Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentlelady from California who said this is a great day in history, it was a great day in history when, in 1997, the Republicans, who had the majority, initiated and started this program. The Democrats are saying this is a great day, what a great day, when the Republicans started the SCHIP program.

Now, this bill, you have heard it all before. Obviously, it creates a new entitlement, crowds out private insurance with government coverage, offers perverse incentives to States; and, my friends, it contains a huge tax increase, with more on the way. Lastly, it punishes Medicare beneficiaries. This is very troubling, particularly in Florida. We have so many seniors that actually use Medicare Advantage.

The fact that they are going to eliminate this program to pay for this is really outrageous. It will disproportionately harm racial minorities and rural senior citizens by taking funds away from Medicare Advantage, a successful, lower-cost option for health care for seniors and use it to enroll and federally insure adult men and women who have the ability to work and receive health care from their employers in the open market.

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 2: Page 32, line 10, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(increased by $200,000,000)''.

Page 33, line 20, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $200,000,000)''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, as mentioned, the EEOC, which is the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has accused the Salvation Army of allegedly discriminating against two of their employees in a Boston area thrift store for requiring them to speak English on the job.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment would prevent the EEOC from using any appropriated funds to initiate a civil action or file a motion in any courts on the grounds that the organization, in this case the Salvation Army, requires an employee to speak English while engaged in work.

The question I have is, how do you discriminate against a person who speaks English on the job? This amendment was prompted by this lawsuit filed in April by the EEOC against the Salvation Army, which has helped thousands of people in countries all over the world. Can't you hire people today who speak English? The two employees were given 1 year to learn English in order to speak the language you and I are speaking in the House today and the language spoken by our coworkers; however, these folks failed to try to learn even some basic English and were fired.

Even though the Salvation Army clearly posted the rule and gave the two employees a year to learn English, the EEOC lawyers filed a lawsuit seeking hundreds of thousands of dollars in monetary damages to compensate the employees for ``the emotional pain, suffering and inconvenience'' they suffered by being asked to speak English to the best of their ability while on the job.

In 2003, a Federal judge in Boston upheld the Salvation Army's policy requiring workers to speak English while on the job. However, the EEOC did not like this ruling, so they are continuing to harass the Salvation Army.

Now, the Salvation Army, as we all know, is a Christian evangelical organization whose sole mission is to help the downtrodden, the blind, the sick and anyone else in need. Their personnel standing on cold street corners during Christmastime is something to behold, ringing a bell on behalf of the poor. They collect and sell donated clothes and household items in their thrift stores to raise money for the poor, operate soup kitchens, and hire people that no one else will.

Since 1865, this organization has lived by Christ's teaching that as we do unto the least of our people, we do unto the Lord. Now this organization is in trouble for insisting its employees learn to speak English in order to better serve these lofty goals. Remember, the Salvation Army was trying to help their employees by encouraging them to simply learn the English language.

EEOC has crossed the line in its overzealous pursuit of companies that require English in the workplace. Only Congress can bring this organization back to its intended mission. If we don't, the continued proliferation of English-related lawsuits will cause employers facing close hiring decisions to hire defensively, to the detriment of new immigrants with marginal English proficiency. While the children of immigrants typically learn English in our school system, adult immigrants are most likely to learn or improve language skills for work-related reasons often through programs that are simply hosted by the employers themselves.

This arrangement is ordinarily a win-win situation. The immigrant is encouraged to gain a full knowledge skill that improves his work efforts and civic engagement, and the employer benefits from having employees that can communicate with one another. So the EEOC's policy takes a mutually beneficial situation and injects the constant fear of litigation on employers. Most importantly, since the EEOC's funds are fungible, every dollar it uses to pursue these cases is a dollar not being spent on pursuing the kind of discrimination that the EEOC was originally created to combat.

These are our tax dollars, my colleagues, yours and mine, paying the salaries of the EEOC lawyers, who file endless lawsuits, while the Salvation Army must use its own funds, funds that would be better used helping the poor, instead of hiring more attorneys to fight these kinds of cases in court. The EEOC should instead focus its limited resources on the current backlog of 54,265 complaints, instead of wasting time and taxpayer money on policies that serve to achieve unity in our country.

I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and help protect the charities like the Salvation Army.

I thank the distinguished chairman, and let me answer some of the criticism from that side of the aisle.

The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Mollohan) talked about that this is not a recent problem, that all administrations before with regard to the EEOC have been following this pattern, and that is not true. The gentlelady from Tennessee pointed out there has been a 612 percent increase since 1996. In fact, there has been a large increase just recently. So this is not something that has been going on for the past 40 years; it is a more recent phenomenon.

So we here in Congress should realize that we have every right to prejudge. We have three equal branches of government. We have the executive, judicial and the legislative or Congress. We have the right to say to the EEOC, which is a government agency, the priorities you are establishing are wrong. I mean, as I pointed out earlier, this particular agency has a 54,000-case backlog, and it looks like it is going to

go to 64,000. It is going to be a 10,000-case increase.

Should they be spending all of their time trying to intimidate employers? Employers simply want to hire employees that speak English. Are the employees going to be so scared that when they hire this employee they are going to be sued by the EEOC because they are saying to the employee, ``We think it will be helpful for you to speak English to our customers''?

But as the Salvation Army did, they said, We will send you to a class for 1 year and you can learn English. So we will hire you, let you be trained, and hopefully after a year you will be conversant in English. These people didn't follow through and didn't even go to the classes. So what did the Salvation Army do, they simply said, We will have to fire you.

They talked to them, they counseled them, and then they said, We will have to let you go because you are not speaking English proficiently enough so that our customers can understand you, and we are an organization that simply has a mission to help and serve people, and we can't communicate with these people because you cannot speak English. So please go to this class that we are going to pay for and help you with this training. These people would not go, and so they were fired.

So now the EEOC lawyers are saying to its agency this case is of the highest priority. We are going to forget these 54,000 cases backlogged in America, and we are going to go after the Salvation Army.

``God help us'' is the words that Mr. Obey used. I say God help us if employers in this country cannot hire employees who speak English. We have every right to judge. This is not morally wrong, as Mr. Obey said, or constitutionally wrong. This is simply Congress saying set your priorities EEOC. Let the employers hire people who speak English. And we support the concept of what the EEOC is trying to do, to enact civil legislation against people who are discriminated against in the workplace. We understand that. We accept that. But this is a case of priorities. This is a case where Congress has every right as an equal branch to say this is wrong. I commend the chairman from New Jersey for his support.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, last Tuesday, Secretary Jim Nicholson resigned from his position at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

As a highly decorated combat veteran, his experience in the Army for over 22 years gave him insight into the needs of veterans. He has implemented many reforms since assuming the leadership of the VA in February 2005. He established electronic medical records for the nearly 8 million people in the VA health care program. This enabled the successful transition of veterans from hospitals damaged by Hurricane Katrina and Rita.

In addition, Mr. Nicholson improved care for veterans with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, mandating screening of all returning veterans for signs of PTSD, and adding mental health services at more than 100 medical centers.

Secretary Nicholson also hired suicide prevention counselors at each of the VA's 153 facilities and established a 24-hour national suicide prevention hotline.

I want to thank Secretary Nicholson for his commitment and leadership, and wish him well in his future endeavors. God bless him.

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 1: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, as the body here begins the debate on the SCHIP reauthorization plan, separate from Medicaid, I would encourage my colleagues not to lose sight of the purpose of this program, which is insuring underprivileged children.

When we created this program in 1997, it was intended to provide health insurance for children at or around 200 percent of the poverty line. Today in States like Minnesota, almost 40,000 people are enrolled in SCHIP; 34,000 of them are adults.

The Democrats want to expand this program up to 400 percent of the Federal poverty line. This type of expansion would allow a family of four with an income level of more than $80,000 to be eligible for the SCHIP program in some parts of this country.

Let's get our priorities straight. We want to provide insurance for underprivileged children, not adults who can afford to pay for it themselves.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, my amendment is very simple. My amendment transfers 10 percent or $25.5 million from AmeriCorp to the TRIO educational programs and the geriatric program. I have one of these programs in my congressional district, and I have a large university, two community colleges, so I thought it would be appropriate considering lots of time we talk about the loan process for the students, and particularly for low income, first generation college students, I thought it might be appropriate to take a very small portion of AmeriCorp and give it to these two programs.

I think we all know that AmeriCorp has done some good work. When we talk about volunteerism, we talk about people who go out and help people after natural disasters. We have a lot of that in Florida. We recently had a tornado in Lake County. A lot of the people in the district donated blood. They helped mentor schoolchildren. We teach English to new Americans, we teach illiterate adults how to read. We also have volunteers who go in and clean up rivers and forests.

AmeriCorp is a little bit different. It does have volunteers, but these volunteers, obviously, are paid. Remuneration in exchange for choosing to contribute one's time, energy and/or money clearly undermines the word ``volunteer.'' This is a different type of volunteerism. We have had a discussion whether it is necessary to pay volunteers. Paying people to volunteer sort of almost contradicts the spirit of the word, but we have sort of accepted that and the program has continued to flourish.

There has been some question that Members on both sides have sought to legislate whether AmeriCorp members could spend time with political activities, campaigns, faith-based initiatives or unions. That got us into some controversy and some rhetoric. If the Federal Government were not involved in what should be a personal preference in the first place, we wouldn't have to have these conversations discussing whether we should allow these AmeriCorp members be involved with political activities, campaigns, faith-based initiatives, or unions.

So I think when you look at the overall spectrum, I think the modest amount I am taking from AmeriCorp and putting into these two programs, I hope Members agree with me, it is worthwhile.

Take a little money, give to TRIO programs. They are aimed, as I mentioned, at low-income, first generation college students. Currently there are 2,700 TRIO programs serving nearly 900,000 low-income students across the United States. TRIO is critical to our Nation's commitment to advance educational opportunities at our colleges and universities and, as a result, obviously our Nation's economic future.

I have had the privilege of visiting several TRIO programs at schools in my district and had the privilege of hearing some of the wonderful success stories from these students. For that reason, I would like to give them a little more money.

Also across many districts like mine there are geriatric programs. So I am taking part of this money from AmeriCorp and putting it into geriatric programs, roughly $12 million. These programs are currently funded at the same level as the previous fiscal year. Included in these programs are educational centers which provide crucial physician, dental and mental health training programs for the care of our seniors. Current Federal funding will continue the support of about 50 geriatric education centers and the training of over 50,000 health care providers. This funding should be increased to provide more education and training for more health care professionals so we can meet our aging population's future health care demands. This is particularly true in Florida.

I ask my colleagues to consider putting part of the money from AmeriCorp into the geriatric educational centers. They have done a great job.

In my district we have three of these geriatric centers. At the University of Florida, where one center is located, it was established in 1987 to provide educational services for faculty and practitioners in the State of Florida. Their goal is to provide better care for older Americans.

I close, Madam Chairman, and urge support for my amendment so we can create better educational opportunities for underprivileged youth through the TRIO programs, and better ensure adequate and quality care for our seniors.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my distinguished colleague from Georgia.

Madam Chairman, I am just going to briefly respond to my two distinguished Peace Corps representatives. I know both of them have had ample experience understanding what the Peace Corps is all about.

When they came to Congress, we didn't have the AmeriCorps. In fact, the AmeriCorps is only a recent program here in Congress, and it's been funded continually every year.

I think this is a question not of the Peace Corps merits, but this is a question of priorities. And I think both of them would realize that the TRIO, which helps low-income students in college, is probably just as deserving, as well as geriatric education programs that are part of the amendment here which would get more funding. So it's only in terms of priority, and I think when you look at the two programs, I think they trump the AmeriCorps.

I just would conclude by giving you an example, perhaps highlight two outstanding participants in the TRIO programs that are from my congressional district.

A sophomore at Loften High School in Gainesville, Florida, Juliun Kinsey was one of only 30 students nationwide selected as a Young Entrepreneur of 2007 by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship for his unique and high-quality business plan. As a result, he received an all-expense paid trip to an awards banquet in New York City and a cash award.

Another example is Brooke Bostic, a TRIO program participant and a sophomore at Buchholz High School, which is also in Gainesville. He was one of only six students from Florida whose paper on global issues was selected for entry in the United Nations Association Student Paper Competition in New York City this spring.

So both these students benefited from the TRIO program. I think it has ample accommodation for us to say it has a higher priority when we take just a small portion from the AmeriCorps to use for this TRIO program.

So with that, Madam Chairman, I yield back to my distinguished colleague and thank him for the opportunity.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I am here to discuss why past efforts to stop

illegal immigration into our country have failed.

Over the past several decades, immigration policy in our country has been somewhat confused and unfocused to the point that there is widespread and deepening concern that our current policies regarding immigration are not working. Poorly designed policies and weak enforcement of immigration laws have led to disturbing vulnerabilities in this country to our security, and the millions of illegal immigrants currently in our country continue to belittle the naturalization process.

From a national security perspective, preventing illegal entry and reducing those individuals illegally present in the United States is an imperative. An uncontrolled immigration system encourages the circumvention of immigration laws and is a clear invitation to those who wish to take advantage of our openness to cause this Nation harm.

Congress and the President must take credible steps to reduce illegal immigration. Federal, State and local law enforcement must be allowed to enforce existing immigration law. But because of the current lack of enforcement, the illegal population in the United States will continue to grow, the burden on local communities will increase, the stresses on civil society will become greater, and border security will become more expensive while remaining just as ineffective. Furthermore, this failure to enforce our immigration laws is tremendously unfair to the millions who obeyed the law and went through the rewarding process of obtaining legal citizenship.

Most individuals and families that immigrate to the United States, whether legally or illegally, come seeking economic opportunity. We respect that. However, unlike previous generations, a generous welfare, education and health system with generous eligibility draws a disproportionate rate of poor and low-skilled illegal immigrants to the United States. These thousands of low-skilled immigrants that pour into our country illegally each year drain precious resources from Federal, State and local governments.

In my State as in other States, they need temporary workers. I understand that. A balanced and well-constructed temporary worker program should diminish the incentives for illegal immigration by providing an additional option for legal temporary labor and, in combination with other reforms, reduce over time the current population of illegal aliens. This would foster better national security and serve a growing economy. Such a temporary worker program would be a valuable component of a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. I recognize that.

Nevertheless, my colleagues, enthusiasm for such a program in theory must be moderated by serious concerns not only about the failures of such programs in our past attempts and in other countries, but also regarding how a new program would likely be implemented and operate in practice. An ill-defined and poorly constructed temporary worker program would make the current problems of immigration policy unfortunately even worse.

In the mid 1980s, Congress advocated amnesty for long-settled illegal immigrants and considered it reasonable to adjust the status of what was then a relatively small population of illegal aliens. In exchange for allowing aliens to stay, border security and enforcement of immigration laws would be greatly strengthened, in particular through sanctions against employers who hired these illegal immigrants.

However, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, did not solve our illegal immigration problem. Indeed, the lessons of that policy experiment are clear. From the very start, there was widespread document fraud by applicants. Unsurprisingly, the number of people applying for amnesty far exceeded projections, and there proved to be a failure of political will in enforcing new laws against employers.

Two decades later, the Senate proposed another bill specifically designed to allow the overwhelming majority of illegal immigrants to legally live and work in the United States from day one and eventually to become permanent residents and then citizens. This was a form of amnesty and that is why it failed.

Securing a future where America's borders are no longer porous, its laws are respected, and illegal labor is replaced by legal workers and legal immigrants is an achievable objective that we can accomplish. More than any other nation in history, our country and its system of equal justice and economic freedom beckons not only the downtrodden and the persecuted but also those who seek opportunity and a better future for themselves and their families. But by allowing millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the United States without providing any new significant security guarantees at the border is unacceptable.

We must control our borders first, then enforce the rules and regulations at the border with more security border guards. Only after that is done should we look at a policy concerning the illegal immigrants in this country. That is what the American people want.

Secure our borders now, Madam Speaker.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall Nos. 625, 626, and 627 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, in recent months the number of unsafe products imported to the United States from China, ranging from seafood and pet food to toys and toothpaste, has grown steadily. Chinese-made products have accounted for 60 percent of recalls this year, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

China's small-scale food producers have been accused of unsanitary production, conditions, using tainted or substandard ingredients, and failing to register with the authorities. About 350,000, or 78 percent, of China's food processing operations employ 10 people or less.

Americans are rightly concerned when they learn many of the products imported from China pose a threat to their health. American consumers have grown to expect that the products they buy at their local markets are safe for their entire family. That is why it is vitally important for Congress to hold hearings on these issues to better examine how we can protect our constituents from substandard Chinese products.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

This is a simple amendment that none of the funds made available in this act may be used by the Internal Revenue Service to implement a Spanish language version of the Where's my Refund? service.

Mr. Chairman, the English language has been one of the strongest, most durable ties that unites us all as Americans. Yet today our unity in the English language is undermined by policies that require government agencies to communicate in an increasing number of foreign languages. It is not just one, two, or three. In some of the cases, it is five, and six languages.

So I rise today to offer an amendment to strike language in the underlying bill that would mandate even more government multilingualism. My amendment would prohibit the IRS from developing a Spanish language version of the agency's Where's my Refund? Web site, which is currently only offered in English.

So think about that. As it turns out now, if you want to get a refund, you go to the IRS Web site, and sure enough, you can find out how to do it. English is right there. You go through the procedure and understand it. But now in the bill, they want to put it into Spanish. So I am just saying let's continue with the status quo and keep it in English.

Taxpayers should not be required to pay the cost of translating information so that people can demand a tax refund in another language. This is our country and we want to promote English, and I am sure most people that want to get a refund, of all things, would like to learn English so they can get their refund. Generations of immigrants have made great sacrifices to learn English and assimilate into this great American ``melting pot.'' This is what has allowed us to become the most successful multiracial and multiethnic Nation in the world.

Making exceptions now for another language I don't think is the right thing to do. It just assumes they are incapable of learning English like the previous generations. And many, many immigrants that came here learned English, and for all these years they have been able to determine what their refund was by going forward. So I think it is not a good idea to change this tradition. I realize that there are lots of people who don't agree with me, but I think we should have a vote on this to understand it and have the will of the House.

Now, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger knows something about the importance of learning English. He emigrated to the United States from Austria knowing very little English. He has said he immersed himself in American culture and made an effort to only speak English once he came to the United States. So he is a good example.

We should be encouraging immigrants to learn English, not enabling them by providing more and more government services in various foreign languages. It could be one language here, another language here, and pretty soon taxpayers are forced to deal with many, many languages just to get their refund.

Additionally, what makes Spanish speakers in this country more deserving than perhaps people from South Korea or people from Japan or people from China? I mean, is there one particular reason we are singling out this one language? If it is true we need to have this and I don't think we do, then I certainly think we should solve the problem of looking at all the languages.

The policy of our government should be to conduct official business in English and uphold the longstanding credo of ``E Pluribus Unum'': out of many, one. My amendment, I believe, simply would further this goal, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and help preserve our national linguistic unity and strengthen our democracy.

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

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

Let me just move to use the 1\1/2\ minutes I have remaining and say to my sage colleague from New York that I certainly respect him. He's one of my favorite Members. We have lots of fun together. And I remember when he made those three pointers in the congressional basketball team how surprised, and pleasantly surprised, I was that he made them. So I'm respectful of that.

But I ask him, shouldn't government treat everybody equally? I mean, here you're talking about setting aside a special program, Where is My Refund program, under the IRS for the Spanish language. But I call the gentleman's attention to New York City. There are Chinese, almost 400,000 Chinese; 300,000 Italians; there are almost 250,000 Russians, there's 152,000 Frenchmen, Polish is a language there. The French Creole is about 100,000. Korean is about 86,000, German is about 86,000. In fact, the total number of people speaking foreign languages in his area, New York City, other than Spanish is 1.7 million people. So why shouldn't the government treat everybody equal is the question for you?

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

I thank my distinguished colleague from Ohio for his kindness.

We can wrap up this debate and I will just try to answer the gentleman from Massachusetts and the gentleman from New York here.

What can be more of an incentive to learn English? But the IRS program Where is My Refund? You would think if you are getting money back from the government, isn't that enough of an incentive to learn English? Maybe we should not have Spanish on the IRS Web site so we can get people to learn English. I mean, I would think giving them money back would be a great incentive. I would think you would be for this amendment because people who have to speak Spanish would have an incentive to learn English. That's my first point.

Second of all, the gentleman from Massachusetts says it's a minor cost. We don't know if this is a minor cost. But as we take his argument a little further, he says that I have no right to say there's another 1.7 million people in New York who speak other languages, and because the perfect is the enemy of good, we've got to give it to all these people, which is an argument that makes it confusing to people and say well, you have to vote against Stearn's amendment because we're not doing it for all these people. There certainly would be a cost if we went ahead and did if for 1.7 million various languages in Italian, Russian, French, Polish, French Creole, Korean and German.

And I ask the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), why is one language selected to do this at the expense of another 1.7 million? Which goes to my point. We shouldn't do it for only one, we need not do it for any of them.

And so there is no reason to do the other languages here. They're getting money back. It would be very expensive if we did if for all the languages. And the cost here, we don't know what it's going to be. So I think the country is better off if we treat everybody equally.

The question you mention, Mr. Serrano, about CNN and other news organizations, these are private companies, they are not taxpayers funded. This is taxpayers funded. And I would think if a person is speaking French Creole in New York, he would like to have it in his language for the tax refund program, also.

So, I mean, you really make a difficult argument if you're saying it's just for people who are Spanish and you're not recognizing all of them, which goes to the heart of my argument, which is, basically the United States Government should treat everybody equal. The language should be the English language, and particularly when you're talking about the Where is My Refund program with the IRS. Vote for the Stearns amendment.

And with that, Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to how much time I have left of my own and how much time I left of Mr. Regula? If that's possible to do that.

I would be glad to yield Mr. Regula's time if Mr. Regula will yield.

Are you saying 25 languages?

I would just say, if you're speaking French Creole in your congressional district and you got a refund, you would certainly want that to be in our language, too.

I think I've made the argument clear that with all these different languages, the government should not pick out any one and should just do it in the official language, which is English.

So with that, Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, illegal immigration poses an immediate threat to our national security. Proponents of the new Senate proposal claim it would encourage illegal aliens in the United States to reveal their true identity and all affiliations they may have. My colleagues, this flies in the face of all reason, particularly when this legislation provides potential terrorists in the United States the simple option to create new identities with the help of our own government.

Within 180 days after the President signs the legislation, the Department of Homeland Security would start handing out probationary Z visas. Because the bill doesn't require the alien to produce a foreign passport proving his identity, these terrorists will have little trouble getting by the system with forged documents like a fake pay stub or utility bills. A potential terrorist could walk into a Customs office and offer a false, clean name, and then go about their business. This is wrong, Mr. Speaker. That is why we should reject the Senate immigration bill.

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 37. Page 2, line 12, after the dollar amount

insert ``(reduced by $200,000)(increased by $200,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 38: Page 2, line 13, after the dollar amount

insert ``(reduced by $200,000)''.

Page 2, line 15, after the dollar amount insert

``(increased by $200,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 48: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) add the following: