Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule. This legislation, while not perfect, is a step in the right direction. What it does is begin to draw brighter lines for Members and for staff and for lobbyists and the public. It increases oversight, and it increases accountability.

The bill also addresses earmarks. Too often earmarks are placed in legislation at the behest of lobbyists, many times at the last minute to avoid scrutiny. This bill would require that lists of earmarks in legislation be made public before votes on bills or conference reports, and that any Member could bring a point of order against the list of earmarks and subject it to a 30-minute debate.

Reform would be meaningless without changes in the way earmarks are

handled. We need fiscal restraint. We need common sense when it comes to the budget.

The future of all Americans depends on an economy free of crippling deficits, free of crippling tax hikes, and free of a skyrocketing national debt. The extent of which earmarks unnecessarily burden the American taxpayers is unprecedented. Last year's earmarks amounted to nearly $100 for every man, woman and child in America.

While lobbying reform is necessary to preserve the integrity of our government, earmark reform is vital to our long-term fiscal well-being. Bringing earmarks to the light of day will promote fiscal responsibility, and it is going to promote more effective government as well.

So, Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule for lobbying reform.

Mr. Chairman, this goes to the issue of $50 million in economic support funds for Liberia. What I wanted to say, on this issue, is that the United States has been very generous with Liberia. We have committed nearly $1.5 billion, and that includes the funding for U.N. peacekeeping, and of course President Bush deployed U.S. Marines in Liberia to end the fighting there. My concern is that the former Liberian President, Charles Taylor, frankly, is first among warlords. He faces a 17-count indictment by the U.S. backed Special Court for his crimes against humanity, and yet he is living in cushy exile in Nigeria.

This is a problem on several counts. Taylor must face justice for the killing and maiming that he engineered. Bringing him to the Special Court will end the cycle of impunity that destabilizes West Africa, and most pressing to today's business, Taylor remains a threat to the progress that the U.S. has done so much to achieve. It is probable that left in exile, Taylor will return to Liberia, as he has pledged to do, and knock over all that we have helped build up, throwing that region back into chaos.

Congress passed a resolution calling for Taylor to be sent to the Special Court. Yesterday, Liberia's new President addressed this Congress. She had an inspiring message. But what many human rights and civil society groups were hoping to hear was a loud and clear call for Taylor to be turned over to the court now before it is too late. While Taylor is in Nigeria, Nigeria's president has said he would honor an extradition request made by Liberia's new president. We are waiting for that request.

This bill would tack on an added $50 million in emergency spending for Liberia. I am worried about the message this sends about our seriousness of purpose regarding Charles Taylor. We continue our generosity, yet the Liberian president continues to defy the wishes of many Liberians by not acting to bring Charles Taylor to justice.

So, Mr. Chairman, I considered offering an amendment to strike or condition this $50 million. What I seek instead is to hear from you on this issue.

I thank the gentleman from Arizona and the gentlewoman from New York, and certainly the chairman of the committee.

Amendment No. 26 Offered by Ms. Kaptur

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of National Peace Corps Day, which was last Tuesday, February 28th.

In my travels to Africa, I have had the chance to meet with many Peace Corps volunteers. The commitment these men and women have shown is extremely impressive and is to be commended.

The work that Peace Corps volunteers have done to address the HIV/ AIDS pandemic is invaluable. Volunteers have worked hard to carry out the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, and are active in 9 of the 15 Emergency Plan countries.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen the valuable work the Peace Corps is doing in Africa, and throughout the world. It deserves our recognition and support. Under the leadership of Director Gaddi Vasquez, the Peace Corps is well poised to address the rapidly evolving challenges of the developing world.

I thank the chairwoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution. This resolution rightfully condemns Iranian noncompliance with its nonproliferation obligations and calls upon the U.N. Security Council to expeditiously consider this matter.

Madam Speaker, this is a grave matter, one deserving of this House's full and careful consideration. Iran, the most active state sponsor of terrorism, is seeking nuclear weapons. Its regime denies it, but the U.S. and many other nations know otherwise. Iran has a long record of deceiving international inspectors and has a history of dealing with the A.Q. Khan network. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation, nothing worries me more than this deadly combination of terrorism and WMD.

For a closed country such as Iran, we actually know a great deal about the Iranian nuclear program. IAEA inspectors have played a key role in spotlighting Iranian behavior. In its most recent update to the 35 member IAEA Board of Governors, inspectors reported that Iran has in its possession a document on the production of uranium metal hemispheres. This is of great significance, as the IAEA identified this document as being related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components, the first time the international body has attributed a nuclear weapons purpose to activities by Iran.

Madam Speaker, if Iran were to go nuclear, many other countries in this combustible region, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Turkey, to name a few, might follow. This proliferation would pose a grave threat to our security and certainly the security of our allies.

Some criticize our European partners for failing in their negotiations with Iran. I agree that it has taken us too long to get to this point, but, frankly, when you think about it, our hand is strengthened at this point because of the European involvement.

At the IAEA vote the other week, we had the permanent five members of the Security Council united. I am under no illusions that this united front will last, but it is an important first step.

We will also hear from some that the administration has outsourced its diplomacy to the Europeans and has stood by as Iran moves toward a nuclear weapon. I will remind those that we alone cannot meet all security threats. We need partners. It is time to start challenging the norms that have developed over time.

The Iranians skillfully talk about their inalienable rights under the nonproliferation treaty to develop the full nuclear fuel cycle, including its most sensitive aspects. Indeed, in the eyes of the IAEA, Iran's crime has been its failure to report its nuclear materials and the technology, not the nuclear activities themselves, including uranium enrichment.

Under the guise of the NPT, Iran is walking right up to the edge of developing nuclear weapons. This is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the NPT.

My subcommittee will soon take a close look at this issue. This notion of rights has to be challenged, because if we don't, the world will be a very, very dangerous place.

Mr. Speaker, there are no easy answers. We need to think long and hard about what types of sanctions are constructive in reaching the goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. This challenge will require careful and marked consideration by the administration, Congress, and our partners as we move forward. It is too serious for anything else.

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

For those of us that are deficit hawks and have pushed this bill to cut spending by $40 billion, I think it is important to recognize that between 1995 and 2005, we have seen spending swell on the part of the Federal Government from $1.5 trillion to $2.5 trillion. We have seen it go up $1 trillion in 10 years, and we could cooperate I guess to push it up another trillion, but let me explain my concerns with the national debt that is past $8 trillion and a deficit that is projected to hit $337 billion.

If we fail to confront this challenge of ever higher spending, crowding out the private sector, then the coming decades will be very difficult. Our standard of living will decline, and we will become a much more vulnerable country. This Deficit Reduction Act, this $40 billion, is a good start.

I think that we recognize that Americans, if they ran their personal finances the way the Federal Government has been run, we would be close to bankruptcy. I think Americans recognize it is time for belt tightening, and I think they know that an attempt to just keep increasing the public sphere at the expense of the private sphere and increasing taxes as a result is not the answer.

We need fiscal restraint. We need common sense when it comes to the budget. The future of all Americans depends on an economy free of crippling deficits, free of crippling tax hikes and free of a skyrocketing national debt.

It is incumbent on all of us that we step up to the plate and take responsibility for the Nation's future and that immediate future holds frankly a massive cost that I think all of us know is before us because we have a generation of baby boomers that are set to retire. If we are to ensure the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security then we must ensure not only that the budget is balanced but that we begin to pay down our enormous national debt.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am urging my colleagues to support this amendment. We need only look at a new study done by a staff member of the 9/11 Commission to see why we need to ensure that the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service has a strong law enforcement component, which this amendment guarantees, and why we need to have stronger measures to fight fraud.

In this study, they looked at 94 terrorists, including six of the 9/ 11 hijackers, who have operated on the U.S. soil between the early 1990s and 2004, and here is what they found: Two-thirds, 59 of them, two-thirds of the foreign-born terrorists studied committed immigration benefits fraud prior to or in conjunction with taking part in terrorist activity. In 47 of these instances, immigration benefits sought or acquired prior to 9/11 enabled the terrorists to stay in the United States after 9/11 and continue their terrorist activities. In two of these instances, terrorists were able to acquire immigration benefits after 9/11. There were 11 cases of passport fraud and 12 instances of visa fraud amongst these 94 terrorists. In total, 34 individuals were charged with making false statements to an immigration official.

Fraud was used not only to gain entry into the U.S. but also to remain in the country. And once they were in the United States, 23 terrorists applied for lawful permanent residence. Sixteen of those were approved by the INS. Twenty-one terrorists applied for naturalization, and 20 of them were approved and became citizens.

We need this amendment to ensure the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service focuses on a law enforcement component to act as a backstop to interior and Customs enforcement, and we fund it by providing that aliens using our immigration system pay a modest security fee to provide USCIS the resources and personnel it needs to fully investigate and prosecute immigration benefits fraud and corruption. And just as importantly, it stops potential fraud by prohibiting the granting of any immigration benefits that are in question until a thorough investigation has been conducted.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

(Mr. SENSENBRENNER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Chairman, we do not want these agencies to waive instances where they have not had time to do the criminal background checks or to check the terrorist watch list. And in order to make it timely, in the amendment, we provide the revenue by having aliens who use our immigration system pay a modest security fee. That provides the very resources necessary here.

What do those resources go to besides to ensure this is done in a timely manner? Well, this amendment also consolidates the data- gathering function of the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security in a law-enforcement focused division whose mission is to detect, investigate and prosecute fraud and corruption, whether internal or external to USCIS, and to serve as a centralized security- related information clearinghouse for USCIS. So this information is shared, and it encourages the criminal investigators responsible for rooting out corruption and preventing immigration benefits fraud to partner with the adjudications officers so that fraud may be detected and prevented early in the application process.

For all of these reasons, I think this answers the very concerns raised by the gentlewoman's objection, and it certainly provides the additional resources to do it. Thus, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I would just close by pointing out the one inescapable fact of the 94 terrorists studied in this country since 9/11: Two-thirds of

these foreign-born terrorists committed fraud, got past our immigration system prior to taking part in attempted terrorist operations in our country.

It only makes sense to tighten the system and ensure that we have the proper investigations to catch the flags which had we caught prior to 9/11 might have prevented a terrorist attack. This amendment addresses precisely that problem.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Campbell amendment. This legislation is quite straightforward. It informs our States and localities to enforce the law. That sounds ridiculous to us, I am sure. But the fact is that one of the main problems with our immigration laws is that we are not enforcing them. And under the immigration reform legislation we passed in 1996, we prohibited States and localities from barring their entities and barring officials from providing immigration information to the Department of Homeland Security.

Now, these counties and these States have decided to defy the law. There should be a cost for that. And the cost, according to this amendment, which says we mean what we say, the cost is that they would receive no grant amounts made available to any Federal, State, or local government agency or entity that violates the law. The rule of law is important. Support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment. Of course, the circumstance is that in San Diego this fence has worked. In San Diego those crossing and apprehended where we have erected this fence have dropped from 202,000 a year in 1992 to less than 9,000 by 2004. So, yes, people still find a way around the fence, but not many. And if we are going to be serious, the establishment of a border fence project like this is probably going to have the same impact on these other communities that it has on San Diego, which is to say crime rates have fallen to a fraction of what they were.

San Diego is no longer one of the most prolific drug smuggling corridors. So where is the fence needed? On these corridors you see here. This is where we can have the maximum impact.

Why is it important? Partly because this has become post-9/11 a national security concern. If we do nothing to stop people attempting to enter illegally off our southern borders, when we know that al Qaeda has already indicated that its intention is to send agents over the southern border of the United States with the intent of carrying out an attack on the United States, we are not doing our jobs under the Constitution of the United Nations to protect the American public.

Now, will we catch everyone? Maybe not, but 3,000 people from state sponsors of terrorism have been stopped to date, and this is a chance to make certain that al Qaeda operatives do not have an easier chance of getting into the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Utah for the time, and I rise also in support of this resolution supporting the goals and supporting the ideals of Korean-American Day, and as mentioned by Chairman Davis, I am an original cosponsor of the bill.

The Republic of Korea has been an ally and a friend of the United States now for many decades, and over this time, South Korea has emerged as a major economic partner for the United States. Korea is the U.S.'s seventh largest trading partner. That is ahead of Western European countries such as France and Italy, and frankly, it is our sixth largest export market. The U.S. is Korea's largest export market, its second largest source of imports and the largest supplier of foreign direct investment into South Korea.

South Korea is also a very key ally of the United States, and as chairman of the U.S.-Republic of Korea Interparliamentary Exchange, I can report that many in this body recognize the importance of this resolution. I frequently travel to South Korea on the mission of building this relationship. It is vital that the two countries work closely together to address the difficult security challenges in northeast Asia.

There are now more than 1 million Korean-Americans living in the United States. A large body of Korean-Americans are in southern California. From the first 100 who immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century, Koreans have become an integral part of our country. Today, one out of every eight Korean-Americans is an entrepreneur, owning his or her own business.

In my own district, I am continually impressed with the Korean community and their commitment in upholding their own rich heritage and their commitment to education. The United States, and California in particular, have been enriched and defined by the contributions of Korean-Americans in a wide variety of fields.

Korean-Americans have invigorated businesses and civic institutions, certainly academic communities and science across the country. Korean- owned businesses employ more than a third of the million men and women, generating sales and receipts of around $50 billion a year.

This legislation gives Congress the chance to recognize the importance Korean-Americans play in our community by establishing Korean-American Day.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of this amendment dealing with systemic risk to H.R. 1461, the legislation to reform oversight of the Nation's three housing GSEs.

I think most people would assume that Congress would and should create a regulator with the authority to protect the broader financial system with respect to systemic risk, especially in light of the warnings of systemic risk from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, the $1.5 trillion of mortgage assets concentrated in just two companies, the special ties the GSEs have with the Federal Government, and the over-$2 trillion in GSE debt.

Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that H.R. 1461 fails to give the regulator the authority to protect the financial system against a potential shock that would seriously undermine the U.S. housing market and the global financial system.

I have just spoken with Alan Greenspan's office this afternoon, and they totally reject the argument that the regulator has this ability to take into account the systemic risk and take the necessary actions in the bill; and also the Bush administration disagrees with that assertion. They think it is not in there.

Furthermore, if the authority is already in the bill, what is wrong with my additional 14 words stating it explicitly. Let me also make the point that my amendment would allow the regulator to review the investment holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and this authority is necessary because the huge concentration of on-balance sheet assets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac create too much interest rate risk, in other words, too much exposure to swings in interest rates in the hands of only a few risk managers.

The traditional mortgage guarantee business model at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provides liquidity in the mortgage market and helps homeownership without increasing risk to the taxpayer. However, the enterprises' on-balance sheet mortgage assets only benefit Fannie and Freddie shareholders at the expense of the taxpayer.

Taking into account the unequaled levels of debt outstanding and the unprecedented use of derivatives to manage interest rate risk at the enterprises, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department believe that the on-balance sheet mortgage assets of the two enterprises create systemic risk to the global financial markets.

Mr. Chairman, Congress failed to rein in the savings and loan industry in the early 1980s. That failure led to hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer losses. Today, however, Congress has been forewarned by the Fed, the Treasury, the OECD, and the IMF. I would like to end debate on this amendment with the words of our distinguished chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, who has publicly urged the House of Representatives to defeat H.R. 1461 unless the threat of systemic risk is addressed. He said: ``To fend off possible future systemic difficulties, which we at the Federal Reserve Board assess as likely if GSE expansion continues unabated, preventative actions are required sooner rather than later.'' I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I am a cosponsor of H.R. 3132, the Children's Safety Act. I would have voted ``yes'' on this legislation. However, I am in New York City on official business for the House of Representatives. I was appointed by Speaker Hastert as a delegate from the Committee on International Relations to serve as a representative to the United Nations General Assembly.

H.R. 3132 will help to address loopholes in current sex offender notification requirements, so that parents and the public can be armed with knowledge of any sex offenders living and working in their community. This legislation addresses a number of child crime issues, including registration of sex offenders, violent crimes against children, sexual crimes against children, sexual exploitation of children, and protection of foster and adopted children. The Children's Safety Act was drafted in response to the recent horrific attacks and murders of Jessica Lunsford, Sarah Lunde, Jetseta Gage, and others who have recently been killed by sex offenders. I strongly support this bill and look forward to it becoming law.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3\1/2\ minutes.

I am pleased to join the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson), a colleague on the Committee on International Relations, in offering this important amendment. As the gentlewoman has explained, this amendment states that it shall be the policy of the United States to seek the expeditious transfer of Charles Taylor to the Special Court for Sierra Leone so that he can be tried for war crimes.

Mr. Chairman, Charles Taylor has been indicted on 17 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Special Court for the role that he played in Sierra Leone's brutal war. This hybrid court, which has been supported by this body, has been given jurisdiction over those who bear the greatest responsibility for the atrocities and the human rights violations.

And those atrocities were, indeed, widespread. Human rights violations there were grave. During the 1990s, then-President Taylor of Liberia supported what was called the Revolutionary United Front. That was designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization. He supported them in Sierra Leone, and they were notorious for hacking off the limbs and the arms and the legs even of young children. When I chaired the Africa Subcommittee, we hosted some of those victims on Capitol Hill, child victims; and we held numerous hearings examining the chaos in West Africa caused by this one man, Charles Taylor.

In May, the House overwhelmingly passed Resolution 127, and the Senate concurred, calling on the Nigerian Government to transfer Taylor to the Special Court. I still have hope; yet today, Charles Taylor continues to safely reside in exile in Nigeria. In August of 2003, some believed that removing Taylor from Liberia and giving him exile would prevent Liberia and West Africa from destabilization.

Instead of facing justice at the Special Court in Freetown, though, Taylor was given a seaside villa in Calabar, Nigeria; and in exchange, Taylor was supposed to refrain from political activity, but Taylor broke that deal. So 2 years after the exile deal, Taylor is still very much involved in undermining Liberian politics as the nation prepares for elections. He is working to undermine a peace process that has been supported by the United States and Congress with hundreds of millions of dollars, and he said he will return to Liberia.

I believe, and I think my colleagues believe, that he is going to try to return because we remember his words. He said, when he got on that plane, ``God willing, I'll be back.''

Mr. Chairman, Charles Taylor remains a serious and continuing threat to West African peace and security, which is counter to U.S. interests. I am convinced that there will be no chance for peace in West Africa until Taylor is removed. We underestimate him at our peril, and it must be the policy of the United States to seek the transfer of Charles Taylor to the Special Court. This has to be a pillar in our policy towards West Africa. We need to press harder than we have been. Bringing Charles Taylor to justice will help further U.S.-Nigeria relations, help bring peace to Liberia, and strengthen the rule of law on the continent.

It is time for Charles Taylor to face up to his crimes. This amendment deserves the strong support of this House of Representatives.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), chairman of the Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 2601. The chairman, Ranking Member, and Committee members have worked well to give our State Department the tools necessary to carry out our Nations' foreign policy in a very challenging world.

As Chairman of the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, I'd like to bring attention to two important provisions in this bill.

Importantly, this bill offers support to the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative, a comprehensive counter-terrorism program in north Africa. Its predecessor, the Pan-Sahel Initiative, has worked to boost the anti-terrorist capabilities of Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Chad--producing promising results with modest resources. The effort to expand the PSI into the TSCTI, so that countries across the Sahara are able to bolster their ability to deny terrorist sanctuaries, is a much- needed development. Transnational terrorists, linked to al-Qaeda, have been found operating in this vast, and largely ungoverned portion of the world. The United States must respond to Africa's growing strategic importance. This program, when fully implemented, will be an important step in that direction.

Additionally, the bill updates the existing legislation requiring that the State Department annually report to Congress on Patterns of Global Terrorism. For the past 2 years, this key report has been mired in controversy. The 2003 edition errored in underreporting attacks. The 2004 report was issued minus its traditional annex statistically reporting on the number of terrorist attacks worldwide.

This legislation, which builds upon a hearing held by the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, seeks to address those controversies and improve Patterns by requiring a single authoritative report and updating the criteria to be used in cataloging terrorist attacks. For instance, in 2004--under the old criteria--a Russian airliner downed by Chechen terrorists was not recorded, as it was deemed to not involve citizens of more than one country. Yet, a second Russian airliner, which was taken out of the sky simultaneously by Chechen terrorists, was counted--as one passenger was a foreign national. With this legislation, such parsing should be eliminated--and terrorism will be counted as terrorism--so that we can get full grasp of the challenges facing us. The legislation also requires the Secretary of State to appear before Congress to present the annual Patterns of Global Terrorism report. The threat to the United States, our allies and interests from transnational terrorism will require every element of national power to combat it. Congress has a key role to play in this regard.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation, I rise in strong support of this resolution that condemns the heinous acts of terrorism that occurred in London last Thursday July 7.

At 8:50 a.m. in a coordinated attack, three bombs ripped through the London Underground in central London and an hour later a fourth explosion tore apart the No. 30 bus. At present, 52 are dead and hundreds and hundreds are wounded. Authorities are still attempting to recover bodies trapped under subway cars deep under Kings Cross station. As a police official gruesomely described this morning, ``they have to literally piece people together and that takes time.''

The latest news reports suggest that four young British citizens carried out this latest act of Islamist terror, blowing themselves up along with their innocent victims in what would be the first suicide attacks in Western Europe. I fear we are seeing the emergence of a new generation of terrorists, kids who were in their teens on 9/11.

One of the four implicated in the London bombings was a teen. The homegrown cell involved in the Van Gogh murder in the Netherlands included members as young as 18. North African extremists from France have been found in Iraq, some as young as 14. And as the 9/11 Commission described, ``Our enemy is two-fold, al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorists that struck us on 9/11 and a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world inspired in part by al Qaeda which has spawned terrorist groups and violence across the globe.''

As the 9/11 Commission tells us, ``The first enemy is weakened but continues to pose a grave threat. The second enemy is gathering and will menace Americans and American interests long after Osama bin Laden and his cohorts have been killed or captured. Thus, our strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the al Qaeda network and prevailing in the longer term over the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism.''

Now, unfortunately, lax asylum laws and lax immigration laws have done the British and the rest of Europe no favors and have contributed to the radicalization of society there. Long before bombs ripped through London, Britain had become a breeding ground for hate fed by a militant version of Islam. For a decade, the city has been a crossroads for would-be terrorists who used it as a home base to communicate their message, to raise funds and to recruit members.

For years before his arrest, Abu Hamza al-Masri openly preached violence at the Finsbury Park mosque in north London. Among those who have passed through that Finsbury Park mosque are Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid.

Unfortunately, radical clerics gaining a foothold in traditionally tolerant societies is not unique to Britain. The reality is that hate and intolerance is being preached throughout the world, and I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and the ranking member, the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos), for bringing this resolution to the floor.

As the British have stood with us, we stand by them. We will prevail. The terrorists will not.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) has done well to craft a bill in a very difficult budgetary environment. It prioritizes funding for important programs. I believe his and the ranking member's efforts are appreciated.

I do, however, rise to express concerns about the Global Environment Facility, or GEF, whose funding is eliminated in this bill. As co-chair of the House International Conservation Caucus, I am keenly interested in conservation programs because I believe that how nations of the world manage their natural resources is a vital U.S. interest, impacting our efforts to help create a more secure and prosperous world.

The GEF is the largest international funding source for programs and support good natural resource management around the world. In the roughly 15 years since its creation, the GEF has implemented 1,500 projects in 140 countries, with biodiversity and habitat conservation being the largest single area of focus. Importantly, U.S. funding has leveraged at least $14 for every $1 we have contributed. I believe this model where our resources are matched many times over by other public and private donors is a good approach. However, I strongly agree with the chairman's push for reform at the GEF. The United States should always be pushing for transparency and accountability at multilateral institutions, and the GEF is no exception. As the chairman knows, at the request of the U.S. Treasury and other donor nations, the GEF has been working to implement a variety of management improvements. Currently, the GEF is in the final stages of adopting a major element in this reform process, a system of prioritizing its funding decisions called the Resource Allocation Framework.

The Council of the GEF is meeting in late August in a special session to finalize the structure of this framework. The GEF Council recognizes the need for reform and is meeting in less than 2 months to complete work on the reform element most important to the U.S. Government.

And I would respectfully inquire whether the gentleman agrees that the GEF's programs and projects are beneficial to conservation worldwide and to the United States, and assuming that a framework is finalized at the upcoming special meeting of the GEF, would that constitute sufficient progress on reform to have the gentleman revisit GEF funding in the conference?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his response.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

This amendment seeks to direct $7 million in funding for the Small Arms/Light Weapons Destruction initiative that is housed within the Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining and Related programs account. That account is called the NADR account, and the entire NADR account is reduced by approximately 1.75 percent in order to

account for the increase in this Small Arms/Light Weapons Destruction initiative.

I am very pleased here to have worked with the gentleman from Arizona (Chairman Kolbe) and with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), ranking member, to craft an amendment that I believe is acceptable to both of them. Seven million dollars is the fiscal year 2005 enacted level for this activity.

And, Mr. Chairman, of growing concern to the United States are these shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missiles, referred to as MANPADs, which have proliferated throughout the world, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. These are U.S.-made Stingers, they are British- made Blowpipes, and most of them are Russian-made SA-7s. According to one report, 6,000 shoulder-fired missiles are outside of government control. There are known black markets for these shoulder-fired missiles throughout Africa, throughout the Middle East, and in Asia. And for between about $5,000 and $30,000, a MANPAD can be acquired; a low cost relative to the damage they could inflict in human loss as well as economic and psychological damage. A successful attack with one of these shoulder-fired missiles against an airliner could halt aviation, and recently we had a study done by RAND, and they released this report that found that the total economic loss resulting from an attack could be in the billions of dollars.

The alarming news is that more than two dozen terrorist groups are believed to be in possession of these weapons. Several incidents have highlighted the danger that these weapons pose: the November, 2002, attempted missile attack on an Israeli commercial airliner in Mombassa, Kenya; the August, 2003 sting in which a man was arrested trying to sell Russian-made shoulder-fired missiles to FBI agents posing as terrorists. Also in 2003 we had the British government deploying approximately 450 troops at Heathrow Airport after intelligence indicated a possible al Qaeda plan to use these shoulder-fired missiles against their civilian flights. Al Qaeda training films recovered by allied forces in Afghanistan contained detailed instruction on how to use Russian-made shoulder-fired missiles.

Most observers recommend a multi-layered approach to defend against possible terrorist attacks using these shoulder-fired missiles. An important piece of this strategy are U.S. efforts to take these deadly weapons out of play around the world. Last week the International Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee that I chair held a briefing with administration officials on the State Department's efforts to identify, secure, and then destroy these shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile stocks.

The Small Arms/Light Weapons Destruction initiative is one part of our effort against this threat. To reduce the number of shoulder-fired missiles that could fall into the hands of terrorists, we are providing bilateral assistance to foreign governments to identify and destroy their stocks in excess of their security needs as well as to improve security at their storage facilities. The State Department is now overseeing the destruction or pledges to destroy shoulder-fired missiles from Bosnia-Herzegovina, from Cambodia, Nigeria, Liberia, Serbia, and other countries. And most importantly, I think, since 2003, this program has destroyed over 10,500 of these shoulder-fired missiles.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of work left to be done. This amendment helps to continue this work. At little cost these efforts are helping to mitigate a critical threat to our security.

So I want to thank the chairman and I want to thank the ranking member for working with me on this amendment. They have a tough task on this bill, and I look forward to working with them on this legislation as it moves forward.

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

Offered By: Mr. Royce

Amendment No. 4: Page 34, line 18, after the dollar amount,

insert the following: ``(increased by $7,000,000) (reduced by

$7,000,000)''.