Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut for yielding me this time and thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney).

I want to raise a question here because, first of all, I absolutely agree that the executive branch must not be given the authority or must not assume the authority to change our elections. On that I one hundred percent agree. That must be the purview and the prerogative of the United States Congress.

But I just want to raise a question. The issue really is not the holding of elections. The issue is whether or not in the elections everyone's vote gets counted, and we must be very careful in our rhetorical concerns to not just say they will never disrupt the elections but to instead ensure that terrorists not allow individual votes to not be counted.

We have seen elections in which individual votes were not counted, and that is the threat to the democracy. And I mean this very seriously. It is quite plausible to imagine scenarios wherein we go forth with an election, but individual votes are not counted and thereby the election of an individual as President of the United States or as Members of the House or Senate does produce an outcome, but the outcome is not based on a fair and full counting of each of our votes.

And that is my concern. And my concern, frankly, is I think we are moving this forward too fast. My own preference would be to follow something along the lines of what Norm Ornstein recommended, and that is appoint a commission to study in the interim what the possible scenarios are and what our opportunities are because if, for example, one State, let us say California, is attacked by terrorists and the number of the votes are not in some way able to be tallied, are we today setting a marker in the ground that says it is better not to count the votes of the State of California or to only partially count those in order that we can say the election was held on time?

Quite frankly, I am not comfortable with the results of elections where we have said what matters is that we say we have held the election rather than we say what matters is every single person's vote is counted. It is that principle on which the integrity of a democratic Republic depends, not merely holding elections on a designated time.

So I will very likely vote for this, but I will do so with reservations. And I would suggest that if we do pass this resolution, we not assume that in so doing we have solved this problem. Nor do we assume that in so doing, we have assured the American people that their votes will be counted. Because the American people say not that we must hold the election on the first Tuesday of November. What they say is, most important is my vote must count. In the past it has not counted, and it must count ever after.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

I appreciate the discussion here. I absolutely agree. I want to underscore that. The gentleman, I could not agree more; it must not reside with one person. Frankly, not because we feel that way, not because we cannot think of who that one person would be, but because the Constitution of the United States of America has never said that the President or a designee of the President can delay an election. That must reside with Congress, if anything is going to happen to elections.

But I really do want to underscore, what is the purpose of an election? The purpose of an election is not simply to say we had an election and someone was declared the winner. The purpose of the election is to understand the will of the majority of the American people.

If events, be they natural or terrorist, in some way distort the ability of us to accurately glean and determine the will of the American people, then that is to be of profound consideration.

My concern, again, is we must first and foremost ask ourselves what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the will of the American people is accurately recorded and counted, not what mechanisms are in place so that at the close of business on November 2 we can all declare we have had an election. That is all I am trying to say here.

I absolutely applaud the gentleman for saying no one person must make this decision. If nothing else than that, I would vote for this resolution. But I think we must step back after that and say, What mechanisms do we have in place? If on Election Day something profound has happened, be it terrorist or natural, that we reliably can reliably say we do not have an accurate count at the end of this day, should we move forward so that we can say, We had an election; or should we have some mechanism in place to ask ourselves, Has this mechanism of an election been valid? And if it has not been valid, then it behooves us and it is our duty to the American people and the voters to say, We are going to do something beforehand to make sure it is valid and not leave it up to chance. That is all I am trying to say.

So if we pass this, let us please continue this discussion, and ask if something does happen that interferes with your right to have your vote counted and accurately represented, we have some mechanism to anticipate that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Guam for yielding me this time, and I thank my friend and colleague from Arizona as well for his support.

This is a very exciting day. As we all know, 200 years ago today, as we speak, Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery were in the middle of their epic journey, actually in the early stages; and what a journey it was: thousands of miles of territory unexplored by U.S. citizens prior to that point and terminating, I am very proud to say, actually in my district on the west coast. And as the Members know, the Pacific Northwest is rich in history pertaining directly to Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery and to the many tribes that greeted their arrival.

The Lewis and Clark National Historical Park Designation Act will redesignate 560 acres in Washington and Oregon states as the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park and will make this a unit of the National Park System. The acreage will include Fort Clatsop National Memorial; the Megler Safety Rest Area, which was then called Clark's Dismal Nitch; Station Camp; and Cape Disappointment State Park.

I want to take just a second to talk about Station Camp because it was a miraculous place. Lewis and Clark were facing horrific weather. If we read their journals from the time, the rain was pouring down, their clothes were rotting off their bodies, their canoes were capsizing frequently, and they were really at a critical point. They sent a group to the coast itself to look out over the ocean, and they had hoped perhaps they might see a ship there. There were none. Ships had been plying those waters for some decades, but they thought perhaps we will get lucky and can take a ship back. No such luck.

The question then arose: Where shall we winter over? Will we winter on the Washington side, what is now the Washington side, or on the southern side, what is now Oregon? How did they resolve this debate? In true democratic spirit, they had a vote. But what is so remarkable about this vote is the record in the journal indicates that Sacagawea voted, as did York, who was Clark's slave at the time. So here we were 60 years before emancipation, 100 years before suffrage. We took a vote, and the African American and the woman, a Native American, were included in the vote. And that happened at Station Camp.

So this commemoration and designation will allow visitors to the area to fully appreciate the richness of this courageous journey and the heroism that these early explorers showed.

I believe inclusion of these sites as part of the National Historical Park represents the best means for comprehensive interpretation of the history of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Pacific Northwest and will continue to relate the importance of the Corps of Discovery's journey long after the bicentennial commemoration has passed.

Fort Clatsop National Memorial, located near Astoria, Oregon, marks the spot where Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent 106 days during the winter of 1805 through 1806. That memorial was established by an act of Congress in 1958 and is the only unit of the National Park System solely dedicated to the Lewis and Clark expedition.

During the bicentennial years, the National Park Service estimates that well over 1 million people will visit Fort Clatsop and the surrounding area. In fact, the memorial has already begun to notice a significant increase in visits; and to accommodate all of these visitors, to enhance visitor experience, it is vital that Fort Clatsop finish its expansion efforts immediately.

The inclusion of these sites is timely considering the bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery is already under way and the preparations are being made in southwest Washington and northwest Oregon for the Destination Pacific Signature Event in 2005.

In addition to preserving and enhancing the historic value of these sites, inclusion with the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park will bring important economic benefits to local communities that, quite frankly, have struggled with the decline of major industries and with high unemployment of late.

I would like to express my profound gratitude to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) and his staffers, Jim Zoia and David Watkins; the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and staffer Frank Vitello. The gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu) has been instrumental in this, as have members of both delegations and both sides of the aisle. This is truly a bistate, bicameral regional effort. And I also express my appreciation to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton in the administration. The Secretary herself visited the area not long ago and has been a stalwart advocate. And, finally, Chip Jenkins, the superintendent of the park; David Nicandria of the Washington State Historical Society; and my own staffer, Ms. Paula Burg, have done outstanding work.

I thank my colleagues for their consideration in support of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague for yielding me this time, and I understand that the chairman of the committee would be willing to engage in a brief colloquy.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I thank him for that, as this is an issue of great importance to fish processors and the economy of my region.

Mr. Speaker, my concern is that small fishing ships are now required to transmit electronically information about the contents of their cargo 24 hours before docking in a U.S. port. This requirement and several others are causing a great hardship for small, independently operated fishing vessels.

As a result, the vessels are docking in Canada and processing fish there, thereby costing jobs in an area where we greatly need those jobs.

As a result, Washington State is losing more jobs, and fish processing jobs; and I would ask and hope that we can work together to address this issue immediately.

Mr. Speaker, I am very grateful to that, and there is some urgency to this, so I look forward to working with the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) on this; and I thank him for his indulgence.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, although I am not sure it is at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I think they are bringing it, but I am not sure of the status.

And my understanding is that it may be ruled out of order; but if I may, I would like to speak to it, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is being brought to the floor. If I might ask the gentleman if we could bring it back up in a few moments, I would appreciate it. My understanding was it had been submitted. Apparently, somehow, it did not get here.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. It was my understanding the amendment was here, and I apologize for the confusion.

Mr. Chairman, it was my intent to withdraw the amendment, but I wanted to rise today to discuss a program fraught with waste. It was created with noble intentions but is poorly constructed and implemented, and as a result has facilitated, I think, abuse of an otherwise well-intentioned program. I am referring to the Livestock Compensation Program, which provides Federal funds to compensate livestock producers for financial losses stemming from natural disasters.

I strongly support the intentions of the LCP, and I applaud the Secretary of Agriculture for creating the program. However, when it was created in 2002, it was designed to provide payments to compensate for drought damages, and then Congress expanded the program in 2003 to provide payments for all natural disasters.

Congress only authorized the program until 2003; and, consequently, the LCP is currently dormant. However, we can be assured that the Secretary and Congress would likely be pressured to reauthorize the program during the next significant disaster, which is, unfortunately, an inevitability.

While I support the intentions of the LCP, the authorizing legislation and accompanying regulations contained a massive loophole. Essentially, it was this: the LCP did not require eligible parties to demonstrate any actual loss to receive Federal assistance. As a consequence, ranchers who resided in regions affected by natural disasters, but whose property was completely unaffected, were able to march down to the local FSA, provide documentation simply that they owned livestock, and receive a check for as much as $40,000. They did not have to demonstrate that their farm or ranch had been harmed; neither did they have to demonstrate that their livestock had been harmed. Apparently, FSA simply wrote checks without asking the relatively simple question: What sort of damages did you sustain?

To this day, we have no idea how much money was wasted because the government failed to ask this question. We do know, however, that the program distributed a total of $1.1 billion, including $234 million for disasters other than drought.

We asked the USDA Inspector General to investigate the program; and, indeed, they suggested it was in need of reform. That is why I am calling this to the attention of this committee. I believe we ought to address this.

My understanding is that the amendment was likely to be ruled out of order, and I do have now available a copy of the amendment, so that I would have had to withdraw it. But I would ask this committee to consider this. This is a program that may have been well intentioned, but has been abused. If it is extended further, we need to make sure that money only goes to people who have suffered livestock loss.

We talk a lot about waste, fraud, and abuse in this Congress. Here is a clear-cut case of waste. I do not think it is intentional fraud, but it is clearly waste and possibly abuse, and so I think we should address it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his indulgence, and I submit for the Record a copy of the amendment I had intended to offer.

Amendment to H.R. 4766, As Reported Offered by Mr. Baird of Washington

Page 79, after line 16, insert the following (and make such

technical and conforming changes as may be appropriate):

Sec. 759. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be

used to make payments pursuant to the Livestock Compensation

Program to persons who do not incur a financial loss

resulting from the natural disaster with respect to which

such payments are otherwise available.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to offer my support for H.R. 1856, the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research Amendments Act of 2004, authored by my colleague and friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers). I thank my colleague on the Committee on Science and my colleague on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan), for working with me to develop language that will move the research results of this program from the laboratory and the field closer to their application. I would also like to thank the members of the Committee on Science for their support and help in this effort.

Since the inception of this program in 1998, we have developed a better understanding and appreciation for the dimensions and complexity of harmful algal blooms and hypoxic zones. We have made progress in identifying harmful species and in providing timely information to fisheries and recreational managers to prevent human health problems. However, we have not been very successful in developing and implementing management strategies or technologies to reduce the frequency or the intensity of the blooms.

Harmful algal blooms are not just an unpleasant nuisance. They are hazardous to human health, damaging to fish and wildlife, and they are economically devastating to the coastal communities that depend on coastal resources for their livelihoods. The razor clam fisheries, for example, along the coast of Washington have experienced three extended closures in the past 10 years. Each one of these represents the loss of over $10 million to coastal communities in my home State. I can tell my colleagues that local restaurants, hotels, and the tourism industry depend on the annual influx of clam diggers; and when the beaches are closed, they lose millions of dollars in important revenue and jobs.

Also, Washington State's Hood Canal region of the Puget Sound has experienced harmful algal blooms that threaten to create an ecological dead zone. Due to the proliferation of harmful blooms, levels of dissolved oxygen in Hood Canal have declined during the past several years to such an extent that many fish, shellfish, and invertebrate species are threatened. Indeed, last fall, two dozen species of fish washed up on Hood Canal's beaches, unable to survive in the oxygen- depleted waters. In an effort to protect Hood Canal's increasingly threatened ecosystem, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has been forced to close much of the canal to fishing, costing rural Washington communities valuable jobs. Oxygen levels drop during the summer, and State officials expect significant losses as this summer continues.

Our States need funding to implement plans to identify and eradicate the causes and to prevent such blooms. We must act now to clean our coastal waters and restore the ecological and economic health of our fisheries. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 1856. And again, I commend the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Ehlers) for his leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, we have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 301 which recognizes the goals and ideals of the World Year of Physics. I want to congratulate the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for bringing this resolution forward. I also personally want to say how much I enjoy serving with the gentlemen on the Committee on Science and what a rewarding experience it is to have two physicists on the Committee on Science itself. Some of the more esoteric details we often turn to these gentlemen to help us understand.

Physics, of course, is the discipline that underpins all of science in some way, and so much of our technology deals with the most fundamental understanding of the properties of matter. Emerging fields such as nanotechnology, information technology and biotechnology are substantially based on the results of fundamental discoveries in physics.

The General Assembly of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics unanimously approved the proposition designating 2005 as the World Year of Physics. This will be the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's remarkable series of scientific papers on the photoelectric effect, the size of molecules, Brownian motion, and, of course, the theory of relativity itself.

This makes 2005 an appropriate year to recognize the importance of physics to the advance of civilization and the important role physics plays in social, cultural and economic development in our society and throughout the world.

Mr. Speaker, I commend this resolution to my colleagues and ask for their support for its passage by the House.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, June 18, 2004, I was unable to participate in legislative business due to an important, longstanding commitment in my district. Had I been present for legislative business on June 18, 2004, I would have voted ``yea'' on House Amendments 580, 581, 585 and 592; and would have voted ``nay'' on House Amendments 578, 583, 584, and 589.

In addition, Mr. Speaker, I would have voted ``yea'' on final passage of H.R. 4567, the Fiscal Year 2005 Homeland Security Appropriations Act.

Mr. Speaker, because I believe it is important for this institution to express its ongoing support of Israel, because I believe that withdrawal from Gaza is an important step towards peace in the region, because I deplore the attacks of terrorists on innocent civilians, I intend to support this resolution.

I do want, however, to express two concerns: First, I believe Mr. Rahall expressed a number of important considerations and I believe those should be taken under the deliberation of this body.

Second, in this resolution it commends principles outlined in the President's letter. And I just would express one reservation about an element to the President's letter. The President wrote, ``The United States will do its utmost to prevent any attempt by anyone to impose any other plan.'' Now, I think the President has put forward some sound points, but we have many friends and allies within the region even and internationally, our friends in Egypt and Jordan and elsewhere who may have some good ideas.

I believe that it would be a mistake for us to say or assume that only our Nation can put forward a good plan and that all other proposals will be rejected. I would encourage the President and this body to consider various options.

I want to thank my friend for raising this issue and for his leadership on this and my friend from California as well. What I would like to do is do two things: First of all talk a little bit about the impact of this terrible practice on the people of my district and relate a couple of stories, and then contrast that impact with what the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said about this incident.

First let me talk a little bit about schools. I visited a number of schools in my district during the height of this crisis and asked them what the impacts of these terribly increased energy rates were. These were the things I was told. First of all I was told of one school district that had scheduled to purchase new textbooks for their kids. These were not because they just were whimsically buying unnecessary books. I saw the books that they were using. These were books that were almost a decade old. As you can imagine after that much use, the binders were torn up. The books were really not serviceable, were not up to date. But because they could not afford to pay their energy bill, these school districts were having to forgo the purchases of new textbooks.

In addition to that, I visited some of the classrooms. Some of the classrooms were functioning with only half of their lights on and the kids were literally told you need to wear extra sweaters and coats to school because we cannot afford to heat your classroom because of these energy rates.

I talked to senior citizens who told me, Congressman, I am not necessarily going to be able to pay my rent because of the increase in power rates. We had utility districts that saw almost a 100 percent increase in power rates for residential customers. I talked to farm product producers, refrigeration houses, et cetera, who said they were almost faced with bankruptcy because the cost of operating their facilities had gone up so high that they were not able to make ends meet.

On a much larger scale, we had an aluminum smelter that had produced some of the highest quality aluminum in the world that was forced to shut down and is in bankruptcy now and is being parted out, basically scrapped out. We had 700 or more workers directly affected who lost their jobs, their health benefits, in some cases their retirement benefits because electrical prices went through the roof.

In the backdrop of that, of schools not ordering textbooks and turning off their lights and turning down their heat to levels that the kids were cold, in the backdrop of senior citizens who could not pay their rent, in the backdrop of small businesses and farmers who were forced to close their doors, in the backdrop of more than 700 jobs permanently lost, I want to share with you a statement by the individual who could have stopped this but did not. Pat Wood, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said this on March 4, 2002 in an interview in Business Week:

``I view Enron's collapse as an affirmation of the efficiency of energy markets.'' I am going to say that again. ``I view Enron's collapse as an affirmation of the efficiency of energy markets,'' said Pat Wood.

He continued:

``Here was a player who because of bad investments in noncore businesses, managerial shortcomings and--to be charitable--accounting obfuscation, became tainted and lost creditworthiness. Yet, with few exceptions, energy

customers have been able to work through those problems without any real significant impact.'' Let me say that again. The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who refused to act when Enron was manipulating these prices, who was recommended by the top guns at Enron, said even as people throughout my district, throughout the West Coast were losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their businesses, said, ``With few exceptions, energy customers have been able to work through these problems without any real significant impact.''

My good friend from Washington commented earlier, and I was in the room with the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) when we talked to the Vice President of the United States. We said, Mr. Vice President, the economy of the West Coast is being devastated by these incredibly increased power rates. We said, Mr. Vice President, wholesale markets have gone from $30 a megawatt hour to $3,000 a megawatt hour, a 100- fold increase. There is no justifiable mechanism that causes such a basic commodity as this to increase 100-fold. Everybody is complaining now about gas prices going over $2.50 a gallon. I share that complaint. But if it were a 100-fold increase in gas prices, gas prices would be $250 a gallon. That is the kind of price increase we sustained in electrical wholesale markets.

The Vice President of the United States of America did nothing to stop that. The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did nothing to stop that. As businesses closed, our constituents lost their jobs and our school districts went broke, they did nothing to stop it. It is shameful, if not criminal.

I want to underscore exactly what you said and how prescient and remarkably so that the individual cited in the recording said, ``I'm betting on a $1,000 per megawatt cap'' because that is exactly the cap that was proposed. Let us put that cap into context. Again, the average cost before this crisis was $30 a megawatt hour. So the cap on $1,000 is a 30-fold increase. A 30-fold increase if applied to gasoline would be over $75 a gallon today. $75 a gallon. Not a tankful but a gallon. That is the kind of cap they were talking about. How remarkable. And I do not think it really is remarkable that they would speculate on precisely the cap that was put in.

Let me line this trail of evidence further. The Vice President of the United States has claimed executive privilege and has denied this Congress and the American people access to the names of the people with whom he consulted in crafting his energy bill. How is it that Enron traders would so accurately predict the level of the cap that would be put on in the energy bill? How did they know that? And how coincidental that the Vice President of the United States will not give us the list of those names. He is consulting with the very people who are manipulating the energy markets at the very time they are doing the manipulation and he is refusing to do anything to stop that manipulation. And the people of the United States are being hammered and losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their businesses, and the people who are doing the manipulation are talking to the Vice President about what the energy bill should contain and he is going along with them and he is refusing to stop them, and now is it any wonder he refuses to tell the American people with whom he was speaking.

I want to walk through, if I may, a little bit about how this dynamic works. Here is the situation our local utility districts were faced with. Normally they could go on the spot market and buy energy in a shortfall for between $30 and maybe up to $60 a megawatt hour, but somewhere in that ballpark. But when prices spiked to $3,000 a megawatt hour, that is a 100-fold increase, so think about that for a second. If you have a commodity that goes up 100-fold, then in 4 days of purchase you have blown your entire annual budget. In 8 days of purchase, that is 2 full years of your budget. So the utilities were left with a Hobson's choice. I personally believe Enron, et cetera, created this choice for a very clear motive. What they did by letting prices spike to $3,000 a megawatt hour was they then had the utilities over a barrel and they said, ``Here, we've got a choice for you. If you don't want to risk that $3,000 per megawatt hour, why don't you just lock in prices at, say, $250 a megawatt hour,'' roughly the same level that that quaint trader said he would shove somewhere up some grandmother's anatomy. The utilities had no choice. Either you buy $250 a megawatt hour and lock it in for the long haul, thereby forcing your ratepayers to pay as much as eight times the normal going rate, or you run the risk of $3,000.

So some of our utilities had no choice but to lock in these long-term contracts because they had to protect themselves against the risk of these outrageous short-term power rates. We

are still paying the cost of that today in Cowlitz County, a county in my district that saw that aluminum smelter close, saw the loss of more than 700 jobs, is one of the leading counties in my State in unemployment, or had been. It is a wonderful county with hardworking, decent people. Their public utility district saw 97 percent rate increases. The Social Security COLA runs somewhere between 2 to 4 percent a year, depending on the year. If you are a senior citizen on a fixed income and you have to heat and light your home, when the Social Security COLA increases 2 or 3 percent but your power rate increases 97 percent, how do you possibly make ends meet?

And how does Pat Wood, the head of the FERC, say most consumers have gotten through this without any difficulty? And, frankly, how does the Vice President of the United States sleep at night?

Two questions that I hear from my constituents all the time. First, where is the money? Who profited from this? Where did the money go when these rates went through the ceiling? And the second is, why does someone not go to jail? People ought to go to jail for this. They clearly broke the law. They clearly defrauded the public. They ought to go to jail, and those who profited from it ought to pay back the money.

And one final thing. I can tell them where part of the money went. Part of the money went into campaign contributions. Part of the money went into campaign tricks to help the very people who refused to regulate this market get reelected, and here I am sorry to say that as these energy markets went through the roof and were manipulated criminally, we received almost no assistance, virtually no help from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They said, no, we are going to let the market take care of itself. We are not going to intervene. Indeed, there was a certain condescension on their part that how dare we try to control these markets.

And let me point out that regulated cost-based pricing was the model that worked in this country for many decades before Enron, et al. persuaded various governments and the administration that we ought to deregulate the markets, and they took advantage of that. They helped write the law. They then took advantage of that, and they deceived the public in the process, and our friends on the other side of the aisle were silent, in fact, blocked our efforts to try to impose regulations.

Mr. Speaker, I would just add to this that when appropriations runs around in this Congress, we often, all of us, send out press releases to our constituents. We help get X amount of dollars to come back to our district for a school or a highway or you name it. But I wonder why my friends on the other side of the aisle have not sent letters back to their constituents saying because of our inaction in 2000 and 2001, billions of dollars were taken from people's pockets, from their families, from their schools, from their businesses and given to large energy corporations. Because whatever they may bring back to their district, Mr. Speaker, they have allowed to be taken out. Because of their inaction, because of the inaction of this administration, because of their actions in allowing this deregulated debacle to move forward, billions of dollars have been taken out of hard-working Americans' pockets, put into large corporations who have broken the law, rewritten the law to their own advantage. It has been cynical. It has been destructive.

The one final thing I would say is, and it is a little bit of a deviation, but there is a pattern here. It is not only a pattern evident in the energy bill. We saw in the Medicare bill, which was also written to a large degree by special corporate interests and some of our own colleagues who helped write that legislation are going to work for those special interests, to prohibit the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating lower drug prices. When I tell this to my friends back home in town meetings, they sometimes do not believe it. They say,

Do you mean to tell me that the very people who benefit, who raise our prices on energy or on pharmaceuticals are writing the laws and Congress is doing nothing?

And the sad truth is we are doing worse than nothing. We are enabling this.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Committee on Rules, was he present, if I may ask, at the Committee on the Judiciary markup of this legislation?

I yield to the gentleman from California.

I do not want a filibuster. Just a simply yes or no, because I was there.

Okay. The reason I ask that is because, if we say that it was a bipartisan process, I was there. I am the author of this legislation. There were no hearings granted prior to the vote, and at that hearing a reasonable request was made.

The author of the legislation is here. Let us give him a couple of minutes to speak to the legislation. It was a unanimous consent request. That was denied.

The spirit of true bipartisanship would have said, if the author of a legislation has never had a chance to speak before our committee, then let us at least hear him out.

Instead, what happened was the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary presented the bill I believe in a false and misleading light, and I was not given a single moment to address it.

I respect the chairman of the Committee on Rules, and I am glad he is here, and I am glad we have this opportunity, and I appreciate that, but it would be a rewrite of history to suggest for one second that the Committee on the Judiciary process that led up to this was bipartisan.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the time.

In 1787, this month, the Constitutional Convention was at work in Philadelphia, some of the brightest minds in the history of this country. One of those great minds was Madison, and he has been quoted a lot today, but let me quote another thing Mr. Madison said.

Madison said this about the importance of checks and balances: ``The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive, and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elected, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.''

Madison truly believed we have to elect our representatives to the House, but he also believed with equal dedication that there must be checks and balances. Mr. Speaker, if you and we here today do not act, we impose upon this Nation conditions that will ensure the situation that Madison abhorred of concentration of all the power in the executive.

And let us be clear, it will not likely be an elected executive. We are not talking about President Bush or Vice President Cheney. If the terrorists strike, they will do everything in their power to kill those two individuals and everyone in here that they can. Who then will run this country? That is the question you have yet to answer. You have not answered it. You have said 45 days later we will figure something out. But during that 45 days, who runs the United States of America?

We have indeed taken an oath to defend this Constitution. We have also taken an oath that says we will defend the whole Constitution, including the prerogatives of the House of Representatives as specified in article I.

As people watch this debate today, the people here and the people elsewhere, they must ask themselves, Do I want this country run with no representation from my district there to speak for me? Does an unelected individual who assumes power in the executive branch get to send my child to war without me having a person there to exercise a voice and a vote? I do not think so.

I have had 220 town halls since being elected here, and I will tell you the people back home get this. They do not care really about the insides and outs of the Committee on Rules, but they do care about fair process. And they would say to themselves the idea that we would bring a constitutional amendment to the floor, without ever having given the author a chance to speak to it, is antithetical to the real principles of democracy.

When the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules said we are doing our best, I do not believe so. I believe he dissembles. We are not doing our best. Our best would be this: our best would be to invite all the authors of various proposals, for real continuity, to have a full opportunity for debate, an extensive opportunity for the debate, and for the Speaker of the House of the Representatives and the minority leader to say to their representatives, come to the floor, pay attention to this vital matter, and then we will have time for fair debate, time for full amendments.

That is what we truly asked the chairman of the Committee on Rules to do. We did not say just bring this up for an up-or-down vote. I introduced a resolution that would have provided a fair and full rule to allow for debate of all different proposals, but that was denied. That rule would have offered several days' waiting period for extensive amendments. That was denied. We can do better than this.

It has been said that few problems require a constitutional amendment. Absolutely true. I believe the majority party has been far too eager to amend the Constitution of late. But I will tell you that a bipartisan commission, a bipartisan commission of distinguished scholars began studying this issue over a year and a half ago, with the premise that we must not amend the Constitution to fix this. After a full year of study, and we are going to have about an hour today, they studied this matter for a year, and they listened to experts and scholars from across the political spectrum, and what did they conclude? They concluded we can only fix this with an amendment.

And that includes, by the way, distinguished Republican statesmen, people like former Senator Al Simpson from Wyoming. Ask Senator Simpson why he reached that conclusion. Ask the distinguished Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, who has successfully introduced legislation in the other body, why he concluded that we need an amendment.

None of us woke up on September 11 and said, boy, what a great day to start thinking about a constitutional amendment. But thousands of our fellow citizens woke up that day not knowing it would be their last. We do not know today when that will happen; but we do know that if the terrorists strike us, they will, in fact, change our system of government at their discretion. They will change who the President is. They will change the political makeup of this body. And we are unprepared to deal with that, and it is irresponsible. And I am sorry it has taken 3 years.

Let me close with statements from the Attorney General of the United States just a week ago: ``After the March 11 attack in Madrid, Spain, an al Qaeda spokesman announced 90 percent of the arrangements for an attack in the United States were complete.'' A paragraph later the Attorney General said, ``Several upcoming events over the next few months may suggest especially attractive targets. These events include the G-8 summit, the Democratic Party convention in Boston this summer and the convention of the Republican Party in New York City.''

If the terrorists attack the convention in New York, kill the President and Vice President and many Members of this body, the inevitable consequence is that Democrats will take the majority of this body, will be forced to elect a Speaker, that person will be a Democrat, and that person will become President.

The distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules says this was precedent in Madison's time. No, sir, it

was not. It was not for two reasons. The nuclear weapon did not exist in Mr. Madison's time. Secondly, the Succession Act of 1947 was about 180 years away from being written. Madison could not have conceived this. He could not have conceived this, but he left to us an opportunity to address it. We wish we did not have to, but it is foolhardy and reckless to not act when we know the dangers we face.

It has been 3 years, Mr. Speaker, 3 years almost since we saw 3,000 of our fellow citizens killed. If we believe we are immune to that, then we are desperately, desperately deceiving ourselves. And if we do not take provisions to provide for that, then we are letting our public down and letting that sacred Constitution down.

Mr. Speaker, how much time is available?

Mr. Speaker, in that brief time let me address what this amendment really does.

It is very straightforward. It says this: in the event of a catastrophic loss of Members, if we lose over 218, in other words more than would be required to sustain a quorum, then special provisions will apply. But only under catastrophic losses. And those special provisions are very straightforward.

The membership of this body, having been elected by our constituents to perform all the vital functions under article I, would be asked upon their election to create a list of potential successors who, upon our death or incapacity in a catastrophic event, could temporarily fill our place until special elections could be held. Temporarily until special elections could be held.

It is disingenuous, if not deliberately deceptive, to suggest this subverts or bans or undermines elections. We all believe direct elections should be held. The real question is this: Should we have a Congress or not? Should we have a House of Representatives? I think the Framers said we should.

That is why it is article I. But, my friends, if we lose more Members than necessary to sustain a quorum, we will have a constitutional crisis. It is that simple. The majority party has yet to address that.

I found a remarkable statement in the chairman's remarks during the markup of this bill. The chairman said, and I really want to pay attention to this: ``Congress has granted the President significant powers to act during an emergency. He could maintain the necessary functions of government, along with the Congress, utilizing a reduced quorum until elections are held.'' Where did Congress do that? The chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States has asserted that the Congress has granted the President of the United States special provisions and he has apparently ex cathedra dictated that we can function with a reduced quorum.

The Constitution of the United States has not dictated that we can function with a reduced quorum. The chairman cited no reference to say where this great body said, ``Mr. President, here are your authorities under a crisis.'' It did not happen. And it was not challenged in the Judiciary. How remarkable and how dangerous that is, that a chairman would dictate that we have given the President powers that we are not authorized under the Constitution to give and that we never took action to give.

The fact is it would not be the President, it would be an unelected Cabinet member that most Americans do not know forced to exercise extra constitutional powers. And, my friends, you would have no voice in this body or in this government to counteract whatever that individual wanted to do. That is why this matters.

It is so much easier to not look at this issue. It is so much easier to go on about our business as if every day we will be here just like we always have. We may not. And if we are not, and if tragedy strikes, the American people have a right to know what happens next. And this body, for 3 years, has failed to answer that question. Answers are available.

This bill may not be perfect, but the status quo is vastly, dangerously imperfect. What we have asked is to bring not only this bill but others, the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), Senator Cornyn's bill, that of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), or the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), and ask this body, implore this body to grapple with the complexities of this. Because only when you struggle with it, and only when you see not only the alternatives but the problems of the status quo do you get it.

It is so much easier not to do that. It is easier not to make a will, it is easier not to provide care for our kids if we are gone; but it is irresponsible to do those things. This body must act. And at least today one thing will happen. We will be on record today as having voted to do something or having voted to do nothing. If you vote to do nothing, and God forbid something horrible happens and someone takes advantage of that and leads this Nation in a desperately dangerous path, then you are at least on record as having voted to do nothing. You have seen the risk, and you have chosen the course of inaction. That is irresponsible.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge a no vote on the rule. How indicative that we said we will have 90 minutes to debate this, 90 minutes to debate the future of this country in the event of a terrorist attack. We are taking this tremendously seriously. I cannot believe it. I cannot believe we are giving 90 whole minutes to whether or not we will have a constitutional government with the House of Representatives and the very bicameral system that the gentleman from Washington described. Vote no on this. Give this body time to have real debate, real discussion on multiple amendments.

Mr. Speaker, would the gentlewoman be interested in joining me in a colloquy?

I appreciate very much the comments of the gentlewoman, and I was intrigued by one thing she said. She said that even temporary appointments, I will paraphrase briefly here, would violate the entire purpose of the House of Representatives.

My understanding of Madison's approach was that there were more elements to having a house of representation than mere election, as important as that is, but also the role of checks and balances, the role of proportionate representation, the division of authorities between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

Madison specifically said: ``The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elected, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.''

What I would like to ask the gentlewoman is, if we have no House of Representatives, less than a quorum, do we have an alternative to the concentration of the power in the executive branch under current law?

I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate this need to exchange, because this is exactly what we need to do. During the 45-day period, as I understand it, the gentlewoman is saying the only check on the executive would be the threat of impeachment.

Does the gentlewoman believe that is consistent with the Framers' intent, when they wrote all of article I and purposefully chose article I as the description the legislative branch, or does she believe the Framers' intent was to say the executive can have carte blanche to run the country as they might, but 45, and possibly 75, days later under the bill the gentlewoman coauthored, the Nation has to wait 75 days for impeachment as a check on the executive?

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, if I may, I am not disputing that. The point before us here, we have passed that bill. The point before us here is what happens in the 45 days? I think there may be grounds to dispute whether you can have an election or not. But the point of this legislation is to say how do we get this Congress up and running promptly.

Let me give you a scenario and see if you are comfortable with it. John Ashcroft said last week or the week before that high-profile targets include this summer the Democratic convention and the Republican convention. I will take him at his word.

If it is true that we are a high-profile target, and if you are at the Republican convention or we are at the Democratic convention and terrorists attack, let us suppose they attack during the President's speech at the Republican convention, and the president is killed, heaven forbid this should happen, if the President and Vice President are killed and a number of my good friends on your side of the aisle perish, of necessity at that point the House will have to reconvene, there will be a new majority, hence a need to elect a new Speaker. Presumably at that point the Democrats control the House of Representatives, presumably we will elect a Democratic Speaker, and, under the law of succession of 1947, that person is now in line for the Presidency of the United States. That is my understanding of the status quo as it exists in law today.

I would just ask the gentlewoman if she is comfortable with that or disputes that is the status?

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the legislation that I put forward, actually it would obviate, not necessarily override. I really want to underscore that point. The chairman has repeatedly, really since day one of this, I think, misrepresented this. He misrepresented it in his opening comments. He said the question before us, in essence, is whether you will have an elected Congress or an appointed aristocracy.

The true question is, will you have any Congress or not? Not my bill, not the bill of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), not the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), not the bill of Senator Cornyn, not any of the bills put forward would in fact ban elections, as the chairman repeatedly says. It is deeply frustrating to me to have a matter of this importance be misrepresented.

No one disputes, and I firmly agree with you, that the mechanism to replace House Members should be direct election, ideally, and we should have them as promptly as possible. But if we are so concerned about an aristocracy and appointment not responsive to the people, are you not equally concerned that a party mechanism for selecting a candidate implies in itself some degree of potential beholding to those who appoint it? Is the gentlewoman concerned about that at all?

Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman for her time and appreciate her engaging in this colloquy. I sincerely do.

Mr. Speaker, the reason I asked the gentlewoman to respond is this is what we really need to do with this bill. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) would claim that he brought this up at our request. In fact, we did not request this fashion of bringing this legislation up. What we requested was that all measures to provide for continuity be brought up for debate, including my own, the bill of the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), the bill of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren), the bill of the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson), the bill of Senator Cornyn in the Senate, two Republicans on that list, by the way, several Democrats, that they all be brought up and we have full discussion.

I would note for the record that I see on the House floor now about six colleagues, maybe seven. Two things concern me about that: first, if we really take this seriously, I believe we ought to all take it seriously. I do not think for a second my bill is perfect. I think there is merit to the other legislation. But I do not think we are going to get to a solution unless we grapple with this issue, unless we take it seriously.

The second thing that concerns me is let us suppose this random group of survivors here, this six or seven on the floor, are the group of survivors. Under the Constitution, that is not a quorum. The Constitution, in my judgment, is rather clear that a quorum is a majority of the Members, but House Rules state it is a majority of those chosen, sworn, and living.

Importantly, would the people of the United States of America believe that the seven or eight of us here now, relatively randomly chosen if we were survivors, are consistent with the representational nature of this body? It is not just the people's House because it is directly elected, it is the people's House because it deals with proportionate representation. It is the people's House because of prompt reelections.

Would the eight of us here right now be sufficient to send this Nation into war? Would the eight of us be sufficient to impeach a President? Would we be sufficient to select one of our own as the Speaker of the House, who would then become the President of the United States? I noticed in her comments, in response from my friend from Michigan, not once did she truly address what happened in that 45 days.

We talked about the elections, and I appreciate the importance of that. Let

me, if I may, address some of the myths that have been perpetrated by the opponents of this bill.

First of all, the myth that we have already solved the problem. We have not solved the problem. We have provided for special elections in 45, possibly as long as 75, days. But this notion that it was an elected House, not an appointed House that passed legislation, is rather absurd, when the choice is there might be no House at all to pass legislation.

Secondly, this notion that continuity is somehow not urgent, that we do not have to move forward with this. It has been 3 years. On September 10, 3,000 of our fellow citizens had no idea they were living their last day, yet they were.

The notion that temporary appointments somehow subvert the right to election. Again, and I underscore it, nothing in any of the legislation put forward would take away the people's rights to election.

When the chairman said, and I thought it was rather remarkable, that my legislation explicitly in the Constitution authorizing the Congress to deal with the matter of incapacity, that that takes away our right to deal with incapacity, I found that rather absurd, to say the least. The legislation before us says that Congress can deal with incapacity statutorily. How does that ban our right to do so?

The myth, which is just so remarkable, that the appointees would be irresponsible to the general public does a profound disservice to the existing Members of the House of Representatives. Indeed, I find it an insult.

To believe that the people that sent us here with the authority to send their children to war, as we have chosen to do, to tax them or give them back their taxes, to impose any number of legislative remedies and sometimes problems on this country, but then the moment it comes time to make one of our most profound decisions, who would replace us in a catastrophe to carry on this institution, that moment, suddenly we lose capacity of our senses.

It not only insults us, it insults those who we might nominate to replace us.

By coincidence, not 30 minutes ago I met with Don Bonker, a gentleman who represented my district a little over a decade ago, a distinguished statesman with outstanding international skills. Do we seriously believe that if I nominated Mr. Bonker to be my replacement that he would act irresponsibly to care for this country? And if you believe that impeachment is a worthwhile check on the abuse by the executive, why do you not also believe that a subsequent election would be a worthwhile check on Mr. Bonker's conduct if he were to act irresponsibly? The inconsistencies and illogic are breathtaking sometimes.

I want to do one other thing. My friend, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Snyder) is here; and I want to compliment him. It is rare in this body I find that we acknowledge that there may be a shortcoming in our own legislation and that an opponent of that legislation has pointed out a shortcoming. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Snyder) came to me this morning, raised an issue; and I think he has a good point. I would like to be able to fix that.

I would have liked the process such as we propose in the original rule where you debate things and then have time to amend it. I doubt that is going to be allowed. But I will say, and I appreciate the gentleman very much for raising the shortcoming, I will in future drafts, if we have the opportunity, endeavor to fix that.

But I would also say right now that, even with the shortcoming, I believe with all my heart that the bill we have before us today is superior by far to the status quo. So while I expect fully that we may not pass this bill, I will intend to bring it up with modifications.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for the time.

I would just note that it was my distinguished colleague from Texas who, when we were given the opportunity, my colleague was asked for unanimous consent in the Committee on the Judiciary hearing to let me speak to my own bill. It was a UC request. All it needed was one member of their body to speak up and say no, and it was the gentleman from Texas.

On the one hand, the opponents of this legislation argue that we must have elected representatives. On the other hand, they suppress the rights of those elected representatives to speak to their own legislation.

Our 90 minutes are about up. I want to take a little bit of time, if I may, to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) for their outstanding work on the Working Group. I would like to commend the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson); the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) for his intelligent and thoughtful comments; the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin); the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) for her leadership on this issue, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) for his work on presidential succession matters.

I would also like to commend the work of the Continuity of Government Commission. We have spent 90 minutes on this issue today. The Continuity of Government Commission spent virtually a year on the matter. All of the members of that commission began saying we should not amend the Constitution, much like my friends on the other side have. Yet, to a person, they agreed at the end that we need to or we will be without the checks and balances so fundamental to our great Republic.

I also want to thank the opponents of this bill, the chairmen of the various committees. I also want to thank the ranking members.

The discussion today I think makes the proposal we will end up with a stronger proposal. That is part of the crucible of this institution. My fear, however, is that that crucible itself is in jeopardy. There will be silence on this floor if we perish or there will be chaos and discord as partisan rancor evolves in the aftermath when this lack of constitutional clarity emerges.

People have said what the American people would want, my friends on the other side. One of the things we do far too seldom here is go back to the people themselves and ask them. I would invite my colleagues to do as I have. Hold some town halls, go to some Rotaries or Kiwanis or Lions or whatever group you want and give it a fair question. Say here is the choice, a fair and balanced question. Say do you want in the aftermath of a crisis, do you believe we should have temporary appointments, nominated by the people you most recently elected and thereby are most likely of the same party and political ideology or would you have complete vacancy for 45, possibly 75 days? Ask them and see what they say. Ask them.

If my colleagues can come back to me and say that the people I talked to would say we would rather have no voice in Congress as our Nation goes to war and my sons and daughters are committed to a conflict, we would have no voice in Congress as our civil rights are usurped, we would like to have no voice in Congress as someone accedes to the presidency who was never elected but who was, in fact, themselves appointed, ask them, and I believe with great confidence they will tell my colleagues we would like a voice imperfect, indirect though that voice may be if unelected. At least they were appointed by the person most recently elected. At least the political makeup of this great body will be preserved. At least some of the most consequential decisions in the history of this country will be made under a model of checks and balances that, yes, Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Mason and the rest of the Founders found so essential.

Elections are sacred, but so, too, is representation. I would urge my colleagues to vote yes on the motion to recommit. Let us have a full and fair debate in the committee and bring back a still better bill.

Mr. Speaker, I apparently misspoke earlier when I mentioned it was the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) who expressed objection to my opportunity to speak in the Committee on the Judiciary. I regret that. There was a member of the majority. I thought it came from the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith). I apparently was in error, and I apologize for the mistake.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding me this time.

The reason I think we need to recommit this bill, and it is rare, I think, for an individual who has authored a bill to suggest a motion to recommit, because when I called for the discharge petition to bring this bill to the floor, it was not just this bill. I wanted to bring many different approaches so we could fully discuss it.

The fundamental question I would urge the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and its members and this body as a whole to consider is this: it is a fine thing to defeat this legislation, and I respect the judgments of the people who may choose to do so, but you have yet today, or in the prior discussion of the chairman's own bill, answered the question satisfactorily for the American people as to what happens during the 45 or 75 days. People continue to say, no one should ever serve in the House who was not elected. We would all prefer that that be the case. But you have never said clearly and unambiguously, with clear-cut constitutional justification, how our government runs without a House of Representatives. You have yet to do so. You have offered pleasantries, reassuring promises; but you have never said how the country runs.

Madison did want the representatives to be elected, but he wanted there to be representatives. The people back home want to have representatives. Who will choose to send your kids to war? Who will choose to protect your civil rights? Maybe you can just rely on someone you do not know, an unelected representative whom you do not know. Maybe you can rely on that. And if they send your kid to war wrongly or usurp your civil rights, you can take great reassurance that 75 days later you can impeach them, assuming that one of their actions in the interim has not been to somehow reduce your right to do that.

You are rolling the dice, my friends. You are rolling the dice, and you have not yet put in place a solution. Mine may not be perfect, it is not; but let us, please, have an opportunity to revisit this issue and answer that question.

Mr. Speaker, on the night of September 11, I began to think about what might happen if this institution were to perish in an attack, and I asked, who should we talk to to learn the answer to that question? And the answer to that was Charlie Johnson.

Charlie, I want to thank you and your entire staff for your help on that issue but, more importantly, for how you help us every single day.

People around the country see us disagree and bicker all the time here, and they say is there not anything you people can agree on? Today, my friends, we have agreed on something. We have agreed to honor this magnificent individual, his service to our country and the principle of the rules that keep our democracy, our Republic, and this great body functioning.

I thank you, Charlie, and I thank my colleagues for their great words today. God speed, Charlie.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished ranking member and the chairman for including in this en bloc amendment an amendment drafted by the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy) and me.

In essence, what our amendment does is ask the Department of Defense to study the availability of mental health services for our returning soldiers and their families. I have been to Walter Reed on many occasions, and we are providing outstanding physical health care and mental health care for those folks. But when people come back to their small rural towns, we need to make sure if they are suffering the emotional after-effects from the things they have seen and experienced, that they get the help they need, so they can return to their families, return to their work and not suffer lasting impacts.

For 23 years before serving in Congress, I worked as a psychologist, often with veterans and in VA hospitals; and I know we can provide care that will help our warriors return home. We need to do that.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for making sure this will happen and look forward to working with them when the report is returned from the DOD.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 199, the Hunter amendment, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the great State of Texas for his leadership on this. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) has been a steadfast advocate of correcting this injustice for many years, and I appreciate working with him.

Mr. Speaker, I also respect also my colleague on the other side of the aisle because I know he cares about this. But at the end of the day today, we will have had an opportunity to vote to at least restore fairness to our citizens.

When we go back home, we cannot very well say to them ``it is a procedural matter,'' because it is also a procedural matter that every year when they fill out their taxes and they itemize their deductions, they have to put a zero; they have to say because our State chooses sales tax over income tax, as is their right, we are not able to deduct our sales taxes the way the States with income taxes can.

It is a procedural matter that costs our taxpayers hundreds of dollars every single year that they could use for their families. It is a procedural matter that costs my State $500 million every year.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) was right: We have passed a number of tax bills over the last few years in this Congress. We have had multiple opportunities, had the majority Members chosen to put their people over their partisanship. But they have declined.

Here is another opportunity. There was one last week. How many weeks are we going to say to our constituents that you go to the back of the line again? We have lowered the tax rates on millionaires in this country. We have refused to fight for tax fairness by insisting that the people of our States be allowed their deductions. So millionaires, not just millionaires, but people earning $1 million a year in income, were put at the front of the line. Our States have been told again and again, you go to the back of the line.

It is going to happen again today, I fear, and it does not have to. To my good friends on the other side of the aisle, we have worked and we should work in a bipartisan way, because the Tax Code does not say Republicans or Democrats or Independents get to deduct or do not get to deduct their sales tax. It just says all of you who have a sales tax do not get to deduct it.

But at the end of the day, on a procedural vote, we are going to bypass yet another opportunity, and bypassing that opportunity over the last several years has cost our taxpayers thousands of dollars.

When I ask my friends, when are you going to say to your leadership, we insist at long, long last that our constituents be treated fairly in the Tax Code? When are you going to say that? Because we have said it to our leadership.

It is going to be in the Democratic bill. It has been in prior Democratic bills. We have brought it up before the Committee on Rules, with almost unanimous no votes on the other side, with few exceptions. We cannot get the help on the other side.

My colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), has been a steadfast advocate. He brought this issue up last week, and I am grateful he did. We didn't get a single yes vote from the other side. We did not get a single vote. Here it is again, and I wager we will not get a single vote yet again.

At some point, the citizens of our States are going to catch on and they are going to say, for all this talk about tax cuts, why do you keep leaving us out? Because your leadership is putting you in a position that says, time and time and time and time again, you must vote with us and not with your constituents. And it is not your leadership who elected you, it is your constituents.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) has been responsive to his constituents. He has said we need to bring this up now, and we have the opportunity to do that now.

I would just ask my colleagues, you know as well as I do the only way we get this to happen is to make this part of a larger bill. We do need to provide relief for low and mid-income families in the Tax Code, but we also need to provide relief for the families in our States who have suffered too long under this injustice.