Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to House Joint Resolution 88, the so-called Marriage Protection Amendment, which proposes an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex couples from getting married or receiving any of the rights of marriage.

The right-wing political machine is churning out divisive legislation at a record pace as we get close to the election, but this is a particular low point. We can all have a good laugh at the pandering Republican majority when they claim that banning flag burning will make us more patriotic or that school prayer will prevent teenage pregnancy, but this proposal would, for the first time ever, target a specific group of Americans in our most sacred document, and permanently ban them from having equal rights under the law.

The proposed amendment not only bans marriage, but any of the ``legal incidents thereof,'' meaning that the proponents think our founding document should keep gay and lesbian couples from filing a joint tax return, inheriting property, or visiting their partner in the

hospital. I vehemently oppose this discrimination.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that this amendment has already failed once in the House and twice in the Senate, so today's vote is all a terrible waste of time. What we should be doing is passing legislation to address real problems in America today. Rather than insult a group of people as deserving of protection under law as any other, Congress should work to reduce domestic violence, provide high quality childcare to all families, and make the minimum wage a living wage. These actions would actually prevent divorce in America and strengthen our families.

Citizens of the United States are guaranteed equal treatment under the law, even if voters in red states don't like them. I urge my colleagues to vote against this nonsense.

The resolution before us, Mr. Speaker, ignores the realities of increasing child poverty, stagnating wages and lost opportunities for those families and children left behind by the so- called success of the welfare reform. Pilot Shaw has landed his plane on the aircraft carrier and said ``mission accomplished,'' and the carrier sank.

This resolution, looking at a 10-year window, ignores the disturbing trends of the last 5 years during the Bush Republican Presidency. Total poverty has increased for 4 consecutive years, and more than 37 million people are living in poverty today. Child poverty has been on the rise for 5 straight years, and 13 million children are struggling in poverty today. Real wages for low-income workers have been stagnant for 5 consecutive years. It is time for the minimum wage to be raised, but the Republicans don't care to represent poor people, only rich.

Nearly one in three poor single women are not working and not receiving TANF assistance, and fewer than half of the families eligible for TANF receive it. Child care funding under the Republicans is $11 billion short of what CBO estimates the States need. The administration funneled $2 billion alone to religious organizations, trusting in this faith-based stuff, and the GAO has found the Bush faith-based initiative lacks accountability and safeguards against discrimination. And this has been, as Congressman Shaw would claim, the most successful social policy in history.

What is it, sir, that you don't understand about the word ``failure''? Instead of engaging in this political public relations charade, we should be working on a bipartisan basis to confront realities of poverty in this country. We should move ourselves into the present and work to ensure that we provide States with the resources they need to move families out of poverty, instead of wasting time defining marriage.

We should focus on real programs that help families improve their lives. We need to improve their lives, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, raise the minimum wage, increase access to Medicaid and Medicare, CHIP and food stamps. We need to provide work supports such as sufficient funding for children, remove the barriers to employment, provide education and training opportunities and get to work and solve the problem of poverty, instead of making tax cuts for the very rich and ignoring the middle class and doing it on the backs of the poor. That is the Republican way. The Democrats' way is to help everybody in this country rise out of poverty.

Mr. Speaker, I resent being dragged into Rick Santorum's hapless re-election campaign by having to vote on bills designed to provide him and other extremist Republicans with cover for their opposition to productive embryonic stem cell research.

S. 2754, the Alternative Pluripotent Stem Cell Therapies Enhancement Act, directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to pour money into far less promising methods of deriving stem cells from adult cells. S. 3504, the Fetus Farming Prohibition Act, bans unethical forms of research that are already prohibited by law. I sincerely doubt that these worthless bills will convince any voter that their Senator supports stem cell research.

I will vote for the Fetus Farming bill simply because this practice is already against the law. Therefore, this bill is meaningless, but also harmless.

However, I will vote against the Alternative Pluripotent bill because it sets a dangerous precedent in choosing one form of research over the other. Much as Congress would never instruct the NIH to cure cancer, but only in a certain manner, we shouldn't dictate the kind of stem cell research scientists should and should not practice. This bill requires the Secretary of HHS to conduct research into so-

called alternative therapies. But these therapies do not currently exist and their development would shift scarce research dollars away from embryonic research.

If Senator Santorum and President Bush truly believe that it's morally superior to discard single cells in a freezer rather than to use them to help millions of Americans with Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and diabetes, then they should have the guts to say so without another sham bill for political cover.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Gaye Hyde, my lead caseworker in Fremont, CA, district office, who will be retiring on July 31, 2006.

Gaye has worked for me, and more importantly for the people of California's 13th Congressional District, for 31 years. I dare say that her level of commitment is hard--if not impossible--to match. I'm honored that she's stuck with me for so many years. But, it is my constituents who have been the real winners.

Gaye has presided over tens of thousands of cases herself and has trained every caseworker who has come and gone from my staff over the past 30 years.

She started handling constituent casework in the days before computers were used in the office. She had to type initial inquiries to agencies for assistance, have them mailed to Washington, DC for my approval, and then track their progress through written correspondence from various agencies and seldom returned phone calls. Typically, she took piles of letters home and fact checked and typed responses late into the night. She was always pushing to resolve cases and didn't feel there was time in the day to meet her standards or constituents' needs.

How times have changed. Today, many constituents e-mail their requests for assistance. Gaye is able to e-mail constituent liaison offices in a variety of agencies, and much of the work is done via the Internet. The process makes communication faster, provides better accountability, and produces much less paper waste--all of which are great advancements.

What hasn't changed over time is the importance of the role of congressional caseworkers. These staff members get little of the glory, but are the key component for an effective Member of Congress.

Constituents who reach out for help from their Member of Congress usually are in great need. They are trying to file immigration documents for a loved one, obtain a lost Social Security check upon which their parent depends, or applying for a federal grant which could make or break their organization's ability to continue providing important services to the community.

With Gaye at the helm of my casework operation, I've never had to worry about my constituents being served--and served superbly. Her retirement is well deserved, but those of us lucky enough to work with her, and thousands of East Bay residents she's helped over the years, will miss her tremendously.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 9, the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006.

This historic legislation, first signed into law by President Johnson in 1965, has eliminated the most blatant forms of discrimination in voting practices and continues to send a strong message that American voters of all races

have the full support and enforcement of the United States Government behind them when they exercise a basic democratic right.

Contrary to the arguments of those that believe this law is no longer necessary, the extensive hearing record that accompanies this legislation proves that the need is as great as ever. In Georgia alone, 91 objections to voting practices have been processed by the Department of Justice since 1982, including 4 objections since 2002, preventing discriminatory voting changes from being enacted.

Indeed, additional action is necessary to guarantee the right to vote. Congress has failed to address the more subtle forms of discrimination that plague our voting system and were on full display in the last two presidential elections. The right to vote doesn't mean much to an individual who has to wait in a 3-hour line to cast a ballot or who has a hostile election worker deny their right to a provisional ballot. Nor is the right to vote honored when votes mysteriously disappear and can't be accounted for in a recount because there is no paper trail.

In 14 States, felons are denied the right to vote even after they serve their sentences. I sincerely doubt the public would support a law prohibiting felons from freely practicing their religion after completing their prison terms. Yet we deny an equally fundamental right to millions of Americans who may have written a bad check or been convicted of a minor drug offense.

These issues are just as threatening to our democracy as poll taxes and voter intimidation, and so today cannot be viewed as the capstone, but rather the foundation, of our efforts to guarantee the right to vote.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose the Science, State, Justice, Commerce, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2007 because I refuse to pretend that partially restoring the President's reckless cuts to important programs is the best we can do. We are administering death by a thousand cuts to the basic functions of government to finance tax breaks for millionaires and an open-ended war in Iraq. And we're going to borrow over $300 billion to do it.

In this bill, I find particularly objectionable the $563 million cut from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including a $47 million cut from the Pacific Coast Salmon Recovery Fund; the $20 million cut from economic development projects in distressed areas; and the $117 million cut for dues to the United Nations and other international organizations. The bill robs from these and other critical programs to avoid eliminating assistance to state and local law enforcement, as requested by the President, although law enforcement still suffers a $150 million cut from last year.

I urge my colleagues to join me in rejecting this bill to force the Bush Administration and Republican Congress to start making responsible choices with the American people's money.

Mr. Chairman, even if I supported offshore drilling--which I don't--I certainly wouldn't do it through this fiscally reckless and convoluted bill.

The Domestic Energy Production through Offshore Exploration and Equitable Treatment of State Holdings Act makes it far easier for states to allow drilling than to prevent it. It bribes states into allowing offshore drilling by increasing their share of royalties from 27 percent to 50 percent, at a cost to the federal government of $600 billion over 60 years. If a state takes no action to facilitate natural gas drilling in the immediate year or oil drilling in the next three years, then this law would open its waters for drilling. In order to maintain a moratorium on drilling, a state legislature would have to vote to prohibit drilling every five years. How many states will be able to resist billions of dollars in exchange for doing nothing?

H.R. 4761 also guts the environmental review process and makes all other uses of the Outer Continental Shelf subordinate to drilling, even in states than continue to ban drilling. According to the bill, ''No Federal agency may permit construction or operation of any facility, that will be incompatible with. . . oil and gas or natural gas leasing.'' So if your state wants to operate a marine sanctuary, it better pass the Pombo oil compatibility test.

All this, and for what? Drilling is already allowed in areas that have 80 percent of offshore oil and natural gas reserves. This bill simultaneously endangers our coasts and delays an urgently needed transformation to a clean energy economy. I vote no to yet another Republican attempt to maintain our oil addiction.

Mr. Speaker, I reject all the ridiculous premises of the resolution: The premise that terrorists would have had no clue that international wire transfers would be subject to monitoring until they read about it in the New York Times; the premise that the media should conceal information leaked by responsible officials who are concerned about the runaway police-state tactics of the Bush Administration; and, the premise that by telling a select few Congressional leaders, the Bush Administration can do whatever it wants, regardless of the lack of constitutional or statutory authority.

When concerns were expressed about the far-reaching powers of the Patriot Act, President Bush said any wiretap would require a court order. He lied. When the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless wiretapping program was revealed, he said we should trust him to use the program judiciously. When we learned that the NSA also collects millions of domestic telephone records, the President said it wasn't what it seemed. Now, we add financial records to the list, and his only response is to criticize the messenger. What will it take for the do- nothing Republican Congress to start standing up for the Constitution, or at least the prerogatives of the Legislative Branch?

If this Congress spent half as much time doing oversight as it did criticizing those who dare question their government, we wouldn't have to find out what our government is doing on the front page of the New York Times. But given that no lie, no unlawful program, no petulant signing statement is too much for the Bush toadies, I salute the Times and other media outlets for their occasional bravery and for maintaining some semblance of accountability in government.

I thank the distinguished gentleman from Indiana for yielding. I would like to associate myself with his remarks.

In my community, this came to my attention several years back when 3 or 4,000 households in two different cities received notification just 45 days before the insurance bill was due from their mortgage companies and were told that within 45 days they would have to pay between $1,000 and $2,000 in insurance. In both communities, half of the households were excluded, but each household had to go individually, perhaps at a cost of $1,000 to $2,000 a household. That was a million to $2 million without even hiring lawyers or surveyors in my district to relieve themselves from this onerous, unneeded insurance premium. We can send a million letters for less than $400,000 if that became necessary.

It is a question of timely notification. I think it is only fair for us to notify the individual property owners, to give them time to be able to get the surveys and get the information they needed before they have to pay up the first thousand or $2,000 in premium and then later try and escape from under this, if their property is excludable, from the floodplain. I urge the adoption of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding and for his work on this issue.

This first came to my attention back in 2000 when flood maps were updated in Alameda County in the 13th Congressional District. Thousands of residents in San Leandro and Fremont found out that they were added to a floodplain by getting a letter from their lender. They had 45 days to select a policy and pay the annual premium or the lender would choose for them and add it to their monthly payment.

There was no explanation of what had suddenly determined them to be in a floodplain and the community appeal window was already closed. Needless to say, the National Flood Insurance Program ranks somewhere just above the IRS in popularity in my district.

Considering the ongoing nationwide map modernization program and the new FEMA requirement to assume houses behind levees require flood insurance unless the levees are certified, this problem will affect almost every congressional district in the country, if it hasn't already.

The logic of the Burton/Stark amendment is simple. Translating flood maps into on-the-ground information about households is already happening, but often only in time to send the first bill for flood insurance.

Our amendment merely changes the timeline to guarantee that property owners will find out earlier in the process when there is still time to get involved and appeal as a community.

In my district, more than half of the households added to the floodplain were later taken out. If they could have done so as a group rather than individually appealing and hiring their own surveyors, it would have saved both time and money, not to mention the reputation of the flood insurance program.

I urge my colleagues to support the Burton/Stark amendment. All our constituents deserve to be kept informed about federal requirements that directly impact their pocketbooks.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate his usual tenacity in watch-dogging the Federal dollar.

I would apologize. On our side of the aisle, the whip notice had it incorrect as it came out this morning. The gentleman is correct. It has been corrected. The distinguished gentleman from Indiana has seen that the amendment is limited to the notification, and I think it will assuage concerns.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to yet another tax break for the ultra-wealthy. This week, Republicans rejected an increase in the minimum wage that would have enabled people making $5.15 an hour to receive a $2 raise. Yet today they're falling all over themselves to give every single person worth more than $20 million a $5.6 million tax break.

A cartoonist couldn't draw a clearer illustration of the Republicans' misguided priorities. Though 46 million Americans lack health insurance and millions of children are denied access to quality education, Republicans insist on enriching those who least need our assistance.

It is irresponsible and immoral to decrease revenue by $800 billion. With this money, we could provide quality health care for every man, woman and child; make the dream of affordable college a reality for all those who can't now afford higher education; or fund groundbreaking scientific research. It took us less than a decade to go to the moon. With a similar effort, we might cure AIDS or cancer.

The Republican priorities are clear: $5.6 million for each of their rich campaign donors and $0 for hard working stiffs trying to raise a family on $5.15 an hour.

The Republicans are bowing down to 18 super-wealthy families who have spent nearly $500 million lobbying for estate tax repeal. These families own everything from Amway to Wal-Mart and stand to gain billions of dollars from any so-called compromise.

Another quite wealthy man has a different view. Bill Gates, Sr., recently said: ``Given the fact that we have an unacceptable deficit, undeniable and huge demands resulting from our foreign involvement, and tragedies occurring here at home that need support from the federal government, it seems just plain irresponsible to talk about dismissing this particular source of federal revenue.''

I couldn't say it any better myself, and I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to yet another bloated Defense Appropriations bill. H.R. 5631 provides billions more for missile defense systems that are nothing but a pipe dream and a War in Iraq that has turned into an international nightmare.

Republicans in Congress should wake up and smell the coffee. Another $9 billion for development of ineffective and outdated weapons systems may boost the bottom lines of their well-connected sugar daddies in the defense industry. But throwing good money after bad will do little to make Ronald Reagan's Cold War fantasy a reality. Despite nearly $100 billion in research, these systems have yet to demonstrate even a basic ability to intercept incoming missiles. Even if they could, they'd do little to make us secure from the much more likely and contemporary threat of a weapon delivered by suitcase or cargo container.

Republicans have irresponsibly funded the majority of their misguided Iraqi adventure through supplementals. But they couldn't resist also including tens of billions more in today's Defense Appropriations bill. In H.R. 5631, taxpayer money is appropriated as a so-called ``bridge fund'' for the first six months of war operations during fiscal year 2007. But our troops should be brought home immediately. The bill's billions are, in reality, a bridge to more death and destruction. The United States' continued occupation encourages Iraqi civil war and feeds the insurgency, providing terrorists with refuge and recruits.

Once upon a time, Congress took its oversight role seriously. Not today. Despite a recent Pentagon report that found significant cost overruns in 36 major weapons systems, this bill increases defense spending by a whopping $19.1 billion. As a result, defense spending will now total more than half of the entire federal discretionary budget!

Instead, we should provide quality education and health care to all Americans. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no to additional spending on ineffective missile systems and a counterproductive war.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this simple- minded resolution. President Bush and Republicans in Congress would have you believe that the War on Terror and the War in Iraq are one and the same. But terrorism is not exclusive to a geographic or political entity.

Terrorism is the result of an accidental or intentional trauma inflicted on humanity. Numerous examples exist within our own borders.

My son is terrorized by the threat of destruction posed by the ignorance, of President Bush in his steadfast opposition to addressing the very real threat of global warming.

Parents are terrorized by the lack of treatment for children born with diabetes, leukemia, and multiple sclerosis. Yet right-wing evangelical Pharisees dictate prohibitions on stem cell research that could cure these and other diseases, saving lives.

Middle-class Americans are terrorized by the outsourcing of jobs. elimination of pensions and health benefits, and expansion of

predatory lending. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce promotes these terrifying practices, driving working families to fear for their financial future.

All Americans are terrorized by more than 30,000 handgun deaths each year. This trauma is condoned and promoted by the National Rifle Association, a bipartisan terrorist organization.

Our brave servicemen and women in uniform are terrorized by the Iraqi insurgency and civil war. Though 2,500 American soldiers and countless Iraqi citizens have died, the right wing noise machine encourages additional deaths by coloring as pro-terrorist those of us who dare to acknowledge the futility of the President's War in Iraq.

Terrorism is a very real threat, but it comes in many forms other than those found in Iraq and, as I've outlined here today, we are doing precious little to combat it in America.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution and to join me in a call to redirect our attention, our federal dollars, and our lives to our needs here at home.

Mr. Speaker, when is enough, enough? I rise in opposition to H.R. 4939 because there is no limit to the amount of money Republicans are willing to spend on this counterproductive war in Iraq.

When the Bush administration beat the drums of war, it promised the American people that the total cost would be $50 billion. More than 3 years later, the price tag for the Iraqi civil war stands at more than $320 billion. Before the invasion, neoconservatives told us Iraq was an oil-rich country that could finance its own reconstruction. Yet this latest supplemental includes billions more for the ``stabilization'' of Iraq that could have instead gone to rebuild New Orleans.

The Vietnam war required only a single supplemental, after which it was financed through the regular budget process. But virtually all of this money for the war in Iraq has been provided in so-called ``emergency'' supplementals that do not require budgetary tradeoffs such as spending cuts or tax increases. As a result, every dollar spent in Iraq is a dollar of debt for our children and grandchildren.

For their money, future generations are getting a terrible return. Thanks to our seemingly open-ended occupation of Iraq, anti-American forces are growing stronger, not weaker. Despite parliamentary elections and limitless American aid for democracy building, Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. Though even the rubber stamp Republicans in Congress have shown a real interest in transferring authority to Iraqi security forces, their training proceeds at a snail's pace.

This emergency supplemental bill does provide badly needed funds for Katrina reconstruction. Particularly worthwhile is this legislation's support for levee improvements, the rebuilding of the Veterans Administration hospital in New Orleans, alternative housing for hurricane survivors, and community development block grants.

But the numbers speak for themselves. The bill provides more than three times more funding for defense-related expenditures than it does for Katrina-related aid. Because I cannot support additional spending for a war that has already claimed nearly 2,500 American servicemen and women and countless Iraqi citizens, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, as dean of the California delegation, it is my distinct honor at this point to yield to the senior member of the Republican California delegation, Mr. Dreier.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2007.

The United States should plant seeds of peace, not seeds of war. Tragically, however, this legislation appropriates nearly $5 billion-- or about 25 percent of total spending--for direct military assistance. H.R. 5522 also includes more than $2.5 billion for so-called ``Economic Support Funds'' that recipient countries often direct toward security budgets. This spending subsidizes armed conflict, encouraging violence rather than diplomacy around the world.

At the same time, the legislation includes several provisions I would have loved to support as a stand-alone bill. For example, it provides $450 million for humanitarian relief efforts in Sudan. Significant financing is included for much-needed disaster and famine assistance, temporary resettlement of refugees, development aid, and peacekeeping operations. I hope that this assistance will help ameliorate the consequences of the genocide in Darfur. Similarly, I support bipartisan efforts to combat global AIDS.

But in the end, the bad outweighs the good and I must vote against this bill, which encourages billions in counterproductive military assistance.