective of the United States. A nuclear Iran would spark region-wide nuclear proliferation. In fact, (Saudi Arabia and its allies have already announced that they are beginning a nuclear program to respond to what Iran is doing). Further, if the Iranian Government were close to being overthrown, and some of us look forward to that day, it could smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States--either in an effort to reassert popularity with its own people, or with the idea that they would rather go out with a bang.

Now, we cannot stop Iran's nuclear program just by meeting with Iranian emissaries. Secretary Rice has offered to meet with representatives of the Iranian Government anywhere, at any time, to discuss any agenda--so long as during the talks Iran suspends uranium enrichment, just as Iran suspended uranium enrichment when they were talking with European leaders. The refusal of Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, even for a few days in order to speak with Secretary Rice, speaks loudly about their willingness and desire to speak with us.

Likewise, we cannot stop Iran's nuclear program by making unilateral concessions to Iran. We did that in the year 2000. We opened our markets to everything Iran would want to export to us, except oil-- things like carpets and dried fruit. In fact, we opened our markets to everything we didn't need, and they couldn't sell anywhere else. The result in public was nasty comments from the Iranian foreign minister. In private what they did was redouble their efforts to obtain nuclear weapons, and provide assistance to the 9/11 hijackers, according to the 9/11 Commission, though they apparently didn't know the exact mission of those they were assisting.

But we can block Iran's nuclear program only if we can pass extreme Security Council sanctions. The mere adoption of strong sanctions at the United

Nations would be of enormous political impact on the people of Iran. A ban on selling Iran refined petroleum products would dislocate its economy and bring enormous popular pressure on the Government of Iran, because although Iran exports petroleum, it doesn't have the refining capacity--and therefore is dependent on imports for almost half of its gasoline.

So how do we get these very extreme U.N. Security Council sanctions? Only with a dramatic change in Russia's policy.

Now, our current approach to securing that critical Russian support has been very ineffective, and we have achieved only token sanctions that Tehran can laugh off.

The only way to get the kind of Russian support we need is by offering real changes on our policy toward issues in Russia's own geographic region--issues Russia cares a lot about, issues not of great significance to most of us in the United States. Our efforts to convince Russia to change its Iran policy only because, well, they ought to do it, have been remarkably unsuccessful. We need to address Russia's concerns to change their policy toward Iran's nuclear weapons.

In particular, we may need to offer to make modest changes in our policies towards such issues as the Russian-speaking peoples of Moldova, Latvia and Estonia, the route of Caspian Sea oil pipelines, and Chechnya and Abkhazia.

Now, the State Department bureaucracy is prejudiced towards this approach for three reasons: First, a bureaucracy has bureaus, and they have got an Abkhazia bureau that doesn't want its interests sacrificed for some more important national security priority. Second, there are those in the administration with such an almost faith-based excessive estimate of our national power. They think we can achieve all of our national objectives and that we don't have to sacrifice or delay any of them. Finally, many of America's foreign policy experts grew up in the Soviet era. They spent their time strategizing how to encircle and weaken Russia. And, Madam Speaker, old habits die hard.

Nothing is more important to America's national security than an all- out diplomatic effort to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I remember well the debate on this floor in 2002 about whether to give the President the power he sought to take military action, if necessary, against Saddam Hussein. But before that resolution even came to this floor, we considered it in the International Relations Committee. There, we were told that the administration would invade Iraq only if the inspectors were not allowed to do their job. In fact, Secretary Powell told us that before the whole committee. Then he told me that privately.

Now, I did not completely trust the administration. So in committee I offered a resolution that would allow the use of force only if the inspectors were not allowed to do their job. A majority of Democrats in the committee voted for that resolution. The Republicans pretty much all voted against it; and it was defeated.

Then we all came to this floor, and Mr. Spratt of South Carolina put forward a resolution that would allow the President to use military force, but only under certain circumstances, such as force being authorized by the United Nations. I voted for Mr. Spratt's resolution. Unfortunately, it was defeated.

And, finally, the supporters of the President were able to say that there was only one last resolution before us: either we gave the power to the President that he sought, but that he promised to use only if the inspectors were expelled or prevented from doing their job, or we left ourselves in a position where Saddam was free to expel the inspectors and to go all out with his weapons of mass destruction program.

At that point, I voted for an overly broad resolution, a resolution that gave the President more power than he claimed he would use, or gave him power to act under circumstances all under when he said that he would act only under a limited number of circumstances. That of course is not what happened.

The President took that power, made little or no attempt to ensure the inspectors were allowed to do their job, dismissed them, in effect pulled them out of Iraq, and invaded at an early opportunity. Obviously, if I knew then how the President would use the power granted by this Congress, I never would have voted to give him that power.

Not only did he invade even though the inspectors were then able to do their job and, as it turned out, they were right, there were no weapons of mass destruction--but then, in secret briefings on this floor, we had been told (and this has been reported in press, I am not revealing anything), that the plan was to invade Iraq from the north and from the south, so as to take control of the country quickly. What happened was that Turkey at the last minute declared that our troops couldn't go through Turkey, and our best division was sitting there in the middle of the Mediterranean.

So we had a plan. The plan had been previewed to those of us in Congress. The plan involved our best division. (I will just say one of our best divisions; I don't want to cast anything but total glory on all our divisions.) But one of our best divisions was left sitting in the Mediterranean. Now, you would think if you had a plan and you couldn't execute the plan, you would go draft a new plan. Instead, they just took the northern half of the plan and threw it away and implemented the southern half of the plan. Needless to say, we did not take immediate control of Baghdad. Needless to say, there was chaos. And the rest is history.

But there are a host of other mistakes made by the Bush administration. They were detailed by the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton). They included an inadequate number of troops at the beginning; disbanding the Iraqi Army when the Saudis, who have some understanding of the area, had advised us to do the exact opposite; not guarding the arms depots; and a host of other problems.

Now we are being asked to authorize a surge. An escalation is the real word. And we are told that this is critical because Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism. Well, is that really true?

We are told that Iraq could become a place where terrorists could meet and plot. Today they are meeting and plotting in North Waziristan, in much of Afghanistan, in much of Somalia, pretty much anywhere they want in Iran and in Syria and Sudan. They have plenty of places to meet and plot. How many Americans are supposed to die on the theory that denying the terrorists one place to meet will prevent them from meeting in all the places they are meeting today?

Then we are told that there will be a humanitarian debacle in Iraq. And, again, the prognosis for Iraq is not particularly good, but it is by no means clear that we have not done all we can be expected to do to help the people of Iraq avoid a civil war and achieve unity. And at some point it may be necessary to say that Iraq's decisions need to be made by the Iraqis.

Keep in mind that during Saddam's tenure, year in and year out, he killed far more people than have been killed in the time since we invaded. We have bestowed upon the Iraqi people not just the pain and suffering that they have now, but also freedom from a Saddam Hussein who in prior decades had killed not the thousands we see being killed now but hundreds of thousands and millions. Our moral responsibility to the Iraqi people was to do what was reasonable to help them reestablish order. I think we have met much of our moral responsibility. We can do more by providing economic and other aid. And we should keep in mind that Iraq is just one of many places in the world suffering great humanitarian crises.

Finally, we are told that we are going to empower and overjoy the terrorists if they see us leave Iraq or see us fail to surge into Iraq. Keep in mind, the smarter terrorists are thrilled to have us pinned down there, and to have us bled dry there.

But, finally, even if all these things being put forward by the administration are true, even if withdrawal from Iraq or failure to surge into Iraq gives terrorists a place to gather, sets the stage for humanitarian crisis, and overjoys the terrorists, there is no evidence that we are now doing anything but delaying the inevitable by surging over the next few months, or escalating over the next few months. So since we are by no means winning or prevailing, surging is just doing more of the same.

The President has asked us to compare the Global War on Radical Islam with the Cold War, and I think it is an apt comparison. Iraq has some real similarities to Vietnam. And the one thing we all remember about Vietnam is being told that if we didn't prevail in Vietnam, the communists would be on the beaches in Santa Monica. What did we finally do? We withdrew from Vietnam, and doing so was a critical step in winning the Cold War just 15 years later.

I would say that we should pick our own battlefields, we should learn from the Vietnam mistake, and we should recognize that the way to beat radical Islam may be to recognize that Iraq is not the central front and that we have to do a lot of things in a lot of places in the world, and cannot allow ourselves to be utterly fixated on Iraq.

Madam Speaker, today H.R. 1176, the Nonprofit Athletic Organization Protection Act of 2006, was brought to the floor on the suspension calendar. The suspension process should only be used for bills that are non-controversial. The Republican leadership has once again abused the suspension calendar in order to limit debate on divisive issues. Accordingly, I will not vote to suspend the rules.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a very special occasion in the life of one of my constituents, Jadwiga ``Hedy'' Kugler. This year, Hedy celebrates her 50th year in the United States of America! And what a wonderful 50 years they have been for her and her family.

Hedy's life represents the quintessential American dream. At the age of 13, she left the comforts of her family's Paris apartment and set sail for America on the SS United States with her parents Vincent and Maria Niziuk and her sister Marta. Although the family had very little at the time, they had grand dreams of a better life in America. Her very first glimpse of that dream was the Statute of Liberty, as her ship sailed into New York City on the morning of July 30, 1956.

But her journey did not end there. Shortly after clearing immigration, Hedy and her family boarded a train for the long trip to Los Angeles to meet the family's sponsor Wanda Wegrocka. Along the way, Hedy saw her first television show, ``Queen for a Day,'' and had her first sip of Coca-Cola.

The family finally arrived in Los Angeles on August 4, 1956, and settled into a new apartment and new life on Ivar Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. These early years were an exciting time for Hedy, as she explored her new homeland and made lasting friendships that continue to this day. Hedy also took care to make the most of every opportunity that America provided. She graduated high school at Blessed Sacrament, and went on to earn a B.A. in Mathematics from UCLA. She then embarked on a career as a senior instructor for IBM, where she spent 30 years traveling the globe teaching application and systems programming to IBM clients. Now in her retirement, Hedy devotes much of her time to helping others, volunteering at a Kaiser hospital and serving as a Eucharistic minister at her local church.

Hedy has been married for 43 years to the love of her life, Bolek Kugler, and has two adult children, Christine and Andrew. She's now a proud grandmother too, or Baba as she is known to Ellie and Nate Kugler. I'm also proud to say that Hedy and her husband still live in the same Encino home that they bought nearly 35 years ago. Together, they continue to explore all comers of the world, from Argentina to Vietnam, Sydney to Krakow. Her adventurous spirit, born on the SS United States, continues to thrive and grow.

Fifty years ago, Hedy came to this country with a dream of a better life. She has turned that dream into a successful career, a lasting marriage, a vast circle of friends ITom around the country, and a family that loves her dearly. She is truly an inspiration to all those who know her.

I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Hedy on her 50th anniversary in the United States. May your future years in America be as full and prosperous as the last five decades.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in reluctant support of this bill and in strong support of its authors--who got what they could from a President who has a veto pen, and is determined to continue our ineffectual policy toward Iran.

America has been blinded by the flash of this President's overly aggressive response to Iraq's tiny ``weapons of mass destruction'' program. So, as a result, we have settled for a loud but pitifully ineffectual effort, both toward North Korea's nuclear program and toward Iran's.

In this bill, I had an amendment that would have prohibited U.S. corporations from doing business with Iran through their foreign subsidiaries. That amendment was stripped in conference. So Halliburton is protected; the American people are not.

This bill extends the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which was so effective,

along with other measures, in getting Khadaffi to change his policies. However, as toward Iran, the last administration and this administration has a policy of ignoring widely reported investments in the Iran oil sector. The bill says we are supposed to sanction oil companies that invest even $40 million in Iran's oil sector. When tens of billions of dollars of investments are announced in the Wall Street Journal, the President's response is, he didn't get that copy.

We have got to pass this bill, but we have got to do a lot more. And we have got to make sure that, in our policy toward Russia and China about Moldova, Abkhazia, and currency controls, that we make it clear that support on Iran will lead to our change on those issues that are so important to Russia and China. We need linkage, and we need an effective policy.

Mr. Speaker, when this House votes to adjourn, we will be voting to put politics above policies, to put the needs of us as politicians over the needs of the American people, for leadership will insist that we leave without dealing with energy independence; leave while our seniors are falling into the donut hole provided in the poorly planned part D of Medicare; leave before we deal with college affordability; before we deal with tax relief for the middle class, especially the

alternative minimum tax, the dreaded AMT; and as I get to in a second, leave before we raise the minimum wage.

We should be working for the American people in October instead of spending the month going home to ask for their forgiveness for not working in October.

Let us look particularly at the minimum wage. We should be dealing with H.R. 2129 which would increase the minimum wage from its incredibly low $5.15 to something approaching a minimum wage.

So, Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to bring up H.R. 2129.

Mr. Speaker, point of parliamentary inquiry.

What you are citing there is the mere custom of this House and not an official rule of this House; is that correct?

And, in fact, for the first 150 years of this House, we had no such guidelines.

Mr. Speaker, point of parliamentary inquiry.

You say that we cannot bring up this needed raise in the minimum wage?

You cannot even entertain the request because it has not been cleared by the leadership of both parties; is what you are saying?

Well, it has been cleared by the Democratic Party. So it is really just the Republican Party that says we cannot raise the minimum wage.

Mr. Speaker, the President of Iran has just addressed the United Nations General Assembly. He well could have declared victory. Hezbollah, a creature of Iran, created and funded by Iran, attacked Israel. The resulting conflict diverted attention from Iran's nuclear program and bolstered Iran's position in the Middle East. Our invasion of Iraq has removed from the chess board what was once a bloody rival of Iran for power in its own region, and now Iraq saps America's strength.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to New York with a stamp of approval for his country's nuclear program from the 100-plus members of the nonaligned movement, where he led a festival of America-bashing.

Most importantly, Ahmadinejad has brazenly ignored the August 31 deadline from the United Nations Security Council to cease enrichment of nuclear fuel.

A nuclear Iran would be a catastrophe. That regime has already been listed as number one on the list of state sponsors of terrorism year after year by our own State Department.

With nuclear weapons, Iran could blatantly sponsor the most horrific terrorist events, feeling itself immune from retaliation.

The Iranian regime could terrify its Muslim neighbors and interrupt their oil exports. Conversely, it could inspire Middle East States to develop their own nuclear weapons. If the Tehran regime got just a little bit crazier than they are, it could smuggle a weapon into the United States and then threaten to explode it if we did not change our policies.

Finally, if that regime were about to be overthrown, and many of us look forward to that day, it could use its nuclear weapons against its own people, or it could use them against Israel as a final parting act.

Ahmadinejad declared in one of his recent famous diatribes that the United States should bow down and surrender.

Mr. Amadinijad, we already have. Our unilateral concessions began in 1999 when we opened our markets to Iranian exports, not oil which we could use, but only the stuff Iran cannot sell elsewhere like caviar.

Since then we have acquiesced in World Bank loans to the Iranian Government. We allow corporations to do business in Iran through their foreign subsidiaries. And last year we opened the door to Iran's membership in the WTO. For 6 years, the Bush administration has violated U.S. law by refusing to apply the Iran-Libya Sanctions Acts to billions of dollars of investments in the Iranian oil sector. All this while energy sanctions were effective in changing Libya's behavior.

Most recently, Condoleezza Rice and President Bush personally approved a visa for a five-city U.S. propaganda tour by Amadinijad's predecessor, former Iranian President Khatami. Amazingly, the U.S. taxpayer picked up part of the tab for Khatami's terrorism promotion tour. We paid for the security. As you remember, the last time there were American officials in Iran, there wasn't much security and they were taken hostage and held for 44 days.

There is a certain symmetry to all this, Mr. Speaker. According to the 9/11 Commission, during the administration of Khatami, Iran used its taxpayer dollars to provide safe harbor and protection to al Qaeda terrorists. Now U.S. tax dollars are used to provide safe harbor and protection for Khatami.

The failure of this administration to persuade the U.N. Security Council, particularly Russia and China, to impose sanctions on Iran for developing nuclear weapons is the greatest diplomatic failure of our time. Why have they failed? Because they refuse the concept of linkage. We seek Russia's help on Iran while refusing to make the slightest concession on issues Russia cares about like Moldavia, Chechnya, Obkazia, any reasonable U.S. policy which subordinates these issues that are minor to us to the goal of preventing a nuclear Iran.

Likewise, we refuse to link how China deals with Iran with how we deal with China on trade issues, such as how we choose to respond to their legally questionable currency manipulations.

Mr. Speaker, the options are clear. We can use all our economic and diplomatic power, including linkage, to stop Amadinijad's nuclear weapon program, or we can bow down and surrender.

Actually, the Bush administration has embraced a third option. Talk tough, avoid effective action, especially linkage, and take solace in the fact that the policy failure will not become manifest and Iran will not develop and test a nuclear weapon until after 2008. Bush refuses linkage. We are doomed to a nuclear Iran

Mr. Speaker, I have always opposed using the suspension process for consideration of controversial legislation. Once again, the Republican leadership is abusing the suspension process to limit debate by bringing H.R. 4893 to the floor as a suspension item. Accordingly, I cannot vote to suspend the rules.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a sham concealing an insult hiding a hypocrisy. It is a sham legislative process to bring a bill of thousands of pages, which has yet to be distributed to any of us, for a midnight vote.

It is an insult to turn to the hardworking people working for $5.15 an hour and tell them that, first, you will get a little bit more, but it still will be less purchasing power than you had decades ago. But second, you will get it only if it is tied to relief for those who pay the estate tax.

You know, people have misnamed the estate tax the death tax. It is really and literally the millionaire's tax. The tax falls only on those who are heirs. It reduces the amount they will inherit, and only on those who are heirs to estates of over $7 million a family.

We Democrats have proposed that we permanently lift the estate tax on all families on the first $7 million. That would cost about $22 billion a year.

This bill has provisions virtually abolishing the millionaire's tax and, therefore, will cost this country, when fully phased in, $66 billion a year.

So a few quarters an hour to those who are earning the minimum wage, and $44 billion a year to those who are heirs of estates above $7 million a family.

That would be an insult. But don't worry about it, because it is shrouded in a hypocrisy. You see, this bill isn't designed to go anywhere. It is designed to come to the floor, we vote on it at midnight, then the Senate won't pass it.

If you have voted against raising the minimum wage a dozen times, as most of the Republicans in this House have, don't think you can get well by voting for this bill.

This is a sham procedure. A 1,000-page bill. No time to read it. It is an insulting bill. In order to provide a tiny increase in the minimum wage, we have to give billions of dollars of tax cuts to those who are inheriting from families with over a $7 million estate.

But there is a special hypocrisy here. You see, this minimum-wage bill has a poison pill. They know it won't pass the Senate. There is only one pay-increase bill that is supposed to become law. That is the one that includes our pay raise. Our pay raise went through on a clean bill. They knew it would pass the Senate. The minimum-wage increase goes with a poison pill that is dead on arrival in the Senate. We know which pay raise they want, and which pay raise they don't want.

Mr. Speaker, there is no greater problem in this world than our dependence on petroleum. There is no greater problem for our Nation.

There is no greater problem for our economy than the fact that we have to import so much oil, sending billions of dollars every year to other countries, thereby impacting our balance of payments.

There is no greater problem for families than paying for gasoline and paying to cool or heat their homes.

There is no greater problem for the environment than the pollution caused when we burn petroleum, and there is no greater problem for the environment than global warming and the production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

There is no greater problem for our national security than our reliance on foreign petroleum, first, the physical security of that petroleum and, second, the fact that the rest of the world, if not the United States, finds it necessary in order to acquire petroleum to give money to such countries as Iran and others who use that money for nefarious purposes.

Therefore, there is nothing that we can do that is more important than

weaning the United States and the world off its dependence of petroleum. And the first step is research, and an important part of that research is cooperative research with other countries similarly dedicated to finding alternative energy.

There is perhaps no better partner than Israel. For the prime minister of Israel just a couple months ago, as the gentleman from Arizona pointed out, stood in this hall and said, ``Both Israel and the United States share a desire for energy security and prevention of global warming. Therefore, through the United States-Israel Energy Cooperation Act, in collaboration with our U.S. counterparts, Israel will increase its efforts to find advanced scientific and technological solutions designed to develop new energy sources and encourage conservation.''

As the prime minister pointed out, Israel and the United States have a strong mutual interest in advanced alternative energy research. Both countries are on the cutting edge of this scientific research. With modest investment, we can help stimulate joint efforts between American and Israeli private sector institutions and academic institutions to work toward the development of technology that reduces the world's dependence on petroleum.

In the 108th Congress, I introduced a very similar bill to the one that is before us today. It has been a pleasure to work with the gentleman from Arizona in introducing this bill last year, an improved version of the bill, and to work with so many, including the gentleman from New York, to see that that bill would reach this floor.

H.R. 2730 would allow the Department of Energy to invest up to $20 million annually to provide joint ventures between the U.S. and Israeli business and academic researchers both for alternative energy sources and for energy conservation. The Federal Government could recoup some or all of the monies so appropriated since, as the gentleman from Arizona pointed out, under each grant is an obligation for the grantee to pay the money back if the investment is successful and revenues are obtained.

Now, this legislation builds on existing cooperative efforts, including the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the United States-Israel Binational Research and Development Foundation. These two entities have already made scientific breakthroughs in a variety of fields, including the life sciences, medicine, bioengineering, agriculture, and communications. Now it is time to redouble these efforts and to focus on energy. As the gentleman from New York pointed out, we have already had cooperative efforts with Israel on energy and he had added language in a bill passed last year to redouble those efforts. It is now time to pass the U.S.-Israel Energy Cooperation Act so that we would have a vehicle to move forward and work with Israel to use its cutting-edge scientific knowledge, and ours, to wean the world one step at a time off the need for consumption of petroleum.

Mr. Chairman, India is a democracy that understands the role of this Congress. They have negotiated a deal that dramatically loosens the controls on their nuclear weapons program, and they know that it is the role of this Congress to make that deal one step tighter.

Our job is to protect the nonproliferation interests of the United States. The job of India is to say that any amendment we offer is a ``killer amendment.'' Do not be fooled. They know and they expect that this Congress will do its job and make this deal one step better when it comes to controlling nuclear weapons.

India did not sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. We should not punish India for becoming a nuclear power, but this deal in its present form facilitates building additional nuclear weapons by India. It will allow them to build twice as many nuclear weapons per year as they are doing now.

That is why I will be offering an amendment that will help India's civilian nuclear program, without helping their military program.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, India is a democracy and it knows that this Congress has a role to play. They negotiated a deal which is better than the deal they need. That deal which they negotiated with our State Department is very loose on the issue of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. India knows, or at least expects, that this Congress will do its job and make the agreement better, tighten the agreement so that it does not help India to build additional nuclear weapons.

The question is whether this Congress will do its job or surprise the Indians and simply be a rubber stamp for the agreement that has already been negotiated. I hope we do our job, and here is why.

India did not sign the Nonproliferation Treaty. They are not in violation of it. They exploded nuclear weapons. I do not believe that we should punish India for its decision to become a nuclear power, but we should not facilitate India in building additional nuclear weapons.

India's problem is this: They can only produce a limited amount of uranium from domestic sources, basically 300 tons. What they get out of this deal is nuclear fuel and uranium.

How does India use its 300 tons, which it produces domestically? They use half of it for their civilian reactors already existing. They certainly lose money if they fail to run those reactors as scheduled at full capacity. But they are doing just that. They are running their existing civilian reactors at less than capacity because they only use 150 tons of uranium for that purpose. The other 150 tons goes to India's nuclear weapons program.

What will this bill do if we fail to amend it? It will allow India to buy uranium for all of its civilian needs from other countries. The result will be that India will be able to use all 300 tons of its domestic production for the construction of nuclear weapons.

That is not what we mean to do. We mean to help India develop its civilian program. But since uranium is fungible, we also do not mean that our help to India in giving it fuel for its civilian program is not supposed to, so we are told, help India double its production of nuclear weapons. That is why this bill needs an amendment.

What my amendment would do is simply require that, for the deal to go forward, India keeps doing what it has been doing, using 150 tons of its uranium for its existing civilian plants instead of diverting that 150 tons toward its military production. That is to say, we would make sure that this deal did not hamper, but did not help, India's nuclear weapons program.

I hope the amendment will enjoy support.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me respond to the arguments. They say that India claims this is a killer amendment. This a negotiating tactic. Any amendment I don't like is a killer amendment. I use the negotiating tactic myself.

We are told this imposes a requirement on India that we do not impose on the other nuclear powers. All the other nuclear powers sign the nonproliferation treaty. India deliberately puts itself in a class by itself.

We are told that this bill, this amendment is designed to be a killer amendment. I don't think the gentleman meant that as an attack on my belief and integrity. I voted for the bill. I do not intend to kill the bill.

The Democratic leader was on this floor endorsing another amendment that India says is a killer amendment. I do not think she intends to kill the bill. She said she was going to vote for it. Those of us who want to improve the bill want to improve it. And if we are nothing more than a rubber stamp for a deal which by its terms will allow India to double its nuclear weapons production, all in the name of generating electricity, then we are not doing our job. Please vote for the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.