Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I am trying to stall for time while we clear up a controversy that has arisen.

I certainly am in support of the intention of the gentleman's request, but it is my understanding that there may be a problem with one of the amendments. I am hoping that by the time I am done filibustering here the gentleman's staff will have worked it out with the Parliamentarian and we will be able to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, with that understanding, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

Mr. Chairman, several weeks ago this House chose to make $140,000 tax cuts for persons who make more than a million dollars a year a higher priority than dealing with the $300 billion-plus backlog that our States and communities have in dealing with their sewer and water problems.

When I came to this Congress, the population of this country was 203 million people and our principal program to attack the lack of clean water was a multi-billion dollar grant program to local communities.

Today, our population is 35 percent higher, and yet we have moved principally to a loan program to our local communities represented by the Clean Water Revolving Fund.

And yet, despite that huge population increase, that huge increase in demand, the committee has chosen to cut this key program by 40 percent over a 2-year period. I am simply asking this House to reconsider its earlier priority decision. I am asking them to approve an amendment that will scale back that $140,000 tax cut to $138,000.

What do we do with that money? Do we expand the clean water program? No. All we are trying to do is to bring it back to the level that it was at 2 years ago before we went on this cutting binge. I know that this amendment is subject to a point of order, because the Rules Committee chose not to protect it.

I would hope, however, that no Member of the House would lodge that point of order. If they do not, we would be able to make this priorities change and send it on to the Senate. It seems to me that if you ask any man or woman on the street in this country whether they think it is more important to provide a $140,000 tax cut for the most fortunate 1 percent of people in this country or whether they would be willing to settle for a $138,000 tax cut so we have enough money in the budget to clean up our dirty water for our local communities, they would certainly choose the latter.

I am tired of reading headlines in newspapers like the Milwaukee Journal, for instance, reporting on the cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee because of a bad sewer and water system. I am tired of seeing communities dump their overflow sewage into Lake Michigan or Lake Superior or any other lake in this country every time they have a storm.

It is about time that we make mature choices, and I think this amendment is an effort to push the Congress into making one.

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

Point of Order

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the Budget Act was to force the Congress to make tough trade-off choices, by making trade-offs between individual programs on the spending side and by making trade-offs between revenue levels and spending levels.

The problem with the way the budget process is being approached these days is that instead of forcing Congress to look at those trade-offs clearly, the process has been fragmented so that spending decisions occur at one point in the year, revenue decisions occur at another, and the public is therefore never aware of the connection that exists between the two.

Unfortunately, because that is the way the majority has proceeded it means that this amendment is subject to a point of order if any Member chooses to make one, and so I very regretfully concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, unlike the previous amendment, which I would have preferred, this amendment is not subject to a point of order. And let me explain what it does.

This amendment simply eliminates one-half of the cut that the committee recommendation would make in the Clean Water Revolving Fund, and pays for it by taking $100 million out of STAG grants.

Now, I know everyone in this House likes STAG grants. I like them myself. The problem is that if you take a look at last year's committee report, for instance, you will find over 10 pages listing hundreds of individual tiny grants, $75,000, $100,000, $125,000 a piece, tiny little grants to communities all over the country to supposedly help them pay for their sewer and water problems.

The problem is that we are fooling ourselves because those STAG grants are being paid for by reductions in the basic loan program that we use to assist communities all over the country deal with the same problem.

What it means is that each Member is able to go home and dangle a little grant that we have gotten for our district--and I have done it myself, I will get whatever money I can for my district--but we go home and dangle that tiny little bit of money when, in fact, what we need is to have a major increase in the loan program that every community in this country applies for from time to time.

The fact is that the Clean Water State Revolving Fund is the crucial program for helping local communities with sewage treatment plants infrastructure. It is a keystone of the Clean Water Act; and yet this committee is recommending with the cut in the bill this year that we effectively cut this program by 40 percent over 2 years. It was already cut 19 percent last year. I think that is a terrible, terrible decision to make.

Our communities have more than $300 billion in backlog requirements to clean up their sewer and water systems. There are communities in my district that right now are having difficulty, for instance, even allowing the Park Service to attach its new headquarters to the sewage system in one of the cities in my district because that system is so out of compliance that the State Department of Natural Resources is urging that they hook up no further users.

We have seen, as I said earlier, stories of overflow, sewage overflow every time there is a huge storm. In the Milwaukee Journal, there was a picture of a huge sewage plume in Lake Michigan after heavy storms just last year.

We are being incredibly negligent if we do not add money to this fund, rather than cut it; and yet today, because of the budget resolution, we are prevented from adding money. We would at least like to reduce the size of the cut by 50 percent, by moving money over from the STAG grant program.

As I say, I have nothing against the STAG grant program, but if you fund STAG grants by cutting your basic loan program, you are literally robbing Peter to pay Peter, and I think that makes no sense whatsoever.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the remainder of the time.

Mr. Chairman, I do not in any way criticize the subcommittee chairman for decisions he has made. The problem does not lie with his decisions. The problem lies with the budget resolution which imposes those decisions on him.

I certainly understand Members asking for STAG grants if that is their only access, and I have no objection to that, but my objection is simply this: the budget resolution, which the majority party voted for, decided that it was so important to provide tax cuts of $140,000 a year to people who make over a million bucks that they are willing to cut back the basic program that helps communities deal with their sewer and water problems by 40 percent over a 2-year period.

Then what they do after they have imposed those kind of cuts on this program, then they go to the STAG program. They get a tiny little $100,000 or $150,000 program for their districts. They go to their districts, they say, ``Oh, look, what a good boy am I, look what a friend I am for clean water.'' Meanwhile, the votes that they have cast on the budget resolution have gutted the ability of this Congress to provide meaningful help to communities who need real help on sewer and water.

I think we are sort of chasing our tail; and so, as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) says, this is a very difficult priorities choice, and I do not fault the gentleman from North Carolina at all for the choice he has made. I think we have an obligation to try to put some more money back into the basic program first. That is what the amendment tries to do, and I would urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, at this point I had intended to offer an amendment to the Stupak amendment because I am certainly in support of the content. But given the agreement that has been reached between the two parties, there is no need for me to offer that amendment.

I would simply observe, however, that I hope we do not kid ourselves. It is very good that this amendment is being adopted, but it again illustrates the need for, in fact, increasing, rather than reducing, the amount of money that we put into the Clean Water Revolving Fund, and I would hope that we would remember this as the bill goes through the system because we can avoid controversies such as this. We can avoid putting EPA into a position of even considering such an outlandish regulation if we are providing much more by way of financial help to the communities so that they will not be concerned about stiffening EPA regulations to protect public health.

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

Mr. Chairman, my understanding is that there are no other amendments left to the bill, and I simply want to say that I think the chairman of the subcommittee has been very fair and balanced in the way he has approached the bill. I think the bill is not fair and balanced, not because of anything the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) did, but simply because it could not be under the budget adopted by the majority party 2 weeks ago.

How any Member votes on this bill is, in my view, up to that Member. I am not going to be asking any Member to vote any way on any appropriation bill, but I will be voting ``no,'' and I would like to briefly explain why.

I am simply not going to vote to gut the main program that we use to help local communities to deal with a $300 billion-plus backlog of decrepit sewer and water systems. I am not going to vote to leave 200 of our 544 wildlife refuges without a single staff person. I am not going to vote to cripple EPA enforcement programs to the tune of $400 million.

This bill does all of those things, not because the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) wanted to, but simply because of what the majority leader said 2 weeks ago when he said, ``This is the budget the American people voted for when they voted for a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican White House.'' I do not agree with Mr. DeLay on much, but I agree with him in that assessment.

So I would simply say, if Members are comfortable with implementing that kind of a budget that puts $140,000 tax cuts for millionaires ahead of protecting American children from dirty drinking water, then they ought to feel comfortable voting ``yes.'' I am not, and I will vote ``no.''

Sequential Votes Postponed in the Committee of the Whole

Mr. Chairman, I offer a motion to recommit.

Yes, I am.

Mr. Speaker, I will take only 1 minute. The budget resolution passed earlier this year told the Congress to find a way to meet the targets in that resolution, even if we had to gut the Clean Water program and to cut the STAG grants.

What this motion says is that the committee ought to go back to the drawing board and find a way to meet these targets without cutting either the STAG grants or the Clean Water Revolving Fund. It would simply ask the committee to provide an additional $242 million to the Clean Water Revolving Fund and $110 million for State and Tribal Assistance Grants, returning both programs to last year's level.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, whoever designed this proposition today is a real piece of work.

This is the bill that was submitted to the Committee on Rules last night, a perfectly coherent bill. I had already indicated my intentions to support the Republican chairman's effort. I thought he did a reasonable job, even though he had inadequate resources.

This is the bill after the Committee on Rules has gotten done with it. Look at this. The Committee has shredded the document that we are supposed to take seriously when we come to this floor and debate it today. It is eviscerated.

I do not understand the majority leadership in this House. Earlier this year, I was asked if I would work out a process which would enable the majority to pass its appropriation bills in a timely fashion. I have been working with the majority; and so far, we have worked out a process which we expect will enable us to support at least seven of the appropriation bills that are coming to the floor.

I had fully expected to stand shoulder to shoulder today with the gentleman from Kentucky, the chairman of the subcommittee, who has done a most thoughtful job in providing necessary oversight for one of the most dysfunctional agencies in this government; and even though he had been given inadequate resources, I had indicated that because of the quality of that oversight I intended to vote for the bill.

That is no longer the case. If this bill is shredded on the floor by points of order made by willful single Members, I will vote against the bill because it will then make no sense whatsoever.

What this action does, in making these provisions subject to a point of order by a single Member, this action puts at risk the thoughtful effort that the committee has put together with respect to securing screening of cargo on passenger airplanes. It puts at risk the funding to ensure that we have a rational terrorist watch match list operation. It puts at risk funding for port security and a number of other items critical to the national defense of the country.

This bill is being eviscerated because of a juvenile, a juvenile, dispute within the Republican caucus about committee jurisdictions. It is what Dick Bolling, my old mentor, used to call dung hill politics, where people put the welfare of their own committee ahead of the welfare of this institution and the welfare of the country. It is little league politics at its worst.

I do not understand how we can be asked on the minority side to sit down and work out a bipartisan agreement on this appropriation bill, and then after we have done so, we are then told that some whiz kid, either in the Committee on Rules or in the leadership's office, has decided that they do not like the compromise and they are going to open it up, to shred it.

The Committee on Homeland Security, the authorization committee that is objecting to some of these provisions in the bill, this is a committee that has existed for 3 years and never put one bill into law. The one bill that has to pass in order to assure this country

adequate security is this bill, the appropriation bill for homeland security; and yet we are going to follow a process today which not only shreds this bill but makes much less likely the prospect that we will finish our regular appropriation bills on time.

If the leadership did not intend to allow this bill to go forward, then why did it even allow it to come up until the authorization committee had gotten off its duff, done its job, completed action on the authorization, so the appropriation committee could then bring the bill to the floor? If the House leadership on the majority side of the aisle did not think it was important enough to pass this bill, then why are we here? Why are we here? Why are we wasting our time?

All this process means is that in the name of jurisdictional purity, the average Member of this House will not have any say whatsoever about the eventual content of the provisions stricken from this bill because those choices will be made behind closed doors, in conference between the two Chambers, out of reach of the average rank-and-file member on both the Committee on Appropriations and the authorization committee. This is a lousy way to run a railroad.

Mr. Chairman, there are two problems that we face in dealing with this bill. The first is that we have an agency which is essentially incompetent and dysfunctional. We are trying to protect the Nation's security by working through an agency which is gargantuan, which is bureaucratic, to say the least, which is filled with inertia, and filled with people working at cross purposes. Outside of that it does a terrific job.

And the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee have tried to do their dead level best to provide the kind of Congressional oversight that is necessary if you are going to help bring this agency out of its troubles and put that agency in a posture where it can be a trusted repository of the responsibilities that we have given to it.

The second problem we have is that we still have not faced up to the need. Even though the agency which we must go through in order to deal with this problem is a mess, we still have not faced up to the fact that we need more resources.

We still only inspect a tiny percentage of the container cargo which comes into this country every day. We still inspect an infinitesimal percentage of cargo on passenger airplanes. Mr. Sabo has focused on that issue many times.

We, despite all of our posturing, and despite every Member of Congress who

has gone on the Lou Dobbs Show and talked about the need to secure our borders, we still are incredibly short in terms of the number of border guards, in terms of the number of immigration inspectors. And then, in addition to that, the Congress on the supplemental appropriation bill added an entirely extraneous provision which set up this new complicated, convoluted Rube Goldberg operation that every citizen is going to have to go through in order to renew their driver's license.

And the cost of that program is indeterminate, but we are being told by the Congressional Budget Office that it will cost at least $100 million, which will be laid onto State and local governments. We are told by the National Council of State Legislative Leaders that it will cost about $500 million, and we have laid that responsibility on State and local governments.

So, Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that even with our doubts about the agency there are certain functions that we ought to be providing more money for unless we are determined to create yet another unfunded mandate. The committee has not been able to provide additional money, not because of any defect in the committee but for one simple reason: This House has decided to make as a higher priority providing very large tax cuts for the next 10 years, and a huge percentage of those tax cuts have gone to the most blessed persons in this society. Let me put it that way.

The reality is that if you make over a million dollars this year, you could expect, on average, to get a $140,000 tax cut. We could plug all of the holes I have just mentioned in our homeland security activities if we simply limited that $140,000 average tax cut to $138,000.

And that is what the amendment would do that I intend to offer at a later point in the proceedings. The Rules Committee did not make that amendment in order, while they did make in order, or they did make it possible for any single Member to walk onto this floor and wipe out 15 pages of this bill that provide needed resources for numerous security activities.

So we are in the situation where the Rules Committee has precluded me from offering an amendment which can be voted on by the entire body, and yet the Rules Committee has said we are going to allow a single Member from a committee that has never produced a bill that has gone into law, we are going to allow them to walk in here and shred this bill.

That makes no sense to me. So I just think the Rules Committee has failed in its stewardship responsibility, and I think we are failing our responsibilities to our constituents if we do not provide more resources than this bill provides.

Having said that, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers) for doing the best job that he could under the circumstances. I had intended to vote for this bill until they took it and shredded it. Whether I will vote for it in the end will be determined by just how irresponsible people are when they come to the floor and knock out provisions of this bill just because their committee did not happen to think of them.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Anyone who serves here any length of time knows that one thing that we really appreciate is if we are not surprised or sandbagged by other Members or other committees.

Earlier today the Committee on Rules provided a sandbag to this committee when, without anyone on this side of the aisle knowing about it, they simply left this bill open to a whole variety of points of order. And they did that after we had worked out some delicate compromises between both sides of the aisle. I strenuously objected to that action. I cannot be credible in objecting to that action if I do not also object to surprises that occur on my side of the aisle.

I made a statement in the whip's meeting last week and asked every member of our caucus to please come to those Members of the House on this side of the aisle whose responsibility it is to run the bill from this side of the

aisle. We asked that they come to us if they had any amendments so we could walk through with them how those amendments might or might not fit into the greater scheme of things. At least we wanted to have a chance to consult with Members.

This amendment is here with no prior notice to me. I do not know if anyone else on this side of the aisle was noticed, but I certainly was not noticed, and I do not appreciate it. The fact is we have our differences between parties, but we try to run these bills in a way which will protect the interests of all Members. We cannot do that if individual Members continually surprise us with amendments so that we have not had an opportunity to try to make certain that they are drafted in such a way that they do not get in the way of what the sponsor is trying to do or get in the way of what we are trying to do.

The gentleman from Kentucky has pointed out that this account has already been increased by a very significant amount. It has and I applaud him for it. The fact is there are some accounts in this bill that do not have a dime in it, and that needs to be corrected before an amendment like this is offered.

So I regretfully have to say that while I wish we had more money for a number of these accounts, as one who has to balance where we put limited amounts of money I have to agree with the gentleman from Kentucky and urge defeat of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, let me explain what this is. We have had a steady stream of Members for weeks now decrying the fact we just do not have enough resources to do the job we ought to be doing in homeland security or in transportation or in education or in health care or any other endeavor of the Federal Government. The fact is that we do not have those needed available resources because the Members of this House have put themselves in a box. They have done that by, in essence, saying that their number one priority above all others is to provide very large tax cuts for people very high up on the income scale.

Example: This year if you make over $1 million you will get, on average, about a $140,000 tax cut. What I am trying to do here today is to do two things. I am trying to, first of all, help the Congress keep the promises that it made just 6 months ago. Therefore, this amendment would provide an additional $500 million to the Department of Homeland Security to meet the staffing and detention bed space increases that were called for in the Intelligence Reform Act and to allow States to meet the driver's license standards that were just imposed on those States by this Congress 2 weeks ago.

So my amendment is simple. First of all, it adds 500 more people to the Border Patrol. Second, it adds 600 people to the immigration inspector workforce. And thirdly, it adds 4,000 more detention beds so that we can keep the promises laid out in the Intelligence Reform bill.

Finally, we would fund the grant program that is authorized by the REAL ID Act, which the Congress attached a couple of weeks ago. I did not support that act. I did not vote for it. It was attached as a nongermane amendment to the appropriations bill. But we are told by the Congressional Budget Office it will cost about $100 million to implement. We are told by the Council of State Legislative Leaders it will cost $500 million to implement. That is a huge mandate however you slice it that we are laying on the backs of State budgets.

So what I am simply suggesting is we can do both of these things by simply scaling back by a tiny amount that super-sized tax cut for people with super-sized incomes of over $1 million. We would simply cut that average $140,000 tax cut to $138,000, and we would have more than enough to fund these operations.

The Committee on Rules did not allow this amendment to be made in order. That means that the only way it can be considered is if no one raises a point of order against it. I would hope they would not do so. This is a minor adjustment that we would make in the super-sized tax cuts in order to provide significantly more security for the entire country. I think it is worth the investment, and I would urge support for

the amendment, assuming that no one decides to lodge a point of order against the amendment.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I must concede that under the rule that brought this bill to the floor, this amendment is not in order. I regret it. I think the country would be a whole lot better off if we passed the amendment. But I concede the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

This is a scaled-back version of the first amendment I just offered. It does not have the tax offset. It is fully offset by other reductions in this bill, and what it tries to do is to correct the problem that I cited just a moment ago.

Just 2 weeks ago, this House passed a nongermane proposal which established an elaborate and convoluted and Rube Goldberg process by which every American will have to obtain their driver's license in the future. It is going to require added security arrangements for every office that issues State driver's licenses if those licenses are going to be allowed to serve as an ID card when climbing on an airplane. It provides substantial additional duties which will be imposed on States and be imposed on the Department of Homeland Security itself.

Now, I do not know whose cost estimate is correct. I do not know whether the Congressional Budget Office is correct when it says that this will only be an unfunded mandate of $100 million or whether the National Conference of State Legislative Leaders is correct when they say that the unfunded mandate will amount to about $500 million in cost. But for the moment, in deference to my conservative friends on the other side of the aisle, I am assuming the conservative estimate of cost is the accurate one, the one laid out by the Congressional Budget Office.

So I am simply urging that we in fact provide for the States grant program that was authorized in that REAL ID proposal that the majority was so anxious to bring to the House floor just 2 weeks ago. We in the minority had nothing to do with the writing. We in the minority were not consulted on the language. We in the minority were not consulted about the idea of imposing another mandate. We were just told ``take it or leave it.'' And so it is now the law of the land.

Now, I am not in any way reducing accounts below last year's funding level. All we are doing is reducing some of the Secretary's management accounts by a portion of the increases that this bill provides.

The science and technology account, for instance, is being reduced by $50 million of the $55 million increase. That still leaves a small increase.

The Office of Secretary Executive Management will still retain a $7 million increase.

I think we have hard choices to make, and I am not afraid to suggest that I think it is a better use of resources to put this money where the amendment tries to put it to at least keep the majority consistent with its promise in the Contract With America, the good old Contract With America which Congress passed 10 years ago and promised that there would be no more unfunded mandates.

I am just trying to help keep a Republican promise, and I am sure I will have enthusiastic support of Members on the majority side of the aisle.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Let me get this straight. Two weeks after the majority party imposed this huge new unfunded mandate and required that it be attached to the defense appropriations supplemental to pay for the war in Iraq, we are now told by the majority, gee, we do not have any idea what this is going to cost. You mean you imposed a mandate without having any idea what it was going to cost?

If we follow the logic of what the gentleman is saying, we will say to the States, Congress had no idea what it was doing and so you are going to pay the bill. That is what the gentleman has just said. I find that mighty peculiar.

I urge an ``aye'' vote on this amendment. I want to make clear I did not vote for REAL ID. I think it is a cockamamie idea, but it is now the law of the land; and the question is, is the Federal Government going to pay for what it mandated, or is it going to stick the cost on the backs of local and State governments? I hope it is not the latter.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, what we are doing is reducing the increase in the amount of money that is in this bill for consultants.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

As the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) pointed out, this amendment is simply asking the Congress to stick to its promise in the Contract With America, to not provide any more unfunded mandates. What we are saying on this side of the aisle, we did not vote for this turkey, but it is now law; and given that fact, we ought to at least make sure this does not wind up on the backs of the States and local governments. What we are saying is at least keep your commitment not to load any more on the State and local property taxes, and let us pay for this by simply reducing the size of the growth in consultants at the Secretary's level. This is already a bloated, dysfunctional agency. We are now going to be asked to provide very large increases to provide more consultants. It seems to me that they can afford to get along with a few less consultants so we can provide one less unfunded mandate in State and local government.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 7 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, ordinarily, on a piece of legislation like this, there would be virtually no debate and it would be passed routinely, but I think, for the good of the House, we ought to review exactly what we are doing here and why we are here doing it.

As you know, last month, the supplemental appropriations for Iraq and other purposes was passed by the House and then passed by the Senate. On the Senate floor, the Senate saw fit to adopt an amendment, the purpose of which was to increase the number of visas for nurses by 50,000. That is what it supposedly did.

Now, after that was adopted on the Senate floor, the bill was conferenced. It passed this House some time ago, and the conference passed the Senate yesterday.

Today, we are here with this concurrent resolution, and what does this concurrent resolution do? It raises the number of visas for nursing by 50,000. Why do we have to chew the same cud twice? Why are we here doing today what we thought had been done much earlier?

I think it is very simple. We are here because the normal processes, the normal democratic processes of the House and the Senate have not been followed. We are here because, in an attempt to solve a debate within the Republican Caucus, extraneous material was added to the Iraqi supplemental which had no business being on that bill in the first place.

What essentially happened is that after this amendment was adopted by the other body, the leadership of the majority party then essentially took away from the Committee on Appropriations the ability to deal with all of these immigration-related issues.

Now, who dealt with them? I am, frankly, not sure, but I think it was Senator Frist's staff, and I think it was the leadership staff in this House. But we are not sure because it all happened behind some closed door. I am not sure what room it was in. But it happened somewhere, some place in River City.

So now, we are here correcting that mistake. Why am I making a Federal case out of something like this? Well, it is very simple. The history of Congress has been written for decades, and each decade some scholar has noted that Congress works principally in committee. Woodrow Wilson wrote his great piece on the organization of Congress, making the point that Congress really ran in committees. We are here today because that committee system has been corrupted.

What has happened is that we have ignored the fact that the reason for the committee system in the first place has been so that the House could use the specialized knowledge that people develop on each and every committee and put that knowledge to work in the consideration of every bill that goes through this House. Under normal processes, the Committee on Appropriations would have been dealing with all matters that were attached in the appropriations bill.

Under normal processes, Senator Hutchison should have been allowed to have access to the language before it was arbitrarily attached to this bill. But when people tried to find out what was happening on immigration and other issues, they were told it is being taken care of. It is being taken care of.

Well, it certainly was.

Mr. Speaker, I simply take this time to make the point that there is a purpose for creating committees. There is a purpose for vetting these issues through the committee of jurisdiction because, through the years, committees learn their business. But when the normal business is side-tracked, when everyone except the powers on high are excluded from the rooms where decisions are being made, then you are going to have mistakes being made because nobody is smart enough to know everything about everything, despite what some people in the leadership in

both the Senate and House seem to feel. Occasionally, the omnipotent can make a mistake. And if the committee process is followed, our chances of making those mistakes would be minimized.

So all I want to say, Mr. Speaker, is that I am sure mistakes like this will occur in the future. And this is no great Earth-shaking matter, but I felt it appropriate to use this opportunity to point out that the House is continuing to day-by-day, as far as I am concerned, corrupt the processes of the House by having the House evolve into a system in which a few staff people somewhere on Capitol Hill make all of the decisions, and then the other committees are told, Just do what you are told. Get rid of it. Move it on. After all, we have got to run the trains on time. It does not matter what is in them, but we have got to run the trains on time.

So that is why we are here today, Mr. Speaker. I hope we could all take a lesson from this.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, we now find ourselves in an even more interesting situation. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler) has just raised some substantive concerns about the bill, and those ought to be responded to.

The problem is that, because of the way this has been handled, because you had a matter that was not under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Appropriations essentially dumped into an appropriations bill, this issue is not going to be dealt with on the substantive level.

The issues raised by the gentleman might be very legitimate, but they should be debated in the forum in which they are supposed to be debated, and that is the Committee on the Judiciary. Instead, we have the Committee on Appropriations which is supposed to focus on budgets here dealing with a legal issue about which our committee has no particular expertise. So, once again, the process by which the bill is being considered today changes the House from being what it is supposed to be, which is the greatest deliberative body in the world, to a poor imitation of Daffy Duck.

I again would urge that we give greater consideration to normal order around here if we do not want to rapidly descend into being the laughing-stock of the country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

Let me simply say that I intend to support this legislation when we actually get to it, but that does not mean I am happy with the contents of it.

There are clearly more than seven or eight items, major items that I find very problematic. But what I want to do at this time is to alert the House to the contents of the motion that we would make on the rule if the previous question is not adopted.

If the previous question is not adopted, we would be offering a request to establish a select committee such as the Truman Committee back in World War II to investigate and study the awarding and carrying out of government contracts to conduct activities in Afghanistan and Iraq. I would simply point out, all one has to do is to read the newspapers daily to understand how badly this is needed.

The Washington Post this morning has the most recent story: ``Audit of Iraq Spending Spurs Criminal Probe,'' and then it talks about opening a criminal inquiry into millions of dollars missing in Iraq after auditors have uncovered indications of fraud and nearly $100 million in reconstruction spending that could not be properly accounted for. The article goes on to say, the audit of U.S. funds found that the contract files were ``unavailable, incomplete, inconsistent and unreliable.'' Other than that, they were terrific. And the article points out that as a result, auditors have said the U.S. Government may have trouble making a case against contractors who overbill or do not do what they are supposed to do.

Now, we have been virtually begging on bended knee to get this Congress to establish a committee with teeth to look into this problem. We met with no success. I would point out that stands in stark contrast to what happened in 1941 when then Senator Harry Truman became aware of similar stories, and he saw to it that a committee was created in the Congress to investigate that situation. That committee held 432 public hearings and 300 executive sessions and issued 51 reports and saved the taxpayers a load of money.

I would also point out, that was a case where a democratic Congress was investigating a democratic administration, and no great harm was done to the republic in the process. A lot of good was done.

So I just want to urge Members to vote against the rule because, in my mind, this Congress is derelict in its duty and, in my mind, any Member of Congress who refuses to recognize how the taxpayers' dollars are being siphoned off every day by these operations, by these sloppy operations in Iraq, they are contributing to the fact that the taxpayers are being fleeced. They may not be wanting to do that, but that is the practical effect of their actions.

So I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, sooner or later, we are going to have this committee, because we are going to be stuck in Iraq for another 5 years, and we are going to see stories like this headline every week. It is about time we got around to setting up a cleanup brigade to deal with the problem before we are all acutely embarrassed by it.

So with that, Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say that while I would urge support for the underlying bill, I would urge that the rule not be supported until we have had an opportunity for this House to meet its oversight responsibilities. We ought to be acting like a watchdog in this case. Instead, we are acting like puppy dogs. That is not going to help the taxpayer very much.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 8 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this bill before us today makes clear that we have now spent $284 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan since the war began. The money that has been spent in Afghanistan is certainly legitimate and justified. After all, that country harbored the people who attacked us on 9/11. The problem is, however, that $165 billion has now been spent to deal with a country that did not attack us. We have spent some $240 billion on this entire endeavor since the President first landed in his jumpsuit on that carrier and addressed the country under the banner ``Mission Accomplished.'' There has been quite a bit of that mission left since it supposedly was over. We have now been involved in Iraq longer than we were involved in World War I, and respectable and responsible experts have told me that they expect that we will be involved for at least another 5 years.

This whole operation has been brought to us by the same people who erroneously told us that we had to go to war because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and it was implied that they had, or were close to having, nuclear capability. That was all demonstrated not to be true. This has been brought to us by the same people who believed the assertions that our troops would be welcomed with open arms. It has been brought to us by the same people who thought they were so smart that they knew more than General Shinseki when the good general warned us that we would need substantially more troops and boots on the ground than we were scheduled to have if the postwar occupation was to go well.

And it has been brought to us by the same people who provided to our troops insufficient armor for Humvees, insufficient body armor and insufficient jammers to prevent our troops from having their faces and their legs and their arms blown off by remotely detonated bombs and mines.

I want to make quite clear I will support this bill because I feel that I have no choice but to participate in cleaning up the mess which somebody else left. But I do not relish it. I believe that the entire operation in Iraq has been accompanied by incredibly naive romanticism on the part of the White House and on the part of the civilian leadership in the Pentagon, and that has left the people fighting the war to bear the brunt of the miscalculations that have been made by the civilian leadership of our government. We have lost the lives of 1,500 American service men and women. We have seen more than 11,000 be injured. And this bill understates, in my view, the amount of money that will be needed eventually to restore the readiness of the U.S. Armed Forces and to minimize their casualties.

The second thing this bill does is to demonstrate once again how we, on both sides of the aisle, have had to work doubly hard to overcome the resistance of the White House in adequately funding homeland security operations. They have been especially resistant to providing the adequate funding along the borders, especially the Canadian border. And it has taken a bipartisan effort on the part of a wide variety of people in this Congress in order to overcome that resistance. This bill falls far short of the funding that is necessary to provide a secure set of borders for the United States. The new bill that is going to be offered by the gentleman from Kentucky will help fill that gap, but that is forced to play catch-up because we have met a steady resistance effort on the part of the White House.

Lastly, I simply want to say that while I am certainly no expert on the subject, I note that there is being attached to this bill a provision which many experts in the field feel has the potential to construct a nationwide database that could be very harmful in terms of people's efforts to engage in identity theft. I hope that proves not to be the case.

I would simply make the point that certainly no one on our committee on either side of the aisle has the expertise that you would hope would be found in the authorization committees, and I wish that that provision had been dealt with on a separate bill rather than solving an internal problem within the Republican Caucus by having it attached to an unrelated bill, and I want to make one point about that.

We are being lectured almost daily by the majority that we should not add ungermane riders to appropriation bills. I want to serve notice that if the majority feels free to add unrelated authorization bills such as this to a must-pass bill, that then I feel fully within my rights in offering whatever authorization legislation we feel appropriate on this side of the aisle and asking that it be attached to appropriation bills. If sauce is going to be okay for the goose, then it ought to be good for the gander.

So we will see in the coming months what the attitude of the majority is when we seek to add what we feel are legitimate efforts to strengthen appropriation bills by adding various pieces of so-called legislation to appropriation bills.

So since the majority has chosen to proceed down that path, I hope they raise no objection when we seek to follow it. With that, Mr. Speaker, again, I repeat I intend to vote for this bill with all of my misgivings.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), the ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee, the gentleman who has long been trying to extend debate in this Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), distinguished minority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley).

Mr. Speaker, can I inquire how much time each side has remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for purposes of a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller.)

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey).

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I take this time to explain the motion to recommit that I will offer at the end of this debate. Here is what it does:

The Senate bill contains funding for a total of 150,000 border patrol agents, 250 immigration investigators, and 168 immigration enforcement agents, and detention officers and their associated training and support cast.

This conference agreement falls short of the Senate bill in 3 areas. It only contains funds for 500 border patrol agents, not the 150,000 called for in the Senate bill. It only contains funding for 50 immigration investigators, not the 250 called for in the Senate bill.

Last, it also contains no funding for unmanned border aerial vehicles.

The motion to recommit is simple. It would take us to the levels contained in the Senate bill for border patrol agents by adding funding for 550 additional border patrol agents and for 200 immigration investigators.

It would also fund unmanned border aerial vehicles that have been used successfully in a test in Arizona to assist in surveillance. Former DHS Deputy Secretary Lloyd testified that the vehicles provided ``invaluable'' service.

Since border patrol agents are trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico, funding is included like the Senate bill to purchase and operate modular classrooms for these additional agents.

This motion, in short, would provide an additional $284.4 million to immigration and customs enforcement to do this as was in the Senate bill. Need I remind anyone that the Intelligence Reform Bill, which became law last December, called for 2,000 additional border patrol agents a year and 800 additional immigration investigators? The President requested no funding for that supplemental request.

I would note that on March 30 the administration announced it would add more than 500 agents in Arizona, but those are not new agents. 135 of them or so will come from other southwest and southern border patrol locations, and the remainder are simply new trainees who will replace agents retiring or leaving the border patrol across the country.

So I would simply urge House Members to vote for this motion. It ought not be at all controversial. It is practical if you want to put your money where your press releases have been with respect to border patrol.

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

(Mr. ENGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished minority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, in this form, I am.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mr. Vermont Johnson of Bayfield Wisconsin, who recently retired after nearly twenty years as an Advisor to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. Mr. Johnson represented the sport fishing interests on that Committee and worked tirelessly to support measures that protect and improve the Great Lakes fishery.

The Commission's Committee of Advisors was established under the 1955 Great Lakes Fisheries Act. The Committee is charged with advising the Commission about all fishery matters relating to fish stocks shared by Canada and the United States and is also an avenue for citizens to be heard on issues that concern them. Representatives on the Committee speak for the sport fishery, the commercial fishery, the public-at- large, and State agencies.

Mr. Johnson has a lifetime of experience with the Great Lakes and has a deep knowledge of the matters relating to the resource. As a motel owner, he certainly appreciated how the Great Lakes and their fisheries lured tourists. During his tenure on the Committee of Advisors, Mr. Johnson took on a number of issues of vast importance to the Great Lakes, and although he technically represented the sportfishing concerns of the Lake Superior waters of Wisconsin, his contributions to the Committee had a basinwide impact. He was, by all accounts, an integral member of the Committee, providing leadership on issues ranging from the rehabilitation of native species to the effect of underwater log salvage on fish habitat. He regularly attended and led meetings--often at great distance from home and at his own expense--and interacted with interests throughout the Great Lakes region.

Mr. Johnson grew up in Bayfield, Wisconsin, on the shores of Lake Superior. After , attending the University of Wisconsin, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard and served as Chief Boatswain's Mate aboard the Coast Guard buoy tender Balsam in the Pacific--which I am told is the only vessel of its type to sink a Japanese submarine during World War II. After his service, he returned to Wisconsin, earned a degree in school administration, and served as a school superintendent for 35 years in several districts, as well as continuing on in the Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Mr. Johnson and his wife Harriett, who have been married for more than 60 years, continue to reside in Bayfield. He is an active leader in his community, helping to enlarge his church and leading the building committee of the Bayfield Heritage Association. In fact, he remains involved in almost every civic activity in Bayfield.

For twenty years, Mr. Johnson--and usually Harriett--were stalwart participants in the meetings of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Committee of Advisors. I am happy to honor Mr. Vermont Johnson as he retires from the Great Lakes Fishery Commission's Committee of Advisors--it is a pleasure to take note of his service.

Mr. Speaker, I very much respect the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner); we are friends and have been for 30 years.

I voted for the bill that precipitated this debate. I voted with the gentleman for that bill. But this debate is not about that bill, and it is not about the issue of sexual predators. It is about whether or not we can trust each other to deal with each other with fairness and with accuracy. It is about whether or not the majority will use its power to unilaterally mischaracterize any effort by any Member of the minority.

I served a long time ago, and so did the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), with a fellow by the name of Bill Steiger. He was one of the great Members in the history of this House.

He spent a great deal of time trying to ensure that the Congressional Record accurately reflected what each and every Member said and did on this House floor. I think we owe it to his memory and the memory of others who fought the same battle, to remember, as this resolution says, that it is the long and established practice in the House for reports to describe recorded votes with objective, nonargumentative captions.

I agree with this resolution that the committee majority departed from that practice by captioning these five amendments with inflammatory captions. There is enough skill on the part of the majority staff of the Judiciary Committee to describe any amendment offered by any Member in a non-pejorative, non-argumentative way.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the language used was intended to hurt the Member who offered it, not to provide an accurate description; and I do think the committee owes the minority an apology.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, this motion is very simple. It does two things. First of all, it instructs the conferees representing the House to accept the Senate increases in the Byrd and other amendments that would strengthen our customs and border protection; it would strengthen our immigration and customs enforcement and fund the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

Secondly, it instructs the conferees to agree with the Senate amendment, again, the Byrd amendment, which would require that all future administration requests for funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan be presented within the context of the regular budget rather than being funded as they have been so far through the supplemental process.

Let me address briefly both issues. With respect to the border protection issue, let me point out that many years ago the Rudman-Hart Commission had effectively warned this Congress that our borders were a sieve.

In the immediate days after this House was hit with the anthrax scare, shortly after 9/11, I went down to the White House with the then-chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and we proposed to the President a bipartisan list of supplemental additions to antiterrorist activities that we believe should be funded in order to strengthen homeland security. Included in those recommendations were added dollars for our ports, added dollars for our border protection. When we laid out what we were interested in doing, the President simply ended the conversation by saying to us, ``I am sorry but my good friend here, Mitch Daniels,'' who was then the Director of OMB, he said, ``my good friend Mitch Daniels here tells me that the administration has requested more than enough money for Homeland Security. And so I want you to know if you include one dollar more than we have asked for in our budget submission, I will veto the bill.''

That is essentially what he said. Ever since that day, we have been strained in the Congress to overcome the White House's reluctance to provide adequate resources to secure our borders.

I would point out that the PATRIOT Act itself called for a tripling of inspectors and agents on the northern border alone, and yet no Bush administration budget has ever proposed to meet that goal. Only because of congressional insistence have we finally been able to meet that goal, and I would say it has been a long time in coming and it was long overdue.

On March 30 the administration announced that they were putting 500 agents in Arizona, but those agents were not new agents; 135 of them were simply transferred from other sources and the rest of them were simply new trainees to take the place of agents who were retiring or leaving the service. That is why we believe that the added funding provided in the Byrd and other amendments in the Senate to add funds for securing our borders, that is why we believe that money is necessary.

With respect to the second provision, the reason this second provision is necessary is to end the administration practice of hiding the true cost of the war in Iraq. We have spent, to this point, about $280 billion on that war. CBO estimates that the 10-year cost of our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan will wind up being about $460 billion, and yet all of that money has been spent through a supplemental process, rather than the process of having the President submit in his regular budget their estimated cost for those activities for the year.

When you cut through all of the bull gravy, there is only one reason why the White House has done that, because they are trying to obscure the full cost of those military operations.

Now, I would simply remind this House that President Roosevelt included the cost of funding World War II in his 1943 budget request. President Johnson included the cost of paying for the war in Vietnam in his 1966 budget request. President Clinton, at the insistence of this Congress, provided in the regular budget for the costs for financing our Bosnia operations and the enforcement of the no-fly zone edict in the 1997 budget.

People think that the President this year has submitted a budget which contains a deficit of $390 billion. In fact, that budget deficit does not include $1 of the more than $80 billion that this House voted to add to pay for the war in Iraq just a couple of months ago.

So I would say this provision simply is in pursuit of truth in budgeting, and I see no public policy reason why either of these provisions should be resisted. I ask for a ``yes'' vote when the vote occurs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher).

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire, after her 5 minutes, how much time do I have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire of the gentleman if he has any other remaining speakers.

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

Mr. Speaker, let me simply say I think I have already chewed the cud quite enough, and I think anyone who cares to listen understands what this motion does. These motions were accepted by wide margins in the Senate. I see no reason why they cannot be accepted here; and if the gentleman is prepared to yield back, so am I.

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

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the grounds that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, Earth Day is a great day to call attention to the many environmental public health challenges that face everyone on the planet. Established by Wisconsin's own Senator Gaylord Nelson on April 22, 1970, it stands as an annual reminder that as human beings we should recommit ourselves to his vision of a world where we demonstrate a mutual respect for one another by not ``fouling the nest'' and preserving the fragile planet we share. I submit for inclusion in the Record this statement from Senator Nelson on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of Earth Day:

Earth Day 2005--A Wake Up Call

(By Former Senator Gaylord Nelson--Founder of Earth Day)

The 35th anniversary of Earth Day is a sobering occasion.

On previous anniversaries we have hailed this ``new

awakening'' as millions around the world suddenly rose up and

pledged their support for a new campaign to save the natural

environment.

In 1993 American Heritage magazine called Earth Day ``one

of the most remarkable happenings in the history of

democracy.'' There has been progress, of course, particularly

in public awareness of the critical role environment plays in

our lives and in the education and training of new

environmental leaders. Environment has become a major

political issue. The public is prepared to support those

measures necessary to forge a sustainable society, if the

President and the Congress have the vision to lead us to that

goal.

Unfortunately, the President and the Congress have not

stepped up to the challenge of providing national and world

leadership on the environmental crisis.

In fact, on some key issues, they are actually resisting or

reversing progress made in the past 30 to 40 years. And

without strong, sustained leadership from the President and

Congress the urgent challenge to protect the environment and

create a sustainable society cannot succeed. Theodore

Roosevelt made conservation a top priority for the Republican

party, and many members of his party carried that torch over

the years. Recently, however, the GOP leadership has

abandoned this cause. There are many serious environmental

problems confronting us. But two current environmental

issues dramatize this failure of leadership--energy

conservation, and population control. Both are critical to

the sustainability of our society. In each case, there is

not only a lack of wise national leadership but an

apparent determination to turn back the clock. The

surrender to special interests on these two issues makes a

mockery of any claim to environmental awareness.

Egged on by the President, the Senate on March 16 sneaked

into the annual budget resolution a scheme to allow drilling

for oil in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,

protected in 1960 at the urging of great environmentalists

such as Sigurd Olson, Justice William O. Douglas, and

Wilderness Act author Howard Zahniser. The bill was signed by

President Eisenhower.

This is not just a sabotage of environmental policy. It

also undermines any hope for a wise energy policy. When all

the evidence calls for bold steps to conserve energy and

develop alternative sources, this cynical action implies that

we can burn all the oil we want and just move on to the next

untapped source, no matter where it might be.

We are told it may be 10 years before a very modest amount

of oil could be produced from this pristine refuge. And what

would it cost in real terms?

For the President to call for oil drilling in the Arctic

Wildlife Refuge is like burning the furniture in the White

House to keep the First Family comfortable.

Equally critical is the failure of the President and

Congress to confront the issue of population control, in our

own rapidly growing country and the rest of the world.

A ``Rockefeller Report'' in 1972, issued by the President's

commission on population growth, urged the U.S. to move

vigorously to stabilize our population at about 200 million

as rapidly as possible. Since then our population has

ballooned to 282 million, and is expected to reach 500

million between 2060 and 2070. We are heading into a century

in which we will double and triple our population in a short

time.

World-wide population projections are equally chilling. A

series of international conferences have called for bold

action to control population growth.

Yet the United States in recent years has become an

aggressive opponent of family planning programs in other

countries, and we are now facing efforts by some ``new

conservatives'' to impose similar restrictions at home.

On previous Earth Days we have offered a solution: The

President should set the standard by delivering a message to

the Congress on the state of the environment, citing

priorities that need to be addressed. Congress then should

hold hearings on these issues. This would produce a

``national dialogue'' on the sustainability of our

environment, and provide a roadmap to the future.

Without Presidential leadership and Congressional hearings,

we cannot claim to be taking seriously the most compelling

threats facing our society.

On environmental issues, our intelligence is reliable. Our

scientists have the facts, if we will only listen. It is a

``slam dunk'' that we cannot continue on our present course.

But without Presidential and Congressional leadership, even

an enlightened public cannot cope with the greatest challenge

of our time.--Gaylord Nelson, Washington, DC April, 2005.

Mr. Speaker, I am getting increasingly worried because we have named many a building after Ronald Reagan, but we have not yet named anything significant after our existing President, George W. Bush.

In light of the fact that the estate tax bill that passed yesterday will add $290 billion to the national debt, in light of the fact that the President has presented us with a budget deficit of $400 billion this year, not counting what happened yesterday, in light of the fact that he is trying to blow up Social Security by borrowing an extra $1.4 billion to finance those privatization accounts of his, I hope that Members of the House will join me next week in renaming the U.S. Bureau of Public Debt the ``George W. Bush Bureau of Public Debt.''

I think we ought to honor the President. He has truly earned this award.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment will enable the House to choose between the social Darwinism of the President's budget and a different budget which more accurately reflects the message of the social gospel.

If we take a look at what the President has done, he inherited a $240 billion surplus when he came into office, and yet the budget he presents to the Congress today contains a $290 billion deficit. That deficit does not include the $80 billion that we spent yesterday on the war on Iraq. It does not include the $2 trillion it is estimated will be the cost of borrowing to pay for the personal or private accounts that the President wants to use to blow up Social Security. It does not include dollar one of the $1.2 trillion it is estimated that it will cost to make the President's previously passed tax cuts permanent. So we have a huge deficit as far as the eye can see, under the President's budget.

Then the President tries to reclaim the mantle of fiscal responsibility by making some well-publicized cuts in the domestic discretionary portion of the budget. In plain terms, that is the appropriated part of the budget that goes for programs like education, health care, science, veterans benefits, things like that.

The President's cuts in the domestic arena do not lay a glove on the deficit because the deficit is so large; but I would point out, for instance, that those cuts average only about 5 percent of the over $200 billion cost in this year's budget alone of the President's tax cuts. They are less than 20 percent of the over-$50 billion in costs, for the cost of the supersize tax cuts that the President has given to the top 1 percent of earners in this country. But those cuts are large enough, Mr. Chairman, to do great damage over time in the investments that we need to make in education, health care, science, veterans, community infrastructure and the like.

In real terms, those cuts amount, after you adjust for inflation, to about $16 billion; and if you further adjust them for population growth, that is a real reduction in services of about $19 billion for those programs.

So this amendment does basically three things. It cuts $5 million from some of the President's proposed initiatives, and it combines those cuts with savings on the tax front. What we do on the tax front is to just simply recognize the essential injustice of the fact that right now folks who make more than $1 million in this country this year will on average get a $140,000 tax cut. This amendment would limit that $140,000 tax cut to about $27,000 and save enough money to devote $10 billion to deficit reduction and to use the other $16 billion for the initiatives that we have outlined in the amendment in the area of education, health, science, veterans, homeland security, environment, law enforcement, and community development.

Now, within that framework, we are able to add $2.4 billion to programs that can do real things to reduce the pressures for abortions. Among the critical investments made by this amendment are a cluster of programs that would make it economically easier for low-income and vulnerable women who choose to carry pregnancies to term by providing additional funding for maternal and infant health care, for child care and Head Start and after-school programs, for low-income housing assistance, for the community service block grant, to provide people with the opportunity to get help in the education and training areas, and also to provide additional medical services such as dental care. We also provide additional funding for child abuse and domestic violence prevention programs.

Now, I would simply say that if our concern for life does not stop at the checkbook's edge, then these are initiatives which ought to be supported by everybody in this Chamber.

The reason I offer this amendment is because over the last 30 years something really bad has happened in this country. Thirty years ago, we had the smallest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized country in the world. Today, we have the largest gap between the rich and the poor of any industrialized country.

The wealthiest 1 percent of people in this country control 33 percent of the Nation's wealth. The poorest 40 percent are struggling to hang on to less than 3 percent of the Nation's wealth, and the President's budget makes it worse.

That is why I say that this amendment helps us choose between the social Darwinism of the President's package and values that more accurately reflect the social gospel.

Now, the opposition will say, ``Oh, we do not need these additional education dollars because we have had such a large increase in education the past 2 years!'' Let me point out the Republican majority has been dragged kicking and screaming into supporting those education increases.

If Congress had approved House Republican Labor-H bills for education over the past 10 years, we would be spending $19 billion less on education than we are spending today. On title I, if House Republican bills had passed, we would have spent $2.8 billion less for title I grants to school districts than we are spending today. After-school centers, if the administration's budget request had been passed throughout the years, we would be providing $1 million less to local school districts for help in that program, and the list goes on and on.

So I would ask, Mr. Chairman, do we really want to pay for $140,000 tax cuts for the most well-off people in this society by providing real cuts in the number of grants that the National Institutes of Health will be able to finance research grants into cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's and the like? Do we really want to pay for $120,000 in tax cuts for the most well-off in this society by continuing to mount barriers that prevent people without means to get a college education for their kids?

The College Board last year indicated that the average cost of attendance at a 4-year public university has increased by $2,300 over the past 4 years, biggest 4-year increase in history. The President's answer to that is to toss an extra hundred dollars on the table in the form of Pell grants, and then he pays for it by wiping out Perkins loans and a number of other education initiatives for those same people.

I really think that the issue is very simple. All this amendment does is to prevent real reductions in the kinds of programs that I have just talked about. What it does is to restore our ability to at least keep up with inflation on those programs by saying to the most well-off people in this country, ``Sorry, folks, you are going to have to get along with a tax cut of only $27,000.'' Most of them I think would agree that this is a far more socially just and economically wise set of decisions to make than the budget resolution we have before us.

This applies only for 1 year. We do not get into any games about 5- year or 10-year budgets. This applies only for the next year. This is the priority statement which people will be able to make on appropriated portions of the budget for the coming year; and if they think these priorities are better, I hope they vote for the amendment. If they think they are not, then they have a perfect right to vote against it.

I would urge an ``aye'' vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the remarks of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam), but I think he must have been talking about a different amendment. The gentleman refers to significant cuts in national defense. There is only one cut in any program that can be considered at all related to national defense in this amendment, and that is a $1 billion reduction in the Star Wars account because they have had so many technical problems with that program that they cannot in the coming fiscal year spend all of the money that has been provided to them. So the practical impact on the program will be zero. That is the only reduction in defense.

I would point out that this comes on top of a $16 billion increase in the defense budget which is before us right now, and it comes on top of the $80 billion that we added yesterday for Iraq that was not counted in the President's budget. So I would suggest it is a red herring to claim this has any significant negative effect on defense. In fact, I will bet Members that considerably more than a billion dollars remains unspent from that Star Wars account at the end of the fiscal year because of technical problems that the Pentagon itself has admitted are there.

With respect to tax increases, I know the majority party likes to pretend that Democrats are talking about tax increases for the middle class. The facts are quite to the contrary. The only people who will lose anything by way of tax cuts in this amendment are people who make more than a million dollars a year. Under existing law if we leave things as they are right now, if you make less than $10,000, you average about an $8 tax cut under the President's package. If you make less than $20,000, you will get back the princely sum of $326. If you make $500,000 to $1 million, you will get on average a $27,000 tax cut. And if you make $1 million adjusted gross income or more, on average you will get a tax cut of $140,000.

I do not know many people in that bracket who would not feel that investing in children, investing in homeland security, investing in veterans' benefits is preferable to giving those folks a super-size tax cut. We are not saying they cannot have a tax cut, we are simply limiting the size of their tax cut to $27,000 so we can meet these other investment needs. I think the vast majority of citizens in this country would think that is a better balance and a better set of priorities.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. I find the logic of the gentleman interesting. He says that this amendment will result in cutting defense $1 billion. It will not. It will result in a defense budget increase of $16 billion, not counting the $80 billion add-on that we provided yesterday. All we are doing is eliminating $1 billion of the increase because it cannot be spent because of technical problems in the program. That does not reduce the effective firepower of the United States by one bullet.

Let me also note the gentleman had some interesting comments on mandatories. This amendment does not touch mandatories. All we are dealing with in our amendment is the appropriated side of the budget for 1 year alone. We are not getting into the argument about mandatories. That is in the jurisdiction of another committee. So the gentleman's remarks are interesting, but irrelevant in terms of this amendment.

With respect to NIH, let me simply say, we can talk about how much it has been increased the past few years. If you think it is a good idea for us to have 500 fewer research grants out in the field attacking cancer, attacking Parkinson's, attacking diabetes, then by all means vote against my amendment. If you think we ought to correct that, I would urge you to vote for it. If you think we are spending enough on veterans, then by all means vote against this amendment. If you think we are not, then I would suggest you vote for our amendment which adds $3 billion to the veterans health care budget.

We have a huge hole in the services that we provide veterans. All you have

to do to realize that is to talk to some of those soldiers who have come back missing arms, missing legs, missing eyes. If you are comfortable with the amount that we are providing for the VA now, by all means vote against my amendment. Otherwise, vote for it. If you are comfortable with the fact that the President's budget will make it harder for low-income seniors to keep their houses heated during wintertime, then by all means vote against the amendment.

But do not do what 40 Members of the majority party did last year. After they voted for a budget which required a squeeze on all kinds of domestic programs, then they wrote our committee a letter asking us to increase funding for LIHEAP, increase funding for education, something which we could not do under the budget which the majority imposed on us.

As the gentleman said, this is a question of priorities, and I make no apology for mine.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me simply cite a couple of other specifics. One of my objections to the President's budget is that the President is not asking to slow the rate of increase in education; the President is asking us to cut education funding below last year's level at the same time that we have laid the mother of all mandates on local school districts. Under No Child Left Behind, we have given them a whole set of marching orders. They are very expensive marching orders, but we have fallen more than $9 billion behind the amount that we promised in the authorization that we would be providing to those local school districts if we passed those education mandates. It seems to me we ought to live up to our promise.

Pell grants. Pell grants is the major program that enables young people from poor families to go to college so that ``equal opportunity'' is something other than a slogan in this country. Under the President's budget, the percentage of cost at a 4-year public university that will be paid for by Pell grants will drop from 41 percent to 34 percent. I do not call that progress.

I would also point out that the President's budget requires the imposition of new fees on veterans in order to gain access to the veterans health care system. I do not think we ought to do that.

So the issue before us is very simple. Do you want to insist that we give tax cuts of $140,000 on average to people who make over a million bucks? Or do you want to scale those tax cuts back to $27,000 on average and use that money to invest in more care for our veterans, to invest in better education for our kids, to invest in a stronger homeland defense, to invest in more efforts to protect our parks from encroachment?

The choice is simple. I think it is very clear where the American people come down on this.

I will repeat my assertion. I believe the President's budget adds to the gap between the wealthy and the poor in this country. In that sense, I think it is social Darwinism. I repeat that charge, I stand by it, and I think that this in contrast more nearly recognizes the message of the social gospel, which is that we do need to care about each other.

I would remind you of the words, ``What you do for the least of these, you do for me.'' That is what this amendment is trying to do. I make no apology for it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I would simply say the gentleman asked whether I thought that we could possibly find places in the budget that are wasteful that we could eliminate in order to meet the limits of the budget resolution. I would ask him how did he vote yesterday on our motion to create a Truman-like committee to investigate the fraud that is going on on the part of a number of military contractors in Iraq? We hear daily stories about how taxpayers are being ripped off. If the gentleman is concerned about taxpayers' money being wasted, why did he not vote for that amendment yesterday instead of voting against it like every other good soldier did over there yesterday? They all voted against it.

So, Mr. Chairman, what we have before us is very simple. We have a choice of sticking with the Committee on the Budget's budget, which will leave in place tax cuts of $140,000 on average for people who make over 1 million bucks or whether they think in the interest of social justice and compassion, we ought to scale back those tax cuts so they have to skimp by on only $27,000. The poor devils. They are going to have to get food stamps to get along, I guess, if they are only getting a $27,000 tax cut.

The question is, are we going to scale back those super-sized tax cuts so we can meet our obligations in the area of education, veterans health care, homeland security, and the other items I have just named? I think economically and morally it is not even a close choice.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.