Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to congratulate the University of Florida Gators for winning the 2007 men's basketball NCAA championship title.

After a hard fought season and tournament, the Florida, Gator men's basketball team proved victorious, on April 2, 2007, with a dazzling 84-75 triumph over the Ohio State University Buckeyes.

I want to extend special congratulations to Florida's head coach, Billy Donovan, who trained this team to be the best in the country. All of the athletes are shining stars for the university and deserve our highest praise.

This year, the men's basketball team made history by becoming the first school to win back to back championships since 1992. The Florida Gators also maintain a record as the only university in history to win simultaneous championships in both men's basketball and football.

Florida's academic reputation is stellar, our sports teams are number one and our fans are like none other.

Madam Speaker, it is great to be a Florida Gator! Congratulations to the students, faculty, alumni, and friends of the University of Florida.

Go Gators!

Madam Speaker, on Monday and Tuesday, May 14 and 15, 2007, I was attending to personal family matters in the District. Consequently, I missed Rollcall Votes No. 342, ``To extend the District of Columbia College Access Act;'' No. 343, ``Supporting the Goals and Ideals of a National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims;'' No. 344, ``Recognizing National Americorps Week;'' No. 345, ``American Veterans Disabled for Life Commemorative Coin;'' No. 346, ``Army Specialist Joseph P. Micks Federal Flag Code Amendment Act of 2007;'' No. 347, ``John R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders Incentive Act of 2007;'' No. 348, ``COPS Improvement Act of 2007;'' and No. 349, ``Safe American Roads Act of 2007.''

If present, I would have voted ``aye'' on all matters.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in recognition of the second annual Jewish American Heritage Month, which takes place in communities across the country each May.

Jewish American Heritage Month promotes awareness of the contributions American Jews have made to the fabric of American life, from technology and literature to entertainment, politics and medicine.

As we are all well aware, the foundation of our country is built upon the strengths of our unique cultures and backgrounds. While our diversity is our strength, ignorance about many cultures is still prevalent.

Because Jews make up only 2 percent of our Nation's population, most Americans have had few interactions with Jews and Jewish culture. The limited understanding of Jewish traditions and the Jewish experience and the historical role Jews have played in our Nation's development contributes to stereotypes and prejudices about Jews and the Jewish community.

For example, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, most recent hate crime statistics report that 69 percent of criminal incidents motivated by religious bias stemmed from anti-Jewish prejudice.

Like Black History Month and Women's History Month, Jewish American Heritage Month recognizes the abundance of contributions American Jews have made to the United States over the last 353 years.

It is my hope that by providing the framework for the discussion of Jewish contributions to our Nation, we will be able to reduce the ignorance that ultimately leads to anti-Semitism. One way Jewish American Heritage Month counters these prejudices is by providing educators the opportunity to include American Jews in discussions of history, as well as highlighting the leadership of members of the Jewish community in significant historical events.

For example, it might surprise many to learn that it was an American Jew, Irving Berlin, who wrote the lyrics to the song God Bless America. Even the very foundations of our country were impacted by Jews. Haym Salomon, a Jewish man, was one of the largest financiers of the American Revolutionary War.

And Rabbi Joachim Prinz was a passionate civil rights activist, appearing on the podium just moments before Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his ``I Have a Dream'' speech. And the list goes on, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this is why communities across the country have come together to celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month. Two years ago the Jewish Community in south Florida approached me with the idea to honor the contributions of American Jews with a designated month each year. As the concept gained momentum, 250 of my colleagues joined me as original cosponsors of a resolution urging the President to issue a proclamation for this month. Senator Arlen Specter led the effort in the Senate, and together the House and Senate unanimously passed the resolution supporting the creation of Jewish American Heritage Month. President Bush proclaimed the month of May as Jewish American Heritage Month for the first time in 2006, and again issued a proclamation this year.

Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to announce that a coalition of organizations has come together to develop curriculum and coordinate events. This coalition, called the Jewish American Heritage Month Coalition, is led by United Jewish Communities, the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Jewish Archives and the Jewish Women's Archives.

The events can all be found on the national calendar of the Jewish American Heritage Month Coalition's Web site at www.JewishHeritage.us.

Mr. Speaker, I want to pause for a moment and thank this coalition for their tireless efforts to promote the outstanding events across the country. Each day in May has been packed with programs celebrating the contributions of American Jewry to our country, with movies, plays, art exhibitions, speakers, musical performances, and innovative educational curricula.

The Jewish American Heritage Month Coalition and the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington kicked off the month with a reception attended by several Members of Congress and about 200 guests.

Right here in Washington, the Library of Congress and the National Archives and Records Administration have hosted films, lectures, and discussions about Jewish contributions to America.

In my home State of Florida, there was a celebration of Jewish music and a discussion of Jewish contributions to the civil rights movement.

A New Jersey middle school hosted an essay contest entitled ``I'm Proud to be an American Jew Because . . . ''

Philadelphia hosted ``American Jewish History Through the Arts,'' a series of free programs that highlight the American Jewish experience.

And this past weekend, the New York Liberty, the women's pro basketball team, hosted the WNBA's first Jewish American Heritage Month basketball game.

Mr. Speaker, we have come a long way in recent years to promote appreciation for the multicultural fabric of the United States. It is our responsibility to continue this education. If we as a Nation are to prepare our children for the challenges that lie ahead, then teaching diversity is a fundamental part of that promise. Together, we can help achieve this goal of understanding with the celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month.

I thank my colleagues for their support and call on all Americans to observe this special month by celebrating the many contributions of Jewish culture throughout our Nation's history.

Mr. Speaker, the most important goal of the Student Loan Sunshine Act is to protect students and parents and help them receive the most affordable loan possible. With that in mind, I would like to mention that recently, a number of my colleagues and I sent a letter to Secretary Spellings regarding the urgent need to reopen the national student loan database for students and parents to receive low interest consolidation loans before the rates are changed on July 1st.

Although, we fully support new and better safeguards to protect student privacy which many student loan companies advocate, it is crucial that both students and lenders have safe and secure access to this information.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Student Loan Sunshine Act, and I congratulate Chairman Miller for bringing the principles of honest leadership to higher education financing.

The cost of higher education has increased dramatically over the past few years, making college less affordable for many families. Financial aid is an important tool in helping make the cost of college more affordable. The people and institutions that administer these loans must be held to the highest ethical standards. For most students, their college loan will be their first form of major debt after their graduation.

As we encourage financial literacy and responsibility among this generation of young people, we must ensure that students are protected. They need to understand and know that their lenders and their financial aid administrators are in their corner and that they don't have individuals that are trying to undermine them or make money on the backs of these students.

Financing a college education is dependent on industry and institutional accountability. Strict codes of conduct will ensure this accountability.

Additionally, I am also supportive of the Department of Education's efforts to install new safeguards to protect students' privacy. We need to make sure that our students can have the utmost confidence in the system that is designed to provide them the opportunity to pay off their loans after their education and go on to become productive members of our society.

Thank you so much, Mr. Altmire.

I have to tell you what a pleasure it is to have the reinforcements in you and Mr. Murphy and a number of other Members, you, Madam Speaker, to have been elected on November 7 to bolster the efforts of the 30-Something Working Group. Because we hung in there for the last couple of cycles and took to the floor every night to talk to the American people and to our colleagues on this floor about the issues that we believed were important to them that were not being addressed by our colleagues and good friends on the other side of the aisle when they were in charge.

I want to follow up on what you and Mr. Murphy have just been discussing relating to the President and his attitude. The conclusion that I have reached is that it must be that the President has contempt for the democratic process. I can't really reach any other conclusion besides that.

Because we are not a monarchy. He hopefully realizes that he was not elected king. He is not self-appointed. He is one of three branches of government that are coequal, coequal meaning we have as much say and as much right to weigh in on something as significant as whether to, A, commit our troops to war, and, B, we control the appropriations, we control the purse.

And what we believe, as Democrats, is that it is irresponsible for us to give this President a blank check and an open-ended commitment to the Iraqi government with absolutely no accountability and no requirement that there be progress forward or benchmarks met. I mean, the President must believe that we aren't listening to our constituents, or maybe he's not listening. He says he is listening. In fact, on April 24 of this year the President said this, ``Last November, the American people said they were frustrated and wanted change in our strategy in Iraq. I listened.''

Really? I have yet to see any evidence of him listening. What I have seen evidence of, and, you know, I know that I often go back to the analogy of my interaction with my own children when talking about this President, but my frustration and observation about the insolence on occasion of my own children is similar to what we have been observing from the reaction from this White House.

I really can analogize it that when I am talking to, for us as the Democratic majority in Congress, we sent him legislation in the supplemental appropriations bill that he vetoed. And I have the privilege of serving on the Appropriations Committee and served on the conference committee. We sent him the legislation with a timeline for withdrawal, with his own benchmarks as he outlined on January 10, with accountability and with protection for our troops, A, ensuring that they not have a tour of duty without a 365-day separation in between those tours, the Army's own rules. We made sure that there was $1.7 billion in funding for veterans' health care. We made sure that there was $1.7 billion in there for military health care, something that you have been incredibly concerned about, veteran and military health care, Mr. Altmire. And on and on. The issues that were, according to the President, very important to him and clearly important to the American people.

And so he vetoed that and said that there were other concerns that he had, that he didn't want his hands tied, that he wanted to have the flexibility, that he just wanted a blank check and open-ended commitment. We, being a coequal branch of government, have gone back to the drawing board. And the Democratic majority believing in compromise and a need to negotiate in good faith, we have now put forward another proposal, a proposal that is designed to address the concerns that he outlines.

And normally when you're going through a good-faith negotiation there is what's called ``back and forth,'' for example, the analogy that I began a minute ago, when my children don't like what I'm telling them, when I'm talking to my kids and I explain to them that I want them to do A and they don't want to do A, and we kind of go back and forth. And being a parent of small children, sometimes it's a dictatorship, but sometimes there's negotiation. And it always works better when you can work things out with your kids and teach them that compromise is going to get you further. But when they don't like that compromise, my kids, just like all kids, stamp their foot and whine a little bit and tell me that they don't want to do that.

That really feels like how this President has reacted to Congress' clear ability to weigh in on the direction that this war should be taking. The American people certainly have weighed in. And what I don't understand is why the President isn't willing to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. The my-way-or-the-highway attitude that he has taken is irresponsible.

What we are doing in this next proposal is we are making sure that we fully fund over the next 3 months the

funding that the troops need. We provide the President and the Army with the funding that they need, but we tie it to benchmarks, we tie it to progress. The Iraqi government cannot believe that we will be there forever.

And then we have a second vote where we would come back; and if the President can certify to us that those benchmarks are being met, then the rest of the funding would be released. If he can't certify that to us, then the funding that we would appropriate would be used to go through a redeployment process.

Because at some point the madness has to end. That is what the American people have told us when we've gone home to our districts in town halls, in e-mails, in phone calls. The President appears to have ear plugs in his ears, and it's wrong. And that's why the Founding Fathers established coequal branches of government, so that one person in the executive office, in the Oval Office could not unilaterally decide to commit our troops, to keep them there and to engage us in military action indefinitely. It's irresponsible.

Mr. Murphy.

I am really glad that you touched on that, because you read my mind. I am obviously from a State where the National Guard and its readiness is imperative. We are approaching June 1st, which is the beginning of hurricane season. It runs all the way through to the end of November. I know from conversations that I have had with our Guard leadership in Florida that a good amount of our equipment is over in Iraq still. And to make matters worse is that the equipment that has come back is in such horrendous shape that it is almost unusable.

When I had a meeting in my district office with the head of our National Guard, with the commander, this was over a year ago, he expressed that concern to me over a year ago. We can't deal with the lack of readiness in Kansas but certainly not in a State like Florida where we are in the middle of hurricane alley. And we have already had the first main storm today, three weeks before the hurricane season even begins.

So we are not just talking about the foreign policy impact, the perception of our Nation across the world or the impact on our troops. There is a domestic impact, a significant detrimental domestic impact to our inability to address where we are in this war and when it is going to end.

We have got to make sure that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi troops are in a position to stand on their own so that we can bring our troops home and deal with the domestic needs that we have in this country.

Thank you, Mr. Murphy.

You know, I really became enraged this weekend because you both have heard me refer to myself as what I am, and that is a ``minivan mom.'' I am a minivan mom, one of the millions of minivan moms that drive around my district with the kids in the back seat. And I can tell you that we, ideally, if you are a mom with little kids, would drive a smaller vehicle so that you could save gas, so that you could save money, so that you could be more energy efficient and environmentally conscious.

However, when you are traveling from soccer to baseball to dance class to school and all the things that minivan moms have to do, you need a vehicle the size of a minivan. And they are expensive to fill up. Believe me.

This weekend, we were back up, just for 87 octane, when I filled my gas tank, 87 octane in my hometown of Weston was $3.06 a gallon. The 93 octane was about $3.88. I stood there, and it had been a while since we felt the rage and actually a while since I have gotten feedback from constituents about their frustration, because, like you said, I am actually an idealist. I am not a cynic. I am not someone that believes in conspiracy theories.

There is just no question in my mind that that drop in gas prices was absolutely tied to the potential fortunes of the Republican candidates for Congress and this administration. So I am just going to say it straight out.

The only explanation other than that and the only explanation for the insensitivity on the part of the President and this White House must be that they are not filling their own tanks. Maybe their drivers are doing it for them.

I would like to take the opportunity to introduce our colleagues and the President to a gas tank. This is what they look like. And when you insert the pump into your vehicle, the indicator on the gas pump shows you how much you are paying and shows you the total at the end after you are done filling your tank.

They are not filling their own tank. That must be the only explanation why the President hasn't taken any steps to address our dependence on foreign oil, to deal with the record profits, obscene profits that the oil industry is making.

I don't understand how he could look himself in the mirror after the 2006 State of the Union which I was here for and you guys were running to join us here. I heard President Bush stand at that lectern and tell us that we must end America's addiction to foreign oil. It clearly was just words. That is what they are good at. They are good at the words. They just are not good at backing up the words with action. But we are. Here we are talking about what we need to do. I want us to share with our colleagues and other folks that might be listening what our plans are, because we are going to take some action.

We represent the folks that drive minivans around their district and drive pickup trucks and who run small businesses who need to make sure that gas prices don't cut their legs out from under their business and prevent them from being able to function. That is the reality on the ground every day.

Your gas prices go up, you have a harder time choosing to provide your employees with health insurance, you have a harder time being able to buy that piece of equipment your business needs. There is a direct result on small businesses from gas prices going up.

We are taking several significant steps. The Speaker has created a Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence. That was a controversial move but something that she felt was important because it is so critical that we address the issue of global warming and energy independence that we needed to highlight it and put it up on a pedestal and get Members to travel the world and talk about how we can move the ball down the field and address this issue.

In addition to the hearings and oversight that select committee will be doing, and that select committee will meet for a year time period because there needs to be action taken within a very short time span so we can get some results for the American people.

Also, in the Energy and Commerce Committee, we will be hearing Mr. Stupak's legislation called the Energy Price Gouging Prevention Act to immediately provide relief to consumers and prevent the oil companies from price gouging like what is clearly going on here. I mean, we cannot allow the oil industry to put our constituents on the roller coaster ride that they are clearly on right now.

We have to do a number of things. We have to set an example in this institution. Speaker Pelosi has moved forward with the Greening the Capitol Initiative. I am privileged to chair the subcommittee which will be working on a lot of the initiatives for the Greening the Capitol project.

What we will be doing is within the next 2 years, by the end of the 110th Congress, we will establish policies that will make our Capitol complex carbon neutral; and we will make sure that we set an example for businesses across the country. We have to take several major steps to provide relief and balance and focus on alternative energy research so we can truly wean ourselves off dependence from foreign oil and not just talk about it.

I am a little hot about that. I see the Speaker is standing on her feet, which means we are probably getting close to the end of our time.

I think what is important for us to emphasize in the 30-Something Working Group here is we are about action. Our Democratic leadership under Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer and Mr. Clyburn, our whip, and Mr. Emanuel, our caucus Chair, we spend a lot of time on this floor. The people who are watching see us doing a lot of talking. I mean, talk i nice, but I want us to make sure that we are getting across what we are going to be doing about this problem.

The Speaker has made a commitment that has directed the committees that are chaired by Democratic Members that, by July 4, that we will expand and extend renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives, that we will make efforts to make our Nation's farmers leaders in reducing our independence on foreign oil by promoting clean, domestically produced alternative fuels.

They do that in Brazil. Brazil has become completely independent of foreign oil. In fact, our own auto industry, our American automobile industry manufactures vehicles to be driven in Brazil because they use an ethanol-based gasoline so they can be self-sufficient. It is entirely doable.

We need to refocus, and our policies and committee hearings and legislation that will be moving through by Independence Day will move us in the direction of changing our dependence from the Middle East to the Midwest in our country.

We will also provide incentives for an energy-innovation economy that will create new jobs and efficiency measures to help consumers and small businesses reduce energy costs. And we are going to make sure that we strengthen our national commitment to energy research and development for the next generation of high-risk, high-reward energy technology.

We have an innovation agenda that was part of the New Direction for America agenda that we ran on and talked about in race after race in district after district. People want to know that it is not just words, that it is not just lips flapping up here. We are going to actually move legislation and use our congressional oversight capability and leadership on this issue so they don't hear one more quarter go by where they see record profits from the oil industry, one more quarter go by where they are on a roller coaster ride for gas prices.

We need to make sure that we help our colleagues on the other side of the

aisle and the President of this country knows what a gas tank is. Because Mr. Altmire did make reference that this is a gas tank, but this is a pretty ancient gas tank. This is a representation of a gas tank that probably dates back to the 1950s. Perhaps that is the last time that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle or the President actually used one of these. That really is, I think, the only explanation for their insensitivity.

It is our job to make sure that we move this innovation agenda forward so we can make it a priority. That is why rolling back those subsidies were part of our 6 in '06 agenda.

One of the first bills that we passed in the first 100 hours in the majority was a repeal of the subsidies that were given away to the oil industry that they literally said they did not need. How could they need them? They are sitting on piles of money, billions of dollars, and we gave them subsidies. We gave them back money that they owed us, that were royalties that we should have earned because we give them the right to drill on government-owned land.

It is just unbelievable that the priorities of the administration would be closer to the oil industry than it would be to the people. It is immoral. It really is. It is nothing short of immoral.

We have to start thinking about how the decisions we make here impact real people. We stand in this Chamber every day. And you know what happens? I was in the legislature in Florida. My district is 450 miles from the capitol in Tallahassee, and it is a lot further from Washington. It becomes really easy, I think, for a lot of the Members to forget the impact of the decisions that we make in this room on real people. You can easily become desensitized. Maybe that is what it is.

I know the President goes around the country and talks to people. But the way they set those events up for the President, as I understand it, he is isolated. They screen a lot of the people that get an opportunity to be in the room with him, if not all of them. I just don't think he hears from enough people about the true impact of his policies. It is the only explanation.

If he was really hearing what people were saying and if he was really sympathetic to the plight of people who are struggling, and not just poor people, but we are talking about middle-class people who have a job and who are, like you said, living paycheck to paycheck, and even people not living paycheck to paycheck.

Just because you can afford to pay $55 to fill up your gas tank doesn't mean it is okay. It shouldn't cost that much. It doesn't have to, and we need to make sure that our actions become reality and that we put pressure on the President to sign what we send him when we send it by Independence Day.

Just what all this boils down to for me is just one word, and that is insensitivity. I mean, there is a disconnect, which is almost a word that has almost become cliche, but a disconnect between what is really going on in the lives of the average American person and the policies that the White House and the President advance.

And that insensitivity, it is not isolated just to the price of oil. It is not isolated just to the President's believing that he is the only one that is right, and he was elected to be the decision-maker, as he said, and to heck with anyone else's opinion. The insensitivity is reflective, and it permeates every decision they make.

Let me just give you an example. I sit on the House Judiciary Committee as well, and tomorrow we have Attorney General Gonzales coming in front of our committee for our regular oversight of the Department of Justice. So the insensitivity and the tone deafness extends to even an issue like that.

The White House has defended their firings of the U.S. attorneys, essentially saying they had the right to do it, and they told us whatever reasons that they decided to release those U.S. attorneys, but they got caught in a fabrication. They got caught in a whole series of different stories that have come back to bite them.

Now we have a situation where we have an Attorney General who has completely undermined our ability and the American people's ability to have any confidence and trust in what he says. That is a pattern that exists. I mean, we talked during the campaign and during the 109th and the 108th about the culture of corruption. I mean, that is what has been hanging over this Capitol, which finally we have been able to lift it.

There are still remnants of it. We still have, sadly, a number of even our colleagues who have been accused of things and are going through investigations, but the Department of Justice and the Attorney General could have handled this U.S. attorney issue in a very simple way, a way that I do not think I could have or you could have questioned.

They had the right to decide to change who was sitting in those offices, who was serving as a U.S. attorney, and all they had to say was, we wanted to change the leadership in those eight offices. Instead, they got so caught up in telling a story that they thought was legitimate enough, that now it is not the firings, it is the coverup that is the problem. And that is what the White House does not seem to get.

We are almost talking apples and oranges. They are defending their right to have fired them. We are not disagreeing with them over their right to have fired the U.S. attorneys. We do have a serious problem, and we should have a serious problem not being able to trust that the information the administration and the Department of Justice provides to us when we ask them questions is accurate and that it is factual.

It is the trust and the violation of that trust that has been undermined for so long, and that was another result on November 7. Part of the result of the election is that the American people's confidence in their government was so badly undermined that they

wanted us to help them move in a new direction.

So it is just not isolated just to the issues we have been talking about tonight. We could go through a laundry list.

Mr. Speaker, public service is among the most noble and demanding of professions, and excellence in the delivery of public service helps to keep the city of Hollywood, Florida, strong and prosperous and a wonderful place in which to live and work.

The effectiveness and efficiency of government depends, in large measure, on public employees whose task it is to provide, on a daily basis, a broad range of services of the quality required and expected by the public. Quite often the importance of the public service that is rendered by public employees and the exemplary manner of their performance are often forgotten or overlooked.

Public employees and volunteers, through their commitment to excellence and diversity of skills, have made great contributions to the City of Hollywood in areas such as public safety; recreational activities; neighborhood revitalization; and the delivery of water, sewer, and solid waste services.

The City of Hollywood recognizes the contributions made by public employees as well as volunteers at all levels of city government and finds it fitting to set aside a special time to honor and thank these dedicated individuals who perform such vital roles.

Public Service Recognition Week is being celebrated from May 7 through May 13, 2007, and salutes approximately 1,700 City of Hollywood employees who devote their time and talents to public service and who ``do whatever it takes'' to help citizens attain a high quality of life, and the numerous volunteers who contributed approximately 22,632 hours of volunteer service.

To provide even better service to the public, the City of Hollywood has committed to an organizational cultural change to enhance customer service and employee involvement and has initiated this process through the employee-guided strategic plan created by Hollywood City Manager Cameron D. Benson, a wonderful man, I might add.

With that said, Mr. Speaker, I am honored to pay tribute to the City of

Hollywood, Florida, in its celebration of Public Service Recognition Week.

Now, Mr. Speaker, additionally, I also rise today to recognize National Safe Kids Week. This is an issue that is near and dear to my heart as a mom with three young children. This year National Safe Kids Week will be held from April 28 through May 6, 2007. That is the week that we are in now. National Safe Kids Week is a joint partnership between Safe Kids Worldwide and its founding sponsor, Johnson & Johnson. This week of public education activities has been held annually for 19 years and draws much-needed attention to accidental childhood injury, a leading killer of children 14 and under.

This year's National Safe Kids Weeks' theme is ``Make it a Safe Kids Summer.'' The start of summer is known by emergency personnel as ``trauma season'' since accidental deaths and serious injuries to children increase dramatically. An average of 17 children a day, or 2,143 children in total, died from May to August, 2004, due to injuries, many of which could have been prevented.

Safe Kids Worldwide research indicates that five of the most common causes of children's accidental injury deaths in summer are drowning, which increases 89 percent in the summer over the monthly annual average; biking, which increases 45 percent; falls, which increase 21 percent; motor vehicle passenger injuries, which increase 20 percent; pedestrian injuries, which increase 16 percent.

In fact, almost 60 percent of total children's accidental injury deaths from May to August from 2001 to 2004 came from these risk areas. Events led by Safe Kids coalitions are taking place in more than 300 communities across the Nation in order to educate parents and families about how to keep kids safe during the summer, especially when participating in these activities. As my home State of Florida, drowning prevention is an important concern of mine as a parent and as a legislator. In fact, drowning is the leading cause of unintentional injury-related death to children in the summer months in Florida.

My most rewarding victory, Mr. Speaker, came from the passage of the Florida Residential Swimming Pool Safety Act. I was honored to sponsor this law as a State legislator, which has helped to save countless numbers of children from accidental injury and drowning in Florida pools. As the majority of drownings and near drownings occur in residential swimming pools and in open water sites, I hope that more States work to address water safety in their communities.

Recently I introduced similar Federal legislation here in the House of Representatives. My legislation, the Pool & Spa Safety Act, would provide grants to States that pass such comprehensive safety laws and also support drowning prevention educational programs, among other provisions. Along with my colleague Representative Frank Wolf, we hope this bill will be passed before another ``trauma season'' occurs for our Nation's children. I encourage my colleagues to lend it their support.

I also urge my colleagues to support National Safe Kids Week and to work with your State or local Safe Kids coalition to prevent these accidental injuries to children not only in the summer months but throughout the year.

Madam Speaker, last Sunday marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, which honors the memory of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust during World War II. We are now in the midst of the Days of Remembrance established by the United States Congress as our Nation's commemoration of these victims. We remember the Holocaust so that the lessons and responsibilities left from this tragedy are not lost.

Always, but especially now, it is imperative that we remember and take action against the genocide that is currently taking place in Darfur. As we look to the past to remember those that perished at the hand of Nazi Germany, we must not forget the 2,500,000 Darfurian civilians targeted and displaced because of their ethnic or racial identity or the more than 300,000 people killed thus far. Tragically, over 1,600 villages have been destroyed by Sudanese government soldiers and government-backed militias. The growing number of destroyed homes and lives is a testament to the fact that simply remembering is not enough.

Madam Speaker, as you know, children are among the most helpless victims of any genocide. One million of the six million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust were children. Jewish children were targeted by the Nazi regime, and now the children of Darfur suffer the brutal effects that burning villages, shootings, rapes, and the search for refuge have on the youngest victims of this tragedy.

My heart is warmed by the work of grassroots organizations in South Florida and across the country that bring attention to the crisis in Darfur. We must heed the lessons of Holocaust Remembrance Day and make sure that another Holocaust never happens again. Racially inspired hatred has surfaced many times in the decades since the Holocaust, and it is our duty to stop the disaster in Darfur and make it the last genocide of the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, the Miami Herald's Broward County edition will publish the 1,130th column by writer Claire Mitchel. Claire's column, entitled ``The Third Third,'' is believed to be the longest-running, uninterrupted features column on aging in any major newspaper in America. Nothing in the last 22 years, not illness, surgery, births, deaths, computer foul-ups, vacations, hurricanes, nothing stopped Claire Mitchel from offering her unique weekly perspective on the aging of America.

Week after week, Claire's column has offered us wisdom, guidance, insight and gentle chuckles. Her book, a collection of her columns, was entitled ``Seeing the World Through Rose-Colored Bifocals.'' Tony- winning playwright Vinnette Carroll conceived a musical based on Claire's line, ``At our age, we don't buy green bananas.''

But Claire Mitchel has been far more than a columnist. She has been a public relations person who represented everyone from Ann Landers to Eleanor Roosevelt. She marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; she had her own radio show; and she was an ardent feminist before mainstream America understood what that meant.

Claire was Coordinator of Women's Concerns for Broward County's Human Relations Division for 10 years and a co-founder of the Older Women's League. She was chosen Feminist of the Year by the Broward Commission on the Status of Women and was inducted into the Broward County Women's Hall of Fame. And through it all, she has been a devoted wife and mother.

In her column, marking her 85th birthday recently, Claire offered this observation: ``Today I am a woman of 85, asking the same question everyone asks following such a statement, where did the years go? My answer is, with a lot of living.

``Each day, on each occasion, when there was a question of whether to do something, I chose yes. No regrets for what I did, just what I didn't do. When others hesitated, I volunteered. Mostly it was the right decision, leading me to an activity that I enjoyed.''

This has been the underlying message, Mr. Speaker, of each of Claire Mitchel's weekly writings for the last 22 years: keep living every day to its fullest, no matter what age you are.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I pay tribute to Claire Mitchel, whose shoulders are strong enough to have supported thousands of women by sharing with them her pearls of wisdom.

Recognizing National Women's History Month

Mr. Speaker, I also rise today in recognition of National Women's History Month as we wind down to the last day of this month on Saturday, March 31. First let me start off by saying how honored I am to be a part of the 110th Congress, which boasts 90 women Members serving in both the House and Senate.

With this year's theme of ``Generations of Women Moving History Forward,'' it is my honor to recognize some very special women in my district, the 20th Congressional District of Florida, who have done and continue to do their part to advance the women's movement.

Today I call specific attention to a particular group of women who volunteer their time at the Jack and Jill Children's Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The Jack and Jill Children's Center is a nonprofit organization that provides family-oriented, early childhood education and support to strengthen working families.

The center has a volunteer Grandparent Program, whose mission is to engage older adults in volunteer services to meet critical community needs and to enrich the lives of volunteers. Jack and Jill's grandparents have the important job of interacting with little children. Whether it is tying shoes, serving meals, patting backs at nap time, or sitting with a child and practicing writing their name, these grandparents provide each child with a special relationship that he or she may not otherwise receive.

The success of the Grandparent Program, Mr. Speaker, is attributed to its mutually beneficial nature, to both the participants and children who receive the care. Many of the programs' grandparents are working with their own grandchildren, who will grow up in a loving educational environment, fostering a stronger sense of community, work ethic and successful life.

These amazing women, Mr. Speaker, are Martha Myrick, Pearline Scott, Annie Welch, Merceline Victor, Barbara Osgood, Elizabeth Dorsey, Johnnie Daniels, Maria Morency, Margaret Lewis, and Albertha Brown. They collectively average 75 years of age and have been an active part of our south Florida community all of their lives, some of whom even attended grade school together.

By providing a better life for our Nation's working, single and low- income mothers, Jack and Jill's Grandparent Program is moving women's history forward.

Mr. Speaker, our Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, exemplifies that a woman can do a job that any man can. I thank her for her service to our Nation, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to tell America about some of the women in my district who make positive changes in the lives of others.

Thank you, Mr. Meek and Mr. Murphy, it is great to be here again.

I had an opportunity to engage in some dialogue with the caucus chairman on the Republican side, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam). I fully expected to be engaged in a point-counterpoint discussion on the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Attorney scandal, and that he would be defensive, as many of his colleagues have been. But knowing Mr. Putnam as we do, he was very frustrated. He expressed deep concern. He was beyond comprehension how the administration could have dealt with this problem in the way that they did.

I was asked how I felt about it as a member of the Judiciary Committee. Quite honestly, under normal circumstances the President does have the right to appoint and unappoint and ask for the resignation of U.S. Attorneys that serve at his pleasure. Had it been a matter of him just saying, yes, I asked for their resignation, we have some other needs, we are moving in a different direction, whatever he said, just be straight with the American people. Just be straight with the Congress. If he had said, yes, I asked for their resignation, I can do that, I am the President. Fine.

But, instead, it is fabrication, it is distortion, it is no, it was not him, it was the guy behind the tree. It was his mother. Just own up to what you did.

Now, if the problem is what you did, you asked for their resignation because they were too good at their job and they were pursuing public corruption cases against Republicans, and we have colleagues that picked up the phone and put some pressure on these U.S. Attorneys whose resignation ultimately was asked for, that is a horse of a different color.

But this would have never exploded to the level it has if they had just said, yes, we did. What I pointed out in my conversion with Mr. Putnam, in past years, and I was happy to see he was frustrated and concerned and there is bipartisan concern about the action that this administration has taken repeatedly on the war in Iraq, on the U.S. Attorney firings, and on the handling of the Valerie Plame issue, and the list goes on and on.

Had there not been Democrats in charge of the Congress, this would have been another thing that would have been swept aside. They would have moved on or waited it out. They would have squeezed their eyes tight shut and hoped that this, too, would pass.

I want to go back to my ``mom'' analogy that I had last week. It is like how I deal with my kids. I told them, as all little kids, they get nervous when they have done something wrong. Sometimes they might not be completely truthful. And I have sat them down time and again, and said, listen, honey, if you just tell me the truth right away, it is going to be easier. I might be a little mad, but I am going to be more upset if I find out you lied on top of a lie. Young kids might not completely understand this, but grownups like the President and the Attorney General can certainly understand the more you stretch the truth, because we have to be careful about the words we use here, the harder it is to remember the last one you told, the last version of the truth you told.

We absolutely have to make sure that we continue to exercise the system of checks and balances in our oversight role here. If we don't, I am really fearful about what else. And we have already seen the evidence of how far this administration will push and how obsessed they are with the notion of a unitary Executive and the concentration of power that they have tried to gather in the Executive, through signing statements which are notations, whole paragraphs and pages and pages of notations on legislation that we pass here.

We will say ``X'' must happen. And in a signing statement, the President will actually write a note that says why he doesn't have to do ``X'' even though Congress passed a law and he signed it. He has exercised more than any other President combined the so-called right to, essentially if he doesn't think a provision in the law that we have passed is constitutional, he has exercised his belief that he can ignore it or not implement it. That is what the judiciary is for.

So between signing statements and the abuse of power with the PATRIOT Act and National Security Letters and essentially not being entirely straightforward, for lack of a better term, I am coming up with a lot of adjectives and synonyms for the ``L'' word here, there is an incredible effort being made that seems to require more energy than the straight-up truth does.

That is why the oversight role is so important. If we are not here asking questions, then the administration will run rough shod over the Constitution. They have proven that.

I thank the gentleman. On Friday, what we said was no more blank checks, no more war without a strategy and a plan to get our men and women in uniform home, no more sending troops over into combat, into harm's way without the armor they need, without the preparation they need, without the rest they need. All of those items were in that Iraq War supplemental.

The alternative, what the President preferred, was just give me the money, just give me the money; do not ask me any questions. He was opposed to his own benchmarks. The benchmarks that he laid out on January 10 were in the bill, the ones that he said the Iraqi people have to meet, that the Iraqi leadership has to meet, and we added some that said, you know what, you have to make sure that you think about protecting the men and women we are sending over there.

Words are nice, but when you go, like each of us have, to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and you look those troops in the eye and you have a chance to spend some time with them, the words ring really hollow unless you know you can back those words up with some action, with some commitment, with some belief in the mission and understand how devoted these men and women are to getting the job done.

I mean, listen to some of the folks that are in that hospital, they all, to a person, have told me when I have been there, they want to go back. They want to get better, and they want to go back to join their comrades, their buddies, and help finish the job, but we have to make sure that we have their back.

As we conclude, the President is so stubborn and so ``my way or the highway,'' that his own definition of victory, the benchmarks that we have put in this bill, he is threatening to veto. That is

what is mind-boggling, even when we insert his milestones. Still, that is not acceptable.

If the gentleman would like to talk about our Web site.

Who works at the White House.

Absorbed, even, by the 30-something leadership.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 23 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Tuesday, March 27, 2007, at 10:30 a.m., for morning hour debate.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and our entire Democratic leadership for the opportunity for the 30-Something Working Group to once again come to the floor and talk about the priorities of the Democratic Caucus and the new direction for America that we are humbled to be able to lead this country in.

On November 7 of last year, the American people spoke loudly and clearly, Mr. Speaker, that it was imperative that we move this Nation in a new direction on a variety of issues, not the least of which is the direction that we are going in in this war in Iraq. And I am so proud today to be able to stand here knowing that the vote that I cast personally and that the 217 other Members that passed that legislation off this floor this afternoon cast so that we can now finally begin to ensure that our troops will have the armor that they need, the armor and equipment that they need, a plan to get them home most importantly, and to ensure that we can begin to transition in Iraq so that the Iraqi people will be able to stand on their own, run their democracy and make sure that they can focus on solving the civil war and the strife that is going on in the midst of their country, because that is essentially what we have been doing for them. What we have been doing for them that we can no longer continue to do is inserting ourselves in the middle of their chaos without plans to be able to withdraw, without a single brigade of their army completely trained to stand on their own. It is time and the American people have insisted that it is time to begin to move in the direction where we can shift the mission from combat to training, where we can focus our troops that will remain there by the end of next year on counterterrorism, on putting down the insurgency and on making sure that the Iraqi troops are well trained so that they can continue to move forward with their experiment in democracy. That is what the legislation that we passed today will do, and I am so proud of our caucus and of our colleagues and of our leadership for the work that we have done together, for the unity that we showed, for the courage that so many of our colleagues showed, Mr. Speaker. We have a very diverse caucus, a very diverse group of Democratic Members who for a variety of reasons, for a variety of soul searching were able to come together from all of the different facets of the philosophical spectrum, to come together today and pass this extremely important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have been in public office for 14 years. I have only served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 2 years, but that was one of the most emotional experiences and the most difficult experiences that I know I have gone through. And I cast that vote knowing that I had the support of my constituents, knowing and confident that my constituents want to make sure that we can bring those American troops home.

I had an opportunity to travel and spend some time with our troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center a few weeks ago before we voted on the resolution opposing the President's escalation proposal. I have said this the last few times we have talked about this on the floor. I had a chance to speak to a number of different troops individually. One young man who has stayed with me, and I think I've thought about him and his family every single day since then. As a mom with little kids, I have 7-year-old twins and a 3-year-old little girl. Almost every major vote I cast, I cast with them in mind. There is another generation of Americans who we are going to protect from that vote that we cast today. And this young man who I had a chance to meet with, he had just gotten home from his third tour of duty. Each was a year. His third tour and his 6-year-old little boy was in the room along with his wife and his little boy was so excited and just full of vibrancy and life. He shook my hand. It was just so neat to be able to talk to him. He told me that his daddy was finally going to be coming home for good, forever, in August. He had come down with a really inexplicable illness and was convalescing at Walter Reed. And when the young man told me that he had been through his third tour of duty and that his boy was 6, it was not lost on me that he had missed half of his son's life, a 6- year-old little boy with his dad gone for 3 separate years. That is just unacceptable. That is not what the procedures are supposed to require of our men and women in uniform. There is supposed to be at least 365 days of noncombat duty in between tours. The legislation that we passed today will ensure that that will happen. The legislation that we passed today will ensure that our troops have the equipment that they need. It will ensure that $1.7 billion in funding will provide the health care that our veterans need.

I listened to a lot of the speeches on the floor, almost all of them, today. What we continually heard from our friends on the other side of the aisle was almost as if maybe they didn't

read the bill, maybe they weren't paying attention, but more likely they were just being political. I heard comments about how our legislation didn't provide the equipment for the troops, when up until now it is this President, with the acknowledgment of the military leadership, that has sent our troops into harm's way without the proper training. We have the least trained, least prepared Army that we have ever had at this point, spread as thin as they possibly could be spread, and then they have the nerve on the other side of the aisle to suggest that it is us that is not providing the protection for our troops. That is ludicrous. I'm not sure whether they're not listening to their constituents when they're home or not having a chance like I did and like I know you have to sit down with troops who have been in the line of duty. Maybe they're listening with different ears or maybe more likely they're listening with a different heart, because the heart that I listened with knows that we can't allow the pointless loss of human life anymore, not for our men and women in uniform and not for the Iraqi people who are also losing their lives in the midst of chaos. If we are going to focus on the war on terror, we should be shifting our approach to the war in Afghanistan, where we provide a significant infusion of funding, badly needed funding so that we can turn Afghanistan back around.

If you recall, Mr. Speaker, after the tragedy of 9/11 and we initially went in to respond to that tragedy, to stand up for America, we went into Afghanistan and we got rid of the Taliban and we made sure that we could restore human rights in that country and we could restore the rights of women to go to school and to walk in public without a burqa and to really shine the light of freedom on a country that lived in darkness for decades. Instead, this President and this Republican leadership shifted our focus, lost our purpose, lost their way, or gave up is really a better way to put it, and invaded Iraq under false pretenses, provided this Congress, many of our colleagues who voted ``yes'' relying on the information from this administration that it was out of necessity. This wasn't a war of necessity. This was a war of choice. We don't have the luxury of going into wars of choice, Mr. Speaker, when we have wars of necessity like Afghanistan, when we have a situation like we have in Iran, where we have a leader in that country who has threatened the very existence of the State of Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East, where we have nations in the Middle East who truly want to see democracy fail. Instead, we have created an incubator for terrorism in Iraq.

I heard colleagues on the other side of the aisle speak today about how we were going to lose the war on terror if we passed this legislation today. Well, the administration has made the war on terror worse, has made the likelihood of being attacked greater by creating the cesspool that exists in that nation. We must take the steps that the legislation that I proudly supported and that you proudly supported today, that that legislation will do so that we can put some benchmarks in place, so that we can make sure, just like the President said on January 10, so that we can establish some benchmarks, make sure that the Iraqi leadership meets those benchmarks, and if they don't, then the blank check and the open-ended commitment to this pointless war will end. That is the direction that we are now moving in.

I am pleased to be joined by my good friend and neighbor from the State of Florida, my colleague, Mr. Kendrick Meek.

I wanted to take off on the point you just made about the ability we give for the President to make a decision that he thinks is in the national interest, of national security.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation provides benchmarks, the same benchmarks that this President came before the country and said were essential on January 10; that we have unit readiness; that we have a length of deployment.

We have two sets of benchmarks here. We have benchmarks that this Democratic Congress put in this legislation to make sure we can protect our troops, to make sure we weren't sending them into harm's way unprepared. Then we have benchmarks in this bill to ensure that the Iraqis meet their obligations. Those obligations, those benchmarks, are the same ones that the President indicated to the American people were essential when he spoke to the Nation on January 10.

When this Congress switched from Republican to Democrat after November 7, the main reason it happened is because the American people were sick and tired of being sick and tired. They had lost their confidence in their government. Their confidence in this Congress was badly shaken. We had scandals. We had a culture of corruption. We had a situation where the American people couldn't believe that their Congress was doing right on their behalf, and that the majority, Republican at the time, was here for the right reasons. That is why there was a wholesale shift and we won 33 seats on November 7.

We are exercising Congress's appropriate oversight role and reasserting the system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers envisioned, particularly by putting language in this bill that ensures that units have to be ready. They have to be prepared. The chief of the military department concerned has to determine that a unit is fully mission capable before it is deployed to Iraq.

The reason that I wanted to interject during Mr. Meek's remarks is because you, Mr. Meek, mentioned that the President can certify to the Congress that sending a unit into harm's way in Iraq in spite of the fact that they are not fully mission capable would be in the national interest.

He is the commander-in-chief. There is no question that the President is the commander-in-chief. But it is our responsibility as Members of Congress that we look out for the American people, specifically and especially in this case our men and women in uniform who are going over to defend this country. We provide the funding to send them over. We provide the funding to ensure that they are fully equipped and prepared. And the President should have to come back to us and say in spite of the fact that this unit, these women and men are going over there unprepared and aren't fully mission capable, it still is in the national interest to send them. That is the least that he can do.

He can maintain his role as commander-in-chief in this legislation, but he has to make sure that he is doing right by our troops, and he has to own

up to what he is doing in this legislation, including in their length of deployment.

There is a Defense Department policy, Mr. Speaker, that requires the Department of Defense to abide by its current policy, which is that you shouldn't deploy a unit to Iraq or any region more than 365 days for the Army and more than 210 days for the Marines. The President in this legislation can waive that provision too, but he has to say that it is in the national interest to do so, to send troops on another tour with less than a year's rest, less than 210 days in the case of Marines.

Again, he has to actually say to that young man, whose 6-year-old boy I met, it is okay to miss half your son's life, because we need you, it is in the national interest, instead of being able to sort of duck and cover and do it in a clandestine way without the American people really knowing and without him owning up to it.

The same with time between deployments. It requires the Defense Department, besides length of deployment, the time between deployment is essential as well. The President can waive that provision, but he has to say to the Congress that it is in the national interests to do so.

We also have benchmarks related to the Iraqi people as well. By July 1, 2007, the President has to certify that Iraq is making meaningful and substantial progress in meeting political and military benchmarks, including a militia disarmament program and a plan that equitably shares oil revenues among all Iraqis. After all, they are in the midst of civil war. They are killing each other over things like that.

The President has to certify there is progress being made. Otherwise, we are going to be there forever, with no end in sight, with no pressure on the Iraqi leadership to get the job done. Why would they feel the need to move in the direction of progress if they know that there is a never-ending, open-ended commitment for us to be there and for the money to keep flowing.

They also have to achieve political and military benchmarks. By October 1, 2007, the President has to certify that Iraqis have achieved political and military benchmarks, and if he doesn't provide that certification, then U.S. forces will begin immediate deployment completed by March 2008. There are steps toward progress that the Iraqi leadership must take or we are not going to continue to put our men and women in harm's way, and we shouldn't.

And, finally, we need to eventually end our participation in this war. Our commitment there should be finite, not open-ended. The President should not have a blank check, and this legislation that we passed today ensures that.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

You know, there are students of history, our esteemed Speaker in the Chair is a former college professor, and he certainly knows that the origin of this country was one where our Founding Fathers and the people that came before them that colonized this nation were escaping from tyranny, essentially, were escaping so that they could be free, so that they could be free from one individual telling them how their lives would be run, so they could be free from persecution about their religious choices that they made, so they could be free from taxation without representation, so that they could be free. And the reason that our democracy was set up as it is, with a Commander in Chief, with an executive as well as a legislative and judicial branch, was so that there would be a system of checks and balances.

I am baffled by our friends on the other side of the aisle when they seem to be saying that the Congress weighing in with binding legislation, with benchmarks, and with a time line so that we can ensure that there is not a never-ending commitment and a blank check being written to folks fighting a civil war in another country, our friends on the other side of the aisle seem to be saying that we should only care about the opinion of one person, the person in the White House, that the decisions that the executive of this Nation makes are the only ones that matter.

Well, if you go back to the origin of this Nation, Mr. Meek, you go back to the origin of this Nation, that is why our power was diffused. That is why our Founding Fathers created three branches of government, because they experienced the tyranny of one individual. They had decisions forced on them by a king, by a monarch, who told them exactly what was going to happen. And there was no place to turn, there was nowhere to go. Well, the American people and our men and women in uniform can turn to us because they have a Congress, they have a representative body that can rescue them when the executive makes the wrong decision, and that is what has happened here.

That is also what has happened with our veterans, Mr. Meek, because it is incredibly important that we emphasize that, while we have made some very important, significant and essential decisions about the direction that we are going to continue to go in this war in Iraq, we also made some significant decisions to help our veterans, the ones that have already fought and have come back and have been left behind, have been forgotten, the ones that this administration and the Republican leadership before us had callous disregard for.

And we are always about third-party validation in the 30-Something Working Group, so people just shouldn't take it from me or take it from you. Let's just walk through what happened before and what has happened leading up to today with the vote that we cast on this floor.

So, Mr. Speaker, before I got here, Mr. Meek, you were here, but before I got here, this is right when you got here, in January 2003, the Bush administration cut off veterans health care for 164,000 veterans. That is right in the Federal Register. It is documented on January 17, 2003.

In March of 2003, the Republican budget, crafted then by this Republican Congress at the time, cut $14 billion from veterans health care that was passed by the Congress with 199 Democrats voting against it.

In March of 2004, the Republican budget shortchanged veterans health care by $1.5 billion, and that was passed by a Congress with 201 Democrats voting against it.

Fast forward to March of 2005. President Bush shortchanged veterans health care by more than $2 billion in 2005 and cut veterans health care by $14 billion over 5 years, and that had 201 Democrats voting against it.

But that is not all. Mr. Speaker, in the summer of 2005, after Democratic pressure, the Bush administration finally acknowledged, when I got here, Mr. Speaker, the Republican administration was denying, Mr. Meek, you remember this, they were denying there was a shortfall in the Veterans Administration budget, repeatedly denying it. There were articles about the dispute. The Veterans Administration insisted there wasn't a problem; but finally in the summer of 2005, after constant pressure from the Democrats in the minority, they finally had to acknowledge that the fiscal 2006 shortfall in veterans health care totaled $2.7 billion. We had to fight all summer to fix that.

We had to do an emergency supplemental during that summer to make sure that we could fund that shortfall.

I remember when we were doing the 30-Something Working Group during that time, I remember Mr. Meek put the picture of the Secretary of the Department of the Veterans Administration up on that table there because what seemed important to the Secretary of the VA at the time was that his picture be hanging in every building run by the VA, and he was all the while denying there was a shortfall in his budget, and he couldn't adequately provide for the veterans under his care; but he was going to make darn sure his picture was hanging in every building.

In March of 2006, President Bush's budget cut veterans' funding by $6 billion over 5 years, and that was passed by a Republican-controlled Congress.

Finally, after November 7, 2006, and the American people voted for a new direction, the Democratic Congress increased the veterans' health care budget by $3.6 billion in the joint funding resolution. And in the supplemental legislation we passed, we provide an additional $1.7 billion to fund veterans' health care and to address the significant problems we have at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which were also denied and not acknowledged until the Washington Post exposed the travesty. We have since had heads roll, the Secretary of the Army, the general that headed up Walter Reed and numerous

others. The only reason we had accountability there, finally, is because we have a check and balance. We have oversight and hearings going on. Congress is asking questions. We are not allowing one person to make all of the decisions and impose them on the people that he represents. Finally.

We have locked elbows for 12 years, Mr. Meek, worked together and fought together. As we close, I was thinking as you were closing that you and I, we were born 3 weeks apart. The Vietnam war, when the Vietnam war was ending, we were less than 10 years old. We were little kids. I don't remember much about how the Vietnam War closed out, but that was the beginning part of the history lessons that we had in public school.

I remember learning about, and I have read articles and read textbooks and studied for exams learning about what happened to our men and women in uniform when they came back from that war. As they came back, they were spat upon and disrespected and unappreciated. We see sadly the results of that with so many of the homeless and mentally disabled veterans that scatter on our Mall and who stand up for the rights of veterans.

I have to tell you, I am also proud of the American people because as we grew up, and as we spent the balance of our lives until this point without there being war, that is not how our troops are treated any longer. The American people grew, and they learned, and that is what I am incredibly proud of.

I am proud that our colleagues today did two things that are important: We used our heads, and we listened with our hearts, and we will be able to bring our men and women in uniform home from this war. Until then, we will make sure that they have the funding that they need, the equipment that they deserve, and the plan to get them home.

Mr. Speaker, the 30-Something Working Group is always proud to be able to come to the floor at the pleasure of the Speaker of the House and our leadership team. If anyone wants to contact us or see any of the charts or see any of the information that we have talked about on the floor this afternoon, they can e-mail us at [email protected] or visit us at our Web site, www.speaker.gov/30something.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 3 o'clock and 24 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until Monday, March 26, 2007, at 12:30 p.m., for morning hour debate.

Thank you so much to my friend from Connecticut. It is a pleasure to join you in the 30-something Working Group once again.

And we need to remind our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, that, on November 7, the American people sent us a very loud message. They sent us a loud message that they wanted us to move this country in a new direction. We began to do that. We heard them, and we began to do that in implementing our 100 hours agenda, our Six in '06 agenda, by adopting a bill that would establish an increase in the minimum wage, by having the student loan interest rate, by making sure that we hold pharmaceutical companies' feet to the fire and ensure that, for Medicare part D prescription drug beneficiaries, that we negotiate for lower drug prices. We wanted to make sure that we expand the research into uses of alternative energy.

So what do we do? We repealed the subsidies that were given away by the Republicans to the oil industry so that we can use that money more appropriately to fund alternative energy research. We passed legislation that would implement fully the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

And, on top of that, the other piece of the new direction pie was clearly the message sent by the American people, Mr. Murphy, that they want a new direction in terms of the war in Iraq. They are sick and tired of the rubber-stamp Republican Congress that we used to have giving the President a blank check, allowing the administration to go unchecked in terms of its utter lack of accountability, allowing contracts to be let with no questions asked; no hearings during the course of the years. We have now completed 4 years of this war, and up until the time when Democrats took over this Congress no questions, no hearings about the direction that the administration was taking this country and this war. A total shift from the war of necessity, which was the war in Afghanistan, which really was in direct response and had the widespread support of the American people, that really and truly was a response to the 9/11 attack; instead, a shift to a war of choice in the war in Iraq. And that was utterly unacceptable when Congress was misled and was given a set of facts on intelligence 4 years ago, when they misled Congress into voting for this war.

Now, we are still mired in chaos there. The administration has allowed Afghanistan to descend back into chaos when we had brought them democracy, and we had beaten the Taliban, and women had been given an opportunity to have freedom. Girls could go to school again. It was a new day in Afghanistan. And that has essentially been squandered. In favor of what? In favor of civil war in Iraq? In favor of us intervening and trying to resolve a civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites that has gone on for hundreds if not 1,000 years?

When is this administration going to recognize that when we say the word, when we refer to the troops, Mr. Speaker, it is very easy to think, let's examine the term ``troops.'' I think it is very easy to look at that word and not see it in a personal way. I think that we throw the word ``troops'' around so much that we forget that troops, a troop is a person.

We are talking about individuals who are fighting for this country and who are doing their duty. And most of them that are over there are on their third tour of duty, Mr. Murphy.

I know I have told this the last few times that I have been here with my 30-something colleagues, but I went to Walter Reed. I cannot get it out of my mind, because I have two 7-year-old kids and a 3-year-old, and I can't imagine what this family has gone through.

But one of the soldiers that I visited when I went to Walter Reed before we voted on the escalation resolution and rejected the President's policy, when we voted to adopt that resolution, rejecting the President's policy on escalating this war, I went to Walter Reed before we voted on that. And one of the soldiers I met was with his wife and with his young child, who was 6 years old, this beautiful 6- year-old little boy. And that 6-year-old little boy was so excited that his dad's tour was going to be done in August, and he said, my daddy is coming home forever in August.

His dad was sick in Walter Reed. He had contracted a mysterious illness. But he had been through three tours of duty. Each were a year. And his only son, his only child was 6 years old. And that meant that he missed half of his son's life already.

So when we refer, you know, without thinking to the troops, the troops, if it is a brigade or any one of a number of military terms that we use for individual troops or a collection of troops, we are talking about people.

And if we do not make sure that this supplemental passes, the choice is a plan to get our troops home and provide them with the equipment that they need and an exit strategy and benchmarks to ensure that the we and the administration hold the Iraqi government accountable to meet those benchmarks. The alternative is a continued blank check and a directionless war that has no end in sight.

It is a pretty stark contrast. We can eventually see our way clear and had there been a light at the end of the tunnel and adopt the supplemental and, in addition to that, provide the support that our troops need, the equipment that they need, the plan to get them home, and support for our veterans, which is incredibly important; $1.7 billion in this bill for health care for our veterans.

We have this glaring, horrific problem at Walter Reed that went ignored by this administration. And thank God we had those, the heads that have rolled. But would they have rolled if Democrats weren't in charge of Congress? No. We know they wouldn't have, because, yet again another scandal would have been swept under the rug. The administration would have tried to ride it out, keep their fingers crossed, squeeze their eyes shut tight and hoped that they could endure until the next media news cycle went through.

No more, not now that we have balanced government, that we have the ability of this Congress to assert our oversight role and to reassert what the founding fathers envisioned, which was our system of checks and balances.

And I think we are all about third party validators here in the 30- Something Working Group. And I noted what this Washington Post article from Wednesday of last week, it was appropriately titled ``White House Finds Trouble Harder to Shrug Off.'' And it goes on to talk about how, in

the past, questions about its, meaning the White House's, actions might have died down without the internal administration e-mails being made public, referring to the U.S. attorney scandal.

There are many issues that would have just been swept aside by this administration in the past, allowed to occur and ignored by the then Republican leadership here. But not now that we have a democratic Congress that is going to make sure that we hold this administration's feet to the fire, and make sure that they are responsible for civil liberties for all Americans, and fiscal responsibility.

I would be happy to yield to the gentleman.

You know, you are absolutely right. And in addition to the oversight and accountability and new direction that the supplemental on Iraq seeks to provide for the direction that the actual conduct of the war is taking, it is really imperative that we focus on the portion of the bill that relates to what it does for our veterans because, clearly, this administration, and the former Republican leadership of this Congress, did a disservice to them. They spent, in the 2 years that I was here prior to your arrival, the careless disregard that I noticed for veterans coming from the former Republican leadership was just really unbelievable because so often, Mr. Speaker, I heard our colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle stand on the floor and profess undying devotion to our Nation's veterans and how it was imperative that we support them.

Well, words are nice. But that is all they were because every opportunity that our colleagues had, in the time that I was here, when I first got here as a freshman, to help our Nation's veterans, the Republicans said no. No.

In January of 2003, which is actually prior to my getting here, the Bush administration actually cut off veterans health care for 164,000 veterans. Don't believe me? You have only to look at the Federal Register to see the documentation of that.

March 2003, the Republican budget cut $14 billion from veterans health care that was passed by Congress, with 199 Democrats voting no. That was H. Con. Res. 95, vote Number 82 on March 21, 2003.

Then we moved to a year later, March 2004. One would think that the Republicans had a year to think about it and would have finally realized that it was time to stand up for our Nation's veterans. They certainly said it a lot. When it came to doing it, they fell short.

The Republican budget shortchanged veterans health care then by $1.5 billion. That was passed by Congress with 201 Democrats voting against it.

In March of 2005, another year later, President Bush's budget shortchanged veterans health care by more than $2 billion for 2005, and cut veterans health care by $14 billion over 5 years, and passed with 201 Democrats again voting against it.

Now, let's go to the summer of 2005. And I was here by then. I could not believe that this happened, because for months and months the Bush administration denied that there was a shortfall, said that there was no problem, stalled and pushed back. And finally, in summer of 2005, Mr. Murphy, after democratic pressure, the Bush administration finally had to acknowledge in Fiscal Year 2006 that there was a short fall in veterans health care that was their error of $2.7 billion. And we had to fight all summer to get it fixed and have an emergency supplemental bill just to address the shortfall. It took pressure and cajoling and shame to finally bring them to the table and get them to do that.

And then in March of 2006, President Bush's budget cut veterans funding by $6 billion, Mr. Speaker, over 5 years. That was passed by the then Republican controlled Congress.

Fast forward to January 31st of 2007. The new direction Democrats increased the VA health care budget by $3.6 billion in the joint funding resolution.

And now, I can tell you that in our supplemental that passed out of the House Appropriations Committee last Thursday, on which I sit, with none of the Republicans, zero voting for it, $1.7 billion to the request for veterans health care, including $550 million, Mr. Speaker, to address the backlog at the VA health care facilities so we can prevent similar situations like what happened at Walter Reed because certainly, if we didn't know what was going on in Walter Reed, we have to make sure we address the needs of our veterans in health care facilities across this country that are run by this administration's VA agency.

$250 million for medical administration so that we can insure we have sufficient personnel to address the rising number of veterans that are coming back from Iraq, and that we have to make sure we maintain a high level of services.

$229 million for treating the growing number of veterans. $100 million to allow the VA to contract with private mental health care providers to provide veterans, including Guard and Reserve members who so often are neglected, Mr. Murphy, with quality and timely care; and $62 million so that we can speed claims processing for returning veterans.

When I went to Walter Reed, and when I have gone home and talked to my veterans, and I know that you have experienced this too, the bureaucracy and the red tape that our veterans have to go through to get care. It is like they put roadblocks, it is like the VA and this administration puts roadblocks in front of our veterans on purpose.

It is like they delight in stalling them. I mean, it is not their money. I don't get it.

Thank you. Because now they finally have responsive government, Mr. Murphy. They finally know that the Members who represent them collectively in this Chamber, the Members that are leading this Chamber are hearing them, that it is not falling on deaf ears; that this institution is not of the special interests, for the special interests, and by the special interests any longer. Now we have restored this to actually be the people's House, and our leadership and our agenda is a reflection of the interests of the people.

And as much as they might like to say that that wasn't the case, privately in their heart of hearts when they went to sleep at night, our Republican colleagues had to lay down in the dark by themselves when they went to bed and know that they weren't addressing the needs of the American people.

I mean, I am not someone who lives and dies by polling, but look at the polling. Look at the numbers towards the end of last year and how the American people generally felt about the job that this Congress was doing. That is a reflection on all of us. It is just appalling that the American people would have confidence in the twenties in the likelihood that Congress was going to be responsive to them. They would express support for their individual Member of Congress, but collectively as an institution they have lost confidence in us.

I want to segue to the U.S. attorney matter because what you just said brought something to mind. But before I do that, I do want to throw out yet another example of the neglect, of the

just stark neglect, that this administration has and has had for our veterans. I mean, take Walter Reed. I have a timeline in front of me, a neglect timeline for the treatment of the soldiers that are housed at Walter Reed and that seek services at Walter Reed, going back to July of 2004.

First I want to just put up this Newsweek Magazine cover, Mr. Speaker. This is a young woman who clearly has lost her legs, and I think the picture speaks all that it needs to without words. But the caption on the picture on the cover of Newsweek, which was the week of March 5 of this year, says: ``Shattered in body and mind. Too many veterans are facing poor care and red tape. Why we're failing our wounded.'' And Walter Reed, there is no better example of what this article spoke to, Mr. Speaker, than the neglect timeline at Walter Reed.

If you go back to July of 2004, again, Mr. Murphy, in the summer before I was elected, you had Major General Kevin Kiley appointed Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Commander.

In mid to late 2004, you actually had our colleague from Florida (Mr. Young) and his wife stop visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration; Mr. Young, who has been a champion for veterans. Believe me when I tell you that our colleague from Florida Mr. Young is a legend, an absolute legend, that is revered in a bipartisan way in this institution. But Mr. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders, including Major General Kiley, over troubling incidents he witnessed, but was rebuffed or ignored. He said, ``When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities at Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable.'' And the source of that was the Washington Post.

November of 2005, House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, ``Veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees.''

Now, talking about closing off access to the people that we are here to serve, can you imagine that they wouldn't let veterans service organizations testify in front of the Veterans' Affairs Committee? I mean, it is just mind-boggling.

August of 2006, Army Major General George Weightman assumes command of Walter Reed, replacing Major General Kiley.

September 2006, 13 Senators, 11 Democrats and 2 Republicans, sent a letter to urge then-Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, Republican from Mississippi, and Ranking Member Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, to preserve language in the House defense appropriations bill that prohibits the U.S. Army from outsourcing 350 Federal jobs at Walter Reed. A similar provision, introduced by Senators Mikulski and Sarbanes, was defeated by a close 50-48 vote during the bill's consideration in the previous week.

Then in September 2006, Walter Reed awards a 5-year, $120 million contract to IAP Worldwide Services, which is run by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official, to replace a staff of 300 Federal employees. Halliburton again. Who headed up Halliburton, Mr. Murphy? Do you recall who headed up Halliburton?

Yes, I believe you are right. The gentleman that is currently our Vice President.

In February of 2007, just about a month ago, the number of Federal employees providing facilities management services at Walter Reed, Mr. Speaker, had dropped from 300. There were 300 Federal employees that were replaced with a $120 million private contract run by a former senior Halliburton official, and the 300 dropped to fewer than 60. The remaining 60 employees went to only 50 private workers; 300 to 50 private workers.

February 19, we know it was revealed by the Washington Post that there was an expose detailing mistreatment of veterans at housing on the grounds of Walter Reed Medical Center. And what has unfolded since then is resignations of top generals, resignations of the Secretary of the Army. Heads are rolling, Mr. Murphy, as they should be, because of the profound neglect of our wounded veterans and our veterans that need assistance from that very fine institution.

Not only did the heads roll, but it led the Appropriations Committee last week to adopt an amendment offered by my colleague who sits on my subcommittee, Mr. LaHood, to ensure that Walter Reed Army Medical Center is not closed down because not only do we need to get to the bottom of what is going on there, but we need to make sure that that institution not only continues to serve our Nation's veterans, but serves them well.

Mr. Speaker, it is essential that we honor those commitments. And I was stricken by what our colleague from Georgia said at the end of the last hour when he referenced the need to be bipartisan, to come together and work on bipartisan solutions and move forward together. I was really glad to hear him say that.

But the room was shockingly silent for the last 2 years that I served here, that there really weren't calls for bipartisanship or locking elbows together and finding the way to the best public policy on issues of mutual concern.

But be that as it may, we agree that we should move forward in a bipartisan way. And, in fact, the open government and ethics package that we adopted as part of our New Direction agenda on the first day that we were here was a commitment on the part of our leadership and on the part of our Speaker Nancy Pelosi that we would have the most inclusive, open, and honest Congress in American history. And we have steadily been doing that every single day.

Unfortunately, the administration doesn't seem to be buying into that same concept of bipartisanship. Again, very nice words are said. I have seen the President stand in the Rose Garden and stand on the South Lawn and stand in lots of different really attractive camera shots talking about the need for bipartisanship. And yet, again, when it has come to light that there was a proposal out of the White House to fire 93 U.S. attorneys and subsequently we have gone back and forth with the White House about what the actual truth behind those suggested and then eventual firing of eight of them was, we have not been able to get a straight answer.

In fact, we have had a concern that administration officials, including the Attorney General, have come before Congress and been less than forthcoming. I want to be careful about the words I choose, but it has gotten to the point where we have been told so many different things about what was behind those firings that we are at the-boy-who- cried-wolf point now.

Again, speaking as a mom, I know I have talked to my kids, and sometimes children will be less than truthful when they are concerned that they might get in trouble. I know that my kids sometimes are worried they are going to get in trouble and that the potential punishment is worse if they tell me the truth than if they kind of soft-pedal the actual facts, and maybe what happens to them will be not the worst thing. But I always find out. I always eventually know what really happened. And that is exactly what is going on here.

Any parent will tell you that they have sat their children down and counseled them, ``You know, it is always better to just tell me the truth, because I am going to find out anyway, and the consequences are going to be far worse for you when I do find out than if you were just up front with me in the beginning.''

Maybe we have to talk to the President and the White House and the administration like moms talk to their kids.

Not to be your mother or anything now, but, seriously, maybe an elementary back-to-basics conversation is what is necessary, because clearly the process that they have been taking us through has been less than honest. We have had a lot of misleading excuses.

We have reached a point, and I sit on the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Murphy, where now our subcommittee has taken the step of feeling like in order to get to the bottom of it, we had to authorize the committee to issue subpoenas to bring the Attorney General and to bring Karl Rove and the administration officials associated with this scandal, with potentially being less than truthful to this Congress, with covering up what actually happened, maybe a subpoena may be necessary.

I think that is sad and unfortunate, but we cannot have less than truth when we ask administration officials questions when they come before this institution.

I am glad about the potential for bipartisanship. During the hearing we had in Judiciary yesterday, a number of our Republican colleagues indicated they were also unhappy with what was going on with this administration. In fact, specifically on the issue of the attorney firings, one of their top leaders, another good friend from Florida, Congressman Putnam, actually said that he questioned the Attorney General's ability to continue to serve. I will quote what he said in the Washington Post.

He said, ``His ability to effectively serve the President and lead the Justice Department is greatly compromised.'' During a lunchtime interview with reporters, he said, ``I think he himself should evaluate his ability to serve as an effective Attorney General.''

We are talking about the number four ranking Republican in their leadership on that side. Believe me, I know Adam Putnam. He has served with integrity in our legislature in Florida, and does so here. If he is at that point, then you know there is something seriously wrong. There is seriously something wrong.

If the gentleman will yield for a second, when then-President Clinton did that, correct me if I am wrong, he was asking for the resignations of the Bush appointees, of the Republican appointees of his predecessor.

Now, my understanding when this scandal occurred, we are talking about a situation where the President, I believe, was considering asking for the resignation of 93 of his own U.S. attorneys. Subsequently, they decided maybe that was going a little too far, so I think the number is eight, they only fired eight.

My recollection also is that there was some interference and some questions about specific cases for each individual U.S. attorney that were raised by some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle during this process before those firings.

If the gentleman will yield, we should point out the President believes he magnanimously offered was to offer that the officials associated with this scandal to speak with, essentially, the Judiciary Committee, not under oath, that there be no transcript, and that Congress would not subsequently subpoena them.

That is when Mr. Conyers said, yes, we could just go have a drink and have that kind of private conversation which reveals nothing, which has no accountability whatsoever.

Mr. Murphy, the other thing that I think is important to note is that the first answer that we were given about why, and these people do serve at the pleasure of President. Again, that is why I drew my kid analogy. Because I never understand when I ask my kids, and, fortunately, I have very honest children, so this doesn't happen often, but little kids, when they are learning as they are growing up, they do dumb things.

What brought this to mind was the first answer that the administration gave was that, well, you know, we were concerned. We lost confidence in their ability. They weren't up to snuff, they weren't very good attorneys and they weren't doing a very good job.

As you might imagine, these are eight pretty capable people who thought they were doing a good job. When they had their ability questioned, a bunch of them got mad. We are talking about very loyal Republicans here, some who had been long-standing supporters and contributors to the Republican Party. They went out there and defended themselves and said, wait a second. I am pretty darn qualified individual. How dare you.

Then we dug a little deeper. It turns out, well, it is not that they were not qualified. It is more that they weren't aggressively pursuing Democrats who were being investigated in their jurisdiction.

The bottom line is we really don't know. And then they started pointing fingers at each other inside the administration. First, it was really Karl Rove. No, it wasn't Karl Rove, it was Harriet Miers that called for the firings.

The bottom line is to restore the confidential of the American people in their government, which is what we absolutely need to do, and that is our goal. Because it was badly shaken by the Republican leadership, we need to get to the bottom of scandals like this.

I know we are getting closer to our end time and we want to make sure we have an opportunity to encourage people, if they have any questions or want to see the charts more closely we have seen tonight, we will give out the Web site.

Or forthcoming.

It has been a pleasure to join you, Mr. Murphy. I have to tell you how thrilled I was that we expanded the 30- Something Working Group and we have now given ourselves a new chapter to talk about the issues that are important to the American people, and we have now the ability to hold the administration's feet to the fire and exercise Congress' oversight role which the Founding Fathers envisioned.

I would be happy to yield back to the gentleman to close us out.

Thank you so much to my good friend.

First, let me say that that is a beautiful orange and blue tie, Mr. Ryan, an excellent choice of colors, and coincidentally, the colors of my alma mater which, by the way, is playing in the NCAA tournament beginning tomorrow night. And who will be at the White House to celebrate the national championship in football? But I digress.

And we can talk another time about which team our team defeated in order to get there, Mr. Ryan of Ohio.

Anyway, to get back to the matter at hand, Mr. Meek referred to the fact that the 30-something Working Group was probably expected to shrivel up and die, to blow away after we won the majority, to just not re-emerge because one might think that there was no point in our continuing to exist. However, because the United States Congress and because we believe Democrats are responsible in the leadership of this Congress for accountability, we absolutely need to make sure that we use multiple facets of opportunity available to us to hold people accountable.

We had an opportunity the last number of years to use this forum to hold our good friends on the other side of the aisle accountable, yet we still need to hold this administration accountable. And Lord knows that they certainly need it, as they continue to demonstrate every single day.

And I just want to move on a little past the whistleblower act and the 104 hearings that we have had on this war in Iraq that have been scheduled since we took over the leadership of this Congress to the Attorney General, the U.S. Attorney firings that occurred in the last 10 days or so.

I just came from a House Committee on the Judiciary meeting in which we adopted legislation that will ensure that we reassert the Congress', on the Senate side, role in confirming U.S. Attorneys and restore the check and balance that used to be in place before a provision was inserted in the dead of night by the Republicans in the conference committee without any committee reviewing it whatsoever. They completely changed the way the U.S. Attorneys were confirmed. They politicized that process without any Member being able to have the opportunity to debate it in the light of day.

And clearly we can see as a result of the actions of Attorney General Gonzales and the fact that he has chosen to throw a staff person under the bus rather than have the buck stop with him, seems to be a pattern in this administration, i.e. Scooter Libby. We need to make sure that Congress reasserts our oversight role, and that is exactly what we just did in the Judiciary Committee.

But let's just recap what happened with the U.S. Attorneys. Eight U.S. Attorneys were fired. Now, the U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, and we certainly don't deny that. However, when asked, when an inquiry was made, as is the Congress' responsibility, as to why those eight U.S. Attorneys were fired, the answer that we got was, well, the eventual answer we got was that it was performance related. Well, of course the eight U.S. Attorneys took umbrage at that and some of them came forward and suggested that there were actually some lawmakers, our good friends on the other side of the aisle specifically, that called and inquired about the progress of cases against Democrats in their jurisdiction. And then coincidentally, a few weeks later those that had gotten called that weren't responsive enough seemed to have been let go.

Now, in the wake of all of this, in the wake of the Attorney General being less than factual in front of a committee of this body and in the wake of the clear difference in what he said and what actually happened, you have the chief of staff to the Attorney General who has resigned. Last week you had another individual responsible for overseeing the U.S. Attorneys resign. Now, they say that he was on his way out anyway.

But it is time, and thank God we are able to now exercise Congress' oversight role and make sure that we have some fairness, make sure that we have justice administered in the way that Americans expect it to be, and that we are not politicizing the Department of Justice or the legal process that U.S. Attorneys oversee in each of their jurisdictions. Without us pointing that out, it would normally have just been swept under the rug. The administration would have just tried to ride it out and weather the storm. But now that we have a Democratic Congress, they can't do that anymore.

They actually went farther than that. You have a former Chief of Staff of the White House, a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire, Mr. Sununu, who said, ``I think the Attorney General should be fired,'' period, dot, in the words of Mr. Meek.

Can I share a story with you? I know I have shared this with you before, but I think it's worth repeating.

Right before we debated the Iraq war resolution a couple of weeks ago, I took the opportunity to go to Walter Reed and visit our wounded soldiers, had a chance to meet with six or eight of the finest young men that I have ever encountered. One of them was a young man who suffered from an inexplicable illness and was recovering at Walter Reed.

When I met him, his wife and his 6 year-old little boy were there. The gentleman explained to me that he had been in the middle of his third tour of duty, and he had a 6 year-old little boy. Each tour was 1 year, 1 year.

Now, if you do the math, that means that he missed half of his little boy's life. The overwhelming sadness that came over me was almost too much to bear. I mean, this little boy was so sweet, his wife was so understanding, they were so committed to his dad's service, her husband's service. The little boy said to me, just spontaneously, you know, as 6 year-old little boys are, I have a 7 year-old little boy so I know, he spontaneously burst out, he knew his dad was supposed to finish his tour in August, and he was going to come home forever in August. We forget this is about families and people, and we are destroying the fabric of these families.

I am so glad that you went through those benchmarks and stressed that these were the President's benchmarks that we used. The President, on January 10, outlined the benchmarks for success, that he felt were imperative that we need.

Those were that we must give the United States the authority to pursue all extremists, we must rein in the militias and have Iraqis step up to the plate to enforce security. They have to decide how their oil revenues are going to be distributed. That is a very important benchmark that has to be accomplished, and they have to pass reconciliation initiatives to keep their country together. Their country is essentially about to fall apart. They are in the midst of civil war and are absolutely at the breaking point.

Besides those benchmarks that we had in that supplemental that we passed out of the Appropriations Committee today, and besides the incredibly necessary emergency funding that the troops need and that our veterans need, we also put provisions in that legislation to make sure that our troops can catch their breath.

I referred to that soldier who I met in Walter Reed, whose little boy just wanted him to come home, and who had missed half his little boy's life. We have soldiers, many, many soldiers, who have completed three tours of duty, are about to go on their fourth, who are deployed for 365 days and then that deployment is extended.

The language we put in that bill ensures and says to the Army that they need to make sure that those deployments are not beyond 365 days.

The President can waive that provision by submitting a report to Congress detailing why that unit's deployment is in the interest of national security. But that is the kind of accountability that we are inserting to protect our troops, to make sure that the President certifies that that deployment, that extension is absolutely essential to protect national security, despite the assessment that the unit is not fully mission capable.

Our readiness is shot. We are spread so incredibly thin, and we are talking about the impact on human beings' lives.

How about the length of deployment? The language in our bill requires the Defense Department to abide by its current policy and avoid extending the deployment of units in Iraq in excess of the 365 days. We have to make sure that those units are fully mission capable, and the time between deployments is essential as well.

The Defense Department would be required to abide by, again, its current policy and avoid sending units back into Iraq before troops get the required time out of the combat zone and training time, 365 days for the Army, and 210 days for the Marines. And the President can also waive that provision in the interest of national security. He just has to certify to Congress that that is the case.

And that is the kind of accountability that the American people insisted upon on November 7. They asked us for a new direction, in the 6 in 2006 items of our agenda that we have already passed, and they insisted that we move this war in a new direction so that there would be an end in sight, so that the President would no longer have a blank check, and so that we could make sure we could protect our men and women in uniform who are protecting us. And I would be happy to yield to the gentleman. And I am going to have to take my leave of the gentleman because I have constituents that are in town that I need to speak with. I look forward to you carrying on