Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize a milestone in the extraordinary life of one of America's distinguished statesmen, former President Jimmy Carter, who celebrated his 80th birthday last Friday, October 1.

In the aftermath of Watergate, America yearned for a leader with honesty and integrity to lead our country. We found that man in Jimmy Carter, a farmer from Georgia with dreams of a better day for America, and we elected him as our 39th President.

As President, Jimmy Carter achieved great distinction for his mediation of the Camp David Accords, a historic alliance between Israel and Egypt. President Carter succeeded in obtaining ratification of the Panama Canal treaties, established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China, and completed the negotiation of the SALT II nuclear limitation treaty with the Soviet Union.

Perhaps what many find most admirable about Jimmy Carter is his 24 years of continued service as one of the world's great humanitarians. In 1982, Jimmy Carter founded the Carter Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan center that is dedicated to the promotion of democracy, human rights, and conflict resolution throughout the world. The center's work has been extraordinary. The Carter Center has fought to eradicate Guinea worm disease, to ease tensions in Haiti, and to help free political prisoners throughout the world. Through these achievements, Jimmy Carter has earned the respect of this Nation as one of the most active humane and generous former Presidents in American history.

In 2002, Jimmy Carter's achievements as a Middle East diplomat and as the driving force behind the Carter Center earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee awarded the prize to Jimmy Carter ``for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.''

Now 80, the steadfast and courageous advocate for peace and justice continues to represent the very best of American values.

I am honored and pleased to thank Jimmy Carter for his selfless work and to wish him a happy birthday.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), who brings us to this point.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) from the Albany area of Georgia.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5186, but I also know that much more needs to be done. I agree with all of those who suggest and predict that there is a tremendous need to provide loan forgiveness for math, science and special education teachers. But there is also a tremendous need to recruit teachers for disadvantaged communities where it is very difficult to get specialized teachers to come.

There is also a tremendous need to recruit male teachers for early childhood in elementary education. Many, many school boys do not see a male teacher until they reach eighth grade. So many of them grow up with the idea that education is not for them; that it is a girl-female thing.

So I support this legislation, but, of course, it falls short of the mark, and I look forward to the day when we will have a real loan forgiveness program that provides us with the teachers we need for America's children.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as one of the original cosponsors of H. Res. 805. According to the second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Throwaway Children released in October of 2002, it is estimated that there is approximately 800,000 children reported missing each year, which is more than 2,000 children each day. This legislation, in a way, honors the individuals and organizations who work so hard to reach out to our young people that are in some of the most desperate situations.

As we can all imagine, the situation on the streets for these young people is desperate and incredibly rough. Half of the HIV cases in the United States are in the youth population--homeless and runaway youth are two to ten times higher than non-homeless teens to have HIV and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 94% of homeless youth are sexual active. We unfortunately

can not make street life disappear or even reach a level of utopia--but we can ensure that there are services available to help with the daily street life, whether it is trying to find a bed, a warm meal or some safe, genuine companionship.

Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation and again commend the individuals who have dedicated their lives to helping the lives of young people in need.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution to promote greater civic awareness among all people of the United States. This issue is particularly important at a time when voter participation has been decreasing. The Census Bureau found that only 46% of eligible voters participated in the 2002 elections.

This is not acceptable. Full participation in the electoral process by all Americans is truly a bipartisan concern. We are a society that values democracy. One of the most basic of all rights in a free and democratic society is the right to participate. Exercising the right to vote makes us productive members of society and contributes to the substance of our laws and character. The fact of the matter is clear; the right to vote is the most basic constitutional act of citizenship.

As a society, we must take steps to raise civic awareness and to develop strategies to promote civic responsibility. Too many people have shed blood and died for us to have this right. While promoting civic awareness, we must also ensure that there are no barriers to the process. In 2000, a number of people went to the polls, but their votes were not counted due to faulty equipment and human error. This must never happen in the world's greatest democracy.

Again, I rise in support of this legislation because it represents progress in addressing voter complacency.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4248, a bill to expand comprehensive service programs for homeless veterans. This bill is important because veterans have and continue to make an enormous contribution to our nation. The sacrifice of our men and women serving throughout the world should never be forgotten. They are serving to promote an secure the ideals of liberty, freedom, and democracy.

Therefore, it is important that when they return home they have access to transitional housing programs, counseling and specialized services to help them in their transition from military service. Too often veterans come home and their service is not fully appreciated. This has led to an issue of chronic homelessness among veterans. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that there are more than 300,000 homeless veterans on any given night or more than half a million experience homelessness over a given year. This is unacceptable in America.

In addition, to chronic homelessness many veterans suffer from lack of access to health care services, and job training. This bill is a step in the right direction. However, much work remains to be done to provide the level of services and outreach needed to ensure that we drastically reduce the number of homeless veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2023, the Asthmatic Schoolchildren's Treatment and Health Management Act. Nearly one-third of all people with asthma in our Nation are children under the age of 18, according to the American Lung Association. This figure translates to more than 6.3 million children. Asthma is now the most common, serious, chronic disease among children, accounting for 14 million absences from school each year.

I commend this legislation and believe it is great to allow students to self-administer medication to treat that student's asthma. We are encouraging the child to control their condition with correct management of it as well as giving them the responsibility to go get their nebulizer for a breathing treatment or get their inhaler when they know they need it. However, we still need to do more for our asthmatic children through education and outreach. Doctors say that asthma is a disease that can be managed, treated and prevented. Yet across our country, in cities like Chicago, there are no centralized asthma programs, and many States do not keep an up-to-date count of how many children have the disease.

We have seen asthma continue to strike black children the hardest, especially those who live in low-income areas. The 2002 National Health Interview Survey, a project of the CDC, found that 12 percent of all children under age 18 were asthmatic, and half had suffered an attack in the previous year. Black and low-income families get it far more often: 18 percent of black children had been diagnosed with asthma, and 9 percent had suffered attacks, versus 10 and 4 percent for Latino children, and 11 and 5 percent for whites. Due to a lack of health care, crowded housing, and more exposure to asthma triggers such as cockroach feces and dust mites, the asthma rate was also higher for children from families whose incomes were less than $20,000 a year.

Although, most children have mild to moderate problems, and their illness can be controlled by treatment at home, too many of our asthmatic children are ending up in our emergency rooms. The CDC reports that in 1999, 658,000 pediatric emergency room visits were due to asthma. The estimated annual rate for emergency room visits among children 5 years old or younger is 137.1 per 10,000 persons--the highest rate of all age groups. Asthma cost more than $4.6 billion in medical care and time lost from school or work. African Americans have nearly four times the asthma related emergency room visits as whites and are more than three times as likely than whites to be hospitalized for asthma.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, Chicago, where I reside, is commonly called an epicenter of the Nation's asthma epidemic. I believe that my State of Illinois, Chicago and our Congress need to encourage that more is done to help our asthmatic children, like education and, as the doctors suggest, managing, treating and prevention of this disease as a way to keep more of our kids out of the emergency rooms.

Madam Speaker, the percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight has more than doubled since the early 1970s with nearly 15 percent of children and adolescents now being overweight.

Congress has asked our schools to encourage health eating and physical activity to decrease the obesity epidemic in our Nation. We have encouraged our physicians to educate our constituents and parents to be better eating role models to their children. The CDC has even stated to begin to stop and reverse this upward obesity trend ``will require effective collaboration among government, voluntary, and private sectors, as well as a commitment to action by individuals and communities across the Nation''. It then only makes sense that we now ask the insurance industry to join us in the fight to reduce obesity in our country.

As we know, there are serious health consequences that are caused when an individual is overweight or obese such as high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure, stroke, as well as some types of cancer. These can all be very costly diseases, especially if they are not managed correctly. According to a study of national costs attributed to both overweight and obesity, medical expenses accounted for 9.1 percent of total U.S. medical expenditures in 1998 and may have reached as high as $78.5 billion. Approximately half of these costs were paid by Medicaid and Medicare.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 4504. There are currently approximately 540,000 children in foster care in our country. In my home state of Illinois, 5 percent of our children, approximately 28,460 children are in foster care. The number of kids in foster care has doubled from 1987 to 2004. Nearly half of today's population of foster kids are under the age of ten.

I commend the gentleman from Texas, Mr. DeLay for this legislation. The idea of providing an opportunity for children who could not experience family life, to give them the opportunity to have the well- being, the nurturing of a family rather than being institutionalized or as a ward of the State is of tremendous value. I simply want to add my voice in support of it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 261. Currently, about 35 million Americans either don't know where their next meal is coming from, or they have to cut back on what they eat because they don't have enough money for groceries. Thankfully, there are organizations like Second Harvest who provide when it is most needed. America's Second Harvest is the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the United States. The America's Second Harvest mission is to feed hungry people by soliciting and distributing food and grocery products through a nationwide network of certified affiliate food banks and food-rescue programs and to educate the public about the nature of and solutions to the problem of hunger in America.

America's Second Harvest's network of more than 200 regional food banks and food-rescue organizations serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico by distributing food and grocery products to approximately 50,000 local charitable hunger-relief agencies including food pantries, soup kitchens, women's shelters, Kids Cafes, Community Kitchens, and other organizations that provide emergency food assistance.

As we approach fall and the holiday season, many of our food banks will not have enough food. I urge our citizens who are fortunate to have the necessities in life to share with their neighbors who are more in need--not just around the holidays when we are reminded but throughout the year. I hope one day Congress is able to report to our Nation that the number of hungry citizens in our Nation is decreasing. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation as a way to thank those organizations that have assisted in feeding the hungry for so many years and encourage more people to assist in this fight.

Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago my colleague from New York said that this was absolutely crazy, and I will simply say that it is about as crazy as it can get without being absolute.

Every bit of information that we have available to us lets us know that gun violence is unnecessarily killing people. In 2001, 29,000 people in this country died from gun violence. Fifty percent of all the African American youngsters between the ages of 15 and 19 who die, die from gun violence.

We talk about the Constitution. Please be reminded that when this Constitution was enacted, my ancestors were counted as three-fifths of a person and women did not have the right to vote. The Constitution was created at a time when there was need for what it created itself for. This is a different era, a different time.

If you want to help the people of D.C., give the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton) a vote on the floor of this House. Give them two Senators who can vote in the other Chamber. That is how you help the people in D.C.

Mr. Speaker, Walt Disney once said that ``Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children.'' Today we honor the Festival of Children Foundation, an organization with the specific purpose to improve the lives of children and families throughout Orange County, California by fostering education, community involvement, and the arts by collaborating with local children's charities.

Through their hard work and efforts, the Festival of Children Foundation has been able to showcase the work of non-profit groups as a way to increase exposure and sustain volunteer, leadership and financial support for these groups. The Foundation, being an umbrella organization, has made it possible to serve as a free recourse to these groups by encouraging collaborative efforts to serve the community as well as a place for groups to share ideas and lessons on community mobilization, planning and overall best practices. In the last two years, over 100 non-profit groups in southern California have benefited enormously from the exposure, partnership and assistance from the Festival of Children Foundation.

As another way to truly reach out and assist children, the Festival of Children Foundation had declared September 2004 as a month to ``Celebrate the Magic of Childhood,'' working with 52 agencies and organizations to serve the children of southern California with high profile exhibits to continue with the Foundation's mission.

I would like to congratulate the Foundation on their excellent work and assisting to strengthen their community--most importantly, their efforts to benefit the lives of children.

Mr. Speaker, today we celebrate the life of William ``Count'' Basie and his influence on jazz and swing music. Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, William ``Count'' Basie began to learn the piano under his mother's direction. In 1924, he moved to New York City to perfect his talent and begin his remarkable career. In 1927, Count Basie began playing piano accompaniment to silent movies. He then joined Walter Page's Blue Devils and from there along with several other members joined Bernie Moten's Kansas City Band. Throughout the years, he was developing and advancing his own music style. In 1935, Basie formed his own 9 piece group, Barons of Rhythm, gaining much attention from live appearances. The Barons of Rhythm style was a powerful swing, intensified by Basie's frequent playing with the rhythm section alone using short phrases called ``riffs'' exchanged back and forth between sections, giving the band a unique sound and identity. This raised Basie's stature in the community onto an even keel with Duke Ellington, earning him the nickname ``Count''. By the end of the 1930s, the Basie band was one of the most popular in the world, with massive hits like ``One O'clock Jump'' and ``Jumpin at the Woodside.''

William ``Count'' Basie continued to share his talent with the world through the 1970s. One year after his death, on May 23, 1985, Basie was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. He was also honored in 1996 with a United States Postal Service commemorative postage stamp. Mr. Speaker, we honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of Count Basie and acknowledge the tremendous impact he had on music.

Mr. Speaker, he has been called the ``quintessential American composer'' and considered to be one of ``great musicians along with Bach and Beethoven and Shoenberg.'' Duke Ellington brought a level of refinement and elegance to jazz.

The Duke's first piano lessons began around the age of seven--but like many youngsters--he was more interested in going to the Washington Senators baseball games than practicing. It took seeing a few great live performances, even sneaking out of school to seek out and listen to ragtime pianists in Washington and, during the summers, in Philadelphia or Atlantic City, where he and his mother vacationed. Duke was taken under the wings of Oliver ``Doc'' Perry and Louis Brown, who taught Duke how to read music and helped improve his overall piano playing skills. Duke found piano playing jobs at clubs and cafes throughout the Washington area.

In late 1917, Duke formed his first group: The Duke's Serenaders, which years later was renamed as The Washingtonians. By the late 1920s, Duke's band became the most sought-after band in the United States and even throughout the world. Duke Ellington and his band went on to play everywhere from New York to New Delhi, Chicago to Cairo, and Los Angeles to London. Ellington and his band played with such greats as Miles Davis, Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Louis Armstrong. They entertained everyone from Queen Elizabeth II to President Nixon.

Duke Ellington did not just make an impact on music to the world, but he made his hometown of Washington, DC, proud. Thirty years ago Washington, DC, honored him by renaming one high school the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. It only makes sense that in 2005, Washington, DC, will be able to honor The Duke of Jazz once again by hosting 2 days of concerts on the National Mall each year as the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the United Negro College Fund for providing assistance to allow minority students the opportunity of achieving their dream of a college education for 60 years. The Fund is the nation's largest, oldest, most successful and most comprehensive minority higher education assistance organization. Over those 60 years, the United Negro College Fund has raised more than $2 billion to help a total of more than 300,000 students attend college and has distributed more funds to help minorities attend school than any entity outside of the government. UNCF administers over 450 scholarships and fellowships that support students at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral level. Of those students UNCF helps, 60 percent are the first in their families to attend college and 62 percent have annual family incomes of less than $25,000--reinforcing the fact that without UNCF, those individuals may not have been able to finance their education.

It was the dream of Dr. Frederick D. Patterson in 1943 to raise money collectively with other black college presidents through an ``appeal to the national conscience.'' His call was heard and answered by the Nation. UNCF does amazing work--but more students would get the opportunity of attending and graduating from college if the maximum amount for Pell grants were increased and students were relying less on student loans.

Mr. Speaker--the United Negro College Fund has proven its slogan to be fact--``a mind is a terrible thing to waste''.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with my colleague from Florida (Mr. Mica) in consideration of H. Res. 784 which commends the resiliency of the people of Florida and the work of those individuals who have assisted with the recovery efforts after the devastation caused by Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan.

As residents of Florida return to their homes to rebuild their lives and communities, they demonstrate the very resilient character of the American people. It is impossible to know why we Americans embody this characteristic. Perhaps it has been passed down to us from our ancestors who survived the most difficult of circumstances upon their arrival here. They were tested fiercely, and we as Americans find ourselves tested again and again. But rather than back down from these challenges, it seems that we are at our finest during times of difficulty and in times of crisis. Our spirit is resolute, our generosity is seemingly boundless, and our determination is unyielding.

The devastation caused by Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan, not to mention Jeanne, have left many people in Florida to repair damaged homes or to rebuild their lives. Despite the frustration and sadness they feel, the residents of Florida have proven to us once again that they can prevail over tragedy and hardship by working together. Whether a family member lends shelter and food to another family member in need or a neighbor helps another salvage keepsakes from a destroyed home, or a person offers a bottle of water or the use of a phone to a stranger, the people of Florida are bravely doing what is necessary to help one another get through this tragedy.

We Americans can be proud of the people of Florida, so I am pleased to join my colleague as we offer words of support, words of comfort and words to know that no matter how difficult the circumstances, Florida will continue to rise and rise and rise again.

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