Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Gateway to Democracy Act, a bill designed to increase young voter registration and participation. As we enter another presidential election season we are once again reminded that in order for our democracy to function properly, people need to exercise their right to vote. Unfortunately, young people consistently fail to turn out to the polls on voting day. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in the 2000 general election only 45.4 percent of 18 to 24 year olds were registered to vote and only 32.3 percent voted. The statistics for the 1998 general election were even more dismal, as 39.2 percent of such individuals were registered and a mere 16.6 percent actually went to the polls.

Studies have shown that people establish their voting behavior early in life. People who start voting between the ages of 18-24 are more likely to consistently participate in the election process for the rest of their lives. Thus it is in the best interest of the country to make it as easy as possible for the youth of our nation to go to the polls for the first time.

Young adults often fail to turn out on their first Election Day simply because, for the first time, they realize they have not registered to vote. Most states require registration prior to the election itself, so that it is too late to establish voter eligibility on Election Day. The Gateway to Democracy Act seeks to increase the number of young people who are eligible to vote as soon as they reach voting age.

In 1993, we passed The National Voter Registration Act so that people could register to vote when they applied for their motor vehicle driver's licenses. This law has increased voter registration and according to studies appears to increase youth voting. However, many states allow individuals to get their licenses years before they meet the age requirement for registration, but few states allow registration at that time if the person is not eighteen years old. Since 53.7 percent of seventeen year olds already had their motor vehicle licenses in 2002, we missed a valuable opportunity to register more than half of the people in that age group.

The Gateway to Democracy is a very simple idea. If you're 18 or older and you apply for a driver's license, you can also register to vote. But in most states, if you are under 18, you do not have the same opportunity to register to vote at the same time that you apply for a drivers license. Thus, a 16 or 17 year old typically must make a second trip to register after that person reaches the eligible age to vote. Often these young people don't bother to make this second trip until it is too late for them to participate in the first election for which they are eligible. This bill will allow people who are too young to vote to fill out all the paperwork necessary to register to vote when they get their drivers license. However, they won't be eligible to go to the polls until they reach the legal minimum voting age.

Some states already have successful pre-registration programs. For example, Connecticut, Florida and Maine allow people to pre-register to vote at age 17, Georgia, Missouri, and Iowa allow people to pre- register at age 17 and a half and Hawaii allows people to preregister at age 16. These programs prove that pre-registration programs are simple and effective.

The Gateway to Democracy is a commonsense solution to the problem of getting young people registered in time for their first election. It allows young people to take care of the paperwork ahead of time so that they don't have anything standing in their way on Election Day.

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

The problem with this bill is that it has so many flaws in it that it just would not work in the real world. How can there possibly be an argument made that the four highest paid executives, plus the chief executive of a company, their stock options would be counted one way and all the other stock options of the other employees would be counted another way inside of the same company? It makes no sense at all.

But the biggest detour into accounting Never-Never Land that the bill provides is when a company is calculating the expense of the options to these five executives, it must assume that the stock price has zero volatility. That is right, zero.

So let me read the language, which appears on page 4 of the bill. ``To the extent that an option pricing model is used to determine the fair value of an option, the assumed volatility of the underlying stock shall be zero.'' It will be zero. Volatility for stocks is zero. We are legislating that here on the floor of Congress today.

Now, there are lots of assumptions, which this Congress could actually begin to write right into the law, and I am sure the Republicans would like to do that. When it comes to the budget, the Republican Party is a great proponent of dynamic scoring as a way of getting the numbers to come out right. Here is an alternative, static scoring, no volatility whatsoever. Let us just legislate that.

How about the cost of the war in Iraq? We could assume that the volatility is zero. It would be zero, after all, if we simply assumed that we have already won the war, transformed Iraq into a pluralistic, secular, capitalistic democracy. So easy, we just declare the war won and we go home. No messy occupation, no truck bombs, no terrorism. Just hold a big parade to celebrate.

Hey, I have got an idea for the banner too. It could just read, ``Mission Accomplished.'' No volatility in Iraq. Let us just legislate that out here on the floor as well.

Al Qaeda, pay no attention to Al-Jazeera broadcast. We just assume that terrorism has ended as well. We will just legislate. No volatility in terrorism.

And while we are at it, let us just legislate that if we have a couple of hot fudge sundaes every day, it will have no impact on our weight, no volatility in our weight. We will just legislate it down here. Let us just legislate.

That is what they are saying today, that stocks have no volatility. Tell them who tune into CNBC and Bloomberg all day long with their eyes glued to the set, no volatility.

What are we doing here in Congress? We have no right, we have no right, ladies and gentlemen, in making that assumption for all of the investors in our country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and it is to make this point: That the majority worked very well with the minority on this issue. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and I and all the Members on our side want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) for their cooperation on this legislation.

I was the principal House sponsor of the original junk fax bill back in 1991. That bill worked quite well, but we need to update it, and this legislation will help to give the additional protections to American consumers so that they can protect themselves against the tsunami of unwanted junk faxes which go into their homes.

After all, what could be worse than to have something come into your home, consume paper in your fax machine that you have to pay for, and then not have an ability to be able to stop that person from sending any more junk faxes into your home?

That is what this bill will help to ensure does not occur in our country. The provisions in it, I think, are solid, they are sound, and they are the product of a bipartisan bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. This legislation reflects a compromise that was negotiated out between both Democratic and Republican Members over a number of weeks and I encourage Members to support this legislation today.

First, let me state that I was the principal House sponsor of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991, which contained the original junk fax prohibition. Congress endorsed my call in 1991 for a general prohibition against junk faxes because of the intrusive nature of that form of advertising. Junk faxes represent a form of advertising in which the ad is essentially paid for by the recipient. The recipient of a junk fax pays for the fax paper and printer costs, pays in the form of precious lost time as the machine is tied up, and also in the form of the clutter in which important faxes are lost in the midst of a pile of junk faxes.

I think it is important to emphasize that the bill we bring to the House floor today retains the general prohibition against sending junk faxes. In other words, sending an unsolicited facsimile advertisement is against the law. We are not changing the law or the policy with respect to this--sending a junk fax was illegal and remains illegal under this bill. Neither are we changing any of the statutory enforcement mechanisms available to the FCC or consumers in this bill.

The legislation we are proposing will address certain provisions affecting an exception to the general prohibition against sending junk faxes and will improve the bill in these areas. Since the FCC originally implemented the 1991 junk fax provisions of the TCPA, Commission regulations contained an exception for faxes that were sent because an ``established business relationship'' existed between the sender and the recipient. These regulations were in place and the ability to send junk faxes based upon the exception was permitted by the Commission for over a decade.

This concept of an ``established business relationship'' permitted a commercial entity to invoke its ability to prove such a relationship with a consumer in order to contact that consumer in spite of the general prohibitions of the law. The FCC has more recently determined that the term ``established business relationship'' was not specifically included in the provisions addressing junk faxes in the TCPA and therefore changed its regulations. The new rules require ``written'' permission from consumers and these new rules have been stayed from going into effect until January of 2005.

The legislation before us is designed to put specific language into the statute permitting an ``established business relationship'' exception to the general prohibition against junk faxes. Many businesses have complained that written permission is too onerous a regulatory requirement for many of the faxes that they stipulate are routinely sent in the ordinary course of business, presumably without complaints from the recipients of such faxes. The draft bill is responsive to these complaints.

We must recognize, however, that many small businesses and residential consumers find many of these unsolicited faxes, including those faxes sent because a valid claim of an ``established business relationship'' was being asserted in order to send them, to be a considerable irritant and strongly object to receiving them. The legislation, therefore, addresses additional issues, including putting into the statute an ``opt-out'' ability for consumers to object to receiving junk faxes, even when such faxes are sent to them based on an established business relationship. For the decade that the original FCC regulations were in place, many consumers simply were not aware of the FCC's established business relationship exception, nor did very many know they had an ability to stop these faxes or any clear way in which to effectuate such a request.

The bill the House is considering includes new provisions requiring an ``opt-out'' notice and policy that we will add to the statute. The bill requires junk faxes to include, on the first page, a clear and conspicuous notice to consumers that they have the right not to receive future junk faxes from the sender. Second, the notice must include a domestic contact telephone number an fax number for consumers to transmit a request not to receive future faxes. Third, the bill stipulates that consumers must be able to make such requests during normal business hours. Fourth, the bill requires the notice to conform with the Commission's technical and procedural standards for sending faxes under Section 227(d) of the law, which include the requirement to identify the entity sending the facsimile advertisement.

This is an important provision because one of the biggest complains from the FCC at the hearing, and with other law enforcement entities and aggrieved consumers, is that they have had difficulty legally identifying the source of many of the unsolicited faxes. In addition, there were some senders of junk faxes who evidently and falsely believed that simply because they were sending an unsolicited fax based upon their ability to prove they had a ``established business relationship'' with a consumer, and thus did not have to abide by the general prohibition against such faxes, that this also meant they did not have to abide by the other FCC and statutory technical rules. These statutory and regulatory rules include requirements that junk fax senders identify themselves in such faxes. Law enforcement entities and consumers need to be able to find the legal business name or widely recognized trade name of the entity sending a junk fax in violation of the rules in order to pursue enforcement actions.

Fifth, this bill makes it clear that a consumer can ``opt-out'' of receiving faxes to multiple machines, if they have more than one, rather than opting out solely for the particular machine that received the junk fax. Sixth, in this

legislation the Commission is tasked with exploring additional mechanisms by which a consumer might opt-out, such as in person or by e-mail or regular mail, and also requests that the Commission established cost-free ways by which consumers can opt-out. These notice and opt-out requirements all represent new provisions to the law for which existing enforcement remedies will apply.

This legislation also includes the ability for the FCC to limit the duration of an established business relationship notwithstanding the fact that the law would include an opt-out notice and ability which avails consumers of the right to opt-out of receiving faxes at any point in time. I believe this is an important concept and one which deals with the legitimate expectations of consumers. If a consumer buys something from a store, consumers might expect to hear from that store within a reasonable period of time under the notion that they have an established business relationship and the store was sending an unsolicited fax based upon that fact. Over time however, a consumer's expectation changes and there is a time after which the established business relationship can be said to have lapsed.

There are some who believe that no time limit is necessary, in light of the fact that we are now adding a clear way by which consumers may opt-out of receiving junk faxes at any time. There are others who believe that a time limit is necessary for consumer protection, and many of us have different views over what period of time is reasonable. While it is not the preferred resolution for any of us, the bill contains a new provision which tries to bridge the gap between our different perspectives on this issue. The legislation will permit the Commission to put in place a sunset of the established business relationship, after the FCC implements the new opt-out policy and it gets a track record on what is happening in the marketplace. In particular, the Commission will examine consumer complaints to the agency during this period with an analysis as to whether junk faxes from entities with whom consumers have an established business relationship constitute a significant number of complaints. If so, the Commission may establish a limit, between 5 and 7 years, for the duration of an established business relationship. If it does so, then after the limit, entities would not be able to send junk faxes because they can prove an established business relationship with a consumer. In other words, the relationship would end for purposes of the exception and the policy would revert back to the general prohibition against sending the junk fax for that consumer.

Finally, I think it is important to take a comprehensive look at overall enforcement of the junk fax law. I am concerned that some of the most egregious junk fax operations, the entities that broadcast such faxes to millions, often escape enforcement. They may be found guilty, cited by the FCC and sometimes fined--but often it appears as if they either ignore the fines, skip town, or live overseas. For these reasons the bill includes provisions that will give us an annual accounting of the FCC's enforcement activities as well as a GAO analysis of what additional enforcement tools may be necessary to provide sufficient deterrent, especially to the most egregious and abusive junk fax senders.

Again, I want to commend Chairman Upton and Chairman Barton for their work on this bill, and in particular for their willingness and openness in working with me and Mr. Dingell in crafting the compromises needed to achieve consensus. I encourage all the members to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a treasured institution in the Armenian-American community and in my Congressional District, the ``Armenian Weekly Newspaper'' which is celebrating its 70th Anniversary of publication this year.

Since 1934, the English-language Armenian Weekly has been published by the Hairenik Association of Watertown, Massachusetts, located in my district. The Association also publishes the Armenian Weekly's parent publication, ``The Hairenik,'' which is the longest running Armenian- language newspaper in the world.

Mr. Speaker, this past April we gathered to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, one of the darkest chapters of World War I, and what is sometimes called the ``Forgotten Genocide.'' The Armenian Weekly plays an invaluable role in helping all of us to remember that tragic period, but more importantly, to celebrate the lives of the survivors and their wonderful and enduring culture.

In September of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson spoke of his vision of a future Armenia. He said, ``Armenia is to be redeemed . . . So that at last this great people, struggling through night after night of terror, knowing not when they may come out into a time when they can enjoy their rights as free people that they never dreamed they would be able to exercise.'' Since the rebirth of the Armenian national following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the Armenian Weekly has run numerous stories on issues and events affecting the politics and economy of the Republic of Armenia, and the efforts of the Armenian- American community to support its struggle to survive and prosper.

Mr. Speaker, two of our most cherished freedoms in the United States are freedom of speech and freedom of the press. For seventy years now, Armenian-Americans have been

celebrating those freedoms through the Armenian Weekly Newspaper. In addition to its extensive coverage of news events of interest to the Armenian-American community, over the years, the paper has printed numerous short stories, essays and poems. For example, the stories that initially brought noted Armenian-American writer and playwright William Saroyan to national attention were first published in the Armenian Weekly.

I congratulate Editor Jason Sohigian and everyone associated with this remarkable publication and I wish the Armenian Weekly Newspaper many more years of service and success.

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

This amendment does not cut aid for Egypt. What it does is, it cuts aid for Egypt's military; and it takes the same amount of money and gives that money to the civilian economy in Egypt, to help the citizens of Egypt. And it is to send a signal to the Egyptian leaders and to the Egyptian military that it is unacceptable for the United States people to give money to the Egyptian military, even as a sieve has been created which allows for the transfer, the smuggling of guns and other weapons, explosives from Egypt into the Gaza, which is being used by Palestinian radicals to kill Israeli civilians.

That is the signal that we are sending, not to the Egyptian people, they can keep the money; but to the Egyptian military that they must do their job to secure their borders so that there is peace in Gaza, so that Israelis are not made victims of a trusting relationship between the United States and the Egyptian government and military. That is the signal which we are sending, and that is hopefully what will happen as we renew, through Egypt and its leaders, the commitment to the principles embraced by former President Anwar Sadat who, in his 1988 address to the Israeli Knesset, said, What is peace for Israel? It means Israel lives in the region with her Arab neighbors in security and safety. Is that logical? I say yes. It means that Israel lives within its borders secure against any aggression. Is that logical? And I say yes. It means that Israel abates all kinds of guarantees that will ensure these two factors. To this demand, I say yes.

We need Anwar Sadat's kind of leadership in Israel today. Vote ``yes'' on the Lantos amendment.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the ``Extremely Hazardous Materials Transportation Security Act of 2004'', a bill to improve safety within our system of transporting dangerous chemicals by rail, truck or other vehicle as part of daily commerce in the United States. The bill is cosponsored by Reps. McCarthy of Missouri, Rep. Grijalva of Arizona, Rep. Case of Hawaii, Rep. Owens of New York, Rep. Lee of California, Rep. Tierney of Massachusetts, and Reps. Jackson-Lee and Gonzalez of Texas.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have led to significant changes in the level of attention paid to safety and to anti-terrorist measures in this country. Nevertheless, every day tank cars pass through our urban centers that carry enough chlorine to kill 100,000 people in half an hour. Although some of these shipments must travel the routes they are currently using, others could easily be safely re- routed.

We already know that these shipments are attractive terrorist targets. An Ohio-based Al Qaeda operative has already been arrested and pled guilty for plotting to collapse a bridge in New York City or derail a train in DC. And in April, just north of downtown Boston, a railroad tank car carrying 20,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid started to leak close to the Sullivan rapid transit station and just yards away from I-93, causing major chaos to the morning commute. Had that incident been a successful terrorist attack rather than an accident that harmed no one, many lives could have been lost.

The bill we are introducing today would require additional security measures for all shipments of extremely hazardous materials, and also calls for the re-routing of extremely hazardous materials shipments going through areas of concern if there is a safer route available, and if the shipment's origination or destination is not located within the area of concern.

Specifically, it would require:

physical security measures surrounding shipments of EHM such as extra security guards and surveillance technologies

pre-notification of EHM shipments for law enforcement authorities

coordination between Federal, State and local authorities to create a response plan for a terrorist attack on an EHM shipment

the use of currently available technologies to ensure effective and immediate communication between shippers of EHM, law enforcement authorities and first responders

re-routing of shipments of EHM that currently travel through areas of concern (as defined by the Secretary) only if there is a safer route available, and only if the shipment's origination or destination is not located within the area of concern

training for employees who work with EHM shipments

whistleblower protections for those disclosing violations of security rules or regulations

civil and administrative penalties for those who fail to comply with the regulations

I am attaching a letter of support for this bill from Chief Carter of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Police. While this letter addresses a particular hydrochloric acid spill that occurred April 14 in the Boston area, it is indicative of the difficulty and danger that extremely hazardous chemical shipments can pose to our first responder community wherever they live and work. It has also been endorsed by Greenpeace, Clean Water Action, Friends of the Earth, National Environmental Trust, the Public Interest Research Group, and 14 chemical companies.

I urge my colleagues to join me in seeking to upgrade our defenses in this area so that none of our constituents are ever exposed to a catastrophic chemical release simply because we failed to take these simple steps.

MBTA Police,

Boston, MA, July 12, 2004.

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will observe the seventh International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The date June 26 is no accident: it was on June 26, 1987 that the International Convention Against Torture came into effect, and on June 26, 1945 the United Nations Charter was signed. Tragically, torture and other severe human rights abuses continue in many countries around the globe to this day.

Even more tragically, the world has seen in the past few months that the United States is not as firmly placed as it should be among those nations that abhor and fully reject torture. The prison abuses at Abu Ghraib have disappointed all Americans. Although President Bush has asserted that ``the values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being'' much of the world remains skeptical about the Bush administration's commitment to repudiation of torture in light of the recent revelations about internal administration legal memoranda which attempted to carve out broad exemptions from domestic and international prohibitions on torture based on the Presidential power as Commander-in-Chief.

While the Abu Ghraib revelations were appalling, there is another practice going on right now which merits equal attention, and that is the outsourcing of torture by this administration. Under a practice known as ``extraordinary rendition,'' the CIA delivers terrorism suspects in U.S. custody both domestically and abroad to foreign governments known to use torture for the purpose of interrogation. This extra judicial practice has received little attention because of the great secrecy with which it occurs. Attention was drawn to the practice in September 2002 when Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was seized while in transit to Canada through JFK airport, and sent to Jordan and later Syria at the request of the CIA. While in Syria, Arar was tortured and held in a dark, 3-by-6-foot cell for nearly a year. He was ultimately released and detailed his story to the media upon his return to Canada.

In October 2002, outgoing CIA director George Tenet testified to the 9/11 Commission that over 70 people had been subject to extraordinary rendition before September 11, 2001. The numbers since then are classified. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU have detailed numerous cases of extraordinary rendition and are pursuing litigation in some of them. On June 21, the Canadian government launched an investigation into Arar's case.

This practice is inconsistent with U.S. and international law and is a moral outrage. It must be stopped. If the Bush administration continues to permit this sort of outsourced, third-party torture, it is more likely that our own troops in Iraq could be subject to the same type of brutal treatment. I have recently introduced legislation, H.R. 4674, that directs the State Department to compile a list of countries that commonly practice torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment during detention and interrogation, and prohibits rendition to any nation on this list, unless the Secretary of State certifies that the nation has made significant progress in human rights. The bill explicitly permits legal, treaty-based extradition, in which suspects have the right to appeal in a U.S. court to block the proposed transfer based on the likelihood that they would be subjected to torture or other inhumane treatment.

Extraordinary rendition to countries known to practice torture amounts to outsourcing torture. It is morally repugnant to allow such a practice to continue. H.R. 4674 is designed to ensure that we not only ban torture conducted by our own forces but we also stop the practice of contracting out torture to other nations. Torture enabled by extraordinary rendition is outrageous and could expose our own forces to the same type of treatment.

It is also deeply foolish of the Bush administration to allow any questions to be raised as to America's rejection of torture. Quite simply, actions such as those at Abu Ghraib and the ongoing practice of extraordinary rendition endanger American soldiers and civilians who may be captured in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. By failing to firmly bar methods of torture with U.S. detainees, the Bush administration has increased the likelihood that Americans overseas will be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment.

Mr. Chairman, before I speak in support of the Sanders amendment, I would like to applaud the Chairman, Ranking Member and all the members of the subcommittee for their wise decision to eliminate all funding for new nuclear weapons initiatives, including the nuclear bunker buster, mini-nukes, the Modern Pit Facility, and accelerated nuclear test readiness. The committee has taken a farsighted and courageous step toward nuclear sanity by eliminating funding for these wasteful, dangerous and entirely unnecessary programs, and this action will help restore America's nonproliferation credibility around the world.

The Sanders amendment would inject some of that same farsightedness into our allocation of funding for energy research and development by increasing funding for solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen and geothermal renewable energy technology.

President Bush's Fiscal Year 2005 budget request and this legislation take us backward, not forward, in our national investment in the clean, renewable technologies that will power us safely and reliably in the 21st century. In this legislation, renewable energy research and development programs are either cut or flat funded from last year. Mr. Sanders' amendment would ensure that we increase funding for each of the renewable energy programs next year, not cut them.

The amendment would shift $30 million from ``Advanced Simulation and Computing'' in the

nuclear weapons activities program to five renewable energy programs. This cut of $30 million represents less than a five percent of the total $633 million budget for advanced simulation and computing and would leave the program with almost twice as much funding as the total funding for solar and renewable energy research and development.

Renewable energy is good for America. It creates jobs. It lowers electricity prices. It eliminates pollution and waste. It increases our national energy security. But the appropriation levels in front of us suggest that Congress does not consider renewable energy important. If my colleagues believe that renewable energy is important, I urge them to support the Sanders amendment so that funding for renewable energy programs can be increased, not cut, next year.

Mr. Speaker, the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib were a national disgrace and have rightly been the subject of anger and condemnation. But another torture practice continues to go on without any public attention. Under the name ``extraordinary rendition'', the CIA reportedly sends terrorism suspects, sometimes on the flimsiest of evidence, to foreign countries that are known to employ torture in prisoner interrogation. This practice is against all U.S. and international law and is a moral outrage, and it must be stopped.

The practice of extraordinary rendition, the extra-judicial removal of people in U.S. custody both domestically and abroad to foreign governments that are known to use torture, has received little attention because of the degree of secrecy with which it occurs. Attention was drawn to the practice in September 2002 when Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was seized while in transit to Canada through JFK airport, and sent to Jordan and later Syria at the request of the CIA. While in Syria, Arar was tortured and held in a dark, 3-by-6-foot cell for nearly a year. He was ultimately released and detailed his story to the media upon his return to Canada.

Although the more recent numbers have not been made public, outgoing CIA director George Tenet testified to the 9/11 Commission in October 2002 that over 70 people had been subject to rendition before September 11, 2001. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU have detailed numerous other cases and are pursuing litigation in some of them. On June 21, the Canadian government launched an investigation into Arar's case.

My bill directs the State Department to compile a list of countries that commonly practice torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during detention and interrogation, and prohibits rendition to any nation on this list, unless the Secretary of State certifies that the nation has made significant progress in human rights. It also specifies that written or verbal assurances from a foreign government that a person will not be tortured are not sufficient basis to override this prohibition. The bill explicitly permits legal, treaty-based extradition, in which suspects have the right to appeal in a U.S. court to block the proposed transfer based on the likelihood that they would be subjected to torture or other inhumane treatment.

Extraordinary rendition is outsourcing torture, and it is morally repugnant to allow such a practice to continue. President Bush has asserted that `the values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.' The legislation I am introducing today is designed to ensure that we not only ban torture conducted by our own forces but we also stop the practice of contracting out torture to other nations. Torture enabled by extraordinary rendition is outrageous and must be stopped.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 460, which endorses President Bush's April 14, 2004 letter embracing the disengagement plan proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

Critics have expressed concern that President Bush's letter prejudges the final outcome of negotiations on sensitive issues like borders

and refugees. However, the President and Secretary of State have indicated that it does not undermine the fundamental requirement that all issues be mutually agreed upon in final status negotiations.

The problem right now is that Israel has no reliable Palestinian partner capable of negotiating a final status agreement. Israel's disengagement plan responds to the void left by the failure of the current Palestinian leadership to lead. I would also suggest that the Israeli disengagement initiative is in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians alike. It will help Palestinians to take concrete moves to establish a democratic state, and it will help preserve both the Jewish and democratic character of Israel over the long term while contributing to its security.

It is also important to remember that policy articulated in the President's letter is consistent with the peace negotiations initiated by President Clinton at Camp David. Those negotiations took into account the fact that the Palestinian claim to an open-ended right of return would be demographically untenable for Israel's future as a Jewish state. The Clinton negotiations also operated on the premise that the final settlement negotiated in accordance with UN Resolutions 242 and 338 would involve mutually agreed-upon adjustments to the 1949 armistice lines to provide Israel with secure, recognized, and defensible borders that reflect demographic realities and to provide the Palestinians with territory for their own state.

By passing this resolution today and expressing its support for the April 14 letter and the disengagement plan, I believe Congress can help show its support for an enduring and sustainable peace settlement in the Middle East.

Months of cooperation and shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Jerusalem led to a White House meeting on April 14th, 2004 and an historic agreement between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon on some of the most important issues in the conflict. That agreement was included in a letter the President sent to Prime Minister Sharon, enunciating a number of principles that are specifically referenced in the resolution before this House today, among them: The need for Israel to have defensible borders that reflect demographic realities; the need for Palestinian refugees to understand that they will not be returning to Israel; the need for Palestinians to end their campaign of terror and for Israel to have the ability to defend itself against that terror.

H. Con. Res. 460 strongly endorses the principles articulated in the April 14th letter and sends a strong, bipartisan show of support for that agreement.

These principles are clearly framed as subject to future negotiations between the parties. They lay out basic parameters that reflect the reality of the Middle East today and, as such, could play a useful role in helping promote realistic peace negotiations.

The resolution also expresses support for ``efforts to continue working with others in the international community to build the capacity and will of the Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat to the security of Israel.''

Such efforts are desperately needed, as it will not be possible to reach a comprehensive solution to the conflict in the Middle East until the Palestinians renounce the use of terror and return to the negotiating table. Today, for example, we know that Palestinian terrorists are continuing to smuggle guns and explosives from Egypt into Gaza. Recent press reports indicated that the terrorists are now using an elaborate network of tunnels to carry out such smuggling. For example, a May 16, 2004 article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post reported that:

A short list of items smuggled via the tunnels to

terrorists in the Gaza Strip includes Katyusha rockets,

mortars, shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, antitank

grenades, large amounts of explosives, ammunition, and

rifles. The arms come from Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, and Libya. The

underground smuggling is necessary because the navy has

successfully blocked attempts by Palestinians to smuggle

weapons into Gaza via the sea.

The army frequently conducts operations along the

Philadelphi Route and in the outskirts of Rafah in an attempt

to uncover and destroy the tunnels. One of the painstaking

tasks is similar to that in which the five soldiers died on

Wednesday evening: boring holes meters under the ground,

placing explosives to blow up tunnels.

The IDF has uncovered and destroyed 11 tunnels this year--

and close to 100 during the past three and a half years.

As Israel proceeds to withdraw from Gaza, the Bush Administration needs to put pressure on the Egyptian government to shut down these terrorist smuggling tunnels. Egypt is a substantial recipient of U.S. economic aid and an ally of the U.S., and it has a responsibility to ensure that its borders are not being used by terrorist organizations seeking to smuggle weapons into Gaza for use in terrorist attacks against Israel. The President and Secretary of State Colin Powell need to take forceful action now to convince Egypt to shut down all of these smuggling tunnels at once.

In closing, I believe that this resolution reflects the strong bipartisan support which exists in the Congress for Israel's security, and for the conclusion of a Middle East Peace agreement that is consistent with the protection of Israel's security and self determination for the Palestinian people, including a Palestinian state.

I urge adoption of the resolution.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Chairman pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, every time we fly we wait in security lines. We empty our pockets, we remove our shoes. Sleeping babies are taken out of their baby carriers. We have to walk through metal

detectors, we have to have our baggage inspected. Even grandma with her walker needs to be physically inspected at security checkpoints.

We do not complain much as Americans because we all know this is all aimed at improving the security of every single flying passenger in our country. But what people do not realize is that right next to our baggage, right underneath our now-screened shoes, cargo is placed which has not been screened at all.

For example, if a passenger were carrying onto a plane a package this size, it is going to get screened. It is going through the metal detector. It is going to be looked at. But if it is shipped as cargo and it is 16 ounces or less, it automatically does not get screened at all. They think this is not dangerous if it comes as cargo. But if a passenger carries it onto that very same plane, it is going to be checked. The only difference is if you are carrying it, you are on the plane with it. But if someone sends it as cargo, they are not on that plane.

What is dangerous about that? What is dangerous about it is that the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie was brought down by a package this size. That is what is wrong. We should not have passengers on American planes that have this kind of danger that al Qaeda could exploit that could wind up with a catastrophe which shocks the world.

Moreover, cargo which is this size, which is not too much bigger than a lot of people's traveling bags for the summer, this does not get screened except in very rare instances. It goes right into the belly of the plane, the same way that your baggage goes there but without the screening. So that is a loophole, unfortunately, that al Qaeda could exploit and we know that al Qaeda continues to say and our Bush administration security officials confirm that al Qaeda continues to put passenger aircraft at the very top of their terrorist target list.

So the amendment which we are making here today, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and myself, is the same amendment which we made last year to this bill which passed on the House floor 278-146. The reason it passed is obvious, it makes no sense to put all of the families in our country, especially as vacation time is arriving, on planes that have all of these packages that are unscreened even as they, the American families, have been put through the toughest possible screening possible.

So our amendment calls for the screening of this cargo, that it should not go onto the planes unless it is screened. Why should bags in the bay of a passenger plane be screened, that is the bags of the passengers, but the other half not be screened even though the people who put those packages on are not even flying on the plane? This is something that in our opinion makes no sense whatsoever.

We continue to see data on the number of planes. It turns out that al Qaeda was targeting 10 planes for hijacking. We know they are obsessed with them and we know that we are obsessed with the planes that are the passenger planes. Let us not allow our people in our country, our passengers, and yes, yes, we are talking about the American family here. That is what we are talking about. We are talking about the people who are in the galleries today who flew here to Washington. It was on their planes, and as they fly out of Washington today, as they fly anywhere in America today, it is the baggage on their planes that had cargo on it. These people deserve protection.

That is the simple heart of our argument; that it is just plain wrong to put Americans on planes with unscreened cargo, especially since the technology is already there. The vast majority of cargo could be screened with the existing technology that already screens our bags. It is the same size as our bags or smaller. How can they escape being screened?

Mr. Chairman, I ask for Members' support. The gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) and I will make the argument over the next 30 minutes or so and we hope that we once again send a strong message that we want to have all of this baggage screened.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), the cosponsor of my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Olver).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for a colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, it is my intention, the gentleman from Connecticut's (Mr. Shays) intention, that once we close the loophole on passenger planes that allow for cargo to go on unscreened, then we will move on to the next step, which is the cargo that goes on cargo planes. But I think the first job is to make sure that passengers are protected and then in the next step, as the gentleman said, we will move on to do the same for cargo planes.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

I will be the last remaining speaker, yes, sir.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me begin by saying that Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie did go down, but it went down because a package this size was not screened in the baggage. We now mandate that all baggage be screened. We closed that loophole, but the reason the Pan Am 103 families endorse the Markey-Shays amendment and have sent a letter to Congress endorsing it is because they know that this same package in the cargo is not screened on passenger planes. The Pan Am 103 families endorse this amendment.

Secondly, the technology already exists. The Israelis screen cargo. The United Kingdom screens cargo. The Netherlands screens cargo. Australia, Singapore, Spain, Hong Kong, Italy, they already screen the cargo which goes onto passenger planes; and there are American companies lined up to do the job. American Science and Engineering, Incorporated, L3 Security and Detection Systems, Raytheon Cargo Screen, they all say they are ready to go to deploy the technology today. It is not a question of technology. It is a question of money. The same argument was made right after September 11: we do not have enough money to screen the bags of every passenger going on planes.

Well, we do not have enough money not to do it, because the next plane that goes down is going to cripple the American economy. That is the price of leaving a loophole that could lead to an explosion on a plane. That is the price our country is going to pay, and it is going to look like one cent on a hundred dollars if it happens.

We cannot afford to allow this kind of loophole to exist. This known- shipper program, it is not even certified by the Federal Government. The Federal Government lets the airlines decide who these shippers are, who put these packages on without even screening. It is not even a Federal Government program; it is an airline program. That is no security for the American flying public.

These people who fly into Washington as tourists, people going on vacations, they should not have to be putting their families on planes with cargo this size or this size, that has not been screened, even as they have been forced to take their nail clippers out and have them confiscated. It is wrong.

The Markey-Shays amendment should pass. If you want to see security on the airlines of our country, if you want to avoid another airline disaster in our country that will cause an economic catastrophe, vote ``aye'' on the Markey-Shays amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, the race to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease is more urgent than ever. Four and a half million Americans, including one in 10 people over age 65 and nearly half of those over 85, have Alzheimer's disease. Unless science finds a way to prevent or cure this terrible illness, nearly 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050.

Today I am introducing the Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's Breakthrough Act of 2004, to honor President Ronald Reagan and his forward thinking in establishing an awareness of this disease and his guidance in directing the National Institute on Aging to establish the Alzheimer's Disease Centers. I am joined by Representative Christopher Smith, Co-chair of the Congressional Alzheimer's Taskforce, Representatives Robert Menendez, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Gene Green, Dale Kildee, Donald A. Manzullo, Karen McCarthy, Marty Meehan, Richard E. Neal, Ron Kind, Patrick Kennedy, and Jim McDermott.

The Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's Breakthrough Act of 2004 expands the federal government's efforts to find new ways to prevent, treat, and care for patients with Alzheimer's. This bill focuses on enhancing our research efforts by authorizing NIH's Preventive Initiative, which directs NIH to identify possible preventive interventions and conduct clinical trials to test their effectiveness. This bill authorizes

significant increase in funding for the Nation Institute on Aging and cooperative clinical research at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to improve the existing clinical trial infrastructure, develop new ways to design clinical trials, and make it easier for patients to enroll.

The bill also focuses efforts to help the caregivers of Alzheimer's patients. Presently, care giving comes at enormous physical, emotional, and financial sacrifice. One in eight Alzheimer caregivers becomes ill or injured as a direct result of care giving, and older caregivers are three times more likely to become clinically depressed than others in their age group. Research is needed to find better ways to help caregivers bear this tremendous, at times overwhelming responsibility. This bill reauthorizes the Alzheimer's Demonstration Grant Program. These grants allow states to provide services like home care, respite care, and day care to patients and families, with Alzheimer's disease.

Mr. Speaker the best way to fight this disease and reduce the number of patients who suffer from Alzheimer's disease is to find ways to prevent it before it starts. Investments we make now in Alzheimer's disease and aging research mean longer, healthier lives for all of us. If we can delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by even 5 years, it would save this country billions of dollars--and would improve the lives of millions of families. Congress must act now to strengthen the federal commitment to preventive Alzheimer's and to finding a cure for this devastating disease and provide for caregivers.''

Mr. Speaker, this bill is part of a continuing pattern where the Republican majority shuts out the Democratic Party. But more importantly, they shut out, yes, the American public. No hearings on this bill. No discussion on this bill. No involvement of the American public in discussing a bill which could have profound impact on the environment and the health of Americans all across our country. It is a continuing pattern of disrespect for the American public that they are not able to have hearings on issues that are so central to their families' environmental and health care well-being.

They bring it out here to the floor and what do they say to the Democratic Party and, yes, to the American people? There are no amendments that can be made to this bill. We have conceived it in secret and we are going to pass it without amendment or without discussion, and that is the height of political arrogance because it leaves out the American people from the discussion. It assumes that a small number of oil company executives working with members of the Republican Party can decide what is best for our country, when obviously it is pretty evident from all of the higher gas prices and the mess that we have got in the country that that is not the best way to go, that the American people should be involved.

What do they say? They say we need this bill, quote/unquote, to revitalize the refining industry. Well, today the biggest oil refiners in the United States are Exxon-Mobil, Conoco-Phillips, BP, Valero and Royal Dutch Shell. Together they comprise 50 percent of domestic refinery capacity in the United States. Ten years ago they only controlled about a third of domestic refinery capacity.

So how are they doing with this incredible increase that they have had over the last few years? Well, Valero Energy Corporation reported record earnings in its April 2004 quarterly report. Here is what they said. ``With respect to refined product fundamentals, gasoline margins remain at record levels. As we look at the balance of 2004, it is obvious that this is going to be another year of record earnings for us,'' the Valero Refining Company.

That is great news if you are a Valero Energy shareholder. What about all the American gasoline consumers? Why has it not been great for them? What about other refiners? Perhaps they are hurting as well. Let us find out.

Let us look at Exxon-Mobil's May 2004 quarterly report. Here is what they have to say about themselves. U.S. downstream earnings were $393 million, up $218 million mainly due to higher refining margins.

Great news for Exxon-Mobil shareholders. Their investment does not seem like it needs to be revitalized much if they have had more than a doubling of their revenues.

Well, how about Conoco-Phillips, how are they doing? Guess what? There is good news again. Here is what Conoco-Phillips had to report in their April 2004 quarterly report. Refining and marketing income from continuing operations was up $464 million, up from $202 million in the previous quarter and $389 million in the first quarter of 2003. Improvements over the fourth quarter of 2003 were primarily driven by higher refining margins. These improvements were partially offset by lower U.S. retail and wholesale marketing margins. The improved results from the first quarter of 2003 were attributable to higher U.S. refining margins and volumes, partially offset by lower U.S. retail and wholesale marketing margins.

Now, I could go through BP, which once again makes the same point. How about Royal Dutch Shell? Again, they are making the same point. Shell, Shell says that they are watching increased margins.

Not so great news for the consumer but great news for each one of those oil companies.

So your question, I guess, is why do they not take all these profits and expand their refining capacity? Why do they not just, rather than blaming it on the environment and the health care laws of the United States, just take all these huge profits that they get from tipping the American consumer upside down and shaking money out of their pockets and improve them?

I will tell you why they do not do that. They do not do that because they do not want to call upon the Justice Department. They do not want to call upon the Federal Trade Commission to look at the incredible consolidation that has occurred in the refining industry over the last 10 years. They do not want to look at what happens when fewer and fewer companies control the refining industry and you wind up with a conscious or unconscious parallelism of interest, which essentially means they all have a stake in raising prices because there are so few of them and there are no other competitors out there who can act on behalf of consumers by lowering prices.

But for crying out loud, do not blame the health care laws that protect the American public. Do not blame the environmental laws. Blame these companies with record profits which do not want to expand the refining industry themselves.

Please, please, do not exclude the American public from the debate on this bill, have no questions asked, and then blame the laws that have been passed to protect their health and environment for what the refiners are doing in hurting the American consumer.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4513, the Renewable Energy Project Siting Improvement Act.

This bill should really be called the Nonnegotiable Energy Project Siting Act. This is a gift to those who would like to gut the National Environmental Policy Act, wrapped in the green paper of renewable energy.

If the Republican leadership really cared about increasing renewable energy use in America, today we would be debating the extension of a renewable energy production tax credit, or a renewable portfolio standard or even national interconnection standards. Those are the policy priorities of the renewable energy industry, not gutting our national environmental laws.

Instead of taking up those policy priorities, the Republican leadership has decided instead to just take the public out of the process. H.R. 4513 would eliminate the requirement that any alternative other than not building the project be considered, and it limits the public comment period to just 20 days. 20 days is an inadequate amount of time for the public to respond to complicated energy projects like hydroelectric dams and waste incineration, which are included in the bill's broad definition of ``renewable energy project.'' This bill says to sportsmen and Indian tribes that their comments on potentially harmful dam projects don't matter. This bill says to parents that their comments on plans to build dirty waste incinerators next to their children's schools don't matter.

This is a Republican solution in search of a problem. You'll hear a lot about wind energy today, but the fact of the matter is that 6374 megawatts of wind power have been developed under the current regulations. It is the start-stop nature of the renewable energy production tax credits under the Republican controlled Congress and White House that are making it difficult for developers to bring more wind energy online.

Democrats are ready to debate long-term production tax credits. Democrats are ready to debate a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. Democrats are ready to debate interconnection standards. But instead the Republicans just want to eliminate public involvement in energy projects that impact their families.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this misguided bill and preserve the public's right to comment on energy projects--renewable or not-- that impact their families.

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

Does the Republican energy bill help the American consumer? Does it have any meaningful help whatsoever? Well, the answer is no. And who do we get the answer from? We get the answer from the Department of Energy, the Bush administration. Here is what it says.

It says, ``The impact of this bill analyzed in this report on total primary energy consumption is small on a fuel specific basis; changes to production, consumption, imports and prices are negligible.''

What else does it say? It says, ``In 2015 the average gasoline prices relative to the reference case are 3 cents per gallon higher and average reformulated gasoline prices are 8 cents per gallon higher than in the reference case,'' meaning today.

So this bill, according to the Bush administration's own Department of Energy, is going to lead to gas prices that are 3 to 8 cents higher than today. The American people are thinking, I wonder what Congress is going to do about high gasoline prices?

Well, according to the Bush administrations's own Department of Energy, this bill will increase them by 3 to 8 cents per gallon. That is a travesty.

This bill will have a negligible impact on energy production, a negligible impact on energy consumption, a negligible impact on energy imports, will increase the price of gasoline by 3 cents a gallon for regular. It will increase gas prices by 8 cents a gallon for reformulated. It provides $23 billion worth of special interest tax breaks for the oil, gas, coal, nuclear, utility industry. It weakens the Clean Air Act. It weakens the Clean Water Act. It repeals the protections against cross-subsidies amongst these big energy giants.

But what is not in here? SUVs, automobiles, vehicles, where we put 70 percent of all oil in our country. Not a word. We will not be doing anything about that in this bill. We now import 60 percent of our oil and we have 135,000 young people over in the Middle East. This bill does not do anything about that. We are coming back in 15 more years importing 80 percent of our oil as the next generation of young men and women go over to the Middle East to protect the oil lines coming into our country.

This bill does not meet the challenge of those 135,000 young men and women over in the Middle East. It does not meet the challenge of the 24 million children and adults with asthma in our country from all of this pollution. It does not meet the challenge of 60, 70, 80 percent of our oil being imported into our country. It does not meet the challenge of the day. We have young men and women over in the Middle East. This bill does not reduce our dependence upon imported oil. It raises the price of gasoline at the pump, and it leaves the next generation wondering when they will have to go over to the Middle East.

This bill is a failure. It does not do the job for the American public. It must be rejected as historically inappropriate for the challenge this generation faces to meet the challenge of the times that we live in.