Floor Statements

Madam Chair, on rollcall No. 322, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Amendment No. 7 Offered by Mr. Larsen of Washington

I thank the gentleman for yielding, but above all, I thank him for his masterful work in further cleaning up airport transportation security and for the cooperation he established with the minority.

I particularly thank the chair for including helicopters in the General Aviation Working Group section and for the working group itself because, Mr. Chairman, the large-scale airport requirements have begun to creep into general aviation. The best example of that is right here in the Nation's Capital, where we're down from 200 general aviation flights per month to 200 per year--only, I must say, in the District of Columbia because we don't have enough guidance as to how general aviation should be treated.

General Aviation was reopened here in the Nation's Capital for the first time only a couple years ago after the Transportation Committee threatened to hold TSA in contempt if it didn't open Reagan National Airport to general aviation. Then TSA issued regulations that essentially kept general

aviation out of the Nation's Capital, signalling that, 7 or 8 years after 9/11, we still don't know how to keep our capital safe, which surely is not the case. The irrationality begins to mount. In addition, commercial helicopters had been allowed to come to Reagan with the Secret Service's permission, which had kept the helicopter port open because it served certain security purposes but has closed down commercial service now.

So I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the General Aviation working group to straighten out these issues.

Madam Speaker, Memorial Day Weekend, May 17th-25th, is the 19th Annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, DC.

DC Black Pride is an exciting six-day event complete with dynamic workshops, receptions, cultural arts activities, small and large nightclub events that culminates in the world's oldest, most inclusive Black Pride Festival. Many consider DC's festival one of the world's preeminent Black Pride celebrations. The Festival consistently draws more than 30,000 people to the Nation's Capital. Attendees come from every major urban area in the United States as well as Canada, the Caribbean, South Africa, Great Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The Black Pride Festival features activities for the entire family, including performances by national recording artists, 200 exhibition booths, book signings from noted writers, participation from national and local health organizations, and arts and crafts.

Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc. (BLGPD), the celebration's organizing body, chose the theme ``Pure Love'' to encourage the Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community to recommit themselves to advocacy, continuing the work towards combating homophobia and heterosexism, promote health and wellness, strengthen their community, and inspire Black LGBT people everywhere to live their lives with pride and integrity.

Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc., a non-profit organization with a volunteer Board of Directors, coordinates this annual event. BLGPD's 2009 Board of Directors consists of: Khalid Parker, President; Christopher Lane, Secretary; Maegan Marcano, Treasurer; and the following Members at Large: Jhahbriel Moore, Karim Shabazz, and Jimma Eliot-Stevens; and these Members Emeriti: Earl Fowlkes, James W. Hawkins, Eric E. Richardson, Clarence J. Fluker, Courtney Snowden, Sterling Washington and Cheryl Dunn, who lead BLGPD in its mission to build knowledge of and to create greater pride in the Black LGBT community's diversity, while raising funds to ameliorate and prevent health problems in this community, especially HIV/AIDS.

I ask the House to join me in welcoming all attending the 19th annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that United States citizens who reside in Washington, DC, are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Madam Speaker, the Pre-Apprentice and Apprenticeship Training Act of 2009 makes mandatory the one half of one percent of funds now available under 23 U.S.C. 140(b) to ensure federal highway funds are used to provide on-the-job training and other services to combat a serious training deficit that builds in the effects of past discrimination and that is necessary because the current cohort of journeymen and other skilled workers is retiring. Currently, only 17 states use fund previously made available for training and even that participation is spotty. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee,

under the strong leadership of Chairman Jim Oberstar has already taken the first important steps to include training as an essential part of building our infrastructure when he included, at my request, $3 million specifically for training in the General Services Administration stimulus authorization this year. He also included $20 million for federal highways training programs.

Today, the official unemployment rate already is at 15 percent for blacks and 8 percent for whites, a typical gap throughout economic cycles. Most analysts predict that there is more unemployment to come. This surface transportation reauthorization is also necessary to finally afford the opportunity for minorities and women to gain their first foothold in the high-wage construction industry.

More than 25 years ago, the federal government abruptly ended the government-sponsored labor-management remediation program designed to address training and exclusionary practices in the construction industry. Although deliberate exclusion has largely receded, elimination of this program has left a significant training deficit for workers in skilled construction trades, which is largely responsible for the white male profile of the construction industry today. This training deficit guarantees that infrastructure jobs will continue to go to trained, mostly white male construction workers, who now have faced a long period of unemployment and job scarcity. Particularly considering a steep rise in unemployment for minorities and whites alike, this bill will also help avoid racial tension.

Because of the scarcity of trained workers during boom times, a few union programs had even begun training ex-offenders as pre-apprentices and apprentices to do construction work. This bill will mount a major national infrastructure program focused on job creation with a well- designed component of pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs that can lead to high-paying journeymen jobs for the new workers who will be needed in the future. And it will assure compliance with the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bar discrimination in the use of government dollars.

More than 25 years ago the federal government prematurely ended the successful government-sponsored labor-management remediation program that addressed exclusionary practices and lack of training in the construction industry. Without a significant and systematic government effort, a serious training deficit has remained and continued to build. This training deficit is largely responsible for the white male profile of the construction industry today. Unless training is a strong component of the highway and transit reauthorization, underrepresentation of minorities and women will deepen.

Training is a major barrier, particularly for African Americans and women in construction. Congress recognized the training deficit and encouraged the use of one half of one percent for training in the use of highway funds. Because use of federal funds was not mandated for training, only 17 states have chosen, intermittently, to fund training programs, since the program was authorized in 1998. Without appropriate training, federal funds will exacerbate the training deficit among previously excluded groups and others who have not had access to training in the construction trades.

A recent study of African Americans, in particular, in the construction industry in eighteen metropolitan areas found that they are under-represented in construction jobs. If African Americans were employed in construction at the same rate that they are employed in the overall workforce, the study estimated that 42,700 more African Americans would be employed in construction in the eighteen metropolitan areas.

The official unemployment rate as of April 2009 already is 15 percent for African Americans and 8.8 percent for whites. This disparity has been typical throughout economic cycles.

A major, well-designed component in the surface transportation reauthorization bill for pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs can lead to high-paying journeymen jobs, where, in good times and scarce, labor supply has developed.

Congress must assure compliance with the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bar discrimination in the use of government dollars.

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the 34th Annual Capital Pride Festival, a celebration of the National Capital Area's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, GLBT, communities, their families, and friends.

The Capital Pride Festival has grown from a small block party in 1975 to the current ten-day-long celebration. This year Capital Pride Festival culminates with what Washington's City Paper has declared D.C.'s Best Parade for two years running, the Pride Parade on June 13th and ``The Main Event,'' a street fair on Pennsylvania Avenue in the shadow of the Capitol, June 14th.

This year, the Festival's new organizers, the Capital Pride Alliance, Inc. anticipates an attendance of 250,000, making Capital Pride one of the largest GLBT festivals in the United States.

2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which, in the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City's GLBT community spontaneously and publicly asserted its rights in defiance of government oppression. The Capital Pride commemorates this event with the theme ``Generations of Pride: Celebrate and Remember.''

I have marched in the Pride parades since coming to Congress to emphasize the universality of human rights and the importance of enacting federal legislation to secure those rights for the GLBT community and the District of Columbia. Congress has much work to do. We must pass The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2009, Employment Non- Discrimination Act, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act / Matthew Shepard Act, Safe Schools Improvement Act, The Military Readiness Enhancement Act, ``The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act, Uniting American Families Act, Responsible Education About Life Act, and the Early Treatment for HIV Act.

This year, as Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire have extended full rights to their GLBT residents. Our city of 600,000 residents, 10 percent more residents than the entire State of Wyoming, who pay more taxes per capita than 49 of the 50 states, remains the only jurisdiction in the United States where all its citizens are denied their basic rights by being subjected to Taxation Without Representation.

The residents of our Nation's Capital are entitled all their rights as citizens. I support and, I will defend, DC Council's action to extend full faith and credit to all marriages contracted in the United States as necessary to stabilize and protect all DC Families.

I ask the House to join me in welcoming the celebrants attending the 34th Annual Capital Pride Festival in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that

U.S. citizens who reside in Washington, DC are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the 34th 01 Annual Capital Pride

Festival, a celebration of the National Capital Area's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender, GLBT, communities, their families, and friends.

The Capital Pride Festival has grown from a small block party in 1975 to the current ten-day-long celebration. This year Capital Pride Festival culminates with what Washington's City Paper has declared D.C.'s Best Parade for two years running, the Pride Parade on June 13th and ``The Main Event,'' a street fair on Pennsylvania Avenue in the shadow of the Capitol, June 14th.

This year, the Festival's new organizers, the Capital Pride Alliance, Inc., anticipates an attendance of 250,000, making Capital Pride one of the largest GLBT festivals in the United States.

2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which, in the early hours of June 28, 1969, New York City's GLBT community spontaneously and publicly asserted its rights in defiance of government oppression. The Capital Pride commemorates this event with the theme ``Generations of Pride: Celebrate and Remember.''

I have marched in the Pride parades since coming to Congress to emphasize the universality of human rights and the importance of enacting federal legislation to secure those rights for the GLBT community and the District of Columbia. Congress has much work to do. We must pass The Family Leave Insurance Act of 2009, Employment Non- Discrimination Act, The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act/Matthew Shepard Act, Safe Schools Improvement Act, The Military Readiness Enhancement Act, The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act, Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, The Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act, Uniting American Families Act, Responsible Education About Life Act, and the Early Treatment for HIV Act.

This year, as Iowa, Maine, and New Hampshire have extended full rights to their GLBT residents. Our city of 600,000 residents, 10 percent more residents than the entire State of Wyoming, who pay more taxes per capita than 49 of the 50 states, remains the only jurisdiction in the United States where all its citizens are denied their basic rights by being subjected to Taxation Without Representation.

The residents of our Nation's Capital are entitled all their rights as citizens. I support and, I will defend, D.C. Council's action to extend full faith and credit to all marriages contracted in the United States as necessary to stabilize and protect all D.C. Families.

I ask the House to join me in welcoming the celebrants attending the 34th Annual Capital Pride Festival in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the celebrants that U.S. citizens who reside in Washington, DC are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Madam Speaker, today I also introduce a second bill in honor of members of the 547th Transportation Company, who deployed to Iraq last Saturday. The District of Columbia Executive Guard Act would give the Mayor of the District of Columbia some additional authority over the District of Columbia National Guard (DCNG). In circumstances constituting local emergencies, including natural disasters and civil disturbances unrelated to national or homeland security, but not homeland security matters, the mayor of the District of Columbia should have the same authority as governors. The National Guards in the 50 states operate under similar dual federal and local jurisdiction. Yet, the President of the United States alone has the authority to call up the DC National Guard for any purpose here, local or national. Each governor, however, as the head of state, has the authority to mobilize the National Guard to protect the local jurisdiction, just as local militia did historically. Today, the most likely need for the National Guard would be because of natural disasters or to restore order in the wake of civil disturbances. The mayor, who knows the city better than any federal official and works closely with federal security officials, should be able to call on the DCNG to cover local natural disasters or civil disturbances without relying on the President, who should be preoccupied with national matters, including homeland security, which would remain the sole province of the President, along with the existing power to nationalize the D.C. National Guard at will. As it is, the President must rely on a delegated official with little familiarity of the city to call up the National Guard to duty here for any purpose. It does no harm to give the mayor the authority for civil and natural disasters. However, it could do significant harm to leave him or her powerless to act quickly. If it makes sense that a governor would have control over the mobilization and deployment of the state National Guard, it makes the same sense for the mayor of the District of Columbia, with a population the size of that of small states, to have the same authority.

The mayor of the District of Columbia, acting as head of state, should have the authority to call upon the D.C. National Guard in instances that do not rise to the level of federal importance necessary to implicate the authority of the President. Today, requiring action by the President of the United States could endanger the life and health of D.C. residents, visitors and federal employees. Procedures that require the mayor to request the needed assistance from the commander in chief for a local National Guard matter are as old as the republic, and as dangerously obsolete today. Moreover, this bill merely delegates the President's authority in specific circumstances and would not deprive the President of his authority over the D.C. National Guard at will, as the Congress can do in making laws for the District despite delegated home rule. This bill is another important step necessary to complete the transfer of full self-government powers to the District of Columbia that Congress itself began with the passage of the Home Rule Act of 1973. Congress delegated most if its authority to the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia Executive National Guard Act follows this model.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I told the District of Columbia National Guard 547th Transportation Company, who deployed to Iraq last Saturday, that I would introduce two D.C. National Guard bills this week in their honor. Therefore, today I first introduce the District of Columbia National Guard Retention and College Access Act, NGRCA, a bill to permanently authorize funding for a program to provide grants for secondary education tuition to the members of the D.C. National Guard. I also introduce the District of Columbia Executive National Guard Act to give the mayor of the District of Columbia authority to call the D.C. National Guard for assistance with natural disasters and non- security civil disturbances. NGRCA authorizes an education incentive program, recommended by former Major General David Wherley and his successor, Major General Errol Schwartz, who suggested that education grants would be useful in stemming the troublesome loss of members of the D.C. Guard to units, in part, because surrounding states offer such educational benefits. I am grateful that the Appropriations Committee has allocated appropriation funds in some years, with smaller contribution from the District, in the Defense Authorization bill. An authorization is necessary to assure that the D.C. National Guard members receive equal treatment and benefits to other National Guard members on a regular basis, especially with surrounding states that do, in fact, have the higher education benefits we seek for D.C. National Guard members. The Guard for the Nation's Capital is severely under- competing for members from the pool of regional residents, who find membership in the Maryland and Virginia Guards more beneficial. A competitive tuition assistance program for the D.C. National Guard will provide significant incentive and leverage to help counteract declining enrollment and level the field of competition.

The D.C. National Guard, a federal instrument that is not under the control of the mayor of the District of Columbia (but see District of Columbia Executive National Guard Act), is losing personnel to other Guards, partly because it is not able to offer the same level of benefits that adjacent National Guards provide. The federal government supports most other D.C. National Guard functions and should support this small benefit as well.

The small education incentives in my bill would not only encourage high quality recruits, but would have the important benefit of helping the D.C. National Guard to maintain the force necessary to protect the federal presence, including Members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and visitors, if an attack on the Nation's Capital should occur. I am pleased to introduce this bill on the advice of Guard personnel who know best what is necessary.

A strong D.C. National Guard able to attract the best soldiers is especially important given the unique mission of the D.C. National Guard to protect the federal presence in addition to D.C. residents. This responsibility distinguishes the D.C. National Guard from any other National Guard. The D.C. National Guard is specially and specifically trained to meet its unique mission.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, the first bill that President Barack Obama signed was H.R. 11, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 to restore the Equal Pay Act (EPA) to its interpretation since it was enacted in 1963. That bill could not wait until today, Equal Pay Day. Equal Pay Day marks the day nearly four months into a new year--that women must work to earn as much as men did last year. However, although the EPA was highly successful for close to 20 years, the EPA had grown so creaky with age that the Ledbetter Act could do no more than resuscitate the old EPA. However, it is long past the time to amend the EPA to meet the changed economy, where women work as much as men, and in today's troubled economy women are increasingly supporting husbands, sons and families. My House colleague Rosa DeLauro and I, and scores of other Members got the House to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and on Equal Pay Day, we urge the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and I have long pressed for the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act and both of us testified at its first hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor during the 110th Congress. My own experience as chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), when President Jimmy Carter moved the EPA and other civil rights statutes to the EEOC as parts of a historic reorganization, demonstrated to me both the strengths and the weakness of the EPA.

As important as the Ledbetter Act, was it is only a gate opener to the EPA. The Paycheck Fairness Act, passed in the House this session is also an important update of the EPA's basic procedures, giving them ``the same muscle'' as other anti-discrimination statutes, including Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the age Discrimination in Employment Act, both of which I administered along with the Equal Pay Act. However, the Fair Pay Act (FPA) goes the next step, putting an end to wage discrimination against women and others by establishing equal pay for equal work. This bill recognizes that women earn significantly less than men for work, and amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, known as the Equal Pay Act, to provide more effective remedies to victims of wage discrimination on the basis of sex. The Paycheck Fairness Act instructs the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to train EEOC employees and affected individuals and entities on matters involving wage discrimination and authorizes the Secretary of Labor to fund skills training programs for girls and women. The bill further directs the Secretary to provide studies, information, summits, guidelines, awards and assistance for employer evaluations of job categories based on objective criteria.

Therefore, with Senator Tom Harkin, I am pleased again to introduce the FPA to pick up where the EPA leaves off, by bringing the EPA into the 21st century by taking on sex segregated jobs where gender influenced wages leave the average woman worker without any remedy.

The FPA sends a message to the average woman worker, who is often steered to and then locked into a job with wages that are deeply influenced by the gender of those who have traditionally held those jobs. Women often are used inconsistent with their qualifications today because of employer steering, and because of deeply rooted wage stereotypes that result in pay according to gender and not according to the skills, effort, responsibility and working conditions necessary to do the job. We introduce the FPA because the pay problems of many women today stem from sex segregation between the jobs that women and men traditionally do. Two-thirds of white women, and three quarters of African American women, work in just three areas: sales and clerical, service, and factory jobs despite women's superior education to men for several decades. Only a combination of more aggressive strategies, including the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act can break through the ancient societal habits present throughout human time the world over, as well as employers steering women into ``women's jobs'' which is as old as paid employment for women itself.

The FPA recognizes that, if men and women are doing comparable work, they should be paid a comparable wage. For example, if a woman is an emergency services operator, a female-dominated profession, why is she often paid considerably less than a fire dispatcher, a male-dominated profession? Is this because each of these jobs has been dominated by one sex? The Fair Pay Act does not decide this issue, but the bill does allow women to show that some or all of the wage disparity is gender based. The burden is on the female plaintiff, a difficult case to make in a market economy, but women deserve the right to carry that burden in appropriate cases.

The FPA, no more than the EPA, tampers with our market system. As with the EPA, the burden will be on the plaintiff to prove discrimination. As with the EPA, she must show that the reason for the disparity is sex discrimination, not legitimate market factors.

Corrections to achieve comparable pay for men and women are not radical or unprecedented. State employees in almost half of the state governments, in red and blue states alike, have already demonstrated that the pay gap that is due to discrimination can be eliminated. Twenty states have adjusted wages for women state employees, raising pay for teachers, nurses, clerical workers, librarians, and other female-dominated jobs that paid less than men with comparable jobs. Minnesota, for example, implemented a pay equity plan when they found that similarly skilled female jobs paid 20% less than male jobs. There often will be some portion of the gap that is traceable to market conditions, but twenty states have shown that you can tackle the discrimination gap without interfering with the free market system. The states generally have closed the discrimination gap over a period of four or five years at a one-time cost no more than three to four percent of payroll.

In addition, routinely, many women workers achieve pay equity through collective bargaining. In addition countless employers on their own, as they see women shifting out of vital female-dominated occupations, the effects of the shortage of workers in vital occupations, and the unfairness to women, are raising women's wages with pay equity adjustments. The best case for a strong and updated EPA with at least the Paycheck Fairness Act occurred here in the Congress in 2003, when women custodians in the House and Senate won an EPA case after showing that women workers were paid a dollar less for doing the same and similar work as men. Had they not been represented by their skillful and dedicated union, they would have had an almost impossible task using the rules for bringing and sustaining an EPA class action suit today. The FPA simply modernizes the EPA to make such a suit more possible by women acting alone.

Start where we like, but Congress should be ashamed to let another year go by while working families lose more than $200 billion annually--more than $4,000 per family--even considering education, age and hours of works and location. Unequal pay has been built into the way women have been treated since shortly after Adam and Eve. To dislodge such deep seated and pervasive treatment, we must update old vehicles like the EPA with the Paycheck Fairness Act and create new laws, such as the Fair Pay Act I introduce today.

Madam Speaker, the Kingman and Heritage Islands Act of 2009 will make it possible for the District of Columbia, the Army Corps of Engineers and environmental education groups to develop Kingman and Heritage Island as a center for environmental education, a recreation site, and for restoration of the Anacostia River eco-system. Kingman and Heritage Islands were created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1920's as part of the Anacostia Tidal Flats Reclamation project and were managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior/National Park Service (NPS) through 1996. At the request of the District, Congress dedicated the two islands to a child-oriented theme park in the National Children's Island Act of 1995. This Act transferred title of certain NPS property in Anacostia Park to the District of Columbia (District). These properties included Heritage Island and a portion of Kingman Island located within the District. However, the law includes a reversionary provision to the Department of Interior if a theme park was not built, necessitating this bill.

As times have changed, the District no longer believes that a theme park is the highest and best use of the space. Instead, the District announced plans to use Kingman Island as part of an initiative to help revitalize the River. The bill calls for a unique environmental natural reserve park to restore the ecosystem, provide usable open space for residents and visitors, and environmental education, including a September 11th Remembrance Grove. In my view, this is an even more appropriate use for Kingman Island. This use also buttresses my own work in the Congress on the Anacostia River, particularly the Anacostia Watershed legislation, which Congess has passed and whose implementation is now underway.

A renovated pedestrian bridge now provides access to these islands for environmental programs and the general public. Over 40 acres of tidal marsh in Kingman Lake are currently being restored through the combined efforts of the Army Corps, the District and local environmental teaching groups. The renovated islands will include a particularly appropriate memorial tree grove dedicated to the three District of Columbia schoolchildren who were victims of the September 11 terrorist attack. Self-guided trails and interpretive stations will instruct visitors about the abundant natural history of the Anacostia River and will track contemporary efforts to restore the river's wildlife, habitats and water quality.

This non-controversial, no-cost bill will have a positive effect on the deteriorating ecology of the region. Because the bill involves a District of Columbia property, it has little national significance except for residents of the region and visitors to the nation's capitol. The bill will serve all who are here or are visiting and therefore I intend to ask that the bill be put on the suspension calendar after review by the appropriate committee.

Mr. Chairman, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall 200; ``aye'' on rollcall 201; and ``no'' on rollcall 202.

Amendment No. 11 Offered by Mr. Shadegg

Madam Chairman, on rollcall No. 191, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for bringing forth this very important set of bills that benefit Federal employees. One that perhaps has not been spoken to I'll speak to now. It's the Employees' Equity Act, which restores credible service or retirement years to District of Columbia employees who were involuntarily transferred to the Federal Government pursuant to the Revitalization Act and, in the process, somehow, by an error of government, not an error of their own, they have lost retirement years. Not money, just years. Some of them are working when they could have retired 10 years ago.

This bill simply restores the years, gives them credit for the years so that, in their transfer from the District of Columbia to the Federal Government, they haven't lost all of those years of service. They have to start over again as if just entering the Federal Government. No one intended that.

And because you, Mr. Chairman, and the ranking member have understood this bill, which has been in the Congress for some time, we come forward now to correct this mistake. Some of them will retire, some of them will stay on, but all of them will have all of their years in public service credited to them. I thank you both.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce a bill today to permit two statues honoring citizens of the District of Columbia in Statuary Hall in the Capitol, just as statues honoring citizens of States are placed in the historic hall. This legislation would allow the city to offer two statues to the Congress on behalf of D.C. residents. This bill is important to ensure equal treatment for the residents of the District of Columbia with the residents of the 50 States, who already have statues representing them in Statuary Hall.

The D.C. statues would likely be of Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant, known for their contributions to the city and to the Nation, who were selected by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities through a public process. The D.C. statues could help cure the diversity embarrassment of statues in the Capitol. When the Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) opened in December, many were surprised and embarrassed that even in the part of the CVC Congress named Emancipation Hall, to honor the slaves and free blacks who helped build the Capitol, there were no statues of African Americans. It also is an embarrassment, and an indefensible one at that, that the 600,000 American citizens who live in the nation's capital have no statues of their own, while all 50 States have statues.

On August 10, 2006, the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities began the process of creating the two statues to be placed in Statuary Hall, when the Commission chose Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant as the two prominent residents whose statues would represent the District of Columbia. The Commission also hired two Washington area sculptors, Steven Weitzman and Gordon Kay, to work on the sculptures of Frederick Douglass and Pierre L'Enfant. Both statues were placed in the lobby of One Judiciary Square, a District government building.

Douglass (1818-1895) was born a slave in Maryland and became a District resident in the 1870s. He held diplomatic and District appointments and is considered to be the Father of the Civil Rights Movement. Douglass also displayed his talents as an orator and journalist throughout his life here. His home in southeast Washington is a national monument that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

L'Enfant (1754-1825), an architect, engineer and soldier, left France to serve in the American Revolution. George Washington chose L'Enfant to design the new federal city of Washington, D.C. He became a U.S. citizen and spent the remainder of his life in D.C., implementing the plan that made the Nation's capital the beautiful city it is today.

The District of Columbia was born with the Nation itself over 200 years ago. Throughout these two centuries, the city has created its very own rich and uniquely American history. In the Congress, we undermine the Nation's efforts to spread full democracy around the world. While D.C. residents have not yet obtained the same political equality and voting rights as the citizens of the States, they have all the responsibilities of the citizens of the States, including paying all Federal taxes and serving in all the Nation's wars. Today, when our residents are serving in Iraq, the least we should do is to give this city its rightful and equal place in the Capitol.

The statues would offer District residents the opportunity to enjoy the same pride that all other citizens experience when they come to their Capitol--the opportunity to view memorials that commemorate the efforts of residents who have made significant contributions to their jurisdiction and to American history.

The statue bill I introduce today is part of our ``Free and Equal D.C.'' series, which includes the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, bills for budget autonomy and legislative autonomy, an elected district attorney position, and other bills designed to ensure that District residents, who pay Federal taxes and fight in wars like other Americans, are granted the same privileges as other Americans.

Madam Speaker, today, I am again introducing the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act (NDECA), as I have done since 1994, after working with the residents who were responsible for a ballot initiative passed by D.C. voters in 1993. NDECA requires the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons when all other nations possessing nuclear weapons enact laws to do the same. NDECA further provides that when U.S. nuclear weapons are dismantled, the resources for supporting nuclear weapon

programs would be used for our growing human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security and the environment.

I chose to introduce the NDECA before the March 20th memorial service for William Thomas, who sat in front of the White House in an anti- nuclear vigil for nearly 28 years. His efforts have been called the longest uninterrupted war protest in U.S. history. He truly embodied our inalienable First Amendment rights. Tragically, instead of nuclear disarmament, nations around the world have increased efforts to seek or acquire nuclear capability with Iran's failure to halt uranium enrichment captured attention until recently, China's nuclear weapons and today North Korea continues testing missile long range missiles and there is little doubt that North Korea has acquired a nuclear device. India and Pakistan continue to fight over the Kashmir region and with the recent terrorist strikes in India, the instability in the region persists. Pakistan assures us that its weapons are safe, as nuclear secrets are sold by its top scientists, the streets are riled with protests, a military coup is not out of the question, and the semi- autonomous regions are dominated by Al-Quaeda and the Taliban.

The invasion of Iraq cost the United States much of its leadership on nuclear proliferation and other urgent international issues. This country reached a non-credible status in dissuading other nations who aspire to become or remain nuclear powers as we ourselves took greater initiative in increasing our own nuclear weapons program. We moved in the right direction when the Senate ratified the Moscow Treaty in 2003, which provides that by 2012 both the U.S. and Russia will reduce their long-range warheads by two-thirds from approximately 6,000 warheads each to 2,200. However, the Bush administration failed to build on this effort. According to the study, ``Securing The Bomb: An Agenda for Action'' (May, 2004; prepared by the Belfer Center, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government): ``Total nuclear-threat-reduction spending remains less than one quarter of one percent of the U.S. military budget. Indeed, on average, the Bush administration requests for nuclear-threat-reduction spending over FY 2002-2005 were less, in real terms, than the last Clinton administration request, made long before the 9/11 attacks ever occurred.'' Instead, the Bush administration moved to increase the country's nuclear capacity.

However, the problem today is even more complicated than nuclear disarmament by nation states. The greatest threat today is from inadequately defended and guarded sites in many countries where there is enough material to make nuclear weapons and many opportunities for terrorists or nations without weapons to secure nuclear materials. Astonishingly, because of the previous administration's absence of leadership, less nuclear material was seized in the two years following the 9/11 attacks than in the two years immediately preceding the attacks (``Securing The Bomb: An Agenda for Action'', May 2004).

In my work on the Homeland Security Committee, I know that threats from nuclear proliferation and available nuclear material are more dangerous in the post 9/11 era than in 1994, when I first introduced the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act. It is more urgent than ever to begin closing down nuclear capability here and around the world.

Today, our country has a hobbled economy, 45 million people still without health insurance, a long list of other urgent domestic needs put on the back burner following the invasion of Iraq, large tax cuts for wealthy people and corporations, and millions of Americans losing their homes and jobs. As the only nation that has used nuclear weapons in war, and still possesses the largest arsenal, the U.S. has an obligation to begin the arduous process of leading the world in the transfer of nuclear weapons funds to urgent domestic needs.