Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Dave Weldon (FL-15).

Bill Number: H.R. 2638.

Account: DOD, Other Procurement, Navy.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Northrop Grumman Corp.

Address of Requesting Entity: 1000 Wilson Blvd, Suite 2300, Arlington, VA 22209.

Description of Request: ALMDS is a major technology innovation in Airborne Mine Countermeasures that will revolutionize the U.S. Navy's ability to rapidly detect and localize near-surface and moored mines in the littorals. ALMDS will provide Navy assured access to Pacific Rim and Middle East Littoral waters by providing wide-area, 3-D imagery capable of detecting and classifying types of mines.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Dave Weldon (FL-15).

Bill Number: H.R. 2638 Account: DOD, RDTE.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Northrop Grumman Corp.

Address of Requesting Entity: 1000 Wilson Blvd, Suite 2300, Arlington, VA 22209.

Description of Request: The MP-RTIP radar is modular and scaleable in design enabling the USAF to share development efforts between the smaller radar intended for the Global Hawk and a larger radar for a larger aircraft like the E-8. More importantly, the large radar can detect and track targets with a much smaller radar signature--such as cruise missile or small targets on the ground.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Dave Weldon (FL-15).

Bill Number: H.R. 2638.

Account: DOD, Procurement--Defense Wide.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Soneticom Inc.

Address of Requesting Entity: 1045 John Rodes Blvd., West Melbourne,

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Dave Weldon (FL-15).

Bill Number: H.R 2638

Account: DOD, RDTE.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Harris Corporation.

Address of Requesting Entity: 1025 W NASA Blvd, Melbourne, FL 32919.

Description of Request: DTP will be a powerful multi-processor for hosting new capabilities such as Time Sensitive Targeting, Multiple Target Tracking, Automatic Target Cueing, and the ability to distribute this target information to other warfighters.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2638, the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009:

Requesting Member: Rep. Dave Weldon (FL-15).

Bill Number: HR 2638.

Account: Military Construction.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: EDC of Florida's Space Coast.

Address of Requesting Entity: 597 Haverty Court, Suite 100, Rockledge, FL 32955.

Description of Request: Construct a permanent Satellite Operations Support Facility (SOSF). The new facility will support existing and future satellite processing operations for GPS II, GPS Ill, the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) and future generations of military satellites. The new facility will provide a consolidated location for approximately 140 personnel.

Madam Speaker, many of my constituents have called and written me in opposition to the current plan to deal with the Nations financial crisis. I consider this to be one of the most serious and important issues I have dealt with in my 14 years in the House.

My father was born in 1919 into a poor working class family in New York City. During his most critical formative years from the time he was 10, until he went off to fight in WWII, all he knew was the deprivation of the great depression. He and his brothers and sisters regularly went to bed hungry, on many nights dinner consisted of a choice of either a ketchup or a mustard sandwich.

He was a good student, nonetheless had to drop out of school at age 15 so he could go to work, often making only pennies a day, but his family needed food. After the war he met my mother and had a family and was never able to go back to school.

One of the things that emerged from his experience was a tremendous amount of appreciation for having a good job and the importance of saving and preparing for retirement. Those enduring values he passed on to me.

Today, our Nation is faced with what is being described by many economists as the worst financial crisis since the great depression. With the decline in the housing market there are many banks and other financial institutions that have been adversely effected. This has caused many of these banks to have to stop or reduce lending money. Many banks have gone bankrupt.

There is no question that this problem was started by the Federal Government's efforts to modify lending rules to allow those with lower incomes and poor credit scores to purchase homes, often with no money down. The inappropriate and meddling actions by the Government- sponsored entities Fannie May and Freddie Mac laid the groundwork for this crisis and it was made worse by unscrupulous Wall Street Bankers and mortgage brokers.

What started as a housing market decline has now become a credit crisis effecting global finance, and it is beginning to affect the retirement savings of millions of Americans and our national economy. Many companies are starting to find it difficult to get financing and we are starting to have leaders in finance and business tell us that if this is not contained we may begin to see spreading business failures and unemployment.

It is against this backdrop that Treasury Secretary Paulson and the head of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke originally proposed a plan that calls for the U.S. Treasury to purchase with cash many of these mortgage backed securities held by these banks. Many of the assets are backed by real estate, but because there is no market for them today the bankers are being told they are worthless under the new accounting rules put in place after the Enron scandal.

Banks loan out money at a ratio of 10 to 1. For every 100 dollars of assets they have on their books they are able to make $1,000 in loans. The banks that now hold these mortgaged backed securities have seen the value of many of these plummet to zero which has wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars of capital from their balance sheets. This has taken trillions of dollars out of the capital markets because of this 10:1 ratio. If you were a bank and on your balance sheet was a $100 million dollars worth of mortgage backed securities that the accountants are telling you it is worth zero then you can't do $1 billion in loans.

The Paulson Plan called for purchasing these mortgage-backed securities with cash. I was not happy with the original plan put forth by the Secretary. It called for providing him unfettered access to $700 billion.

The bill I voted for on Monday September 29th and which failed to get a majority was a significant improvement over Secretary Paulson's original proposal. It reduced by half the amount of cash he could access without coming back to Congress. It required that he also develop an option other then asset purchase that included offering insurance to back up the value of these mortgage securities. It also had strong restrictions on excessive executive salaries for many of these troubled companies. No golden parachutes.

Despite the improvements in the bill it did not get my support because I liked it. I voted for it because I was concerned that inaction was too risky. My preferred approach was that proposed by former FDIC Chairman William Isaac. This plan was never given a vote.

Since that failed House vote, the Senate took up the bill and it has added some good things. There are several extensions of existing tax breaks that help families and businesses that were due to expire. Two important items are the coritinuation of sales tax deductibility for the people of Florida and the increase of FDIC insurance to $250,000. It also has a provision to modify the alternative minimum tax. If this provision is not enacted over 20 million families in America will be saddled with huge tax increases next year at a time when they can least afford it.

Unfortunately, the Senate put in several unnecessary items as well such as earmarked tax breaks for special interests. Despite the many flaws in this bill it is the only bill that I will be given a chance to vote on by the Democrat leadership. In light of the very serious problems in our economy, I will give it my support with a yes vote.

I realize that there are many like-minded conservatives in District 15 of Florida and around the country that disagree. I am reminded at this time of the great controversy surrounding the drafting of the Constitution and its ratification at the birth of our Nation.

Today, the Constitution is revered and it has served out Nation well for over 200 years. But the debate surrounding its drafting and ratification was highly controversial with many patriots at the time being strongly opposed to it.

Time will determine if this financial rescue package will serve our Nation well. I am concerned that we are heading into a recession. This package if it works well will likely not allow us to avert a recession, but may allow us to avert a depression.

I will be brief. I want to thank you for rising as you have tonight and acknowledging this time for me, my retirement from the U.S. Congress. It is extremely kind and very nice of you to do this. We couldn't be busier than we are today, and for you, John Mica, to take a moment to acknowledge me and as I understand it, you are also going to say a few words about some of the other retiring Members, I think it speaks very well of you.

I want to thank you for you being my big brother. I got elected in 1994. I came right out of my medical practice. The delegation or Newt Gingrich assigned you to make sure that I would be able to find the restroom and things like that. Of course I am being silly on that point. You gave me a lot of excellent advice on how to be a good servant

of the people. I want to thank you for that.

Certainly I am going to be missing people such as yourself, obviously a man very dedicated to fighting for good Republican conservative principles here in Washington; but really more importantly, American principles of freedom and democracy. So you have been an outstanding role model for me.

There will be a replacement for me in a few short months, and perhaps you can take that new congressman under your wing and provide them continued leadership as you have done in the past.

I also want to thank you for all you have done for the State of Florida on the Transportation Committee. Your work has been very, very helpful to my constituents and I really think to the entire State. So thank you, John Mica, for all you do. Certainly I extend my thanks to your wonderful wife, Pat. It has been great getting to know her over the years. I am hoping this is not good-bye, that I will be in some capacity involved to the degree I will be able to see you and your family in the months and years ahead.

Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I wanted to stay and linger and listen to the direction of your special order here. And I couldn't help but feel the need to come down here and ask you to yield time, and I thank you for doing that.

I sat on the Financial Services Committee from 1996 through to 2002. And one of the first things that was brought to my attention, once I got on the committee, was the concern that many of us had on the committee about the rapid growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two very, very large government-sponsored entities--they call them GSEs. It was sort of a mongrel creation that was somewhat free market, selling stocks and bonds. And then, nonetheless, it had a Federal backing to it creating an impression that it was an arm of the Federal Government.

And the concern was, essentially, that it was not a properly regulated entity. There was this very small agency within Treasury called OFHEO, which was given the responsibility, very small staff, very limited number of examiners, to monitor these two gigantic entities that had assets into the trillions--not billions--but trillions of dollars. And the concern that many of us, many of the Republicans had on the committee was that if one of these entities had significant problems, that it could be a major, major hit to our economy.

And we got tremendous resistance from the left, from the Democrats. They were telling us there is nothing wrong with Fannie and Freddie. Indeed, what I found to be particularly objectionable whenever we would bring up the thing that we were most concerned about, which was giving loans to people who had limited ability to pay back their loans and the potential systemic effect that that could have on our economy, we were accused of being racists. And low and behold--and thank you for mentioning President Bush.

President Bush repeatedly brought bills forward saying Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac represented a significant risk to our economy and that we needed to regulate them better. Of course, the President was rejected by the other side of the aisle in his initiatives, and you can never get anything like this through Congress if you can't get Democrats in the Senate on board because of the cloture rule over there. So we were essentially never able to really move forward in this.

And low and behold, it was discovered in 2004 there were significant problems with fraud, abuse, executives getting--cooking the books, getting huge multimillion dollar payoffs. Some of these--a lot of these people were former Clinton administration people. And then low and behold, we come to today where we have this huge meltdown in the real estate market and the Federal Government literally has to step in and take over both of these entities.

And the important thing that is worth mentioning, we now have a credit crisis, and the reason we have a credit crisis is we have all of these banks holding stocks and bonds in Freddie and Fannie, a lot of it which is now worthless, and so they're seeing their balance sheets very negatively affected by that. And banks, of course, lend out money on a 10-1 ratio. For every $1 of deposits they have, they can loan out $10.

They're seeing hundreds of millions of dollars of their holdings in mortgage-backed securities collapsing in value, and so, therefore, of course, we have a systemic credit crisis and, as a result, one of the toughest economic times that we've had in years and years and years, and a lot of it goes back to failure.

And I really appreciate the gentleman doing this because there were many Republicans on that Financial Services Committee, and I was one of them, who wanted to get better regulation, strengthen OFEO so that they would become a better regulatory agency and actually reduce the size of Fannie and Freddie.

And I will say this, those two entities should never be allowed to be resuscitated. The good assets they have

should get sold off to private investors. The money, the revenue that comes in from that should be used to repay the taxpayer for the lost taxpayer money that's going to result from us having to bailout Fannie and Freddie, and they should never be allowed to occur again.

I'm all for helping lower-income people who have the resources to pay for a mortgage to get into a mortgage, but we shouldn't be doing it to the extent that we did do, and the result now is some of the economic problems we're having today.

So thank you, John Mica, for bringing this up. This is an important issue, and I again applaud you for your work on the Government Reform Committee because I know you have been working this issue as well for years.

Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about a provision in this bill waiving the Iran Nonproliferation Act to allow NASA to purchase launch services from Russia.

NASA is the greatest proliferator to Iran. Indeed, just this week, Russia announced its intent to provide Iran a missile defense system, not to protect its people, but to protect its nuclear weapons production facility.

Now NASA has been asking for this provision because of their concern that without it, they will not be able to get our astronauts to the space station after 2010, when the space shuttle is retired.

Now we are told we have to do this because we can't afford to fly the shuttle anymore.

Mr. Speaker, this is pathetic. In the same week we are debating a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, we are told we can't afford to fly the shuttle and we have to rely on Russia.

Mr. Speaker, this is bad foreign policy. It sends a bad signal to Russia and a very bad signal to Iran.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information for publication in the Congressional Record regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 6599, The Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act for FY 2009.

I have requested that the committee provide the full $122,000,000 requested by the Administration for construction of the East-Central Florida (Orlando) New Veteran's Medical Facility under the Department of Veterans Affairs Major Construction account. The committee provided $220,000,000 within the bill.

The Medical Center will consist of a 134-bed hospital, a large medical clinic, a 120-bed Nursing Home, a 60-bed domiciliary, and full support services, utilities, and infrastructure on a new site. It will provide VA Acute Care, complex Specialty Care and advanced Ancillary/ Diagnostic services for approximately 92,000 veteran enrollees. The site selected is in the Lake Nona development in Orlando, Florida.

Mr. Speaker, this summer has been a breath- taking one for stem cell researchers around the world, but not because of embryonic stem cells or cloning. Building on important work published last year showing that it is possible to reprogram an adult cell back to its primitive embryonic-like state, researchers led by Doug Melton at Harvard University have done what was thought impossible only a few short years ago. Melton and his team used mice to show that it is possible to directly reprogram support cells or exocrine cells of the pancreas into insulin-producing beta cells without ever removing any cells from the pancreas. Amazingly, it appears that one adult cell type has been directly and specifically transformed into another adult cell type. In other words, a simple injection of three critical reprogramming factors successfully produced insulin-producing beta cells and gave patients with diabetes and their families new reason to hope in the power of regenerative medicine.

Melton and his colleagues have brought us one step closer to what many have called the ``holy grail'' of regenerative medicine. He has shown that, in principle, it is possible to induce the body to heal itself by reprogramming one cell type into another. Imagine that; your beta cells can no longer make insulin and you are diabetic, perhaps because of immune destruction of your insulin-producing cells like in Type I diabetes, or perhaps because, like in Type II diabetes, your insulin-producing cells have just given up.

If the work Melton describes can be reproduced in human patients, diabetes patients would have to receive a simple injection, maybe two or three times, and with that, their pancreas could resume producing insulin and they would be cured of their diabetes, no longer requiring insulin injections, no longer requiring painful pinpricks.

Of course, Melton's work is a long way from the clinic. Mice are not people, and some of the details must be modified to ensure that the injection is safe and won't cause tumors. But this work represents an enormous step forward and should be pursued with all of the resources NIH can provide.

This exciting news comes on the heels of another announcement also this summer, that researchers from Harvard and Columbia have used the reprogramming protocol to create 21 disease-specific stem cell lines that will enable researchers to intimately study diseases such as Lou Gehrig's disease, Type I diabetes, Parkinson's and muscular dystrophy. And it is important to note that this technique also does not require the creation, destruction or even the presence of human embryos. These cells may not be ready to transplant into humans in the near term, but they will be available for research today and for use in screening for drugs.

So in a few short months, the promise of regenerative medicine comes closer to reality. Just last year, scientists and cloning advocates told us that we had to do human cloning--or at least to create cloned human embryos--so that we could accomplish these two goals that were deemed essential for moving regenerative medicine forward; creating disease-specific cell lines, and regenerating stem cells that could be a perfect match for patients affected by these diseases.

Both of these goals have been accomplished with the reprogramming protocol; no cloning, no human embryo stem cells required. To say it another way, there is no medical reason to proceed with research into cloning human embryos for their stem cells because that science is obsolete, it is more cumbersome, it is more expensive. We have a better, quicker, easier way to do it.

Now, I will note that these researchers who were involved with these breath-taking breakthroughs have done the politically correct thing and have said we still have to move forward with embryo stem cell research for compelling reasons. What those compelling reasons are I do not know. And I disagree with them. It cannot be denied that research is moving forward at a breakneck speed, and the Bush policy is still fully in place.

This work also lends more support for all the adult stem cell work that we have been talking about in this body for years. For years, embryonic stem cell research advocates have claimed that only embryonic stem cells can be transformed this way. Now we have direct evidence that it is not necessary. Science is moving beyond the debate. Science is taking us in a direction of ethically responsible research.

There is a reason why there's so much speculation in the oil commodities market, and it is because supply is less than demand. This happens in any commodities market. Where demand is exceeding supply, the speculators dive in. And you can try to encourage the CFTC and you can pass new regulations on speculation, but as long as supply is less than demand, the speculators are going to move in.

And I will say further, that if you try to regulate this market so much that it becomes dysfunctional, it will just go overseas. And the reason the speculators are getting in is because they know that this Congress does not want to open up American sources of energy.

I sit on the Appropriations Committee, and outrageously, today, we had the Interior bill before us, and we had three amendments: one to open up ANWR, a huge source of oil; one to open up our offshore assets of natural gas and oil, which can be done safely with today's technology; and the third is to open up shale. We have more hydrocarbons in shale than the Saudis have oil, but amazingly, the Democratic leadership didn't want to vote on those things. They don't want to open up those sources.

That is the political position of the majority, the Democratic majority in this Congress, no increased domestic oil production, and that's why the speculators are pouring in. And there's going to be no relief for price at the pump, no matter what we do in this body, if we do not address the issue of supply.

We have domestic energy. We can access that domestic energy safely and cleanly, but people are standing in the way in this body and the Congress of the United States.

I predict that this bill is going to have absolutely no impact. We're going to do two more bills that probably will have no impact, and prices will probably continue to go up.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in support of the underlying bill. And I commend the gentlelady from Florida for her inspiring words.

This bill is on the right track by extending shuttle operations, giving NASA the option to extend shuttle operations beyond 2010. Taking away the artificial 2010 deadline and allowing NASA to finish all the flights currently on the manifest will give NASA more flexibility and provide needed transportation to the International Space Station and help lessen the severity of the gap.

However, I want to underscore that this bill does not fix the problem established by this administration. And my hope is that the next administration and the next Congress will fix this problem of putting NASA and the United States in a situation where we will be dependent on the Russians to put our astronauts into space for possibly longer than 5 years.

The Government Accountability Office recently testified before a congressional committee indicating that there are a number of technological challenges facing the Constellation program, the program to replace the shuttle, and that delays in the program could occur and could lengthen this gap beyond the 4\1/2\ to 5 years that it currently is.

History has shown time and time again that complex technological problems often lead to delays, and that attempts at closing gaps can often be frustrated. Therefore, it is my opinion that the only way to assure that we do not get a lengthening of the gap, and the only way to make sure that we eliminate this gap is to extend shuttle operations.

Now, I was very disappointed in the Statement of Administration Policy on this bill that whoever was responsible for drafting this thing, they chose to dig up the canard that it is unsafe to extend shuttle operations beyond 2010. The truth is that the last shuttle that flies in 2010 will be the same shuttle that flies in 2011 if we extend shuttle operations. And if we are to argue that it is unsafe to fly the shuttle beyond 2010, you could just as easily argue that it's unsafe to fly it today. The truth is, after the improvements that have been made after the Columbia and the Challenger disasters, the shuttle that flies today is the safest shuttle that we have ever flown. And yes, going into outer space has its risks, but we choose to do so because we are a Nation of explorers, and we feel that the risks are justified for the benefits of space exploration.

I just also want to point out that relying on the Soyuz vehicle-- supposedly because it's safer, as the administration is implying in their statement--is not exactly correct. We just recently saw a situation where the returning Soyuz vehicle was thrown off course into a dangerous ballistic reentry, exposing the astronauts on board, including a female astronaut, Peggy Whitson, to very dangerous G forces.

This bill is a step in the right direction. It gives NASA the ability to extend shuttle operations. And I want to just point out, there is a very important scientific mission, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer mission. We spent $1.5 billion building that piece of machinery, and NASA's current plan is to leave it on the ground. This bill correctly calls for launching that mission, and it is the right thing to do. To spend all that money to build that thing and then to never launch it is just wrong.

However, I do want to underscore that the future Congress and the next administration is going to have to wrestle with the issue of getting the funding in the appropriation process. But I just want to say that, based on current economic growth, over the next 5 to 7 years 1 trillion additional dollars is going to come into this U.S. Treasury.

This is a matter of priorities. The American people support our space program. It's the right thing to do to keep the shuttle flying beyond 2010.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Nation of Israel on its 60th anniversary and add my support for H. Con. Res. 322.

The Nation of Israel holds a unique position in the history of Western Civilization, and is supported the world over by millions of Christians, Jews and people of other faiths.

I have had the pleasure to serve as the co-chair of the Israel Allies Caucus in the House and it has been my pleasure to work with members of the Knesset on important issues of concern to both United States and Israel.

During my years in Congress I have come to know and befriend numerous Israelis, and I am always moved by their sincere desire for peace. The vast majority of people in Israel hope for a day when their hostile neighbors recognize and embrace their presence in the Middle East. I am proud that America was by Israel's side in 1948, and I am proud today to highlight this relationship between our countries that is now 60 years strong.

Only two short years ago, the Jewish population in Israel surpassed the Jewish population in the United States, and soon there will be more Jewish people in Israel than perished in the Holocaust. While we will always remember the atrocities of the 20th century against the Jewish people, today we recognize and affirm this moment in history as a triumphant realization of the dream for a Jewish homeland.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the gentleman for the courage and the leadership that he is providing on the very important issue of standing up for Israel and the right of Israel to survive and how much I have enjoyed working with the gentleman from New York on this issue and for him to come to the floor and make these comments and voice my total agreement with the sentiments that he is stating here tonight.

This is a very, very important issue. Israel is a key ally of the United States in the war on terror. And now is the time for us to stand together with the people of Israel, and I want to commend the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, it is my honor to rise in celebration of the coming 60th anniversary of the creation of the Nation of Israel next month. I have long been a supporter of Israel, and I am proud of the strong bonds that unite Israel with our own Nation.

Not only is Israel one of our foremost allies in the current fight against terrorism, but they have been a long partner in peace, in commerce and in the values of liberty. Israel, like America, rose to prominence through the hard work of immigrants, and Israel remains the best model of democracy, religious freedom and peaceful coexistence in a very hostile location in the world. The contributions of Israeli ingenuity and Israeli technology are making an impact in the Middle East and throughout the world.

And today, with Iran threatening to destroy Israel and developing nuclear technologies and ballistic missile technologies, it's more important than ever that people of good will, Jews, Christians and of all faiths rise up in support of Israel and acknowledge Israel's coming 60 birthday.

Mazel Tov, Israel.