Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Burton

Amendment No. 485: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. Burton of Indiana

Amendment No. 30: Page 263, line 15, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $2,000,000)''.

Page 263, line 18, after the first dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $2,000,000)''.

Page 359, line 13, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $2,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Burton of Indiana

Amendment No. 75: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Madam Speaker, one of the things that we are going to hear from our good friends on the Democrat side of the aisle day in and day out is how the Republicans are callous because we are cutting spending, and they can come to the floor and enumerate hundreds and hundreds of programs that are so good for America that they cannot be cut and, therefore, we shouldn't do anything to reduce our spending.

We have a $14 trillion national debt. We are $1.5 trillion short this coming fiscal year. If we don't do something, we are going to feel it; but our kids and our grandkids are going to have a lower quality of life because we cannot sustain this kind of spending.

So I would just like to say to my colleagues, I anticipate listening to you rant and rave about how we are cutting programs; but long term, unless we get our fiscal house in order, the future of America is really at risk. And I think the people across this country understand that it's time to take a scalpel to the budget.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding, and I want to congratulate her on being the new chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I know she is going to do an outstanding job.

Madam Speaker, let me just start off by saying the U.N. has been a scandal-ridden mess for as far back as I can remember. I've been in Congress 28 years, and we've had scandal after scandal after scandal. The people over there that have been overpaid, comparing it to the private sector for accountants, for business, for all kinds of things, and we raise Cain about it on this floor, but nothing ever changes.

Remember the oil scandal involving Iraq? Remember Saddam Hussein and the deals that were cut and how the U.N. was involved in that?

Nothing ever changed. We keep throwing the money in the same direction and the same amounts, year after year after year. We give them 22 percent of their budget. Now, if you take all the countries in the world that are involved in the U.N., you'll find that we're sending a real disproportionate amount of money to them. Our share should not be 22 percent. Nevertheless, we do it year after year after year.

And now we find out that the U.N. Tax Equalization Fund, the TEF, was overpaid $179 million. Why in the world should we allow them to keep our money? We're already paying them more than we should, in my opinion.

I heard what my colleague said about the security of the place and all that. We give them more than enough money to take care of the place and to pay the salaries and to do what needs to be done over there. That is, if you support everything the U.N. does.

But to allow them to keep almost $180 million of our money when it's an overpayment makes no sense whatsoever. So what we're saying here today is, you know, we're just going to hold this money back if they don't return what they already owe us.

Now, if we had any other creditor that owes us money, or if you had a creditor in your hometown, you would expect that creditor to pay you back. You'd expect them to pay what they owe.

But the U.N. is a different thing. Why? It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I've been here long enough to know that there has been problem after problem after problem with the U.N., and we've complained about it. We have done very little to correct that, but we've complained about it time and again.

But at the very, very least, at the very least we should expect them to pay us back the money that they owe us. So I wish my colleagues would think about this from a logical point of view. Why should we let them keep money that they owe the United States, especially at a time when we have a $14 trillion, get that, $14 trillion national debt? We're going to be $1.5 trillion short this year, and the legacy we're going to leave to our kids and grandkids is unbelievably bad. And so this is a drop in the bucket, no question about it. But I think we should get our $170 million back, and I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will concur.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Let me just say that we all talk about what Ronald Reagan did as President and the great things he did for the country and for the world. But I want to tell you a story that's a personal story of mine.

My mother was a waitress for 18 years, and my stepfather only went to the seventh grade. And I told them when I entered politics one day I was going to run for Congress, and if I got elected to Congress, I was going to take them in the front door of the White House and introduce them to the President of the United States. So finally I got elected to Congress after quite a while.

And I called the White House and I got a hold of Reagan's secretary, and I told her the story about how I'd promised this to my mother and how she'd worked for 18 years as a waitress, and about my stepfather. And she says, well, let me talk to the President about it. So I got a call about a day or two later, and she said, the President can see you on this particular day. So I called my mother and my stepfather and I said, I want you to come out, I want to take you in the front door of the White House to meet the President.

Well, it came out my mother loved Ronald Reagan as an actor. He was her favorite. And so here she was coming in the front door of the White House, and I've got her hand in one hand and my stepfather in the other, and they're both shaking because here they are very common folks, and they're going to meet the most powerful man in the world, and her great favorite actor.

So we go in. And when we walked in the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan stole my heart forever, and I want to tell you why. He came up and he looked at my mother and he looked at me and he put his arm around me and he says, Ms. Kelly, I want you to know your son is one of the brightest young men we have in Congress, and he's going to do great things for America. And I know you had to wait on tables, and I know he shined shoes and I know you had a tough time. We had a tough time in my family like that. And he says, but I know things are going to be great from here on out, and you ought to be very proud of him.

And I kept thinking, how does he know all this? And he had called my office to get information so he'd make my mother feel really, really proud and happy. And they took those pictures, and my mother carried those pictures with her till the day she died. And from that moment on, I'd have done anything for that guy. He could walk on water. He was not only a great President; he was a great human being. Thanks for the time.

Madam Speaker, as a follow-up to what was just said by my colleague from Pennsylvania, we all know about the problems in the Middle East. There's a real problem in Egypt. We don't know about that government, how it's going to turn out. There's problems in the gulf states, there's problems in other parts of the Middle East, and we get at least 30 percent of our energy from that area. We also get about 20 percent of our energy from Venezuela, and the President down there, Mr. Chavez, is no friend of ours.

If we don't move toward energy independence and there's a real problem in the Middle East, we've got problems here in this country. Can you imagine what would happen if we had 30 percent of our energy cut off because there was a blockage of the Suez Canal or the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf? We must move toward energy independence.

The President is blocking us from getting permits to drill in the gulf, we can't drill in the ANWR, we can't drill off the continental shelf, we can't use

coal shale to produce oil. We have enough energy in this country to move to energy independence in 10 years with natural gas and these other fossil fuels. But the President will not move.

We're not going to solve this problem with windmills and solar energy. We've got to solve it with the energy that we have before us right now. It's in our national security and our economic security that we ought to do this.

Mr. Speaker, last week, at the request of a lady named Madeline Pickens, I met with Mr. Bob Abbey, who is the head of the Bureau of Land Management, to talk to him about dealing with the wild horses, the mustangs that roam out west in the western States. The Bureau of Land Management has somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 of these mustangs in pens around the country; and the cost of this is estimated to be as much as $2,500 per horse per year. The Bureau of Land Management just last week started rounding up another 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 of them to take them to holding pens and move them to Oklahoma.

Now, the thing that's interesting about this is that when I talked to Mr. Abbey, he admitted that they want to move these horses from Nevada 1,000 miles to Oklahoma in order to put them in these pens. Now Ms. Pickens, she is very concerned about these mustangs because they're part of America's heritage, and she wants to protect them as much as possible. Toward that end, she bought two ranches, the Spruce Ranch, which has 14,000 acres in it, and the ranch next to it in Nevada, the Warm Creek Ranch, which has about another 4,000 acres; and then she got permits for another 550,000 acres so that they could put those horses on this land, protect them, and save the taxpayer money and make sure that these horses will not be put in pens and shipped all over the country.

But the Bureau of Land Management is recalcitrant. They want to move these horses 1,000 miles into these pens, and they want to keep them there at a cost of as much as $2,500 per year per horse.

Now, Ms. Pickens says that for $500 a year, she can keep them on her range and protect them, create a kind of museum for these horses so that people can come and see them in the wild. And she would have them injected so that they can't reproduce; therefore, they wouldn't have to worry about an expanding population of mustangs, but they would be protected. But the Bureau of Land Management wants to move them a thousand miles, where her ranch and her permits are within just a few miles of where the horses are right now.

Now, when I talked to Mr. Abbey last week, he said that they couldn't reach an agreement with Ms. Pickens, that there'd have to be some major changes made over at the Bureau of Land Management in order for them to facilitate what she wants to do.

This is another bureaucratic nightmare that we in this Congress should not--and I don't believe will--put up with. And I'm going to ask the Appropriations Committee to cut the budget of the Bureau of Land Management because they're wasting the taxpayers' money by millions and millions and maybe hundreds of millions of dollars.

Last year, the government spent about $144 million managing private livestock on Federal public lands, and they only collect $21 million for grazing rights. So they lost at least $123 million per year. And some people estimate that they lose as much as $500 million a year, half a billion dollars, by keeping these grazing lands in private hands where people get them for almost nothing. $21 million was what the fee was that they got last year.

So they're losing as much as $500 million; they're moving these horses up to a thousand miles, and they're doing it for no good purpose other than the bureaucracy wants to keep control of them.

Now, the reason Ms. Pickens started this organization to protect these mustangs was because, in 2008, the Bureau of Land Management said, well, they weren't sure they could take care of all of these horses--they have almost 40,000 in these pens right now--so they were thinking about killing them, euthanasia, starting to kill these horses.

Well, the people who love these mustangs and love the West the way it was don't want this to happen. So they came up with this organization to deal with the problem in a realistic way so that the horses wouldn't be killed. The organization they started when they heard they were going to euthanize them was called Saving America's Mustangs, and they offered to enter into a contract with the Bureau of Land Management to relocate at least 9,000 of these horses into these lands that they just bought and got permits for so they wouldn't have to be shipped to these pens a thousand miles away.

Now, it makes absolutely no sense to me, at a time when we're fighting fiscal problems in this country--we've got trillions of dollars in debt, and unless we start cutting spending, we're going to see this country go into bankruptcy. Moody's has already said they may have to reevaluate the bond rating for the country.

Let me just end up, Mr. Speaker, by saying it seems to me that we ought to be frugal with the public's money. We ought to cut the Bureau of Land Management's budget so that we can save the money and save the mustangs. That's what this is all about--a humane way of treating the mustangs in this country, which are a part of our heritage.

Madam Speaker, an extraordinary event happened in my district. Fishers High School, after being in existence for only 5 years, won the State 5A high school football championship. And I just wanted to congratulate Coach Rick Wimmer and his Tigers for doing such an outstanding job. You know that many schools that have been in existence for a long time do great things, but to do it in only 5 years is really extraordinary. So congratulations to this great school.

Mr. Speaker, in October, five Members of Congress wrote to the President--myself, Ted Poe of Texas, Ralph Hall of Texas, Pete Olson of Texas, and Ed Royce of California--and we asked the President to take more steps to deal with the problems on the Texas border because people have been killed and beaten up down there. Shots have been fired across the border. And 80 miles into the country, the United States of America, we have signs telling people, warning people not to go south of there because they might be in danger from Mexican drug cartels or people across the border who are spying for the drug cartels. So there is a real problem.

Well, we didn't get an answer back from the President. And so we wrote again in November, and again we didn't get a reply. And then around the end of December, we got a reply from Homeland Security, from a fellow in Legislative Affairs, and he went through the same song and dance that they have gone through for a long time, talking about how they are solving the problem on the border.

Just recently in the last few weeks, four road workers were out there in Texas and they were working on the roads trying to fill potholes with gravel and do some other things. It was a shovel-ready project, incidentally. And they were fired at from across the border, which was about half a mile away. The bullets didn't hit any of them, but it sure scared the dickens out of them. And Mike Doyle, the chief deputy of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Office, said that a rancher spotted a white pickup truck fleeing the area on the Mexican side after the shots were fired, and they think that the drug cartel may have been firing those shots to divert attention away from what was going on there in order to get drugs smuggled across the border.

The reason I bring all of this up once again is because we sent 17,000 National Guard troops down to deal with the oil spill in the gulf, and it was something that we should have done. We should have dealt with that problem as quickly as possible to make sure that we stopped any environmental damage that might accrue from that, and to help the people from Louisiana who were suffering, and the other border States down there. But we haven't done anything but send about 1,400 National Guard troops down to the border, or close to the border, and many of them have been withdrawn.

We have to do something to protect that 1,980-mile border between us and Mexico. Americans can't go within 80 miles of the border of Arizona and Mexico because there is a threat for their safety and security. That is something we cannot tolerate as a Nation. We have a war going on on the Mexican-American border, and we have to do whatever is necessary to protect Americans and to stop the drug trafficking coming across that border.

We did it in Colombia with Plan Colombia, and that is not on our border. That is down south of the Panama Canal. So we really need to address this problem.

So if I were talking to the President tonight, Mr. Speaker, I would say:

Mr. President, come on, let's do what has to be done to protect our southern border. We are doing the job over in the Far East; we are doing the job over in the Middle East, and that's okay.

Yet our border, our front yard, is threatened every single day by these drug cartels and by these terrorists coming across the border, and American ranchers and businesspeople cannot conduct their daily lives down there because there is no real security.

So, if I were talking to the President, I would say:

Mr. President, please review this issue. Don't ignore Members of Congress, five Members who wrote you, who are concerned about this issue. Don't ignore us. Do something about it, and please don't send us any more of these inane letters that really don't say anything about solving the problem. It's a real problem about the security of this country and about the people who live down there and traverse that area.

Mr. President, let's get on with it.

October 26, 2010.

Hon. Barack Obama,

President of the United States of America, the White House,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. President: We are writing to you today to express

our extreme concern regarding the deteriorating security

situation along our Nation's southern border. It seems that

every day brings a new report of some atrocity; the most

recent being the apparent murder of a U.S. citizen at Falcon

Lake, Texas; yet little if anything appears to be being done

by our government or the Mexican government to stop the

bloodshed and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Protecting our borders and our citizens is a paramount

responsibility of the Federal government; enshrined in the

preamble of the Constitution. It would be an unforgivable

breach of our constitutional responsibilities if we do not

take stronger measures not only to prevent the upward spiral

of violence from further spilling over into the United States

and threaten the safety of U.S. citizens on American soil but

to reclaim those areas of our border already overrun by

smugglers and criminals. We can no longer pretend that this

is simply Mexico's problem. The time has come to recognize

that the drug violence along the border is a direct threat to

the United States and act accordingly.

First, it has become apparent that the Mexican government

and law enforcement authorities are either unwilling or

unable to address this problem unilaterally. Therefore, we

believe it is imperative that you immediately begin serious

dialogue with President Calderon on building a comprehensive

framework, in the spirit of Plan Colombia, that will better

coordinate a more aggressive and proactive strategy to turn

the tide of this conflict.

Second, we must complete construction of the border fence.

Any responsibility we have to minimize the impact of the

fence on the physical landscape or native species in the

region pales in comparison when measured against the value of

human lives that will be lost if we do not seal the border.

Finally, we believe it is critical that we deploy

additional National Guard troops to the

border. Media reports indicate that 17,000 National Guard

troops were deployed to the Gulf region to respond to the

recent oil spill. Yet, you have only pledged 1,200 National

Guard troops to protect the border--and according to media

reports only a small fraction of those troops have arrived to

date. It is unrealistic, if not pure insanity, to believe

that a mere 1,200 National Guard troops, even with the

support of the Border Patrol, can effectively cover the

nearly 2,000 mile long Southwestern border of the United

States. We must put additional bodies on the ground and we

must give them the weapons and specify rules of engagement

that give them the authority to do whatever is necessary to

secure the border. A National Guard trooper armed with only a

pistol and given no authority to engage the enemy is useless

against a criminal armed with military grade weapons and

ammunition.

Mr. President, we implore you to view this situation for

what it is, a war and to act accordingly.

Sincerely,

Dan Burton,

Ted Poe,

Ralph Hall,

Pete Olson,

Ed Royce,

Members of Congress.

Madam Speaker, last Tuesday, north of the Mexican-American border, a number of our Border Patrol agents were trying to stop some bandits, Mexican bandits who were stealing and killing people who were coming across the border illegally. One of the people that was involved in this and was shot was a fellow named Manuel Arianes, AKA Manuel Arellanes Osorio. He is a Mexican in the United States illegally. He was convicted in 2006 for aggravated assault. He had been deported to Mexico twice, and he was in the United States with his colleagues committing more crimes. And a Border Patrol agent, Mr. Brian A. Terry, was shot to death on the border in that area last Tuesday night.

Now, the reason I bring this up--and my good friend, Mr. Poe of Texas, who will be talking about this and probably some other things related to it later--we wrote a letter, Mr. Poe, myself, and Ed Royce of California, Ralph Hall of Texas, and Pete Olson. All of us wrote a letter to the President of the United States, and this was in October. We said, Mr. President, you know, we sent 17,000 National Guard people to the Gulf during the Gulf oil spill because it was a threat to the environment and to the people's livelihoods who live down in that area. And yet the Mexican-American border is 1,980 miles long, and when the President decided to help augment our Border Patrol agents, he sent, I think, 1,300 or 1,400 National Guardsmen down, went down there and only for a short period of time, and they were not right on the border.

We have a war going on on the Mexican-American border. Today, we talked about the spending bills. We talked about taxes. We talked about tax extenders. And all of those things are extremely important, but we have a war going on on the Mexican-American border with drug dealers and thieves and terrorists coming in from Mexico. And now we understand that we're training, down in Central America, some of the local law enforcement and military with our military people to stop them from moving into places like Costa Rica. We are talking about the drug dealers.

We have a major problem in our hemisphere that threatens the stability of the entire southern part of the United States--Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. And as we know, the Arizona Governor has tried to do everything she can to deal with the problem, and nothing is happening. In fact, the President of the United States and the Justice Department have been fighting her. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

We need to get on with doing what we promised to do, and that is build that border fence and put enough border agents down there and National Guardsmen to deal with the problem and, if necessary, to work with the President of Mexico to put military personnel on both sides of the border to stop these terrorists, drug dealers, and the people that are disrupting what is going on here in the United States.

And you say, Well, that's the border. That doesn't deal with us.

There are signs in Arizona 80 miles north of the border, 80 miles into the United States that say to American citizens, Don't go south of here because it's not safe. We have got ranchers and farmers that have been beaten up and killed in the United States by these drug dealers and these terrorists that are coming across the border.

So we wrote to the President on October 26, Mr. Poe and I and my other colleagues, and we followed up with another letter on November 4. And you know what we have heard from the President? Not a darn thing. Nothing. And it's been, what, a month and a half, 2 months.

The President is ignoring this problem and people are dying, and the security of the southern part of the United States--in fact, the entire United States is at risk.

So if I were talking tonight--and I know, Madam Speaker, I can't talk to the President because we are not allowed to talk to people outside the Chamber. But if I were talking to the President, I would say, Mr. President, answer our letters. Pay attention to what's going on, and secure that border. Go talk to the President of Mexico and the others in Central and South America and make sure we stop these drug cartel terrorists from disrupting the United States and threatening the security of our border. This is a war, Mr. President. Get on with it.

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, October 26, 2010.

Hon. Barack Obama,

President of the United States of America, The White House,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. President: We are writing to you today to express

our extreme concern regarding the deteriorating security

situation along our Nation's southern border. It seems that

every day brings a new report of some atrocity; the most

recent being the apparent murder of a U.S. citizen at Falcon

Lake, Texas; yet little if anything appears to be being done

by our government or the Mexican government to stop the

bloodshed and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Protecting our borders and our citizens is a paramount

responsibility of the Federal government; enshrined in the

preamble of the Constitution. It would be an unforgivable

breach of our constitutional responsibilities if we do not

take stronger measures not only to prevent the upward spiral

of violence from further spilling over into the United States

and threaten the safety of U.S. citizens on American soil but

to reclaim those areas of our border already overrun by

smugglers and criminals. We can no longer pretend that this

is simply Mexico's problem. The time has come to recognize

that the drug violence along the border is a direct threat to

the United States and act accordingly.

First, it has become apparent that the Mexican government

and law enforcement authorities are either unwilling or

unable to address this problem unilaterally. Therefore, we

believe it is imperative that you immediately begin serious

dialogue with President Calderon on building a comprehensive

framework, in the spirit of Plan Colombia, that will better

coordinate a more aggressive and proactive strategy to turn

the tide of this conflict.

Second, we must complete construction of the border fence.

Any responsibility we have to minimize the impact of the

fence on the physical landscape or native species in the

region pales in comparison when measured against the value of

human lives that will be lost if we do not seal the border.

Finally, we believe it is critical that we deploy

additional National Guard troops to the border. Media reports

indicate that 17,000 National Guard troops were deployed to

the Gulf region to respond to the recent oil spill. Yet, you

have only pledged 1,200 National Guard troops to protect the

border--and according to media reports only a small fraction

of those troops have arrived to date. It is unrealistic, if

not pure insanity, to believe that a mere 1,200 National

Guard troops, even with the support of the Border Patrol, can

effectively cover the nearly 2,000 mile long Southwestern

border of the United States. We must put additional bodies on

the ground and we must give them the weapons and specify

rules of engagement that give them the authority to do

whatever is necessary to secure the border. A National Guard

trooper armed with only a pistol and given no authority to

engage the enemy is useless against a criminal armed with

military grade weapons and ammunition.

Mr. President, we implore you to view this situation for

what it is, a war and to act accordingly.

Sincerely,

Dan Burton,

Ralph M. Hall,

Edward R. Royce,

Ted Poe,

Pete Olson.

Madam Speaker, due to severe weather which delayed my return to Washington, D.C., I was unable to be on the House Floor for rollcall votes 628, 629 and 630. Had I been present I would have voted: yea on rollcall vote 628; nay on rollcall vote 629; and yea on rollcall vote 630.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Ovarian cancer, if it is caught early, has a 93-percent chance for 5- year survival for women with this terrible cancer, and if they don't catch it early, only 27 percent of the ladies that get it have a chance of survival.

This bill was named after Johanna Silver Gordon, who went to the doctor regularly for her physical. Her doctor missed the ovarian cancer that she had, and, like many women, because the doctor either misdiagnosed or missed it, she passed away, I believe in December of 2006.

This was brought to my attention by a very good friend, Ms. Kolleen Stacy, in Indiana, who had gynecological cancer. She fought it for many years and

she was a champion of Johanna's Law, and she brought to the attention of many people, including myself, the problems that women have by not knowing the signs of gynecological cancer problems, in particular ovarian cancer.

It is extremely important that this be caught early. For that reason, that is why this law is so important, because it gives women the opportunity to find out about the problems they may face early so that their survival rate can be increased.

I want to thank Darrell Issa, as well as our Democrat colleague who sponsored this bill, for bringing this to the floor a couple of years ago. I am very happy it is being reauthorized today.

What Johanna's Law does is it provides a cancer-specific fact sheet about gynecological cancers in both English and Spanish. It provides a comprehensive gynecological cancer brochure. It provides formative research and concept testing using focus groups to better understand the target audience.

It provides materials for primary care and health care professionals. And that is extremely important, because many physicians don't catch it. It is not because they don't want to; it is because the signs have not been very clearly defined and they haven't seen it. And it is extremely important that these materials for primary care and health care professionals be provided.

It provides print and broadcast public service announcements for women so that they can see on television maybe some of the symptoms that they have that might be leading to a gynecological-type cancer.

It also provides that all materials that have been created through Johanna's Law be sent to television, radio, and printout lists throughout the country. The CDC is tracking and airing the PSAs and audience impressions, and the CDC is also reaching out to groups encouraging the use of these materials.

As my colleague has stated, a lot of women have lost their lives or had their lives shortened because they didn't know the symptoms of gynecological cancer or ovarian cancer early enough.

This is a very important piece of legislation. I know that there are not a lot of people here speaking about it today, but women across the country who have suffered from various forms of cancer understand the import of legislation like this.

I would like to thank my colleagues in the Senate and my colleagues here in the House for bringing this legislation to the floor. Once again, I am very proud to be a cosponsor of it, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I think Israel continues to do everything they can to bring about a peaceful solution to the problems in the Middle East regarding the Palestinian issue, but they don't have a partner, and the Palestinians continue to do an end run around the negotiation process.

Number one, it isn't going to work. Number two, it shows the insincerity of the leadership of the Palestinian Authority when it talks about peace. In the past 5 years, we have given over $2 billion in assistance to the Palestinian Authority, and we have been reinforcing and rewarding bad behavior on the part of the Palestinian Authority when it has proven to us, by doing the things it is doing right now, that it is really not worthy of the support we are giving it. We should finally hold the Palestinian Authority leaders accountable.

A couple of things really bother me. One is when I hear the leader of the Palestinian Authority and the PLO, Abu Mazen, praise the recently deceased mastermind of the PLO's massacre of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. This is the leader, and he is praising the massacre that the whole world abhorred. He also expressed what he called his ``firm rejection of the so-called Jewishness of the State of Israel,'' saying, ``This issue is over for us. We have not and will not recognize it.''

That's a heck of an attitude for people to have who say they want a Palestinian state and who say they want to negotiate while, at the same time, they're making these statements and are doing an end run around the entire process.

Last year, Abu Mazen said, ``Presently, we are against armed struggle because we cannot cope with it, but things could be different at some future phase.''

That indicates again and again and again their insincerity of negotiating in good faith. They are talking about at some point in the future having another armed struggle. Israel has gone beyond the pale time and again. Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, has taken that extra step time and again.

Until we see real concern and real sincerity in the negotiating process, we ought to take a very hard attitude toward the Palestinian Authority. In my opinion, that means cutting off any funding for it until it is willing to seriously sit down and negotiate a peaceful settlement to the problem.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I rise, as do others on our side of the aisle today, as a supporter of efforts to combat child marriage in developing countries but in opposition to the Senate bill that we are considering today. I want you to know, before I make all my remarks, that I have actually seen forced child marriages in countries like Saudi Arabia firsthand. And it is a horrible thing, and I am very supportive of stopping that practice.

It's truly distressing to know that there still are countries where underage girls, like in Saudi Arabia, are compelled to marry much older men and lose their innocence and hope forever. The health of such young girls can suffer, as can their future opportunities to lead productive lives filled with normal social and economic opportunities, lives in which they can contribute with their full potential to their societies and their economies.

Concern over this problem is not a partisan issue. For example, in response to the plight of such young

women and to ensure that the prevention of child marriage is an integral part of U.S. efforts to promote respect for fundamental universally recognized human rights, in May of last year, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen of the Foreign Affairs Committee expressly included pertinent language in the Republican alternative version for the State Department authorization bill, H.R. 2475.

However, much has changed in our domestic fiscal environment over the course of the last 2 years. Here at home, we have Americans who are losing their houses, their homes, State and local governments that are on the verge of bankruptcy, cities that are reducing their police and firefighting forces, an economy that is close to stalling due to lack of growth, and I could go on and on. But in light of all these facts, even the provision that had been included in the Republican proposal, or the authorization of State Department operations, last year would now need to be revised to cut spending and address the budgetary challenges that we face.

Regrettably, the bill adopted by the Senate that we are considering today does not reflect the current fiscal realities. The Congressional Budget Office has stated that the manner in which the provisions of this bill are drafted would result in $108 million of authorized funding and $67 million in actual outlays over the next few years, which is different than what we have heard here on the floor.

Further, despite inquiries to the Congressional Research Service and, through CRS, the State Department and Agency for International Development, there is apparently no available confirmed figure on exactly how much aid the United States already provides to fight child marriage overseas.

We do know that such U.S. assistance programs, programs that specifically include the prevention of child marriage as an objective, are already underway. But no one can tell us how much taxpayer funding is already being used to fight child marriage in developing countries.

To achieve the policy objectives we seek, while taking into account the economic challenges and limitations our Nation, our constituents are facing, this week Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen introduced a bill on the prevention of child marriage which enjoys the support of several of our colleagues in this House. That bill reflects modifications that Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen had sought to make to the Senate text before it came to the floor, but they were not accepted. Instead of the $67 million in outlays over the next 5 years in the Senate text before us, the provisions of that bill would have resulted in less than $1 million in potential costs.

The Republican alternative proposed the following:

First, we make it clear that child marriage is a violation of human rights and that its prevention should be a goal of U.S. foreign policy;

Second, since there's currently no legislative requirement for a U.S. strategy for assistance to prevent child marriage, we require the creation of such a multiyear strategy;

Third, we require a report within 1 year that would inform us on the progress of the required strategy and, perhaps more important, give us a comprehensive assessment of what we already are doing and funding in the effort to fight child marriage; and

Finally, that the practice of child marriage in other countries be reported each year as part of the annual Human Rights Report, and that the practice of child marriage also be reported for those countries that are potential recipients of U.S. security assistance.

I believe the alternative approach that was proposed would have achieved the goals we desire without adding to our economic burdens. Regrettably, we are faced with S. 987 and its price tag of $67 million.

Mr. Speaker, having outlined my concerns with the bill before us today, I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no further speakers, but I will add one more comment if I may, and that is: Make no mistake about it----

Well, I have not yielded my time, so I will use my time. I will be happy to use your time.

I won't take the full minute. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just say that I don't want anyone to think we're not very sympathetic to the problem. We are, but the fiscal problems we face in this country right now are of paramount concern to all of us. And for that reason, we must bring this to a vote, and that's the reason why I ask for it.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.