Floor Statements

I am very grateful to be here for this hour. And I hope some of my colleagues will join me on a very important discussion about embryonic stem cell research and the huge alternative--``the'' alternative--adult stem cells, that have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that it is not only ethical, but it works.

Madam Speaker, at a time when highly significant--even historic-- breakthroughs in adult stem cell research have become almost daily occurrences, and almost to the point of being mundane, President Obama has chosen to turn back the clock and, beginning just 3 days ago, will force taxpayers to subsidize the unethical over the ethical, the unworkable over what works, and hype and hyperbole over hope.

Human embryo destroying stem cell research is not only unethical, unworkable, and unreliable, it is now demonstrably unnecessary. Assertions that leftover embryos are better off dead so that their stem cells can be derived is dehumanizing, and it cheapens human life.

There is no such thing as a leftover human life. Ask the snowflake children, Madam Speaker, ask their parents. Snowflake children are those cryogenically frozen embryos who were adopted while still frozen. This past Monday, I had the privilege of being with several of those children. They look just like any other kid, any other child. And those kids could have been subjected to embryo-destroying research or they could have been poured down the drain. But thankfully, the donors, the biological parents, decided that they are better off alive and flourishing. And these kids, like so many of the other snowflake children that I have met in the past, were just like any other child.

Life is a continuum, Madam Speaker. It does not begin at the moment of birth. It starts at the moment of fertilization and continues unabated, unless interfered with, until natural death. Birth is an event that happens to your life and to mine, it is not the beginning of life.

Madam Speaker, a recent spectacular breakthrough in the noncontroversial adult stem cell research and clinical applications to effectuate cures or the mitigation of disease or disability have been well documented. For several years, significant progress has been achieved with adult stem cells derived from nonembryonic sources, including umbilical cord blood, bone marrow, brain, amniotic fluid, skin, and even fat cells. Patients with a myriad of diseases, including leukemia, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, sickle cell anemia, and dozens of other diseases have significantly benefited from adult stem cell transfers.

In 2005, Madam Speaker, I wrote a law, the Stem Cell Research and Transplantation Act of 2005. It was legislation that created a national program of bone marrow and cord blood, umbilical cord blood--or that blood that is found in the placenta--that is teeming with stem cells of high value that can be coaxed into becoming pluripotent, capable of becoming anything in the human body.

We know for a fact that cord blood stem cells can mitigate, and in some cases even cure--and there have been several--those suffering from sickle cell anemia. One out of every 500 African Americans, unfortunately, have sickle cell anemia. And cord blood transfers have the capacity and the capability to effectuate cures or the mitigation of that disease. And we have several examples.

I remember when the bill was stuck--first here, and then on the Senate side. We were able to bring people, including Dr. Julius Erving, to a press conference to appeal to the House and Senate leadership to bring that legislation forward simply because it would save lives, but it was being held hostage by the hype and the hyperbole of embryonic stem cell research, which has not cured anyone. The legislation passed the House. Finally, it was dislodged from the Senate and became law. And now we have a nationwide network overseen by HRSA, under the Department of Health and Human Services, to grow our capacity--the number of specimens of cord blood stem cells--to type it, freeze it, use best practices, and promote cures.

Now, the greatest of all breakthroughs--the greatest, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many eminent scientists--is what is known as induced pluripotent stem cells. And I say to my colleagues, and I say to anyone who may be listening on C-SPAN, iPS cells, induced pluripotent stem cells, are the future and the greatest hope for cures. They are embryo-like, but they are not embryos. There is no killing of an embryo to derive the stem cells.

On November 20, 2007, Japanese scientist, Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, and Wisconsin researcher, Dr. James Thomson, shocked the scientific community by independently announcing their ability to derive induced pluripotent stem cells by reprogramming regular skin cells. And unlike embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors, and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong antirejection medicines are administered, induced pluripotent stem cells, iPS cells, have none of those deficiencies, and again, are emerging as the future, the greatest hope of regenerative medicine.

Mr. Obama is way behind the times. Making Americans pay for embryo- destroying stem cell research is not change we can believe in--far from it--it is politics.

A decade ago, the false hope of embryo-destroying research made it difficult to oppose, no doubt. There was a lot of hype, a lot of hot air--much of it well meaning, perhaps--but it was very misleading. That is no longer the case. So the question arises; why persist in the dehumanizing of nascent human life when better alternatives exist, alternatives that work on both ethics grounds and efficacy grounds? Nonembryonic stem cell research is the present and it is the future of regenerative medicine, and the only responsible way forward.

I would be happy to yield to my good friend and colleague for any time he would like to take.

I thank Mr. Pence for his excellent remarks, and for the logic, the compelling logic that he brings to the floor, not just today, but so often.

This is a human rights issue. It is also a patient issue. You know, one of the overlooked--and the mainstream press sometimes gets it right, but we are only beginning to see, in some of the commentary post-decision on Monday by President Obama, one of the things he lifted was an executive order that President Bush put into effect on June 20, 2007 expanding approved stem cell lines in ethically responsible ways. And it provided a boost to the National Institutes of Health to do research on alternative sources of pluripotent stem cells that prioritizes research with the greatest potential for clinical benefit. He revoked this--he being President Obama. In other words, that which has worked, that has absolutely stunned, in a positive way, the community, the scientific community, now takes a back seat to what is essentially abortion politics, turning that which is unborn, that which is newly created into a commodity that could be destroyed at will.

Let me also say that the Washington Post had an excellent piece today by Kathleen Parker, and the headline was ``Behind the Cell Curve, Why is the President Ignoring a Scientific Gift?''

Kathleen points out: ``One fact is that since Obama began running for President, researchers have made some rather amazing strides in alternative stem cell research. Science and ethics finally fell in love, in other words, and Obama seems to have fallen asleep during the kiss. Either that or he decided that keeping an old political promise was more important than acknowledging new developments. In the process he missed an opportunity to prove that he is pro-science but also sensitive to the concerns of taxpayers who don't want to pay for research that requires embryo destruction.''

She points out that ``in fact, every single one of the successes,'' every one, ``in treating patients with stem cells thus far for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, for example, have involved adult or umbilical cord blood stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.

``The insistence on using embryonic stem cells always rested on the argument that they were pluripotent, capable of becoming any kind of cell. That superior claim no longer can be made with the spectacular discovery,'' as I said at the outset, ``in 2007 of `induced pluripotent stem cells,' '' or iPS cells, ``which was the laboratory equivalent of the airplane. Very simply, iPS cells can be produced from skin cells by injecting genes that force the cells to revert to their primitive `blank state' form with all the same pluripotent capabilities of embryonic stem cells.

``But `induced pluripotent stem cells' don't trip easily off the tongue,'' she goes on to say, ``nor have any celebrities stepped forward to expound their virtues. Even without such drama, however, Time Magazine named iPS innovation number one of its Top Ten Scientific Discoveries of 2007, and the Journal of Science rated it the number one breakthrough of 2008.

``The iPS discovery even prompted Ian Wilmut, who led the team that cloned Dolly the sheep, to abandon his license to attempt human cloning, saying that the researchers `may have achieved what no politician could: an end to the embryonic stem cell debate.' ''

And yet now we see that Barack Obama has put that front and center again, choosing politics over science, over ethics, in promoting embryonic stem cell research when the clear future of stem cell research is in the area of induced pluripotent and in the area of adult stem cells.

I would like to yield to Dr. Broun, a distinguished medical doctor, for any comments he might have.

I thank my very distinguished colleague Dr. Broun. Thank you for your kind words, but more importantly, thank you for the contribution you make, especially given your background.

I think Americans need to know that physicians who believe in the sanctity of life, that patients before birth who might be in need of blood transfusions--I mean one of the things I will never forget, Bernard Nathanson, one of the founders of NARAL, an abortionist himself who did thousands of abortions, quit as the head of the center in New York, and he wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine ``I have come to the agonizing conclusion that I have presided over 60,000 deaths.'' So this innovator, this man who walked in the vanguard of the abortion rights movement, gave it all up. And he did so because, like you, he became a physician who said there are two patients, the unborn child and his or her mother, and both need to be treated with respect. The Hippocratic oath that you cited so eloquently is an admonishment that has fallen by the wayside with some, not all.

The newborn didn't get that way, a healthy newborn, traversing the birth canal. It had to do with good prenatal care. The mom taking care of herself and being treated obviously well by the family so that she could get her proper rest, all the things that lead to a good delivery, it all occurs prior to birth.

So two patients. And that's what led Dr. Nathanson. When he was doing blood transfusions at St. Luke's Hospital and prenatal surgery, and he would say this patient here who deserves respect is getting help he or she needs while in another room of that hospital or clinic, they're getting dismembered or chemically poisoned or killed by some other toxic substance, and they call that abortion and ``free choice.'' It is violence against children and it is injurious to mothers as well.

I just met, Dr. Broun, with some individuals, a father whose daughter committed suicide in New Jersey some time ago as a direct result of an abortion. She was one of the happiest young women imaginable. Her brother and father came to visit me. She went into a very severe mental, and you probably could speak to that very well, downward slope after she had that abortion. The mental complications are very real. I know we're here to talk about embryonic stem cell research, but it is so closely allied to the dehumanization of unborn life and newly created human life. And as I said at the outset, birth is an event that happens to all of us. It is not the beginning of life. The Flat Earth Society folks might say that's when life begins, but 3D ultrasound, 4D ultrasound, has shattered that myth.

I yield to Dr. Broun.

I thank the gentleman for his eloquent statement. We have two Members that want to join in. I would just very briefly say, and I would recommend, that those who may be watching this either look at this in the Record or Google it.

In the U.S. News & World Report, Dr. Bernadine Healy, from Ohio, who used to be the head of the National Institutes of Health, asks a very probing question and then answers it why embryonic stem cells are obsolete. And as she points out, the breakthroughs have been in the areas of adult stem cells. And as she calls the induced pluripotent stem cells--again, the ones that can be taken right from our skin--she calls that the blockbuster discovery of 2007.

Thank you, Mr. Jordan, for your leadership. I think the American public would be pleased to know that you headed up an effort with a Member on the Democratic side, Heath Shuler, and 180 Members signed a letter to the leadership of the House, the Democratic leadership, asking that these pro-life riders--we do not want our funding, our tax dollars being used to facilitate to kill children.

Mr. Olson.

Mr. Olson, thank you very much, and I appreciate your leadership and your consistency in respecting all human life, including the unborn child. So, thank you for joining us today.

Let me just make a few final comments, Madam Speaker. While President Obama and some Members of Congress still don't get it, the breakthrough in adult stem cell research has not been lost on the mainstream press.

For example, on November 21, 2007, Reuters reported, and I quote, ``Two separate teams of researchers announced on Tuesday they had transformed ordinary skin cells into batches of cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells, but without using cloning technology and without making embryos.''

The New York Times reported on the same day, and I quote, ``Two teams of scientists reported yesterday that they had turned human skin cells into what appears to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo--a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.''

The AP said, ``Scientists have created the equivalent of embryonic stem cells from ordinary skin cells, a breakthrough that could someday produce new treatments without the explosive moral questions of embryo cloning.''

Even University of Wisconsin's Dr. James Thomson, the man who first cultured embryonic stem cells, told the New York Times, and I quote, ``Now with the new technique, it will not be long before the stem cell wars are a distant memory. A decade from now, this will just be a funny historical footnote.''

Dr. Thomson told the Detroit Free Press, ``While ducking ethical debate wasn't the goal, it is probably the beginning of the end of the controversy over embryonic stem cells.''

If only that were true because, unfortunately, on Monday our Federal taxpayers' dollars will be used now to destroy embryos to derive their stem cells, even though they become tumors, if ever put into an individual, would be rejected and, of course, we know that they kill the donor when they are taken.

In Medical News Today, Dr. Thomson said, and I say this again, ``Speaking about the latest breakthrough, the induced cells do all the things embryonic cells do. It's going to completely change the field,'' he said. Again, this is the doctor who, in the late 1990s, gave us embryonic stem cells. He is saying induced pluripotent stem cells, those derived from your skin and mine, can be embryo-like, and really is the hope of regenerative medicine.

Ten days ago, more good news. No, I would actually say it is great news on the induced pluripotent stem cell front. Research teams from the United Kingdom and Canada published two papers in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, announcing that they had successfully reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into induced pluripotent skin cells without the use of viruses to transmit the reprogramming genes to the cell. ``With their new discovery, which they used a piggyback system, as they called it, they were able to insert DNA where they could alter the genetic makeup of the regular cell before being harmlessly removed.

``According to many scientists, the removal of potentially cancer- causing viruses means that this breakthrough increases the likelihood that iPS cells will be safe for clinical use in human patients. The lead scientist from Canada, Andras Nagy, was quoted in the Washington Post saying--this is just a week ago--``It's a leap forward in the safe application of these cells. We expect this to have a massive impact on this field.''

George Daley at Children's Hospital in Boston said, and I quote, ``It is very significant. I think it's a major step forward in realizing the value of these cells for medical research.''

Many people seem to be getting it, except for Mr. Obama, who clings to the old hype and the hyperbole concerning the efficacy of embryo- destroying stem cells. Science has moved on. It's about time the politicians caught up.

This breakthrough suggests--remember, it's just 2 weeks ago, this newest breakthrough--that the momentum has decisively, and I hope irrevocably, swung to noncontroversial stem cell research, like iPS stem cells, and away from embryo-destroying research.

The lead scientist from the UK was quoted in the BBC saying, ``It is a step towards the practical use of reprogrammed cells in medicine, perhaps even eliminating the need for human embryos as a source of stem cells.''

Time Magazine reports on the efficacy of the advantage of iPS stem cells saying, ``The induced pluripotent stem cell technology is the ultimate manufacturing process for cells. It is now possible for researchers to churn out unlimited quantities of a patient's stem cells, which can then be turned into any of the cells that the body might need to repair or to replace.''

Madam Speaker, there was an excellent op ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, which I read just a few paragraphs from, which I think really highlights and underscores the profound ethical issues we are facing. It was written by Robert George and Eric Cohen. The title, the President Politicizes Stem Cell Research. Taxpayers Have a Right to be Left Out of it.

``Yesterday, President Barack Obama issued an executive order that authorizes expanded Federal funding for research using stem cells produced by destroying human embryos. The announcement was classic Obama--advancing radical policies while seeming calm and moderate, and preaching the gospel of civility while accusing those who disagree with the policies of being; `divisive' and even `politicizing science.'

``Mr. Obama's executive order overturned an attempt by President George W. Bush in 2001 to do justice to both the promise of stem cell science and the demands of ethics. The Bush policy was to allow the government to fund research on existing embryonic stem cell lines, where the embryos in question had already been destroyed. But it would not fund or in any which incentivize the ongoing destruction of human embryos.

``For years, this policy was attacked by advocates of embryo- destructive research. Mr. Bush and the `religious right' were depicted as antiscience villains and embryonic stem cells scientists were seen as the beleaguered saviors of the sick. In reality, Mr. Bush's policy was one of moderation. It did not ban new embryonic-destructive research, and did not fund new embryo-destroying research either;

`Moderate' Mr. Obama's policy is not. It will promote a whole new industry of embryo creation and destruction, including the creation of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are destroyed. It forces American taxpayers, including those who see the deliberate taking of human life in the embryonic stage as profoundly unjust, to be complicit in this practice.

``Mr. Obama made a big point in his speech of claiming to bring integrity back to science policy, and his desire to remove the previous administration's ideological agenda from scientific decision-making. This claim of taking science out of politics is false and misguided on two counts.

``First, the Obama policy is itself blatantly political. It is red meat to his Bush-hating base. It pays no more than lip service to recent scientific breakthroughs,'' that I would note parenthetically, I and my colleagues have been talking about tonight, ``that makes possible the production of cells that are biologically equivalent to embryonic stem cells without the need to create or kill human embryos.

``Inexplicably--apart from political motivations--Mr. Obama revoked not only the Bush restrictions on embryo-destructive research funding, but also his 2007 executive order that encourages the National Institutes of Health to explore non-embryo-destructive sources of stem cells.

Second, and more fundamentally, the claim about taking politics out of science is, in the deepest sense, anti-Democratic. The question of whether to destroy human embryos for research purposes is not fundamentally a scientific question. It is a moral and civic question about the proper uses, ambitions, and limits of science; it is a question about how we will treat members of the human family at the very dawn of life; our willingness to seek alternative paths to medical progress that respect human dignity.

``For those who believe in the highest ideals of deliberative democracy and those who believe we mistreat the most vulnerable human lives at our own moral peril, Mr. Obama's claim of taking politics out of science should be lamented, not celebrated.

``In the years ahead, the stem cell debate will surely continue-- raising, as it does, big questions about the meaning of human equality at the edges of human life, about the relationship between science and politics, and about how we govern ourselves when it comes to morally charged issues of public policy on which reasonable people happen to disagree.

``We can only hope in the years ahead that scientific creativity will make embryo destruction unnecessary and that, as a society, we will not pave the way to the brave new world with the best medical intentions.''

Madam Speaker, I just conclude by saying that despite all of the new and the extraordinary processes in adult stem cell research and applications, despite these magnificent breakthroughs in induced pluripotent stem cells, a part of adult stem cells, the Obama administration and, I am sad to say, the leadership of this House, remain fixated on killing human embryos for experimentation at taxpayers' expense.

The alternative has continued and will continue to prove itself to be highly efficacious. That is to say, adult stem cells. We don't need to kill human embryos to effectuate cures and to mitigate disease.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam, Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 27 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, March 12, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, I would like to submit the following earmark request:

1.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Army Corps of Engineers--Operations and Maintenance

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: The New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway navigation project provides a safe, reliable, and efficient navigation channel for the East Coast's largest and the 5th most valuable commercial fishing fleet in the U.S. and nine U.S. Coast Guard Stations, including the only U.S. Coast Guard enlistee training base in the U.S. Funding in the amount of $888,000 will be used to repair a critically damaged bulkhead in Point Pleasant, NJ by performing channel exams, maintenance dredging of the ferry area, Cape May Canal bank stabilization & maintenance, rehabilitation of the steel bulkhead, repairing Point Pleasant Canal Old Bridge Abutments, and maintenance dredging segment 2.

2.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Army Corps of Engineers--Operations and Maintenance

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: This Manasquan River, NJ project provides safe, reliable, and efficient navigation channel for the busiest inlet in NJ. Funding in the amount of $337,000 will be used to monitor the jetty, perform maintenance dredging of the entrance channel and repair retaining wall curb.

3.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Army Corps of Engineers--Construction

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: Funding in the amount of $957,000 will be used for the Sandy Hook to Barnegat Inlet, NJ project to continue the construction of the sand renourishment phase of Section II of this critical shore protection project, an area that extends from Belmar to Manasquan, NJ and incorporates the beaches of several coastal towns in Monmouth County, NJ. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is the non-Federal sponsor of this project and will pay a third of the costs.

4.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Army Corps of Engineers--Investigations--Feasibility Study

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: Funding for the NJ Shoreline Alternative Long-Term Nourishment in the amount of $96,000 will be used to continue the Feasibility phase of this study. Work will continue to evaluate all of New Jersey's coastal projects, including the different reaches of beach replenishment projects, as a system to ensure maximum benefits are achieved from the Federal investment and reduce long-term periodic nourishment costs. This includes developing a regional sediment budget and an improved understanding of regional coastal processes, implementation of an efficient regional monitoring program, and development of a comprehensive beach, inlet, and borrow area management strategy. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is the non- Federal sponsor and will provide a 50/50 cost share.

5.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Army Corps of Engineers--Investigations--Feasibility Study

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: Funding in the amount of $277,000 will be used to continue the plan formulation effort for the Feasibility study to evaluate the alternative solutions to the region's problems regarding flooding along the Delaware River and tributaries will begin. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is the non- Federal sponsor and will provide a 50/50 cost share.

6.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105 Account: Army Corps of Engineers-- Construction--Continuing Authorities Program Section 1135

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: Funding for the Assunpink Creek Basin, NJ will be used to implement the Project Partnership Agreement and initiate and complete the design. Funding can also be used to award the construction contract.

7.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Army Corps of Engineers--Continuing Authorities Program-- Section 205

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Army Corps of Engineers

Description of Request: The Assunpink Creek study area is located between the flood control dam at Mercer County Park in West Windsor and the City of Trenton. Benefits from flood damage reduction projects include saving structures and contents from flood damage, the savings from alleviation of cleanup costs, and reduction of the costs of flood fighting and evacuation. The ACE will use the funding for flood plain reconnection, stream restoration, wetland creation, impervious cover removal, flood proofing and flood plain management to be the most likely alternative given the highly urbanized setting of the area.

8.) Requesting Member: Rep. Chris Smith

Bill Number: H.R. 1105

Account: Department of Energy EERE--Solar Energy

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Isles, Inc.

Address of Requesting Agency: 10 Wood Street, Trenton, New Jersey 08618

Description of Request: The ``Solar and Green Retrofit'' project will house an environmental center and be a showcase for green buildings, with renovations incorporating cutting-edge, high performance environmental technology, including solar photovoltaic panels on the roof, expansive interior day lighting, and energy efficient heating and cooling systems.

Financial Plan:

Green Roof Installation $100,000

Solar Array Installation $100,000

Associated Design Fees $37,875

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: U.S. Department of Transportation/FHWA/Federal-Aid Highways

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: The City of Trenton

Address of Requesting Entity: Trenton City Hall, 319 E. State Street, Trenton, NJ 08608

Description of Request: I have secured $188,750 in funding for the city of Trenton to capitalize on the economic potential generated by the new $70 million Trenton Train Station rehabilitation project. The City of Trenton has a redevelopment plan for the area requiring upgrading some critical road, pedestrian, and other infrastructure. The City of Trenton also plans to fund this project.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: U.S. Department of Transportation Buses and Bus Facilities

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: New Jersey Transit

Address of Requesting Entity: New Jersey Transit, One Penn Plaza, East Newark, NJ 07105

Description of Request: I have secured $1,021,250 in funding for the Lakewood Township shuttle service project. This shuttle service would efficiently move people in this growing and congested area of Central New Jersey. The funding would be used to purchase additional shuttle buses, provide sheltered bus stops, establish loading and drop-off zones, provide parking for mass transit vehicles, and parking for private vehicles.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: U.S. Department of Transportation FTA New Starts

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: New Jersey Transit

Address of Requesting Entity: New Jersey Transit, One Penn Plaza, East Newark, NJ 07105

Description of Request: I have secured $534,375 in funding for the MOM Line for the Design Environmental Impact Study (DEIS) stage. The MOM line would provide Central New Jersey residents with access to Northern New Jersey and New York City.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: U.S. Department of Transportation Bus and Bus Facilities

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: The Arc of Mercer County

Address of Requesting Entity: The Arc of Mercer County, 180 Ewingville Road, Ewing, NJ 08638

Description of Request: I have secured $95,000 in funding for the Arc of Mercer County to provide cost effective transportation services for individuals with disabilities and senior citizens in the Mercer County area. This service is needed to supplement existing county and state services and provide efficiency through coordinated efforts. The Arc is also contributing to this project.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: Housing and Urban Development Department Economic Development Initiative Program

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: The Special Children's Center

Address of Requesting Entity: The Special Children's Center, Lakewood Township Municipal Building, 231 Third Street, Lakewood, NJ 08701.

Description of Request: I have secured $142,500 in funding for the Special Children's Center. The funding would be used to help defer the costs of constructing a new building for the Special Children's Center. The Township of Lakewood has contributed toward the project and there have been private donations.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he might consume to my good friend and colleague, Zach Wamp.

I thank my good friend, but especially for his extraordinary work on banning human cloning and for his leadership on life issues in general.

Madam Speaker, human embryo-destroying stem cell research is not only unethical, unworkable and unreliable, it is now demonstrably unnecessary.

Recent spectacular breakthroughs in noncontroversial adult stem cell research and clinical applications to effectuate cures with the mitigation of disease or disability have been well documented. For several years, significant progress has been achieved with adult stem cells derived from nonembryonic sources, including umbilical cord blood, bone marrow, brain, amniotic fluid, skin and even fat cells. Patients with diseases, including leukemia, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, sickle cell anemia and dozens of other maladies have significantly benefitted from adult stem cell transfers.

Members will recall back in 2005, President Bush signed legislation that I authored, along with my friend and colleague, Mr. Artur Davis, which provided $265 million to establish a comprehensive nationwide network to collect, type and disseminate, using best practices, umbilical cord blood, the aftermath, the leftover, the medical waste, after a baby is born.

Some 4 million women give birth in the United States every year. In the past, the umbilical cord and the placenta was simply thrown away, despite the fact that it is teeming with stem cells that could be used to effectuate cures and to mitigate disease. The legislation combined cord blood and bone marrow efforts under HRSA, so now we have a program, a nationwide program, to try to help people who are suffering from serious disease.

We know that leukemia patients can be greatly benefitted, in some cases cured, from leukemia as a result of those transplants. Many of our African-American friends, some 1 out of every 500 who suffer from sickle cell anemia can also benefit greatly from these kinds of transplantations. That legislation is being run by HRSA and it is working.

Adult stem cells, Madam Speaker, are truly remarkable. They work, they have no ethical baggage, and advances are made every day at a dizzying pace.

But perhaps the greatest breakthrough of all, Madam Speaker, was the discovery of a process that turns every day ordinary skin cells into pluripotent embryo-like stem cells.

On November 20, 2007, Japanese scientists Shinya Yamanaka and Wisconsin researcher James Thompson shocked the scientific community by independently announcing their ability to derive pluripotent stem cells to the reprogramming of regular skin cells, regular skin cells turned into pluripotent skin cells. The iPS cells, as they are called, are made by adding a small number of factors or genes to regular skin cells in a Petri dish that can remodel mature cells into stem cells that are functionally identical to those obtained from embryos.

In other words, Madam Speaker, scientists have found a way of transforming your cells, skin cells, and mine, into stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS. Pluripotent stem cells are those miraculous building block cells that can be coaxed into becoming any type of tissue found in the human body.

Unlike embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong anti-rejection medicines are administered, induced pluripotent cells, stem cells, have none of those deficiencies and are emerging as the future, the greatest hope of regenerative medicine. While some Members of Congress and President Obama still don't get it, the breakthroughs have not been lost on the mainstream press.

For example, on November 21 Reuters reported, and I quote, ``Two separate teams of researchers announced on Tuesday they had transformed ordinary skin cells into batches of cells that look and act like embryonic stem cells, but without using cloning technology and without making embryos.''

The New York Times reported on this same day, ``Two teams of scientists reported yesterday that they had turned human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without having to make or destroy an embryo--a feat that could quell the ethical debate troubling the field.''

The Associated Press said, ``Scientists have created the equivalent of embryonic stem cells from ordinary skin cells, a breakthrough that could someday produce new treatments for diseases without the explosive moral questions of embryo cloning.''

Even University of Wisconsin's Dr. James Thompson, the man who first cultured embryonic stem cells, told The New York Times, ``Now with the new technique, which involves adding just four genes to ordinary skin cells, it will not be long before the stem cell wars are a distant memory. `A decade from now, this will just be a funny historical footnote.' ''

Dr. Thompson told the Detroit Free Press, ``While ducking ethical debate wasn't the goal, (it is) probably the beginning of the end of the controversy over embryonic stem cells.''

In Medical News Today, Dr. Thompson went on to say, ``Speaking about this latest breakthrough, the induced cells do all the things embryonic cells do. It's going to completely change the field.

``The other advantage of the new method is the fact that using cells drawn from the patient's own skin, the stem cells can be customized to the patient, bringing numerous benefits, such as the elimination of immune system rejection. They are probably more clinically relevant than embryonic stem cells.''

Madam Speaker, this past Monday, more good news, no, let's call it great news on the iPS front. Research teams from the United Kingdom and Canada published two papers in the prestigious scientific journal, Nature, announcing that they had successfully reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into induced pluripotent skin cells without

the use of viruses to transmit the reprogramming genes to the cell. Using a ``piggyback'' system, as they called it, the scientists were able to insert DNA where they could alter the genetic make-up of the regular cell before being harmlessly removed.

According to many scientists, the removal of potentially cancer- causing viruses means this breakthrough increases the likelihood that iPS cells will be safe for clinical use in human patients. The lead scientist from Canada, Andras Nagy, was quoted in the Washington Post saying, ``It's a leap forward in the safe application of these cells. We expect this to have a massive impact on this field.''

And George Daley at Children's Hospital in Boston said, ``It's very significant. I think it's a major step forward in realizing the value of these cells for medical research.''

This breakthrough, Madam Speaker, suggests the momentum has decisively and irrevocably swung to noncontroversial stem cell research like iPS cells and away from embryo-destroying research. The lead scientist from the UK was quoted in the BBC saying, ``It is a step towards the practical use of reprogrammed cells in medicine, perhaps even eliminating the need for human embryos as a source of stem cells.''

Finally, in the Washington Post Dr. Nagy made a series of interesting comments this week. First, that his studies showed that the iPS cells had many of the properties of embryonic stem cells. Secondly, while the research in this case was done on fetal cells, the approach had worked equally well with adult stem cells. And, third, since iPS cell research should no longer require the specialization of virus labs and researchers, the number of researchers working on iPS cells is expected to increase again beyond the large number already devoting their attention to induced pluripotent cells since November of 2007. There has been an explosion in this area, because this holds the greatest promise.

Time magazine reports, reporting on the efficacy and the advantage of iPS stem cells, ``The iPS technology is the ultimate manufacturing process for cells; it is now possible for researchers to churn out unlimited quantities of a patient's stem cells, which can then be turned into any of the cells that the body might need to replace or repair.''

Despite all of this, Madam Speaker, this new and extraordinary progress in the iPS and adult stem cell research arena, the Obama administration and the House and Senate Democratic leadership remain obsessed with killing human embryos for experimentation at taxpayer expense.

Why persist in the dehumanizing of nascent human life when better alternatives exist, alternatives that work on both ethics grounds and efficacy grounds. Nonembryonic stem cell research is the present and it is the future of regenerative medicine, and the only responsible way forward.

At this point, Madam Speaker, I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague, Virginia Foxx.

Thank you, Congresswoman Foxx, for your wonderful and very incisive comments today, and I really appreciate your leadership on life issues as well, especially when it comes to embryonic stem cell research and the alternative that is, without question, adult stem cells and especially induced pluripotent stem cells derived from such everyday skin that we all carry on our bodies, which has proven to be highly efficacious and works, and I think it is the future.

I would like to now yield to Mr. Fortenberry.

I thank Mr. Fortenberry for his leadership. He has shown, since he has been here, himself to be not only a leader but someone who thinks both inside and outside the box on so many human rights and humanitarian issues. And this is a human rights and humanitarian issue, and I thank him for his contribution not just today on the floor but every day as a Member of this august body.

I would like to yield to Mr. Forbes.

And before doing so, I'd just remind our colleagues that a couple of years ago, Mr. Forbes and Mr. Lipinski brought a researcher from Brazil and a researcher from the United States who had another breakthrough, in this case cord blood, for type 1 diabetics. And some of the diabetics, virtually all except two, who had been given cord blood transplantation got off their insulin. They were no longer insulin dependent. And, again, so many people in this Chamber, so many people in the White House, and perhaps even HHS don't seem to get it; that the real progress, the real advances are being made in the realm of adult stem cells, and those kinds of advances are being made each and every day. And Mr. Forbes is the prime sponsor of some very, very important legislation dealing with adult stem cells, which I hope he will elaborate on.

I yield to Mr. Forbes.

Thank you to Randy for his extraordinary contribution and for his leadership on these issues, especially having dealt with and currently dealing with such a difficult hardship with his own family.

I will never forget when Parkinson's disease and fetal tissue transplantation in the mid-1990s was being offered as the panacea, the brass ring, to try to end that very horrible disease, which we all know people, you know it personally in your own family. Unfortunately, we found very quickly that taking fetal tissue from a baby about to be aborted turned out to be an unmitigated disaster as this very unstable group of cells would very quickly proliferate and became various bone tissue and other tissue inside the brain, causing worse convulsions and tremors on the part of the patients in whom the transplantation was given.

I think we have a very similar parallel today where there is an excessive amount of hype and hyperbole about embryonic stem cells, which have an unbelievable propensity, very grave propensity, to become tumors. Not only are they killing embryos to derive the stem cells, but once those stem cells are in hand they become tumors, they are unstable, and, if transplanted into humans, there is a great fear that we would see a replication of the fetal tissue debacle of the mid- 1990s.

As you pointed out so well, Randy, there is an ethical alternative that does not have the rejection factor, will not require anti- rejection drugs, whether it be Celsep or any of these other drugs that those that get transplants get. None of that would happen. And you don't have the tumor formations from these IPS cells.

As you said, the pioneers of embryonic stem cells are now the pioneers of the ethical IPS.

Mr. Jordan.

I would just say to my friend, I thank you for your leadership as well. You are new to the Congress. Not that new. You certainly have stepped out time and time again, and it is greatly appreciated by all.

It is interesting that before we have had votes on embryonic stem cell research in this body, Members who take the other view have taken to the floor, to the well of the House, and said things like this, this is from Rahm Emanuel as reported by The Washington Post, I remember when he said it, ``It is ironic that every time we vote on this legislation, [embryonic stem cell research, embryo destroying research legislation] all of a sudden there is a major scientific discovery that basically says you don't have to do embryonic stem cell research.''

Our good friend and colleague Diana DeGette said, ``I find it very interesting that every time we bring this bill up there is a scientific breakthrough.''

That is because, Madam Speaker, almost every day there is a scientific breakthrough in the area of adult stem cell and the induced pluripotent stem cells. The skin cells that have been turned into embryo stem cells without destroying or killing an embryo, without the ethical baggage, that is the biggest breakthrough of all. And it seems to me that we should be rejoicing. We have moved beyond the ethical debate because we have something in hand that is the promise and the hope of regenerative medicine.

I would like to yield to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Fleming.

I thank my good friend, Mr. Fleming, for his contribution and for his leadership. I would like to yield to Mr. Bilirakis 3 minutes.

Mr. Bilirakis, thank you so much.

Mrs. Bachmann.

Mrs. Bachmann, thank you very much for your leadership and your very eloquent words.

I yield such time as he may consume to Mr. Mark Souder.

Thank you very much, Mr. Souder.

Let me just say in conclusion, Madam Speaker, that the present and the future of regenerative medicine, which holds great promise and hope for each and every one of us, every one of us has members of our own family who have suffered from degenerative diseases, developmental disabilities and the like. We all know the pain and the agony.

I chair or co-chair the Autism Caucus, the Spina Bifida Caucus, the Alzheimer's Caucus, and believe passionately in trying to find cures for diseases. But the future of regenerative medicine is with adult stem cells, including and especially non-embryonic but embryo-like induced pluripotent

stem cells, iPS. That has to become, iPS, a household word.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: Small Business Administration

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Beth Medrash Govoha

Address of Requesting Entity: 617 6th Street, Lakewood, NJ 08701

Description of Request: Beth Medrash Govoha Cedarbridge Corporate Office Park and Small Business Incubator in Lakewood, NJ was listed as receiving $232,750 in the Small Business Administration account in Division D of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This small business incubator will be able to house up to 1.5 million square feet of office and laboratory space and is projected to attract small businesses as well as large corporate entities and create over a thousand new jobs. The funding will be used for architectural services, engineering, and construction of the first building, along with project administration, development and future planning for the remainder of the parcel. Cedarbridge is also receiving state and township funding for this project.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the House Republican standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of HR 1105, the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Byrne Discretionary Grants

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation

Address of Requesting Entity: PO Box 9956, Trenton, New Jersey 08650

Description of Request: I have secured a $56,000 designated grant for the Megan Nicole Kanka Foundation, Check 'Em Out program in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This funding is to be used to purchase equipment to assist in background checks on volunteers at community recreation departments and athletic leagues. The Kanka Foundation is fundraising to share in the cost of this program.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Juvenile Justice

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: DARE New Jersey

Address of Requesting Entity: 292 Prospect Plains Road, Cranberry, New Jersey 08512

Description of Request: DARE New Jersey, Inc. is listed as receiving a $200,000 grant for the High School Drug and Safety Prevention Project in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This funding will be used to teach students proper decision making skills and how to resist peer pressure in order to live drug and violence free lives. DARE's current budget includes additional funding for this program.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Juvenile Justice

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Police Athletic League of New Jersey

Address of Requesting Entity: 180 South Street, Freehold, NJ 07728

Description of Request: The Police Athletic League of New Jersey, PAL of NJ After School Initiative, is listed as receiving $1,500,000 in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This funding will be used to provide after school athletic activities for students 8-16 years old in order to deter juvenile crime. PAL is committed to raising additional funding through local business and individual donations.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Byrne Discretionary Grants

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Greater Trenton Area YMCA

Address of Requesting Entity: 431 Pennington Avenue, Trenton, New Jersey 08075

Description of Request: I have secured a $450,000 federal grant for the Greater Trenton Area YMCA in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This funding will be allocated for the completion of the new YMCA

building. The Greater Trenton Area YMCA has secured additional monies through loans and contributions.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Juvenile Justice

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: KidsBridge

Address of Requesting Entity: 4556 South Broad Street, 2nd Floor, Trenton, New Jersey 08620

Description of Request: I have secured a grant of $94,000 for KidsBridge Life Skills, Gang Resistance and Violence Prevention in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. This funding will be used for weekly crime prevention programs for middle school students. KidsBridge is a non-profit organization which hosts fundraisers and has permanent sponsors to facilitate the needs of the organization.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Byrne Discretionary Grants

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Trenton

Address of Requesting Entity: 319 E State Street, Trenton, New Jersey 08608

Description of Request: The City of Trenton is listed as receiving a $600,000 grant in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009, for YouthStat Violence and Gang Prevention. The funding will be used to provide participants with customized community based programming including mentoring, work experience, life skills development and recreation for juveniles that are at the highest risk for gang and criminal involvement. The City of Trenton will also provide financial support as necessary.

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 1105

Account: OJP--Byrne Discretionary Grants

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Mercer County

Address of Requesting Entity: 640 South Broad Street, Trenton, New Jersey 08650

Description of Request: The Mercer County Ex-Offender Re-Entry Initiative of Mercer County, New Jersey is listed as receiving a $215,000 grant in Division B of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. The funding will be used to provide a comprehensive case management program for prisoners returning to the community from the Mercer County Correctional facility after a term of incarceration. The County will provide additional funding for this program.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I submitted two pro- life, pro-child, pro-women amendments to the Rules Committee and asked that they be made in order. Regrettably, both were rejected.

As a direct, absolutely predictable consequence of President Obama's abortion export order a few weeks ago nullifying the Mexico City policy, an Obama action that the Gallup poll found that 58 percent of the people oppose him, 35 percent support him--as a result of that order, there will be significantly more abortions worldwide, more dead babies, and more wounded women.

Now the number of innocent children forced to die from dismemberment, decapitation, or chemical poisoning by abortion will increase significantly mostly in Africa and Latin America.

The pro-abortion organizations who will divvy up the $545 million pot of U.S. taxpayer grant money contained in the bill have made it abundantly clear that they will aggressively promote, lobby, litigate, and perform abortions on demand in developing countries. My amendment would have prevented that.

Flush with U.S. funding, foreign pro-abortion NGOs will be regarded in those countries as an extension of American values and mores. In your name and mine, and in the name of the American people pro-abortion organizations will unleash massive death, pain, sorrow, and destruction on babies, women, and families.

The second amendment, Mr. Speaker, would have preserved the Kemp- Kasten anti-coercion amendment. That amendment, while it's in the bill, is actually gutted by language also in the bill that says that funds made available to the UNFPA shall be made available notwithstanding any other provision of law. So it's gutted. My amendment would strike the notwithstanding language and reiterate the anti-coercion text.

The U.N. Population Fund, Mr. Speaker, has actively supported, comanaged and whitewashed the most pervasive crimes against women in human history, yet the omnibus Appropriations bill gives them $50 million and a slap on the wrist.

China's one-child-per-couple policy relies on pervasive coerced abortion, involuntary sterilization, ruinous fines in the amounts of up to 10 times the salary of both parents, imprisonment, job loss or demotion to achieve its quotas. In China today, with UNFPA enabling acquiescence and facilitation, brothers and sisters are illegal. Illegal kids--siblings! Women are told when and if they can have even the one child permitted by law. Unwed mothers, even if the baby is their first, are forcibly aborted.

Women are severely harmed emotionally, psychologically and physically, yet for the past three decades the UNFPA has been China's chief apologist as well as program trainer, facilitator and funder.

So, Mr. Speaker, how does Congress respond to the UNFPA's unconscionable complicity in China's crimes against Women? Do we demand reform, or the protection of Chinese women and children? Heck no. We gut the anti-coercion law and write a $50 million check to the UNFPA.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I submitted two pro-life, pro-child, pro-women amendments to the

Rules Committee and asked that they be made in order under the pending rule.

Notwithstanding the fact that both the Mexico City Policy amendment and the Kemp-Kasten Anti-Coercion population control amendment have been fundamental foreign policy for the better part of two decades, the Democratic leadership chose to reject both, out of hand, precluding members so much as an up or down vote.

As a direct, absolutely predictable consequence of President Obama's abortion export order a few weeks ago nullifying the Mexico City Policy the number of innocent children who will be forced to die from dismemberment, decapitation, or chemical poisoning by abortion will increase significantly, mostly in Africa and Latin America.

According to a Gallup poll released earlier this month, overturning this pro-life policy was the least popular of the President's actions in his first week in office. In fact 58 percent of those polled opposed overturning the policy and only 35 percent supported funding groups that promote or provide abortion as a method of family planning.

The pro-abortion organizations who will divvy up the $545 million pot of U.S. taxpayer grant money contained in the bill have made it abundantly clear that they will aggressively promote, lobby, litigate and perform abortion on demand in developing countries. My amendment prevents that.

Flush with U.S. funds, foreign pro-abortion NGOs will be almost certainly regarded by people in foreign nations as extensions of American values and mores. Mr. Speaker, in your name and mine and in the name of the American people--pro-abortion organizations will unleash massive death, pain, sorrow and destruction on babies, women and families throughout the world.

President Obama--the Abortion President--has put countless innocent children in harm's way, all while speechifying that he wants to reduce abortion.

And please, let's not kid ourselves any longer. There is nothing whatsoever benign, kind or compassionate about abortion; it is violence against children and wounds women.

The second amendment would have ensured that the Kemp-Kasten anti- coercion proviso in the bill has meaning. On one page of the Omnibus, Kemp-Kasten is seemingly retained intact, only to be completely gutted by text which reads.

Funds appropriated by this act for UNFPA''--$50 million--

``shall be made available to UNFPA notwithstanding any

provision of law . . . .

The U.N. Population Fund has actively supported, co-managed, and white-washed the most pervasive crimes against women in human history.

Yet this bill gives them $50 million and a slap on the wrist.

China's one-child-per-couple policy relies on pervasive, coerced abortion, involuntary sterilization, ruinous fines in amounts up to 10 times the salary of both parents, imprisonment, and job loss or demotion to achieve its quotas.

In China today with UNFPA enabling China's barbaric government policy, brothers and sisters are illegal. Imagine, a government so hostile to siblings that it makes them enemies of the state--and dead.

Women are told by Chinese family planning cadres when--and if--they can have even the one child permitted by law.

Unwed mothers--even if the baby is her first--are forcibly aborted. No exception.

Women are severely harmed emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Chinese women are violated by the state. The suicide rate for Chinese women--about 500 a day--far exceeds suicide anywhere else on earth.

Then there are the missing girls--about 100 million--victims of sex selection abortions. This gendercide is a direct result of the China/ UNFPA one child policy.

In 2008--the U.S. State Department found once again that the UNFPA violated the anti-coercion provision of Kemp-Kasten and reprogrammed all funding originally earmarked for the UNFPA to other maternal health care or family planning projects.

Yet throughout the past three decades, the U.N. Population Fund has remained China's chief apologist, as well as program trainer, facilitator and funder.

So, finally, Mr. Speaker, how does Congress respond to the UNFPA's unconscionable complicity in China's crimes against women? Do we demand reform and protection of Chinese women and children? Heck no. We gut the anti-coercion law and write a $50 million check to the UNFPA.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 39, which recognizes and honors the exemplary contributions of Catholic schools across our Nation. The resolution salutes the commitment, professionalism and faith of the teachers and administrators as well as the achievements in the classroom and in the lives of the students. And we commend today the support of the Catholic Church itself in making this educational opportunity possible.

I would also like to thank Mr. Lipinski for his leadership in bringing this resolution to the floor and ask that my colleagues join us in supporting its passage.

Madam Speaker, Catholic education has and continues to make a tremendous impact in the lives of students, families and communities across America and in my home State of New Jersey. Last year, more than 2.3 million children were enrolled in over 7,000 Catholic schools nationwide. The performance of Catholic schools is impressive. More than 99 percent of its students graduate high school, and approximately 97 percent go on to college. The record clearly shows that students at Catholic schools receive a quality education with an integrated focus on the transcendent importance of God, academic excellence, advancement beyond high school and fundamental morals.

Next week, January 25 to 31, marks the 36th annual celebration of Catholic Schools Week. And this year's theme is to live the Gospel with an emphasis on service. Students are encouraged to help others and generously give of themselves expecting nothing whatsoever in return. In the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus admonished believers to live a life of selfless service to others and specifically asked that we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, care for the sick and disabled, visit the prisoner and welcome the stranger. Identifying with the disenfranchised, the vulnerable and the weakest among us, our Lord said, and I quote, whatsoever you do to the least of My brethren, you do unto Me.

This year's theme celebrates service, encourages students to embrace Matthew 25 and make a positive difference in the lives of others. Many of America's poor and at risk will benefit from the students' benevolence.

Catholic schools, Madam Speaker, are indeed an integral part of our Nation's fundamental commitment to education and serve a cross-section of American students. Catholic schools have a rich history of welcoming, serving and educating new immigrants. With over 25 percent of Catholic school enrollment from minority backgrounds and approximately 14 percent actually being non-Catholics, it is evident that this extraordinary institution meets the needs of a highly diverse group of young people.

Finally, Madam Speaker, a 1972 pastoral message by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops concerning Catholic education summed up the unique and extraordinary vision of Catholic education. They said in pertinent part, and I quote: Education is

one of the most important ways by which the church fulfills its commitment to the dignity of the person and the building of community. Community is central to education ministry, both as a necessary condition and an ardently desired goal. The educational efforts of the church, therefore, must be directed to forming persons-in-community; for the education of the individual Christian is important not only to his or her solitary destiny, but also the destinies of the many communities to which he or she lives.

Again, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this important element of faith-based education which serves alongside America's public and private schools to strengthen and reinforce our educational system.

Mr. Speaker, President Barack Obama's eloquent inauguration speech yesterday was uplifting and historic. The 44th President of the United States of America said in part: ``The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry that precious gift, that noble idea; passed on from generation to generation: The God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.''

Powerful rhetoric indeed, Mr. Speaker. Yet for many of us, even as the President spoke those wonderful words, something seemed amiss, disconnected, and inconsistent with what we understand his true agenda to be.

Clearly not all are free in America. All are not equal or have a chance at happiness.

Today, by direct government action and ongoing complicity, enabling or indifference, especially by Congress, those God-given promises President Obama spoke about are systematically denied to an entire class of American children: Unborn babies.

By reason of their age, dependency, immaturity, inconvenience, or unwantedness, unborn children have been legally rendered persona non grata, and expendable.

Let's be honest, Mr. Speaker. Abortion is violence against children. It dismembers and chemically poisons a child to death. It hurts women physically and psychologically and spiritually. There is nothing whatsoever compassionate, benevolent, ennobling, or benign about abortion. It is a violation of a child's fundamental human rights.

Which begs the question, will our new President extend the ``God- given promise,'' as he put it, of hope and freedom, justice, respect, compassion, and protection and a simple chance at happiness to America's unborn children? Will the President's words be matched by deeds that rescue and save the most vulnerable among us?

Sadly, waiting in the wings, barely visible in the shadows, ready to pounce, lurks the most extreme pro-abortion agenda in American history. If even a portion of the Obama agenda advances by executive order, reinterpretation of existing law, or enactment of new laws like the so- called Freedom of Choice Act, millions of children will die and their mothers will be wounded. And President Obama will be remembered forever not just as a smart, savvy, gifted and eloquent man, but as the Abortion President.

Recently, more than 50 pro-abortion organizations conveyed a 55-page blueprint to promote abortion to the Obama transition team. The document, marching orders, will result in the death for millions of children in America and in foreign countries and will impose incalculable harm and pain on expectant mothers everywhere. The Obama administration and the pro-abortion nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, that prepared it are, as of today, in lockstep. Indeed, many personnel from pro-abortion NGOs have already been embedded in strategic places in the administration where they can foment anti-child policies often undetected and with a degree of stealth.

What follows in the days and months ahead will be a highly choreographed, highly deceptive message amplified by a pliant supportive news media to market the agenda. The propagandists will try to sell the agenda by repeating ad nauseam that their goal is to reduce abortions.

Curiously, the very people who claim to want to reduce the number of abortions will seek to degrade, undermine,

and if they get away with it, repeal outright hundreds of Federal and State pro-life laws that have demonstrated over time to have saved millions of innocent human lives.

Both the pro-abortion Alan Guttmacher Institute and pro-life advocates agree on one thing, and that is that the Federal prohibition on taxpayer funding for abortion significantly reduces the number of abortions. According to the Guttmacher Institute, between 18 and 35 percent of Medicaid patients who would have had an abortion carry their babies to term when Medicaid funding is not available. Similarly, a recent study showed that when laws requiring one parent consent before a minor girl obtains an abortion were enacted, the minor abortion rate was reduced by 19 percent and 31 percent when parental consent was required from both parents. These time-tested policies that have already reduced abortion are now in jeopardy.

The Freedom of Choice Act, if enacted, would repeal taxpayer bans on funding for abortions, including the Hyde Amendment, which has been in effect for over 30 years. It would repeal parental notification for minors; women's right to know statutes; conscience protections for health care workers who want no part of this grizzly business; ethical safeguards for embryo-destroying stem cell research; the repeal of even the recently enacted ban on partial birth abortion, one of the most hideous methods of abortion imaginable, where the child is half born in the birth canal only to have his or her brain sucked out to effectuate the death of the child. A hideous method of child abuse. That would be repealed if the Freedom of Choice Act were to be enacted into law. Nearly every pro-life, life-affirming policy over the past three decades would be gone, nullified, vitiated if this extreme piece of legislation, sadly, backed by our President, were to be enacted.

Are these changes that we can believe in, Mr. Speaker? Hardly.

The administration, sadly, will also seek to enrich and empower pro- abortion organizations, most likely maybe today, tomorrow, the next day will repeal the Mexico City policy, which separates abortion from family planning and says that the U.S. taxpayer and our overseas population control programs will have nothing whatsoever to do with the promotion of abortion or the performance of abortion as a matter of family planning.

Much well-deserved respect, finally, Mr. Speaker, has been directed to the man and the legacy of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, this week especially. And for that reason we need to hear the courageous voice of another Dr. King: His niece, Dr. Alveda King, who has had two abortions and now speaks out for both victims of abortion: The unborn child and his or her mother.

As Dr. King has said, defending human life is part of the civil rights struggle; and as we remember the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., let us also remember the words of Dr. Alveda King when she asks, how can the dream survive and we murder the children?

I would like to yield to Virginia Foxx.

I yield to the distinguished gentleman that serves as our conference chairman, Mr. Pence, who has been a leader on behalf of all human rights around the world.

(Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I want to thank our very distinguished conference chair for his eloquent defense of innocent human life, for his steadfastness on this issue, and point out when my good friend and colleague mentioned Planned Parenthood, I think most Americans would be shocked and dismayed and even discouraged to learn that Planned Parenthood alone performs approximately 300,000 abortions in their own clinics every year, and that number is going up.

They seek even more money from the Federal Government, in part to expand their capability, their capacity. More clinics equals more dead babies and more wounded mothers.

I yield to my good friend and colleague from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett), Scott Garrett.

Thank you for that very compassionate and historical context that you bring to the floor today.

The gentleman now recognizes Mr. Latta.

Thank you very much, Mr. Latta.

I'd like to yield to Michele Bachmann. The gentlelady is recognized.

Mrs. Bachmann, thank you so much for your not only eloquent, but your passion for innocent life, and especially for the women who are so seriously injured by each and every abortion. Very often it doesn't manifest itself immediately. There's a post- traumatic stress element to this. And you certainly get it. And I think your passion and your voice is indispensable in this Congress. So I thank you for your leadership on behalf of all human life.

I yield to my good friend, Mr. Lamborn.

I yield to Mr. Roe.

I yield to Jim Jordan.

I thank you very much. And I think you very correctly pointed out how important it is to stay positive, and Dr. Roe certainly did the same, especially bringing his expertise as a medical doctor to this very important fight for human rights and for protection of both the mother and the child. So I thank them both for their contributions.

And I yield to Dr. Broun now such time as he might consume.

Dr. Broun, thank you very much for your very eloquent and passionate statement and bringing to bear your medical expertise on this very important issue. It is extraordinary. And I hope people are listening, especially Members of Congress.

Thank you so much, Dr. Broun.

Dana Rohrabacher.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on the topic of my Special Order.

Madam Speaker, today Ti-Anna Wang spoke on Capitol Hill to

a group of human rights advocates about her recent visit with her imprisoned father, the heroic Chinese democracy activist Wang Bingzhang. Dr. Wang is a founding father of the post-Mao Chinese democracy movement; he personally founded or co-founded a magazine, a movement, and a political party dedicated to promoting democracy.

Dr. Wang is an incredibly brave man who is serving a life sentence in China for ``espionage'' and ``terrorism''--these are the Chinese Govermnent's words for promoting democracy. In fact ``espionage'' and ``terrorism'' come close to describing the Chinese Government's own behavior in pursuing Dr. Wang, a permanent U.S. resident whom Chinese Government agents abducted from Vietnam in June 2002, smuggled back into China, and secretly held incommunicado for 6 months, before subjecting him to a ``star chamber'' trial in January 2003. The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has ruled that Dr. Wang's detention is arbitrary.

Madam Speaker, any father would consider himself extremely blessed to have a daughter like Ti-Anna. When I first met with her, a few months ago, I was deeply moved by how determinedly she has been working for his release. I'm sure the love she is showing for her father is bearing fruit in his life, comforting him while he is in prison.

Today, Madam Speaker, is the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--an inspiring document, much of which remains a promissory note, unredeemed by so many governments of the world. It is our duty to continue pressing the governments of the world, including our own, to live up to this declaration. Let's keep working, and keep praying, in solidarity with Dr. Wang and Ti-Anna and all those denied the rights that the Universal Declaration promotes.

Madam Speaker, I would like to introduce into the record Ti-Anna's report on her recent visit with her father and his condition.

I would like to start by thanking everyone here, on behalf

of my family, for taking the time to come to this event.

Since I started my work in DC, I've been lucky enough to be

surrounded by supportive, generous and kind people who are

genuinely concerned about my father's case. I want to take

this opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in

his fight for freedom. More specifically, I would like to

thank Dr. Yang, Congressman Wolf, Congressman Smith,

Congressman Ros-Lehtinen, and Senator Feinstein for their

recent work on my father's case. It is the compassion of

every one here that gives my family hope and reason to

believe that the unlikely is possible.

I'm here today to tell you about my recent visit with my

father just two weeks ago. To give a little background, my

father's sentence allows for only one visit a month. Each of

these visits last about 30 minutes.

The standard procedure is that my family receives a

visitation notice in the mail that lets us know the date of

the visit.

As my whole family lives in North America, we usually have

a very short amount of time to make the necessary travel

arrangements for a long trip to China. Once there, we have to

go through a lengthy authorization process before we are

allowed to see him. For my latest visit, I had some

difficulties getting my visa as scheduled, and didn't have

the proper paperwork, which added a lot of additional stress

to this already difficult process.

The visit takes place in a bare concrete building that

borders the gate of his remote prison, several miles away

from the closest city. It is so secluded that we have to be

driven there by the prison officials, as some of the terrain

in that area has yet to be paved.

Right before we can meet, the prison authorities remind us

of the rules and regulations, which include only speaking in

Chinese, and staying away from topics that will cause my

father anxiety. These visits are conducted in visitation

booths and are monitored by four prison officials, two

standing behind the each of us.

Separated by metal bars and two layers of Plexiglas, my

father and I can only communicate using a telephone.

I was very nervous about seeing my father this time. It had

been over a year since my last visit, and my family had lost

contact with him for two months without any clear

explanations from the prison, so I was worried about the

state that my father was in. I was so relieved when I was

finally able to see him, cheerful enough to smile.

My first concern was his health. My father said that while

he is stable, his chronic allergies and severe phlebitis

continues to plague him. We talked mostly about my family, my

educational future and the work that we are doing on his

behalf. As we spoke, it was clear to me that my father's

untreated depression and psychological health continues to

worsen.

He had difficulty making steady eye contact and sometimes

repeated the same sentences several times. The prison

officials monitoring our conversation were kind enough to

allot us an extra 10 minutes.

My father wanted me to let everyone know that he is

eternally grateful for all the work that has been done on his

behalf and that he remains hopeful that justice will prevail.

As our conversation came to an end, my father began to cry.

He said the thought of never seeing his ailing 87-year-old

mother again often brings him to tears and that his only wish

is that they will be reunited before it's too late.

It has now been over 6 years that my father, now almost 62

years old, lingers alone in prison. I come here today in

hopes of conveying the message that my father's situation has

become ever more critical and his time is running out. This

is the third time I've visited my father, and it is obvious

that both his physical and mental health are deteriorating.

He has aged so much in the last few years, and his depression

is becoming dangerously severe. The prison authorities have

told my family that my father's only chance of receiving

medical parole is if he admits guilt to the charges of

``terrorism'' and ``espionage'' . . . but I know that my

father would never, nor does my family want him to confess to

claims that are not only false, but that will comprise his

dignity and values.

As we commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, I just want to remind everyone

that it is because of my father's unwavering commitment to

this cause that he is being so unjustly punished today.

As the founder of the Chinese overseas pro-democracy

movement, there was nothing harder that my father fought for

than the values of human rights, freedom and democracy for

the people of his homeland.

His contribution to his beliefs has now cost him 6 years of

solitary confinement, and possibly his life if we do not

continue to fight for his freedom.

So I would like to close today by asking the present and

new administration to call for my father's immediate release

on medical and humanitarian grounds.

I also invite everyone here, along with your friends and

family to visit www.initiativesforchina.org to sign an online

petition addressed to President Hu Jintao, also calling for

my father's release.

Lastly, I would like to work with congressional leaders

toward the goal of obtaining honorary U.S. citizenship for my

father as recognition of his lifelong service to democracy

and as a statement of America's recommitment to making human

rights a priority in its agenda.

On behalf of my family, I would like to thank everyone here

for coming and for your sincere concern for my father.

Mr. Speaker, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, Public Law 106-386, has made, I believe, an enormous positive difference in our efforts to end modern-day slavery, a nefarious enterprise that nets the exploiters billions of dollars each year.

The 7-year-old landmark law and its numerous reinforcing provisions to prevent trafficking, to protect victims and to prosecute to the max those who traffic, has been a model statute worldwide. Indeed, many of its provisions have been adopted into law in whole or in part by governments around the world.

Mr. Speaker, the TVPA of 2000 does not pull any punches. By naming the names of countries out of compliance with what we call minimum standards and by imposing smart sanctions that are prescribed in the act, the withholding of nonhumanitarian aid, for example, we have signaled to the world that ending this egregious practice is among the highest priorities of the United States.

By protecting the victims and not sending them back to their home country where they are often exploited in a vicious cycle of exploitation, we say to the victims we will make every effort to make you safe and secure. By prosecuting the traffickers and imposing serious jail time, we are telling these exploiters we are coming after you, we will hunt you down, and you are going to pay for your crimes.

Since the enactment of the TVPA, the traffickers here and abroad are increasingly likely to face prosecution and conviction. In the 7-year period before its enactment, DOJ prosecuted 91 suspected traffickers. In the last 7 years, the Justice Department has prosecuted 449, representing a 339 percent increase. The Department has secured 342 convictions and guilty pleas, compared with 74 in the same period prior to the act. And it has opened 822 new investigations, an almost five- fold increase over the 135 opened prior to implementation of the law. Worldwide, nearly 5,700 traffickers were prosecuted last year alone, and more than 3,400 were convicted.

Notwithstanding these successes, it is clear that more has to be done to destroy this mob-infested, criminal enterprise known as human trafficking. According to research sponsored by the U.S. Government and completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked internationally and millions more are trafficked within their country. According to the same research, the vast majority of transnational victims, almost 80 percent, are women and girls, and almost half of those 800,000 victims are minors. These figures are low compared to those posited by the International Labor Organization, which estimates 12.3 million people are subjected to forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude.

The continued imperative to fight modern-day slavery was again brought home to me while I was in Russia last week. At the same time as I was participating in meetings with Russian officials about how to improve our respective countries' efforts to fight human trafficking, the news media was reporting that a man who was living in my home state of New Jersey--just outside my district--had been accused of engaging in sex trafficking. This individual with dual U.S-Russian citizenship allegedly was traveling to St. Petersburg and hiring out 13- and 14- year old girls from an orphanage as prostitutes after he himself had sexually abused them. This case highlights the fact that we all potentially have traffickers living in our neighborhoods, and we must do more to protect our children and children everywhere in the world.

The bill before us today, Mr. Speaker, is a very good piece of bipartisan legislation, and it aims to do just that by updating, expanding, and improving the TPVA.

There have been lessons learned since the first law was enacted 8 years ago and subsequently reauthorized in 2003 and 2005. They are incorporated into this legislation as we try to do an even better job in mitigating the suffering of the victims while simultaneously going after those who traffic and the countries that harbor traffickers who are also part of the problem themselves.

The bill is appropriately named after William Wilberforce, who was 21 years old when he was elected to the House of Commons in 1780. John Newton, the former slave captain turned convert to Christ, encouraged Wilberforce as well as others to fight the battle against slavery. Wilberforce agreed and then poured his heart into that battle.

Wilberforce once said: ``Never, never will we desist until we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic to which our posterity, looking back to the history of those enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long to disgrace and dishonor this country.''

He also said: ``So enormous, so dreadful, so remediable did the trade's wickedness quickly appear that my own mind was completely made up for its abolition.'' We need to fight with Wilberforce-like tenacity against this modern-day slave trade.

One of the most prominent provisions of the original TVPA was the establishment of the tier-ranking system that indicates how well or poorly a country is conforming to the minimum standards. We found when we created the watch list that some of the countries began to realize they could be ``parked'' there with no serious consequence for their failure. Tier 2 watch list countries found there was no penalty even though they made no improvements. That has to change: Two years and then you are off the watch list, up or down. If significant improvements fail to materialize, or the country fails to come up with a written plan to eliminate trafficking and devote sufficient resources to implement that plan, the country is put on tier three, subject to penalties.

Mr. Speaker, the William Wilberforce Act would also clarify a provision in the original TVPA--that should never have required clarification--that the Secretary of Health and Human Services must make initial determinations of benefit eligibility for minors who are potential trafficking victims, without the involvement of either the Attorney General or Secretary of Homeland Security. This should rectify an erroneous interpretation and application of the law by these agencies, and facilitate the immediate assistance desperately needed by children rescued from exploitative and traumatic situations.

Among the many other important provisions of this bill, calls for investigations by the Inspector Generals of the Department of Defense, State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, respectively, into ascertain contracts awarded by those agencies. The IGs' attention would be directed to contracts that carry a risk of encouraging human trafficking, including instances where a contractor or subcontractor may be engaging in the procurement of a commercial sex act. The reports to be submitted to Congress subsequent to these investigations will be valuable in ascertaining the commitment of our own government in combating human trafficking, and provide an example to be emulated by other governments as well.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would emphasize that effective cooperation, and especially the bipartisan cooperation we see here today, and partnership with other countries, is essential if we are to win this winnable war. Without it, we are doomed to either meager results or outright failure. With so many lives hanging in the balance, failure simply is not an option. None of us alone can stop human trafficking. Too much evil is involved here, and the prospect of making billions has enticed some of the most unsavory and cruel individuals on Earth, including organized crime. Too much demand, enabled by crass indifference, unbridled hedonism and misogynistic attitudes has turned people, especially women, into objects, only valued for their utility in the brothel or in the sweatshop. And the relative lack of visibility

makes the task of combating trafficking all the more difficult.

Trafficking, like germs, infection and disease, thrives in shadowy and murky places. But the contagion slows and it even dies when exposed to the light. This legislation brings more light, bright light, to this problem; and it will act as a powerful disinfectant.

So the challenge to us today is to bring this new light, the bright light of sustained scrutiny and enacting good laws, like this one, and then implementing them aggressively. We need to employ best practices and well-honed strategies in order to win the freedom of the slaves and to spare others unspeakable agony.

Together, we can make the pimps and the exploiters pay by doing serious jail time as well as the forfeiture of their assets, their boats, their villas, and their fat bank accounts.

We can end this barbaric, cruel modern-day slavery. Make no mistake about it, this is a winnable war but we need to fight in a way so as to win. This legislation further propels us in that fight, and we will win this and the slaves will be free.

Madam Speaker, I submit the following:

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith.

Bill Number: H.R. 2638.

Account: Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Army Account.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: MILSPRAY Camouflage Technologies.

Address of Requesting Entity: 1985 Swarthmore Ave, Lakewood, NJ 08701.

Description of Request: The Force Implementation Phase of this project is the final phase of ``Project Kryptolite--Field Deployable Multifunctional Stealth Coating.'' During Phase II, a complete turnkey ``armor enhancement'' application system will be forward deployed to Iraq or other ARL-designated theater of operation. The completely integrated stealth coating system will be applied, in theater, to MRAP, Stryker, and other armored vehicles at the direction of Army and Marine Corps commanders. The Stealth Coating System addresses both infrared and thermal signature reduction as well as blast mitigation.

This system can act as an ``armor enhancement'' material and be applied over existing MRAP, and similar tactical vehicle, armor systems.

This armor enhancement approach would increase the level of blast resistance and substantially improve survivability. The use of this armor enhancement system will substantially reduce injuries and deaths resulting from IEDs, EFPs, and blast fragments. The material, and complete field deployable application system, will be forward deployed. MRAPs, Strykers, and other tactical vehicles will have the Kryptolite Armor Enhancement applied to them.

Proposed Funds Utilization: Logistics Support: $100,000 System/ Personnel Deployment Costs.

Salaries/Wages: $575,000 5-7 project technical personnel.

Equipment: $200,000 Lab, Test, Production, Application.

Testing Ballistic/Blast/Performance/Labs: $200,000.

Facility Costs: $50,000.

Material: $75,000.

Total: $1,200,000.

Madam Speaker, I submit the following:

Requesting Member: Rep. Christopher H. Smith

Bill Number: HR 2638

Account: Federal Emergency Management Agency's Pre-Disaster Mitigation

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: City of Trenton

Address of Requesting Entity: City of Trenton

Description of Request:

The City of Trenton will use the $500,000 in Pre-Disaster Mitigation funding in the FY 2009 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill to begin elevating the utilities of 270 flood prone properties that have suffered severe and repetitive physical damage resulting in significant economic loss.

Trenton's Island and Glen Afton neighborhoods are greatly affected by rapidly rising flood water as a result of their proximity to the Delaware River. These two neighborhoods are bordered by the Delaware River to the southwest and the Delaware and Raritan Canal to the northwest. Route 29 (a four lane state highway that traverses the City) splits the two neighborhoods; causing an island-like geography.

These waterfront communities are home to approximately 270 structures, many of which are occupied by single family working class homeowners who have suffered great financial loss as a result of: water damaged electrical distribution systems, hot water heaters and central heating units, as well as the loss of personal items that can never be replaced.

Six historical river crests (occurring from the earlier part of the 20th century until present) have caused considerable property damage and interrupted sewer, electric and gas services, causing the evacuation of these neighborhoods. Although these neighborhoods are designated as a 100 year flood plain, the last two floods occurred within seven months of each other (September 2004 and April 2005). Just as the Island and Glen Afton residents saw their lives getting back to some semblance of normalcy, the second flood occurred, resulting in lost wages, belongings, property, major systems and complete dislocation.

One major contributing factor to the early flooding is the storm sewer outfall, which provides an early entry point for water to backflow into the lower points of the Island and Glen Afton neighborhoods via the storm sewer system during early flood stages. However, once the river reaches two feet above flood stage,

the entire Island and Glen Afton neighborhoods will flood. The City of Trenton wishes to assist the most affected residents so that property loss and displacement are minimized.

This project is designed to elevate the utilities of approximately 270 properties that have suffered repetitive damages.The 270 identified properties will abandon the use of their basements and elevate their major systems by rewiring the electrical system and redirecting the duct work so that the hot water heating and heating system can be moved to above the first floor; minimizing loss during future floods.