Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in some puzzlement. The President came to my part of our State last week and announced, ``The economy is strong here in North Carolina.'' As the Raleigh News & Observer observed, ``Is the President an optimist, or does he need an optometrist?''

Perhaps our economy seems strong to Mr. Bush. After all, he raked in over $2 million at his afternoon fundraiser. But he did not seem to notice that we have record numbers of laid-off workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits, 68,000 at last count. Our unemployment rate in the Raleigh-Durham area is creeping up again. The rolls grew by almost 2,000 last month.

We have had even heavier losses in manufacturing Statewide, where 158,000 such jobs have disappeared since the President took office.

President Bush's declaration of our so-called ``strong'' economy is simply out of touch. He is peddling the idea is that his tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent have worked miracles. But North Carolinians know a sluggish recovery when they see one.

Declaring our economy strong does not make it so, and it does not put food on the table either. The News & Observer noted that the President did not take questions from local reporters. Is it any wonder why?

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for taking out this Special Order and giving us a chance to talk about a man whom we know very well and whom we know is prepared to serve this country very well.

I commend my colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), for listening so carefully to the preceding hour and the kinds of statements that were made on this floor. There is one that I thought was particularly striking, and I just want to check my recollection of this, if I might.

The gentleman from Georgia seemed to come over here and really challenge John Kerry's faithfulness as a Catholic. That is what I heard him saying. That is extraordinary. That is extraordinary.

He also, in the process, restated the establishment clause of the Constitution. He said the first amendment prohibits the establishment of a State religion. No, the first amendment prohibits the establishment by the State of religion. And I would not pretend for a moment that it is always a simple thing to balance that establishment clause and the free exercise clause and understand how it can be applied in specific cases, but I would think one thing it means is that one in our country and under our form of government is not to take a theological interpretation, let us say of when life begins and to make that the law of the land.

There are many ways that our faith informs our politics, and that is true of John Kerry and John Edwards. It is true of the present President and Vice President, and we honor that. The wellsprings of political motivation and political values run very deep, and for most of us that involves our religious beliefs and our religious backgrounds. That is very different from saying, though, that we enact specific religious precepts as the law of the land; that we convert those into civil law when there is not widespread consensus on those precepts, as there came to be in the case, for example, of civil rights, and many other religiously grounded values. But where there is not that kind of broad consensus, over the years we have concluded it is best to leave conscience free. It is best to leave the individual and the collective expression of conscience free.

The gentleman from Georgia seemed to think that Mr. Kerry was being less than faithful because he was refusing to make that transition from a religious precept to the law of the land. And I wonder, where does that stop? Where does that stop? Where do you draw the line? Are there any limits to transforming religious precepts into civil law? Is there anyplace you draw the line, anything you would be willing to define as the establishment of religion?

No, there is great wisdom in that founding document, our Constitution. The State is not to establish religion. The State is not to interfere with the free exercise of religion. And I would suggest we would all do well to honor those precepts and to be very, very cautious in coming on this floor or going anywhere else and labeling a person unfaithful to his religious tradition because he happens to disagree with the interpretation of where these constitutional precepts apply.

I did not mean to start this way, Mr. Speaker, but the preceding hour was so extraordinary in some of the charges made and in some of the claims made that I felt I would add my contribution to what the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller) very ably lined out.

The gentleman from the second district will remember very well when John Edwards first came to the U.S. Senate, and in that first year we had a serious test of our ability to deliver for North Carolina and to collaborate in the interest of our State a challenge that came in the form of a hurricane and a flood named Floyd. And that was a test for all of us, but it was particularly a test for our new Senator; and that is where I got to know John Edwards best and came to appreciate the kind of energy and dedication to duty that he exemplifies and his effectiveness. We did get a great deal of support for our State, relief for our State; and John Edwards was a very valuable leading member of the team.

We also know him for his leadership on many domestic issues. He is probably best known as the leader in the Senate, along with Senator John McCain from the other side of the aisle, of the fight for a Patients' Bill of Rights. Very, very effective legislative effort. So John Edwards is well-known as a legislator who has looked out for North Carolina and who has looked out for the people of this country.

But in the few minutes I have tonight, I want to turn to another aspect of John's leadership and one that, again, our friends on the other side of the aisle seemed determined to denigrate, and that is his experience and his leadership in national security and in foreign affairs. Some have questioned that. But it is actually an important question to ask. Does a candidate for President or Vice president have credible experience and knowledge in foreign affairs, in security matters; and does he bring that to the table as he asks the American people to support him?

Let me just mention a number of aspects of John Edwards' experience in terrorism and national security. On many occasions Senator Edwards has transformed key anti-terrorist proposals into law. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Edwards has been an active leader on important issues related to national security, with particular focus on homeland security, intelligence reform, military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and U.S.-European relations.

For example, the Biological and Chemical Weapons Preparedness Act. This bill, introduced by Senator Edwards, along with Senator Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, establishes a coordinated national plan for responding to biological and chemical weapons attacks and directs States to develop plans for dealing with such attacks. This was not just a proposal. Major provisions of this bill have been passed by the Senate in the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act.

The Airport and Seaport Terrorism Prevention Act. This legislation specified the use of new identification technologies to screen airport employees. Parts of that proposal were passed by the Senate and signed into law.

The Cyber Terrorism Preparedness Act. The Cyber Security Research and Education Act. These bills strengthen our Nation's preparedness and ability to ward off a cyberattack by terrorists. Parts of that bill were passed by the Senate and signed into law by the President.

The Name Matching For Enforcement and Security Act. Senator Edwards introduced legislation to improve the weak capacity of anti-terrorist watch lists and databases to match up variants of foreign names. This legislation was incorporated into the Border Security Act of 2002.

John Edwards has been part of a working group of Senators focused on terrorism before 9/11. Before 9/11. In the summer of 2001, John Edwards joined a working group of Senators from the Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on the Judiciary, and the Committee on Armed Services who focused on the growing terrorist threat and considered possible responses. Many of these issues, many of these ideas, such as the mandatory sharing of intelligence between CIA and FBI and other agencies, and the training of Federal, State and local law enforcement officers to recognize and communicate critical intelligence information, these ideas were later implemented in legislation passed after September 11.

John Edwards has met extensively with leaders around the globe, traveling in the Middle East, Asia and the gulf states, and Europe. He has wide exposure and wide experience internationally. As several of my colleagues have said, far, far more experience and exposure than our present President had when he was nominated. Present President had very, very limited international exposure, and actually seemed proud of that fact.

John Edwards has been a member of the joint committee investigating the September 11 attacks. He has focused in on intelligence failures. He served as a member of the joint House-Senate panel investigating those attacks during the inquiry. He developed particular expertise on the shortcomings of the FBI's intelligence-gathering efforts. He developed relationships with a broad range of experts specializing in intelligence and national security policy, law enforcement, and civil liberties, as well as receiving detailed briefings from the FBI and the director of the British Security Service.

Fourthly, John Edwards has played a leading role in post-conflict planning legislation. He played a leading role in improving America's ability to ensure that post-conflict states, like Afghanistan and Iraq, can address security challenges and humanitarian needs and political development.

In 2003 Senator Edwards introduced the bipartisan Winning the Peace Act that outlined major reforms to enhance the government's capability to conduct post-conflict reconstruction. And then, finally, John Edwards has worked tirelessly to improve our military. As the Senator from North Carolina, he represents Fort Bragg, the world's largest army complex, as well as the headquarters of the Marine Corps Antiterrorism Task Force. He has been active in the effort to improve the quality of life for all who serve in the military and to reach out to military families.

Madam Speaker, others want to speak. I am going to stop with that. I hope, though, that it is evident; and one reason I have mentioned all these various enactments and all these various initiatives is to underscore the point that these are not just empty claims. These are documented claims. This is a record for all to see. This is a Senator who, in his term in the Senate, has been deeply involved in national security and foreign policy issues. He has developed expertise. He has developed a network of people that he works with. He has put forward creative proposals, many of which have been enacted into law. It is an area where he has invested a great deal and where he is prepared to serve.

And I thank the gentleman for giving us all a chance to testify to our knowledge of John Edwards's good work and our support for his present effort.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate his taking out this Special Order tonight to honor our colleague Doug Bereuter, retiring after 26 years of distinguished service in this body.

I first got to know Doug as a thoughtful and productive Member of the House Committee on Banking soon after my arrival here, but I soon came to admire him even more for his knowledge and his involvement in foreign affairs. He is now completing his 22nd year on the Committee on International Relations where he chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. He is in his 10th year of service on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence where he chairs the Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy and National Security and serves as vice-chair of the full committee.

For most of his congressional career, Doug has made it his business to understand the foreign policy challenges facing our country, and he has made enormous contribution to the House's capacity for and exertion of international leadership. He has earned the respect of Members on both sides of the aisle and among his counterparts in other parliaments. He has been a delegate to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly since 1986. He has led the U.S. delegation since 1995, and he was elevated to the presidency of the assembly 2 years ago.

Doug represents our country's interests forthrightly and effectively in international forums, and he is equally skilled in informal diplomacy, listening well and engaging in candid dialogue, forming ties of mutual respect with leaders abroad. He has taken a particular interest in the challenges facing the NATO alliance after the Cold War, the role of the alliance in conflicts in the Balkans and beyond Europe, and the collective response to terrorism.

Under his leadership, the Assembly has played an important role in the eastward expansion of NATO, both in debating the terms of that expansion and in establishing ties with parliamentarians in the new member States.

Like others in this body, I have greatly enjoyed and benefited from my travels with Doug, often with his wife Louise and my wife Lisa, on parliamentary exchanges, Aspen Institute seminars and NATO Assembly meetings.

Most recently, we have collaborated in drafting a resolution, H. Res. 642, establishing a commission in the House of Representatives to assist parliaments in emerging democracies. It is our hope that this commission might continue the work begun in Eastern Europe by the Frost-Solomon Commission in the 1990s, working in the Balkans, the Caucasus and other areas as they develop freely functioning parliaments.

Madam Speaker, as much as we respect Doug's work, we also admire him as a colleague and value him as a friend. Doug's a warm and sincere and genuine person, persistent and determined when he needs to be, but also cooperative, collaborative, willing to share the limelight and eager to help others succeed. One measure of Doug's personal qualities and the loyalty friends feel to him is the longevity of his staff here. Doug's staff obviously believes in him, and they have served for impressive periods of time.

Carol Lawrence has served for 26 years, plus 3 years when he was a State legislator. Robin Evans, 22 years; Jodi Detwiler, 18 years; Susan Olson, his chief of staff, 17 years, and we know Susan well from her NATO assembly work; Mike Ennis, 16 years; Alan Feyerherm, 15 years. That is remarkable. That is a remarkable display of not just staff longevity but staff loyalty, a kind of personal loyalty that Doug inspires.

Mr. Speaker, Doug Bereuter has made a distinctive contribution to this House and to our country. We will miss him here, but we bid him and Louise farewell in the sure hope that we will have continuing opportunities to see them and to work with them. We know that Doug's talents will find a worthy outlet in the presidency of the Asia Foundation, and we wish him well in that important work.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Manzullo-Velazquez amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to our colleagues, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano), for their conscientious and cooperative efforts reflected in this bill. Despite the inadequate allocation the committee had to start with, they were able to redirect much-needed resources to a number of law enforcement programs, to antigang initiatives, to scientific research, and to business programs.

As I said when the Homeland Security appropriations bill came to the floor, I am concerned about how the cuts to the COPS program and the Byrne grants for local law enforcement will affect our first responders' ability to protect us from, and to respond to, terrorist attacks. But I commend my colleagues for the improvements they have made in the President's budget request.

Today, I rise in support of the amendment being offered by the chairman and the ranking member of the

Committee on Small Business to restore funding for the Small Business Administration's flagship 7(a) loan program. With all due respect to my friends on the Committee on Appropriations, these are the two Members who spend the most time dealing with small business issues and have the best understanding of small business programs.

The fact that the two of them have come together to offer this bipartisan amendment should be all the proof that most Members need that 7(a) does, in fact, need Federal funds to survive. But for those who are not willing to take their word for it, let us look at the facts. Small businesses are the number one job creators in this economy. 7(a) loans account for nearly 30 percent of all long-term loans for small businesses in America. This is a program that has returned an estimated $12 billion to the economy with only a $120 million investment. I cannot understand how anyone could say that 7(a) is not good business.

The administration is apparently still clinging to their claim that 7(a) can continue entirely as a fee-based program. They say we could simply increase fees to make up the difference in funding. We could. But if we did so, any company hoping to take out a $150,000 7(a) loan would have to ante up something like $10,000 in fees just to get the loan. In private real estate markets that would be like a mortgage broker charging seven points just to process a mortgage application. Such a policy would kill 7(a). That is why the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo) and the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez) have decided to offer this amendment, and I strongly encourage my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, this bill unfortunately shortchanges small business in yet another respect, zeroing out funding for the very successful microloan program.

Microenterprises are the foundation of our economy, and although a microenterprise by definition has fewer than five employees, they account for something like 17 percent of our employment in this country. In the 12 years it has been in existence, the microloan program has resulted in 19,000 microloans responsible for the creation of more than 60,000 American jobs. In my district alone, this program has resulted in 223 loans totaling $1.26 million.

That is a huge impact. Each of those loans represents a new business, a new American realizing his or her dream. The economic effects of each of these loans ripples and expands throughout the local, State, and ultimately, the national economy. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) will offer an amendment later to restore most of the funding for the microloan program, and I urge my colleagues to support their amendment.

Mr. Chairman, America's small businesses represent the dreams, the innovation, the drive that have made this country great. Especially as we struggle to replace the 1.2 million American jobs that have been lost in the last 3 years, we need to ensure that the programs best qualified to create jobs are given the resources that they need. The 7(a) program and the microloan program have proved themselves in creating jobs, building businesses, and expanding our economy. I urge my colleagues to give them the resources to continue.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I rise to enter into a colloquy with the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano).

Before I begin, I would like to thank the chairman and the ranking member for their support of the Legal Services Corporation. Legal Services funds 143 legal aid programs around the Nation to help poor Americans gain access to the judicial system. I appreciate the bipartisan full funding of the LSC program, and I hope we can work together in the neare future to remove some of the few remaining obstacles that are preventing this program from reaching its full potential.

My primary concern is over the ``private money restriction'' in this bill that applies to any nonprofit legal services organization receiving LSC funding. This restriction precludes these nonprofits from using any of their private funds--including individual donations, foundation grants, and State and local government funds--for any non- LSC-qualified services.

Non-LSC-qualified services include representing many categories of legal immigrants, including battered women and children; representing mothers in prison trying to maintain visitation and custody of their children; filing class actions to stop predatory lenders from preying on elderly homeowners; and educating people about their legal rights and then offering assistance in enforcing those rights. As a result of the private money restriction, most civil legal services providers are forced to stop providing non-LSC-qualified services altogether. Many of the most vulnerable individuals and families find themselves without access to legal services at all.

LSC recognized that this was a problem, but their attempted ``fix'' of this problem--allowing organizations to use their own private funds for non-LSC-qualified services only if they create physically separate nonprofits with separate staff, offices, and equipment--is prohibitively expensive and will result in fewer families being served.

There is a much simpler and more effective way to address the problem. Congress should require LSC grantees to abide by the same longstanding rules promulgated by OMB for nonprofit grantees of Federal agencies, by the IRS for all nonprofit 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) organizations, and by the Bush administration for faith-based groups. All of these rules authorize nonprofits receiving Federal funds to engage in various privately funded activities--like lobbying and praying--without requiring them to do so through physically separate entities with separate staff and equipment. I am hopeful that future conversations on LSC funding will consider similar rules so that we can remove the physical space requirement, which will make our LSC-funded providers much more effective.

My colloquy focuses on the issue of concentrated media ownership which has concerned colleagues on both sides

of the aisle. Among the leaders in this fight is the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), who unfortunately could not join us on the floor here today.

On June 2 of last year, the FCC voted to further relax the rules on media ownership in a move which many felt threatened the core democratic values of localism and diversity in the media.

As troubling as these new ownership rules were, the process by which the FCC arrived at them was equally troubling. Despite its mandate to include the American public in its rulemaking procedures, the commission held just one public hearing as it wrote these new rules, and it did not release the rules for public comment until just before it voted on them. Our communities were given virtually no say in the type of programming they are subjected to by broadcast television and radio.

Mr. Chairman, on June 24, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Philadelphia Circuit echoed the voice of the American people and many in Congress by reversing most of the FCC's media ownership rules. As a result, aside from the national media ownership cap that was adjusted by Congress last year, the rules in effect before the FCC's June 2, 2003, decision are again in place.

As the commission begins the process of proposing any new rules, we must make sure that the process is as open and inclusive as possible. Specifically, I believe the FCC should, first, hold a series of public hearings across the country to collect and analyze the various perspectives raised by citizens.

Secondly, allow sufficient time for public comment on the specifics of any proposed rules before the commission votes on them.

And, thirdly, take into account any independent studies of the effect of media consolidation on the level of indecent programming on the public airwaves.

I would ask my colleagues to comment on these expectations.

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

I thank the gentleman from Virginia.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, the Republican pay-as-you- go proposal makes no fiscal sense. Leaving revenues out of the picture is like trying to fill a bucket with a gaping hole in it. It simply will not work.

We did it right in 1990 when Congress and the President came together on a bipartisan basis and undertook a courageous effort to balance the Federal budget. Integral to this effort was a real pay-as-you-go rule that controlled both spending and tax cuts. The result was budget discipline that worked, and eventually the first budget surplus in decades.

Deficits are not caused by discretionary spending alone or by entitlement spending alone or by revenue shortfalls alone. All three elements contribute. And it is folly to pretend that fiscal balance can be attained without addressing all three.

Mr. Chairman, we could cut every last dime of domestic discretionary spending; we could eliminate funding for education, highways, health research, veterans health care, the environment and all the rest of the domestic discretionary budget and we would still run a deficit. Why? Because we have enacted trillions of dollars in tax cuts mainly benefiting our country's wealthiest people. And we have not paid for them.

The President and this Congress have defied the budget rules. They have abandoned fiscal sanity. The result is deficits now approaching $500 billion a year. And far from correcting this folly, this Republican budget reform bill would actually codify it.

This bill is a sham. I know it. My colleagues know it. The leadership of this Chamber knows it. And soon the American people will know it too.

Vote ``no'' on the Republicans' leaky bucket; vote ``yes'' on the Spratt substitute.

Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote for H. Con. Res. 460, a resolution regarding Israel's security and the principles of Middle East peace. I welcome this opportunity to explain my reasoning to my colleagues.

The resolution, which was formulated with more than the usual bipartisan consultation, affirms the goal of Israeli and Palestinian states ``living side by side in peace and security.'' It acknowledges, as President Clinton did in the plan he offered at Taba, that the adjustment of boundaries must take into account the existence of Israeli population centers. But it makes clear that final boundaries would be subject to Israeli-Palestinian negotiation. Presumably this would leave open the consideration of land swaps and the contiguity of Palestinian territory, as did the Taba proposal.

The resolution has some curious and unfortunate omissions. There is no specific reference to settlement evacuation, the focus of the plan by Prime Minister Sharon, for which the United States is offering support. There is no mention of the Road Map, our country's primary current diplomatic initiative, very much in need of invigoration. In a more positive omission, the resolution declines to endorse Israeli construction of a ``security'' fence.

On balance, the resolution offers a timely endorsement of the proposed evacuation of all settlements in Gaza and some settlements in the West Bank. This proposal is under attack from the right wing of the Prime Minister's own party. It could be a first step toward returning to the path of negotiations envisioned in the Roadmap, and for that reason I intend to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Chairman, I am grateful to the gentleman from Kentucky and the gentleman from Minnesota for their conscientious and cooperative efforts reflected in this bill.

The bill directs much-needed resources to transportation security, Customs, and border protection, and it funds the BioShield program that will play a vital role in our preparation for bioterrorist attacks.

Given the very limited funds that the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) were allocated, theirs was not an easy or enviable task, and I fear the final result does reflect the poor hand our subcommittee was dealt.

During recent funding debates, we have often heard Republican leaders say that there are simply no funds available to provide what is needed. I suspect we will hear it again tonight.

What we will not hear them say is that since 9/11 we have spent 22 times as much on tax cuts as we have on protecting the American people from terrorist attacks. That is 22 times as much, for tax cuts mainly aimed at the most privileged people in America.

Look at the numbers. State formula grants, the bread and butter of first responder funding, have been cut by over 25 percent. Fire grants have been cut by 20 percent. Grants to our police and law enforcement have been hit hard, too. These programs were a critical source of funding for first responders long before 9/11. By cutting them, we are in effect deciding that our police and firefighters need less funding in the post-9/11 era, not more.

Listen to how FEMA describes the bleakness of this situation: A new study shows that more than two-thirds of fire departments in this country operate with staffing levels that do not meet the minimum safe staffing levels required by OSHA and the National Fire Protection Association.

Not only are our first responders ill-equipped and understaffed to handle potential attacks, they are also struggling to respond to the everyday disasters of crime and accidents and fires and hurricanes and floods.

It is true, Mr. Chairman, that this bill increases funding for the urban area security initiative. That is terrific news for a handful of big cities, and it does make sense, but first responders in rural and suburban areas and in smaller cities need support, too. Increases for this initiative are no match for the Draconian cuts in overall State grants.

Mr. Chairman, the House leadership and the President have shown incredible willpower and resolve in ramming trillion dollar tax cuts through this Congress. Yet when it comes to protecting our homeland and supporting our first responders, they say their hands are tied. They claim to be tough on terror, but talk is cheap and, unfortunately, so are Congress and this administration when it comes to supporting our first responders.

Mr. Chairman, I regret that the gentleman from Tennessee would not yield for a question, but let me just say a couple of things.

One is that no matter how heated this debate gets I will never call his comments drivel, and if my tongue happened to slip and I used that term, I assure him I would apologize.

Secondly, I want to note that the gentleman's notion that the budget allocation, which is what I was talking about, the budget allocation given the Homeland Security subcommittee, is not related to revenue policy, is a noval concept. You do not have to have a whole lot of education to understand that the size of tax cuts determines how much money there is to allocate.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the ranking member for yielding me this time, and to commend him and the chairman for the hard work they have done on this legislation.

I fear, however, Mr. Chairman, that my brief contribution to this debate today must concern one of the bill's serious omissions. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and I drafted a bipartisan amendment that would have addressed the fact that, because of loopholes in current law, contractors in Iraq are operating in a legal fog where they are not accountable to Iraqi laws, to U.S. laws, or to laws governing our troops. The contractors working in Iraq are not comfortable with this, and we should not be comfortable with it either.

Our amendment would have fixed this problem by closing loopholes in the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, MEJA, so that contractors and subcontractors in Iraq and elsewhere would be accountable under the law, and the Department of Defense would have a clear responsibility to place violators of the law before the appropriate bar of justice.

Our amendment had the support of the contractors themselves. The Parliamentarian had ruled it germane. It had strong bipartisan support and would have almost certainly passed, and yet we were not allowed to present this amendment before this body today for a vote.

Mr. Chairman, this issue is too important for this Congress to do nothing. The gentleman from Connecticut and I have just introduced our amendment as a stand-alone bill. We welcome the support of colleagues, and we hope that the House leadership will not pass up this second chance to do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, subject to rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on S. Con. Res. 95, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2005.

The form of the motion is as follows:

Mr. Price of North Carolina moves that the managers on the

part of the House at the conference on the disagreeing votes

of the two Houses on the House amendment to the concurrent

resolution S. Con. Res. 95 be instructed to agree to the pay-

as-you-go enforcement provisions within the scope of the

conference regarding direct spending increases and tax cuts

in the House and Senate. In complying with this instruction,

such managers shall be instructed to recede to the Senate on

the provisions contained in section 408 of the Senate

concurrent resolution (relating to the pay-as-you-go point of

order regarding all legislation increasing the deficit as a

result of direct spending increases and tax cuts).

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Congressional Vision Caucus, I rise to recognize May as Healthy Vision Month, and to discuss the importance of the recommendations of the Vision Problems Action Plan, A National Public Health Strategy to the prevention of blindness and vision loss.

Good vision is critical to conducting activities of daily living, and it affects developmental learning, communication, work, health, and quality of life. Unfortunately, far too many people are at risk for losing their eyesight. More than 80 million Americans have a potentially blinding eye disease, 3 million have low vision, 1.1 million are legally blind, and an additional 200,000 are more severely visually impaired. Despite the fact that half of all blindness can be prevented, far too many people do not have access to the care they need. If current trends continue, the number of blind and visually impaired individuals will double by 2030.

Healthy Vision Month, a component of Healthy People 2010, is a national eye health campaign to raise awareness about the various conditions that can affect eyesight and cause vision loss. Additionally, a coalition of leading eye health experts have just released the Vision Problems Action Plan, A National Public Health Strategy to provide our nation with a framework for preventing vision loss. This groundbreaking study recommends that, in order to reduce the occurrence of vision loss and its accompanying disabilities, we must concentrate our efforts on three priority areas: prevention; access to care and treatment; and research.

Our public health and prevention campaign must ensure that vision programs at the National Eye Institute (NEI) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have the resources they need to improve communication and education campaigns, increase surveillance, support epidemiology and prevention research; and implement appropriate program and policy changes.

In order to ensure access to and availability of treatment and rehabilitation services for individuals with vision loss, we must support programs at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that remove barriers and improve access to eye exams currently covered under Medicare, such as diabetic eye exams and glaucoma detection for high risk populations. We must also strengthen the Medicare program to advance coverage for vision rehabilitation services as provided by orientation and mobility specialists, rehabilitation teachers, and low- vision therapists.

Finally, we must bolster our research efforts to improve our understanding of the eye and visual system in health and disease, and to develop the most effective means of prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. This report provides the roadmap we need to raise awareness about vision loss, give individuals the tools they need to prevent it, and give hope to the millions already suffering from vision loss that better treatments for can be found.

As a co-chair of the Congressional Vision Caucus, I would like to thank all of the organizations involved in crafting this report, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Optometric Association, the CDC, Lighthouse International, the National Alliance For Eye and Vision Research, the NEI and most importantly, Prevent Blindness America. Prevent Blindness America should be commended for spearheading this effort, for bringing together this coalition of experts, and for its almost century-long dedication to preventing vision loss.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Clare Adkin, Jr., for being recognized as one of five finalists in the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE)/NASDAQ National Teaching Awards.

These awards are presented to teachers in grades 6-12 for creative, original and effective efforts in applying economic content and reasoning skills to instruction on market economies, personal finance, financial markets, entrepreneurship, and the capital formation process. Since 1949, NCEE has developed and implemented programs that equip teachers to get economic and personal finance education into the classroom. The NASDAQ Stock Market Educational Foundation, whose goal is to expand understanding of capital formation and financial markets, sponsors the National Teaching Awards.

Mr. Adkin was chosen for this honor because of the innovative teaching technique he developed to illustrate and explain various complex economic concepts such as opportunity cost, diminishing marginal utility, and rational ignorance. Using five-by-eight index cards, Mr. Adkin created ``Economic Concept Cards,'' which provide a definition or explanation of an economic concept as well as a narrative description or example and a sample question demonstrating the student's mastery of the concept. After developing the cards, students use them to prepare for tests, including the AP Economics exam, and many students keep the cards to use to study for college economics classes.

At the Cary Academy, Mr. Adkin taught Advanced Principles of Economics, Basic Economics, Great Court Cases, and The Sixties: the Tumultuous Decade. He also served as chair of the Cary Academy History Department. In 2003, Mr. Adkin retired from teaching atter a 39-year career.

I am pleased to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Adkin for this national achievement. It is a fitting recognition for someone who devoted nearly four decades to teaching, and who developed effective and engaging techniques for teaching students about economics.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the week of April 19th as National Primary Immune Deficiency Diseases Awareness Week. Primary immune deficiency diseases (PIDD) are genetic disorders in which part of the body's immune system is missing or does not function properly. The World Health Organization recognizes more than 150 primary immune diseases which affect as many as 50,000 people in the United States. Fortunately, 70 percent of PIDD patients are able to maintain their health through regular infusions of a plasma product known as intravenous immunoglobulin. IGIV helps bolster the immune system and provides critical protection against infection and disease.

I am familiar with primary immune deficiencies because of the work that is being done in my district by Dr. Rebecca Hatcher Buckley. Dr. Buckley is Chief of Pediatric Allergy and Immunology at Duke University Medical Center, and she is the leading expert and pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID) also known as ``bubble boy syndrome.'' Children diagnosed with SCID lack an immune system, which is essential to survival. Dr. Buckley has dedicated her life to helping to save the lives of babies born with SCID through early diagnosis and treatment.

Although newborn screening exists for SCID, states do not include the test among their required screenings. Additionally, despite the recent progress in PIDD research, the average length of time between the onset of symptoms in a patient and a definitive diagnosis of PIDD is over 9 years. In the interim, those afflicted may suffer repeated and serious infections and possibly irreversible damage to internal organs. That is why it is critical that we raise awareness about these illnesses within the general public and the health care community.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the Immune Deficiency Foundation for its leadership in this area, and I am proud to join them in recognizing the week of April 19th as National Primary Immune Deficiency Diseases Awareness Week. I encourage my colleagues to work with us to help improve the quality of life for PIDD patients and their families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I commend him for his good work on this critical issue.

Like our friend the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall), I have been hearing a lot about this from constituents, from town meetings, from people who just understand that it is unthinkable that we should go through another national election with an outcome that is in doubt. And we have put some machinery in place to replace outmoded, inaccurate voting machines. So it would be ironic if some of that machinery turned out to have serious problems of its own.

So I want to commend my colleague for understanding the gravity of this issue and introducing the bill H.R. 2239, which offers a very promising remedy. I am proud to be a cosponsor and join in this Special Order today to talk about this issue.

The bill of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) would require all electronic voting machines, also known as direct record electronic voting systems, or DREs, would require all the DREs that are used in the upcoming election to produce some kind of verifiable paper trail. This bill would thus create a way for American voters to ensure that their votes are counted accurately.

There are very few things that are more important, I think, to the workings of democracy. You have got to be able to assume the legitimacy of election outcomes. If we do not act quickly on this bill, I am afraid we may face the possibility of having two Presidential elections in a row where the outcomes are contested.

Often we get so caught up in the debate about electronic voting machines that we forget that there are other reliable and verifiable options to these direct record electronic voting systems.

Not all of them are particularly high-tech devices. This may be an area where at least for the present, high tech is not necessarily better. For example, in my district of North Carolina, we use what we call optical scanning systems. You take a piece of paper and take an magic marker and connect arrows on this ballot. You feed the ballot into the machine. The machine reads the vote instantly and produces an outcome at the end of the day instantly, but then there is this paper record if the outcome is contested. In case there is a malfunction, there is a paper record that could be consulted to back up the result.

We may well have these more sophisticated, more complicated direct record electronic voting systems in our future. But the current counting mechanisms on many of these machines are not foolproof, as several elections in this past year have shown.

I wonder if the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), I know he has studied this extensively, if he could elaborate on that a bit. What have been some of the problems that have been pointed out by the studies in terms of perhaps a potential for hacking, perhaps a potential for fraud, the potential for malfunctioning? Just what kinds of problems are we talking about?

No matter whether we are talking about a malfunction intended by no one or something much more mischievous or fraudulent, a system like there where you have no way of checking, no back-up system, simply leads people to suspect the worst. And so it would appear to me that we would want to offer maximum assurance. As I said earlier, to move from these punch card systems which were so inaccurate and so problematic to move to high-tech electronic systems with all these bells and whistles which nonetheless have no basic capability to offer a back-up check, that would not seem to be the way we ought to be moving in election reform. Some of these low-tech alternatives might be better for the present.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, before our colleague from Florida leaves, I do want to make one note.

What the gentlewoman from Florida said about this purging of supposed felons, these purges were exempted from protection under the National Voter Registration Act. So many districts purged, as I understand, their voting roll before the election without notifying the people who were purged.

So the problem is that thousands of Floridians were purged who had no felony convictions. They were unjustly denied their right to vote. Just think about how frustrating and disillusioning it would be to show up at the polling station and be told you could not vote when you have nothing to compromise your eligibility.

So I want to inform my colleagues that I will be introducing a bill next week that will deal specifically with this problem. And I appreciate my colleague underscoring this unsolved problem from the Florida debacle.

My bill would ensure that no American is ever denied the right to vote in a future election because he or she is mistakenly labeled as having committed a felony. It would require States to send that notification that our colleague says was never sent, send that notification no later than 30 days prior to an election, informing people convicted of a felony that they have been removed from the voter list and explaining the reasons why. And then the person who is notified can respond. This would let them know about their rights to appeal the decision. It would require the State rule on the appeal. And if the appeal is still pending at the time of election, my bill would say they can cast a provisional ballot.

That is legislation that I believe would fill a remaining problem from the Florida experience.

That is a larger issue. My bill would simply deal with these purges and the fact that there often have been mistaken purges. It would give people who were purged the chance to respond.

I again want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) and all the others today for being part of this. We need to take these next steps in election reform. We have gotten rid of the unregulated soft money, and we have made certain that candidates are going to have to stand up and take responsibility for the content of their ads. We have made some headway. But this legislation that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) has introduced in addition to the bill I have just described I believe would take us several steps further to restoring faith in our democracy, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on this.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Jeffrey Obler, longtime professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lost his battle with pneumonia last Saturday at the age of 62.

I, knew Jeff as a fellow educator and colleague, and several members of my staff who attended Carolina also knew him as a mentor, one with an extraordinary talent for teaching. It is at their request--and utilizing their thoughts, words, and memories--that I rise today in his honor.

Dr. Obler started his path in education at New York University and earned his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin before landing at the UNC Department of Political Science. A teacher of international relations and political philosophy, he was a leading academic voice on campus and an outstanding citizen in the greater community. For more than 25 years of his life, Dr. Obler served the university with distinction, touching the lives of countless students and leaving an indelible mark on the community.

Dr. Obler's work, which focused on the link between moral theory and public policy, has been published in many prestigious academic journals, including Political Theory, Comparative Politics, and the British Journal of Political Science. He received numerous awards and distinctions during his tenure at UNC, including two Tanner Teaching Awards and a Students' Undergraduate Teaching Award. Yet Dr. Obler's most meaningful legacy was built through his unparalleled dedication to teaching.

In the classroom, Dr. Obler displayed an intellectual curiosity that never waned, inspiring his students to join him in the pursuit of knowledge with a style of teaching that was more engaging conversation than lecture. He could explain complex moral and political arguments with depth and conviction, while always encouraging students to arrive at their own conclusions and beliefs. This accessible style made Obler a favorite among undergraduates, who regularly lined up outside his door during office hours to seek his mentorship on issues large and small.

His abilities also won him great respect among his peers in the UNC faculty, many of whom have described him as the best classroom professor in the department. This respect was so great that Dr. Obler was selected from among the entire political science faculty to lead a course about teaching methods for graduate students. He also served the department as Director of Undergraduate Studies and Director of Internships and Awards.

Dr. Obler is survived by his two children, a long-time companion, and students like my staffers who will forever treasure the lessons he has taught them. His legacy is one that will be treasured for generations.