Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Sherman

Amendment No. 29: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, in the late 1990s, California, whose energy markets dominate the effect up and down the West Coast, adopted a competitive market for electric generation. Under Federal law, if a State adopts that competitive model, it gives up the right to regulate wholesale energy

prices and transfers that responsibility to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In late 2000 and early 2001, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, slept during an artificial crisis during the winter; and over $9 billion was stolen.

Why do I emphasize winter? Westerners will understand this. We had enough electric generation capacity to power our air conditioners in the summer, but somehow there was not enough electricity for the much lower demand to keep the lights on in the winter. Why? We were told that there was a shortage because plants were ``closed for maintenance.''

Here is the chart that illustrates what happened. The blue indicates the noncrisis previous year as to the number of plants and the amount of electricity not generated thereby due to maintenance. The yellow shows the crisis, closed for maintenance.

Now the transcripts are out. Not just Enron but Reliant and other Presidentially protected corporate criminals were closing the plants in order to create an artificial shortage.

Now the transcripts that are most famous are obscene. They include the now-famous quote that says, Gramma Millie, she wants her F-ing money back for all the money you jammed up her orifice for $250 a megawatt hour. That is thought to be the most obscene quote, but truly the most obscene, and there are dozens like this quote, is when an Enron trader turns to the plant manager and says, ``just go ahead and shut it down.'' Closed for maintenance, artificial shortage, $9 billion stolen.

The responsibility for this, the greatest economic crime in our history, is not just for the thieves but those who protect them.

Whose side are Members on? Reliant and Enron and the others who shut plants down to create an artificial shortage? Or on the side of Gramma Millie and other western consumers? Members define themselves and define their party with their vote on the previous question.

Reliant is relying on the other side to protect them; and the other side may indeed enjoy a hollow victory today as they shut down debate and prevent us from even discussing an amendment to require FERC to let the western States see the documents, to require FERC to look at the fraud that occurred before a complaint was filed. They can win that hollow victory today, but 45 million westerners, including the voters of three swing States, are watching. The other side of the aisle cannot hide from them, and Gramma Millie's revenge is less than 5 months away.

Announcement By the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Chairman, I voted against the Boehlert Amendment to the Intelligence Authorizations bill for 2005, H.R. 4548, due to the language which suggested that the war against Iraq and the policies of our commander-in-chief were the major factors in Libya's change with respect to the development of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. It was, in fact, concerted multilateral economic and diplomatic pressure which brought Libya's leader, Col. Qaddafi, to his senses to cut a deal to end U.S. and multilateral sanctions and relieve Libya's diplomatic isolation. I agree with the Ranking Member of the International Relations Committee, who insisted that language be added noting the effect sanctions had on the Libyan leader's policies. However, I cannot support legislation which suggests that the President's policy in Iraq played the major role in affecting policy in Tripoli.

I also voted against the Rogers Amendment. Though I agree with many of its provisions, I cannot support its partisan tone.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Chairman pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit Customs and APHIS from expending any funds to process any import from the Islamic Republic of Iran into the United States. The amendment would effectively reverse a decision made in the year 2000 by a Clinton administration order, which partially lifted what was then our total embargo on Iranian imports.

This has created a circumstance where we import from the Islamic Republic of Iran roughly $150 million of goods. We do not import any oil or other petroleum or energy products from Iran. That is prohibited by existing law. Instead, we import caviar and carpets. So the question before us now is whether we wish to put economic and symbolic pressure on the government in Tehran.

Well, let us examine that government's behavior. It is developing nuclear weapons. It is only a couple of years away, perhaps, from having an atomic bomb. Its cooperation with the IAEA was found inadequate by the IAEA Board. Even its so-called reformist leaders have decided to support this nuclear program.

Why? Because they know that they can move forward with their nuclear weapons program without paying any economic cost, and they are able to go in a complex political situation to the people of Iran and say, Don't worry that we are developing nuclear weapons. We will suffer no economic cost.

We will be part of the world community, and they are able to point to the fact that even the United States imports from Iran as proof that they pay no economic price for their behavior.

In addition, the government in Iran has been identified by the State Department in its Patterns of Global Terrorism Report as the number one state sponsor of terror. Iranian agents are working to kill our people in Iraq. Iran is harboring al Qaeda senior officials, including one of bin Laden's sons. Iranian agents, along with al Qaeda, working in tandem, are responsible for the 1996 Khobar Towers bombings that killed 19 Americans.

What more does the government of Iran have to do? Cooperate with al Qaeda, shelter al Qaeda, kill Americans. It is still not enough for us to stop importing their goods. And what are these goods that are so critical to us? Caviar and carpets.

It is time for us to use the levers we have to put pressure on this regime. It is time to go to the Iranian people that are growing weary of rule by the mullahs and say they are costing you something: your ability to do business with the world is being impaired.

These foreign policy adventures are a domestic issue to the people of Iran because they are foreclosing trade. Only when we cut off imports from Iran will we then be able to turn to our European and Japanese friends and urge them to do the same, at least until the government in Iran changes its behavior in these two critical areas: the development of atomic weapons and terrorism.

Keep in mind that terrorism will continue if we do nothing. Keep in mind, those atomic weapons can be smuggled into our country; they are no larger than a person. And then the government in Iran can make that phone call and tell us that they have an atomic bomb in this apartment building or that one.

Let us do something. This is the only time this year that this Congress will be able to stand and say, we want to put some pressure on the government of Iran. This is the only policy available to the United States short of invasion, which is not in the cards, to say that we want to do what can be done to convince the people and government of Iran that they pay a cost for supporting terrorism and that they pay a cost for their failure to cooperate with the IAEA.

So make your decision: should we continue to have business as usual with a government that is killing us and that is building the devices to kill us by the millions?

Point of Order

Offered By: Mr. Sherman

Amendment No. 13: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Sherman

Amendment No. 14: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an article recently published in the American Banker, entitled, ``OCC Caught in the Middle of Bank-Realtor Fight.''

[From the American Banker, June 2, 2004]

OCC Caught in the Middle of Bank-Realtor Fight

(By Todd Davenport)

The possibility that banks will one day sell houses makes

the real estate brokers' lobby shudder and has galvanized it

to fight against any incursion it perceives.

For the last three years the most obvious threat has been a

joint proposal by the Treasury Department and the Federal

Reserve Board that would let financial holding companies and

financial subsidiaries offer real estate brokerage services.

But in the past year the National Association of Realtors

has targeted the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's

recent efforts to stake out its preemption authority. The

trade group says the OCC's ability to insulate national banks

from state laws that require real estate and mortgage

licensing is also a threat.

The OCC has countered that there is little, if any,

connection between preemption and real estate brokerage, but

right or wrong, the trade group has become an unexpected and

powerful opponent to the OCC's preemption regulations at a

time when it needs all the friends it can get.

The regulations were finalized in January, but some

lawmakers on Capitol Hill have threatened to take action

against them.

``The Comptroller's position is that this has nothing to do

with real estate brokerage, but I don't think the Comptroller

has been successful in deflecting the awareness of people on

the Hill that the Realtors are concerned,'' said Gil

Schwartz, a lawyer with Schwartz & Ballen LLP in Washington.

The Realtors ``have brought a lot of people focused at the

local level,'' Mr. Schwartz said. ``They have brought much

more awareness of not just what can happen now but what can

happen in the future.''

The group says preemption is relevant, because the OCC

could let banks into real estate brokerage independent of the

joint Fed-Treasury proposal, which was made under the

auspices of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

``Right now a national bank could apply to the OCC for real

estate brokerage to be considered a permissible banking

activity,'' said Lynn King, a regulatory representative at

the trade group.

Realtors say the OCC could rely on an existing

interpretation that authorizes national banks to operate as

``finders.'' That broad power effectively allows a bank to

act as the middleman in many financial transactions.

Some banking lawyers say they doubt the OCC will use that

interpretation to allow real estate brokerage.

``Finder authority had been on the books for years, and

that never was perceived or regarded as giving national banks

authority to sell insurance as an agent or broker on an

unrestricted basis,'' said Ken Ehrlich, a lawyer with Nutter

McLennen & Fish LLP in Boston.

But real estate brokerage may be consistent with the

business of banking, he said.

``National banks by virtue of the business they conduct

every day are arguably fully equipped to get into the real

estate brokerage business and do it well without raising any

safety-and-soundness issues, significant consumer protection

issues, and without a whole lot, if any state regulation,''

Mr. Ehrlich said.

An OCC spokesman would not discuss its plans, but in the

past agency officials have said they are not contemplating

the extension of real estate brokerage powers to national

banks.

Realtors say they want certainty.

``Everything that they've said in testimony, everything

that they've said publicly, we just want them to put in some

sort of official format that we can rely on for the future of

our industry,'' Ms. King said.

The threat is imminent, because banking companies ``want to

put real estate people in the bank or the operating

subsidiary,'' she said. ``They want to put them as close as

they can to the loan, the mortgage transaction.''

Doing so would be anticompetitive, Ms. King said. OCC

preemption--which a Connecticut judge said last week extends

to operating subsidiaries--would give the mortgage arms of

large banks ``a free pass on all these state laws and

registrations and licensing,'' and ``our members aren't going

to be able to play in that field.''

Banking lawyers took the opposite view.

``The Realtors' position is anticompetitive,'' said Melanie

Fein, a lawyer at Goodwin Procter LLP in Washington. ``Just

like the securities industry, the insurance industry, the

data processing industry, the courier industry, they all have

fought against bank involvement.''

The group is behaving ``like Chicken Little,'' but ``the

sky is not going to fall--and if it does fall, it would be to

the benefit of consumers,'' she said

Realtors say they would stand down in this battle if the

OCC were to write regulations keeping banks out of real

estate brokerage. They also said that if the long-pending

Fed-Treasury proposal disappeared, the Realtors' opposition

to OCC preemption would disappear with it.

(The proposal has been on hold, because the Realtors have

successfully lobbied for enactment of spending bills the last

two years that have barred the Treasury from using its budget

to finalize the proposal.)

``We almost view this thing as the Trojan horse at the

gates,'' said Joseph Ventrone, the trade group's managing

director of regulatory and industry relations. If the Fed and

the Treasury were to drop their December 2000 proposal, ``our

vehemence on OCC'' preemption ``would not be as strong, would

probably not be at all.''

To some, that's evidence that the Realtors do not have a

legitimate beef with the preemption rules.

The group ``developed a strategy where they believe they

can use the debate going on today about preemption to

insulate themselves from competition from the national bank

industry,'' said Howard Cayne, a lawyer with Arnold & Porter

LLP in Washington. ``But they don't have an inherent interest

in preemption.''

Perhaps not, but their stance on preemption has made for

unusual politics.

The group is allied with state bank regulators against

preemption, even though they continue to disagree about

whether banks ought to have real estate brokerage powers.

More than 30 states have said that banks may offer such

services, but few banks have done so.

``We share some fundamental, common beliefs,'' including

``that major changes in public policy should come from

legislative bodies, and shifts in applicable state and

federal law should be clearly intended by Congress,'' said

John Ryan, an executive vice president at the Conference of

State Bank Supervisors. ``Our appeal is philosophical; theirs

is dollars and sense,'' but regardless, ``they are

influential businessmen in their local communities, and they

are influential in the political process.''

Donald Lampe, a lawyer with Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice

PLLC in Greensboro, N.C., said the emergence of the realty

group on preemption ``changes the dynamic'' of the debate.

``That they have stood up and raised their hand over these

rules is a significant event,'' he said. ``That doesn't mean

that I think they are correct, but the Realtors cannot ever

be ignored in this town.''

That banks and real estate agents will continue to spar

seems certain.

Banks ``have to continue to grow the portfolio; they need

new lines of business,'' Ms. King said. ``The best line of

business right now and in the future is real estate. They

already have insurance. They already have securities. Other

than real estate, there's not a whole heck of a lot else out

there.''

Mr. Speaker, I speak as the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee that deals with terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

I want to clarify of the backgrounds that we face with Iran. First, Iran has a large amount of natural gas. This natural gas is flared. They do not need to generate electricity with nuclear plants. In fact, they can without pollution and at very low costs generate electricity using the natural gas that goes to waste under the present system.

Second, we talk here of the Iranian government. That is very different from the Iranian people who among all the peoples of the Middle East are among those who are most pro-American and, frankly, who are not terribly interested in seeing their country acquire nuclear weapons. We should remember that weapons of mass destruction is a rather vague term that encompasses mustard gas on the one hand and nuclear weapons on the other, and we should not be confused.

Since World War I, I doubt more than a dozen Americans have been killed using chemical or biological weapons. And while Saddam killed many using mustard gas, he did so against highly unsophisticated civilians in a third world situation.

In contrast, nuclear weapons if used in an American city would kill hundreds of thousands of people or millions of people. We can not put these in the same category. And let us not think that a missile defense system will save us. Iran would like to have intercontinental ballistic missiles and the glory of just being able to push a button and see the missile fly off. But the government of Iran sees it is as easy to smuggle a nuclear weapon into the United States as it is to smuggle into person or a bale of marijuana. A nuclear weapon is as detectable, it is as large as a person.

Thus, a nuclear weapon created in Iran could be smuggled into any of our districts. Keep in mind that the government in Iran has sought again and again to kill as many Americans as possible. It is harboring top operatives of al Qaeda, including bin Laden's own son. It is harboring the individual who caused the bombings in Rihad that killed 7 Americans. It is responsible for the deaths at Khobar Tower and earlier deaths of our people in Saudi Arabia, killing at least 2 dozen Americans.

This is a government in Iran which, if it has nuclear weapons, will marry a desire to kill Americans with a capacity to kill us by the hundreds of thousands.

Now, this is a great resolution. But it is only a resolution. What we need to do is to marry our desire to rein in the nuclear program with a real bill with real teeth. I have introduced to this House, and we have quite a number of co-sponsors for the Iran Freedom and Democracy Support Act. That Act would provide real money to those working for peace and democracy in Iran. That Act would impose real economic sanctions and we need to pass this resolution today or tomorrow and then go on to deploying real money and real economic sanctions in an effort to deal with the Iranian program.

Look at what happened with Libya. They faced multi-lateral economic sanctions and they agreed to abandon their nuclear program. Now, they are getting for an investment, they are getting international air flights, et cetera. This administration promised us an aggressive defense of America. And it has given us only an invasion of Iraq which had apparently no weapons of mass destruction at all. North Korea has 3 years further in developing its nuclear weapons. Iran has proceeded virtually unimpeded, and we have not used the tools available to us, not to invade but to dissuade.

We have the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. We used it against Libya. We failed again and again to use it and waived it again and again when our so-called allies invested billions of dollars in the Iranian oil sector.

Mr. Speaker, just recently we gave a wink and a nod to a $2.8 billion Japanese investments in the Iranian oil sector. We have given winks and nods as half a billion dollars has gone from the World Bank, 25 percent of it is our money, goes to this government that is developing nuclear weapons to kill our people, and year after year, we allow $150 million worth of caviar and carpets to come into this country providing a market to industries controlled by some of the most regressive forces in Iran.

It is time for to us bring real economic sanctions starting with our own trade and stopping that $150 million of imports. Then turning to our allies and saying enough is enough. If you want

to help us, bring the economic pressure. Then the people of Iran will recognize that they can not allow their leaders to proceed down this nuclear road. That it is bad for world stability and bad for their own economy.

And we are not asking for participation in an invasion. Just for strict economic sanctions. We can use our economic power to do it, or we can continue the feckless policy that marked our behavior before September 11.

This is a great resolution. We should pass it. It is only a resolution. It is time to bring real economic sanctions to bear. Otherwise, this resolution will pass. They will laugh at us in Tehran, and they will go forward with their nuclear program.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues tonight in somber remembrance of the Armenian Genocide. Early in the 20th Century, during World War I and its aftermath, the Ottoman Empire attempted the complete liquidation of the Armenian population of Eastern Anatolia.

We must come down to the House floor tonight not only to remember this tragic event, but we must also proclaim that the Armenian Genocide is an historical fact. There are many who deny that this first genocide of the 20th Century actually took place.

The American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1919 was an eyewitness. In his memoirs, he said, ``When the Turkish authorities gave the order for these deportations they were merely giving the death warrant to an entire race. They understood this well and in their conversations with me made no particular attempt to conceal this fact.''

He went on to describe what he saw at the Euphrates River. He said, as our eyes and ears in the Ottoman Empire, ``I have by no means told the most terrible details, for a complete narration of the sadistic orgies of which they, the Armenian men and women, are victims can never be printed in an American publication. Whatever crimes the most perverted instincts of the human mind can devise, whatever refinements of persecution and injustice the most debased imagination can conceive, became the daily misfortune of the Armenian people.''

We can never forget that 8 days before he invaded Poland, Adolf Hitler turned to his inner circle and said, ``Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?'' The impunity with which the Turkish government acted in annihilating the Armenian people emboldened Adolf Hitler and his inner circle to carry out the Holocaust of the Jewish people.

It is time for Turkey to acknowledge this genocide, because only in that way can the Turkish government and its people rise above it. The German government has been quite forthcoming in acknowledging the Holocaust, and in doing so it has at least been respected by the peoples of the world for its honesty. Turkey should follow that example rather than trying to deny history.

It is also time--indeed it is far overdue--for our Congress to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Speaker, I again call on my colleagues to recognize the Armenian Genocide and to urge my fellow Americans to remember this tragic event.

Mr. Chairman, I voted in favor of the Congressional Black Caucus substitute amendment, the Blue Dog substitute and the Democratic substitute. None of these budget resolutions is perfect, but all are improvements over the Republican budget.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his dedication to the importance of assuring the continuity of our government.

We here in Washington have erected these concrete barriers, blocking this road, blocking Pennsylvania Avenue, all to assure the survival of our physical embodiment of our government. We must make sure that we have done just as much to protect the identity of those who will make the decisions. Our laws should be as strong as our concrete barriers. In the post-September 11 world, that which was just thought to be a distant possibility must now be something that we plan for. The line of Presidential succession determines who becomes President after the President and the Vice President if they are both permanently or temporarily unable to carry out their duties.

We can change this without amending the Constitution. It is the 1947 Presidential Succession Act which currently governs. In fact, going back to the statute that existed before 1947 would be a substantial step in the right direction and would deal with many of the problems that I will identify here tonight. Not only is this an issue that we can solve without amending our Constitution, it is one that is critically important to solve for two reasons.

First, as important as Congress is, and I am proud to serve in this body, in the days following a catastrophic attack, knowing the identity of the Commander in Chief will be perhaps the most important legal issue to deal with that crisis. And, second, while it would take a nuclear bomb, perhaps, to destroy a majority of the Members of the House or the Members of the Senate, it does not take anywhere near such a catastrophe to have the President and the Vice President not able to serve. In fact, John Wilkes Booth came within an inch of doing it in 1865, and he did not have any nuclear weapons. Yes, he killed President Lincoln. He also tried to kill the Secretary of State and the Vice President of the United States. Those other assassination attempts failed. So muskets or hand revolvers have been sufficient to bring us close to a position where we would move through the line of succession.

What is that line of succession now? Right after the Vice President is the Speaker of this House. That creates a few problems, illustrated in a ``West Wing'' scenario. It was as if ``West Wing'' had focused on the bill that I introduced to this Congress very early in 2001. In that scenario, you had no Vice President serving, the Speaker of the House was of another political party, and the President was only temporarily incapacitated. What happened on

television was not quite believable to those of us who live in the politically charged atmosphere here in Washington. The President temporarily gave up the Presidency to a person of another political party, voluntarily and under a circumstance where he would have legitimately continued to retain the Presidency, but he thought that the kidnapping of his daughter in this scenario made him too preoccupied to serve. What about the real Washington? Would a President whose family circumstance makes it difficult or impossible to continue to serve temporarily give up the White House to somebody of the opposite philosophy? One can only imagine the aides coming and saying, Mr. President, don't do it. There will be 500 pieces of legislation signed into law within the first hour of your incapacity.

In addition, under this scenario, the Speaker agreed to assume the presidency, had to resign his seat in the Congress, served as President for only a day or two, and then left public service. Would every Speaker of this House be willing to resign their seat in Congress for an hour or two or a day or two in the White House? And if not, what does that do to our system?

The answer is that we must maintain a system in which the philosophy that governs in the White House is the same throughout a 4-year term in office. This is important for a number of reasons. First, let us say the office of Vice President was vacant. Our friends wonder whether a heart attack or an assassination could suddenly change the direction of America. The stock markets wonder whether all economic policy could change with one ill-fated bad effect on one man or woman's health. Not a good situation. We should have continuity of philosophy in the White House throughout the 4-year term.

Not only that, it encourages assassins. Imagine either a group of fanatics or an individual lunatic believing they could justify their act because they were not just killing an individual man or woman, they were radically changing the philosophy that governed here in Washington.

Who is fourth in line? Fourth in line is the President pro tempore of the Senate. Yes, that means Mr. Strom Thurmond. An individual who served this country quite long as a United States Senator in his 98th year was third in line to serve as President of the United States. Could al Qaeda come up with a better plan than the death of three individuals vesting the presidency in a man who at that time had seen better days? I think that in a world of suicide assassins, we are negligent in our duties if we do not revisit the 1947 Presidential Succession Act.

There will be those who say we have muddled along so far without having to worry about this. Clearly, the events of 9/11 illustrate that we have to protect ourselves not just from what has happened but from that which might happen.

There are a number of possible solutions. I put before this House, in I believe it was February of 2001, a bill which I reintroduced in the current Congress that would provide two things: First, it would deal with one final problem I have not had a chance to identify here and a problem that is also substantial. That is a current law not only goes through a list of those who would succeed to the presidency that causes the problems I have outlined but is also unclear particularly in the circumstance in which someone succeeds to the presidency because they were third, fourth, or fifth on the list and then someone else is confirmed or elected to be second on the list. What happens if there is no Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore succeeds to the presidency and then this body meets and elects a Speaker? Do we bump the person who succeeded only because they held that less-high-in-line position? That is something we need to clarify in our statutes.

So I presented a bill that solved that problem and identified that, once somebody became President, they stayed as President through the end of that term, and also identified that the second in line to serve would be either the Speaker or the minority leader, whichever was designated by the President, and whoever would serve after that would be either the majority or the minority leader of the other body. What this would assure under this scenario is that whoever succeeded to the presidency would have been elected by their State or district and selected by their colleagues for a position of national leadership, not as the President pro tempore is for a position of ceremonial honor.

Another solution, a simpler one, is to simply take Congress out of it, have the line of succession go through the Cabinet.

A final idea put forward by Norm Ornstein, a scholar who has studied in this area, is to create a list of several governors selected by the elected President to be in line of succession and have them become Federal officers by giving them a ceremonial position perhaps as head of their own National Guards so that they could be in line.

As the gentleman from Washington pointed out, it may be that we do not want the line of succession to go all through the Cabinet even to Cabinet officers not well known by the American people so a hybrid solution would be that the line of succession would go through the top five or six Cabinet officers and then to a list of five governors selected and ranked in a document filed with the House and the Senate by the then serving and inaugurated President.

So there are several ways to solve this constellation of problems. There is one thing that it is simply criminally negligent for us to do, and that is to ignore the problem until it happens. To do so invites assassination. To do so invites people around the world to wonder whether there will be a sudden shift in policy or whether the United States will be temporarily unable to respond because the identity of its President cannot be determined with a legitimacy that is accepted by all the American people.

It is time for us to act on the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 and to adopt the amendments or a change of it this year.

I thank the gentleman for his great generosity in yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the gentleman from Washington will not be surprised if I say that a clear and transparent system for installing a successor President would be preferable.

There are some plans to deal with top-level civil servants in the bureaucracy and to see if this civil servant is unavailable, that civil servant would do his or her job. But all of this must take place under a legitimate President, and the fact that our present statute has all the problems I have outlined, from ambiguity to lack of continuity of policy, creates a circumstance where we could have a careful scenario as to which bureaucrats are running what and no scenario as to who is overseeing the whole group.

No. As I said, I introduced it in February or May of 2001 in part because I was analyzing how our institutions could be improved in light of the difficulties of December, 2000, and I was not surprised that I was not able to get a hearing then. But in the months after September 11 when we

have been so concerned about what terrorists could do to our country, I am frankly flabbergasted that the House Committee on the Judiciary has not considered amending the 1947 Presidential Succession Act.

Mr. Speaker, that is not only accurate, but it was more accurate when I initially introduced the legislation. I introduced the legislation in early 2001. I expected the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) to become Speaker after the 2002 election; and I could just imagine how secure the undisclosed location where Vice President Cheney resided would be if the person coming after him in the line of succession was the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), our good friend and colleague. So, yes, I introduced legislation which would have vested the presidency, had the catastrophe occurred, in a member of the party selected by the President of the United States, even if we Democrats had been in the majority in 2003 and 2004.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to commend the gentleman for his work on congressional continuity, and I know that the Committee on the Judiciary may focus on congressional continuity first. I hope they focus on both these issues as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, we send troops into battle without body armor. Shame. Those troops come back deprived of the veterans benefits we promised. Shame. And now we deliberately divide the homefront for political advantage. Shame.

Make no mistake about it. This resolution was designed by political consultants to generate the largest possible Democratic ``no'' vote which can then be the subject of political ads saying one of our Nation's great political parties does not support our troops. Shame.

The world is better because Saddam is gone. But a fair resolution would acknowledge that we are worse off because 566 of our troops are now deceased and 3,254 were wounded. And we are less safe because our military is exhausted and overextended. Our international credibility has been mangled beyond belief. So the real threats to our security, North Korea and Iran, are able to make progress on their nuclear weapons programs. We are not safer now than we were a year ago because those who would develop nuclear weapons and smuggle them into our cities have had a year further to progress.

And one party devotes a day of floor time to dividing our Nation during our war on terrorism. Shame. Just as that political party brought forward money for our troops in a supplemental and linked it to a giant welfare program for Halliburton and forced us to vote on it as a package. Now it attacks our patriotism when we said ``no'' to Halliburton, because they would not let us say ``yes'' to our troops and ``no'' to Halliburton at the same time. Shame.

Mr. Speaker, I voted present on H.R. 3717 today, the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act. I support the aim of the bill, to limit the broadcasting of indecent material through increased penalties, but I have concerns about the application of such fines. My concern is that, since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks appropriate guidance for administering fines of this size, such enforcement action could have a chilling effect on free speech with regard to smaller broadcasters and individual performers. Mr. Speaker, this chilling effect can be reduced if the FCC is given clear statutory guidance as to how to determine the size of the fine; this bill fails to provide such clear guidance. Among the factors the FCC should be required to employ are the degree of indecency, pre-meditation, the number of viewers or listeners, and the size and wealth of the violator. In the absence of such clear standards, small broadcasters and nonwealthy performers may fear to speak even in manners which should be protected.

Mr. Chairman, the proponents of H.R. 339, the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, argue that those who legally manufacture or sell food should be protected from lawsuits which claim the consumption of their product caused weight gain, obesity and/or weight related health conditions. However, the bill applies to manufacturers and sellers of food, as defined by Section 201(f) of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, including various nutritional and weight loss supplements, like Ephedra, which are in effect marketed as drugs.

Congress should deal separately with statutes regarding food purveyors and those lawsuits relating to the manufacture or marketing of nutritional supplements which are marketed as if they are drugs-- some of which have the same benefits and risks of drugs.

The amendment offered by the Gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) sought to clarify the bill. But the proponents of the bill rejected this amendment. As a result, the bill is confusing in its scope and I voted against it for that reason.

I hope the bill is improved in the Senate to apply only to those who sell ``food'' as that term is normally used. Products marketed as drugs should be dealt with separately.

Mr. Speaker, just for a second I would like to go over the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio where he says that the Republican administration actually promotes the outsourcing of jobs, reducing jobs here in the United States. It almost makes it sound like the Bush administration does not care about Americans.

Keep in mind, for every 100 jobs we export, we create one or two very rich Americans; and, on balance, that may be thought to be a good thing by the Bush administration.

We also have a huge half trillion dollar trade deficit.

theft of documents from judiciary committee

But I want to remind my colleagues of a day back in 1972 when we had a positive trade surplus and when the Watergate headquarters of the Democratic Party was burglarized. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy went to jail for that burglary because Republicans here in Washington believed that the rule of law was more important than Republican success.

Today, a similar crime has been committed. At the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, a computer server that was jointly used by Democrats and Republicans was burglarized, and thousands of the Democrats' documents were stolen, far more than Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy ever thought to steal.

A shared computer server is not an unusual thing on Capitol Hill. My Democratic colleagues need to be reminded that every e-mail we send, every e-mail we receive goes through a shared computer server, under the control ultimately of the Speaker of this House and his staff. But we Democrats here in the House do not believe that the Speaker and his staff are criminals. We believe they are honorable men and women, and so we send e-mail today just as we do every other day.

What is happening in the other body, Mr. Speaker? A small cabal has decided to burglarize documents. That is the same as what happened back in 1972, but what is more interesting is that the predominant power in the Republican party, the predominant power here in Washington, wants to protect this act of robbery.

Sure, one staffer has been fired. Now that staffer is free to obtain lucrative employment and cash gifts without having to report it. Another staffer has left, and that staffer boasts about being in control of stolen documents, stolen property. Instead of going to jail for being in possession of stolen property, he trumpets how he is going to use this property for the support of the Republican position.

The rule of law should matter. We are told, though, that the rule of law is being upheld because a couple of staffers lost their jobs. Since when is it the criminal law in this country that if one steals something the only sanction is they have to go get employment elsewhere?

We are told that this crime is not a crime because it was a shared computer server. That is a little dangerous for Democrats in the House, where every e-mail is going through a shared server under Republican control.

It is also a complete repudiation of American criminal law. If two partners share a safe deposit box or a safe, that does not mean that one can use the combination to steal all the cash and valuables that the other has put in it. It is very clear. Sharing a box does not mean one gets to steal the other person's or other entity's property. Except that is what it seems to mean in the Republican lexicon.

Burglary and robbery are reasons for people to be indicted and sent to jail. That is what happened to G. Gordon Liddy, that is what happened to Howard Hunt, and we will see whether the Republicans in control of this House and the other body, and in control of Washington and all of its agencies, will make sure that there is a criminal investigation of this theft. Stealing from a safe is wrong, even if one has been trusted with the combination.

If this does not happen, then we in the House will have to look at the additional governmental expense involved in having a separate Democratic e-mail server. Because how can we trust a Republican Party that seems to have gone from a party that puts the rule of law first to one that glorifies burglary and defends criminals?

I look forward to the indictment of those who committed robbery.