Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, two weeks ago this House blocked consideration of legislation sponsored by my colleague from New York, Mrs. McCarthy, to extend the ban on the manufacture, transfer, or possession of semiautomatic assault weapons. The assault weapons ban is supported by the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, National Association of Police Organizations, American Nurses Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, Urban League, National Education Association, United Federation of Teachers, Children's Defense Fund, NAACP, Anti-Defamation League, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

The House instead today, voted to enact legislation which was introduced by a member from Indiana to get rid of the ban on firearms in the District of Columbia, against the wishes of elected Mayor, City Council, and U.S. Delegate to Congress. Federal courts have upheld the constitutionality of the DC ban.

These actions by this distinguished body distress me greatly because it was just a day ago that a 4-year-old boy was shot to death and a 7- year-old boy was injured in a shooting Monday night at the Kirwan Terrace housing community on St. Thomas in my District.

This heinous act has outraged my community which is seeking any and all assistance to prevent this kind of despicable crime, which apparently was perpetrated through the use of a high-powered firearm, from ever occurring again.

Mr. Speaker, gun violence is reaching epidemic proportions in all of our communities and this body should be doing all we can to reduce the number of guns that are available, not increasing them. I urge all my colleagues to support the Meehan discharge petition, H. Res. 769, to allow a vote on Representative Carolyn McCarthy's Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act, H.R. 2038.

We have a responsibility as leaders of our communities to do all that we can to keep our citizens safe from the ravages of crime-- particularly gun violence, such as what tragically befell four year old Leon Bowery. May he rest in peace.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) for yielding, and I want to thank him for his leadership and for bringing us here this evening. I am pleased to join him and other Members of our committee to call attention to the glaring deficiencies in homeland security, which continue to exist now more than 3 years after the attacks of 9/11, and the failures of the administration in this regard.

I do not call attention to them to cause alarm but to continue to put pressure on the administration and the Department to address what every commission or task force has told us even before that fateful day, and what polls show is the primary concern of Americans, our safety and the safety of our children, our protection from terrorism.

I am going to focus on the area of bioterrorism, and we can all agree that the threat of biological attack is a very real one.

Indeed, we have seen biologic agents used in this very building against our colleagues and those who work here. We also witnessed the differences in public health response here and in our neighboring communities, especially communities of color where several people died.

At committee meeting after committee meeting, we called the attention of this administration and the department to the fact that our public health system is inadequate in many areas; that the disparities in health care reflect this; and that many, especially in the private sector of medicine, are not trained or prepared to respond adequately in the case of an attack. Yet we still lag behind in these critical areas.

First of all, the health sector is not yet as fully incorporated as it should be in all areas of planning, and the development of systems that are important to the protection of our citizens.

Just this morning, we heard from Dr. Joseph Barbera of the George Washington University Institute for Crisis, Disaster and Risk Management, at a subcommittee hearing on the National Incident Management System, the very core of our response.

In his statement, the fact that he saw it necessary to stress to us that ``medical care necessary for a mass casualty event must be recognized as a public safety function and therefore as a governmental responsibility that is equal in importance to fire suppression, emergency medical services, public works and law enforcement,'' the fact that he had to tell us, that speaks volumes about where this expert sees our state of readiness in this critical area. It is not where it should be.

I can tell my colleagues that in too many instances, health, both public and private, are not included. This while 62 percent of emergency rooms are over capacity and public health laboratories are reportedly operating at an average of 75 percent above capacity.

The funding that this administration has supplied to address these deficiencies is far below the estimated $10 billion that is reportedly needed to

bring just the public health sector to where it needs to be. We have not begun to scratch the surface.

Another aspect of bioterrorism preparedness which this administration and the Department has failed to adequately address is the need to develop the capacity to rapidly diagnose and develop treatments for any agents that might be used.

In May, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) and I introduced the Rapid Cures Act which would promote technological advancements to reduce the time frame from several years to a few months at the most for the development of new medical countermeasures to treat or prevent disease caused by not only agents of bioterrorism but disease agents or toxins that have the potential to plague our communities today.

SARS has shown us that we cannot know or predict what will be used. In that respect, Project Bioshield is not helpful. This bill gets to the heart of the matter and develops capacity that is more of the all- hazards approach that Governor Gilmore and many others have so strongly recommended.

We need to have protection and treatment against dangerous biological agents that might be used in an attack quickly, not in the 10 or 15 years it is now estimated to take. That bill has not even had a hearing yet.

Lastly, the administration has pretty much ignored the role of the public. They have not been brought into the discussion or development of the systems to the extent they need to be.

In every town meeting that I have had, I have heard critiques of what has been promulgated, and I have been asked how they can participate in developing the preparedness and the response. We ignore them at the potential peril of all of us.

One of the most important things that is needed in a disaster or any emergency is for people to follow instructions. If they do not, they put themselves and all of us at risk.

Just in the last few weeks, we saw people who clearly knew what their instructions were out in the ocean or not evacuating their homes, and that was in a relatively familiar disaster.

To date, most of the public are unclear about what they are to do in the case of the different forms of possible terrorism attacks.

On September 14, the New York Academy of Medicine's Center for the Advancement of Collaborative Strategies in Health along with the Joint Center for Economic and Political Study released a groundbreaking report entitled Redefining Readiness: Terrorism Planning through the Eyes of the Public.

The New York Academy of Sciences found that only two-fifths of the American people would follow instructions to get vaccinated in the event of a smallpox outbreak. In addition, it stated that only three- fifths of the American people would shelter in place for as long as told in a dirty bomb explosion.

One reason for the lack of cooperation is that many people would be also worried about something other than what the planners are trying to protect them from. Three-fifths of the American people would have serious worries about the smallpox vaccine itself, and that is twice as many people as would be seriously worried about getting smallpox in the outbreak.

What we find in the case of the public is that the administration and the Department, as they have done too often in the case of first responders, have assumed that they knew what was best, or what was needed, instead of letting the people, in this case, speak for themselves, participate in the process of developing the strategies and the plan. On something this important, there must be a methodology in place to do this. Three years later, there is none.

First responders, all of them must be fully engaged in the process and so must the public.

This administration has spent too much time assembling a bureaucracy, one that does not even reflect the diversity of the country which it protects and too little time on putting the kinds of protections in place to be able to begin to claim the security high ground.

Two weeks ago, senators released a report card on this administration's progress in homeland security. While many other areas got a C to an F, bioterrorism actually got a B. The grade has to be much lower than that. Too much remains unaddressed. I would give them at best a C minus, and below average is not good enough for protecting us and our families. They have a lot more that needs to be done to ensure that we are as protected as we can be from a bioterrorism attack.

We know that there is no way to be 100 percent safe, but the White House has fought us, the Democrats particularly, on almost every step of the way to get to even where we are today. It has not provided the kind of leadership that is required, and it has certainly not lived up to its promises.

As a result, today, we are not as safe as we ought to be 3 years after that horrific wake-up call.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) for yielding to me and giving me the opportunity to be included in this special order. I thank him again for his leadership on the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4806, the Pine Springs Land Exchange takes approximately 80 acres of forest lands in the Lincoln National Forest and exchanges that for private land currently owned by Lubbock Christian University.

Currently, Lubbock Christian University operates a summer camp in New Mexico on private land adjacent to Lincoln National Forest. Their summer camp program has reached its capacity and the university desires to expand onto adjacent Forest Service lands.

In exchange for approximately 80 acres of lands adjacent to their existing camp, Lubbock Christian University will provide the Forest Service with approximately 80 acres of privately owned lands surrounded by Federal forests.

Our committee has worked hard to refine language that will make this exchange fair to the U.S. taxpayer. The bill we are considering today requires that the exchange be of equal value. If the land appraisals determine that the parcels are not of equal value, the bill provides for the equalization of values through cash payments.

We appreciate that land exchanges can often be controversial. However, we have tried very hard to ensure that this package consolidates Federal ownership in some parts of the forests while enabling Lubbock Christian University to expand its summer camp.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to work with local interests to study possible projects to stabilize groundwater levels in San Joaquin County in California.

I appreciate the efforts made by the chairman of the Committee on Resources and the author of this bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), to accommodate the concerns of neighboring water users. Section 2 of the bill was amended in committees to allow the participation of the East Bay Municipal Utility District as this project goes through the planning stages.

We have no objection to passage of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and the ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), for their support in making it possible for H.R. 3589 to get through the committee and be on the floor of the House today. I am really heartened by the support I received from both sides of the leadership and the members of my committee, the hard work of the staff, as well as from the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton), and members of the Congressional Black Caucus on this issue, which I believe to be important to the short and long term well- being of the Virgin Islands.

I want to thank the ranking member, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), for standing shoulder to shoulder with me on this issue in the face of significant opposition and insisting that my bill be a top priority of the Democratic Caucus of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, today is a day of great moment for the people of the Virgin Islands and for me because with passage of this bill we are a significant step closer to achieving a goal to put in place a mechanism to address the fiscal challenges that continue to face our territory. Many Members' districts have been in similar situations, and Members have addressed them in similar ways.

I have introduced this bill before us today, H.R. 3589, because throughout my tenure as the Representative of the people of the Virgin Islands in the House of Representatives, I have seen the territory's fiscal condition come dangerously close to collapse on several occasions.

In the absence of any similar local action being taken, I believe that the only course to reverse this trend is to create an office with the independence and the authority to help us exercise the fiscal restraint and better fiscal management of both Federal and local funds, something all of our local leadership agrees must be done.

Mr. Speaker, it has not been easy for me to watch the fiscal health of the territory steadily decline since I have been in office. Since the middle 1990s, successive administrations and legislatures have, for good reason, not been able to maintain sound fiscal management and financial policies.

While some of the reasons for this condition have been outside of our control, such as recurrent catastrophic hurricanes and the tax cuts and credits passed by Congress, much of the blame for this condition can be traced to the unfortunate reality that the territory's managers and lawmakers have not substantively addressed the imbalance between the needs and demands of the community and its revenues.

It was not, and still is not, my intention in introducing H.R. 3589 to cast aspersions on the fiscal policies of the current administration or the legislature or past ones. However, I feel very strongly that I could not sit idly by while we continue to face fiscal crisis after fiscal crisis without offering some solution to temper or soften the difficult decisions that we ourselves, not the Federal Government, have to make to get us out of this roller-coaster approach to managing our fiscal affairs.

Nevertheless, in taking this action, I was opposed by the governor and lieutenant governor, as well as my party leadership back home, who disagreed with this approach. A resolution that went so far as to condemn my action was passed by the Members of the 25th legislature, but the people of the Virgin Islands, who have long called for accountability and transparency in our government, have supported this bill strongly from the outset.

As I reflect on what led me to this point today, I am reminded of a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was brought to my attention by a local attorney, in which Dr. King said, ``The ultimate measure of a man is not where he,'' or she, I would say, ``stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand in times of challenge and controversy.''

Mr. Speaker, we are indeed facing challenging and difficult times in the Virgin Islands. The actions of those of us in leadership today will have profound effects for our future.

While H.R. 3589 will not be a panacea or solve all of our problems, it will help to keep our finances in order and prevent us from sinking further into a fiscal black hole.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I again want to thank the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo) and the gentleman from West Virginia (Ranking Member Rahall) and the staff.

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

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

(Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, before I speak to H.R. 4459, I just want to also take this opportunity to recognize the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian which will honor, memorialize, and teach the history and culture of the first people of this country and to welcome their representatives here to the Nation's Capitol.

Mr. Speaker, on H.R. 4459, many communities in California, and, in fact, throughout the Nation, are faced with the prospect of shutting down their drinking water supply wells because water has been contaminated with perchlorate or other chemicals. It is critically important we provide assistance to these communities so they can clean up their drinking water supplies.

H.R. 4459 will specifically provide assistance to communities in the Santa Clara Valley area of California. The Committee on Resources has also approved similar legislation, H.R. 4606, for Southern California, introduced by our colleague on the Committee on Resources, the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). I support both bills and I appreciate the support and leadership demonstrated by the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) on this important problem.

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

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

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

(Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased the House is considering my bill, H.R. 2663, to provide for a study to determine the feasibility and suitability of designating Castle Nugent Farms on my home island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands as a unit of the National Park System.

Castle Nugent Farms is a unique 1,350-acre property located on the southeastern shore of St. Croix. It contains natural and cultural resources which could provide an unparalleled insight into the plantation period of the Virgin Islands.

Castle Nugent Farms is presently operated as a cattle ranch by owners who are very interested in preserving and interpreting the natural and cultural resources of the area. I want to take this opportunity to commend Caroline Gasperi and her family for the stewardship of this land for more than 50 years and for her enthusiasm and dedication to this cause.

The owners are justifiably proud of their ranch which contains more than 4 miles of pristine oceanfront with a large and healthy fringing coral reef. The interior of the property consists of Caribbean dry forest and pasture lands with cultural resources from both pre- Columbian and post-European settlement. A large Danish estate house, dating to the 1730s, sits on the property. That house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

At various points in its history, Castle Nugent Farms has been operated as a cotton plantation and a sugarcane plantation. Its current use as a cattle ranch involves raising unique Senepol cattle, a breed which is well-suited to the climate and vegetation of the area.

H.R. 2663 is a noncontroversial bill. The National Park Service has no objections to the legislation, and the property's owners not only support a park study of the site but are enthusiastic about the opportunity to preserve the natural and cultural resources of the farm.

Mr. Speaker, it is my hope that the park study will provide the blueprint by which we can preserve and interpret this unique piece of island history and resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) for taking the time to personally communicate with my constituent, Mrs. Gasperi, and for his strong support and for shepherding this bill through the committee. And I thank my colleagues on the Committee on Resources for their favorable consideration of H.R. 2663 and express my wholehearted support for the adoption of this bill by the House this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

(Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, when H.R. 2966 was considered by the Committee on Resources, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the ranking member, offered a very humorous assessment of the legislation. We all enjoyed his statement's abundant use of horse terms. However, behind his humorous words, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) was pointing out there are serious problems with H.R. 2966, and I share the concern raised by the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), the Bush administration and others that the bill is unnecessary and unwise.

It is not a question of whether there should be pack and saddle animal use on public lands. Many people partake of such use, and there are many places where such use occurs on public lands. No, the real question is whether we should single out and legislatively enshrine a narrow specific recreational use into the missions of the various Federal land management agencies.

No other recreational use, whether historic or not, is enshrined in the Organic Acts of the various land management agencies. H.R. 2966 would bestow on a select group a right not enjoyed by hunters and fishermen, to name just a few. To single out pack and saddle animal use for special consideration upsets the balance that is sometimes necessary between competing uses and resource management.

The underlying problem with the bill is that it directs each land management agency to preserve and facilitate pack and saddle animal use. As the Bush administration testified, conflicts are likely to arise with such a narrow and specific mandate. Further, such a mandate creates a confusing contradiction for land managers when such use is incompatible with the respective land management agency's core mission.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is a single person in this room who believes we should ban pack and saddle animal use of public lands. With or without this legislation, it has been and will remain a recreational option on public lands. Our problem is not with that use but with the singling out of that use for special consideration in the law. When and where such use occurs are decisions best made in resource management plans, not in generic statute.

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

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

(Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3334 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to design and construct a water supply project, known as the Riverside-Corona Feeder, in Riverside, California.

This legislation also would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in a water reuse project for the city of Corona. Finally, the bill would authorize the secretary to participate in the Yucaipa Valley Regional Water Supply Renewal Project in California.

My colleague on the Republican side has explained the legislation. We have no objection.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, our system of national heritage areas, created over the last two decades, has been enormously successful. These are grassroots projects that leverage limited Federal support to develop locally funded and managed conservation and preservation programs.

Areas rich in historic and scenic resources but which might not qualify for inclusion in the National Park System receive the funding they need through the National Heritage Area Program. H.R. 3257 will authorize a study to determine whether or not the area in Ohio once known as the Western Reserve would qualify as a National Heritage Area.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is to be commended for his tireless efforts on behalf of the communities that would be included in this new area. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is a freshman member of this body, but he is already demonstrating a willingness to go to bat for communities in need of the kind of Federal support the Heritage Area Program can provide. We look forward to working with him to create the Western Reserve Heritage Area should the study we are authorizing today support such a move.

The gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) and I congratulate the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) on this important legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3257.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

(Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, this is a technical matter that will clear title to property owned by several of the gentleman from California's (Chairman Pombo) constituents. The cloud on their title arises out of Federal rights-of-way granted more than a century ago. It is unfortunate that Federal legislation is required to resolve this issue, but there is no other solution.

I join the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall), ranking Democrat, in commending the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo) for his work on this bill. While this is a simply technical matter, working to address the problems facing our districts one constituent at a time is the essence of our job as Representatives. We urge our colleagues to support the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo) as he works on behalf of these land owners.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3632, as amended, today by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.

As amended, H.R. 3632 is a combination of several bills reported by the Committee on the Judiciary after full consideration. I believe this amalgam of bills is largely noncontroversial and thus ask my colleagues to join me in supporting its passage.

Title I is designed to deter counterfeiting of U.S. copyrighted works. Such counterfeiting is an enormous and growing problem. It costs U.S. software companies alone approximately $11 billion a year and, as a result, costs the U.S. economy thousands of high-tech jobs in the software industry. The impact on other American copyright holders is equally devastating.

Recent events have underscored the scope of the counterfeiting problem as well as the need for title I of this bill. Just last week, a Los Angeles grand jury indicted 11 individuals for conspiring to distribute more than $30 million of counterfeit software. The counterfeiting ring possessed 15,929 genuine stand-alone certificates of authenticity. Those known as COAs are authentication features, like holograms, used to distinguish genuine goods.

Because many COAs are difficult to convincingly reproduce, counterfeiters have become an eager and lucrative market for misappropriated, genuine COAs. And, in fact, the COAs seized last week have an estimated retail value of approximately $1.7 million.

While current law prohibits trafficking in counterfeit software and fake COAs, it provides no sanction against the traffic in genuine COAs. Thus the counterfeiting ring busted last week will escape liability for the almost 20,000 genuine COAs they misappropriated.

Title I remedies this situation. It expands the current prohibitions on trafficking and labels to include genuine labeling components, such as certificates of authenticity.

Title II of the bill before us contains the provisions of H.R. 3754, a largely uncontroversial bill reported out by the Committee on the Judiciary on a voice vote in June of this year. Title II is designed to improve the accuracy and completeness of the Whois database by providing additional civil and criminal remedies for domain name fraud.

The Whois database contains the names, street and e-mail addresses and other contact information of domain name registrants. While all domain name registrants are required to submit information for the Whois database, there are no processes to ensure that this information is either accurate or complete. Inaccurate Whois data hampers law enforcement investigations, facilitates consumer fraud, impairs copyright and trademark protection, imperils computer security, enables identity theft and weakens privacy protection efforts.

Title II seeks to rectify this growing problem through narrow amendments to current law. Title II provides a rebuttable presumption of willfulness with regard to a civil trademark or copyright infringement, if in connection with the infringement the infringer registers a domain name with materially false contact information. Additionally, the bill increases the maximum possible imprisonment for a Federal felony offense when the offender knowingly provided materially false domain name contact information in connection with the offense.

Title III contains the text of H.R. 112 and H.R. 4646, two minor and entirely non-controversial bills previously reported by the Committee on the Judiciary. Section 301 adds Colorado Springs as a place of holding court in the District of Colorado. Section 302 adds Plattsburgh as a place of holding court in the Northern District of New York. Both changes were requested by their respective Congressional delegations and have been supported by the administrative office of the U.S. courts.

Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the legislation before us today. Recent technological advances have made it all too easy for modern day, high-tech peeping toms to recklessly infringe on the privacy rights of many unsuspecting individuals.

The Video Voyeurism Protection Act of 2003 attempts to bring an end to this disturbing phenomenon by making it a crime to secretly take pictures of someone in a State of undress. Specifically, the bill prohibits the use of certain devices to videotape, photograph or record the genitals, pubic area, buttocks or breast of an individual without that individual's consent.

Second, the bill guarantees that perpetrators of video voyeurism will be punished by imposing a sentence of fine or imprisonment for up to 1 year.

Video voyeurism is a serious crime, the extent of which has been greatly exacerbated by the Internet. Because of Internet technology, the pictures that a voyeur captures can be disseminated to a worldwide audience in a matter of seconds. As a result, individuals in the victims rights' community have labeled video voyeurism ``the new frontier of stalking.''

Finally, I would like to commend Senators Leahy, Schumer and DeWine for taking the lead on this important issue and for making sure that it remains at the forefront of public debate. By all accounts, this bill is truly a worthwhile endeavor. I strongly urge my colleagues to lend their support this sensible piece of legislation.

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

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

Although I would rather be here to support the SBA reauthorization, I rise today in support of H.R. 5008, which would simply, once again, extend the important programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5008 marks the fourth extension of the SBA programs. The House Committee on Small Business passed the extension on the SBA programs with bipartisan support a year ago. I want to take this opportunity to commend the leadership of our ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez), and our chairman for their strong leadership and their bipartisanship in working on that reauthorization.

Yet, the House leadership has failed to bring this bill to the floor for a vote. Why?

The leadership in this and the other body give a lot of lip service to small business. We constantly tout them as the backbone and the engines of our economy. Yet, on legislation as critical to their and, thus, our Nation's well-being as the reauthorization of programs on which they depend, this Congress has, once again, failed to act.

It is getting late in the year. Our small businesses cannot wait. They need security now. They need the assurance that the programs they will need to continue will be there now. They need to know what to expect, and we need to stop these stop-gap measures and give them that security and that assurance.

I am particularly concerned because I have heard Members ask, Why should we continue to fund agencies and programs that have not been reauthorized?

Mr. Speaker, actions speak louder than words. Failure to act on this legislation is sending the message that our Nation's small businesses are not a priority for this administration. But they are very important to both the Democrats and the Republicans on the committee.

It is also of great concern that this bill fails to address the current problem of high fees associated with the 7(a) program, the flagship lending program for the Small Business Administration. If the leadership fails to bring the reauthorization to a vote by the end of this month, the 7(a) lending program will once again be in jeopardy.

It is a good thing that, in our districts, the agencies charged with supporting small businesses are doing what they need to do. On that positive note, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize and congratulate the University of the Virgin Islands Small Business Development Center, the university president, Dr. Laverne Ragster, and the SBDC director, Mr. Warren Bush, for successfully hosting its Small Business Innovation Research Program and Small Business Technology Transfer Program Orientation Conference last week.

Finally, on a bill previously before this body today, I want to take this opportunity to also join my colleagues in supporting House Resolution 717 and belatedly extend, on behalf of all of my constituents in the U.S. Virgin Islands, our best wishes to President Bill Clinton on his 58th birthday, as well as to wish him a continued speedy recovery, many, many more birthdays and good health and happiness, and God's richest blessings on him and his family.

Mr. Chairman, I join my colleagues today in opposition to H.R. 5006, the LHHS appropriation bill. We know that Congress has many priorities to consider during this fiscal year. And we implore Congress to make eliminating health and healthcare disparities top priorities. This HHS bill, unfortunately, does not contain such investment in the health and welfare of Americans nor does it demonstrate unwavering commitment to well-being of our citizens, including those most in need. With this bill, it is clear that the Republicans do not see America's greatest asset is its people, and refuse to invest in making its people as strong and healthy as possible.

Let me say at the outset, Mr. Chairman, that this great country of ours ranks at the bottom of all of the industrialized countries of the world with regard to the quality of our health care system, we are not where we should be given our resources in infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, immunization, substance abuse and many of the major diseases. In most cases the reason is because more than one third of our population remains outside of the healthcare mainstream.

Today almost 45 million Americans are uninsured, of which 50 percent are minorities: 18 percent of the total elderly population has no coverage at all; 1 out of 6 Americans does not have health insurance; more than 100,000 people lose their health insurance every day; and an astounding 23 percent of African Americans have no insurance at all.

Our health care system in this country is currently in peril. It is falling short on promise and contributing to the disabling illness and premature death of the people it is supposed to serve. The picture is the worst for African Americans who for almost every illness are impacted most severely and disproportionately--in some cases more than all other minorities combined. Every day in this country

there are at least 200 African American deaths, which could have been prevented. Today we know that must of it happens because even when we have access to care, the medical evaluations and treatments that are made available to everyone else are denied to us--not only in the private sector but in the public system as well.

What I am here to try to do today is to leave you with one indelible message: that there are gross inequities in healthcare which cause hundreds of preventable deaths in the African American community every day and which tear at families, drain the lifeblood of our communities, and breed an escalating and reverberating cycle of despair which this subcommittee has the power to end this today if it has the will to do so.

The choice if it can be considered that, is either to write off human beings--our brothers and sisters--who make up this segment of our population, or to make the requisite investment in fixing an inadequate, discriminating, dysfunctional health care system.

The current strongly held-to ``cost-containment'' paradigm, while it sounds good on the surface, has obviously not worked. We now have double digit increases in premiums in an industry that was to rein in its costs. What it did instead was create a multi-tiered system of care, both within managed care and without. Those at the lowest rungs of the system got sicker, the sicker, i.e. more costly, were and still are being dropped, and those who were the sickest were and remain locked out entirely. So not only are health care costs continuing to escalate, the overall health picture in this country is worse than ever.

What we now have is a system, which continues the failed paradigm in which African Americans and other people of color who because they have long been denied access to quality health care, now experience the very worst health status. Not doing what is needed to change this is to threaten the health of not just African Americans and other people of color but every other person in this country, especially at a time when we live under the cloud of possible bioterrorism.

Controlling the cost of health care, which can only be done in the long term, will never be achieved without a major investment in prevention, and leveling the health care playing field for all Americans through fully funding a health care system that provides equal access to quality, comprehensive health care to everyone legally in this country, regardless of color, ethnicity or language.

The funding requests I am outlining today are the bare minimum to ensure that our children have the opportunity for good health, that there are health care professionals who can bridge the race, ethnicity and language gaps to bring wellness within reach of our now sick and dying communities, that states and communities will receive the help to fill the gaps and repair the deficiencies of access and services, and which will enable the affected communities themselves to take ownership of the problems as well as the solutions to their increasing healthcare crisis--a crisis that threatens the health and security of all Americans. Yet this bill fails to even meet this baseline obligation.

If we have learned nothing in the last 10 years, we should have learned that cost containment strategies in our unequal system of care can never bring down healthcare costs. We can only ensure that quality health care will be within the reach of future generations if we make a major investment in prevention and increasing access to care now.

On March 20, 2002, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a landmark report entitled: Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care which was requested by Congressman Jackson. Among other key findings, the report documented that minorities in the United States receive fewer life-prolonging cardiac medications and surgeries, are less likely to receive dialysis and kidney transplants, and are less likely to receive adequate treatment for pain. Its first and most telling finding states that ``racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare exist and, because they are associated with worse outcomes in many cases, are unacceptable.''

And so I urge the committee to give serious and favorable consideration to our funding requests. Because of time limitations, let me focus on just a few areas contained in the request:

Sixty-six million dollars for the Office of Minority Health, OS,

Mr. Chairman, I rise to urge my colleague to oppose the previous question on H.R. 5006, the FY 2005 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill in order that we could get an opportunity to debate an amendment by Ranking Member Obey which the majority on the Rules Committee refused to make in order. The Obey amendment would add $7.4 billion to the GOP bill, paid for by reducing the average tax cut for millionaires in FY 2005 from $127,000 to $89,000.

As a physician and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus' Health Braintrust, I am particularly supportive of the amendment's proposed to add additional funds for health care. The amendment would increase health care and funding by $1.1 billion, including providing $500 million for critical investments in medical research at NIH; providing $333 million for maintaining access to health care, including restoring the Community Acess Program for the Uninsured, eliminated by the Republican bill, increasing funding for rural health, and increasing funding for the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant and Healthy Start; and providing $100 million for childhood immunization and infectious disease programs.

Conversely, the majority bill shortchanges health care programs in some critical ways. It cuts rural health care activities by 21 percent from FY 2004. It cuts helath care professions trading by 8 percent. It cuts public and preventative health activities by 18 percent. And it only provides a piddling 4.6 percent increase in HIV/AIDS programs for the second year in a row.

My colleagues the majority bill clearly demonstrates that their rhetoric about supporting the middle class and families are not reflected in the legislation they propose. Democrats on the other hand have consistently fought on behalf of programs that would strengthen the middle class and families.

I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and support the Obey substitute.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to join my colleagues Madeleine Bordallo and Eni Faleomavaega in strong support of our amendment to provide some additional relief to our constituents in the form of additional health care dollars. It remains a national shame in my view, that because of where they live, my low-income and indigent constituents, as well as those of my colleagues, are not able to receive the same level of Medicaid assistance because of a punitive cap.

My colleagues, while the national per capita expenditure for Medicaid is $3862, the expenditure for the Virgin Islands is only $436. The total cost of Medicaid in the Virgin Islands is about $15 million per year but the Federal government only covers about $6 million of that amount. According to the Virgin Islands Medicaid Director, the 18,000 Medicaid recipients she serves receive an absolute ``bare bones'' service.

Mr. Chairman, a report 3 years ago entitled the Access Improvement Project of the Virgin Islands, revealed that great disparities exist for eligible children in the Virgin Islands compared to the continental United States. The report shows that while the Nation as a whole spends an average of $76 for EPSDT screening per Medicaid eligible child, the U.S. Virgin Islands only spent $1.20. Additionally, the total Medicaid expenditures per child also shows an astonishing disparity.

In the age group 15 to 20, national Medicaid expenditures were approximately 599 percent more than what is being spent in the Virgin Islands. We also received a 50 percent match, despite a State like Mississippi where the average income is $1,500 higher than ours. They receive 80 percent match. And the Virgin Islands Medicaid program cannot provide wheelchairs, hearing aids or prosthetic devices, and only provides physical and occupational therapy to a limited degree because of the limited funding.

Mr. Chairman, this modest amendment which we are offering today, would provide a one time 25 percent increase in Medicaid payments to the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa so that our most vulnerable constituents could receive better health care services which they otherwise would have to do without because of our already overburdened local governments.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Point of Order