Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Res. 326 and H. Res. 604.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the business in order under the Calendar Wednesday rule be dispensed with on Wednesday, September 5, 2007.

Pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 43, 110th Congress, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 1 o'clock and 12 minutes a.m.), pursuant to Senate Concurrent Resolution 43, 110th Congress, the House adjourned until Tuesday, September 4, 2007, at 2 p.m.

I have only been here 6 months as a freshman, but I have to tell you that I know America is watching, and I am wondering if our mothers are watching.

This is very rude behavior, the calling out, the cat-calling; and I think we understand that the American public sent all of us here to work together. Yes, there have been mistakes. I do recall when they were doing the Medicare part D how the vote was kept open by the majority for 3 hours while the Secretary of Health and Human Services walked up and down the aisle. That wasn't right, so all is forgiven.

The point here now is that the American public is watching us. They expect us to get this work done. They expect our behavior to be responsible and respectful. We wouldn't call out like this in a movie theater. We certainly shouldn't be calling out this way in the House of Representatives. I call on all of us to remember our manners.

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

I stand here today in strong support of H.R. 3159. As a former military spouse and the proud wife of a veteran, I know how important this is to military families. The President's policies have failed on many levels, but they certainly have failed on the soldiers, the troops who are suffering this great strain right now.

I find it ironic that the Iraqi parliament is on vacation for a month while we stand here and tell our troops that they cannot have a break, that they need to stay in the field in the heat and keep fighting the battle for the Iraqis.

The Army's available, active duty combat brigades, along with 80 percent of the Reserves and National Guard, have served at least one tour in Iraq and Afghanistan; and the strain is starting to show.

Recruiting and reenlistment are down, especially in the Army which has reported about a 7 percent first retention drop, and we're having to offer greater bonuses to attract people. Reports of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress syndrome are up; and this spring the Secretary of Defense announced that active duty soldiers can expect to spend more time in Iraq than they spend at home, with only 12-month breaks between 15-month deployments.

We hear a lot of talk from the White House about supporting our troops. That is what this bill does. This bill will support our troops by supporting their right to have a break from combat, and it will support our military families by protecting their rights to spend time with their loved ones.

I urge my colleagues, regardless of how they feel about this war and the President's policies, to support H.R. 3159.

Mr. Speaker, last week, House Democrats unveiled the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act, a bill that reauthorizes CHIP, ensures millions of children receive the health benefits they need, and protects Medicare for American seniors. The bill comes a week after the National Governors' Association, made up of both Democrats and Republicans, called for urgent action to reauthorize the CHIP program.

Unfortunately, while strengthening CHIP has broad bipartisan support from our Nation's Governors and the U.S. Senate, the Bush administration and congressional Republicans oppose efforts to strengthen the program so it does not continually run out of money.

As a professional social worker, I recognize the threat to America's children, and I must protest. Instead, they are proposing to underfund the program significantly, which would cause millions of children to lose coverage, including children in my own State of New Hampshire and States across the country.

Mr. Speaker, ensuring America's children have affordable health care costs less than $3.50 a day to cover a child. House Democrats are committed to passing this cost-effective health coverage for millions of uninsured children.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 23. I thank the chairman for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised and saddened to learn from a constituent that in spite of the service of the merchant mariners in World War II, none of them received the same benefits that other soldiers received: no access to the GI Bill, no health benefits, nothing.

As you consider this bill that will finally show our gratitude to the merchant marines of World War II, I would like to recall the words of General Dwight Eisenhower, who understood what their service had given the United States. In 1944 he had this to say: ``Every marine in this Allied Command is quick to express his admiration for the loyalty, courage and fortitude of the officers and men of the merchant marine. We count upon their efficiency and their utter devotion to duty as we do our own; they have never failed us yet and in all the struggles yet to come we know that they will never be deterred by any danger, hardship or privation. When final victory is ours, there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the merchant marine.''

After the war he noted: ``Their contribution to final victory will be long remembered.''

It is way past time to remember their devotion to the United States. It is way past time to reward them what they earned. Time is slipping.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, H.R. 23.

Madam Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this amendment which will put a stop to the unacceptable evaluation component of the Upward Bound Program that turns our Nation's students into guinea pigs for the Department of Education.

This evaluation requires that institutions receiving Upward Bound funds, such as the University of New Hampshire, recruit TWICE as many students than can be served, with the intent to deny half of these applicants and use them as a control group--receiving no Upward Bound assistance at all. I find this bait and switch, which comes at the expense of our students, to be offensive, downright cruel, and--at best--unethical.

I recently introduced H.R. 2700 to suspend this study and prevent the other harmful changes the Administration has made to the Upward Bound program. This amendment to prohibit funding for this study is another means by which we can right this wrong.

The goal of Upward Bound is to support our students in their efforts to obtain a college degree. We must not undermine these efforts with this unethical study.

I urge my colleagues to protect the integrity of this program by standing with us, and our students, by supporting the Gwen Moore-Tom Cole-Bobby Scott-Carol Shea-Porter amendment.

Mr. Speaker, the National Counterterrorism Center recently issued a report entitled, ``Al Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West.'' This report concludes that al Qaeda has reorganized, regrouped, and is stronger now than it has been in years.

Yesterday, in the Armed Services Committee, we heard testimony that al Qaeda has established itself in the mountains along the Afghanistan- Pakistan border and is operating with relative impunity. On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says he has a gut feeling we will be attacked this summer.

For years, Democrats have been saying we need to focus our efforts on combating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the President took our brave soldiers and our resources to Iraq. Now it appears that the President's disastrous policy of ignoring the real threats and bogging our military down in Iraq has borne fruit. The area and the country is destabilized and more dangerous to their neighbors and to us. Thanks to the President's policy, our military is now overextended, our Nation is deep in debt, and our international reputation is stained.

This cannot be allowed to continue. We are America the beautiful. We are the greatest country on Earth. We are the beacon of light and hope. We need to withdraw from Iraq, place our soldiers in a place where they can respond to any terrorist threats, and protect our borders as we once again reclaim our moral reputation.

Mr. Speaker, it has been 4 years and we are now in our fifth year of war, and once again the Nation stops to assess where are we? And probably the best indicator of where we are was the front page of the Washington Post today.

The first article, ``CIA Said Instability Seemed Irreversible.'' That is the instability in Iraq.

Second article, ``White House Gives Iraq Mixed Marks in Report.'' Unfortunately, Iraq did not meet any of the benchmarks set by the Bush administration and the Congress.

Third article, ``U.S. Warns of Stronger al Qaeda.'' What we are talking about there is the resurgence of al Qaeda in Pakistan and in Afghanistan where it is no longer safe for girls to go to school once again, and where the drug crop is stronger than ever and where we have made no gains at all. Why haven't we made any gains after 4 years? Because we have been dragged into Iraq, into a war without end, by a President who did not understand the region, who is indifferent to the problems, the cultural differences and the problems they are experiencing, and who has not listened to the world. He has not listened to America, and has not listened to his generals and advisors on this.

Now they are asking us for more time. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, there is nothing that upsets me more than hearing somebody stand and ask for more time after 4 long years; more time for the surge, I heard today, that the surge hasn't had time to work. My question to the gentleman was: Which surge are we talking about? I lose track because we have had so many surges. Which surge are we talking about?

Then they say that the President needs more time. Then I hear General Petraeus needs more time. Always we need more time.

How about this. We have a democracy, a young democracy, the President says, in Iraq, and more than half of the people in that parliament signed a petition asking the United States to leave. Now we said we would leave if another nation like Iraq asked us to leave. And yet we hear absolute silence from the President. He will not leave despite of the fact that the government he had elected there has asked us to leave.

It costs us $10 billion a month. When I speak to my constituents, they are all asking, why don't we have money have money for this? We need money for health care. We have a problem with infrastructure. And we just don't have the money for this; this program is being cut back. And my answer over and over is what everybody else is having to tell the good people in this country who need our resources, this is what we have to tell them, you can't have two wars, tax cuts for the top 1 percent, the greatest deficits in history, and still provide for the American people.

We have a decision to make. We have an opportunity finally to provide a responsible road map out of Iraq; and yet we have a President and an administration that is indifferent to this road map.

It is now our responsibility to respond to the American people, to respond to the world and try once again to get the President's attention and once again to ask to please end the craziness here after the thousands of deaths of American soldiers, the injuries which we will be paying for, and should pay for. It is our obligation to honor our commitments to our soldiers, but we will be paying for this for so many years. And we also have an obligation to the Iraqis. We don't even know how many have died because we don't really count them.

What we do know about Iraq is that that culture has been decimated, that those who can leave have left. The countries surrounding Iraq have a large number of refugees, and people living inside Iraq are afraid to go out on their streets.

When I was in Iraq in March, I had an opportunity to speak to Sunni and Shiite women. It was very clear to me that they were unable to resolve their differences. They were so full of mistrust and hatred for each other that they were in the midst of a civil war. Yet we stay there and we continue to put our soldiers in the middle of a civil war, and we continue to be deaf to the cries of the rest of the world.

So we are standing here tonight asking once again for the President to listen to the American people, to listen to reason, to listen to the military leaders who never talk about a military victory any more. They simply talk about stabilizing Iraq, and the question has to be stabilizing Iraq; wasn't Iraq stable 4 years ago? Is this the result we get after 4 years of war?

I thank our soldiers for their incredible commitment to this country. I have had an opportunity to see some of them leave. I have nothing but the deepest respect for them. I know that the Army is suffering under the strain of a 4-year war. The soldiers and their families are suffering under the strain. I know that they have asked us to speak up for them because they are unable to.

So we stand here once again tonight for the people, for the soldiers, and ask the President to please start a responsible road map out of Iraq.

It's very important. I sit on the Armed Services Committee and the Subcommittees on Personnel and Readiness. So I hear every day what the President's impact has had on personnel and on readiness. I would like to address both of them.

Supporting the troops is a lot more than putting a yellow ribbon on a car. The ``Support the Troops'' sound coming out of the White House rings hollow to my ears after 6 months on the Armed Services Committee. I will give you an example. Here we have the most wonderful troops in the world, committed volunteers who signed up out of love and patriotism for their country. It came time for a pay raise, and the President only wanted 3 percent.

The House of Representatives, bipartisan, said they wanted 3.5 percent pay raise. So, how much is 3.5 percent versus the President's percent? Well for an E-4, it would be $200 a year. I know, from sitting on the Personnel Subcommittee, what a strain this is on their families and the cost of having a loved one gone and having to get day care and having to get extra help and not having the same support system that they have when they have their spouse or family member with them.

Yet the President said 3 percent was sufficient. He was angry enough, when the House voted for a 3.5 percent pay raise, that he listed it as one of the reasons that he would consider vetoing the bill. If you can't give an E-4, who is serving his or her country, $200 a year, then all the talk you want about supporting the troops is hollow, and it really ranks sour for the rest of us.

You look at readiness, and you realize the Army has been so impacted by this, that I actually voted to grow the size of the Army. I also voted for the largest, we all did, the largest military budget in history.

As a direct result of the President's misguided policy, he has left us in such a weakened state around the world, that we have to grow the size of the Army. We have to put more incentives in there, and we have to put the largest budget in there.

You know, we do have enemies in this world. We know that. We have a lot of enemies. They weren't in Iraq, but we do have enemies.

Peter Pace, a general, was asked if he were comfortable with the ability of the United States to respond to an emerging threat around the world. He paused for a moment, and he said, no, I'm not comfortable. That should frighten all of us.

If the general doesn't feel that we could respond to an emerging threat because all of our resources and all of our treasure and all of our people are planted inside of Iraq, we have a real problem. This is why we had to have that vote today, and this is why we need to get out of this war.

You know, I have been very disturbed by the way it has been treated like a political issue. It's not.

The freshman class that came here to make the change have been going to Iraq at great personal risk to themselves to have a look and to be sure that they are right about their position against this war. One by one we have come back, as you know, and said, no, we were right about this. What we saw was horrific. We saw a very sad, destroyed country. We saw a country at war with itself in Iraq, and we saw our troops stuck in the middle of the civil war.

Fortunately, there are some Republicans who are now breaking away from the President's grip and speaking the truth about this war. I just wanted to read a couple of them. I will leave their names out, because who they are is not important, except to say that they are Senators.

Here's one, ``We need to be fighting terrorists, not civil wars . . . Iraq's peace is one they must win on their own. We cannot win it for them. Our might should be focused on stopping terrorists who are plotting to bring harm to the United States.''

Here is another Republican Senator, ``A policy of responsible military disengagement with a corresponding increase [in] nonmilitary support is the best way to advance our Nation's interests.''

Another one, ``There's nothing to wait for. Almost everybody that has any knowledge of the reports . . . would indicate they are not going to show any degree of a big change that we needed. So we are just wasting time.''

If we are going to fight terrorism, first of all, we need to protect our own homeland.

You know, if you know there is a burglar in the neighborhood, first thing you do is lock your own door. We didn't do that. If you look at the little money we have invested in Homeland Security, you will know that we are no safer than we were before 9/11, that we took the money and we went to Iraq.

Now why did we go to Iraq? I guess that's the question that hangs in everybody's mind. There were no Iraqis on the plane that day. There was no evidence that Iraq was ready to attack us. We were misled, misguided, got into this war. What's happened to us? Are we safer here? No, of course not.

Are we in more danger there? Yes. Have we destabilized the region? Yes. Do we have to worry about growth of al Qaeda? Yes.

However, the good news is, yesterday at a hearing on global security, there was a Member of the CIA and a couple of others who spoke, and they said that we do not have to fear Iran's sway over Iraq.

Let's remember, Iran and Iraq were bitter enemies who fought an 8- year war. They are not natural allies. They are only allies right now because of us. Once we leave, it's my fervent hope and belief that it will calm down.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill.

Education is the key to prosperity in our Nation, and we have always known that. When our troops returned home during World War II, they became eligible for the GI Bill, which built the middle class in this country.

Today we have the opportunity to once again invest in America in our next generation. This is the key to competitiveness. It's the key to the global economy, to make sure that our people will be able to work in the world and to prosper. It is our honor to be able to present this without raising any, any taxes on the American taxpayer.

In my State of New Hampshire alone, over 15,000 students will benefit from this increase; 1,500 more New Hampshire students will qualify for Pell Grants. We have a wonderful opportunity to invest in our Nation and our next generation, and to strengthen the middle class.

It is with great honor that I support this, and I thank the chairman for bringing this bill to us.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you for your leadership on this bill, in particular for your strong support of increased funding for the National Wildlife Refuge System which protects our valuable natural resources and wildlife and maintains more than 96 million acres of land across the country.

I also want to thank ranking member Tiahrt and the entire Interior and Environment Subcommittee for their tireless work on this bill and, importantly, for including language and funding to help address some of the most pressing problems facing our National Wildlife Refuge System.

Mr. Chairman, the staffing shortages plaguing our wildlife refuges have been brought on by years of underfunding and a lack of commitment to ensuring that these pristine lands are kept safe, secure and properly maintained. The language included in the bill before us is a big step in the right direction, but I think you would agree it is only a first step.

We will need to do more if we want to alleviate the strain put on our refuges, like the Great Bay Wildlife Refuge along the eastern shore of New Hampshire. Great Bay protects a number of both Federal- and State- protected species, including the symbol of our American freedom, the Bald Eagle. However, funding shortages have caused the refuge system to severely cut back on staff at Great Bay over the past few years.

What once was a staff of four has been reduced to one, and now the refuge system has announced that they will be eliminating that position as early as next month. This will leave a major wildlife refuge with no full-time staff and totally unprotected for the large majority of the time. With over 60,000 visitors a year, this lack of staffing could pose a serious threat to the wildlife and ecosystem protected in Great Bay.

Mr. Chairman, I understand that there is strong language in your bill regarding the staffing shortages at refuges across the country. May I clarify that the increased funding provided to the wildlife refuge system through the operations and management accounts is meant to help the system address these shortfalls and ensure that staff is placed where needed to protect these environments?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The committee has also included language addressing the problem of complexes. Would the chairman clarify the committee intent to reduce the number of complexes where refuges are consolidated into groups with staff overseeing multiple sites, sometimes with great distances between them?

I thank the chairman, and I appreciate his strong position on protecting these national treasures.

Mr. Speaker, energy independence and fighting global warming are essential, and they are the challenges of our day. Years of inaction, even disbelief on the part of the White House and the Republicans, have delayed any real work being done.

This week the Democratic Congress will bring a bill to the floor to change this. There will be an Energy and Water appropriations bill that will provide substantial funding to fight global warming. Overall, the bill appropriates $3 billion for researching the effects of global warming. This funding will allow us to monitor radiation in the atmosphere, to use state-of-the-art computer technology to conduct climate change modeling and to conduct long-term experiments on the impact of increased carbon dioxide levels on forests and other ecosystems.

This research will finally allow us to have the science that we need to fight this battle. We have delayed it for years because of the Republican administration's inactivity. I hope that this week the Republican leadership will join with the Democrats in Congress to finally move this forward.

Mr. Speaker, President Bush claims there are important differences between Democrats

and Republicans when it comes to spending and he is right. For 6 long years, President Bush and the Republican rubber-stamp Congress slashed budgets in critical areas such as health care, college aid and support for our veterans.

For years, Republicans have cut veterans health care funding and budgeted billions less than they need. Last year, Republicans failed to even pass a bill to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs. Imagine that, did not even pass a bill.

After 6 years of Republican damage, Democrats will do things differently. This week, we begin to invest in America's priorities, and we're fiscally responsible.

While President Bush and the Republican Congress ignored the needs of America's veterans, the Democratic House will bring a bill to the floor that includes the largest increase in funding for veterans health care in the 77-year history of the VA.

Today, I would hope that this entire House would support our veterans by supporting this bill. It is long overdue, but the Democrats intend to deliver like our troops deserve.

Mr. Speaker, this is a very sad day for our country. Once again, the President is going to be handed a blank check by the Republicans. Last year the Republicans took a lot longer than the Democrats on this side of the aisle to pass this supplemental. Every year they have given the President exactly what he wanted: a blank check.

This time we said to the President twice, we will give the money as long as you meet certain criteria, responsible criteria; and he said, no. He had to have it completely his way, running the war in the fifth year the way he ran it in the first year and the fourth year, without any kind of check, sending our brave troops into battle without the equipment they need. And if they come home injured, failing to care for them and providing for them what they need at home.

We tried to give our brave troops a 3.5 percent pay raise. The President said, no. He supports the troops but not financially, not physically and not in the ways that really matter.

So here we are approaching Memorial Day, and once again, we are leaving our troops unprotected while they have a political battle about this. And they can't go back to their districts and tell the truth.

I will vote against this supplemental because I am voting for the troops.