Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, this is a message to a group of my colleagues that I cannot find: moderate, fiscally responsible Republicans, colleagues whose views on our national budget, on fiscal integrity, on responsibility to our children are really no different from my own or the formers of this substitute. I know you are here. I have talked to you in the halls, on the floor, out on the road. I know that well over half of the people that we represent in this country think as we do and they are not all Democrats. I know that of the five budget alternatives on the floor today for us to choose from, this

one represents your own views going away. I know you are outraged at the fact that this budget that this chair has put forward only goes out 5 years. I know you would never adopt a one-way PAYGO in your home or business. I know you are sick at a budget that strips resources away from veterans, education, health care and piles it with those that do not want for anything in our country.

So here is my message to you: vote for this substitute. Vote for it because you know it is far and away the most responsible, affordable, balanced, fair and sustainable budget that is on the floor. Do not make this a partisan issue. Do not make it that. I would vote for a comparable substitute coming out of you. Yet all you and I are given from your side today are two budgets, one principal one that is nothing more than a lie and the other one that may be a little bit more honest but demonstrates a fundamental hatred of our Federal Government that neither of us shares. So vote for this budget substitute not just because it is the right thing to do but because with your vote, you can change the course of our fiscal future.

Mr. Speaker, and colleagues, good evening, aloha and mabuhay! I rise tonight, on this occasion of national Filipino Veterans Action Day, to express my strong and affectionate support for our great Filipino-American community, as well as for our honored Filipino veterans, both here and in the Philippines, who are so well represented by the American Council on Filipino Veterans, and to highlight just some of the challenges these communities still face and the opportunities we have to address them.

First let us remember that the relationship between the Philippines and our United States has never been stronger. Our modern-day bond began after the 1898 Spanish American War, continued through the commonwealth period into 1946, and strengthened when the independent Republic of the Philippines came into existence on July 4th of that year. For nearly 40 years, from 1907 to 1946, the Philippines in fact was represented in the U.S. Congress through nearly 15 different resident commissioners. Currently, we have a Filipino-American, Congressman Bobby Scott, representing the 3rd District of Virginia. And one year ago, I was proud to be a charter member of the Congressional Philippines Caucus, which today boasts over seventy members.

Apart from the Philippines' continuing vital role in U.S. national security and economic interests in the Asia-Pacific region, our country also has a special relationship with the people of the Philippines. Many have migrated to the United States, in particular my home state of Hawaii, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of our first Filipino immigrants in 2006.

In fact, there are now nearly 2.5 million Filipino-Americans, with significant populations in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Texas, and Florida. In Hawaii alone there are nearly 300,000 Filipino-Americans, including roughly 140,000 in my Second Congressional District, the largest number of any congressional district in our country.

This community's contributions just in Hawaii are notable, in all facets of our society, from politics to business, from teaching to sports and movie stars, you name it. Former Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano was the first Filipino-American governor ever elected in the United States; our state legislature today has 12 members: 6 senators and 6 representatives. Angela Baraquio became Miss America in 2001. We had Ben Agbayani in professional baseball and Tia Carrera in Hollywood. And let us not forget native daughters Jasmine Trias and Camile Velasco, two of just twelve of 2004's American Idol final contestants.

But perhaps the most vital and painful contribution of Filipinos to our country was the service, and sacrifice, of our Filipino veterans, who fought alongside our troops in World War II. Their heroic efforts were indispensable to the liberation of the Philippines led by General MacArthur and thus to Allied success in that great conflagration, and earned them a place in legend at the same table as, for example, our Japanese-Americans' 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Therefore, the contribution of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans to designate today as Filipino Veterans Action Day is invaluable to assuring that we never forget. There have been similar efforts in Hawaii from community leaders like Hawaii State Representative Jun Abinsay, Joe Gonzales and Artemio Caleda, former and new presidents, respectively, of the World War II Fil-Am Vets and Ladies Auxilliary Hawaii Chapter, and Domingo Los Banos, a Sergeant with the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment, U.S. Army, who later worked collaboratively with many others in Hawaii and the mainland in molding that great documentary on the Filipino veterans: ``An Untold Triumph.''

Let me turn now from what has been to what needs to be. Specifically, there are two issues which I believe Congress must address for both Filipino veterans and our Filipino-American community at large. One is veterans' benefits and the other is immigration.

veterans benefits

We know that in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a promise to the members of the Philippine Army and the Philippine Scouts who had fought and would fight for the Allies in World War II. Because they had made and would make the same sacrifices as U.S. servicemembers, President Roosevelt promised that they would receive the same veteran's benefits as those received by American veterans.

However, in the spring of 1946, just one year after the death of our 32nd President, the United States Congress went back on its promise. And that injustice stands uncorrected from that day to this, as these veterans pass increasingly from this earth along with their comrades- in-arms.

Last year, we did make some measure of progress by enacting into law H.R. 2297, legislation increasing VA benefits for U.S. resident Filipino veterans and making New Philippine Scouts living in the U.S. eligible for burial in VA national cemeteries. The House also passed H.R. 2357, which would provide VA nursing home and medical services to Commonwealth Army veterans and New Philippine Scouts residing in the U.S., assuming they-meet the same eligibility requirements as U.S. veterans.

But this is clearly not enough. That is why I am a cosponsor of H.R. 677, the Filipino Veterans Equity Act, which will deem all members of the Philippine Scouts and Philippine Army as qualified to receive the full benefits denied them nearly six decades ago.

As Secretary of Veterans' Affairs Anthony J. Principi wrote: ``The United States is indebted to Filipino veterans, whose heroism and self- sacrifice helped allies emerge victorious from World War II.'' As we all know, our Filipino World War II veterans are entering the sunset years of their lives. I implore my colleagues to get this bill out of committee and bring it to the floor for a vote this year.

immigration

Our country has benefited from the fruits of a century-plus influx of Filipinos as new and productive citizens, and we can and should continue this rich heritage. However, our overall immigration policy has fallen particularly harshly and unfairly on legitimate Filipino immigration of late.

For example, in 1990, we provided a waiver from certain naturalization requirements for Filipino veterans, and many thereafter became proud citizens our country. But a huge gap was created when we did not also permit naturalization of the sons and daughters of these same veterans.

These are real-life issues, for the stories of families who have waited years to be reunited are heartbreaking. For example, a veteran and his wife living in Hawaii filed immigration petitions for two of their six adult children; they have waited over ten years for a visa to be issued to either. Another veteran petitioned successfully for his wife's immigration visa, but has not been as successful with the applications for their five adult children. Again, this family has been holding on for ten years with the hope that they will one day live in the U.S. as a complete family.

H.R. 3587, a bill I introduced in November of last year, would provide these sons and

daughters with priority in their respective immigration categories. I urge its passage.

Two other bills I have introduced also would correct deficiencies in our immigration system which impact Filipino-Americans disproportionately. H.R. 3306, The Compassionate Visitor Visa Act, would facilitate the temporary admission of nonimmigrant aliens in circumstances of family emergency of U.S. citizens or permanent residents. H.R. 4018, introduced yesterday, would ensure that family members who have petitioned to immigrate into the United States are not penalized as a result of an award of citizenship to a sponsoring parent or spouse.

Both bills recognize the basic concept that our country can ensure our national security, while providing flexibility for immigrants from certain countries that have longstanding close relationships with our country. The Philippines is certainly very high on that list.

In summary, Mr. Speaker, both Filipino veterans and our larger Filipino-American community have contributed immensely to our country, and I believe that the best is yet to come. On this Filipino Veterans Action Day, let us recognize that we do what is right for both the past and the future by acknowledging their contributions and committing ourselves to the unfinished business at hand.

Mahalo!

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill to ensure that family members who have petitioned to immigrate into the United States are not penalized as a result of an award of citizenship to a sponsoring parent or spouse.

My office has been involved in many cases in which my constituents are caught in a contradictory situation. If a legal resident sponsor of immigration applicants becomes a U.S. citizen, the petition he or she filed as a legal permanent resident is essentially moved from the second preference category to the first preference category with accompanying alteration of the category priority date.

While this is not a problem for most, as the wait list for the first preference category is generally shorter, it has become a problem for some, primarily our families from the Philippines. It is here that, unfortunately, the quota for unmarried sons or daughters of American citizens is longer than that for unmarried sons and daughters of legal permanent residents. As a result, the wait time for some petitions is

in fact lengthened, even though their preference status is improved.

My bill will end this unwitting penalty of citizenship and allow the approved petition, originally filed by a legal permanent resident, to keep that given priority date or place in line should a reclassification of a sponsor occur. This will ensure that a family member will not have to wait for a longer period just because his or her petitioner became a U.S. citizen.

We should not continue to penalize both those who we welcome to the responsibility of citizenship and their families. I urge the bill's passage.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today in grateful support of this resolution, which I am proud to have cosponsored.

This resolution is about three things. First, re-acknowledgement of that region of our world in which the present and future of our Nation and so many others lie: the Pacific and Asia. Second, recognition of a proud people and culture whose future lies now not only in their home islands, but in our own country. Third, responsibility for our actions which, like the consequences of those actions, will extend down through the generations.

On re-acknowledgement, as a product of the Pacific, I confess to a Pacific-centric view of our world. But can anyone doubt that our own future is inextricably tied to that of the Pacific? And as we look to the Pacific, we cannot overlook its island nations, whose strategic value and loyalty to democratic principles are unquestioned.

Foremost among these nations is the Republic of the Marshall Islands, with a proud history and culture dating back thousands of years. We celebrate in this resolution the mutually beneficial relationship we have enjoyed for more than half a century.

We also celebrate its people, who at home are striving to build a modern and sustainable island nation. And the emigration of many to new lands and new opportunities, especially in our country, are strengthening communities beyond their homeland.

My own state has especially benefited, with a Marshallese community of some 5000 strong poised for a major breakthrough into the mainstream of political, economic and social participation in Hawaii's affairs.

And, of course, we cannot forget that the Marshallese and their counterpart Pacific nations today have their sons and daughters serving with our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lying grievously wounded defending our joint freedoms in military hospitals.

And lastly, this is a resolution of remembrance, of the dire consequences to a whole people and their aina, or land, of 66 nuclear tests, virtually all open air, from 1946 through 1958, including, 50 years ago, BRAVO, the world's first hydrogen bomb. Few of us, even today, can imagine the force and devastation released by just one such device, much less 66.

I have my own recollection, as a boy of just six, sitting on my grandparents' porch on the Island of Kauai, on a dark night, watching the entire sky light up from a single explosion 2,300 miles away. But the Marshallese lived through it, and they are still living through it, and will live through it for generations to come.

These stories are being told elsewhere, by Beverly Keever, in a February 25, 2004 article in the ``Honolulu Weekly,'' and by James Matayoshi, Mayor of Rongselap, in recent remarks on BRAVO day. I append these for the Record and commend them to your attention.

But today, we simply remember what happened and recommit ourselves to remedy that which must be remedied.

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of people to be thanked for this resolution. Chair Pombo and Ranking Member Rahall, for their commitment, Chair Hyde and Ranking Member Lantos for bringing this to the floor, and Chair Leach and Ranking Member Faleomavaega for their advocacy. But mostly, we thank the people of the Marshall Islands, for their friendship and support. We will not forget.

Mr. Speaker, I submit the following articles for insertion into the Record in connection with H. Con. Res. 364.

Suffering, Secrecy, Exile: Bravo 50 Years Later

(By Beverly Deepe Keever)

[From Honolulu Weekly, Feb. 25, 2004]

Almira Ainri was 10 years old when she was catapulted into

the atomic age.

In June of 1946, as the U.S. Navy readied the first atomic

bomb in peacetime--just the fourth in history--Ainri and

about 100 other inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll, in the

Marshall Islands, were sent south by ship to Lae Atoll, where

it was thought they would be safe from the effects of the

explosion 100 miles away, at Bikini Atoll.

Eight years later, in 1954, Ainri and other Rongelapese

weren't as lucky.

Fifty years ago this week, on Bikini Atoll, the U.S.

detonated the Bravo shot, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000

times more powerful than the bomb it dropped on Hiroshima.

The most powerful bomb in U.S. nuclear history, Bravo had a

radioactive cloud that plumed over 7,000 square miles, an

area about the size of New Jersey. A hundred or so miles

downwind, near-lethal fallout powdered at least 236

inhabitants of the Rongelap and Utrik atolls, contaminating

their ancestral homelands. The Bravo-dusted islanders entered

history as unique examples of the effects of radioactive

fallout on humans.

Ainri, who now lives in Honolulu, is one of 118 survivors

of the Bravo shot. For her and other islanders, the bomb's

detonation set off a chain reaction of events over the last

half century. They became unwitting subjects in secret U.S.

research on the effects of nuclear fallout and ultimately

were forced to leave their idyllic homeland, which remains

uninhabitable to this day due to radioactivity.

Archeological finds on Bikini Atoll suggest that the first

Micronesians likely arrived in the Marshall Islands between

2,500 and 4,000 years ago. Germany annexed the islands in

1885. Japan captured them in 1914. Allied forces captured and

occupied them in World War II; the war's end left them in

U.S. hands. The U.S. began nuclear testing there the next

year.

The Marshall Islands were declared a Trust Territory by the

United Nations in 1947, with the U.S. as the administrator,

an arrangement that did not end until 1991. The following

treatment of the irradiated islanders raises doubts about the

behavior of the U.S. government:

U.S. officials failed to evacuate Ainri and other islanders

before the Bravo shot and then delayed their removal for more

than 50 hours after the fallout.

On March 7, 1954, six days after the Bravo shot, Project

4.1, ``Study of Response of Human Beings Exposed to

Significant Beta and Gamma Radiation due to Fallout from High

Yield Weapons,'' established a secret U.S. medical program to

monitor and evaluate islanders exposed to radiation, turning

them into experimental human subjects without their consent.

Ainri and other islanders were allowed to return to their

irradiated homeland in 1957. It was later deemed unsafe for

human habitation.

Marshall Islanders were injected with or fed radioactive

tracers without their consent, contrary to medical

recommendations made by U.S. medical officers six weeks after

the Bravo shot that the islanders should receive no more

exposure to radioactivity in their lifetimes.

The research projects arising from Bravo were begun just

seven years after war crimes tribunals convicted German

medical officers for their horrific experiments with

concentration camp inmates during World War II. Those

tribunals led to the Nuremberg Code, an international

standard for experiments involving human subjects, which

stipulated that the voluntary consent of the subject ``is

absolutely essential.'' The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission

established similar standards, requiring the consent of human

subjects and the expectation that an experiment would benefit

the subject, but they had little distribution or effect in

the U.S. bureaucracy.

Did U.S. bureaucratic bungling and operational obstacles

cause the mistreatment of the islanders or, as so many

islanders and others say, did U.S. officials make the

islanders guinea pigs to study the effects of radioactivity?

like needles over my whole body

At about 6 a.m. on March 1, 1954, Almira Ainri was awakened

by the brightness and noise of an inferno as hot as the core

of the sun. Ainri was 18 then, married, and pregnant with her

first child.

The island shook, she recalled. The air was gray. Snowlike

particles fell from the sky.

A day later, U.S. soldiers with Geiger counters arrived and

found people of Rongelap weak and vomiting. Fifty hours and

more after Bravo's detonation, the 236 inhabitants on or near

Rongelap and Utrik atolls were evacuated to the military

clinic at Kwajalein Atoll. There, they were scrubbed every

day with special soaps. The pressure of the water on Ainri's

blistered skin felt ``like needles over my whole body,'' she

said--``like I was burning.''

After the blast, Ainri gave birth to a son, Robert. His

thyroid glands were so damaged that he became dwarfed. The

glands were later removed, consigning him to a lifelong

regimen of medication. Ainri got pregnant again and gave

birth, she said, to ``a bunch of grapes, that had to be

pulled out of me.'' Twice more Ainri got pregnant, she said,

and gave birth to children who appeared normal but died

several days later. Another son, Alex, survived, but again

with damaged thyroid glands. Ainri herself has thyroid

problems; two new growths recently appeared there.

The suffering of Ainri and her family is hardly unique.

Within a decade of the Bravo shot, more than 90 percent of

the children who were under 12 years old at the time of the

explosion developed thyroid tumors. Today, Marshall Islanders

have one of the world's highest rates of abnormalities of the

thyroid, which often result in cases of retardation,

cretinism and stunted development.

For these and other conditions that the U.S. government

presumes were caused by its nuclear weapons testing, the U.S.

pays compensation. Those with leukemia or cancer of the

esophagus, stomach, small intestine, pancreas or bone are

awarded $125,000. Islanders with severe growth retardation

due to thyroid damage get $100,000.

By the end of 2002, a U.S. trust fund had paid about $79

million to 1,808 islanders, but because the trust fund could

not cover all its obligations, 46 percent of affected

islanders

died before they were fully paid for their injuries.

Rongelap Atoll comprises 61 islets with a combined land

mass of about three square miles and a lagoon of 388 square

miles. Because it is still too radioactive for humans, its

former residents are scattered. In Honolulu, Ainri lives in a

home where her pandanus floor mats mingle with a caller-I.D.

phone and a television set.

Under a 1996, $45-million agreement with the U.S., projects

are underway to prepare for the return of Rongelapese to the

five southernmost, least-contaminated islets of the atoll. A

glisteningly white church has been refurbished, complete with

striking lapis trim. An airstrip, desalinization plant, field

station, power plant and docks have been constructed or

installed. Phase 2 calls for the construction of 50 four-

bedroom homes, a dispensary and a hospital, school building,

residences for doctors and teachers, a library, a town hall

and a municipal building. All that is missing is a date when

the resettlement will occur.

the three surprises

Corporal Don Whitaker hardly could have imagined the

worldwide surprise his letter home would create. Writing to

his hometown newspaper, in Cincinnati, in March 1954,

Whitaker told of seeing distraught Marshall Islanders arrive

at a navy clinic on Kwajalein after the Bravo shot. It was

one of three surprises that shocked the world, and members of

President Eisenhower's administration.

The first surprise was the magnitude of the Bravo bomb's

blast. Its 15-megaton yield was more than twice what U.S.

officials had expected. Set off from Bikini Atoll, it

vaporized three of the atoll's 23 islets. The test was

expected, however.

Whitaker's letter was the next surprise. In it, he revealed

the evacuation of islanders that U.S. officials had tried to

keep secret. Published March 9, eight days after the blast,

Whitaker's letter prompted the Atomic Energy Commission to

issue a press release the next day, masking the magnitude of

the Bravo shot and its radioactive effects with a bland

announcement. But Bravo was hardly the ``routine atomic

test'' the release described, and the phrase ``some

radioactivity'' did not come close to describing the

islanders' dosage, which was the equivalent of the amount

received by Japanese citizens less than two miles from Ground

Zero at Hiroshima, lawyer-historian Jonathan M. Weisgall

writes.

Twenty-eight years later, the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency

would call the Bravo shot ``the worst single incident of

fallout exposures in all the U.S. atmospheric testing

program.''

The third surprise came just days after the AEC had assured

the public that the irradiated islanders were fine. A

Japanese tuna trawler, the No. 5 Fukuryu Maru (``Lucky

Dragon''), was 112 miles east of Bikini Atoll at the time of

the Bravo explosion, well outside the danger zone announced

by U.S. officials. Yet Bravo's staggering detonation powdered

the boat's 23 crew members with what is known in Japan as shi

no hai--``ashes of death.'' When the Fukuryu Maru reached its

home port of Yaizu, about 120 miles south of Tokyo, on March

14, the crew was suffering from a radiation sickness that

stunned the world.

The crewmen's sickness and the subsequent panic over

radioactive tuna in the U.S. and Japanese fish markets led to

an international furor. The Japanese government and people

dubbed it ``a second Hiroshima'' and it nearly led to

severing diplomatic relations. A U.S. government doctor

dispatched to Japan blamed the Japanese press for

exaggerating the condition of the fishermen, who, he

predicted, would recover completely in about a month.

Six months later, Aikichi Kuboyama, the 40-year-old radio

operator of the Fukuryu Maru, died. He was ``probably the

world's first hydrogen-bomb casualty,'' said The New York

Times.

It was this triple-play of surprises--Bravo's tremendous

force, Whitaker's letter and the plight of the Fukuryu Maru--

that chinked the U.S. government's usual policy of secrecy.

Instead, the word fallout entered the world's lexicon. For

the first time, people in Japan and Russia, London and Bonn,

New York and Milwaukee, were aware of a danger that could not

be smelled, seen, felt or heard.

the sun rising in the west

The Bravo shot was the first U.S. hydrogen device that

could be delivered by airplane. It was designed to catch up

with the Soviets who, in August 1953, had exploded their

first hydrogen bomb deliverable by aircraft.

The Bravo shot was so dangerous that it could not be

detonated in the continental United States. Nor could it be

set off at Enewetak Atoll, where the U.S. conducted nuclear

blast tests from 1948 to 1958, for fear it would wipe out the

extensive U.S. equipment and installations there. So it was

tested at Bikini Atoll.

Even before the Bravo shot, experts knew that the

radioactive dust of atmospheric nuclear weapons explosions

was invisibly and unknowingly powdering the continental

United States and touching others worldwide. The U.S.

government's failure to move the Rongelap and Utrik Islanders

in advance of the Bravo shot is painfully ironic because

Almira Ainri and other Rongelapese had been moved before the

first peacetime atomic test, in 1946--and Bravo was 1,000

times more powerful. Yet the islanders were not moved in 1954

because of ``the high cost and logistic problems . . . in

supporting such an operation,'' according to U.S. medical

officers.

Six hours before Bravo, U.S. officials knew that the winds

had shifted, putting Rongelap and Utrik Islanders in the path

of fallout, but they proceeded with the detonation anyway.

That knowledge, coupled with the lag of several days after

the detonation before islanders were evacuated, led to

speculation that the U.S. deliberately used the islanders as

guinea pigs.

A month after the Bravo shot, Atomic Energy Commission

chair Lewis Strauss told reporters that allegations that the

evacuation of the Marshall Islanders had been deliberately

delayed were ``utterly false, irresponsible and gravely

unjust to the men engaged in this patriotic service.'' He

also said that he had just visited the islanders at the

Kwajalein clinic and they ``appeared to me to be well and

happy.''

Bravo was detonated at 6 a.m. Within four hours, the 28

U.S. weathermen on Rongerik Atoll, in the Marshall Islands,

saw a mist from the blast. Seven hours later, the needle of

their radiation-measuring instrument went off the scale. They

were evacuated the next day.

Clouds of snowlike particles moved over Alinginae,

Rongelap, Utrik and Ailuk atolls. The clouds deposited

radioactive fallout on the people below and irradiated them

with doses of ``cloud shine,'' radiation produced by the

blast itself, which Rongelapese described as being like ``the

sun rising in the west.''

About two-thirds of the Rongelapese were nauseated for two

days, according to a U.S. medical officer who examined them a

week after Bravo. Roughly one in ten were vomiting and had

diarrhea. Some had itching, burning skin that turned into

black-pigmented areas and lesions, some of which became

ulcerated and infected. Hair fell out. Blood counts fell.

The Bravo-dusted islanders disappeared from the news for

the next year, because of the AEC's clampdown on information.

But if they were not making news, they were making medical

history.

guinea pigs

Within days of the Bravo shot, irradiated islanders were

unwittingly swept into a top-secret effort to research the

effects of radioactive fallout on humans. ``Never before in

history had an isolated human population been subjected to

high but sub-lethal amounts of radioactivity without the

physical and psychological complexities associated with

nuclear explosion,'' said scientist Neal O. Hines. Islanders

would not learn the true nature of the experiment for 40

years, until 1994, when President Clinton ordered thousands

of documents declassified in the wake of a national scandal

involving human radiation experiments.

Four months before the Bravo shot, a then-secret U.S.

document listed research Project 4.1 among 48 tests to be

conducted during and after the explosion. ``(D)ue to possible

adverse publicity reaction, you will specifically instruct

all personnel in this project to be particularly careful not

to discuss the purposes of this project and its background or

its findings with any except those who have a specific `need

to know,' '' the document said.

The purpose of Project 4.1 was to study the effects of

fallout radiation on human beings.

Three days after Bravo, Project 4.1 began to unfold in

Washington, D.C., where top medical officials decided that

the victims of its hazardous debris would be appropriate

research subjects. A week after the blast, 25 officials of

the AEC's medical program arrived at Kwajalein Atoll. Six

weeks after the blast, Project 4.1 workers recommended a

lifelong study of the affected islanders. After thyroid

nodules began to appear on Rongelapese and Utrik islanders in

1963, they were studied every year.

They began to complain that they were being treated like

guinea pigs rather than sick humans needing treatment. A

doctor who evaluated them annually came close to agreeing

when he wrote, 38 years after Bravo, ``In retrospect, it was

unfortunate that the AEC, because it was a research

organization, did not include support of basic health care of

populations under study.''

return to rongelap

In 1957, U.S. officials assured Rongelapese that their

homeland was safe and returned them there. Upon their return,

U.S. medical officers shifted the emphasis of their study to

what researchers who studied the documents released in the

1990s described as ``the formation of an integrated long-term

human environmental research program to document the

bioaccumulation of fallout and the human effects of this

exposure.'' In sum, U.S. officials knew they were placing the

Rongelapese in a radioactive environment, even though the

islanders had already sustained more than a lifetime's worth

of radiation.

A 1982 U.S. Department of Energy report indicated that some

inhabited areas of Rongelap were as contaminated as the parts

forbidden to humans. It was the first report prepared for the

Rongelapese in their own language and it shocked them. ``All

we needed to see was the center fold-out and our worst fears

were confirmed!'' Marshall Islands Senator Jeton Anjain told

the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in

1991.

Rongelap, their principal island of residence since their

1957 return, had been assigned a level ``3'' of

contamination, meaning it was unsafe for human habitation.

In 1984, Rongelapese representatives asked the U.S. to

evacuate them. The U.S. refused.

The next year, the Rongelapese left anyway. ``It was by no

means an easy decision, for our people knew that it might

mean they and their children would never again know life on

their ancestral homeland of the last 4,000 years,'' Anjain

told the U.S. Senate committee.

``But the safety of our children and the unborn was more

important.''

After living on radioactive Rongelap for 28 years, 70

islanders were moved by Greenpeace to Majetto Island, 100

miles away. Confirming their fears, a 1988 study authorized

by the U.S. government and subsequent official testimony

recommended that part of Rongelap Atoll be considered

``forbidden'' territory and that the remaining part would be

safe only if inhabitants ate imported food for the next 30 to

50 years.

the only thing I could think of was nazi germany

Residents of Rongelap and Enewetak atolls were also used in

human radiation experiments involving radioactive tracers of

tritiated water and chromium-51 injections, Marshall Islands

Foreign Minister Phillip Muller told the U.S. Senate

Committee on Governmental Affairs in 1996.

The U.S. Department of Energy withheld critical information

about the adverse effects of U.S. weapons tests from the U.S.

Congress and Marshallese officials, Muller said, and medical

research without the consent of Marshallese subjects

continued.

Marshallese Senator Tony de Brum told the committee that

U.S. doctors 50 years ago pulled healthy as well as unhealthy

teeth of islanders without their consent, for use in

cesium, strontium or plutonium studies. Even in the mid-

1990s, islanders were unsure whether they were being cared

for or studied by U.S. medical personnel, de Brum said.

In 1999, Muller's allegations of human radiation

experiments were confirmed by the Department of Energy, the

successor agency of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Declassified documents showed that U.S. officials included

the irradiated islanders under the umbrella of its extensive

biological program. Its worst known cases included x-raying

the male organs of Oregon and Washington state prisoners,

feeding radioactive fallout materials to university students,

giving small doses of radioactive iron to pregnant women and

feeding Quaker Oats laced with radioactive traces of iron and

calcium to supposedly mentally retarded boys in a

Massachusetts state home. Upon first learning about these

kinds of experiments in 1993, Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary

said, ``The only thing I could think of was Nazi Germany.''

who will pay?

Under the U.N. Trusteeship, the U.S. government was to

prepare the people of the Marshall Islands for self-

government. In 1986, President Reagan signed the Compact of

Free Association after its ratification by the Marshall

Islands government and Congress. Its provisions expired in

2001. New provisions for the compact were agreed upon earlier

this year, but they are silent on U.S. funding that has since

become inadequate to cover the spiraling claims of those

harmed by U.S. nuclear weapons testing, including Bravo's

fallout.

There may be a ray of hope for the Marshallese, however.

The compacts say that nuclear testing damages to persons or

property discovered after the original 1986 agreement can be

covered in a new request to the U.S. Congress with

documentation that circumstances have changed.

One changed circumstance is that the U.S. government did

not disclose to the Marshallese government the yield of 44 of

the 66 U.S. nuclear weapons tests detonated in its republic

until 1993. The next year, a comprehensive list of 1,054 U.S.

nuclear weapons tests worldwide and their yields was made

public by the Department of Energy. It shows that the yield

of 82 tests in the U.S.-administered Bikini, Enewetak and

Johnston Atolls and Pacific waters from 1946 to 1962 was at

least 128,704 kilotons. That's the equivalent of 8,580

Hiroshima-sized bombs, or 1.47 such bombs per day for 16

years.

A second changed circumstance is that the personal-injury

and property claims arising from nuclear weapons testing have

exceeded the capacity of the $150 million trust fund

established to pay them.

The people of Enewetak and Bikini have been awarded just

over $1 billion for property damages, radiological cleanup,

loss of use and hardship and suffering, but as of the end of

2002, less than one percent of that money could be paid. And

class-action damage claims for the people of Rongelap and

Utrik are still pending.

About 5,000 claims seeking a combined $5.75 billion for

radiation-related damages arising from U.S. weapons testing

in the Pacific have been pressed. The U.S. has paid $759

million.

In 2000, invoking the ``changed circumstances'' provision

of the compact, the Marshallese government asked the U.S.

Congress for more funds and services to meet health costs and

property damages. (Its petition can be viewed online at

www.rmiembassyus.org_click ``nuclear'' and then

``petition.'')

In November 2001, the Marshallese government's petition was

resubmitted to a new U.S. Congress and President Bush. As of

early this month, the U.S. has yet to take any action.

Mr. Speaker, good evening and aloha.

Tonight, I rise to address again the single most important issue facing our country, now, next year, and well into the next generation, and that is our crushing budget deficit and the fiscal corruption of our Nation's finances; and yes, I do not use that word ``corruption'' lightly because that is what is happening.

I do so in solidarity with my fellow Blue Dog Members, people of sincerity who I respect and who have stood here for years and decades and argued for fiscal responsibility and with whom I today cointroduced the Assuring Fiscal Honesty and Accountability Act of 2004. That is the subject that I want to address briefly here tonight because I can assure my fellow citizens, beyond any semblance of doubt, that fiscal honesty and accountability have no place at today's seat of power here in Washington.

Perhaps I am overly simplistic, but on any issue I like to ask: First, is there a problem? Second, what exactly is it? Third, what is the solution? Fourth, how do we accomplish it?

The act that we introduced today addresses the fourth question: How do we accomplish it? And it starts with the fourth question because I do not know how anybody can doubt that we have a problem. We know we have one, and we know exactly what it is, the systematic pillaging of our Nation's fiscal and budgetary integrity and resources for short- term political gain. We know the general parameters of the solution, and today we have had a good interchange on that.

We know we have to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, wherever it is. We know we have to balance revenues and spending, but the reality is that we have lost our way on just how to get there.

We learned once in the eighties and the nineties that for us to have a realistic discussion and to make realistic decisions on the incredibly tough issues that go with the fiscal discipline territory, whether to raise or lower taxes and on whom, who and what to spend taxpayers hard-earned money on, and who not to spend it on, we had to set the rules of engagement and institute some basic checks and balances on natural political tendencies arising out of our reluctance, our abhorrence, of saying no. These rules were necessary, even though we had already placed limits on the amount of total national debt and required a separate vote to breach that national debt.

Those votes had become, as they are today and as we proved again today in the Committee on the Budget, a superfluous pro forma exercise as we now break through the $7.5 trillion total debt barrier. These rules had fancy names like discretionary spending caps and pay-go or pay-as-you-go, but they all stood for the same basic concept, a concept we are all familiar with in our personal and business finances: Set the ground rules, the overall boundary of the finances as a responsible, achievable, sustainable level before making individual decisions, and then match those decisions to those rules. The caps were just that, overhaul caps or limits. We could move around under caps, but we could not breach the caps, and pay-go just said if we break the rules in one area, if we exceed in one area, we have to make it up somewhere else, a pay-as-you-go. It all has to balance one way or the other. And these rules worked up until 3 years ago.

We had reversed a fiscal decline and were heading towards surpluses, but then what happened was something inexcusable, and it was on the watch of the current administration because that is when people around here in the majority and downtown decided they did not like those rules, because those rules got in the way of radically reducing revenues, while at the same time busting spending up to record highs. Yes, let us not talk about whose responsibility the spending increases were. The rest is history; record deficits as far as the eye can see, record total debt, material risk to our very fiscal foundations.

The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) again said tonight a saying that I am fond of: In order to get out of the hole, you have to stop digging. That is what this bill says: Let us stop digging right now by using techniques that worked in the past and let us start climbing.

One would think the majority and the administration would be falling all over themselves to get out in front on this issue. After all, I hear tell they are the party of fiscal responsibility. What an incredible surprise here in Washington to discover that that is anywhere but the truth.

So, lo and behold, they are not. They do not mind discretionary spending caps, as long as it is only the programs that they do not like. They do not mind putting caps on them. But, by the way, the programs that they want to raise, the programs that are busting our budget, no, we cannot afford discretionary spending caps. They do not mind pay-go, sounds good, as long as it does not apply to those programs, as long as it does not apply to evaluations of revenues and taxes.

Well, any fool can see that when you set the rules, they have to apply to everyone. When you balance a budget, you cannot leave it with so many outs, so many holes, that it is dead on arrival. And that is what the absence of this discretionary spending caps and pay-go rules has done.

So our bill says to everybody, hey, simply, you say you stand for fiscal responsibility, prove it. Set some rules that work and then live with them.

I urge this bill's prompt passage. And to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who have stood here today talking about fiscal responsibility, I invite their cosponsorship. I think we can form a good team to provide some realistic budget rules.

Mr. Speaker, good evening and aloha.

I am very happy to stand on the floor of the House today and join my colleagues the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and many others in introducing the Rural Veterans Access to Health Care Act of 2003.

We are all very well aware of the commitment that we have made, at least in principle, although the practice has been lacking of recent years, but the principle that we will take care of veterans when they come home. The truth, however, is that as we try to honor that principle and the practice, the equality of access to health care throughout our country is inconsistent, and this is most particularly true in the rural areas of our country. In these areas, our veterans simply do not have the same level of access to the veterans' health care as they do in the urban areas.

This is true in Hawaii's 2nd District, which is a rural area of our country, just as others are, but we have a little wrinkle in the 2nd Congressional District that creates a unique complication. The wrinkle is that my district is not contiguous. It is made up of islands. It is not possible for the veterans of my district to hop on the nearest road and get to the nearest clinic. It is not possible for the most part for my veterans to hop on the nearest ferry to get to the nearest clinic. Their access is by air.

There are some VA medical clinics on many of the islands that I represent. Of the seven inhabited islands, four have VA clinics; three do not. The islands of Molokai, Lanai and Niihau do not, and these are the particular problems that this bill seeks to address.

But it is not limited only to those islands. For the islands that do have VA clinics do not have the large specialized hospitals. There is only one of them on the island of Oahu. So for six out of the seven islands, the veterans that live on those islands have a particular difficulty in getting to treatment when they need it, and with airfares rising rapidly, with a round trip now well over $200 in some cases, we can see that the problem is quite evident.

Let me give my colleagues just a real life example, one proud veteran who I have gotten to know over the last couple of years, a gentleman by the name of Patrick Esclito, of the island of Lanai. Pat asked for my office's help last year. He had rheumatoid arthritis and had also suffered a massive heart attack in 2002. His condition required him to drive from Lanai, one of the smallest, most isolated areas, to Oahu where he was able to be cared for. Every time he went there he had to pay almost $300 in airfare and his wife as well because they did not want him to travel alone.

As my colleagues can understand, he needed assistance in getting the basic health care that was promised to him by our country, and we were successful, in part, by accommodating the possibility that he would be treated instead on the island of Maui, which still requires a boat ride at least, not quite as expensive, but he still has to get there, and I doubt that Pat's case is unique. It is certainly not unique in the remainder of the 2nd District of Hawaii.

I surveyed all of the veterans in my district currently retaining or receiving benefits in the last couple of months and asked them what is on your mind the most. Every single one of them said health care, access to health care. That is what it is all about, and I am sure that this is the case in most of the rural and more isolated areas of our country.

We are going to have a great debate this Congress, as we did last Congress, over the overall adequacy of our treatment of our veterans, over the overall adequacy, both this year and in the next 5 years at least, in terms of the budget, in terms of the projections on many aspects of veterans' care, primarily health care.

And that debate is a debate that we should have. Because, again, it is one thing to express a principle and it is another thing to practice that principle. But as we go through this debate, I am happy to say that on the floor of the House tonight at least we have bipartisan agreement that one area that we have to focus on, and that we are focusing on in this bill, is our rural veterans, recognizing the unique problems that they have in access to basic health care.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join 52 of my colleagues in support of this vital bill, a bill that will help keep our Nation's promise to its veterans who live in our more isolated, rural areas.

We are all well aware of the commitment we all, as a great country, have made to our veterans. However, the truth is that our ability to deliver on this commitment varies throughout the United States. Most particularly, in rural areas of the country, our veterans simply do not have reasonable access to veterans' clinics.

The veterans of Hawaii's Second District have this very challenge, but with a unique complication. This is because my district is not contiguous, but composed of seven inhabited islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

There are VA medical facilities on only four of those islands, and it is not possible for those veterans who live on the remaining islands of Molokai, Lanai, or Niihau to drive to a clinic. The same is true of those living on the remaining islands with clinics; they must travel to Honolulu for more advanced treatment.

Currently, the VA will reimburse all veterans for travel to service- related injuries, but it will not reimburse travel for those veterans with less than 30 percent disability rating for nonservice-related injuries. This would be the case, for example, of a veteran who has a bad back, a service-related injury, who then has to have dental work.

Let me give you a real-life example of one proud veteran, Patrick Esclito, who lives on the Island of Lanai. Pat requested my help last year; he was afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis and had also suffered a massive heart attack in 2002. His condition required him to travel to the Island of Oahu for treatment at a cost close to $300 per roundtrip. His wife traveled with him--another almost $300--because they were both concerned with his traveling alone. My office assisted him in receiving approval for treatment instead on the Island of Maui. However, he still must pay for travel by boat from Lanai to Maui because his ailments are not service-related.

Pat's case is not unique. There are 120,000 veterans living in the State of Hawaii, and many live in areas with no easy or even adequate access to the VA health clinics to which they are entitled. Throughout my Second District, with the cost of air travel skyrocketing, it costs $200 or more for a round trip plane ticket between Hawaii's islands.

This is why, when, last year, I surveyed all veterans in my district who are currently receiving VA benefits, and asked them what was and was not working, their number one issue by far was access to health care. I am sure that this is the case in most rural areas of our country.

This bill will allow all veterans to receive adequate access to health care, regardless of where they live in this great country. Nonetheless, the President's 2005 Veterans' Affairs budget provides $29.8 billion for appropriated veterans programs, $257 million below the amount that the Congressional Budget Office estimates is needed to maintain purchasing power at the 2004 level. The picture is even worse after 2005. Taking into account inflation, but not caseload increases, the administration's figures reveal that over the next 5 years, the budget for appropriated programs for veterans is $13.5 billion below the amount needed to maintain programs and services at the 2004 level. Even the Secretary of Veterans' Affairs has admitted that the funding levels for 2006 through 2009 in the President's budget may not be realistic. I have no doubt that it will be the rural veterans who will be affected the most.

Contrary to what some critics claim, H.R. 2379 will not harm the Veterans' Affairs (VA) healthcare system. Instead, this bill will enhance access to healthcare for veterans who have earned it, but are having to pay to travel to that care. Furthermore, by contracting locally for health care for enrolled veterans, the rural communities that provide these services will benefit economically. H.R. 2379 is a necessary bill to truly fulfill this country's obligation to all veterans.

Mr. Speaker, as the President has repeatedly declared: ``We are currently a country at war.'' Hundreds upon thousands of this Nation's finest men and women are abroad in support of the Global War on Terrorism. Some 4,500 soldiers from the 25th Light Infantry Division from Schofield Barracks in Hawaii have deployed to Iraq; another 5,400 soldiers from the 25th will soon be deployed to Afghanistan. Reservists and Guard members from my State, many from my Second District, are also serving on Active Duty.

What kind of message does our country's failure to provide access to healthcare for rural veterans send to the thousands of American men and women in uniform currently risking their lives overseas? Our veterans and our future veterans serving overseas deserve better. If we value all our veterans, we need to give them the respect they deserve by properly funding full and adequate access to healthcare for each and every one.

Mr. Speaker, good evening and aloha.

Today, I stand here as a proud member of the 37 Member-strong moderate, independent Democrat Blue Dog Coalition. These Members come from all parts of our country and they are dedicated to these three basic propositions: first, the budgetary and fiscal integrity of our country is of paramount importance; second, our country's finances are royally messed up; third, there is a way out of this cesspool if we are honest about why we are here and what we all must do together to fix it.

I have served here for 15 months now, and when I go home I am asked two questions. Number one, what is our biggest challenge in our country? Number two, what is the biggest surprise in my mind from having served here? My

answer to both is the same: the financial condition of our country now and well into the next generation.

Why is it our biggest challenge? I think it is pretty straightforward and obvious when we think about it because our very ability to provide what we want to provide for ourselves and our children is reliant on a strong fiscal foundation. Otherwise, it is just talk. Need to protect ourselves here at home and overseas. Where is the money? Need to improve education and health care. Take care of the poor and needy, need to provide the infrastructure, need to honor our commitments to Medicare and Social Security. Yes, where is the money? It is not there right now. We know that.

Let us face up to it. Spending exceeds revenues as far as the eye can see. That is the definition of a deficit, when spending exceeds revenues, and total debt accumulative borrowings to match those deficits has now climbed well through $7 trillion, $7 trillion.

What is my biggest surprise? My biggest surprise is that all of this is happening on the fiscal watch and under the revenue and spending policies of a Republican administration. Do not jump all over that comment and assume that it is simply a partisan shot. I just spent the better part of a decade in my own home State of Hawaii working as an independent, moderate Democrat with Republicans to right the fiscal ship of my own State. The last thing I expected when I got up to Congress here was to arrive here and see the fiscal irresponsibility, on a massive scale, brought on by the national counterparts of those same people that I had worked with successfully in Hawaii.

My surprise does not arise just as a matter of policy disagreements because, after all, we can handle policy disagreements. We can identify choices. We can debate them. We can let the political process yield the result. That is not my surprise.

My surprise is the manner in which we are dealing with this. It is much worse: denial, concealment, misrepresentation. Let me give my colleagues a couple of examples.

First of all, this administration clearly overestimated job and growth recovery from its version of tax cuts. Second, it did not even include huge chunks of spending, spending we know we have to make, in the 2005 budget. What does that say when we do not even include the cost of the intervention in Iraq, do not even put it into the budget? What are my colleagues scared of? Are my colleagues afraid of the debate that will come from it?

Clearly underestimating expenses like Medicare, projecting the Medicare bill at $500 billion and turning around mere weeks later and saying, whoops, we made a mistake, $630 billion after all.

Finally, the one that bothers me the most, this is inexcusable. Bringing to this floor a budget that is only out 5 years into the future. The norm in Washington is 10 years, and I can make a good case to my colleagues that 10 years is not enough. Fifteen, 20, 25 years to account fully for Medicare, Social Security beyond that, and yet we are only going to talk about 5 years. That is like projecting a family's budget for an adjustable rate mortgage with a balloon at the end, but ending before the balloon is due. That is like projecting a family's budget for education, but stopping in the senior year of high school before their kids go to college. Why do you do that? Because you will not want to face the fact of what happens after that year has happened, and that is exactly what we have.

Do not take my word for it. Here is David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, on the Nation's growing fiscal imbalance: current fiscal policy is unsustainable; the status quo is not an option; faster economic growth can help but it cannot solve the problem. Finally, the one I particularly agree with: the sooner we get started the better.

There are solutions, and what are they? Because talk is cheap. Here is the deal. They are there, they are tough, and they get tougher. We have to face up to those decisions right now, and we have to get to them right now. I urge my colleagues to be honest with the American people and address the fiscal problems of our country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 412, which honors the men and women of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on the occasion of its 30th Anniversary and recognizes the sacrifices of those who have given their lives in the line of duty.

In Hawaii, we are fortunate that such a cohesive law enforcement community exists, with the strong working relationship between the DEA, the United States Attorney's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, our four county police departments, and the 14 Federal, State, and local agencies which support the Hawaii High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. All work together to pursue and dismantle domestic and international criminal organizations that produce, transport, and distribute illegal substances.

Under the leadership of Briane M. Grey, Assistant Special Agent-in- Charge of the Honolulu District Office, the office advocates the same multi-pronged approach that I firmly believe is the solution to our drug abuse problem: combining strong enforcement, with education, prevention, and treatment efforts. For example, through its partnerships with the Counties of Kauai and Hawaii, the DEA's Demand Reduction Program educates many of our young people on the dangers of drugs.

In my home State, the unfortunate drug of choice today is crystal methamphetamine, also known as ice. High purity ice, ranging from 96 percent to 99 percent, is all too readily available, and commonly abused throughout our State. In Hawaii, ice users have been linked to violent crimes including child abuse, hostage situations, and homicides. The DEA has been a strong and valuable force in our fight against the scourge of ice.

In August 2003, the Honolulu DEA's Operation Jetway Task Force was notified of three parcels suspected of carrying ice. Pursuant to a search warrant, approximately 15.9 pounds of ice, worth more than $1 million were seized from two of the parcels, and approximately $65,000 in cash was seized from the third parcel. Later that same month, the task force seized approximately 674 grams of ice from the inside jacket pocket of an individual traveling from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

I would like to extend a very special mahalo (thank you) to the 15 Special Agents, 17 Task Force Officers, 2 Intelligence Analysts, 2 Diversion Investigators, and 2 Administrative Staff in our DEA Honolulu District Office. The district extends DEA's presence with personnel assigned to offices on the islands of Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii, as well as offices in Guam and Saipan. I know that the Honolulu District Office will continue to initiate drug investigations targeting the highest level traffickers, and for that we are all very grateful.

Again, congratulations to the DEA on its 30th anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I also rise in very strong support of this resolution, and commend my colleague, the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), for introducing it.

I rise as the representative of one of the two districts in our country that contains the largest number of Japanese Americans in our entire country. Some 20 percent of my constituents descended from the people that were directly impacted by the events of the Second World War and themselves impacted, the other district being the First Congressional District of Hawaii.

But in 1941 as the war broke out, 38 percent of Hawaii was composed of Americans of Japanese ancestry; 38 percent of people from Japan whose origins were in Japan, who had lived and worked successfully in Hawaii for almost a century at that point. By the end of the war, about 1,500 of them had been interned, an unconscionable figure, but nothing like what happened proportionately to the population of Japanese Americans on the mainland.

And there were some heroes to be recognized even today. So as we remember today what our country did to those citizens of our country and those of German and Italian descent, we also have to remember there were heroes then, people not from those racial groups, who stood up and were counted.

Robert Shivers, the former Director of the FBI's Honolulu office, who arrived in 1939 and took it upon himself to understand Japanese Americans in Hawaii, he had the power to say who would and would not be interned, and he recognized that most, if not all, of the Japanese American citizens of Honolulu and Hawaii were not to be interned. He was a hero. He remains a hero to my constituency today.

Dr. Charles Hemenway, former President of the U.H. Board of Regents, who took the time as well to work with Agent Shivers to get beyond the hysteria of the war and into the facts, who did have to be interned as a legitimate risk, but who was simply not a risk to their country; Colonel Kendall Fielder, former head of G-2 intelligence operations for the Army in the Pacific, decisions that he made on behalf of our military, for which he took an incredible amount of heat at the time from his national superiors, were vindicated after the war.

These were people that stood up and counted at the time, and as we remember what we did, we need to remember who helped them at that time. We also need to remember simply that our institutions are what prevent this from happening again.

Mr. Speaker, I commend this resolution, and support it fully.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce legislation to ensure that out-of-state Federal contractors doing business in the various States fully comply with local State laws.

For years, my home State of Hawaii has struggled to force out-of- state Federal contractors to pay local taxes. This issue became so serious in the mid-1990s that the State of Hawaii sued out-of-state Federal contractors for failing to pay State taxes, penalties, and interest ranging from $191,000 to $324,000. Noncompliance with State laws has become such an acute problem that the Hawaii Department of Taxation has joined with other State departments and members of the Hawai `i congressional delegation to devise ways to make Federal contractors comply with State tax laws.

The bill I introduce today will solve this problem by requiring the Federal government to withhold from any Federal contractor doing business in any State the amount necessary to pay the State tax liability due under its contract, with the amount withheld paid directly to the State where the work is performed. The bill would also direct the Federal government to require a contractor to be licensed in the State in which a construction contract is to be performed.

Besides assuring prompt and full payment of State taxes, these requirements will also help ensure that out-of-state contractors follow the same set of rules and compete on equal footing for Federal contracts with local contractors. Ignoring State laws gives out-of- state contractors an unfair and illegal advantage over local contractors, who routinely face much stricter scrutiny to comply with their local laws and much stricter penalties for failing to do so.

This bill is modeled after legislation introduced by my predecessor, the late Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink, who understood that out-of-state contractors must fulfill their legal responsibilities wherever they conduct their business. By reintroducing an expanded and refined version of her earlier bill, I will continue her fight to help State governments police unethical contractors. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to what I believe to have been the unwarranted omission of language from the Omnibus Appropriations Conference Report, originally included in the Senate version of the Agriculture Appropriations bill, that would have designated funds to assist electric ratepayers on the Island of Kaua`i, Hawai`i.

The Rural Community Advancement Program in Division A of the Omnibus Conference Report contained a directive to the Secretary of Agriculture to provide grant assistance to the not-for-profit, consumer-owned Kaua`i Island Utility Cooperative under the ``Rural Utilities Service, High Energy Costs Grants Account''.

The Senate language was designed to provide a small amount of vitally needed assistance to families and small businesses on this economically challenged island. The poverty rate on Kaua`i runs at about twenty (20) percent. While unemployment has slightly declined to a somewhat low of 5.3 percent, the jobs available are overwhelmingly very low-paying jobs. With a current electric rate of nearly 27 cents per kilowatt hour, many among the ``working poor'' face a daily decision whether to turn on a few lights, or put food on the table for their family.

Twenty-seven cents per KWh is the highest cost for electricity anywhere in the United States except for two or three very small, remote villages in Alaska. A very large portion of families on Kaua`i must actually rely on the Food Bank to adequately feed their families.

The Senate provision would simply have designated, from within funds otherwise appropriated for the High Energy Costs Grants Account, an amount to offset the expenses incurred recently when island residents took over the utility system as a means to help gradually lower the punishing electric costs being charged by an off-island investor-owned company.

The Senate provision for the cooperative on Kaua`i was just one of several items dropped from the final conference agreement. I understand that the conference committee took a position against hard earmarked projects, relying instead on the Secretary to hopefully recognize the needs and make these allocations within the existing programs at the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, this language would have guaranteed an enormous impact on the Kaua`i community, and I am very concerned that it was not included in the measure before us today. I can only hope that the Secretary does in fact heed the intent of this language, and I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol to assure my constituents this badly-needed relief.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill that will provide for the expedited reunification of the families of our Filipino World War II veterans who have become citizens of the United States.

This body has many times over recognized the courage and commitment of the Filipino troops who fought alongside our armed forces in the Philippines during World War II. In 1990, we provided a waiver from certain naturalization requirements for these veterans, and many thereafter became proud citizens and residents of our country. And this year we appear poised to provide one further long-delayed and long- denied measure of justice by granting them veterans benefits which were unjustly denied to them in 1946.

But a huge gap still remains, for we did not also permit naturalization in 1990 to the children of these same veterans. What my bill does is allow for the sons and daughters of those veterans that became U.S. citizens through the process established in 1990 to have priority in their respective immigration categories.

These are real-life issues, for the stories of families who have waited years to be reunited are heartbreaking. For example, a veteran and his wife living in Hawaii filed immigration petitions for two of their six adult children; they have waited over ten years for a visa to be issued to either. Another veteran petitioned successfully for his wife's immigration visa, but has not been as successful with the applications for their five adult children. Again, this family has been holding on for ten years with the hope that they will one day live in the U.S. as a complete family.

As we all know, our Filipino World War II veterans are entering the sunset years of their lives. We have done what we can to give adequate veterans benefits for their commendable service. I now urge my colleagues to recognize and provide for the reunification of these families of our Filipino World War II veterans by supporting this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill directing the Secretary of the Interior to undertake a study to determine the suitability and feasibility of designating and acquiring lands located along the southern coast of the island of Maui as a National Seashore, National Recreation Area, National Monument, National Preserve, or other unit of the National Park Service.

The study area covered by the proposed South Maui Coastal Preservation Act of 2003 includes lands from and including the `Ahihi- Kinau Natural Area Reserve to Kanaloa Point, a distance of approximately six miles.

The area is rich in archaeological, cultural, historical, and natural resources. Important sites in the proposed park area contain remnants of dwellings, heiau (places of worship), fishing shrines, platforms, enclosures, shelters, walls, graves, and canoe hale (houses) that date back as early as 1100 A.D. This portion of the southern coast is also the home of unique native plants and animals, some of which are endangered.

The County of Maui passed Resolution 00-136 on October 6, 2000, expressing its support for having this area designated as a National Park. The Hawaii State House and Senate also passed bills in support of having the area managed by the National Park Service. Both these resolutions were in support of my predecessor, Congresswoman Patsy T. Mink's bill, H.R. 591, introduced in the 107th Congress, to study the feasibility of designating the more limited area from Keone`o`io to Kanaloa Point as a National Park.

An initial reconnaissance survey by the NPS indicated that the resources deserved protection but stated that the more limited area was not appropriate for a National Park because

most of the land was owned by the state. However, I believe the expressions of support for NPS control of the area by the County and State offer a firm basis for moving forward. Therefore, I have included a provision in my bill to ensure that the proposed study includes consultation with the State of Hawaii to assess the feasibility of transferring some or all of the State lands in the study area to the federal government.

The State of Hawaii has been unable to effectively manage and protect these important resources due to lack of funds. Operators of four-wheel drive vehicles are unknowingly destroying valuable resources at this site due to lack of supervision, signage, and cultural interpretation materials. Further, this pristine coastline lies directly in the path of development and, absent action, too soon will be lost forever.

This is a site of national significance, which deserves the level of protection only the National Park Service can provide. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, to my colleagues in the Chamber, a fond aloha. I see that I have arrived in the nick of time to provide some illustration of the nuances of the Hawaiian language as it is spoken, although I must say that the Clerk of our great House and my colleague from Indiana did an admirable job under a lot of pressure. Of course, my colleague from American Samoa is an old expert at this, and I appreciate his pronunciation.

I am very pleased to speak today in strong support of S. 254, a bill introduced by my senior colleague, Senator Akaka, to authorize expansion of the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park located on the Kona Coast on the island of Hawaii, which I am very proud to represent and which is my home, my home island. This legislation is the Senate version of my bill, H.R. 546, which was previously passed out of the House Committee on Resources' Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands. Passage of S. 254 in its stead today will allow this vital initiative to proceed directly to the President's desk.

Mr. Speaker, S. 254 authorizes expansion of the park boundaries to allow the National Park Service to purchase a 2.14-acre parcel with an existing building to serve as the park's headquarters. The park has been without a permanent headquarters since its establishment in 1978 and is now renting space some distance from the park itself.

Kaloko-Honokohau National Historic Park, an initiative of my former boss and mentor, U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, was created for the national preservation, protection, and interpretation of native Hawaiian activities and culture. This 1,160-acre park located along the Pacific Ocean in Kona is remarkable not only for its cultural and historical attributes, but as an incredibly beautiful, unspoiled natural treasure.

The park is the site of an ancient Hawaiian settlement, which encompasses portions of four different ahupua'a, or traditional sea-to- mountain land divisions. Its resources include ancient fishponds, kahua, house site platforms, ki'i pohaku, petroglyphs, a holua, stone slide, and heiau, religious sites. The park is of tremendous significance to the people of Hawaii and especially to indigenous native Hawaiians.

The National Park Service is currently renting space for its headquarters at a cost of $150,000 a year. The current headquarters only has parking for three to four visitors at a time, which is woefully inadequate to accommodate the growing number of visitors to this special park. Visitors increased from 54,000 in 2001 to 70,000 in 2002 and are well on track to increase even more in the current year. The proposed acquisition has plenty of parking for visitors and park vehicles. And the existing building has more than adequate space for the National Park Service's administrative needs not only for Kaloko- Honokohau, but for the other fantastic national and historic treasures under the Service's direction along the Kona Coast ranging from Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site to the north, to Pu'uhonua, National Historic Park to the south. The already-developed parcel has the additional benefit of being right next to the park so that the fragile resources within the park proper will not be adversely affected.

For the people of Hawaii and for the indigenous native Hawaiians who hold this park in special esteem, I am deeply grateful to the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo) and the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) of the Committee on Resources and to my colleagues from Indiana and from American Samoa for facilitating the prompt passage of this measure. I urge its prompt passage. Mahalo.

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to join with my colleague from Guam, Congresswoman Madeleine Z. Bordallo, and Congressman Neil Abercrombie from Hawaii, to introduce the Brown Tree Snake Control and Eradication Act of 2003.

This legislation proposes a long-overdue comprehensive approach, through the Departments of Interior and Agriculture, to eradicate the brown tree snake in Guam and to prevent its introduction to affected jurisdictions in the Pacific, including my home state of Hawaii.

The devastating ecological, economic, and human health impacts of the brown tree snake have been long known among the affected jurisdictions in the Pacific and the federal, state, and territorial agencies charged with implementing brown tree snake preventative control programs.

However, it is clear that unless we address this challenge with a long-term, coordinated, and comprehensive approach, Guam will continue to struggle with the adverse impacts of the brown tree snake, and we in Hawaii will increasingly risk the introduction of the snake into our fragile environment. A total of eight brown tree snakes have been found live or dead in Hawaii since the mid-1980s. All have been associated with the movement of civilian and military vehicles or cargo from Guam.

As background, the brown tree snake was accidently introduced into Guam in the late 1940s and 1950s, likely via U.S. military cargo, from an area in the Pacific where the snakes are native. Unfortunately, because Guam had no natural predator but abundant prey, the brown tree snake population spread throughout the island.

Because the brown tree snake's preferred prey is birds, it is directly responsible for the extinction of 9 of 13 native forest birds and 3 of 12 native lizards on Guam. Economically, the snakes have caused more than 1600 power outages over a 20-year period in Guam, costing the island $4.5 million per year without considering their impact on transformers, and damages inside electrical substations. The disruptions affect all aspects of everyday life in homes and work, as well as for the government and the business community.

In Hawaii, the brown tree snake represents one of the greatest terrestrial ecological threats due to its potential impact on our endangered bird species, which are found nowhere else on earth. As a result of Hawaii's geographical isolation and lush environment, there were more than 140 endemic bird species in the islands prior to human contact. Today, among the remaining 71 endemic forms, 30 are federally listed as endangered, and fifteen of these are on the brink of extinction. Any negative impact on our native bird species in Hawaii will inevitably impact our native flora as well. Hawaii has the highest known number of endemic terrestrial plants of any major island group.

Economically, a University of Hawaii study estimates that the introduction of the brown tree snake to Hawaii will cause between $28 million and $450 million annually in electrical power outages. This does not include the potential devastation to our agriculture industry. In Guam, the brown tree snake has contributed to the decline in production of the island's agriculture industry, particularly the commercial poultry industry, because the snakes eat eggs and chicks. The snake has also impacted the growing of fruits and vegetables because insects that are no longer naturally controlled by birds and lizards inflict increased damage on crops.

To address the brown tree snake problem, a Brown Tree Snake Control Committee was established subsequent to provisions in the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990. A multi-agency Memorandum of Agreement on Brown Tree Snake Control was also signed in 1992 and renewed in 1999. However, it expires in March 2004.

The Brown Tree Snake Control and Eradication Act of 2003 will statutorily authorize the Brown Tree Snake Control and Eradication Committee to ensure the ongoing activities of federal agencies, enhance the effectiveness of the present Committee, provide the necessary resources from agencies actually conducting the work, and strengthen the coordination between federal and regional stakeholders in Hawaii and the Pacific in a more systemic fashion.

Among the authorized activities is the expansion of science-based eradication and control programs in Guam; the expansion of interagency and intergovernmental rapid response teams in Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Hawaii; the expansion of science- based efforts to protect and restore native wildlife in Guam or elsewhere damaged by the brown tree snake; continuation and expansion of sustained research funding from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, and National Wildlife Research Center; and the expansion of long-term research into chemical and biological control techniques that could lead to large-scale reduction of brown tree snake populations in Guam.

This legislation is a product of collaboration between my office, the offices of Congresswoman Bordallo and Congressman Abercombie, the Nature Conservancy in Hawaii, and other key federal, state, and territorial stakeholders in the region.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on this vital issue.