Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding me time.

I want to focus on just one deficiency in this bill. I, too, am sorry that the Olver amendment was not made in order.

I want to focus for a minute on what would have happened with Amtrak. It is interesting that we have some in this Chamber who have an almost theological zeal to eliminate national rail passenger service in the United States, leaving us the only major country in the world, in fact, almost all the minor countries have national rail passenger service.

This is not about cost effectiveness. This is made repeatedly clear since I have been in Congress this year. We are going to be giving about $14 billion for airport construction, $11 billion for air traffic control. We gave $15 billion in the aftermath of 9-11 in grant and loans, this to an industry, the air passenger industry, that in its 75- year history has shown a total net profit of zero. Actually, given the performance of the last couple of years, it is less than zero. But Congress lavishes support on air traffic but it is not about to help rail passenger service.

That is particularly ironic because rail passenger service is 38 percent more energy efficient than air travel. It is six to seven times cheaper to upgrade track than build new highways. And, in fact, rail passenger service provides some competition for hard-to-serve communities. This competition holds down the price of airline tickets which would skyrocket, if people did not have a rail passenger alternative.

I am pleased that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) of the majority and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) are going to bring forward an amendment to partially restore funding. I strongly urge my colleagues to support it. Instead of dismantling and starving Amtrak, we should build on our 150-year rail passenger investment.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy and extend my appreciation to the Chair and Ranking Member for the work they have done. I feel, considering the modest allocation that they were given, they have managed to fashion a solid piece of legislation.

Ironically, we only give 0.16 percent of our Gross National Product to development assistance, even though ironically, most Americans think we give far more.

I wanted to make four brief points, if I could. I wanted to thank them for earmarking $50,000 for increasing access to clean water in Africa. We are going forward tomorrow in the Committee on International Relations to explore opportunities to increase this in terms of authorization, but I think we are making an important step in the right direction.

I also appreciate the report language explaining concern over USAID's urban programs.

Mr. Chairman, the CIA's Outlook 2015 that looked at threats to the United States pointed out that the rapid urbanization in the developing world was one of the top seven security concerns for our country. For the first time in human history, a majority of people live in cities, with a million people a week moving to cities in the developing world, a million new people a week in areas that are greatly stressed.

Yet despite this, our country's USAID investment in urban programs is in continued decline. I appreciate the committee's spotlighting this, and I hope that we can work together to reverse this unfortunate trend.

I appreciate the colloquy that occurred earlier on the Global Environmental Facility, the GEF, that has funded over 1,000 projects in 160 countries. I think these innovative approaches to environmental challenges that can be replicated elsewhere and financed on a larger scale by non-GEF sources is very important.

I appreciate the difficulty. I know we have got a long way to go with this bill. I appreciate your efforts and would do anything I could because every dollar that we spend on GEF leverages 15 in funding from other sources in some of the most vulnerable areas of our country.

I appreciate your work. I appreciate the courtesy in permitting me to speak on this. I opted not to offer up amendments because, frankly, I could not see ways to repackage what you have done. I hope in the future we will have more leverage, more running room. But in the meantime, I appreciate your efforts; and I will support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing a resolution to honor the 150th anniversary of the 1855 treaties signed between the Native American Tribes of the Pacific Northwest and the United States of America.

This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of the treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon, one of the many important treaties signed in 1855. The treaty emerged as a solution to tensions growing between the thousands of settlers flooding through the Columbia River region in the mid-19th century and the tribes that had inhabited the area for countless generations. By 1852, more than 12,000 white immigrants were journeying through the territory each year. Although most continued westward, the portion of settlers who chose to remain in the region eventually claimed Indian lands as their own. To settle the dispute, the Department of lndian Affairs for the Oregon Territory began work on the 1855 treaty.

The Treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon ceded 10 million acres of Indian land to the United States government, including what have since become Wasco, Sherman, Hood River, Gilliam, Jefferson, Crook, Wheeler, Deshutes, Clackamas, Grant, Marion, and Morrow counties. The Tribes of Middle Oregon Treaties, were signed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Confederated Tribes of Umatilla, Deschutes, Walla Walla, Tenino, and Wasco.

These treaties helped guide and shape the management of land, water, wildlife, and fisheries of the Pacific Northwest now and into the future. These treaties were understood by their signers to ensure the unique quality of life of the native people in Middle Oregon. Unfortunately, the United States' history of honoring its commitments to Native Americans leaves much to be desired.

In honor of the anniversary of these treaties, we should reaffirm and support the promises made 150 years ago between the Pacific Northwest tribes and the United States of America. Together we have a rich legacy and a bright future to protect, and I urge my colleagues in joining me in supporting this resolution.

Mr. Chairman, the fiscal year 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill is one of the most important bills for shaping our domestic priorities. Unfortunately the bill before this Congress imposes draconian cuts to the essential services that Americans rely on everyday.

The $1.2 billion cuts spread throughout these agencies will be devastating to the future of our Nation. I am astonished to see that the Department of Education will see its smallest increase in a decade, which comes at a time when school districts across the Nation are struggling to come up with adequate funding to address the unfunded mandates of President Bush's No Child Left Behind. This is the wrong kind of message to be sending to our children and teachers.

The one positive point during this debate was the passage of the amendment to restore the $100 million cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This vote signaled the bipartisan support that can be rallied to overrule the ideologically driven agenda of some in Congress. Millions of people across the country contacted Congress this week in support of CPB and the overwhelming vote in favor of the amendment to restore funding (284-140, 87 Republican and every Democrat in support) is an indication of the more reasonable approach the country expects from Congress.

Unfortunately, this bill eliminates 48 programs and slashes funding for critical programs across the country. I will not support a bill that falls so short in meeting America's needs, in fact, creates more disparities. We must do better to address the obligations we have to the people of this country.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, June 16 and Friday, June 17, 2004, I was not present for votes because I was testifying before a Base Closure and Realignment Commission hearing in Portland. Had I been present for the following votes, I would have voted as follows:

Rollcall Vote 270: I would have voted ``aye'' on the King (NY) Amendment to deny immunity to any U.N. Official who is under investigation or charged with a criminal offense because a person should not avoid investigation for a serious criminal offense because they are a United Nations employee.

Rollcall Vote 271: I would have voted ``aye'' on the Poe Amendment requiring OMB to submit a report on U.S. contributions to the U.N. because it would improve the ability of Congress to carry out its oversight responsibility.

Rollcall Vote 272: I would have voted ``aye'' on the Cantor Amendment to deny Iran nuclear materials and assistance because I am greatly concerned about Iran's efforts to develop nuclear weapons and support international efforts to prevent that.

Rollcall Vote 273: I would have voted ``no'' on tabling the Nadler Resolution because I believe Congress needs to provide stronger oversight in a bipartisan fashion and take a serious look at the PATRIOT Act.

Rollcall Vote 274: I would have voted ``aye'' on the Royce Amendment prohibiting the elimination of single-country human rights resolutions because, while I oppose mandatory withholding of dues, the U.N. needs to be a credible voice for human rights and I believe that this requirement is achievable.

Rollcall Vote 275: I would have voted ``no'' on the Fortenberry Amendment to ensure the formal adoption and implementation of mechanisms to: (1) Suspend the membership of a Member State if it is engaged or complicit in acts of genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity; (2) impose an arms and trade embargo, travel restrictions and asset freeze upon groups or individuals responsible for such acts; (3) deploy a U.N. peacekeeping operation from an international or regional organization; (4) deploy monitors from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees to the area where such acts are occurring; and (5) authorize the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into such acts as part of the certification and withholding process because,

while I support the goals of the amendment, implementing these reforms would require a consensus of all U.N. member states, thus giving North Korea or Iran the ability to determine whether the U.S. withholds dues and cripples the U.N.

Rollcall Vote 276: I would have voted ``no'' on the Flake Amendment requiring the U.N. to release documents related to the Oil-for-Food Program and waive immunity for U.N. officials in connection with the program, as part of the certification and withholding process since it is not a compelling enough reason to add to the certification and withholding process, which I oppose.

Rollcall Vote 277: I would have voted ``aye'' on the Chabot/Lantos Amendment opposing anti-Semitism at the U.N. because I share this concern and, while I oppose mandatory withholding of dues, this amendment places requirements on the President, not the United Nations.

Rollcall Vote 278: I would have voted ``no'' on the Pence Amendment to try and deny the veto to any U.N. Security Council permanent member who pays less than \1/5\ the level of U.S. dues because it would weaken the veto which, while often abused, is the best guarantor that the U.N. will act in the United States' interests.

Rollcall Vote 279: I would have voted ``no'' on the Gohmert Amendment to prohibit assistance to any country who votes with the U.S. at the U.N. less than 50% of the time because many of our closest allies and countries most in need of assistance often oppose the United States' position at the U.N., at times with serious justification.

Rollcall Vote 280: I would have voted ``no'' on the Stearns Amendment to increase withholding from 50 percent to 75 percent because I believe that, if any withholding of dues is counterproductive to U.N. reform, more withholding of dues is more counterproductive.

Rollcall Vote 281: I would have voted ``aye'' on the bipartisan Lantos-Shays Amendment in the nature of a substitute which authorizes, but does not mandate, withholding of dues because it provides flexibility to the Secretary of State in promoting an agenda of U.N. reform.

Rollcall Vote 282: I would have voted ``no'' on final passage of H.R. 2745 because I oppose mandatory withholding of U.N. dues. I believe we should have come up with a bipartisan bill that reflects the conclusions of the Gingrich-Mitchell Task Force, that supports efforts underway at the United Nations to reform, and pushes those reforms to be real and prompt, instead of taking this highly partisan bill, which the Bush Administration and U.N. experts from all political beliefs say will alienate our pro-reform allies and make reform less likely, not more.

Mr. Speaker, this weekend marks the 150th anniversary of the Treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon and today I have introduced legislation to commemorate that event. There were a number of important treaties signed in 1855 which included the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla and ultimately the Warm Springs. These treaties helped guide and shape the management of land, water, wildlife and fisheries of the Pacific Northwest now and into the future. The treaties were understood by their signers to ensure the unique quality of life of native peoples in middle Oregon.

Unfortunately, the United States' history of honoring its commitments to Native Americans leaves much to be desired. In honor of the anniversary of these treaties, we should reaffirm and support the promises made 150 years ago between the Pacific Northwest tribes and the United States of America. Together, we have a rich legacy and a bright future to protect, and I urge my colleagues in joining me in supporting this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's courtesy. I rise in opposition to the rule and to the bill. I have many concerns, but one of the most fundamental deals with the treatment of public broadcasting. Public broadcasting, is America's voice. It is our window on public affairs, culture, children's programming and education, enjoyed by 80 million viewers a week and over 30 million listeners on NPR, and one of the last locally owned media voices in America. I worked hard over the last couple of weeks to avoid a partisan showdown over this bill, but here we are.

What does it say about America's priorities that we are cutting public broadcasting over 40 percent from the current year's spending level to help achieve the overall 1 percent target reduction in the bill of over $140 billion, a self-imposed straitjacket by the Republican majority? The committee actually tried at first to eliminate altogether future funding which has luckily been beaten back, at least for the time being. But I would urge each of my colleagues to look at the committee report, at the estimated allocations for public television and radio stations that are listed on pages 315 to 327 to look at the damage.

Ironically, in States that are rural like mine that have large rural areas, small towns, this damage is understated, because the big cities will always have public broadcasting, although it will be hurt under this bill; but small town America, rural America, that do not have the resources to make up for it and are much more expensive to receive broadcasting, they face elimination, and it is outrageous.

I am pleased that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is coming forward with an amendment. I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get real about what America wants and America needs. This is one thing we ought to come together and fix.

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy.

Mr. Chairman, I listened to my friend from Oklahoma talk about public broadcasting, flush with money, lots of other free choices, and that the quality of public broadcasting does not distinguish it from others. I would suggest strongly that he and anybody else who is confused about this go check with the people back home. They would be foolish to eliminate their assets, most stations are not flush in the first place. Asking them to eat their seed corn to continue operations would be criminal.

And if you are confused about the quality, watch it. Nobody has any difficulty telling the difference between the commercial opportunities and the high quality that is offered by public television. The number does not equal quality, and even the good commercial efforts are a pale imitation of the award-winning opportunities that are given to us by public television. But most critically, are the offerings for children. Look at what is on television every day, all day long, for kids in the commercial arena. Then compare it to public broadcasting, and I do not think anybody would agree with my friend from Oklahoma.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

I am a little tired, frankly, about hearing how wealthy Big Bird is. Your own witnesses here indicate that a very small amount of the money that we are talking about here goes to Sesame Street and Big Bird.

The money goes where you are cutting: the infrastructure. Big Bird will be around, but many small stations will not. We will lose the ability to create more ``Big Birds'' in the future. And it may well be to the point that as you slowly starve the infrastructure for public broadcasting, that the only way Big Bird will be watched is on a commercial station, on a cable station with commercials on it.

But where are we going to provide the other educational elements? Already there are a whole range of items here that you are ignoring, and you are undermining the fabric of that public station infrastructure that allows it to be seen in the first place.

Ask your local stations about the impact of what you are doing to their ability for people to be able to watch this quality programming.

Mr. Speaker, the constitutional amendment to ban the desecration of the American flag has become a ritual here in Congress. Since I started in the House of Representatives this issue has come to the floor every Congress. Flag burning today is not a problem. In my years in Congress, no one back home in Oregon has ever complained about flag burning. The irony is that if this amendment becomes law more flags will be burned as psychos see this as their way to get on television.

While I do understand the outrage that most of us feel towards those who make their points by trampling on our flag, the proposed constitutional amendment is unnecessary and counterproductive. On a serious note, we should not make changes to the Bill of Rights to deal with specific circumstances every time we are offended.

No amount of rhetoric about flag burning will hide our failure to spotlight how Congress is missing the point. The most basic and important way to demonstrate our patriotism is to support our troops, our veterans, and their families. We need to focus on doing our job here.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciated the gentleman from Illinois' (Mr. LaHood) earlier comments about the fitness center for our employees. When I first came here soon after the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), I was struck that the showers that were available for our employees were kind of secret. We, I think, cracked the code, found out where they were, and published a map. And we were able to work with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Kingston), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the former subcommittee chairs and ranking members in slowly moving some things forward. There are now some new showers. Now the fitness center is under construction.

I congratulate the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) and the committee. I think this is an important development for our employees. It is important for their health, for their morale, for their efficiency, for their being able to bike and walk and run to work, I think it is an important signal for them that we value their work.

I also appreciated comments that he made about the gem, which is the Library of Congress. I must confess I have some concerns in looking at this budget. We basically flatlined the Library of Congress, and we have missing from this, and part of the reduction is, the money that has been set aside for facilities to deal with the massive amount of information that is compiled by the library. The Library of Congress is the largest repository of information in the world. We have an obligation in Congress to support their efforts, and it is time sensitive. Not only are they running out of space, running out of room, there are issues of being able to protect the materials that they have. And I am afraid that if we slip a year, then we slip another year, we end up putting a burden on the people who run the Library of Congress and we put part of that collection in jeopardy.

Look at what happened to the Library of Congress Jefferson Building being neglected for decades and it took a major renovation for the library, that gem that we are all so proud of, to be fit for use in time for its centennial.

I know the committee has a difficult time because there are tight spending restraints, but I would urge the Committee on Appropriations and, indeed, each Member of this body to take a careful look at our stewardship responsibilities for the Library of Congress.

We all direct our constituents there because we are proud of it. We all take advantage of the material. This is an important little detail that is going to make their job harder; and I am afraid in the long run, if we are not careful, it is going to be the abrogation of our responsibility to maintain this largest collection of information in the history of the world.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to join the gentleman in co-authoring this amendment. And I hope that our distinguished chair and ranking member of the Committee on Appropriations will be able to, in fact, deal with this in conference in a serious manner because it is not just a matter here of saving over $5 million a year just in printing costs, and it is not a matter of saving some 57 tons of paper.

What this is about is being able to, with all due deference to the ranking member, not impose on this Congress a regimen of printing 6,000 copies of a relic of the past that is not necessary for everybody. There are 521 subscribers in America to the printed version of the Congressional Record. They will be, under this amendment, available to any Member of Congress who wants them; but it is important for us to have your help as members of the committee to be able to nudge us along to get into the 21st century.

This is an opportunity for us to be able to take advantage of paperless activities, having paper where people need it, having a certified smart person who works for us print off what we need and save us the time not to thumb through to try and find it.

I think it is important for us to approve this. This is not a minuscule item. This is symbolic of what we can do in the vast Federal bureaucracy to break the stranglehold of past action and move to take advantage of this technology that we have invested, not hundreds of millions, but billions of dollars every year.

This is a small important step to move us in the right direction.

Madam Speaker, as we watch the ebb and flow here in Washington, DC, the controversies, the complexities, there has never been a more important time for the thought-provoking service that is supplied by Public Broadcasting. The educational, cultural and community awareness, together with the politics and policy formats, form the framework for citizens to cope with the myriad of challenges and demands of today's modern living, much as we are struggling with them here in Washington, DC.

If there has never been a more important time for public broadcasting, there has never been a worse time for Congress to be part of a campaign against public broadcasting. We formed the Public Broadcasting Caucus 5 years ago here on Capitol Hill to help promote the exchange of ideas surrounding public broadcasting, to help equip staff and Members of Congress to deal with the issues that surround that important service.

There are complexities in areas of legitimate disagreement and technical matters, make no mistake about it, and our caucus is a great platform for Congress to explore these items and to be heard by the various public broadcasting constituencies, their boards and staff.

Cutting funding, especially the proposals from the subcommittee, are the worst approach in dealing with public broadcasting. President Bush has requested over $413 million in his budget for fiscal year 2006. The subcommittee has recommended that that be slashed to $300 million, cutting by almost \2/5\, this year's funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and eliminating entirely the President's $23 million request for Ready-To-Learn.

Madam Speaker, these are as Draconian as they are unjustified. Every week, 82 million people demonstrate the worth of public broadcasting by viewing public television and over 30 million people a week listen to

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 52 and the renewal of sanctions on Burma. It is high time that the Burmese junta release Aung San Suu Kyi, the key to political transition in Burma, and allow the restoration of democracy in Burma. I will continue to support stronger efforts by the United States, the United Nations, and others to ensure that the continued abuse of human rights in Burma becomes neither accepted nor forgotten. Sanctions are necessary pressure, but insufficient. In particular, I believe that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should deny Burma the rotating chair, as having Burma in a leadership position would be an embarrassment to all ASEAN members.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to be concerned about some of the funding cuts in this bill, but am heartened by the Committee's rejection of the President's proposal to eliminate Community Development Block Grants and the passage of the Sanders amendment that rolls back some of the most egregious components of the PATRIOT Act. While I am troubled by the lack of funding for important programs such as community policing and public broadcasting, the final version of the bill reflected significant improvements from the Bush administration's recommendations. Despite my initial opposition, when it came time to vote, I felt the improvements made to the bill warranted my support.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of a provision in this bill that will help us start to get a handle on cleaning up unexploded ordnance (UXO). I want to thank Chairman Young and Ranking Member Murtha and their staff for providing an additional $10 million for the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) for research and development of unexploded ordnance cleanup technology. I also want to thank my good friend from Illinois, Mr. Manzullo, for his leadership on this issue.

The safety and environmental hazards of unexploded ordnance are a national problem. Bombs and shells that failed to explode during military training or testing may be found on or buried under the surface of more than 39 million acres of former military properties.

According to the Department of Defense, the cost of cleaning up these sites will be at least $16.3 billion, and possibly as much as $35 billion. At an annual funding level of $106 million, cleanup at the remaining munitions sites in DOD's current inventory will take at least 150 years to complete. An increase in funding for UXO research and development will allow the DOD to more quickly develop safer and cheaper technology for dealing with UXO.

The Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force on UXO quantified the potential impact advanced technology can have to reduce these costs. They concluded that the cost of cleanup could be reduced to one-third of what we now expect through the development and application of advanced technologies for the detection of UXO. The DSB report called on the DOD to take two critical steps to reduce the costs of UXO cleanup and improve the efficiency of the current program: first, conduct a wide area assessment of possibly-contaminated land to allow for rapid transfer of uncontaminated land and, second, develop and use technologies that can differentiate between a bomb and hubcap to drastically reduce the cost of cleanup.

Congress directed the Department to conduct an initial pilot project of wide area assessment technologies in the FY 05 Defense Appropriations bill. Early results indicate that this approach shows great promise. The $10 million in this bill will allow this effort to continue and expand to test these technologies over a wider variety of contaminated sites to assess their applicability across the nation.

Addressing the UXO issue, brings many clear benefits: it will preserve the ability of our armed forces to train effectively and ensure the safety of our armed forces as new military housing is constructed on closed ranges. It will release more acreage for other uses, including private development that will generate tax revenues and free up thousands of acres for recreational uses. Finally, it will allow the development of new technologies than can be used to clean-up land mines and other ordnance that threatens our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and innocent civilians everywhere.

I am also pleased that we are beginning to see partial funding for the war in Iraq contained within the regular budget and appropriations process, though not to the extent that it should be. I have always opposed funding for the war in Iraq because I believed it gave too much money to the wrong people to do the wrong things. I hope that we can continue to make progress on this issue and this bill takes the small step to begin doing just that.

Mr. Speaker, we are facing a storm of controversy surrounding public broadcasting. There are ominous signs of interference and people concerned about trying to impose their political agenda on our independent public broadcasting system.

We have seen Draconian and unjustified proposals coming from the Committee on Appropriations to slash funding for the next year and eliminate Federal support altogether in the future.

In 2001, we formed the Public Broadcasting Caucus in Congress precisely for the reason to enable us to come together in a bipartisan way to deal with the controversial and complex issues surrounding public broadcasting. This would be a great time for Members who have not yet joined to become members to enable their staff to take advantage of opportunity and information and, frankly, in a small way, to show some measure of support.

I look forward to the debate later this week during the Labor-HHS appropriations bill not just to restore critical funding. My hope is that as a result of this controversy, we will emerge with a better understanding of why we support the public broadcasting. I hope we are doing so in a way that provides the continuity and stability so essential to the critical service enjoyed by

28 million listeners each month and the 70 percent of television owners who watch public television.