Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Obey resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I feel like this is Alice in Wonderland. In 3 years, at the end of the Clinton administration, we had the largest surpluses in American history, and now, after 3 years under Republican rule, both the presidency and the House and the Senate, we have the largest deficits in American history.

The Republicans used to call themselves fiscal conservatives. They cannot say that anymore. What has happened to the heart and soul of the Republican Party? We are having an orgy of tax cuts and we are leaving a legacy of debt to our children and grandchildren. It is unconscionable.

Every day people come into my office and need more money for desperately needed programs. Veterans are pleading; they need more money for health care. The Republicans say no. People who have kids in schools want more money for No Child Left Behind in education. Republicans say no. In health care, we want a prescription drug bill, seniors tell me, that will really help seniors; not the phony one passed by the House. Republicans say no.

So what Democrats are trying to say is that in programs that we desperately need, homeland security, first responders for police and firemen, putting homeland security dollars for trains and things where people know we need it, Republicans say no. And what is the Republicans' proposal? To give great tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

The Obey proposal would simply say, if your adjusted income is $1 million or more, you ought to give back a little bit of those tax breaks to help us with priorities in this country. The borrow-and-spend Republicans say no.

The Obey proposal ought to be voted on. It ought to set priorities for our country. Let us help our veterans. Let us help our kids. Let us help our seniors. Support the Obey proposal.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

All one has to do is look at today's newspapers, look at what the 9/ 11 Commission has found, and we can clearly see that al Qaeda is looking to strike where they can make the worst hit and that is in the urban areas. I do not mean to denigrate the good work that has been done on this bill. There are a lot of people who have done a lot of good work, and it is very, very hard, and the point has been made that we are not funding homeland security to the extent that we should.

But the American people know the difference between what is necessary and where the threat is, and the difference between that and pork, and quite frankly, we should not be using this bill to spread the wealth around, this pork, so each of us can go back to our districts and say we produced a little bit for our constituents. We should put the money where the threat is.

I really have to vehemently disagree with the idea that States with virtually no threat of a terrorist attack are getting as much as $20 more per capita than New York gets. That is illogical, it is unfair and it makes no sense whatsoever.

I rise in strong support of this amendment. This allocates more money for the Urban Security Initiative which would send more preparedness dollars to high threat areas. It makes sense. Doing so would better prepare first responders where terrorists are most likely to attack.

Our colleagues have mentioned that we know that the terrorists want the biggest bang. We know that New York City and Washington have already been hit. One does not have to be a rocket

scientist to understand that this is where the biggest threat is.

New York obviously has taken the brunt of terrorist attacks, yet we get shortchanged on preparedness dollars while States that have little or no risk are raking in millions. Again, that does not seem fair, and it does not seem right.

Hundreds of New York's fire fighters and police officers died responding to the World Trade Center attacks. The September 11 Commission has highlighted a number of areas where New York's first responders needed more resources to respond to a large scale attack that occurred. We can rectify the problems that our heroic fire fighters and police experienced on September 11 if we have the proper resources. Currently, our first responders are underfunded and overworked, as New York continues to remain in a heightened state.

New York remains a prime target, and scarce resources are being diverted to areas that are not really at risk of terrorist attack. We owe it to our firemen and police in New York who will be tasked with responding to a future attack, we owe it to them and the residents of New York to do all we can to prevent and prepare if another 9/11 should happen again.

Now, I understand that all of our colleagues must return home and talk to their constituents about homeland security. I certainly understand that every American is just a little on edge. I understand because when I go home and talk to my constituents they fear that although many terrorist plots have been thwarted over the years, one may eventually be successful, but I want to once again repeat, we are not talking about hypothetical threats in New York. The threat is very real.

So I am asking my colleagues to step back. Please do not make this about funneling money into your State. As we all mentioned before, we are all Americans but not all of us have had our local economies destroyed, our cities bombed and our neighbors murdered. I am asking my colleagues to put the money where it is needed most but also where it would do the most good.

We are an institution representing the entire Nation. We are in charge of making tough decisions about how best to use our scarce Federal tax dollars. Putting more money into the high threat account should not be one of the tough decisions. It is the logical one. It is the right one, and I want to repeat, it makes no sense that States with virtually no threat of a terrorist attack are getting as much as $20 per person more than New York gets.

So I strongly support the Sweeney amendment. Again, it is fair, it is right. We are one Nation. We need to put the money where the threat is. Please support the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me, and I would certainly agree that we are fiddling while Rome is burning.

While our people in our districts are disgusted with the high gasoline prices, while our people in our districts understand that they need help from Congress to make ends meet, we are instead not passing an energy bill that would bring down gas prices, not passing an energy bill that would help the average person in all of our districts, but passing an energy bill that helps the big companies, the big industries, that says to polluters, we will take you off the hook, you do not even have to pay for the mess you have created; we are going to pay for it.

Some of my friends on the other side of the aisle say that we do not have enough money in government to pay for programs. Yet this bill contains obscene giveaways to those people that are doing the worst things when it comes to energy, the worst pollution. This is not a very good bill.

Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle say they oppose cloning when it comes to living organisms, but it is obvious that they fully support cloning legislative proposals, and as if fulfilling our greatest fears, the Energy Policy Act before us today is a clone of a monstrous bill that the House dealt with months ago.

Just like last time, the bill contains an ethanol mandate that hurts New Yorkers, my State, by forcing up gas prices, just to provide subsidies to multibillion dollar corporations like Archer Daniels Midland. Just like last time, it would open up our own public lands for huge corporations to drill and destroy. Just like last time, this act emphasizes drilling over conservation.

Whatever happened to conservation? It does nothing to reduce the United States' dependence on foreign oil or protect consumers from skyrocketing gas prices.

Just like last time, it ignores that there is great bipartisan support for the desperately needed electric reliability provision. We should be passing just that section and getting it to the President's desk. He would sign it, and we would be accomplishing something.

Just like last time, the House majority leadership is ignoring that there is bipartisan opposition to this bill in its present form. Mr. Speaker, let us drop the ethanol provision and the MTBE provision and the drilling provision. Let us concentrate on conservation and electric reliability. Let us have a bill that is a center, not a bill that is extreme, that cannot pass, that cannot be signed into law.

Let us start doing the work that needs to be done. Let us bring gas prices down. Let us get a bill that the American people can stand up and say, when the gas prices went up, Congress really did something to help us, not to help the big companies that pollute, not to continue our dependence on foreign oil, not to just pass a bill that was passed before, that we know has virtually no chance of being signed. Let us pass a commonsense bill. Defeat this bill.

Mr. Speaker, along with all of my colleagues here today, I rise to honor President Ronald Reagan. I was first elected to Congress in 1988, on the same day that President George H.W. Bush was elected. Because Members of Congress officially take office on January 3, while a new President does not take office until January 20, my first 17 days as a Congressman were during the last 17 days Ronald Reagan served as President. So when people ask me who was the President when I first came to Washington, I reply that it was Ronald Reagan. I had the opportunity to see Ronald Reagan in person only

one time, with his wife Nancy, during the inauguration of President George H.W. Bush. I remember thinking that together they had a larger than life presence.

Although I differed with Ronald Reagan a great deal on domestic policy, I nevertheless admired him for the strong leader that he was. He had an affable manner that allowed him to interact well with people who both supported and opposed his policies. He was a strong leader who had a lot of charm, strength and enthusiasm.

The gulf between the Republican and Democratic policies can sometimes seem vast. But the bridge that spans that gulf is our common heritage as Americans and belief in this great nation. Ronald Reagan had the gift to make that bridge seem very small. I am pleased to honor him today.

Mr. Speaker, Robert Rivers is a man of many parts who has served his community, city and country. Bobby, as he is most familiarly known, was born in Harlem and after

high school joined the Air Force, serving four years and being honorably discharged.

He returned home to his family and met Hazel Pazant, who became his wife. Fortunately for the Bronx they moved here and started to raise their family of four children. Bobby became a police officer in the New York City Police Department in 1969. While a police officer, he attended and graduated Fordham University with a degree in Sociology.

Also during his years on the force, he settled in the northeast Bronx and he joined his local block association, the Seton Falls Neighborhood Association, one of the many organizations helping his community that he joined. He also joined the Guardians Association, a police organization, eventually becoming its president. He retired from the Police Department in 1997 as a Detective but remains active with the National Black Police Association.

He has engaged in many civic activities in his community, including the fight to save Seton Falls Park from becoming a landfill, and joined the 47th Precinct Review Committee, monitoring the activities of the police in the community. He is also a member of the NAACP, serving on several committees in that organization, and is chair of the Legal Redress Committee.

He also serves as Chair of the Thurgood Marshall Independent Democratic Club.

Bobby Rivers is a tireless activist for his community, willing and able to participate in any and every activity that will help his community and improve life there. I congratulate him for his great work and wish him every continued success.

Mr. Speaker, the adage if you want something done ask a busy person to do it was never more true than in the case of David Sable. For more than 20 years he has been busy in marketing communications, becoming vice chair and president of Wunderman's worldwide operations.

But there is another side of Mr. Sable, one which led the Riverdale Jewish Center to honor him at their 50th anniversary celebration, a decision they said wasn't particularly difficult.

He was raised in Riverdale from early childhood, the son of the founding Rabbi of the Riverdale Jewish Center. He has served the RJC with extraordinary tenure as President and is currently the Chair of the Board of Trustees. He is, in their words, understanding of the RJC past, an integral part of its present, and a source of confidence for its future.

He also has served his community in a larger sense, as a member of New York City's Cultural Advisory Committee and a member of the steering committee for the Mail Industry Task Force of the United States Post Office.

His love for Israel is well known. With the breakout of the Yom Kippur war, he joined the Israeli Defense Force as a combat medic. He is a member of the Board of the Tzfat Foundation. He has also served the RJC as Youth Director and Vice President.

A celebration of the Riverdale Jewish Center without David Sable would not be a true celebration. I congratulate him and the RJC for all the good work both have accomplished in Riverdale and beyond.

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

Mr. Speaker, what has happened to the heart and soul of the Republican Party? I used to have a lot of respect for my friends on the other side of the aisle when they called themselves fiscal conservatives. The Republicans can never again call themselves fiscal conservatives.

The American people are not foolish. Each person, each household in America understands that in a budget you only spend as much as you have. If you keep overspending year after year, if you spend more money than you take in time and time again, bad things happen; and that is what is happening here.

We are having an orgy of tax cuts, and we have an unbalanced budget, and we are passing on a legacy of debt to our children and our grandchildren.

Shame on us.

We fought long and hard in this Chamber to balance the budget during the Clinton Presidency. We succeeded by making hard choices. Yet today we are presented with an easy choice, borrow and spend. The borrow-and- spend Republicans have hit once again. Shame on the majority for this sham budget.

When the House debated the budget resolution earlier this year, I rose in opposition to it because it is a big fat IOU to our children and grandchildren. It is unfair. Shame on the majority for abandoning PAYGO for spending and tax cuts.

We should vote down this quick and easy fix. Let us make the hard choices that we were elected to make. Let us pass a budget that balances soon, not one that never balances, and not a phony one that is only 1 year because we want to masquerade the sham that we are causing.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak today regarding my grave concerns about funding for our Nation's police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel.

This week is National Police Week--a time we set aside to remember and honor the brave men and women protecting our streets and communities.

I would like to note that the names of nine New York police officers who are being added to National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial at a candlelight vigil on Thursday, May 13, 2004. These police officers fell as far back as 1906 and as recently as last year. They are:

1. Rodney J. Andrews, Detective, New York City, New York.

2. Michael F. Brophy, Sergeant, City of Utica, New York.

3. James Ivan Broughton, Police Officer, Middletown, New York.

4. Jeffry Todd Edelson, Sergeant, New York State Police.

5. Neil A. Forster, Police Officer, New York City, New York.

6. James Verneuil Nemorin, Detective, New York City, New York.

7. Fred Preston, Police Officer, Patchogue, New York.

8. Glenn Matthew Searles, Deputy Sheriff, Onondaga County, New York.

9. George A. Stillwell, Deputy Sheriff, Suffolk County, New York.

We here in Congress do many things to honor our police officers. Just this term, I authored legislation to name a Post Office in my district for Edward O'Grady, Waverly Brown and Peter Paige. Twenty- three years ago an armed gang attempted to rob a Brinks Armored Truck in the middle of the day at a crowded mall and these three brave souls fell in the line of duty. But, Congress has another important job to do when honoring our ``finest.'' We have a responsibility to provide funding to help our police--and in fact all first responders--do their jobs.

The President shares this responsibility. Yet, his budget for fiscal year 2005 is woefully inadequate. A few simple figures:

Provides only $97 million for COPS, a $659 million cut below the 2004 enacted level--and in FY04 COPS was funded at $748 million;

Totally eliminates the Byrne formula and discretionary grants, yet in FY04 formula grants were funded at $495 million and discretionary grants were funded at $208 million; and

Also it eliminates Local Law Enforcement Block Grant grants, which were funded at $223 million in FY04.

As a New Yorker who was watching from my home in the Bronx on September 11--watching as the greatest attack on U.S. civilians was ever undertaken--I am greatly disappointed by the President's poor request. As a New Yorker who watched the greatest act of heroism I can remember--hundreds of firefighters and police officers running into the World Trade Center as they burned, I am saddened by the President' weak request. As a New Yorker who watched in abject horror as the towers fell, killing thousands, including hundreds of firefighters and police, I am angered by the President's insufficient request.

Later, I learned that a police helicopter was circling the Trade Center site and could tell the second tower would soon fall. Yet, the police could not warn the firefighters inside because they used a different radio system. I pledged to myself and my constituents that I would do everything I could to make sure this never happened again. Thus, I joined my colleagues, Mr. Fossella and Mr. Stupak, in authoring legislation to provide funding to our states and localities to purchase interoperable radio equipment. H.R. 3370, the Public Safety Interoperability Implementation Act would use proceeds from spectrum auctions to help our police and firefighters and EMS personnel.

I urge my other colleagues to join us in this effort.

I also urge my colleagues to join me and the other speakers here tonight in fighting for the funding needed to make our districts safer.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me; and I, too, rise in strong support of the alternative minimum tax reform. In fact, I would go so far as to say, if there was one tax that should be permanently reformed, it would be this one.

First of all, as everyone has mentioned, many middle-income people find themselves caught with this tax. They have plenty of deductions, but they are not allowed to deduct it because they have met the threshold, and it certainly is regressive and should be changed.

In 1969, the tax was put into effect. It has not been modified since it makes no sense whatsoever not to have it indexed to inflation; and again, if there was any tax reform that ought to be made permanent, it should be this tax.

We have heard about other taxes. The estate tax is one with which I do not agree that that tax should be permanently repealed. The estate tax repeal would only benefit the very, very high-income people, and I think they should pay their fair share; but this alternative minimum tax really hits a lot of working people, a lot of middle-class people and is really grossly unfair.

If a person lives in a high-tax State, as was mentioned by my friends from New York and Connecticut, it even hurts and hits them even more so. This tax, as it is currently written, makes no sense at all. I would hope that after this 1-year extension we could put our heads together and come back with something that makes sense, a permanent reform.

While this bill is a step in the right direction many middle class families that are hurt by the AMT, will not be helped by this and will only be helped by a total re-write of the AMT and a permanent reform.

I think on this side of the aisle the point had been made that the Committee Ways and Means, which is the tax-writing committee, ought to have hearings. And after we can finally put together a plan that would reform the AMT permanently for good.

Right now, I will take this quick fix, but we ought to build on to it. We should permanently reform the AMT. It makes no sense whatsoever to keep doing short-term extensions on tax policy that hurts a lot of hardworking families.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me, and I rise in strong support of this legislation.

I am proud to serve on the Committee on Energy and Commerce; and when we marked up this bill last week, I was very happy to speak in favor of it.

I represent a district covering Rockland, Westchester and Bronx counties, all of which are part of the 9 million people that this water is so important for.

I am aware that many of my colleagues are unhappy that we are only reauthorizing a very small provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act. I agree with their unhappiness, and I hope that the committee and subcommittee and the full House can reauthorize the rest of the Safe Drinking Water Act; but I would say to my colleagues, please do not hold New York hostage.

All 29 Members of the House representing New York, both Democrats and Republicans, strongly support this bill. I am certainly happy to take care of New York, but my State benefits from the State revolving loan fund as well. So I want to say that the safe drinking water programs are all important and should be reauthorized, and I hope they will be.

This bill is very important to New York. Millions of people rely on drinking water from this watershed, and ensuring that they have safe and clean water is very important to me and my constituents. This is obviously not a perfect bill, but it is an important water quality monitoring program. It is a model program for the rest of the Nation, and I would hope this could be replicated with the rest of the Nation.

So, again, I thank my colleagues for coming together. We want to have safe and clean drinking water in New York. When our Republican colleagues come to New York in August and September for the convention, we want their water to be pure, and I think Democrats and Republicans can all agree on that. So, again, I would urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of this Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, to remember both the best and the worst of humanity. Six million Jews and millions of others were rounded up, tortured, and murdered, by the Nazis 6 decades ago. The martyrs of these indescribably vicious and inhumane deeds will never be forgotten, neither their deaths nor the principles for which they stood. We remember those who were too weak to defend themselves, who were brutally slaughtered in death camps. We remember those like Anne Frank who battled to preserve their humanity in their own unique way. We remember those who fought back, like the brave men and women who rose up against the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto 60 years ago.

Yet, nearly 6 decades after the Holocaust concluded, Anti-Semitism still exists as the scourge of the world. The Anti-Defamation League has found that in 2003 more than 1500 Anti-Semitic incidents occurred in the United States alone. Holocaust museums were the victims of arson and community centers defaced with swastikas. Tombs of Jews around the world, from Argentina to France, have been damaged and disgraced. For years we have spoken about this unacceptable situation, but we must reinforce our words with actions. As George Washington wrote in a letter to the Jewish Community of Newport, Rhode Island 204 years ago, the Government of the United States must always give ``to bigotry no sanction.''

As it did 60 years ago, the best of humanity must not stand silent but respond. Too small is our world to allow discrimination, bigotry and intolerance to thrive in any corner of it, let alone in the United States of America. Let this day of memorial strengthen our resolve to ensure that tolerance and coexistence will never be defeated by those who wish us harm.

Madam Speaker, several months ago now the President signed the Syria Accountability Act, which was passed overwhelmingly by this House and the other body. Since that time, however, the act has not been implemented; and I believe, as do the vast majority of Members in this House and the other body believe, that the time is now to slap sanctions on Syria.

Just the other day, the word came out from Iraq that Syria was allowing weaponry to come from Syrian territory into Iraq and guerrillas to come from Syrian territory into Iraq to do harm to American troops. Syria has not patrolled its border and has allowed these anti-U.S. guerrillas to come in and kill our troops.

Also, the other day in Jordan a plot was discovered where poison gas was to have been released and there was to be an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Amman, Jordan. It was documented that this gas and these attacks came from Syria across the border into Jordan.

Syria is a major sponsor of terrorism. Syria illegally continues to occupy Lebanon, has a weapons of mass destruction program, and, as I mentioned before, is allowing its border to be used by terrorists to come into Iraq to do harm to U.S. troops. Those are the four things that this bill, the Syria Accountability Act, called on Syria to end. Syria has not ended, and the President should implement the sanctions immediately.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this bill because this bill means jobs for many Americans currently unable to find employment. This bill is about bolstering our Nation's transportation infrastructure which has a direct impact on our economy. I believe that this is a good bill. I wish it was even more money because we can use the transportation infrastructure money.

I am very sorry that the administration is threatening to veto this bill because it goes above the $256 billion limit they set. I do not know why they do not seem to get it. They do not get the fact that America's workforce and floundering economy would benefit tremendously from this legislation. It is unbelievable that at a time of high unemployment this administration is threatening to veto legislation that would actually create real jobs.

I do not want to hear phony cries about budget restraint. The tax cuts for the rich rob us of our ability to have good programs. This is a great program. The administration says that anything above $256 billion is too expensive. This is ludicrous because the transportation bill is self-funding. The former chair, Mr. Shuster, did a wonderful job in ensuring that revenues generated for the trust fund would only be used for transportation projects.

I commend the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski). I think this is a marvelous bill, and I wholly support it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in absolute astonishment at the disingenuous budget resolution presented by the Republican majority and in opposition to the Republican Study Committee's alternative. But at least the Republican Study Committee, I give them credit, they try to be consistent. They try to bring down the deficit. They try to say that we cannot have these tremendous deficits.

I do not know whether to laugh or cry, to actually carve out protections that allow increases in the deficit by billions. What has happened to the soul of the Republican Party? Is fiscal responsibility no longer their mantra? Make no mistake, guaranteeing that we can have tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts means even bigger increases in the deficit.

The tax cuts for the rich are robbing us of our ability to fund needed programs. How can we look at our children and grandchildren and say we are promoting the general welfare? $7 trillion in debt, every American now carries a burden of $24,326. Just this year alone we are spending $340 billion on interest for this debt. We are leaving our children and grandchildren an economic time bomb.

Just as the baby boom generation begins to retire, this budget spends every penny of the Medicare and Social Security surpluses over the next 10 years, but not on Medicare and Social Security; and the cuts on Medicaid are shameful in this budget when we consider that unemployment is high and people need Medicaid.

Democrats want to balance the budget and pay our bills now, not sometime in the future. Republicans used to stand in this Chamber and scream about balanced budgets. What happened to you?

Reject this budget and support the gentleman from South Carolina's (Mr. Spratt) alternative.

Mr. Speaker, I must say a couple of things before I begin. I want to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird) for his meticulous Spanish, and I want to also take note of the fact that the Manhattan College Jaspars, in my district, just won the opening round of the basketball NCAA against Florida. They were the underdogs. So I am very proud of them and the 17th District of New York. Go Jaspars.

I want to address a very serious subject, though, Mr. Speaker, and that is the violence which took place yesterday; ethnic clashes in Kosovo in the

Balkans between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs. I chair the Albanian Issues Caucus in the Congress and have done extensive work in the Balkans and extensive work in Kosovo. I believe that ultimately the situation in Kosovo can only be resolved through self-determination. The people of Kosovo have to have a future and have to understand that they have the right to determine their own future.

The ethnic violence which happened yesterday is a tragic undertaking, a tragic tragedy, and I must call on both sides to stop the violence. Violence is never a solution to anybody's perceived problems or indignities. It must be solved peacefully.

However, having said that, I think that the violence that erupted yesterday was inevitable, and it was inevitable because in 1999, when the United Nations came in, including our troops, and prevented genocide, prevented Slobodon Milosovic from his ethnic cleansing, from cleansing Kosovo of its Albanian population, we stepped in and prevented that from happening. And that was a wonderful thing that we did. However, since that time, very little has been done to move to a resolution of the final status of Kosovo.

When there is no resolution of the final status, the people in a country become restless because they see no future. They see no end point. They only see the status quo. And we have become the status quo in that country. UNMIK, the United Nations, and NATO have to be seen as people who are resolving this issue, who are moving it to final status to give the people of Kosovo hope. Right now there is rampant unemployment. Right now there is very little hope for a future. That has to end.

Self-determination and, ultimately, independence for the people of Kosovo is the only solution. When people do not see a chance for self- determination, tensions fester beneath the surface when you do not move to resolution.

What we have seen with the United Nations, with UNMIK and NATO, is this ridiculous plan called standards before status. To me, it only means status quo. We put forward benchmarks and we tell the people of Kosovo they have to achieve these benchmarks before we can even look at a resolution and at self-determination. And somehow or other, something always intervenes, the benchmarks are never there, so the status is never achieved and we delay, and we delay and we delay, and we push it to the back burner.

I very much regret that our administration has pushed the whole issue of Kosovo to the back burner. It needs to be on the front burner. We need to resolve this problem. We need to give the people of Kosovo hope. We need to have a resolution. Self-determination is what is needed, and we need to push that; not be pushing off the day of reckoning again and again and again and again.

And let me tell my colleagues why self-determination and, ultimately, independence is the only solution. There are only two other solutions, which do not work. One is to have Kosovo go back under Serb control. That will never happen after the ethnic cleansing of 1999. The overwhelming Albanian population will never, rightfully so, accept it. Secondly, the only other alternative would be for Kosovo to continue to be an international protectorate, which is what it is now, with troops of many countries there, United Nations troops and NATO troops. That cannot happen indefinitely. So the only solution is independence, and the only solution is to give the people of Kosovo some hope.

So I would hope that the administration would move to resolve this problem now, to give the people of Kosovo hope for the future. The status quo only aids and abets violence. And while we are at it, we have to resolve the whole situation with privatization. The people there have to know if they invest in property for the future, to help the people there, they must know that it will be secure.

So, again, I want to condemn the violence, I want to show my sympathy for the victims of the violence, but I want to again tell the administration that we need to ratchet it up and come to a resolution of final status for the people of Kosovo.