Floor Statements

Madam Chairman, I rise to support the NASA authorization act and to thank Chairman Gordon and Representative Udall for their leadership and exceptional work on this bill.

On May 31, I experienced the thrill of attending the most recent shuttle launch in Cape Canaveral, Florida. As I witnessed the intense brightness of the rockets' afterburners and felt the rumble of the Earth as the shuttle lifted off, I could feel the pride and strength of American innovation and technological leadership.

I have to tell you that I was surprised at how emotional I felt watching the shuttle hurtle towards the sky, and my heart really burst with pride in the American spirit and our ability to move forward generation after generation. The continuity of the space program is critical to maintaining this leadership.

The space shuttle is scheduled to retire in just 2 years, yet a lack of funding has delayed its replacement until at least 2015. Without adequate funding, not only would we lose jobs, but we would be forced to rely on Russia to access the International Space Station.

The economic return on our investment in the space program is far greater than many realize. In fact, NASA's budget accounts for less than six-tenths of 1 percent of the Federal budget, and yet the benefits of space exploration are vital to our daily lives.

Our TVs, cell phones and computers, as well as the military and weather forecasters all rely on satellite technology developed through space exploration.

Last year, Speaker Pelosi announced ``The Speaker's Innovation Agenda,'' an action plan to keep America as the leader in global science and technology. This agenda includes educating a new generation of innovators and committing to research and development.

By supporting NASA today, we are committing to innovate, to create new opportunities and markets, to drive discovery, and to push the boundaries and limitations that are before us.

It is vital that we instill this curiosity and drive in the next generation. I know it was instilled in the next generation that I'm raising because my son announced to me after he saw the shuttle launch, he said, ``Mom, I want to be an astronaut.''

And for me, as the National Chair of the Women's High Tech Coalition and co-chair of the Young Women's Task Force, I want to express particular support for the Hodes amendment, which establishes a scholarship program in honor of Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who died in the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster.

The scholarships will go to women pursuing degrees in mathematics, science, and engineering, and would further support women seeking careers in fields related to NASA's mission. We really need to expand the young women's and young girls' interest in the science and mathematical fields.

As leaders and legislators, we must work to harness the talent, intellect, and entrepreneurial spirit of Americans.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill to ensure that NASA has the resources to continue to promote American competitiveness.

Yes, they seem to believe that the President's drill more and veto policy is the right way to go when it comes to our energy policy. And I'll tell you, as I often call myself, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Ryan, a minivan mom because I have three young kids, I spend most of my time, when I'm home, driving them from diving practice to baseball games to gymnastics, and it consumes quite a bit of gas. So when I'm home and have to go and fill up that gas tank, which I did just last week before I came back to Washington, it cost me $76, Mr. Ryan.

And we've done 30-something in the last few weeks, and I think the last time I was here it cost me $62 to fill up my gas tank, the last time we talked about this. And we've gone from $62, I'm at $76. The week before last I was at $72. The week before that, I was at $68 to fill up the tank. I mean, so now we're talking about real money. Seventy-six dollars is what a very small amount of groceries cost. And that's money that is the difference between someone being able to buy the groceries in the supermarket or put gasoline in the tank or make sure that they can take their kids to the doctor and make that copayment for the doctor's appointment. I mean, we have record gas prices now that are hurting, cutting people to the quick. And the Republicans, our good friends on the other side of the aisle, what is their solution?

First of all, before we became the majority and began to even put this issue on the front burner, it wasn't an issue for them. The last action that they took, when they were in charge, was to give $14 billion in subsidies to the oil industry, which is the most profitable industry in America. Now, what does that mean? We've heard a lot of us talk about those $14 billion in subsidies. What it means is that the Federal Government gives the oil industry permission, they are allowed to drill for oil on Federal lands and in exchange they are supposed pay royalties to the Federal Government to do that. We forgive those royalties, that's what the $14 billion is. And what we have proposed is, because we want to truly wean ourselves off of our addiction to oil--and not just foreign oil, we need to wean ourselves off of our addiction to oil period because oil is a finite resource. We need to really invest in renewable energy sources, in biofuels.

And what we would like to do is repeal that $14 billion in subsidies, require the oil industry to pay the royalties--because they're pulling oil out of the ground on land that they don't own, on land that is owned by the Federal Government, they're profiting from that and paying nothing for the privilege--we want to take that $14 billion in subsidies and invest it in alternative energy research. Because, you know, growing up, Mr. Murphy and Mr. Ryan, I remember during the Carter administration, I remember the energy crisis. I remember sitting in the back seat of my parents' car on gas lines. And I remember in elementary school seeing all the conservation efforts that they started doing all the way down to, you know, to the public school and elementary school level. We had signs next to the light switches that suddenly were put on there that said, you know, ``turn the lights off.'' There was a big national energy conservation effort that just fizzled once Ronald Reagan became President. And we never invested in alternative research like we should have. The conservation efforts went by the wayside, and we went back to the same old story, oil, oil, oil.

And look, right now, the Republicans are talking about needing to drill for more oil in ANWR, pulling oil out of shale, this 68 million acres available now that they are not drilling on, 68 million; I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. They need to be utilizing the turf that they've got now, and they're not.

So we need to make sure that it's clear to the American people--and that's why we come out here every night--who's for solving this energy crisis and who's all talk. And I think the Republicans have clearly proven that through their actions and their lack of stewardship when they were in charge. And I yield to the gentleman.

Thank you.

By the way, to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, that was a very impressive top-of-mind overview, and your command of the facts is truly incredible. So thank you very much for that very articulate overview.

We also want to stress that, in addition to laying out the problem and the shock that we have in reaction to the solution of our good friends on the other side of the aisle to drill and veto, we have not stood idly by and just said, ``Well, unless we repeal these $14 billion in subsidies, then we're not going to be able to do anything.'' We have a series of bills that we have passed, and I think it would be helpful for us to go through those and to tell people the efforts that we're making--some short-term, some long-term.

This is a difficult problem to solve in the short term. It is very difficult to dramatically bring down gas prices through legislation in a short-term way, but one of the things that we did was to pass the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Fill Suspension and Consumer Protection Act.

What that does is it says to the President that he is not to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and that was something that the President had previously opposed. He was threatening to veto it until he realized that the increase in gas prices was so politically painful for both his administration and for his Members of Congress that he had no other choice but to finally relent and agree to sign it. There were still 25 Republicans who voted against that bill.

What the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Act is designed to do is to bring gas prices down in the short term. During the rest of this year, we expect that bill to affect gas prices in the short term.

We have the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act. That is a bill that will extend and expand tax incentives for renewable energy, the type of energy that we would like to go in the direction of, instead of the finite sources that the Republicans always talk about.

What that bill would do is generate hundreds of thousands of green jobs, spur American innovation and business investment, and cut taxes for millions of Americans. What the provisions of that bill will do is preserve hundreds of thousands of good-paying, green-collar American jobs.

A recent study showed that allowing the renewable energy incentives to expire would lead to about 116,000 jobs being lost in the wind and solar industries alone through the end of next year. Yet 159 Republicans voted against that legislation. That's how latched to the oil industry they are.

How about the OPEC and Big Oil companies accountability bill? We passed a bill that would combat record gas prices by authorizing lawsuits against oil cartel members for oil price-fixing as well as created an antitrust task force to crack down on oil companies that are engaged in anticompetitive behavior and market manipulation.

You still had 84 Republicans vote against that bill.

We also passed legislation, historic legislation, Mr. Murphy, for the first time in 35 years we have passed legislation that will require the automobile manufacturing industry to increase fuel efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. That is the first congressional increase in more than three decades. Ninety-six Republicans voted against that legislation. It was signed into law on December 19, 2007, so we will over the long term see fuel efficiency standards improve, which, of course the automobile industry could have done years and years ago on their own. But, unfortunately, we had to cajole them along a little bit.

There are two more bills I want to highlight, simply because of the shockingly large number of Republicans that voted against those as well.

You have the Renewable Energy and Conservation Tax Act. That is the bill that included the repeal of this $14 billion in subsidies. It also would invest in clean and renewable energy and energy efficiency and also address a reduction in global warming. It included provisions that would generate, again, hundreds of thousands of green jobs by investing in solar energy and biodiesel jobs and protect an additional 75,000 wind industry jobs. And 174 Republicans voted against that bill.

Lastly, one of the things that we wanted to make sure we protected against when it came to our energy policy was price gouging, so we passed the Energy Price Gouging Prevention Act, because it is a little bit suspect that all of these retail establishments and all of the entire oil industry suddenly and dramatically all increase prices at the same time. What a coincidence.

So we thought it was important in order to provide immediate relief to consumers to give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to investigate and punish people and entities that artificially inflate the price of energy, and we wanted to ensure that the Federal Government had the tools it needed to adequately respond to energy emergencies and prohibit price gouging, particularly like, for example, when you have natural disasters like my State faces which we often struggle with. And 140 Republicans voted against that bill.

So it is just really important that we highlight these stark differences in our policy versus the Republicans, what we support and the actions that we have taken and what the other side supports. The other side is married to the oil industry, and we would like to move, again, in a new direction, so we can invest in renewable energy.

Mr. Murphy, I might need a little help with this so I can be bipartisan. Let's spread this out here. It is always better in the 30-Something Working Group when we give visual examples of what we are talking about.

We walked through the agenda of the New Democratic Congress on our initiatives to try to affect the cost of energy in the short-term and the long-term.

Here is a visible example. Next to here are the names of the entire Republican leadership, and here are the four major pieces of legislation that we have moved through the Congress. Not allowing OPEC to price fix, making sure that our constituents are not gouged by prices, ensuring that we invest in renewable energy and repealing those $14 billion in subsidies, and ensuring that we have energy security going into the future.

There are no yeses on this entire grid, the entire Republican leadership. What is objectionable about making sure that we don't have price gouging when it comes to gasoline? Should we allow OPEC to fix prices? Is that okay? I am just not sure which of these bills was objectionable.

It is one thing for them to say that we should do some other things as well, but if we are going to try work in a bipartisan spirit and approach this problem and find a solution together, voting no on anything that doesn't prop up the oil industry is just insensitive and callous and doesn't recognize that this is a real problem that is affecting Americans in a significant way.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy. I would be happy to yield back to Mr. Murphy.

Pretty much our whole lives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1054, to honor the service and achievements of women in the Armed Forces and female veterans. I want to thank my colleague and good friend, Chairwoman Susan Davis, for sponsoring this resolution.

Next Monday, we will observe Memorial Day, which honors the brave men and women who have courageously served and died in uniform. Women have voluntarily served in support of U.S. military efforts since the Revolutionary War as nurses, cooks and laundresses. Now, women have risen through the ranks and occupy the roles of generals, commanders, pilots, and drill sergeants.

American women have served this country selflessly and with great courage. Today, I recognize the nearly 800,000 women who have served and the hundreds who have been killed or taken prisoner of war. Their service demonstrates that women are fully capable and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. They are an example to all women and men who will follow in their footsteps.

Mr. Speaker, it doesn't really surprise me that our good friends on the other side of the aisle have yet another drilling solution to our energy problems. Because it seems that with every energy problem, they have never found an energy problem that drilling won't solve. When will our colleagues in the minority get it into their heads that we cannot drill our way out of our energy problems?

What I think is amazing is that they have actually finally realized that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Some of them have finally acknowledged that global warming is a problem. But they still refuse to let go of the tired direction that they continue to want to travel in, which is to prop up their wealthy corporate interests, prop up the oil industry, which is the most profitable industry in this country, with billions of dollars in oil subsidies.

And today's solution, in this motion to instruct, is that we should drill for more oil in a pristine environmental track in Alaska, go off the coast of Florida and the Outer Continental Shelf, drop some oil drills so that we can really severely negatively impact the tourism across the coastal regions instead of trying to make sure that we can truly invest in alternative energy research. Which part of ``No, we need an alternative'' don't they understand?

Well, consistently the voters have said they want to move this country in a new direction. They want to make sure that we invest in alternative energy research and wean ourselves truly off of our dependence on oil. Not just hear more talk about it.

Mr. Speaker, drilling is not the answer. It is inappropriate to suggest that we should have more drilling in ANWR, in Wyoming, off the coast of Florida. We need to make sure that we

can finally step up and make a bipartisan commitment that we will invest in alternative energy research so that we can finally end this energy crisis that we find ourselves in.

I'm glad to see that the Republicans finally acknowledge it's a problem.

Mr. Speaker, I too rise to recognize the 60th anniversary of the independence of the State of Israel, and to reaffirm the steadfast friendship between our two strong democratic nations.

Sixty years ago today, on May 14, 1948, the State of Israel declared sovereignty and independence as a homeland for the Jewish people. With little resources and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Israel has become a thriving and prosperous democracy, and has made worldwide contributions in technology, medicine, agriculture and environmental innovation.

When we speak about Israel, too often we focus on Israel's troubles and not on her beauty and her spirit. But what I want to focus on today is her resolve. Since independence, Israel has continually overcome every conceivable roadblock. She has beaten back hostile neighbors during war, and now endures terrible emotional and economic hardship from terrorist cowards who perpetrate hideous violence against innocent victims.

As a critical partner in the fight against terror, and as the only democracy in the region, Israel's strength and security is paramount. Therefore, I encourage this House to continue to pass bipartisan bills in support of Israel and her ability to protect herself from antagonistic neighbors.

The blossoming of a nation that grew from desert sand into a thriving example of democracy, economic progress and cultural diversity is a magnificent achievement for this strong and vibrant country.

I congratulate Israel on all she has achieved in just 60 years, and I look forward to a bright future for this extraordinary nation.

Madam Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to remove my name as a cosponsor of H.R. 2054, the Universal Service Reform Act of 2007. My name was listed due to a clerical error.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 1086, recognizing this week as National Nurses Week. I thank Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson for her leadership in sponsoring this Resolution so that Congress can honor the nearly 2.9 million hard working nurses across the country.

As we celebrate the fine women and men on the front lines of our health care system, we recognize that registered nurses are vital to quality health care for all Americans. Nurses care for patients at every level--from critical care, chronic disease, to preventative and wellness care. They work in hospitals, doctor's offices, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, schools and provide in-home care throughout the community. Nurses routinely perform some of the most important duties of a patient's treatment.

In this National Nurses Week, I also want to pay special tribute to nurses in my district and throughout South Florida. From our elder population, to working men and women, to our children, nurses help my constituents every day. To honor all that they do, on May 9th, nurses in South Florida will participate in a program entitled, ``Nurses Making A Difference Every Day.'' I can tell you that nurses do make a difference every day and I thank them for their service.

I hope that this program, and the national attention we give to the good work of nurses will encourage more people to consider this noble profession. It is projected that the need for registered nurses will grow dramatically in the coming years, and we must do all we can to support this vital field.

Madam Speaker, nurses exemplify some of the best that this country has to offer. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to highlight their value to our communities and the important role nurses play in providing quality health care to all of our constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 952, to honor and recognize our Nation's teachers. I want to thank my colleague and good friend, Congressman Ron Klein for sponsoring this resolution. Today marks the beginning of National Teacher Appreciation Week, but America's teachers deserve more than a week of recognition for their investment in our country's most precious resource, our children.

Too often teachers are overworked and underpaid. They spend long hours in the classroom, many hours after the school day coaching our kids and leading their extracurricular groups, and then go home to spend more time grading papers. They invest their own lives in the lives of our children, and every day they empower young people with the knowledge and tools they need to be successful and confident. America's future is in the hands of our children, and we owe our teachers a universe of thanks for their hard work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the 60th anniversary of the independence of the State of Israel and to reaffirm the steadfast relationship between our two strong democratic allies.

May 14, 2008, marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the sovereign and independent State of Israel. With little resources and seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Israel has become a thriving and prosperous democracy, and has made significant worldwide contributions in technology, medicine, agriculture, and environmental innovation. Additionally, eight Israelis have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

When we speak about Israel, too often we focus on Israel's troubles and don't focus enough attention on her beauty and her spirit. But what I want to focus on today is her resolve.

Since its independence in 1948, Israel has continually overcome every conceivable roadblock placed in her way. She has beaten back hostile neighbors during war and now she endures terrible economic hardship from terrorist cowards who perpetrate hideous violence against innocent victims.

As a critical partner in our fight against terror and as the only democracy in the region, Israel's strength and security is paramount. Therefore, I encourage this House to continue to pass bipartisan bills in support of Israel and her ability to protect herself from hostile neighbors.

The blossoming of a nation that grew from desert sand into a thriving example of democracy, economic progress, and cultural diversity is a magnificent achievement for this strong and vibrant country.

I want to congratulate Israel on all she has achieved in just 60 years, and I look forward to the future of this extraordinary Nation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the opportunity tonight in the 30-Something Working Group to talk about an item that is extremely important to America and particularly important to America's military families, and that is the effects of troop deployment on the children, families and communities of military personnel.

Speaker Pelosi has been so supportive of the notion that we need to make sure that we shape our policy, particularly around our Nation's veterans, in support of our military families. The extended troop deployments, the tour after tour of duty, I know that so many of us as Members have met with soldiers' families and met with individual troops who have said they are on their third and fourth tour of duty, that they are having extended deployments, that they are having a much shorter than they are supposed to time between deployments. Normally they are supposed to go through about 365 days between deployments. Those times have not been respected and they have been sent back much sooner.

Since October 2001, approximately 1.6 million U.S. troops have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Deployed family members are leaving behind parents, children and spouses to provide a selfless patriotic service to our country. However, families are also asked to make great sacrifices when dealing with the stress and anxiety of multiple deployments, limited and infrequent communications, and the separation of a family member.

In this Month of the Military Child, we thought it was only appropriate that we show our support for those that themselves provide so much support to our soldiers and discuss the consequences of these prolonged separations.

I would like to begin, Mr. Speaker, with a story of the Lopez family. The Lopez family is right here. They were profiled in the Sesame Workshop Talk, Listen, Connect Series. Ten-year-old Ernesto, who is the little boy right here, and 6-year-old Jennifer, live with their mother and baby brother on Fort Bragg in North Carolina, which is home of the Airborne and Special Operations Forces and one of the largest military bases in the world. Their dad, Staff Sergeant Ernesto Lopez, is in Iraq on his third tour of duty.

Look how little these children are. The daughter is 6 years old. If he is on his third tour of duty, and most of these tours of duty, Mr. Speaker, are, as you know, about a year each, that means that he has missed half of Jennifer's life already. Half. It is just unbelievable.

Jennifer keeps a special calendar in her room to mark the days until her dad comes home. Ernesto sleeps with a duplicate of the small ball that his father carries, a soft army ball with a molded helmet and a soldier's face, onto which Ernesto drew a heart that means ``we love each other,'' in his words. Even baby Elan, who was born 2 days before his father was deployed, has a soft-sided photo album filled with pictures of his dad that his mother hopes will ease his recognition when he returns.

Imagine. It is going to be incredibly difficult for this family to go through the restoration of bonding that military families inevitably go through. I can't imagine having just given birth and having to leave to go across the world and not know whether or if I would see my family again. That is what our men and women that are fighting for us in Iraq are going through every single day. And as Ernesto, Jennifer, Elan and Mrs. Lopez know so well, when a parent is deployed, the entire family is deployed.

The Lopez children are an example of the 1.2 million children under the age of 10 who have a parent or parents on active military duty or in the Reserves, which is more than at any other time since World War

Mr. Filner, your leadership on the Veterans' Affairs Committee has just been second to none. Your commitment to our military families has been so incredibly important in trying to make sure that we can highlight their needs and the struggles and difficulties that they go through; and the policy that you are shaping in your committee to make sure that we can improve their lives.

Look at the statistics there. The statistics there show just exactly what the impact is on our military families. The dark green shows 2003 to 2005 what you had in infidelity, it was about 4 percent. Fast forward to 2007, and we are at 15 percent. You go to divorce. We are at 11 percent 2003 to 2005, and you are up to 20 percent in 2007. And then look at any other problem. And of course the military families have problems just like anybody else, but look at the explosion of problems that military families have had in terms of their marital problems. In 2003 to 2005, it was 12 percent and they are at 27 percent now. Granted, war is a stressful situation, Mr. Chairman. But, my gosh, we need to do more. And I know that your committee is committed to doing that.

Can I ask you a question on that? Given your expertise and your professional background in psychology; obviously posttraumatic stress disorder is incredibly stressful on families, and I just want to bring up some statistics and maybe have you comment on them.

We have documentation that servicemembers who are given a diagnosis of PTSD were significantly more likely to perpetrate violence toward their partners, with more than 80 percent committing at least one act of violence in the previous year, and almost half at least one severe act. And that source, the third-party validator we have on that is the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, and that was back in 2003 that they cited that.

The stress on families, beyond the deployment, which is obviously incredibly stressful. When they come back and they are suffering from PTSD, that has to have an incredibly horrific impact.

And in this Month of the Military Child, we want to make sure that we highlight the impact on our military members' families, because they are the ones that end up forgotten.

And I thank all of you for coming this evening, because you all have some unique experience and involvement, unique constituencies who are significantly impacted by our troops' deployment in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And someone who in particular has a specific family member who has inspired him is Congressman Jerry McNerney, who actually was inspired to run for Congress by his son, Michael, who in response to the attacks from September 11 sought and received a commission in the United States Air Force. And Michael suggested that his dad serve his country, too, by running for Congress. And when they pulled together as a family, Congressman McNerney decided that that was what he needed to do. And we were so pleased when your victory became clear on election night in 2006, and it is with a deep sense of duty and your family's support that I know you are serving here and serving admirably.

So, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. McNerney, thank you. It is wonderful we have someone of your stature and your commitment, that is willing to come to the floor and talk about the importance of making sure that we take care of not just the troops but of the troops' family members because they are making a decision to serve the public as well. They make sacrifices, and we all wanted to come together tonight as House Democrats and talk about the sacrifices that those families make.

It is my distinct pleasure to yield to my colleague from Ohio, Congressman Zack Space, whose father served in the Marines during the Korean War, and who also serves on the Veterans' Affairs Committee and has been a passionate advocate on behalf of issues important to veterans and their families.

Thank you so much, Mr. Space and thank you for your commitment. You really have been representing your district proudly, and I know they're proud of you. And I am honored to serve with you. We truly appreciate your being here this evening.

It's now my pleasure to yield a few minutes to my 30 something colleague who is a little bit more familiar with the normal give and take that we have in the 30-Something group. This is a little more staid and low key for 30-Something, but we're trying to help you all keep up with the pace. And feel free, to my colleagues, to jump in. We usually have a little bit more dynamic style in the 30-Something instead of a one at a time type of approach.

So my colleague, Congressman Altmire, from the great State of Pennsylvania, I have to tell a story before I yield to you. And you've heard me tell this before.

Literally, I'm on the whip team for our caucus, and it was my responsibility right after Mr. Altmire's election to sidle over to him and talk to him about some legislation that we wanted him to vote with the caucus on. And literally, his first words to me were that he had to make sure what the impact was on veterans, and that he came here to make sure that the quality of life of our Nation's veterans was upheld and that that was paramount to him. So I thought that was really admirable and wonderful; and you have represented veterans in your community incredibly well.

And I yield to my colleague from Pennsylvania.

Thank you, Mr. Altmire. And thank you for really making America's military, veterans as well as the troops currently serving, a high priority for yourself and your agenda and the issues that you champion on behalf of the people in the district that you represent in Pennsylvania.

I want to turn now to another Pennsylvanian who served in the United States Navy for 31 years and rose to the rank of three star Admiral. His battle group conducted combat operations in Afghanistan and precursor operations to the war in Iraq, and he is one of our caucus' foremost experts on the issues that are important to military families and that are important to us as we try to wrestle with this very difficult issue of how we're going to extricate ourselves from this war in Iraq. And our caucus has tremendous respect for your service. And it's my pleasure to yield to Congressman Joe Sestak.

Thank you so much, Mr. Sestak, for your 31 years of military service and now your continued public service to our country and to the citizens of Pennsylvania and your district. We really truly appreciate your expertise and the heart that you put into this job in representing your community. So thank you so much for joining us.

It's my pleasure to turn to someone who I admire and respect and look up to. She is one of the few women that are in a leadership role in our Congress on the Armed Services Committee, and she is really a person who has broken through on the issues that are important to the military and the military families and provided a different perspective, as women often do.

And this was such a tremendous source of pride for me, Ms. Davis, that you chair the Subcommittee on Military Personnel, which is an incredibly important assignment of the House Armed Services Committee; and you represent the community of San Diego so admirably in this institution, and

you have been a champion on behalf of veterans and military families.

It is my pleasure to yield to you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, Ms. Davis.

Mr. Speaker, I sense that our time is drawing to a close.

The whole point of doing this 30-Something hour focused on the impact of deployments on military families was to try to improve the quality of their life and decrease the impact, the negative impact.

I just want to show you an important statistic here is that less than 50 percent of military families felt that they had support available through all of the phases of their family members' deployment, and that is absolutely unconscionable. It is something that Chairman Filner and the members of the Armed Services Committee, as well as the Veterans' Affairs Committee, have been working very hard at trying to improve, and that is what the Democratic Caucus, under Speaker Pelosi's leadership, has been absolutely committed to.

Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 30 seconds to Mr. Space, and then we will wrap up.

Mr. Speaker, to bring us home, Mr. McNerney.

Mr. Speaker, with that, in honor of the Month of the Military Child, we thank

Speaker Pelosi for her generous donation of this time to the 30- Something Working Group.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 25 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, May 1, 2008, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Aigen Haifa Chapter of American Friends of Magen David Adom. Magen David Adom is Israel's equivalent to the Red Cross.

The chapter based out of Sunrise, Florida, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel. Since its formation in 1992, the chapter has raised several million dollars. This money has gone to buy 11 ambulances that cost anywhere between $70 and $100 thousand. The money also helps build blood centers in Israel which supply 95 percent of the blood in the state to among others, hospitals and the military.

Over the last three years, the chapter has been short handed. Many of us remember the destruction by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. This group felt it first hand, more than 50 of its 120 members have left and not returned to the area. But that has not stopped them from taking money out of their own pockets to donate to the state of Israel. On several occasions, a former member has passed away, and willed money to the organization so they could help their brothers and sisters in Israel.

Madam Speaker, this group exemplifies some of the best that this country has to offer. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell all of America about some of the women and men in my district who work to make positive changes in the lives of others.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize April as National STD Awareness Month. As you may know, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a disturbing statistic. One in four young women between the ages of 14 to 19 has a sexually transmitted disease, and it is likely that she does not even know it. This amounts to an estimated 3.2 million teen girls in America with at least one of four common STDs, including chlamydia and HPV.

The good news is that these diseases and infections are preventable. We have a responsibility to make sure that parents and teenagers have the resources they need to make smart choices for their health and well-being. This includes access to education and access to affordable preventive health care and screening.

As a Co-Chair of the Young Women's Task Force for the Women's Caucus, I call on my colleagues to take note of the CDC's startling statistic, and I congratulate Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones for introducing a resolution supporting National STD Awareness Month.

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity that has been given to us by Speaker Pelosi tonight to talk about an issue that is affecting literally millions of families across America, and that is the lack of affordable child care and early childhood education. It is especially important to highlight these issues as this week marks the Week of the Young Child.

For the next hour, we're going to focus on young children and how, over the last 7 years, we have failed to provide adequate and necessary funding for vital child care and early childhood education.

And I can tell you, Madam Speaker, that as a mother of three young children--I have 8-year-old twins and an almost 5-year-old, 4\1/2\- year-old little girl--this is something that is near and dear to my heart.

I remember the struggle that I went through when I first gave birth to my twins and had to go back to work, and we searched and searched for a quality child care program. We were turning our newborn babies, 3 months old, 4 months old, over to really, basically, someone we didn't know, someone to care for our little ones all day long. You know, we just couldn't even imagine turning over the care of our babies, our most precious resource, we couldn't imagine turning over our babies to anyone.

So you can imagine the struggle that people go through when, on top of having to decide where they can take their children to be cared for while they work, that they also have to struggle through the angst of not knowing or not expecting that they can afford that care. And because we have continued to slash and burn from this administration the funding for Head Start and for the Child Care Development Block Grants programs, we absolutely wanted to come to the floor tonight and spend an hour, at least an hour, highlighting the needs that children in this country have, and particularly those of working families. And I'm going to be joined tonight by several of my colleagues.

Before we begin, though, I do want to recognize and thank our good friend, Chairman George Miller of the Education and Labor Committee, and Chairman Kildee, Dale Kildee, for their leadership and their commitment to child care issues and education, as well as the Head Start and Child Care Development Block Grant Program funding. These are all programs that are near and dear to their hearts, and a number of these Members have submitted statements.

We just have to highlight that there are children, especially those from low-income families, that need better access to high-quality early childhood programs. Across the Nation, Madam Speaker, child care fees average from $4,000 to $10,000 per year which exceed the cost of public universities in most States. Yet nationally, only one in seven children who are financially eligible for child care subsidies is being served. One in seven.

And at this time, I would like to turn the podium over to a champion for America's children, the voice in this body that is consistently there for those who have no voice. She is the current Chair of the Woman's Caucus, Congressman Lois Capps of California.

I thank Congresswoman Capps. You have just been an incredible leader on the issues that are important to women and young families, and it is so incredibly important in this Week of the Young Child that we have a leader like Congresswoman Capps, the Chair of the Women's Caucus, who has been such a stalwart on the issues that are important to young women and families; and it's just a pleasure to have her join us on the floor today.

It is also a pleasure to have such a committed and passionate and compassionate father serving in the House of Representatives with us from Pennsylvania, a wonderful father of two young daughters and someone who has done an incredible job since he's joined the Congress after the 2006 election, Congressman Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania.

Thank you, Mr. Altmire. And thank you for your leadership and for giving your time in public service to make sure that the next generation is well represented here in the halls of Congress.

It is incredibly important and so beneficial to the issues important to working families to have parents of young children serving in the Congress, having moms and dads who are living and dealing with these issues every day. We've got to make sure that we have their voice represented strongly in this House of Representatives.

And now it's my privilege to turn the mic over to my good friend who represents the beautiful islands of Hawaii, the gentlewoman from Hawaii, Mazie Hirono.

Thank you so much, Congresswoman Hirono. You have been an incredible leader when it comes to the issues that are important to working families.

I often think about the constituents that you represent. We make public policies so far away from the people that you represent; they need a strong voice all the more for that reason, and you have done an amazing job representing them. It's a pleasure and an honor to serve with you here.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Speaker, to continue on with the highlighting of the Week of the Young Child, there are statistics that are incredibly important, and I will go through some of those this evening. But more important than the statistics and the studies are the stories. And I can tell you, as a mom with young children, who I probably will talk about quite a bit this evening, you don't need studies, you don't need statistics to be able to see the progress that your child makes when they go through a preschool, when they go through a childcare program. And you can see their brain literally working like sponges, absorbing the information and processing it and turning it into useful information. And I can tell you that I've seen my children, my four-and-a-half-year-old is still in pre-K and is just about to enter Kindergarten next year. And I've watched her learn her ABCs, she can count to 100, she knows every color, every shape. And had she not had an opportunity to go to a wonderful preschool program to learn those things, yes, I could have spent time with her and taught her those things, but given that I work full-time, and when I think about the hundreds of thousands, millions of parents who have to struggle with that choice, and then an administration that callously cuts those programs or flat funds them so that fewer, not more, parents have access to Head Start and child care, it's just absolutely unconscionable. I wonder if they have a soul. I wonder if there is anyone in the White House that has a soul and that has a heart. Because surely those kinds of decisions are only made by heartless people.

I am so glad to be joined by the gentlewoman from New York, a wonderful Member, Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. And I am glad that she has also joined me tonight.

Before I turn it over to her, I want to highlight a story of Jennifer from Chicago because, like I said, highlighting the stories as opposed to the studies and the stats is what really shows you the kind of impact that the policy decisions that we make up here when it comes to funding child care programs and Head Start adequately, that's what really matters.

I want to talk about Jennifer from Chicago, who was profiled in a news story on Marketplace radio. Jennifer works as a receptionist at a real estate company. She is a single mom working full-time and going to school part-time. And so many people will hear their own story in Jennifer's story.

Jennifer was doing all she could to improve her life and the life of her daughter. In fact, even though Jennifer was working full-time, raising her daughter on her own and going to school part-time, she impressed her boss so much with her work that she was given a small raise. And then, Jennifer ran into a big problem. With the raise that she got, she could no longer qualify for assistance with the Illinois child care program that she had been using. She literally had such a dramatic shift in what she had to pay for her daughter's child care, it went from $2,000 to $9,000 a year just by that small increase in her salary, and that small increase in her salary caused the $9,000 that she then had to pay, that was 40 percent of her salary, just from the small raise that she got. Her only option at that point was to send her 5-year-old daughter to live with the girl's father a couple of hours away in Indiana. So she had to either give up her job or give up her daughter. But if she gave up her job, she wouldn't be able to care for her daughter, Mr.

Speaker. So obviously this is a situation that was not working.

So Jennifer, this is just so sad, she had to go back to her boss and actually ask him for a demotion. She had to ask him to cut her pay by about $100 per paycheck so that she could be eligible for the subsidized child care again so that she could get her daughter back. That was the choice that she was faced with, and it was just awful. I can't even imagine. That meant that her income would again qualify for the child care assistance, and then she immediately applied for it.

So the transition from paying a copayment to paying the full cost of care is what Illinois Action for Children calls ``the cliff.'' People like Jennifer, they fall off the cliff. And we actually penalize people like Jennifer who work hard to try to get ahead. We tell them no, you can't work your way up.

We can't continue to hold these people back. We have got to make sure that we help these people pursue these dreams, advance themselves, be able to improve the quality of their children's education, improve their own lot in life and their family's lot in life, not give them a choice between giving up their children or pursuing a better opportunity in life.

And Ms. Clarke, the National Women's Law Center says that only one in seven U.S. children are eligible for Federal child care help; only one in seven of those kids get it. And in the view of the National Women's Law Center, all these programs for Head Start and child care have never been fully funded by the Federal Government.

I would be happy to yield to the gentlewoman. Thank you for joining us today.

Reclaiming my time, you made a reference to your mom and the wonderful quality of care that she provided to the children that she cared for over the years. And then, of course, she made hiring decisions as she moved up the ladder and became a child care director. Your comments about your mom's involvement with improving the lives of children in those programs made me think about finding the information on providers' salaries because it is horrendous that we are actually cutting the funding for these programs for the kids themselves and that only one in seven kids are eligible. But listen to the statistics about how much the providers, the teachers, are actually paid:

The average Head Start teacher's salary, and, now, that's Head Start, not child care. We are talking about two separate programs here tonight so that people understand me because these acronyms get thrown around a whole lot in Washington. We have the Head Start program, which is the high-quality education program that subsidizes and provides high- quality preschool education for young kids who are income eligible, and then there's the Child Care and Development Block Grant program, which is a subsidized child care program that is funded around the States and there's a Federal-State match for.

So the average Head Start teacher's salary varies by the teacher's education. So if you have what's called a child development associate's, which is the first rung on the ladder in terms of an education credential, not a certified teacher but you have a lot of hours of course work that you've taken, an average Head Start teacher with a CDA gets paid about $21,000. If you have an associate's degree, so now you've got a 2-year college degree, you get $22,500. If you have a baccalaureate degree, that is a full-blown college degree, you make about $27,000 in the Head Start program. Now, the average teacher's salary, who also get hired with a baccalaureate degree, is about $48,000, $49,000. So a Head Start teacher, depending on their education credential, makes between $21,000 and $27,000 a year. I mean that is just unbelievable.

Absolutely. I just wanted to insert that.

It's not that the need is not there.

Is it really that if the funding is not there, then these centers can't afford to stay open?

Absolutely. And I want to thank you so much for coming down and joining me tonight.

What we have been trying to do is highlight the consequences to these horrendous policymaking decisions. And I talked about Jennifer a few minutes ago and what her situation is like. Some of my colleagues from the various States that are represented on this chart mentioned their own States' statistics this evening. But I want to give a fuller picture of what the real consequences are to not funding adequately Head Start and Child Care and Development Block Grants. So this is what it looks like in my State, Ms. Clarke: In my State of Florida, nearly 45,000 children are standing in line for child care. In other words, we have got almost 45,000 kids in my State who are eligible for child care, but they can't get it because we're not funding it adequately, I mean simply because we are not providing enough funds.

I mean what are we spending it on? What is more important? Like you said, the gentleman that you said says the same refrain every single time, ``remember the children,'' that's what it is all about.

I remember being pregnant with my twins and people telling me throughout my pregnancy, Oh, Debbie, you're life is going to change. Just wait. You're not going to believe it. You never imagined that you could care about something so much as when you give birth to your kids. And you sort of nod and smile, and you tell them, sure, you can imagine what it's going to be like. Well, you can't imagine. You can't imagine what it's going to be like until you have them. And that's what everybody tells you. You can't imagine that you could care and love something more than when you give birth to your children. And you would do anything to make sure that they were okay, that they had the best possible life that they could have.

And when parents who are struggling to make sure that they can put food on the table, that they can pay the mortgage, not have the house foreclosed on, make sure that they can have time to go to their job, but, at the same time, have a high-quality child care situation so that they don't have to worry about the one or two or three or however many kids they have that they care more about than anything in the world, what it is this administration doing? Cutting the funding for our most precious resource.

So it's not just Florida. It's not just New York. There are 207,000 kids in California on a waiting list.

How about Georgia? Georgia, Ms. Clarke, that actually has a pre-K program funded by the lottery, which is supposed to provide a pre-K education to all the 4 year olds in that State, and there are only 6 million people in the State of Georgia as it is, there are 24,808, almost 25,000 kids on the waiting list for child care that they qualify for. In North Carolina almost 18,000 kids are on the waiting list, 15,000 in Texas, 207,000 in California. Those are kids that don't have access to child care who are eligible.

Nationwide, it is 365,604 children who are waiting in line for child care. And what do those parents do? What do they do? They have to choose between working. If they don't work, how are they going to put food on the table? How are they going to be able to live? Many of these parents have to choose between whether they are going to be able to hold on to their children or not. The angst that I feel in my heart even thinking about having to make a choice like that. There is no one that should have to make that choice. And that the government, their own government, would deprive them of the ability to care for their kids is just mind-boggling.

Absolutely. And let's show people what we mean. And I know you have seen this information before. What we are talking about, when you describe the difference between a parent who can't decide to bring their child to a child care program because there is no money, they can't afford to pay for it, the Federal Government is slashing the funding for it so they don't have a slot funded for their child, even though they are eligible, what happens, like you said, is that you have the parents who can afford it when those kids get to public school, they have already been through several years of prekindergarten, and they arrive at school and start kindergarten at 5 years old ready to learn, which is what the goal of Head Start and these child care programs is. The Federal funding that we provide is designed to make sure those children get to school ready to learn.

And this is the correlation of funding from the Federal Government for child care and Head Start and brain development. We are literally funding it in the opposite direction from the way the brain grows and develops and when we provide funding. So here is when you have the most brain growth, and the most rapid brain growth and the most important point in a child's life for that brain growth, and we are funding it the most when we are well beyond the points that the child's brain

growth has not ceased, but certainly when it has slowed.

This chart should be inversed. We should be funding the highest percentage when the child's brain is developing at its earliest point between birth and 5 years old. But we are doing the opposite. It makes absolutely no sense. It really boggles my mind.

And that hurts. We are talking about real kids. I brought pictures of real children who are impacted by these decisions because I think we have to remember what we are talking about here. So often when we have discussions on the floor here, it becomes easy to become desensitized to the fact that we are talking about real people. These are real children who are being cared for. And I am going to tell their story in a little bit. But look at these beautiful children. And this is their caregiver. And I'm going to tell their story in a couple of minutes. But I just don't think it can be forgotten that every funding cut, every decision we make like this affects one of these precious babies. And I just can't even imagine how there is no heart in the White House. Although I shouldn't be shocked after almost 8 years of this administration. It is just unbelievable. We have got to make sure, and the reason that we are here tonight during the Week of the Young Child, is we have to make sure that we push in the next fiscal year, in fiscal year 2009, for an increase in Child Care and Development Block Grant funding the Head Start program. And Democrats have been fighting to make sure that we do that. We passed a wonderful Head Start bill. We have got to make sure that we reverse the lost ground that has occurred after 7 years of flat funding from this administration.

It is the difference, literally, it's like when a baby is born, particularly to a working family that is not rolling in cash, that is literally struggling to put together their paychecks every month to meet their family's needs, it's like that baby's life begins on a crossroads. And we hold the key to which path they will end up on.

If we decide, like this administration, like the Bush administration has consistently decided during their time in office to cut the funding for child care, subsidized child care and for Head Start, then we are, not always, because there are kids that avoid it, but we are making it much more likely that the path that those kids travel down end up sending them more likely into a life of crime, potentially into an inability or decision not to graduate from high school. They end up dropping out. They make the wrong choices because they don't learn at the earliest stage how to make the right choices. They don't learn the basics. They don't have all the tools that they need to draw upon to be strong, to deal with life's challenges. This is not exaggeration. This is real.

It is. And it's hard to imagine what's more important. Should we continue to spend $14 million an hour in Iraq? Fourteen million dollars an hour is what we are spending in Iraq. Yet we can't come up with the funding that we need to make sure that all the kids in this country that are eligible for Head Start and for subsidized child care can actually go.

It is unbelievable. So we are choosing to lock kids like that up and spend more money, much more money, than we would spend on them up front to make sure that they get the education and the early start and the building blocks for success that are so much less expensive, but are also just the right thing to do. But for the accident of your birth you should not be in a situation where some kids are getting those basics and other kids are thrown to the wolves. We have these programs so that we can equalize the situation in life for Americans.

Look, we live in a capitalistic society. And that is absolutely the economy that we all support and know and revere. And it has served us well through more than 200 years. But because we live in a capitalistic society, it does not mean that we should be throwing our children, our most vulnerable, to the wolves but for the accident of their birth.

You're absolutely right. I want to tell another story and highlight the impact on another family. We talked about the Head Start program. There are also child care providers who provide wonderful service in those subsidized child care programs. And we have had frozen Child Care and Development Block Grant funding that has led to stagnant and even decreasing reimbursement rates for providers who care for those children receiving subsidies.

In 2006, only nine States paid reimbursement rates that were on par with what the Federal Government recommends. And one of those results is there's an alarming 35 percent turnover

rate for child care providers because they can't afford to continue to work in that field.

And I want to tell the story of a young woman named Kelly Matthews. Kelly is a child care provider in Iowa City, Iowa. I want to read you Kelly's story in her own words, because this is how she described her situation.

She said, ``You and I share something important in common. We both go to work each day with a grounded, deeply held belief that we do our chosen work for one very simple reason, to change the world.''

And I know how many times I have said that the reason I do this job is to make the world a better place and to change the world. Kelly is right here with her kids in her program.

She said, ``I don't work in the Halls of Congress, but in my home, caring for children in my Child Development Home in Iowa City. What other reason, aside from wishing to impact the future, could motivate someone to take on a job with modest pay, no benefits and no paid time off? This isn't about a `job' for me. This is my profession, my chosen life's work. And it is an amazing gift I am given each day to partner with the families I serve.

``I have built my childcare program around the ideas of community, caring for each other, and falling in love with learning. I love this work because I have carefully crafted a program where kids succeed in all these areas in amazing ways: When Claire (at 18 months) already knows how to comfort a friend, when Trae (at 5 years old) can easily count and set out the right number of plates for his friends at the lunch table, when Lexi (at 3 years old) works hard to write the names of the members of her family, when Gus (at 3 years old) knows how to care for his things and the things that belong to others, or when two toddlers are already capable of working out a conflict in a peaceful way without an adult's intervention,'' what I wouldn't give for that in my house, ``I know these children will be ready, not only for school, but just as importantly, for life. They will grow into adults that know how to take responsibility for themselves and how to care for others, how to problem solve and be creative in their endeavors, how to keep on trying, even when it is tricky.''

She said, ``I take this work seriously. Approximately 50 hours a week of my time with children in my home, plus all the additional hours of paperwork, supply shopping, continuing education, networking with my colleagues, and add to that total, developing and presenting hours of training to inspire other family childcare providers to constantly improve themselves and their programs. But for those of us committed to our professions and our vision of an inspired word, it is all in a day's work, isn't it?''

That is what Kelly Matthews, this wonderful woman with all her children in her program around her, had to say about her work, and it is the reason that we are standing here on the floor tonight at the beginning of the Week of the Young Child.

I am so pleased that you have been able to join me, Ms. Clarke, and I turn it over to you to close us out.

Thank you to the gentlewoman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, we think we have made a very strong case tonight at the beginning of the Week of the Young Child to make sure that there is a mandate for this Congress to increase the funding for Head Start, increase the funding for Child Care and Development Block Grants, and make sure that when those little babies are put on the crossroads of the path of their life, that we send them strongly down the right path so that they can have the best life that they can possibly have.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much to the Speaker, and we yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 48 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at 10:30 a.m., for morning-hour debate.