Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in my own district, I have an outstanding example of the best of American business. One of the stores of my district, Lowe's, a store in Citrus Heights, is one of the best in the country. I think they serve the community well.

But I would like to talk about an experience my wife and I had this last Saturday here at the Lowe's store in Northern Virginia, in Alexandria. We were going there to buy an appliance that we needed. While we waited for it to be taken out of inventory, I went outside in the parking lot where I saw two large vans that were identified as DeWalt vans. That is the name of the company that provides the power tools that are sold at Lowe's. And I have purchased at least one in the past and thought I might be interested in purchasing another.

So, I went out to the big display they had where they had roped off a part of the parking lot to see what they had, to see what I might want to purchase. I was given a flier. I have a blowup of that flier here. When I was handed the flier, I noticed that it was in Spanish. I asked if I could have an English translation or English flier. I was told they didn't have any. But I was told that I could look at the pictures to see what they had on display. I commented that I thought I was in the United States. I was born here. I was taught English in the schools.

At that point in time, whoever was doing a bit of the program got on the mike and started speaking to those who were assembled. He spoke in Spanish. I then went inside. As we were making the purchase, I asked to see the manager of the Lowe's store there on Jefferson Highway in Alexandria, Virginia at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The manager came up to me and asked what my complaint was. I suggested that I thought it might be a good idea that they also have English available to those of us who might want to purchase their product. He first told me that wasn't his problem, it was DeWalt's. Of course, DeWalt, as far as I could tell, you only could purchase at Lowe's. Then he looked at me with some chagrin in his face and some upset that I would bring it up and said, ``Well, if you want me to apologize because it is in Spanish, okay, I apologize.'' There was no attempt made to try and service a customer who wanted to buy a product, who wanted to have something explained to him in English rather than looking at the pictures.

Now, I understand if I am in another country where English is not the predominant language, I would not be offended if somebody handed me a sheet and said, ``I am sorry we don't have something in English, but you can look at the pictures and see what we have.'' But to be made to feel like a foreigner in your own country within just 30 miles of our Nation's Capitol seems passing strange.

I don't object to the celebration of other cultures. We have half Irish and half Swedish in my background. I understand that many of us in America enjoy the celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Many in America and the State in which I was born, California, celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Individuals who come from other backgrounds, whose ancestors have come from other countries, we rejoice in the diversity of America. We rejoice in the fact that we are a country of immigrants.

But when we attempt to deal with the difficult questions of immigration, both legal and illegal, and I have been involved in trying to create laws in that for the last 27 years, and when we talk about the issue of multiculturalism in this society, how do we, somehow, create a society that is made even better by the tremendous contributions of people from around the world, different cultures, ethnicities, languages and backgrounds? We still have to understand. We have to have some unifying elements in this society precisely because we have so many backgrounds. One of those unifying elements, in my humble opinion, is a common language, that common language being English. I think when things like this occur, I wasn't identified as a congressman, I was just a plain old customer, as was my wife, this is the kind of thing I think that irritates so many Americans who believe we have just given up on attempting to bring us together with a common American culture brought together by a number of different things, one of which, importantly, is our language. I would hope that not only in this body would we reflect on that, but I would hope some of our commercial enterprises, such as Lowe's, would reflect on that, as well.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 8 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, September 24, 2007, at 12:30 p.m., for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House Judiciary Committee we heard from Admiral McConnell, who is the Director of National Intelligence, over the need for us to reenact that bill which we passed just 1\1/2\ months ago which reformed FISA, which of course is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Mr. Speaker, probably in the 3 years that I have been here, in my second tour of duty as a Member of Congress, no more important bill did I vote on than voting the passage of a reform of FISA.

The admiral indicated that two-thirds of our foreign terrorist targets were blinded from our review as a result of a FISA court decision under the old FISA. That is why we needed to pass the reform. We put a 6-month leash on it, that is, it will go out of existence in 6 months.

There is no more important thing for this body to do than to pass a reform of FISA that makes permanent the changes that we adopted just 1\1/2\ months ago. Our Nation depends on it. Our children and our grandchildren's future depends on it. Let's make sure we act responsibly.

Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to share with my colleagues a noteworthy article about the fine work of Mr. Tredway Childress, a senior restoration specialist and finisher at the House of Representatives, office of the Chief Administrative Officer.

Mr. Childress recently led the restoration of the century-old mahogany rostrum in Room 311 of the Cannon House Office Building, home to the House Ways and Means Committee from 1908-1933 and the current home of the Committee on Homeland Security. This magnificent rostrum was originally the centerpiece for debates and deliberations that surrounded the 16th Amendment and the authorization of income taxes in 1913. As a Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I know firsthand that Tredway's handiwork in Room 311 has added dignity and a sense of history to our Committee deliberations. In addition, Mr. Childress has refinished numerous chairs and other furniture in the Capitol, including an original Cannon table 1907 vintage that I use in my Rayburn office.

Tredway was recently profiled by Don Williams, his colleague and mentor at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute, in Woodshop News, an industry trade magazine. The article pays an important tribute to Mr. Childress. Mr. Williams notes that the restoration of the Cannon building rostrum to its previous grandeur could have only been accomplished by ``someone with Tredway's remarkable combination of talent, education, craft skill and commitment to preserving past treasures.''

Madam Speaker, I commend Mr. Childress for his outstanding service to the House of Representatives over the past 7 years and thank him for his dedication to make the furniture in my office, and many others', look more capturing than its original state. His commitment to preserving important symbols of our Nation's history will be greatly appreciated for many years.

[From Woodshop News, August 2007]

Giving the Nation's Capitol a Winning Finish

Tredway Childress attributes his skills to the National Institute of

Wood Finishing

(By Jennifer Hicks)

Tredway Childress is the iconic example of a woodworker

meeting his maximum potential. Currently employed by the U.S.

Congress, he is a senior restoration specialist and finisher

for the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. He

is part of a team that oversees all finishing and is the

caretaker to over 2,000 historic items associated with

Congress and past leaders, and is also regarded as a

collaborator with the Smithsonian Institution at the U.S.

Capitol.

A woodworker and furniture maker in earlier years,

Childress, 62, said he reached a point where he wanted to

perfect his restoration skills, particularly wood finishing.

``I have always worked with furniture; built, sold and

finished it. The finishing part was always the hardest--the

more I did it the more I didn't understand it,'' said

Childress.

In 1998 he moved to the Midwest for the sole purpose of

attending the National Institute of Wood Finishing at Dakota

County Technical College in Rosemount, Minn. To this day

Childress credits instructor Mitchell Kohanek, a wood

finisher of nearly 30 years, for giving him the knowledge he

needed to become a professional finisher. He is now confident

he is capable of getting any job he wants in the field.

Kohanek offers short-term workshops, but his nine-month

diploma program is the only certified wood finishing

education program in the United States. It teaches students

about wood technology; selection and application of finishes;

application of dyes, stains, glazes and toners; color

matching; spray finishing; basic and advanced finishing; spot

repair of wood, leather, and vinyl, and last but not least,

refinishing and restoration. Childress raves about how the

program taught him the gamut of problem-solving techniques,

such as how to deal with ``orange peel'' results and to

prevent them from happening in the first place.

A year after Childress graduated in 1998, Kohanek informed

him that the Capitol was looking for a finisher to hire onto

their crew of tradesmen. After a year's background screening,

Childress was hired and has been there ever since.

Recently, he was the lead wood finisher during the

restoration of a historic Cannon Building flame mahogany

rostrum, which housed the Ways and Means Committee as early

as 1907. The original drafts for the Constitution's 16th

Amendment and laws enacting the income tax were almost

certainly drafted at this rostrum. It doesn't get much

more historic than that.

This project allowed Childress to collaborate with Don

Williams, senior furniture conservator of the Smithsonian's

Museum Conservation Institute and another of his mentors. The

two first met during one of Williams' frequent visits to

Dakota where

Williams teaches chemistry-intense courses in restoration and

finishing with longtime friend and colleague Kohanek.

Childress returns to Dakota almost every summer for

additional advance course work, and for years he and Williams

had been looking for just the right in-depth project to blend

their skills and experiences.

``The reclamation of the Cannon 311 rostrum's previous

grandeur could have only been accomplished by someone with

Tredway's remarkable combination of talent, education, craft

skill and commitment to preserving past treasures,'' Williams

said. ``There aren't many of us around who can carefully

remove a disfiguring top coat and leave behind the beautiful

old shellac finish underneath, then blend it all back in with

a French polish that almost literally glows in the dark

without looking cheesy. But Tredway did it.''

His work on Capitol Hill also includes refinishing all

chairs on the floor of the House of Representatives. On this

project, Childress and his crew took off the existing coating

and brought it back to its original shellac. They also

decided to replace the gold painted molding with gilded

molding, as had been done originally.

``Going through Mitch's school, I really had the knowledge

and know how to do what needed to be done instead of just

looking at it and saying, `Let's put another coat on it,' ''

Childress said. ``By studying and knowing the chemistry

behind what needed to be done and understanding what you

could and could not do, and making the chemistry work in our

favor instead of stripping it . . . you just don't get out of

a weekend class.

Childress is one of Kohanek's many students who went into

restoration and conservation. Other graduates have found ways

to make a living from finishing new wood or by becoming

furniture service technicians who repair wood on location.

``There are so many opportunities for custom wood finishers

because wood finishing is still to this day considered a

mystic trade when it really is a blend of art and science,''

said Kohanek. ``Once one understands how those two facets

work together, you can use inexpensive wood and create an

expensive look, or make expensive wood look even more

beautiful. You also know how to repair and restore it.''

Kohanek emphasizes that his certification program makes

graduates valued wood finishing employees off the bat, and

enables them to go immediately into their own business if

they choose that direction. Like Childress, the best

graduates of the NIWF are setting the standards of what

should be expected of a wood finisher as they apply to any

wood finishing facility, he concluded.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, after listening to my friend from Texas, with whom I serve on two committees, I just must say that I'm sure she misspoke when she said that we passed a bill on the floor yesterday that would have done all those things. If the gentlelady will recall, it failed on the floor because it was under suspension, and that recollection is about as accurate as the description of the bill before us that I've heard from the other side.

I am disappointed to hear the rhetoric on this floor that scares the American people into believing that somehow we're tearing up the Constitution.

The fact of the matter is in 1978, when we passed the original version of FISA, we exempted from its consideration our capture of foreign conversations involving someone in a foreign country. The technology that was used at that time is different than the technology now, and what we are doing with this bill is making the law compatible with current technology.

What is that section of the bill that we've heard our colleagues on the other side get so upset about? It is this section, section 105(a): Nothing in the definition of electronic surveillance under section 101(f) shall be construed to encompass surveillance directed at a person reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States.

And what the Director of National Intelligence has told us is the interpretation of current law forbids him to do that to a large extent. Now, we can spend hours on the floor explaining why, but that's the fact. He was not here trying to scare us. I am amazed that some of my friends on the other side would suggest that Admiral McConnell, with his distinguished career of service, 40 years as mentioned by the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, serving under Presidents Democrat and Republican, would be involved in scare tactics. He came to us and told us we need this because America is blinded in a significant degree by current law.

If, in the capture of this information, we do come into contact with communication that involves someone in the United States, an American citizen, we go through a process called minimization, which means we get it out of there if it has nothing to do with the evil actor. We get rid of it, as we've done for 50 years in the criminal justice system, 28 years under FISA.

But if, in fact, that individual is someone who is involved in terrorism, a reasonable suspicion that that is the case, then we get a warrant. Not only do we do that and maintain that in this bill, we beef up the minimization process, and we beef up the oversight, and we allow the FISA court to look at it and to approve it and to audit it, and in addition, we require reports to the committees of the House and the Senate.

How that is tearing up the Constitution I do not know unless you haven't read the Constitution, unless you haven't read the history of FISA, unless you haven't read the means by which we have extracted communications around the world.

All this does is bring the law up to present-day technology. It does nothing to tear up the Constitution. And please, talk about fear- mongering, to stand on this floor and say that this allows the Attorney General or anybody else in the Federal Government to listen in to any conversation you have is absolutely untrue. No one should believe that. It hasn't been done in the past. It's not being done now. This law does nothing but bring us up to present-day technology.

If you will look at the original FISA law, you will see that it specifically exempts from the definition of electronic communications these kinds of communications, but they used to be carried in a different way, and we captured them in a different way. We just want to capture them now under the technology that is currently used in the world. That's all we're doing; nothing more, nothing less.

Let's not involve ourselves in fear tactics, scare tactics on the floor and suggest to the American people something which is occurring which has not, is not, and will not and cannot be done under this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I do not have the privilege to serve on the Intelligence Committee now, but in the 1980s I did. Then, following that, in the 1990s when I served in California as the attorney general, I recall getting security briefings from the intelligence community from Washington, DC.

It was during the Clinton administration that Admiral McConnell was the head of the NSA. I do not recall any partisan or bipartisan dispute about his qualifications, his professionalism or his judgment. He is the man that the President has brought out of retirement to be the Director of National Intelligence. He is the one that has presented to us in open and in closed testimony why we need this.

I think it is fair for us to ask, if we are getting a draft that he has rejected, why it is the draft that is going to be presented to us under the suspension calendar. Unless we have changed the rules of the House in the 16 years I was gone, the whole concept of a suspension bill is that you suspend all the rules for noncontroversial bills. Noncontroversial bills. If the head of our intelligence services believes that this is so controversial we ought to reject this, then why is it being brought up under this kind of a suspension?

Now, I have tried to work and have worked with the gentlewoman from California on many occasions getting bipartisan legislation through this floor. But this is the single most important bill that I have seen brought up in the 3 years that I have been back, and maybe in the 10 years I was here before.

This goes to the question of whether we take our blinders off with respect to intelligence, with respect to what kind of chatter that is going on around the world. And, yes, they say we all agree that foreign-to-foreign communications ought to be not under the purview of the Court, because we understand that has never been protected under the Constitution. We have been informed that the draft that we are talking about would not allow us to do that in the way it is necessary to protect this Nation.

That is why it is so important; not that it is partisan, not that somebody came here under one rule or another, but because the head of intelligence for the United States has said we can't accept this draft. If he says that, we ought to listen to him. We ought to try and get something that will work.

So let's forget about this nonsense of partisanship. Let's not get up here, shake something out here in the hand and say, well, you have had it long enough. I don't know how long it took the Constitution to be written from beginning to end. It wasn't how long it took. It is the words they put there. It is what they actually produced. That is what we are going to be judged by; not by how many hours we were here, but whether we got it right.

The Director of National Intelligence has told us we have gotten it wrong now. All our people back home are in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy because it

is wrong, because we are not doing it right. He has asked us to fix it. It is the most solemn obligation we have under our oath of the Constitution to do it right. And to say that we are going to do it under some suspension and don't worry about what it says violates that oath.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I am dismayed to hear some suggest that Admiral McConnell would somehow yield to political pressure. This is the gentleman who was the NSA Director under President Clinton. I never heard that argument on that side of the aisle or this side of the aisle. Many of us relied on the intelligence that came through his activity at that point in time. I see nothing in his record, I see nothing in his performance that would suggest that he would yield to politics.

He has come before us and said, We have tried to work under what is the legal construct that you are repeating in this bill, and it doesn't work. He has said it has denied him the opportunity to do that kind of foreign-to-foreign intelligence gathering because of the way the law is applied and because of the way the judge has interpreted it. And he even told us the judge said, Go to the Congress to change it.

You don't have to be against civil liberties to suggest that we listen to what he has to say. When he talks about the minimization procedure, it is a time-honored procedure we have used for 28 years in this context and for over 50 years in the criminal justice context.

If people will recall, when FISA was first written, it was specifically written to exclude international signals, intelligence activities, and electronic surveillance conducted outside the United States. What we used to grasp technologically then was never under FISA, he has said, because we take it technologically now in a different way. We shouldn't change it, because if we do that, it does not allow us to respond.

And why are we here? He has said openly, and it has appeared in print, because the chatter has increased to levels that are so serious, we need to act now.

Please, please don't deny what he has suggested to us. Let us pass a proper bill that can be effective.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, are there any parliamentary impediments to this bill being reported back on the next legislative day after being promptly reported to the committee of jurisdiction?

No, Mr. Speaker. I am asking, under the rules of the House, are there any parliamentary impediments?

Mr. Speaker, I believe you misunderstood my parliamentary inquiry. My parliamentary inquiry was, under the rules of the House, are there any parliamentary impediments to having this bill considered on the next legislative day if it is promptly reported to the committee of jurisdiction?

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I am very proud of this House and the work that it has done on a bipartisan basis over the last number of years, the intervening years since 9/11. That's why I was somewhat surprised by some of the comments, certainly from the gentleman from Florida, during the debate on the rule suggesting that nothing has been done since that time until we adopt this bill.

I support this bill. I think it does give us an improved state over what currently exists. But to suggest that we haven't done anything suggests to the American people that the billions of dollars that they have spent, as authorized by this House, the fact of the inconveniences they go through at airports, all the expenditures we've made with respect to increasing protections in aviation, in our ports, transit, and now what we are already doing with respect to chemical facilities is for naught.

And when we make those arguments, we tend to lose the support of the American people because they throw their hands up and say, no matter what you do, it doesn't make anything better. We ought to make it very clear, we are safer today than we were on September 10. We are safer today than we were 2 years ago, 3 years ago, a year ago. Are we safe enough? No. But to denigrate the efforts that have been made by good men and women in this body and the other body, the work that's being done by countless thousands of law enforcement individuals across this country, to denigrate the changes that have been made with respect to the cooperation between the intelligence community, the law enforcement community, and law enforcement communities on all levels, is nonsense. And more than that, it is detrimental to our effort to make this a safer country for the people we represent.

This bill is a good bill. It has its warts like anything else, but it's a good bill precisely because it builds on the achievements we have made over the last number of years.

I want to thank the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) for working on our committee in a bipartisan basis, as the gentleman from New York did during his tenure as Chair. I think we have established a good basis for bipartisanship in this committee, and I think we ought to bring that to this floor.

The American people should understand that the further we get away from 9/11 without having an attack on our land, the more difficult it is for us to continue to keep the vigilance up.

But the fact that we have succeeded does not mean the threat has diminished. In many ways, it is stronger, not because we have not done anything, but because the enemy is strong.

So I would say vote for this bill, take pride in this bill, but also take pride in the progress that has been made up to this point.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I rise in opposition to the amendment. Some people may have thought that since I have supported Mr. Flake on a number of amendments, that this was sort of a centrifuge way for me to help defeat the amendment because it might lose support, given the fact that I have supported some of his amendments and not supported others. But, rather, I did request an earmark. It is one of the seven or eight earmarks that have been combined together in this in support of the textile center because the textile center exists in about eight different locations around the country, eight institutions, one of them the University of California at Davis. That part of UC Davis which is part of this is actually not in my district. It's in the gentleman, Mr. Thompson's, district. But I am convinced of the worthiness of this request for a slightly different reason than has been mentioned on the floor to this time.

One of the key areas that the textile center funds go to support in the work and research that's done at the UC Davis center is in the area of personal protection, research improving the functional clothing for homeland security and occupational safety. What do we mean by that?

Well, there are what are known as biocidal Nomex fabrics, which have been developed for firefighters, for first responders and for military personnel in collaboration with the National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory. In collaboration with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, research has enhanced the safety and comfort of firefighters' uniforms by improving and redesigning the fabrics and clothing. Biocidal textiles, and biocidal means that there is something that is in the textile itself, the product itself, which can kill certain kinds of things, substances which would be harmful to those who are wearing them. This is dedicated research for this specific purpose. Biocidal textiles, including protective masks, have been designed and developed for health care and other workers, resulting from interdisciplinary research teams, which include social and physical scientists, public health and environmental researchers.

So while there are many reasons to support this amendment from the standpoint of those that are attempting to help an industry that has had difficult times, I rise in support of the very specific research that's being done as part of the textile center operation at the University of California at Davis which goes to protecting those folks who respond as first responders when we have explosions, when we have fires. It is not just being said to come up with some extraordinary reason to support this. This is actual research being done that has produced products that has made it safer for our first responders.

One of the things I have requested from anybody who has asked me to put forth an earmark request is show me the Federal nexus. This to me is clearly a Federal nexus. This is research that supports first responders all over the country. It's concentrated research that means it is done on a far better basis than otherwise would be possible. It enhances the final product. And in that way, it seems to me, it is a substantial, reasonable application of Federal funds for a Federal purpose.

For that reason, even though I have great respect for the gentleman from Arizona, whom I think has done a great job, and I have referred to him publicly because of his pleasant demeanor as he approaches this difficult task as Don Quixote with couth, I still would have to say with all due respect, I must oppose his amendment.

Mr. Speaker, since I consider the gentleman from Missouri such a stalwart Member of this House, and a friend, I rise not in anger but in sorrow as I oppose his amendment. I have profound disagreements with the specifics of this particular bill.

I came to Congress, returned to Congress after 9/11 precisely because of 9/11, because I thought we needed, as a country, to respond to the threat of Islamofascism in an effective way and that we needed to recognize that our war against Islamofascism was a multi-fronted war. And one of the fronts of that war is Iraq. You can argue whether it's the number one front or not, but it is important. And I think everyone would agree. And what we do there is important. And how we act there is important. And when we withdraw, even though we call it a redeployment, that is important. It is a message that goes beyond Iraq. It goes to all of those who would do us ill in this world.

And I can't understand, when we had General Petraeus look us in the eye just a couple of weeks ago and say to Members, I believe in my mission; I've told my men and my women that I believe in the mission; and if I didn't believe in it, I would tell you immediately because I'm not going to sacrifice men and women in vain. And he said, give me the time to do it. And we said, yes, sir, you have the time. And now we say, when he's over there with his men and women, we're not going to give you the time. We're going to second guess.

I don't understand how you prosecute a war. One Member got up and said, let's end this war by passing this resolution. You end a war usually in America by winning, by defeating the enemy.

We have this bill up now. We're going to have a bill up in another couple of weeks that's going to tell us we have to change the habeas corpus issue, we have to grant habeas corpus to unlawful enemy combatants, for the first time in the history of our Nation, putting us at a position that we never would have had in World War II. It would have crippled us during World War II.

And then we're going to hear, close down Guantanamo. Let's look at this bill as just a piece of the approach that the other side is taking.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to mention an amendment I was going to offer but did not for fear it would not garner the appropriate number of votes, and that was to dam up Yosemite Valley. It is about time that we dam up that valley, let it flood now because Los Angeles and southern California is in dire need of water. We are talking about global warming and we are talking about the need for water for our people.

Now that would be a ridiculous amendment; but yet we didn't even get a chance to have $7 million as requested by the administration to look at the possibility of restoring Yosemite Valley's twin, the Hetch Hetchy.

Eighty-four years ago the Hetch Hetchy Valley, the smaller twin to Yosemite Valley that is completely contained within the boundaries of Yosemite National Park, the only instance in which we dammed up a river to cover up a valley inside a national park took place.

What did John Muir say about it? He said: ``Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.''

This is one of the beautiful natural resources in this country, and the administration said give us $7 million to study whether we could get rid of O'Shaughnessy Dam that has been there for 84 years, restore this valley and show that we can provide that water supply to the city of San Francisco so we can give our children and grandchildren this great natural resource.

Now I will admit I am biased. I met my wife in Yosemite on the banks of the Merced River in the beautiful Yosemite Valley. But let me just ask you, we talk about all these things, preserve this museum and preserve this art gallery and so forth. Can you imagine if we can give back to the American people another Yosemite Valley? And yet we cannot even get the committee $7 million to study the possibilities. Why are people afraid of this?

We talk about preserving nature and concern for our national parks. This is a desecration of one of the most beautiful natural parks in the history of this Nation, Yosemite Valley. Most people don't know that there is a twin valley just north of it called the Hetch Hetchy because it is underwater. The city of San Francisco pays $50,000 a year to cover up one of the great, beautiful natural wonders of this Nation. And yet we couldn't even get $7 million to study, not to do it, to study if it is feasible.

The governor has just completed a study in which he said it was feasible, and said we need the Federal Government, since it is Federal land, to look at it and it will cost about $7 million. And this committee said no, we can't. The Speaker doesn't want it. Senators who happen to be in and around San Francisco don't want it.

I don't know what is more environmentally important than saving one of the great wonders of the world that is underwater.

John Muir said this is the greatest desecration, the greatest desecration of natural resources in this Nation. John Muir, not usually noted as a Republican, but one of the great conservationists in the history of the United States. And we couldn't even get $7 million. I am very disappointed. I am extremely disappointed.

If anybody wants to look at this, go to Yosemite Valley, go to that national

park and say you want to look at the Hetch Hetchy which John Muir said is one of the great cathedrals of nature in this country. It is kind of tough to see it because it is underwater.

Now I'm not saying stop the water from going to San Francisco, I am saying there are alternatives that would restore this beautiful, fantastic, feature of nature; and yet in this bill, we can't even allow $7 million.

That is the whole purpose of having a study for $7 million to estimate the cost and to make sure that the city of San Francisco and the other water districts receive that money.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

As you may recall, this first came up during the Reagan administration when then-Secretary Don Hodel was surprised when a staff member came into his office and said, Mr. Secretary, how would you like to give us another Yosemite Valley?

He said, What are you talking about?

The staff member said there is a twin to Yosemite Valley sitting under, I forget how many feet of water. He said, Well, that water goes to San Francisco, doesn't it?

And he said, Yes, but we think there are alternatives that would allow San Francisco to still get that water, that pristine water, as it has for 80-some years, and yet restore the Hetch Hetchy. The estimates I have seen, it may cost upwards of $2 billion. Now that is a lot of money, but I would ask you: How much would it cost us to build a Yosemite Valley if we could possibly build it? It is priceless, as they say in the commercial.

I thank the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I remember serving with Silvio Conte, and he did love fish, but he also didn't like some of the boondoggle subsidies. You will recall he used to go to the floor with a pig's nose on every year and talk about the subsidy to beekeepers. So he saw some things that weren't supposed to be utilized for Federal funding, and the gentleman understands that.

I would just say, if we are worried about endangered species in the Northeast, maybe we could restore at least one Republican in Massachusetts in the name of Silvio Conte.

Mr. Speaker, this is an important bill. The fact that it is on suspension ought not to suggest that it is not an important bill. This bill is another in a number of bills that helps us heal some tremendous wounds in this country that go to the very essence of this country.

The Civil War, which caused more bloodshed than any other war that this Nation has been engaged in, is viewed as the tremendous act of expiation with the effort of this Nation to resolve, in its own mind, what it meant by every man and woman being equal.

That began the process that was followed through in a remarkable period of time during the last century called the civil rights revolution. But that revolution has not ended. There are still things that need to be done.

One of the terrible stains left on this Nation is the lack of justice done for those who suffered at the hands of people who believed this country would never recognize the rights of all; those who thought they could act with impunity to threaten, to terrorize, to murder other human beings merely because of the color of their skin.

I call this bill the ``last chance bill,'' the ``now or never bill.'' If we don't do this now, we will never have the chance to do it again, because those individuals who were involved in these crimes may not be around, and the family members of those who were victims of these crimes may not be around. We give ourselves a 10-year period of time in which we make a real effort to try and bring those to justice who should have been brought to justice a long time ago.

In the process, we say to all Americans, We understand the injustice that was done. We will make sure it is never repeated again. We will work to make this country a better place now and in the future.

Mr. Speaker, the debate over the last 2 days has been described in many different ways. I would like to describe it as a tribute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

I have referred to him in the press as Don Quixote with couth, referring to the fact that in the past he has stood there as a solitary figure trying to bring sense to this place when we're dealing with earmarks.

President Nixon once said looking at certain figures about population that we are all now Malthusian. He was proven wrong.

I think I can say without contradiction, after the debate on the floor and resolution of the dispute we've had and the seriousness with which we're about now to undertake the issue of earmarks, we are now all Flakes.