Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we as a people should take note of those who immediately rushed forward to help. As a senior member of the International Relations Committee, I rise today to express my personal gratitude as well as that of my fellow Americans to the royal family and to the people of Qatar who once again demonstrated their generosity, friendship, and solidarity with the people of the United States at a time of our maximum suffering.

When it really counted, Qatar stepped forward with a generous gift of $100 million to the American victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Qatar is a small country, yet it must rank near the top of America's list of friends and allies. With the leadership of a thoughtful and progressive royal family, Qatar is building democratic institutions including elections, freedom of press and religion, and a recognition of the rights of women.

Furthermore, after 9/11, our military was permitted to establish its headquarters in Qatar, which is vital to the safety of our troops and the success of America's operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Thank you, Qatar. You have proven to be friends when we needed you the most, and we will not forget it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation, this authorization bill. I want to congratulate the gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), for a job well done. I especially want to congratulate the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), who has taken over the position of chairman of the subcommittee, and the ranking member, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall). Good job. It is a good job for America, good job for NASA and a good job for the future.

In its short history, I believe NASA has done more than any other governmental agency to inspire generations of America's youth to pursue careers in science and engineering and thus propel the United States and the world into an era of technology that has elevated the human condition to what, only a few decades ago, was beyond imagination.

Now at a time of intense global competition, NASA plays a vital role for our country both in inspiration and in technology development. America's success in the future depends on it.

In just a few short months, NASA administrator Michael Griffin has shown tremendous leadership in transforming an agency from a maintenance-oriented mindset to a mission-oriented mindset. Dr. Griffin is fully behind the President's Vision for Space Exploration, and I am confident that he is the right man at the helm to guide NASA to achieve the vision and to achieve goals that will uplift all of humankind and especially our own country.

Although these are exciting times for NASA, these are also challenging times. Hard decisions will have to be made as the administrator and all of us have to prioritize spending. The pressure of a constrained budget, expensive legacy missions, and future program developments of the Crew Exploration Vehicle and other exploration initiatives will require creative and bold spending cuts as well as an expansive partnership with the private sector. The administrator will need our support for making those tough decisions. NASA's success, America's success depends upon it.

NASA cannot be an agency that does everything for everyone, or it will not be able to accomplish anything for anybody. It needs to have a clear focus and vision, and it needs to execute that vision as well. Let us stand proudly behind NASA and its new administrator. Let us make sure that America leads the world into this new frontier and elevates all of humankind, as was our mission that was set in place by our Founding Fathers over 225 years.

I again congratulate those who have reached a bipartisan consensus in this bill today, and I am very proud that over my 18 years in Congress the Committee on Science has always demonstrated bipartisanship in this committee.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in reluctant opposition to this bill.

In 2001 after an attack on the United States and the slaughter of innocent civilians, this Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, which I supported at that time. It gave our investigative agencies a wide variety of special powers to fight terrorism and to win this war on terrorism. However, these powers were not to be permanent. They were designed to help us win the war, not to change our country permanently.

Now we have the PATRIOT Act being handed to us again, but instead it is being handed to us in a permanent form. You do not make policy for the United States Government protecting the rights and freedoms of our people in an extraordinary time as this, a time of war, and then mandate it so it is going to be the rule of our country once we live in peacetime.

Our country was founded on the idea of limited government and individual liberty. I gladly supported PATRIOT I. Now they have taken all but two of the sunset provisions which would make those extraordinary new powers that we gave the government lapse once we have peace in this country.

Any real patriot will vote against this expansion of government at the expense of the individual even when peacetime comes.

I would suggest that we do not have to sunset all the legislation going through this Congress, but we have to pay particular attention to that legislation that affects the civil liberties of our people. And if we are going to in some way expand the power of government over our people in time of war because it is necessary, that should be sunsetted once the war is over. By permanently changing America, we are not furthering the cause of freedom in this country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this motion. After

9/11, the United States Congress gave

our investigative agencies a wide variety of special powers to fight a war on terrorism, an expansion of powers that we would have never approved in peacetime. This included the right to break into homes of American citizens without court order, seize documents, copy computer files, and evidence without ever telling the owner. We gave our agencies, among those other things, the right to wiretap and intercept phone and computer communications without prior cause, and in general we lowered the requirement for lawful searches. I supported this dramatic expansion of Federal power because our country was at war.

In times of emergency, it is responsible to increase the power of our government, yet we recognize that these powers should contain sunset provisions. The first PATRIOT Act had 16 of its sections sunsetted, so after the emergency was over the government would again return to a level consistent to a free society. Our Republic was founded on the idea that the powers of government should be limited. We should not be required to live in peacetime under the extraordinary laws that were passed during times of war and crisis. Emergency powers of investigation should not become the standard once the crisis has passed.

I am seriously concerned about the use of emergency conditions to permanently alter our constitutional legal rights. Until now, the Members of this body have been denied the ability to vote their conscience on the issue of sunsets. Now, each of us will have that opportunity. It is not a Republican vote, it is not a Democrat vote. I support this war on terror and the war on radical Islam. I was here yesterday fighting for a very important provision that put me against my friends on the other side of the aisle. But today I am asking all of my friends, on both sides of the aisle, let us be patriots. Let us stand up for those principles that our Founding Fathers talked about, and that is limiting the power of government.

What we are doing here in this motion to recommit is establishing the sunsets so that 4 years from now, hopefully when we have beaten the terrorists, we can return to normal constitutional protections, and if not, we can reestablish another situation. But, please, let us keep faith with those people who founded our country on limited government and the protection of civil liberties. Vote ``yes'' on this provision.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, there is hardly a topic more misunderstood, mischaracterized, and exploited by America's enemies than the detention facility administered by the United States military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mr. Chairman, we should be clear that the Guantanamo prison is reserved for some of the world's worst terrorists. Those there pose a great threat to our national security. Those there were primarily captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan.

Here are some specifics that the Department of Defense has stated publicly regarding Guantanamo. Since September 11, 2001, more than 70,000 detainees have been captured in Afghanistan and Iraq. The vast majority have been released. The U.S. is working with Iraq and Afghanistan and other governments to have them take control of detainees from their own countries.

Some 800 suspected al Qaeda or Taliban have been sent to Guantanamo; approximately 520 of them remain. Approximately 235 have been released, transferred or are presently in other countries; 61 are awaiting release or transfer.

So, who is in Guantanamo? Well, certainly no one under 18 years of age. That is important. The people who were there are terrorists, terrorist trainers, bomb makers, recruiters and facilitators, terrorist financiers, Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, and would-be suicide bombers.

And what are we learning from these people that are being held in Guantanamo? The organizational structure of al Qaeda and other terrorist groups; the extent of terrorist presence in Europe, in the United States and the Middle East; al Qaeda's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction; methods of recruitment and location centers for recruitment; terrorist skills and how they use them; both general and specialized operative training; and how legitimate financial activities are being used to hide terrorist operations.

Mr. Chairman, Lieutenant General Randall Schmidt recently headed a Department of Defense investigation of Guantanamo. General Schmidt's report described how military interrogators at Guantanamo broke down Saudi Arabian-born Mohammed al Kahtani, who was to be, I might add, the 20th hijacker on September 11.

By the fall, Mr. Kahtani had resisted all conventional interrogation techniques, so Secretary Rumsfeld approved a more aggressive action plan, although a plan that still did not violate the Geneva Convention.

Ultimately, this prisoner started talking, and we learned how al Qaeda, led by bin Laden, planned September 11 and the murder and the slaughter of almost 3,000 Americans. We learned how they recruited the terrorists and financed their operations, and how they entered the United States of America.

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, common sense prevents a greater discussion of the intelligence windfall that was reaped by the questioning of this particular prisoner. This case also shows that persistence and skill of our soldiers pays off. In short, intelligence gained at Guantanamo has prevented terrorist attacks and saved the lives of countless Americans and America's allies.

Mr. Chairman, no system is perfect, no group of people is perfect, our country is certainly not perfect, our defenders are not perfect. But of some 24,000 interrogations, of those 24,000 interrogations, again, it is not a perfect system, but only 9 of the 24,000 have been basically found to have any type of abuse or purported to be examples of abuse. Most significantly, Guantanamo is not shrouded in secrecy, as we are told over and over again. There has been enormous transparency, especially as compared to any other country in the world which is holding terrorist detainees.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has been there. They have 24/7 access to the facility, and it is at their discretion. The International Committee of the Red Cross had had a permanent presence, recently changed at its choosing, and basically that is what the report said.

We have also had media people go to Guantanamo, including more than 400 visits by 1,000 national and international journalists. We have had lawyers for the detainees there, especially in connection with habeas corpus cases. We have had congressional Members, including 17 Senators, 103 Representatives, and 129 congressional staffers. Now, if there was ever a case of openness and transparency in a place for holding prisoners, this is it.

Additionally, Congress has held at least a dozen hearings into this matter.

Mr. Chairman, our distinguished colleague, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), stated after touring Gitmo last month that he noted that the detainees have gained an average of five pounds each over the last year. They have received first class medical services, averaging four hospital visits per month, and that 100 percent of the detainees have been given a written notice of their rights, a written notice of their right to contest their detention in a U.S. court of law, as well as instructions on how to obtain a free lawyer, and about 100 of the detainees have lawyers at this time.

What other country in the world would be so generous at a time of war, after seeing our people slaughtered in New York?

One military analyst, Jed Babbin, recently toured Gitmo and concluded the following: ``The common belief among the terrorists, fed by reports apparently conveyed to some by their lawyers, is that political pressure will soon result in our having to close Gitmo and to let them go. Critics are making the interrogators' job much harder than it already is. Because they, the terrorists, are beginning to believe we will close Gitmo, and many of the detainees resist interrogation'' because of this belief.

To the critics of Guantanamo, I would ask them, where do they suggest that we put these people? What do they suggest we do if we end up closing Gitmo? Where are we going to put those people we need to interrogate? Where are we going to put, in this war on terror, where are we going to put those we capture? At Gitmo, the people there have done a good job, a fantastic job, not a perfect job, and we should keep it open. It should not be closed, and we should actually congratulate

our people who work there for the fine job they have done.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time is still available?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, 12 of those detainees that were in Guantanamo who were released ended up going back to the battlefield in an attempt to kill Americans. Let us keep that in mind when people start complaining about holding people in Guantanamo in the middle of this conflict.

Let us know that those people that are being held are professional terrorists for the most part and were trained to claim that they had been tortured, and they were trained to make outlandish charges against the people who had captured them and against the United States of America. That is part of their tactic. Let us not fall for that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), who recently returned from a visit to Guantanamo.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is important for the American people to hold their heads up high, not only about the goals of the war on terror but the way we have conducted it, and especially the way we have handled the prisoners at Guantanamo.

Let us put it this way: the prisoners in Guantanamo, our prisoners, are better off for being our prisoners. They have gained weight. They have medical attention. They have regular meals, none of which they would have had if they would not have been captured. And life in their cell is probably a lot better than the cave in which they used to live. And perhaps as well, we need to say that the leaders, the people who hold power over them at Guantanamo are at least directed and guided by moral restrictions that are far different than those restrictions placed on them by their former leaders who followed radical Islam.

The people who used to be their boss and hold authority over them, the radical Islamist leaders, would cut people's heads off, participate in torture, not to mention of course send them out and send their families out on suicide missions. No, those people that we have captured that are in Guantanamo are better off because they are under our authority rather than those people they used to work for.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the International Relations Committee, as well as the co-chairman of the International Relations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, as our chairman of the Committee on International Relations just noted, it is always of benefit to get criminals off of the street and it is always to our benefit to take people who are involved, actively involved in terrorist organizations who have been engaged in suicide bombings, engaged in murdering other people, it is always good to get them off the street. And if it is in Guantanamo or anywhere else, that makes Guantanamo a very positive factor in keeping us safe.

Twelve of the people who we let go out of the 56 already returned to do battle to kill Americans. So it might have been better even to keep them in custody rather than put the Americans who they were aiming their guns at at more risk. Guantanamo is doing a good job. Those people down there, the Americans, are doing a good job for us. They are not perfect but no one is perfect, but they are making us safer and that is what this is about. I think we have no hesitancy whatsoever than to proclaim that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I think we should note that there have been at least a dozen congressional hearings into Guantanamo itself and there has not been a lack of attention on the possibilities that some of our people were not meeting the high standards that we set as a Nation. That is number one.

Number two, and I think my colleague, and he is my dear friend and colleague, should understand that Guantanamo is not a result, as he suggested, of an unjust and illegal war in Iraq. Almost all the prisoners in Guantanamo, unless I am mistaken, are from the Afghan conflict and the conflict in Afghanistan was thrust upon us. The war in Iraq had nothing to do with Guantanamo whatsoever. The prisoners in Guantanamo are people who have been taken prisoner after serving as part of al Qaeda or the Taliban army in Afghanistan. We did not choose to declare war on the Taliban and al Qaeda. They attacked us. We were attacked on September 11.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Reclaiming my time, I think it is very clear that what is happening in Guantanamo, which is the discussion today, has come under attack by people who generally are opposed to a very tough and aggressive and engaged American foreign policy overseas.

We can no longer rely on our oceans and our noninvolvement in places like Afghanistan where we let the Taliban have their way and expect that we are going to be safe. We are not safe. 9/11 proved that.

When we engage in a war against people like these terrorists who have murdered our people and we capture people, we have to put them some place. Guantanamo has served that purpose, and Americans down there have uncovered information that have saved American lives. That is how we have gotten to know what al Qaeda is all about.

I am sorry there are times that people feel compelled to criticize American policy overseas and certainly that should not include Guantanamo, and that is what this debate is about today.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen), chairman of the Subcommittee on Middle East and Central Asia of the Committee on International Relations.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), a member of the Committee on Armed Services, who has also returned from a visit to Guantanamo Bay.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

There has never been any proof of torture at all at Guantanamo, period, zippo. Also, let us not hear the complaint that we have not had enough investigation of Guantanamo.

Mr. Chairman, 187 Members of Congress and congressional staff have visited Guantanamo just in the last few months, 11 Senators, 77 Representatives, 99 congressional staff members, and there have been 400 media visits, including 1,000 national and international journalists have visited there. There has been a lot of attention paid to Guantanamo. We have been transparent. We can be proud of the job our people are doing. That is what this is all about today.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment.

We take so many things for granted in this country, and people, when you look at the life of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and some of the people who have gone through so much hardship and turmoil in their life, they cherish America because they understand things and they see things that we do not see.

Sometimes we do not see the freedom around us because it is invisible. It is the lack of a guy with his boot in your face. It is the absence of that that is freedom. It is the absence of the censor or the bully or the gangster that runs your local community. That is what freedom is, and it takes people some time who have gone through that turmoil to understand that, and I appreciate the support of the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) since we have had that tragedy on 9/11 and been forced into this war on radical Islam.

But we have to remember this: Whatever freedom we have, whatever we cherish here in the United States of America, we have because people sacrifice for it; we have because there were people who shed blood, who had courage and made right decisions years ago, whether it was during the Cold War, whether it was during World War II when we fought the Nazis and the Japanese militarists, or the Cold War when we fought the Communists. The fact is the people had courage and saw the fight through till the end. Had we backed off in those battles, this world would have been a different place. This would have been a far different place to raise our children.

Now is not the time for us to back down. Now is the time for us to reaffirm to our friend and our foe alike that we have the courage to stick it out, we have the courage to build a better world for tomorrow with our courage and sacrifice today. We are going to raise our children in a better world because we are not going to live in a world where radical Islam blows up buildings anymore or beheads people.

America, hold firm. Be courageous. Let us build a better world together for these things that we cherish.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

I rise to offer an amendment to H.R. 2864 that will expand the scope of section 208 in the Water Resources Development Act of 1986. My amendment will allow our ports to levy a fee on containers and use that fee to pay for security and infrastructure at the ports.

The Rohrabacher amendment will facilitate the effort to modernize and secure American ports. In my district, the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles handle approximately 44 percent of all of the goods delivered to American shores, yet they are in constant need of revenue for facilities, improvements and upgrades to roads and bridges and rails.

Our marine terminals are invaluable commerce infrastructure, not only to our country but also for the many foreign manufacturers who sell primarily in the U.S. market. This is the portal through which foreign manufacturers deliver their goods to our markets. Yet these manufacturers provide almost none of the costs of operation or upkeep of these vital assets. This system, as it currently operates, is a subsidy to foreign manufacturers, paid by the American taxpayer, concealing the true cost of imported goods. What we have here is all backwards. What we are in effect doing, as the system works, is putting a tariff on products that are made in America.

Section 208 of WRDA currently allows ports to charge fees on tonnage and use those fees to fund infrastructure improvements. This section is hardly, if ever, invoked by the ports to raise funds due to the fact that it is complicated to collect and tends to be too unwieldy to be used effectively.

My amendment allows the ports to use a simpler and more efficient method: Fees on containers. The market-based fee in my amendment is simple to implement and to track, should be more widely used to raise funds for port projects. My amendment will also permit these fees to be used for homeland security projects at the ports, as well as infrastructure.

And let us be frank, the security threats that emanate from our ports come from foreign cargo. Why are we paying for their threat? If they want access to our markets, overseas manufacturers should pay the cost to ensure the safety of their deliveries. For too long the funding of marine terminals has been a one-way street with the American taxpayer footing the bill for the factory owners of Shanghai, Beijing and Macau while American manufacturers have been subsidizing their own competition.

Our port facilities should have the freedom to levy a market-based container fee which will provide new revenue and make our system more equitable to the American taxpayer and American manufacturers. The Rohrabacher amendment is the most efficient way to achieve these goals. The Rohrabacher amendment says we are on the side of the American taxpayer, and those people who run overseas to manufacture in China and elsewhere should be paying their part of the cost to make sure that that system, our port system, is working.

I would expect that people on both sides of the aisle would be supporting this. Unfortunately, our port systems, our ports, the people who run them, would rather come to the American taxpayer and get stipends from us rather than asking for a just fee to those manufacturers in China to pay for some of the costs that are required to ship their goods through our ports.

This is an American versus foreign vote here. Whose side are we on? Who is going to pay the bill? Right now if our people go overseas and build their manufacturing plants, we end up subsidizing that by permitting them low-cost ways of getting their goods right into our market and undercutting the American producers who stayed behind to hire American people.

I would ask people on both sides of the aisle to seriously consider this. Do not listen to the ports who simply want more taxpayer subsidies. Let us let the people who use this system, the foreign manufacturers, pay their fair share.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

The establishment has set up a system that we have built a Frankenstein monster in China by ensuring that jobs and manufacturing are going to China. I do not know why that is, I think that was a horrible decision, but it is time for us to start backing away from that policy. The most important way to start backing away from the policy of taking American jobs and shipping them to China, building the economic strength of China, the first step to take is to make sure that those people who go to China to manufacture are paying the cost of shipping their goods into America's markets rather than having the taxpayer provide that for them at the expense of our own manufacturers.

I would ask people on both sides of the aisle, let us turn around this policy, change the basic policy on China, vote ``yes'' on the Rohrabacher amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. And with all due respect, we have been hearing this type of argument for 20 years. When are the American people going to demand that the Members of the United States Congress start watching out for the interests of the people of the United States and not some small group of elite Americans and international financiers who will make a profit off this in the short run, but in the long run will create the situation that we have found in China today and the situation we find ourselves in here.

For 20 years we have been told by trading and having economic relations with this monstrous dictatorship that we would see liberalization, that we would see a change in the policies that the Chinese government has towards its own people. What have we seen instead? It is the same massive dictatorship. This is the world's worst human rights abuser, and it is the last country in the world that we should be subsidizing American business in order to create business in that country.

The fact is we have seen jobs and businessmen in this country go to China because business leaders in this country will personally make a quick buck by betraying the American working people. That is what is happening here. How can we think they would do anything else?

This government, as we are hearing today, is subsidizing this. Now, when it comes to Westinghouse, when it comes to Westinghouse, this is not even an American company. And we are going to have the United States taxpayers subsidizing a British company in order to build a nuclear power plant or a series of nuclear power plants for communist China? This makes no sense at all. We should not be subsidizing it even if it was an American company.

What are the Chinese going to do when they get this technology from Westinghouse? I can tell you right now, it is certainly something that is

acknowledged in the business community, they will start building those plants and they will copy every piece of technology that we have spent, the American taxpayers have spent, developing the technology, and the Chinese will just take it and copy it. That is why today the greatest threat to our freedom, the greatest threat to America's prosperity is not radical Islam, although that is a challenge we have to face, but in the long run it is a China that is emerging on the scene that is belligerent to everything we stand for as a people.

The last thing we should be doing is building up their economy as we have been doing as a policy of this government for the last 20 years. And let me note, nuclear power plants? Has anyone looked at the proliferation record of the communist Chinese? Why do you think we are having a challenge right now to the world peace in Korea? Do you think the North Koreans just discovered all this technology on their own.

No, the fact is that the Chinese are the ones who are behind the nuclear development in Korea and the development of weapons that threaten Japan and the United States. The last thing we should be doing is helping them develop and perfect their technology that deals with nuclear energy.

This is, again, a no-brainer for me, but the American people need to find out whose side the Congress is on. The policies we have had to China in these last 20 years have created a Frankenstein monster that threatens not only the peace on the world, but threatens the prosperity of our people and the freedom of those who would seek freedom in China itself.

We have been cutting a deal with the devil and we are now coming to a point where everybody recognizes that threat, except perhaps the leadership, unfortunately, in the United States Congress.

So I would commend the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders). I look forward to working with him on this.

Let us get the word out to the American people whose side we are on.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation and commend my chairman for the good job that he has done, but I am opposed to one portion of the bill. The Baird/Rohrabacher amendment, which we will debate in a few moments, will remove title III from this appropriations bill. Title III not only should not be in this appropriations bill; it should not become law no matter how it is brought up. Title III is a statutory plan that has been rejected by the United States Senate because it will not work. It will not work because it was intended to ensure not the continuity of Congress but, as it turned out, it was intended and it is intended by what you can see and what it does to ensure the continuity of the election process, which are two different items.

The task force that got together to try to come up with a solution to this challenge of what we are going to do in case of a catastrophe where many of our people are killed or incapacitated became confused about what they were supposed to be doing. The idea is not to ensure the election process, but to ensure that this Congress can act in a time of emergency.

Instead, what we have gotten as our alternative, which is in title III of this bill, will put us in grave jeopardy for 7 weeks after a national catastrophe. I am pleading with my Republican friends to please open their eyes and not let the ego of the people on this task force who put together this and now will not look at any other alternative get in the way of watching out for the people of the United States.

If al Qaeda or any other enemy of our country manages to create a situation or explode a bomb or murder or incapacitate large numbers of our people, we cannot wait for 7 weeks of a special election in order to deal with that. What we have been offered is a plan that will lead to martial law at exactly the time when we need Congress functioning to represent the interests of the American people.

I am pleading with my Republicans to please not blindly follow along with a task force that got its working orders confused with what they were trying to do. Please think about what will happen if we have another major bombing in this country and it happens in this city. Let us not incapacitate Congress from working for 7 weeks, which is what title III does. Title III would say that we have to wait for special elections for up to 7 weeks. This is outrageous.

There is an alternative. The Baird/Rohrabacher constitutional alternative changes the rules. The alternative to what we have been offered by this task force which, as I say, lost their way on this is that we should change the way we do things so that we can cope with the challenge of this type of threat to our society, that is, we will run, we will select an alternate to run with us, the voters will vote for a team of people so that if we are incapacitated or murdered, the alternate can take that seat right away and Congress will not cease to function for 7 weeks.

That person is elected, just like the Vice President of the United States is elected and will take over for the President of the United States. No one claims that the Presidency would not be elected if the Vice President takes over.

We have to get rid of these cliches. We have got to get rid of these blocks on thinking what will happen. Put ourselves in a position of what will happen in a catastrophe. Waiting 7 weeks for special elections, as presented in this bill, would be a disaster.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, is there any reason that we could not move forward with a constitutional amendment and a statutory proposal at exactly the same time that would accomplish the mission rather than leave us vulnerable for 7 weeks after a catastrophe?

Mr. Chairman, I would agree with my colleague and friend that this is a moment, a rare moment, when we actually have an opportunity to get something done that needs to be done. Unfortunately, what we hear from the other side of the aisle is let us pass this opportunity up by not making the demands that we are making contingent upon anything that we do.

In other words, we are now going to make our demands for accountability, make our demands for reforms, which we have done in the base bill, but if these reforms are not implemented, if the United Nations continues in its incompetent and corrupt way, as in the past, there is going to be no penalty for it. If that is the case, what will happen is we will have surely passed up this historic moment to bring true reform to an international organization.

I would suggest that those who think that withholding our dues and the threat of withholding our dues is wrong, because Mr. Gingrich, by the way, supports the withholding of the dues as a tactic, if they are opposed to withholding dues or any other form of implementation, they are not for reform. This requires more than simple talk

Mr. Chairman, this has been a fine debate today, and

I believe that both sides have handled it very responsibly, but let us take a look at what the real issue is.

There is broad agreement on both sides as to the need for reform in the United Nations. This is not in contention. There is even broad agreement of what changes need to be made, what are the issues at the United Nations, a lack of accountability and some of these monstrous atrocities that we have seen, and the inefficiency and corruption that we have seen at the U.N. There is agreement on the problem.

The fundamental difference between the sides of this debate is whether or not there should be consequences if the United Nations does not reform. What is going on? The American people understand that in order to get an organization like the United Nations to reform, there must be consequences. Do we think the United Nations, this entrenched bureaucracy, will just say, Oh, we're enlightened by the wonderful debate that we've heard, you've appealed to our heart, that they are going to make the changes that are necessary to prevent corruption in their organization that they have lived with for years because we have touched their hearts, we have reached their intellect? No. We have got to make sure that there are consequences if they do not reform, or they will not pay any attention to us.

You remember the old show Truth Or Consequences? Unless we provide consequences for activities and actions that are wrong, we are not going to get any truth. There will be no truth unless they have consequences for telling us lies. For years we have lived with the lie that the United Nations is somewhat above corruption, that the United Nations represents the best of humankind. It will only represent the best of humankind and reach these higher standards if we say to them, if you are not living up to these standards, there is a price to pay.

The American people deserve to get their money's worth. We deserve to try to put pressure on the United Nations to live up to its standards. If we just give them a free pass, whether or not they reform or not, there will be no reform at the United Nations, and all of this will have gone for nothing.

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

Mr. Chairman, I stand here with great pride next to my chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), and recall all the great and wonderful battles that he has fought in his career, and I am so proud to be at his side at this, not the last battle that we will fight, but, as we lead into the sunset of his career, a battle that will be meaningful and remembered, and for which the American people will be grateful that we had his leadership.

Also, I might add, we are grateful for the honorable adversarial relationship that we have on the other side of the aisle, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), a champion of human rights, a dear friend, and someone who I greatly respect and whose guidance, I might say, has been important to my own career.

We are here today to take up the bill named for the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the Henry Hyde United Nations Reform Act of 2005. This bill will reform the United Nations in a meaningful and lasting way, especially in the arena of accountability.

Reform is vital in this area. And if anyone should doubt that, they only need look at the Oil-for-Food scandal which my subcommittee, under the leadership of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), has been investigating. The Oil-for-Food scandal, let us remember what it was. The Oil-for-Food program was set up in order to make sure that the women and children and noncombatants of Iraq did not die of lack of food and medicines because of an oil boycott that we had put, the United Nations had placed, on Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime as a way of pressuring Saddam Hussein to give up his chemical and biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction, and to continue, and to refrain from his hostile acts like the invasion of Kuwait.

Unfortunately, the Oil-for-Food scandal is what happened to the Oil- for-Food program. We decided to establish a program, the Oil-for-Food program, which would permit the Iraqi regime to sell a certain amount of oil under United Nations supervision and to use the resources from that sale to purchase a certain amount of humanitarian supplies to help the so-called starving women and children of Iraq so these people would not be necessarily harmed.

Right from the beginning, as the United Nations organized the program, Saddam Hussein, this vicious dictator, this mass murderer, was able to choose the buyers for Iraq's oil, as well as the suppliers of humanitarian goods, which would then be the product of the sale of that oil. What do you expect will happen when that is the way it is organized? And why was it organized that way? It was organized that way because it was a United Nations program.

Let us note that our allies, including France and Russia, who had demanded that we have an Oil-for-Food program to help those poor and starving Iraqi children, that as we put the program in place, instead of helping us, they became hindrances to our making sure that the program was run in an honest way. Saddam Hussein was able to demand kickbacks and surcharges for the sale of oil and the purchase of humanitarian goods. Our allies were all too willing to pay those kickbacks. These are the same ones who pressured us to establish the program.

Business was the driving factor, of course, in their decision. But let us note that another driving factor was the fact that we have uncovered that as part of the Oil-for-Food program bribes were being channeled to people in those very governments, and perhaps that had something to do with the decision-making process of our so-called allies.

Of the estimated $65 billion in oil sales during the time of the Oil- for-Food program, perhaps as much as $10 billion was siphoned off by Saddam Hussein, this mass murderer, and this $10 billion, which was supposed to be going to the Iraqi people to alleviate their suffering.

A United Nations-sanctioned inquiry led by Federal Reserve Bank chairman Paul Volcker has unearthed these evidences of kickbacks paid, for example, to the former director of the Oil-for-Food program in the United Nations. Thus we are saying that it was a United Nations program and the Oil-for-Food program resources were used to bribe Benon Sevan, United Nations official who oversaw the program who had been appointed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan and was a close confidant of Kofi Annan.

The Volcker Commission also published evidence detailing the destruction of documents about the Oil-for-Food program as late as last year by Annan's former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza.

The House International Relations Committee has been investigating the United Nations Oil-for-Food program since March of 2004. The oversight of the Oil-for-Food program at the United Nations itself was undercut by the weak institutional oversight management structures in the United Nations itself. The United Nations, as it was organized, as it is organized unless we act today, bears a great deal of the responsibility for the failure of these type of programs like the Oil- for-Food program.

There is not a culture of openness at the United Nations nor is the structure open, but instead a closed structure and a culture of arrogance. The United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, for example, was denied adequate funding and manpower needed to properly audit the Oil-for-Food program. If they were not given the proper resources, why would we expect it not to be corrupted, especially when dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein?

Saddam provided gifts from $10,000 to $25,000 to families of Palestinian suicide bombers with the kickback money that he received from the Oil-for-Food program. And let us note something else. If you want to find out what this program did and the power it gave Saddam Hussein, and the corruption of this idea of saving innocent women and children as a program officiated over by the United Nations, let us recall a speech in this body, not too long ago.

The President of the United States gave his State of the Union message here and introduced us to a lady sitting next to his wife, the first lady. Next to her was an Iraqi woman whose father had been assassinated by Saddam Hussein because he was a human rights activist. How was the assassin paid off? We have traced back the payment of the assassin of the woman who joined us for the State of the Union, the assassin of that woman's father, we have traced back that payment to a man who received the money from Saddam Hussein, and it was channeled through this United Nations program; and the money ended up going through a United Nations program to an assassin who murdered the father of the woman who was introduced to us because he was a human rights activist.

If ever there was a travesty, it is this. Saddam Hussein was manipulating the program; and the United Nations, it seems, if not willing to go along with Saddam Hussein, was certainly not willing to go along with the reforms that would have corrected the program.

Without approval, the New York office of the Banque de Paris, or Paribas, this was the bank that oversaw the Oil-for-Food program, the U.N.'s bank for the program made unauthorized payments from the program to so-called third parties on more than 400 occasions. These third parties where the unauthorized payments were made went to people that they had no idea who they were giving the money to. We have yet to be able to trace back who actually runs the corporations who received over 400 payments from the bank that ran this Oil-for-Food program, all of this, of course, under the United Nations' direction.

Now, that is the Oil-for-Food program. We could go on about that for hours. But there are other problems at the U.N. which we need to mention, the nepotism at the United Nations. We have seen over and over again people hiring their children. We have seen situations where, for example, Benon Sevan sold his vouchers to a company in which his stepdaughter was hired,

which was in violation of U.N. job violation rules. And let us note former Secretary Boutros Boutros Ghali's nephew.

Neoptism is rampant at the U.N. Maurice Strong, a long-time U.N. official and confidant of Secretary General Annan, hired his step- daughter Kristina Mayo for a U.N. job in violation of U.N. staff regulations. Benon Sevan allegedly sold his oil vouchers to a company run by former Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's nephew. Moreover, this deal with Sevan was set up by Fred Nadler, Boutros- Ghali's brother-in-law.

Strong has also been tainted by his association with the Tongsun Park, from the Koreagate scandal, against whom a complaint was filed by the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York in April. Park was attempting to illicitly influence ``a U.N. official'' through Iraqi Oil-For-Food money. Strong has confirmed that he was that U.N. official but denies wrongdoing.

The WMO in Geneva, Switzerland, a long-time WMO employee and Sudanese national was accused of skimming $3 million from accounts at the organization over a 3-4 year period. The funds were lost to this corruption and they will likely never be recovered.

He is said to have faked his death to avoid investigation. Accordingly, his wife presented a death certificate, acknowledged by Sudanese authorities to have been false, in order to claim his U.N. pension, which the U.N. has withheld pending the results of a full investigation being conducted by the Swiss authorities at the request of the WMO.

WMO authorities believe that ultimately there are 10-15 other WMO employees who could be viewed as negligent or even gross negligence.

The WMO Senior Legal Advisor reported that while bad, ``the internal procedures were not the worst seen in the U.N. family of organizations.''

At WIPO, also in Geneva, Michael Wilson, an Annan family friend, is being investigated by a Swiss judge on charges of bribing a senior official at WIPO to win a renovation contract on the agency's headquarters. The WIPO official acknowledges receiving $270,000 from Wilson. Wilson claims the money was from a private business venture.

There are also allegations of employee skimming of WIPO agency funds related to the renovation.

Prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the agency coordinated with international relief agencies and U.N. member states to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people.

In January of 1998, $43,701 had to be recovered from staff members no longer at the mission as well as outstanding obligations of $328,287 in November 1997 for the UNOHCI.

The audit revealed that an inventory of physical assets in May 1998 discovered that 185 items totaling $100,994 could not be accounted for.

The United Nations Claims Commission (UNCC) processes claims for losses and damage suffered as a direct result of Iraq's unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91.

In an audit of the UNCC's awards, the OIOS viewed the present system resulted in overpayments of $2,170,951 to the claimants in the 10th installment. Furthermore, in the absence of relevant information, OIOS estimates that UNCC has overpaid by $.51 billion to date for other claims. In addition, it is estimated that UNCC would overpay future claims by $1.27 billion, under the current exchange rate procedures.''

The United Nations Population Fund and U.N. Environment Program promotes environmental and population strategies among member governments.

In a statement before a U.N. Committee in 2004, Thomas Respasch of the U.S. Mission to the U.N. explained, the following extravagant travel expenses of two programs at the U.N.: ``In the U.N. Population Fund, we were quite surprised to learn that some senior staff members who spend more than half their time in travel status are racking up travel costs of $225,000. In the U.N. Environment Program, travel advances to other persons, in the amount of $82,208, had been outstanding for more than 20 months.''

United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) assists member states in their struggle against illicit drugs, crime and terrorism.

In 2003, Samuel Gonzalez-Ruiz, a senior adviser to UNODC, resigned, charging that the office ``tolerates administrative and in some cases criminal violations'' such as nepotism, mismanagement and misappropriation of funds by agency staff. A U.N. probe into corruption allegations found that ``a senior official improperly gave 11 contracts to his wife.'' In 2003, an OIOS probe found mismanagement by executive director Pino Arlacchi; collapse of $250 million 10-year plan to eradicate drugs from Afghanistan. Also found evidence of lavish, excessive spending, such as purchase of a $100,000 Mercedes.

These are but a few of the signs that the U.N. is on the wrong path. But talking about problems is not enough, we must do something about it.

This bill is vital for reform of the United Nations. Chairman Hyde's bill brings real reform to an institution that is quite simply broken.

Regarding the Accountability section of the bill, there is a provision for a special investigator to be assigned to investigate further instances of corruption by high officials of the U.N., such as Benon Sevan.

This bill brings independence to the Office of Internal Oversight Services, OIOS, removing it from under the thumb of political influence at the U.N. and assures OIOS of proper funding to carry out its mission.

This bill creates a U.N. Office of Ethics--an office that after more than a year of investigation into the Oil-for-Food Program has shown-- is sorely needed.

Also, the Ethics office will be tasked in this bill with facilitating and operating a system for financial disclosure.

Finally, the bill creates an Independent Oversight Board (IOB) to review the audits of the OIOS and other audit bodies of the U.N. This office is vital to provide proper oversight of the U.N.

What we have certainly discovered about the U.N. in the hearings on the Oil-for-food program that I have held in the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in the International Relations Committee, is that the U.N. was corrupted by Saddam Hussein. This bill will go some distance toward repairing this corruption.

I conclude by saying that the U.N. has not been accountable, transparent and it has not been living up to the standards expected of an institution that receives hundreds of millions of dollars every year from the United States. The American taxpayers deserve more for their money. This is why Chairman Hyde wrote this bill and why we are here today: to fix the U.N. so that the problems exemplified by the Oil-for- Food program as well as others such as the horrific rapes committed by U.N. peacekeepers are never repeated.

Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield for one moment?

Mr. Chairman, let me just note that what measures that we have been suggesting in the bill, as you have just underscored, are very reasonable, and the fact that we have bipartisan support on the measures demanding accountability suggest that these are things that the United Nations should not be opposing. This is nothing that should raise the fur up on the back of the necks of any official at the United Nations. So I appreciate the gentleman, and also, all those ladies and gentlemen on the other side of the aisle coming at these issues of accountability in a very bipartisan fashion.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment. I rise in support of the separation of powers as established by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution. The Constitution clearly delegates the power to deal with criminal matters, like the use of drugs, to the States.

I agree with my colleagues, even the one who just preceded me, that marijuana is probably a dangerous drug, and I would not suggest that we do

anything to encourage its use. Certainly the war on drugs has not eliminated that choice for our young people one iota. Our approach at supply rather than looking at demand has not been successful. But, most importantly, this drug, which may be harmful, reflects many other drugs that may well be harmful, but that we have decided as a society should be permitted to be prescribed by doctors whom we have empowered to make such prescriptions to people who are suffering from illnesses. There are many drugs that have many serious side effects and that are harmful to people. Marijuana is no different than that. And especially we should try to discourage young people from using marijuana.

But simply to override all of the powers of the people of the States of this Union to determine that decision and to override criminal matters that have been decided by the people of States is unconstitutional. The fact is our Founding Fathers wanted these issues to be determined in the States. All this decision we are making today is, should we use Federal money and use Federal resources to override the wishes of the people of the States who have voted, and in my State there was a referendum which won handily, on this issue. And the issue is that they have a right to decide at the State level should a doctor be able to prescribe marijuana to someone who is suffering, a cancer victim, an AIDS victim, or whatever. This makes all the sense in the world.

Let us not have a power grab by the Federal Government at the expense of these poor patients and the right of doctors to make these decisions and not politicians.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in thoughtful support for H.J. Res. 27, and I say thoughtful because I believe we should take a good look at what we are doing and what has been proposed and try to figure out what is going to happen in the future, and what are the ideas that these decisions are based upon.

We are living in a time when a significant number of Americans are rushing forward to support any effort to transfer sovereignty from elected officials in the United States to unelected officials elsewhere at a global level who will exercise power and control,

mandate policies and shape our lives; yet they are not elected by the people of the United States of America, as if we should expect them in the WTO or even the United Nations to watch out for our interests.

Mr. Speaker, it is our job to watch out for the interests of the American people. We are elected to do so. Transferring our sovereignty and decisionmaking power to the WTO, to the United Nations, or any other international body is not in the long-term interests of our people.

The United States did this back in the 1950s or 1940s with the United Nations, and it too was a dream, a dream for a better world, a new order that would bring about prosperity and peace. What do we see now in the United Nations, corruption at the highest levels and arrogance. We see United Nations peacekeeping troops stand by as people are massacred. They themselves have participated in atrocities, and yet we see cover-up at the United Nations and corruption. Is that the type of people we want to give sovereignty to? No.

So why do we think the WTO is going to be any different? The WTO is made up of nondemocratic countries as well as democratic countries, just like the United Nations. We are not going to bring them up; they will bring us down if we give up our decision-making process to unelected bodies that have been set up.

They call it the new world order. The new world order, what is that going to bring the American people? A loss of sovereignty, a loss of our ability to control our own destinies. We will see the WTO manipulated by special interests in the same way we have seen other bodies manipulated by special interests, but the WTO will be made up of organizations that are comprised of governments that do not believe in democracy and honesty and free press and free speech and the standards we believe in.

Mr. Speaker, 10 years from now as the WTO evolves, and even today, we will find our huge international corporations and international corporations in general going to these bodies and manipulating them and bribing them. And why not accept the bribes? The people of Burma or China or these other countries who are not democratic, who are not honest, that is their way of life. So why are we transferring authority, putting our faith in an organization, even if today in the short run we can see some examples where it might be in our benefit? In the long run it is not to the benefit of the American people to give up this kind of decisionmaking.

If we want more trade in the world, we should establish bilateral trade agreements with other democratic countries. That way we can control the decision-making process. The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements.

I say we should have free trade between free people. We should not be establishing superpowerful, unelected bodies by the WTO to control our destiny in the United States and determine what economic policies we will have in the long run. These things make no sense to me, and it is a great threat looming over us. Whatever examples can be given today of some good things that are happening, just remember what will happen 10 years down the road once these panels and bodies have been corrupted by the vicious dictatorships that we have let into the WTO.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1023) to authorize the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to establish an awards program in honor of Charles ``Pete'' Conrad, astronaut and space scientist, for recognizing the discoveries made by amateur astronomers of asteroids with near-Earth orbit trajectories.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within

which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1023, the bill now under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, during my recent tenure as chairman of the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the Committee on Science, one of my top priorities was to mitigate the threat posed by near-Earth objects. The hearings of our subcommittee have revealed that monitoring and tracking near-Earth objects, that is, NEOs, such as comets and asteroids, not only advance astronomy but are critical to identifying the near-Earth objects that may threaten the Earth.

Mr. Speaker, just as recently as last December, an asteroid 350 yards in diameter, named 2004 MN4, was discovered to have an orbit that will take it less than one-tenth of the distance from here to the moon. That is right in the region of where our artificial satellites are, and that will happen in the year 2029.

According to NASA JPL and the Minor Planet Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, several additional close encounters are possible in the next decade or two, and thus, we have one coming very close soon. And we have some that are predicted shortly thereafter. The hazard associated with such an asteroid hitting this planet is fairly well known. It could flatten an area the size of Texas or perhaps Colorado, I would say to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall), or Tennessee or any of the other States and cause significant tsunami damage to coast lines throughout the world.

We cannot assess the risk or likelihood of such an event unless we know what is out there. Accounts of asteroids passing close to the earth have raised public awareness of the possibility that one day one of these objects could hit the earth with potential catastrophic consequences. Given the vast number of asteroids and comets that inhabit the Earth's neighborhood, greater efforts for tracking and monitoring these objects is critical.

This is why I authored H.R. 1023, the Charles ``Pete'' Conrad Astronomy Awards Act. This bill is strongly supported by NASA, the Smithsonian Institute and our colleagues across the aisle. This is truly a bipartisan effort. I thank them all. H.R. 1023 authorizes the NASA administrator to give one award each year to the amateur astronomer or group of amateur astronomers who discover the intrinsically brightest near-Earth asteroid among the near-Earth asteroids discovered in that preceding year by amateur astronomers. Another award will go to the amateur astronomer or group of amateur astronomers who made the greatest contribution during the preceding year to the Minor Planet Center's catalog of known asteroids. The recipients of the awards will receive $3,000, and it is limited to U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

This bill is a tribute to Pete Conrad for his tremendous contributions to our country, to the world and to the aerospace community over four decades. Pete Conrad was a pilot, an explorer, an entrepreneur of the highest caliber. He was a friend of mine who lived in Huntington Beach. He commanded Apollo XII, and during that mission, he became the third man to walk on the moon. He saw space as a place to get to and to explore and to do business. Space exploration and commercialization is what he was all about. It was his job to explore the moon and to get to know the heavens better. He then worked to develop a new spacecraft and a new space transportation system. That is when I got to know him the best, a few years ago.

An interesting aside, the analysis of an orbiting object identified by an amateur astronomer, and that is just recently, suggests that instead of a near-Earth object being an asteroid, what was identified were the remains of the Saturn V rocket, third stage, which most likely came from Pete Conrad's Apollo mission.

So I find no better way to honor Pete Conrad, who died just a few years ago tragically in a motorcycle accident, than to establish this annual astronomy award for future asteroid discoveries in his name. He always wanted people to be looking up. He always wanted people to be positive. He was a can-do American with a very positive spirit, American spirit. He, in fact, exemplified the American spirit more than any person I have ever met. He was often remembered of course not only for his walk on the moon but his historic description of the moon landing and also, I might add, his historic description of the take off of his rocket, which was, ``whoopee''. Well, that was the Pete Conrad we knew. And he was excited about life and excited about technology as expanding the horizons of our people and the safety of this planet.

Films like Armageddon and Deep Impact of a few years ago excited large audiences, but it is vital for all of us to realize that this is not just the movies we are talking about. This is not science fiction. We all know that Earth's moons and other planetary objects are covered with impact craters. Most people have heard of the dinosaur extinction theory or perhaps seen a picture of this meteor and crater in Arizona suggesting that the craters on the moon and these other places could well have had serious impact on the Earth and may well have that impact in the future. However remote the possibility of a near-Earth object striking the Earth and causing a worldwide calamity, no matter how obscure or how remote that is, there is a calculable threat, and we should know what that threat is.

And while the asteroid that is believed to have killed the dinosaurs is estimated to have occurred many many years ago and will only occur once every 100 years, smaller, yet still hazardous asteroids could impact Earth much more frequently. For example, the destructive force of an asteroid that struck Siberia in 1908 was roughly equal to a 10- mega-ton blast of TNT.

Ironically, if we look at asteroids from the perspective of our national goals in space, they offer us not just a threat that we are looking at but also a unique opportunity. This is one reason that we should be tracking these asteroids, because in terms of pure science, asteroids are good geological time capsules from the era when our solar system was formed. Even better, they are orbiting mines for metal, for materials and other resources that can be possibly used to build large structures in space without having to carry up the materials to build those structures from the Earth. So far, NASA has surveyed 650 asteroids. But this is a fraction of the projected total population of asteroids and near-Earth objects. What needs to be done now is to fully understand near-Earth objects and the potential threat and, yes, the potential use that they could pose for the world.

In closing, asteroids deserve a lot more attention from the scientific community and from the American people. The first step to tracking them and tracking sizable near-Earth objects is H.R. 1023, and it is a modest step. But what we are doing is mobilizing the amateurs and the young people and the private sector, if you will, and students throughout the country to look up and enlisting them in this effort. Nothing could be better for encouraging young people to get involved in the space program, to have them involved in trying to win this award and looking out into the heavens and identifying what they see. I would suggest that this small award will have an enormous impact on the number of young people that are involved in astrology and thus involved in America's space program.

I would urge my colleagues to vote for H.R. 1023 which will encourage young people, in particular, as I say, to look up; and let us all as we pass this bill remember Pete Conrad and the great space entrepreneurs and the great space explorers that are leading the way for the next generations of Americans which will go a long way towards filling and fulfilling the legacy left by Pete Conrad.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, let me note that there are a lot of people who poo-pooed this idea of near-Earth objects and said, you are just trying to scare people, or whatever. And after the movie ``Deep Impact'' and such, that maybe this is some sort of scare tactic or you are trying to get attention by talking about something, a threat that is so minuscule that why should we worry about it.

Well, several years ago, I chaired a hearing into the near-Earth object issue, and one of the witnesses who was poo-pooing this idea and downplaying the risk suggested that the chances of me dying from this near-Earth object striking the Earth were the same chances that I would have of going to Las Vegas and having a royal straight flush. And it was a shocking thing for him to tell me that because, Mr. Speaker, I did go to Las Vegas once and had a royal straight flush and it was amazing.

I said that happened to me, and the fact is that, yes, it is unlikely that people will get royal straight flushes and it is unlikely that we will have near-Earth objects destroying all of humankind, but we should nevertheless be prepared if there is a possible way to avert a catastrophe by having knowledge of a near-Earth object heading in our direction.

Also, as the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall) described, if near- Earth objects are coming close to the Earth, they pose a great opportunity for us as well as create a threat if they were headed towards us. We should be prepared, number one, to try to alter the course if it is a dangerous course towards the Earth of a near-Earth object; but we should also be prepared to take advantage of the potential if there is a near-Earth object coming near the Earth to utilize it for a number of things like mining or studying the nature of the universe.

With this said, I cannot think of a better tribute to Pete Conrad who fought in World War II and who protected our country but also moved on and made great contributions to his country through the space program than to have this, as a civilian, I might add, in a civilian entrepreneur mentality that Pete exemplified. All of these are encompassed in this bill: safety and prosperity and accomplishment.

With that said, I ask my colleagues to join me in voting for this Pete Conrad bill, H.R. 1023.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1185, but I appreciate all the hard work that the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) have done on this bill. I understand that they are very sincere in their efforts, but I have a strong philosophical opposition to what this bill represents and what it is all about.

Let me note that if section 3 were taken out of this legislation, I could support the bill; but the heart of this bill is section 3, which is a 30 percent increase in the Federal deposit insurance rate. What we are talking about here is increasing Federal deposit insurance, the taxpayers' guaranteeing private accounts in private banks from $100,000 to $130,000; for savings accounts I think it goes up to $240,000, $250,000, or is it $260,000; as well as $1 million, I believe, for community-type savings accounts.

But the most important factor here is this: this system was set up to protect the little guy. It was set up to protect average Americans who are not saving hundreds of thousands of dollars, so that they could save $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 and not worry about having a bank default and close up on them and then losing that money.

What has happened is a perversion of that basic premise. What has happened now is the taxpayers, the average person out there working is protecting the rich guy. We have the little guys now with their tax dollars protecting the rich guys who, at $100,000 in an account, and now they want to make it $130,000 in an account are protected by the taxpayers. It is not just one account, however. There are multiple accounts that these rich people use, so we are not just protecting $130,000. We are protecting $130,000 times 10 or 20, where they can place it in various banks. What we end up doing is having the little guy protecting the rich people in this society.

And there is a downside to having this protection. Not only is it not fair, but the downside is people who invest their money, when it is guaranteed, will be less cautious about where they put their money. We have just heard from the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) about the people who lost their money in a bank. Well, those people should have paid closer attention to that bank. The fact is that we are encouraging people to be frivolous where they are putting their money because we are guaranteeing it as taxpayers.

This is exactly what led to the savings and loan debacle in the 1980s. In 1980, before Ronald Reagan was elected President, this went from the early 1970s, from $10,000, to 1980 when they jumped it to $100,000 protection. All of a sudden, people could then invest with these multiple accounts, millions of dollars protected by the taxpayers.

So what happened? What happened is, we have millions, billions of dollars now in our system being invested in the most irresponsible way. Because the banks and the savings and loans themselves, no matter what, they ended up paying more interest than they should have. The bad institutions were bringing down the good institutions, and the public was protected from any bad decision they made. We ended up with a debacle, a financial debacle created by this increase in 1980 that ended up by the mid-1980s costing us tens of billions, maybe even $100 billion of the American taxpayers' money.

We do not need this kind of irresponsibility. That is not what this program started out as. It has been perverted to be that now. Section 3 is just that kind of perversion, where we end up now increasing it precipitously from $100,000 to $130,000. It should be basically back in the arena of the average American taxpayer instead of protecting the rich.

So with that said, I can remember personally, just to note, I remember during the mid-1980s when I worked in the White House, a friend of mine from the Reagan administration was in charge of one of those institutions, savings and loans, and he was being attacked because he was not giving out enough loans to various people and various institutions that would be guaranteed. He was not giving out these guaranteed loans, and I called him up, I said, Well what is the matter? Are you not part of the team? We want to have a strong economy. He said, Dana, we are being put behind the eight ball. Every one of these things that we are giving out has a government guarantee because of this deposit insurance, and it is going to take us right down the road to economic hell.

Well, that is exactly what happened, and we should not be going in that direction anymore. We should be doing a reversal, making the system more responsible, asking people to be more responsible with their money and where they put it and not having the middle-class taxpayer subsidizing rich people by guaranteeing wherever they would want to put their money.

I oppose the amendment, and I will be proposing an amendment later on.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate that I do this with great respect to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) who put a great deal of time and effort into this bill and this legislation.

I have a fundamental philosophical disagreement about Federal Deposit Insurance. But I have no doubt that they have worked hard to try to produce some good legislation here.

With that said, I offer this amendment on behalf of myself and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney). The Rohrabacher-Maloney amendment would strike out section 3, keeping the Federal Deposit Insurance at its current level of $100,000 per account.

Let me note the argument was made earlier that simply by raising insurance, for example, from $100,000 to $130,000, would that, we were asked, make people more irresponsible if it was car insurance, and you just increased the car insurance from $100,000 to $130,000? The answer is, yes, if someone else was paying for the car insurance.

If somebody gave whatever it is, if the Federal Government ends up coming in and saying, if all else fails, do not worry, you are going to get paid off, because we are going to pay it, the taxpayers will pay it in the end, if this whole system fails we are there. Yeah, people who ended up not having to take that responsibility off their shoulders, the institutions might be a little less responsible, and, of course, the individuals themselves might be less responsible in picking out where to put their money.

This bill also increases to $260,000 retirement accounts, the deposit insurance for that, and $2 million per account for municipalities. Well, this, as I say right in the beginning, the FDIC was supposed to be for the little guy. And, again, there has been the argument that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) gave, well, $100,000 or $130,000 these days is the little guy. Well, that is if you are counting one account. Everybody involved in this knows that we are taking about multiple accounts.

Now we are talking about multiple accounts of $130,000 per account, and, yeah, someone who has 10 accounts at $130,000 is someone who I would catalog as rich. But, I just say this much, yes, if someone has $1.3 million in various accounts that are going to be ultimately guaranteed by the Federal Government, and the question is, where

does this money come from? Does it come from, yes, the banks and the savings and loans?

Well, it comes, yes, from the banks and savings and loans. But, what is important is, the ultimate guarantor is the Federal Government, otherwise we would not be talking about that.

But, when we put the taxpayers on the ultimate hook, will it ever happen? Well, it has happened, and I have seen it happen, and you have seen it happen. And this bill may or may not make that less likely. In fact, when you combine the deposit insurances, and put them together, yes it might add some strength to the system, but it also means that if the system collapses, it collapses big time, big time collapse; not just medium time collapse, but a big time collapse.

So could it happen? Yes, it could happen. I think that things like this happen, like the savings and loan debacle, because fundamental principles are ignored. And the fundamental principles are people should be responsible for their own money, and that institutions should be responsible.

If they commit acts or they are charging too much or their expenses are too high, or they are not competent enough, people should not be placing their money in that institution simply because there is a guarantee, there is a deposit guarantee, which is what we have now.

By ignoring these fundamental principles, you have less responsibility on the part of the depositor and less responsibility on the part of the financial institution. So here we are, faced with a major jump in the deposit insurance. What are we going to do?

I think it is about time to reexamine the fundamental issue of whether or not we should be guaranteeing this deposit insurance in the first place. And I will say, as I have said before, I watched this happen during the Reagan administration. In 1980, they dramatically increased the deposit insurance, and do not tell me that there have not been people, well known economists suggesting that that was a major cause of the savings and loan debacle, they are.

Because, even today Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman and others oppose this increase in the deposit insurance for that very reason, because they have seen that this makes the system more vulnerable, and we should not be doing that.

With that, I would suggest that I would hope that people could vote for my amendment to strike section 3 out, which would then increase that.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

If that is the criteria we are using, why do we not then limit it to one account because the less sophisticated people will not have multiple accounts.

Would the gentleman support that one?

I thank the gentleman very much.