Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today with my colleagues Representatives Alcee Hastings, Joe Wilson, and Hoyer, to honor the upcoming 500th anniversary of the coining of the name ``America.'' On April 25, 1507 cartographer Martin Waldseemuller of the research group Gymnasium Vosagense in Saint-Die', France changed the way Europeans perceived the world by first depicting the Western Hemisphere in his 1507 world map. Waldseemuller honored Amerigo Vespucci by labeling this land with the Italian navigator's Christian name. Although explorers like Christopher Columbus already discovered this land, Amerigo Vespucci was the first to realize that it was not India but an entirely new continent. I invite my fellow Americans to join me and the House of Representatives in celebrating the historic 500th anniversary of the coining of this great name. Lastly, I also want to welcome Representative Hastings as a new member of the Americans Abroad Caucus, which I along with Representative Wilson have co-founded.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1401, the ``Rail and Public Transportation Security Act.''

Since the attacks on 9/11, we have seen the tragic consequences when the vulnerabilities of rail and public transportation systems are exploited, including in London and Madrid. We cannot afford to wait for an attack here in America before we make rail and transit security the priority it needs to be.

Tens of billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security since 9/11, yet only $660 million has been devoted to mass transit security. While we all agree that air travel needs to be as safe as possible, we cannot forget about the security of the millions of people who are riding subways, trains, and busses everyday.

This bipartisan legislation will help to make our Nation's railways and public transportation systems safer by requiring the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation to develop a national strategy for the security of these systems after assessing the significant risks associated with them. The bill would authorize $6 billion over the next four years for grant programs and it would require training for rail, transit, and bus employees about prevention, preparation, and response to a terrorist attack. H.R. 1401 increases the number of full-time surface transportation inspectors and it requires the development of regulations for the transportation of sensitive materials including the possibilities of alternative routes.

I am especially pleased to note that this bill provides critical whistleblower protections for DHS, DoT, and rail and public transportation employees who report security risks or violations. Just this month the House passed legislation that, among other provisions, extended important whistleblower protections to employees of intelligence agencies and to federal contractors. It is important that we protect those who by blowing the whistle on misconduct or wrongdoing help keep this country safe.

Our constituents should feel as safe as possible whether they commute daily on a train or bus or whether they are occasional travelers on public transportation systems. Passage of the bill before us today is an important step in enhancing the security of the Nation's mass transit systems.

I urge my colleagues to vote aye.

Madam Speaker, today I am reintroducing a bill to end government subsidies for private clubs that discriminate against women. Ending Tax Breaks for Discrimination Act of 2007 makes it illegal to take income tax deductions for expenses at clubs with ``No Women Allowed'' membership policies. It is wrong for corporations to write-off big expenditures for entertainment, meetings and advertising at clubs that keep women out while they target women consumers' pocketbooks. This bill will put an end to that. With the Masters Golf Tournament coming up this Monday, April 2nd, now is the time to address these discriminatory practices.

Right now, conventions and meetings come right off corporate income tax as legitimate business deductions, including those held at private clubs that discriminate. Half the price of a business lunch is deductible. But if you're a woman, you subsidize \1/2\ a guy's lunch with your taxes, even though you can't join the club. The whole point is that members of these clubs get financial gains--either indirectly through career opportunities and board appointments, or directly through tax deductions. Women can't get these same financial gains-- just because they're women. Golf is so ingrained as a part of business success that business schools teach juniors and seniors how to make the most of country club memberships. If you can't play golf, join the ``guys'' after a round, and get the same elite club bonus package from your employer that your male counterparts can, you're clearly missing out.

This bill ends deductions for advertising, travel, accommodation and meals associated with these clubs. And it requires discriminatory clubs to print right on their receipts ``not tax deductible''.

Let me be clear, I like big business, but women must be equal players. Legitimate tax deductions should continue, but when these deductions support clubs that bar women as equal partners, equal players, equal earners--they are not legitimate. This bill is past due. The time for discrimination is over.

I am also reintroducing a resolution, the Fair Play-Equal Access in Membership Resolution, which expresses the sense of the Congress that neither the President, the Vice President, nor any Member of Congress, justice or judge of the United States, or political appointee in the executive branch of the Government should belong to a club that discriminates on the basis of sex or race. It's common sense that our leaders and lawmakers should not belong to clubs that discriminate . . . period.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 137, the Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act of 2007. I want to thank my colleagues Representative Gallegly and Representative Blumenauer for their hard work on this issue.

This important legislation will make it illegal to transport an animal across State or international borders for the purpose of fighting, prohibits use of the mail system to promote animal fighting, and criminalizes interstate buying, selling, or transportation of knives or gaffs used for animal fighting.

Animal fighting is a deplorable activity with a purely negative impact on society. In cockfights, when two birds fight with blades or gaffs attached to their feet, at least one, and sometimes both of the birds are killed. Dogs who are made to fight often sustain severe injuries such as deep wounds and broken bones. Subsequent to fights, many dogs die of blood loss, exhaustion, or shock. Fighting animals are usually subject to inhumane living conditions intended to make them more aggressive, sometimes denied adequate nutrition, and made to exercise until they are physically exhausted.

In addition to the inexcusable harm inflicted on the animals, the fights also have negative effects on humans. Illegal gambling and drug trafficking are often closely tied to animal fighting operations. Also, animals bred to fight are abnormally aggressive, and pose a danger to the communities they live in if they were to get loose.

I applaud the passage of this bill, which will end an inhumane practice that is an embarrassment to our country. I am proud that this democratic majority has made animal welfare a priority in the 110th Congress.

Mr. Chairman, as Vice Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I am pleased to speak in the time reserved by the Budget Act for a discussion of economic goals and policies that is traditionally led by members of this committee.

Mr. Chairman, we have a responsibility to chart a more sensible course for economic policy than has been pursued over the past 6 years, and this budget starts us down that path.

The President says his policies are working to make the economy strong, and that all Americans are benefiting. But evidence of a slowing economy is building, and an anxiety over the state of the economy remains high. The meltdown in the subprime mortgage market is also adding to worries about the overall health of the economy.

American families are optimistic by nature, but they are understandably worried about the future, because the economy is weakening, even before many have shared in the gains from the economic growth we have seen so far.

Despite 5 years of economic expansion, most American families have struggled just to hold their economic ground on President Bush's watch. Job growth has been modest. Wages are barely keeping pace with inflation. Real incomes have fallen, household debt is rising, employer-provided health insurance coverage is declining, and private pensions are in jeopardy.

These are the economic barometers that matter most to America's families. Having a job is the key indicator of economic well-being for the vast majority of Americans. The President likes to talk about these 7.5 million jobs created since August of 2003, but he neglects to mention the fact that more than a third of those jobs were necessary just to replace the ones that were destroyed between 2001 and 2003.

Most Americans depend on their earnings to support themselves and their families. But unfortunately, workers' pay has lagged far beyond productivity, and wage growth has been weaker and more unequal than in the late 1990s. Strong productivity growth has translated into higher profits for businesses. Corporate profits are at an all-time high as a share of GDP, but not more take-home pay for the average worker.

Focusing on usual weekly earnings of full-time workers, we see only modest gains concentrated in the upper half of the distribution from 2000 to 2006. As we see in this chart, the red bars show the unequal gains during the Bush administration, and the blue bars show the Clinton years when earnings grew for everyone across our country.

The divergence between the haves and the have-nots in the Bush administration economy stands in marked contrast to the last 4 or 5 years of the Clinton administration when real wage gains were strong up and down the wage ladder as productivity growth first accelerated.

These earnings figures do not reflect bonuses of highly paid executives or capital gains and other nonwage income earned at the very top of the income distribution. This picture likely understates the disparities. The people experiencing the largest income gains are executives and highly compensated individuals, while ordinary American workers are only just beginning to see some gains in their paychecks after inflation.

Workers' pay and benefits, the red line, have grown only half as much as productivity; the blue line over the last 6 years. Typically, real compensation of workers, their wages and benefits, tend to track productivity growth as

they did in the late 1990s. But that has not happened since the 2001 recession. Productivity growth has been strong, but real inflation- adjusted compensation growth has been weak.

The compensation growth we have seen came much more from benefits than from wages, but not because employers suddenly became more generous. Benefit costs have been increasing because health insurance costs are rising and employers have had to make contributions to restore the solvency of their pension plans.

Higher benefit costs have squeezed take-home pay, but workers have not been getting more generous benefits in return. Slow job growth and stagnant wages during much of the Bush administration have depressed families' incomes. Median household income in 2005 was nearly $1,300 lower than in 2000, a loss of 2.7 percent during the President's first 5 years in office. Clearly, many American families have a lot of lost ground to make up.

Those who are already well-to-do are doing very well in this Bush economy, but the typical American family is struggling to make ends meet in the face of high costs for energy, health care and a college education for their children.

College tuition is up 44 percent, health insurance premiums are up 87 percent, and the price of gasoline was only a $1.45 per gallon when the President took office.

Somehow, the President's tax cuts were supposed to make up for all of this. But the lion's share of the tax cuts went to the people at the very top, especially the top 1 percent of earners.

The legacy of the President's tax cuts has been to run up massive deficits and debt that leave us unprepared to deal with the budget challenges posed by the retirement of the baby boom generation, and that weakens the future standard of living of our children and grandchildren.

This administration has presided over a stunning reversal of fortune. The $5.6 trillion, 10-year budget surplus that they inherited turned into a deficit over those same 10 years of at least $2.3 trillion.

The administration has incurred the three largest budget deficits on record, including a $413 billion deficit in 2004. The deficit may be retreating, as it usually does in a business cycle recovery, but each year's deficit still stands in marked contrast to the projected surpluses when the President took office.

The gross Federal debt is now almost $9 trillion, or more than $29,000 per person. That is how much every man, woman and child in America owes to this debt. This is the fiscal mess that we have to clean up. Thanks to the President's policies, we are now a Nation of debtors, relying on the rest of the world to finance our budget deficits and excessive spending.

Our current account deficit, which is the broadest measure of our trade deficit with the rest of the world, rose to a record-smashing $856 billion in 2006, from $791 billion in 2005.

This administration keeps giving us records, but they are the wrong kind of records. Record deficits, record debts, and record amounts of money owed by each American citizen. The amount of Federal debt owed by foreigners has more than doubled under President Bush, rising to $2.2 trillion, with Japan and China alone holding $1 trillion of our debt.

Recent stock market volatility underscores just how vulnerable the U.S. economy has become to the decisions being made in other countries. When China sneezes, a half a world away, the U.S. economy catches a cold.

Our future prosperity depends on increasing our normal saving and making wise investments. It depends on being ready for the retirement of the baby boom generation and the pressure we know that that will put on our budget.

The challenge for this Congress is to return to the fiscal discipline that has been squandered by the President and Congress over the past 6 years, and that is what this Democratic budget proposal does.

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

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

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I just want to remind my dear friend on the other side of the aisle that the Bush administration has given this country several records, only they are the wrong kind of records: $9 trillion in debt, the largest debt this country has ever carried; $859 billion trade deficit, the current account deficit, the largest trade deficit in the history of this country. And out of that $9 trillion, each of us in this room and each person across America owes $29,000. That is their portion of the debt that we owe.

Once again, we have heard about job creation. As I have said earlier, a third of the jobs created since 2003 were necessary just to make up for earlier job losses. Under President Clinton, the economy created 237,000 jobs per month, and this administration has created well less than 100,000 jobs per month.

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

First of all, Mr. Chairman, I find it rather ironic that my good friends on the other side of the aisle are lecturing us on fiscal responsibility. After all, let us remember that the $5.6 trillion 10-year budget surplus that Mr. Bush and the Republican majority at that time inherited turned into a deficit over those same 10 years of at least $2.3 trillion. Numbers do not lie, Mr. Chairman. They turned a $5.6 trillion surplus into a $2.3 trillion deficit. And they are preaching fiscal responsibility.

The administration has incurred the three largest budget deficits on record, including a $413 billion deficit in 2004. And let's remember that the Bush administration not only lost 3 million manufacturing jobs since they took office, but we now have almost a $9 trillion debt, and that breaks down to all of us in America owing, our own individual share, $29,000. Now, that is what they have given the American people.

On top of that they gave us another record, another horrible record. The highest trade deficit in the history of our country, $857 billion. So they give us the record debt, the record trade deficit, and the record budget deficit in the history of this country, and they are talking fiscal responsibility. And then on top of it they turn the surplus into a $2.3 trillion deficit.

Believe me, I am so glad that for the future of America we have a Democratic budget before us today.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to my colleague from the great State of Washington, Congressman McDermott.

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

Mr. Chairman, the American people voted for change, and this Democratic leadership has given them change, not only in the direction in Iraq but the direction in our budget.

I repeat, it is unbelievable. I am mystified that the Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking fiscal discipline. Let us remember, they are the ones that gave us the largest debt in history, $9 trillion, the largest trade deficit, over $859 billion, and they turned the $5.6 trillion 10-year budget surplus into a $2.3 trillion deficit. That is what they gave this country.

Within the first 100 hours of this Congress, the new Democratic leadership instituted pay-as-you-go budgeting requiring that new spending be offset. In other words, we are not spending money we don't have. We are not going to grow that deficit. Adhering to this policy helped turn deficits into surpluses in the 1990s during the Clinton administration but was abandoned by the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress. That is what led us to these huge debts and deficits.

Today, Democrats in Congress present a realistic budget plan that adheres to PAYGO principles for controlling the deficit and bringing revenues into line with the amount we need to spend to defend the country and take care of the needs of our citizens.

Our budget provides health care for millions of additional uninsured children. We make investments in veterans health care and benefits. We restore critical funding for first responders and State and local law enforcement.

In order to spur innovation that will keep America number one in the world, we provide increased funding for the National Science Foundation, increase investments in math and science and education, and make college more affordable for our young people, investing in the future of our country.

We also expand renewable energy and energy efficiency to reduce global warming and dependence on foreign oil.

Democrats target tax relief to those who need it most. Our plan protects 19 million middle-American families from a tax increase by setting up a reserve fund for a long-term fix for the alternative minimum tax, which is snagging millions more families each year in its widening net. We pay for these tax cuts in part by eliminating tax loopholes and closing the tax gap to make sure that middle-class families don't have to pay the tab for tax cheats.

Mr. Chairman, this budget resolution is an important step toward putting our fiscal house back in order and creating greater economic opportunities and prosperity for all American families.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H. Con. Res. 99 and S. 1002.

Mr. Speaker, 4 years that have been difficult for our country, we have had to watch the administration bungle the war in Iraq in just about every way imaginable. As war became civil war in Iraq, we watched our colleagues on the other side of the aisle act as a rubber stamp for this misguided war while refusing to ask the pertinent questions, the questions we were asking, the questions the American people were asking. And we watched as 3,200 of our brave troops lost their lives in another country's civil war, while 24,000 came home with permanent injuries and billions upon billions of our taxpayers' dollars have been sunk into the quicksand Iraq has become.

This will be the case no more.

With the scores of oversight hearings our leadership has already conducted this year and now with this legislation, we are, for the first time, bringing accountability, timelines and end to the mismanaged war in Iraq.

Congress is no longer a rubber stamp.

The President has asked us time and again for money for this war without any strings. This, despite the fact that they let many of our troops go to battle without the proper equipment, and that they can't even account for $12 billion of taxpayer money for reconstruction.

With this bill, we will bring accountability as well as money for our injured soldiers who have been neglected. We are adding a total of $3.4 billion for the military health care system, including money to address the problems at Walter Reed and money for head injuries and post- traumatic stress disorder.

For 4 years, the administration's war policies have been risking lives and spending this country's treasure without any accountability.

This legislation will end the free ride and it will end the war.

I urge my colleagues to vote in favor.

Mr. Speaker, the most recent employment report showing modest job gains in February provided further signs of a slowing economy. Private sector employment rose by just 58,000 jobs, the smallest monthly gain in nearly 2\1/2\ years.

The unemployment rate edged down last month only because the labor force shrank, and many people are discouraged by their job prospects. This is hardly the picture of a robust labor market, which is not good news for workers.

President Bush is now tied with his father for the dubious honor of having the worst job-creation record of any President since President Hoover. American families are understandably worried about the future because the economy is weakening even before many have shared in the gains from the economic growth so far.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support for voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia.

I would note, Madam Speaker, that this month is Women's History Month, and it took women many, many long years to gain the right to vote. It took a constitutional amendment in 1920 to give women the right to vote. But today we can vote to give the vote to the residents of the District of Columbia.

I would note that it was not until 1965 that the landmark Voting Rights Act was signed into law to outlaw discriminatory practices like literacy tests and to ensure that all Americans, regardless of race, had access to the ballot. Today we have the opportunity to take another historic step in the right direction by ending the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of tax-paying Americans.

The people of the District of Columbia contribute to our national economy, they fight in our wars, and it is simply wrong that they not have representation.

I rise in strong support of voting rights for these residents.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1433, the ``District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act,'' introduced by my good friend and colleague, Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton.

She has been a steadfast champion for her constituents on many issues, and has worked tirelessly to bring this legislation to the floor today.

I want to commend her for her commitment to the residents of the District of Columbia, who for too long have been denied a voice in the House of Representatives.

We have seen through our own history the great struggles that have been endured to win the right to vote.

For women, it took a constitutional amendment in 1920 to give us the right the vote.

It was not until 1965 that the landmark ``Voting Rights Act'' was signed into law to outlaw discriminatory practices like literacy tests and to ensure that all Americans, regardless of race, had access to the ballot box.

Today, we are taking another step in the right direction by ending the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of tax-paying Americans.

It is undemocratic that we can determine the taxes that District residents pay to the Federal Government, but they have not been able to elect a representative who has a say in what those taxes will be.

The people of the District of Columbia contribute to our national economy and they fight in wars.

It is simply wrong that their representative in the House does not have full voting rights.

The House of Representatives is known as ``the people's house'' yet for the people living in the District of Columbia, their voices have been silenced for far too long.

It is sadly ironic that the citizens living in the Nation's Capital do not have full representation in the House.

With this legislation, we will change history.

I urge my colleagues to support his legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his important leadership on this bill.

I rise in strong support of the Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act. This bill was marked up earlier this month in the Financial Services Committee and was passed by a strong bipartisan vote.

I not only thank the chairman and Ranking Member Bachus, but Chairwoman Waters and Ranking Member Biggert. Chairwoman Waters led many hearings and meetings and conferences on this, going to New Orleans and Mississippi, meeting with the families, with the authorities, and working with really great devotion and determination to move this bill to the floor to help the people in the gulf region.

This bill is a victory for those people who have suffered so greatly not only through Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but an awe-inspiring amount of bureaucratic red tape, trying to get the help and the assistance that they need.

This bill will finally provide comprehensive housing relief for the hurricane-impacted areas of the gulf coast, and it will expedite and move forward and cut through the red tape so that the money and the services get to the people they were intended for.

It provides increased flexibility and oversight, while preserving Federal housing assistance and providing assistance to landowners and communities who helped evacuees. It provides flexibility by freeing up $1.2 billion in funds for Louisiana's Road Home program for which FEMA is currently withholding use by transferring the funds to the Community Development Block Grant account, and it eliminates an unnecessary restriction imposed by the prior Congress against CDBG funds being used to meet matching requirements under other Federal programs.

It increases oversight by requiring the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the entity that administers the Road Home program, to report on their progress every 30 days on exactly what they are doing to help the people.

It preserves Federal housing assistance by including a number of provisions to rebuild the stock of affordable housing and to ensure that the administration will not shrink the level of housing assistance that supports that housing stock.

It provides assistance to communities that assisted evacuees by authorizing reimbursement for communities that used their own CDBG funds to provide rental assistance to evacuees after the storms hit, and it also provides such reimbursement to landowners who assisted the people.

This is a good bill. It cuts through the red tape. It provides assistance to the people, and I congratulate all who worked on it, particularly the Chair of the subcommittee, Ms. Waters.

Madam Chairman, I thank very much the gentleman's yielding and for his extraordinary leadership on protecting taxpayers' money by better oversight of our contracting policies. And I congratulate former Chairman Davis and Chairman Waxman on the Accountability in Contracting Act that we are passing today.

I feel so strongly about it because if we really manage our dollars better,

then we will have more dollars for the services that we need for our people. And I urge all of my colleagues and all of my constituents and really the listening public to read this excellent report that has come out from the Oversight and Government Reform Committee on ``Dollars, not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration.'' And it shows that sole source contracts have absolutely ballooned. They have grown dramatically from $67 billion in 2000 to over $145 billion in 2005. These are contracts that only one person gets. It is as if I handed you a lollipop. It is giving someone billions and billions of dollars, and I believe there are many talented businesses, many talented individuals in this country that should deserve the right to compete for these contracts.

This bill makes it easier for them to compete and, I believe, will save taxpayers dollars by the billions. It says if we give Halliburton or some other company a sole source no-bid contract worth billions and billions of dollars, then they have to tell us why we should give it to them. They have to file a document called the Justification and Approval Document. That is the least that we can do for the American taxpayer, to build in some transparency and some accountability. It also has many other important reforms in it.

But I must say of all the areas of mismanagement, contracting may look dull, but it is billions of dollars that if we were better stewards, we would have those dollars for education and health care.

I commend the chairman for his leadership on cracking down on this waste, fraud, and abuse and really shoddy mismanagement that has ballooned into billions of sole source contracts.

If you read this report, it is really chilling.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the work done by the New York Blood Center (NYBC) and its efforts to recruit volunteer blood donors to help assure a safe and ample blood supply in the New York Metropolitan area. As one of the nation's largest non- profit, community based blood centers, The New York Blood Center has provided critical blood, transfusion products and services to patients in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut hospitals for over 40 years.

Established in 1964 in order to better serve the transfusion needs of the New York City community, New York Blood Center was founded in order to carry out a critical mission to provide community members with the highest quality transfusion products and services, as well as leading- edge research and technological and medical care innovation.

The New York metropolitan area is currently experiencing a blood shortage that has reached an emergency level. The New York Blood Center reports a shortage of all types of blood, but most pressingly a need for ``O'' type blood, the universal donor to patients of all blood types. Hospitals in New York need an average of 2,000 volunteer donors every day to meet critical patient needs. NYBC collects an average of 1500-1700 units/day to help meet these needs in combination with other providers.

When the number of donations falls below the necessary number, NYBC must import the balance of necessary units from other areas of the United States. Without these vital donations, blood must be rationed to local area hospitals and elective surgeries postponed until blood supply levels improve. While the current shortage has not yet caused rationing to occur, it has become an area-wide crisis that endangers the lives and well-being of New Yorkers and demands the community's immediate attention.

To date, NYBC has avoided this critical problem through continuous partnership with local and national government officials to perform constituent outreach. NYBC also collaborates with businesses and organizations that sponsor blood drives, as well as with individuals who donate on a consistent basis. In recent years, while the number of donations in the New York metropolitan area have remained steady, there has been a downward trend in the number of donations in Manhattan, contributing to the causes of the current shortage.

Mr. Speaker, in the last 2 weeks, we have seen a tsunami of foreclosures and turmoil in the subprime markets. The Federal regulators' recent joint guidance to stop issuance of loans that borrowers can't repay in full is a good first step, but lenders won't make bad loans if no one will buy them. The secondary market must stop buying the loans causing this crisis.

Freddie Mac did this voluntarily, and I am introducing legislation to require all the housing GSEs to do the same. In the interim, I call on Fannie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Banks to follow Freddie Mac and stop buying these risky loans. Both Congress and the GSEs must act to protect homeowners and stabilize the system.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership, along with Mr. Waxman, on working on so many sunshine bills to make government more open and accountable to the citizens, to our taxpayers, to the American public. And an important part of sunshine is the Freedom of Information Act Amendments, it is a tremendously important bill, H.R. 1309, of 2007.

Since coming to Congress, I have been working on this committee, and improved FOIA processes which are critical to an open government and making our government more transparent is very fundamental to our democracy.

We have made improvement over the years, and I am pleased to have been one of the authors of the Electronic Freedom of Information Act of 1996. This important law was intended to make FOIA more efficient by providing public access to information, including in an electronic format.

The Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of which I am a member, has held many hearings on FOIA over the past few years, and we have learned that it has not progressed as well as we had hoped. Some agencies and Departments are doing a better job of fulfilling freedom of information requests, while some continue to have terrible records and lag far, far behind. Requesters often wait months or years to find out the status of their requests or to obtain the information. And I am pleased that we have report language that clarifies that they have to get back quickly on requests and at least let them know where they are.

As a result, the backlogs at agencies and Departments continue to grow, and frequently the only recourse for the denial of requested information is to file lawsuits. But many people, many Americans cannot afford the high costs associated with court costs. So by not moving in a timely manner, you are depriving them of this information.

H.R. 1309 includes many important provisions that my colleagues have spoken about and that I hope will improve the process and eliminate the problems that exist in today's system, including an amendment that I offered in committee that would provide for greater disclosure to the FOIA requester about the exemption under which a deletion has been made from requested material.

I often hear from constituents, they come to my office with piles of FOIA requests and like the whole thing is redacted and there is absolutely no explanation why. This is really not fair, and we hope that this amendment will improve the process.

I am pleased that it was accepted in a bipartisan way by Ranking Member Davis and Ranking Member Turner. I really feel this legislation is long overdue, and I commend Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis and Chairman Clay and Ranking Member Turner for bringing this bipartisan legislation to the floor with the many other very important sunshine bills to make our government more open and accountable to the American public.

I rise, Mr. Speaker, in strong support of the rule, H. Res. 239, and the underlying bill, H.R. 985, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act.

And I want to commend, not only the Rules Committee for coming forward with a fair rule, but also Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis for moving this important bill out of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee on which I serve.

The Whistleblower Protection Act has been weakened by court cases in recent years, and even the weak protections offered under the Whistleblower Protection Act do not apply to national security whistleblowers or contractors at those agencies.

The Oversight Committee repeatedly has heard from people who have had their security clearances revoked after blowing the whistle. In some cases they have been fired for pointing out lapses in security, for pointing out waste, fraud and abuse.

We have been told that wrongdoers have been allowed to continue their actions, while the whistleblowers have been the ones that have been made to suffer. This is absolutely wrong.

In the 109th Congress I was joined by my colleague, Diane Watson, in offering an amendment during the committee's consideration of the Federal Employee Protection of Disclosures Act, that would have extended whistleblower protections to employees in national security and in the intelligence community.

I would argue, and I believe many of my colleagues would agree, that revealing lapses in the security of our

Nation is a national security priority above all. Whistleblowers in these categories should be protected.

And I am thrilled that, under Democratic leadership, this has been included in the bill, that these protections have been extended to employees of intelligence agencies, and to Federal contractors in intelligence agencies. This is an important step forward for the American public. This is an important step forward, I would argue, for the national security of our country.

Whistleblowers are heroes and heroines. They should not be turned into villains and be harassed out of their jobs, denied their security clearance because they see a breach in security or a breach in accountability in our government.

So I am thrilled with this Democratic bill, and I urge my colleagues to vote for the rule and also for the underlying bill. I urge all of my colleagues to support it. It had bipartisan support coming out of our committee.