Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, July 27, 2007, I was absent from the House for medical reasons.

Had I been present I would have voted:

On rollcall No. 748--``aye''--Jackson/Lee Amendment No. 101 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 749--``no''--Rangel Amendment No. 24 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 750--``aye''--Boehner Amendment No. 23 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 751--``aye''--Davis/Kirk Amendment No. 45 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 752--``aye''--Udall Amendment No. 42 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 753--``aye''--Putnam Amendment No. 60 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 754--``aye''--Cooper Amendment No. 95 to H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 755--``aye''--Motion to Recommit for H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 756--``no''--Final Passage for H.R. 2419; on rollcall No. 757--``nay''--H. Res. 567, Conference Report on H.R. 1.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, this is not a debate, not a legitimate debate, about whether or not the Vice President is in one branch or the other. After all, he presides over the U.S. Senate. So if we did not decide to put the funding into this particular appropriations bill, we would have to put it in the other.

This is a raw grab for power to defund an essential constitutional office, and it is wrong. And if it even comes close to passing, if it is not on a bipartisan basis defeated, the gentleman from Illinois will, in fact, have undercut the very underpinnings of the Constitution.

This is an important vote. It is an important vote because how dare we, how dare we use a maneuver like this, to try to stifle any constitutional officer, including our own.

I am ashamed to belong to a branch that would even consider this, and I am ashamed that the gentleman would do such a thing.

Madam Speaker, on Monday, June 25, 2007, I was absent from the House.

Had I been present I would have voted: On rollcall No. 548--``yea''-- H. Res. 189--Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that a ``Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day'' should be established. On rollcall No. 549--``yea''--H.R. 2546--To designate the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Asheville, North Carolina, as the ``Charles George Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.''

Offered By: Mr. Issa

Amendment No. 45: Page 2, line 22, after the dollar amount,

insert ``(increased by $25,000,000)''.

Page 4, line 18, insert at the end before the period the

following: ``: Provided further, That of the amount made

available under this heading, $232,244,000 shall be available

for the Bureau of Consular Affairs' Passport Operations''.

Page 46, line 1, after the dollar amount, insert

``(reduced by $25,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Issa

Amendment No. 26: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Sec. 544. None of the funds made available in this Act may

be used to enter into a contract with an entity that employs

individuals unless the entity agrees to elect to participate

in the basic pilot program described in section 403(a) of the

Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act

of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1324a note).

Mr. Speaker, had I been present for votes on the evening of Thursday, June 07, 2007, I would have voted in favor of the Republican Motion to Recommit H.R. 65, and against final passage of H.R. 65, the Lumbee Recognition Act.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the 30 years of exemplary service that COL Stewart Navarre of the United States Marine Corps has given to this great country.

Colonel Navarre has served in many capacities since graduating Marine Corps Basic School in 1977. He served as Rifle Platoon Commander and Commanding Officer and as the Commander of the Fifth Marine Regiment in Iraq. In 2004 and 2005 he oversaw and coordinated the training and operations of the Iraqi Army and Police in the Marine sector of Iraq. Colonel Navarre is currently assigned to Camp Pendleton where he lives with his wife, Yana Lahanis.

As Chief of Staff for all Marine Corps installations west of the Mississippi River, he is a trusted advisor and true advocate of our troops. Over the years he has selflessly dedicated his life to injured Marines and their families by promoting community involvement, assistance for disabled Veterans, and support to troop family members.

In his 30 years of military service Colonel Navarre has proven himself an able and willing leader. He has received the Legion of Merit, an award given for exceptional service in a time of war or peace. He also received the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the third highest peacetime defense award.

On behalf of the people of the United States, whom Colonel Navarre spent a career serving, I thank him for his service and commitment to the defense of our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 9 of rule XVII, I offer a privileged motion.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 9 of rule XVII, I offer a privileged motion.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chairman, I thank the ranking member, and I thank the chairman for what we were able to accomplish during the markup. But I come to the House floor knowing that in fact in a few short minutes, an hour or so, our Members will vote not knowing what is in this bill. Oh, they will hear us talking in unclassified terms about the fact that HUMINT, contrary to the last speaker, is being cut in absolute dollars. The eyes and ears of human beings is being cut in this bill.

Certainly, with inflation, other things are going up. But as everyone knows that has read the Iraq Study Report or the 9/11 report, it is the absence of the human resources that we have been investing in that led to our vulnerability on 9/11. And I will say that if the people on the other side of the aisle want to say we are losing this war, then they have to be willing to make a much greater commitment in the diplomatic and especially in the human resources and the above-sky resources that allow us to know what our enemy is thinking and planning before he attacks.

This bill doesn't do it. This bill does, as many of the speakers have said, deal with ``bugs and bunnies.'' Now, I happen to be an advocate for global warming research. I happen to believe that the Earth is warming, and I happen to believe that CO2 is something we have to address. I serve on a committee that has overseen it, that has looked at it, that has costed it; and I will continue to do so.

But I am beyond words, furious, that with no new funding we are diverting resources from finding out what bad people want to do to us, to a vague, beyond vague, an open-ended statement of over the next 30 years what is global warming maybe going to do.

It is a worst case, all-possible-negatives study. It will cost ten or hundreds of millions of dollars to begin with. It will cause us to divert satellites to do the research. To be honest, the CIA doesn't just throw together a report, especially when it is this vague.

We urged in committee that in fact they put reasonable amendments to

this. We asked something simple: task them with the U.N.'s finding on global warming. Any committee, any group's finding. It is an open-ended go-study report. It is going to cost a lot of money, and it is going to cost American lives.

But last but not least, there are unconscionable earmarks in this bill which I three times participated and voted for going to closed session so the Members would understand that pork and ``unfounded'' earmarks are in this bill; that American lives will be lost because we divert needed moneys from the human resources we need to invest in to pork projects and special interests of Members of the majority.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is not new. In fact, this is the second go-around for it, but that doesn't make it any easier. This bill, like many in the last Congress, died in the Senate.

That's going to be different this time thanks to Chairman Rahall and Ranking Member Young. They considered this, reviewed to see if there were any significant changes, and quickly reported it out of committee. I want to thank them for working on a bipartisan basis to do that early on.

This is important to the people of Southern California. As the gentlelady, who will speak, hopefully, next, will tell you, California has water. Unfortunately, we don't capture enough, and it isn't where we need it and when we need it.

H.R. 30 is designed to bring some of that availability by significantly increasing our use of recycled water, both helping maintain the aquifer and providing safe, clean water for a multitude of uses for the people of Southern California. I urge the support of this bill, and I will not mention the other body again, except to say that I am looking forward to this early passage turning into an early signature by the President.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 125 and join with my colleagues in denouncing Hezbollah for employing the use and the tactic of placing weapons, defensive and offensive, in the midst of communities in which innocent civilians live.

I also associate myself with the previous speaker, though, in saying that we have to go beyond a narrow issue of a single enemy in the Middle East. The use of human shields in the Middle East is unfortunately widespread, not just by the cancer that grows, that is known as Hezbollah in Lebanon, but also throughout the region.

On this point, I would like to give credit where credit is due. These pictures were taken, this one was taken in 2004, where a 13-year-old Palestinian boy named Mohammed Badwan was tied to the hood of an Israeli police jeep in the West Bank. A group of Palestinian youths had been reportedly throwing rocks at Israeli police, so the boy was taken and tied to the jeep so that they would stop throwing their rocks.

On October 6, and I want to give credit where credit is due, because this has not been unanswered, on October 6, 2005, the Israel High Court of Justice, the equivalent of our Supreme Court, ruled that it was illegal for Israeli forces to use Palestinian civilians during military operations. This ruling effectively ended the officially sanctioned tactic known as neighborhood procedure, whereby Israeli soldiers would forcibly use Palestinian civilians for tasks, including entering buildings to check to see if they were booby-trapped, removing building occupants, and moving suspicious objects from roads used by the army.

One of the victims of this neighborhood procedure was a 19-year-old Palestinian student who in 2002 was killed in the West Bank after troops took the young man out of his house and forced him to knock on the door of a neighboring building, where a senior Hamas fugitive was hiding. Gunfire erupted, and the student was killed.

In addition to the Israeli Supreme Court, human rights group have also been recognized for their work, and I commend them. B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, and Adalah have worked extensively on these cases and brought them to the court. To the credit of the Israeli people and their court system, they have denounced it, and they have sought to stop it.

The Israeli Army itself, most recently, acted swiftly to suspend a commander caught on videotape using two Palestinian youths as human shields earlier this month. In the video that has been seen around the world and covered by the Associated Press, a peace activist is heard shouting to the Israeli soldiers who have positioned two youths standing in front of their vehicle, ``You can't use them as human shields. It's against the law.''

The Israeli soldier responds, ``We are not using them as a human shield.''

``They are standing in front of your jeep. How is that not a human shield? You are using them to protect you from stones,'' the activist retorts.

``We asked them to speak to their friends and ask them to stop throwing stones at us,'' the soldier says.

Shortly after this videotape was posted, the Israeli military announced

the mission commander had been relieved of operational duty following this incident, in which IDF soldiers had apparently used these civilians, and the Israeli Government acted quickly.

I applaud their swift response and their efforts to make this use of human shields, once and for all, stop. This morning I circulated a Dear Colleague via e-mail with links to these videos and news stories.

I encourage my colleagues to take a look at these articles and efforts under way to stop the use of human shields. I have also issued statements that are on my Web site at www.issa.house.gov under the heading of ``Banning the use of Human Shields.''

Madam Speaker, I believe there are two sides to this. There is a difference. One side is continuing to be a cancer on the people of Lebanon. One side is continuing to use human shields with very little to stop them. The other side is taking those measures.

I came here today to commend the Israeli Government for taking those measures, to ask them to continue to use the strongest methods possible to make sure that is eliminated from one side of the equation. I will support this resolution denouncing the other side of the equation that continues to use human shields.

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

Atanacio Marin, or as he was better known, Nacho, by his friends, typifies the soldiers that come from California. So many of them are from Los Angeles and surrounding areas, so many have stories like Nacho has: one in which he was born in Mexico; one in which his family came here for a better life; one in which he became integrated with the community that he grew up in; one in which he graduated from Sierra Vista High School and was on the track team and ran in the Los Angeles marathon; one in which he had a desire to serve his country; one in which he joined the National Guard after completing high school and decided to devote his life to serving the military.

After his tour with the National Guard ended, Nacho transferred to the regular Army and was assigned to Battery C, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Hood, Texas. In January, 2 months before reporting for duty in the Middle East, Sergeant Marin was able to spend time with his close-knit family. While he was in Iraq he continued to remain close to his family. He called home often and characteristically sent his mother a Mother's Day card that read, ``Don't worry, be happy.'' Tragically, those uplifting words were some of his last.

A checkpoint was manned by the sergeant and came under fire on June 3, 2003. Unfortunately, this brave young man did not survive the attack. He was only 27 years old.

The post office we are naming today in Baldwin Park we are naming not just as a tribute to this fine soldier, but as a tribute to those who have gone to serve their country in this war and, like so many others, have an American story.

Nacho's American story is the story of California, it is a story of the war that is not often talked on this front, of patriotism, of devotion to family, of devotion to this Nation. And it is so appropriate that we name a post office after this fine young man from California. So I join with the majority in urging its swift passage.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

I join with my colleague in supporting this naming of the Sergeant Dennis J. Flanagan Post Office.

Sergeant Flanagan grew up in Florida and attended high school there. He was active and enjoyed sports. He ran cross-country, played soccer, and was a cadet commander at the school's Civil Air Patrol squadron. He loved learning about American history and hoped that one day he would be a history professor.

His commitment to military service began at an early age. He was an active member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, or Junior ROTC, where he achieved the rank of first lieutenant during his junior year of high school. He began classes in Central Florida Community College, but enlisted in the Army a week after September 11.

Sergeant Flanagan was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He fought with the air assault infantry that led the initial attack in 2003.

Wise beyond his years, he understood that victory could not be attained without action. He knew the dangers of war and believed in serving his country. After completing his first tour of duty, he re- enlisted in September of 2005 for a second tour. As an experienced soldier, he hoped he could act as a mentor for new soldiers, and he wanted to train the Iraqi Army recruits.

On January 20, 2006, Sergeant Flanagan was on patrol in Iraq in his Humvee with three other U.S. soldiers and a driver when a roadside bomb, or an IED, was exploded near their vehicle. All soldiers were wearing protective body armor. However, only the driver survived the blast. Sergeant Flanagan was only 22 when he died.

Today we honor the life of Sergeant Flanagan, a soldier who strongly believed in the fight for freedom. He was an American hero.

Madam Speaker, I ask all Members to join with me in supporting this naming and this bill.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

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

Madam Speaker, we have no further speakers here today on this fine young gentleman. But, in closing, I can think of no more appropriate statement on the United States Armed Forces than to have a gentleman with a classic Irish name from Florida be honored on the same day for another post office as a gentleman born in Mexico, growing up in California, whose father was a day laborer. I think that speaks volumes about the kinds of men and women who are defending our country, not questioning anything except that their country asked for them and they have followed and, unfortunately, two have fallen.

I urge passage of both of these pieces of legislation. I thank the majority for moving them in an expeditious fashion.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to speak in total support of the naming of this post office.

As a member of the committee, I thoroughly support the fact that we have not yet done enough to recognize some of the brave people from the past who created the government, the good parts of government that we take credit for every day. Certainly, I believe this is a good example. Not only was she, in fact, the person most responsible for recognizing the dangers of DDT and leading to the banning of it, but, quite frankly, Rachel Carson, in her novel ``Silent Spring,'' brought to the forefront the very concept of writing works which are widely read, and, in fact, can make a real difference in America's point of view.

Rachel Carson was born in 1907 in a rural area of Springdale, Pennsylvania, where she first acquired her interest in nature. Majoring in marine biology, with a strong background in creative writing, she graduated from Chatham College in 1929 magna cum laude. Despite financial difficulties, Ms. Carson continued her studies at Johns Hopkins University, graduating in 1932 with a graduate degree in zoology. While expanding her great passion about zoology and other living things, Carson taught at Johns Hopkins and at the University of Maryland while pursuing her doctorate degree.

Due to financial circumstances, Carson found a part-time position as a writer for radio scripts at the United States Bureau of Fisheries. She was faced with sexist resistance, not uncommon at that time, not uncommon at this time, as she took the civil service exam, but after obtaining a high score, she was given a full-time position as a junior aquatic biologist at the Bureau of Fisheries. At the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Ms. Carson submitted one of her radio scripts, named ``Undersea,'' to the Atlantic Monthly, which was published in 1937. Publishers, impressed with her writing, encouraged her to expand the article into book entitled Under the Sea-Wind.

Carson continued to write. Her second book, The Sea Around Us, was on the New York Times best seller list for 86 weeks and won the 1952 National Book Award and earned her two honorary doctorates. The book was then made into an Oscar-winning documentary. Her writing achievements did not end here, as she went on to publish a third and fourth book and write numerous magazine articles.

Ms. Carson's fourth and legendary book, Silent Spring, greatly influenced the way Americans thought about the environment and was discussed by President John F. Kennedy. One of the main themes of her novel was how all aspects of the environment were connected. She explained that when one uses a pesticide to exterminate a particular organism, the poison travels up the entire food chain, ultimately affecting large animals and humans. With the publication of Silent Spring, Carson was able to draw in reputable scientists in support of her cause of responsible DDT usage and help spread awareness of its impact on the environment.

Rachel Carson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received many honors, including the Audubon Medal and the Cullen Medal of the American Geographical Society, for her achievements. Unfortunately, poor health kept Ms. Carson from witnessing the ban on DDT in the United States, as she passed away in 1964. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1980.

Carson's legacy lives on as the quiet and consistent voice urging people to

come to terms with nature. The major conference room at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency is named the Rachel Carson Room. The Rachel Carson State Office Building is located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and is home to the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. There are also numerous bridges, parks, and schools which bear her name as well.

To further recognize and honor her contributions in the centennial celebration of her birth and to honor her life as a teacher, scientist, environmentalist, activist, and, most of all, writer, please join me in supporting and passing H.R. 1434.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

In closing, I think this is so appropriate that we consider today, at a time when we are looking at ever more vexing issues of the use of pesticides, the need for pesticides, the international conventions. I will be part of a group, House and Senate, that will be in Belgium this weekend where one of the major topics will be meeting with the Europeans on the next step in finding ways to limit or eliminate various pesticides, in addition to the constant effort to deal with ozone-depleting chemicals.

We are, today, as a result of her work, we are in fact smarter in the way we look at the chemicals that bring good things to life, as I think that we once said. We don't assume they are bad. We do test to make sure that what they do good for us is well measured against the side effects. That was a standard created as a result of Rachel Carson. We are honored to have had somebody who worked for the Federal Government, who published and who cared and who persevered throughout her entire life.

I join with the majority in urging the swift passage of this bill.

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

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