Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, due to Hurricane Rita approaching the Texas Gulf Coast and the Houston area, I have been excused from today's proceedings.

I would like my positions regarding votes taken on H.R. 2123, the School Readiness Act, and amendments to this Act entered into the Congressional Record. Let the Record reflect I would have voted the following way: Rollcall No. 486--``yes''; rollcall No. 487--``yes''; rollcall No. 488--``yes''; rollcall No. 489--``yes''; rollcall No. 490--``yes''; rollcall No. 491--``no''; and rollcall No. 492--``no.''

I would also vote for final passage of H.R. 2123.

Madam Speaker and members, I rise today in support of the Flexibility for Displaced Workers Act because it is the right thing to do.

This bill provides greater flexibility to the National Emergency Grants Program at the Department of Labor.

This will enable communities that are assisting evacuees to increase employment opportunities for evacuees.

For example, this legislation will allow temporary employment of evacuees in positions that are not directly related to the disaster.

While thousands of jobs will be created in rebuilding New Orleans, the Houston area has an estimated 200,000 evacuees in the area. If we pass this bill today, we will be able to offer these people more job opportunities for a longer period of time.

We hope those who want to return and help rebuild New Orleans will do so.

However, we also expect many evacuees will find it easier to settle in Houston now that there are opportunities to find housing and employment.

The State of Texas has already processed over 49,000 calls from evacuees seeking unemployment benefits since the evacuation started.

Texas, and especially Houston, need this bill to pass in order to help these people find employment.

I urge all my colleagues to support this measure.

Those of us with large numbers of evacuees in our districts need this change to help those displaced by Hurricane Katrina rebuild their lives rebuild their lives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the generosity three school districts in our Congressional District have shown to our neighbors in Mississippi.

Galena Park lSD, Channelview lSD, and Sheldon ISD have united and adopted Pascagoula public schools in Mississippi. Twenty-three Galena Park Schools, eleven Channelview Schools and seven Sheldon ISD schools are collecting donations to provide school supplies clothing and other necessities to students in Pascagoula.

Pascagoula serves almost 9,000 students at 16 campuses. Reports indicate that two schools were completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The rest of the Pascagoula campuses sustained severe roof and window damage.

In addition to sending badly needed resources to Pascagoula, Galena Park, Channelview and Sheldon ISD have also enrolled hundreds of students from Louisiana and Mississippi.

I'd like to thank the leadership and staff at these three school districts for opening their doors to the children who have been affected by Katrina. I wish the best to our neighbors in Mississippi, Louisianna and Alabama as they rebuild their lives.

Mr. Speaker, the House today is going to vote to create a special congressional committee on preparedness and response to Hurricane Katrina. My question is, why do we need a special committee? That is our job, anyway. We have a lot of committees in the House that are supposed to be doing that every day all year.

What we need to do is see what happened. Let us have an independent commission to check both the executive branch's response and also the congressional branch. We need somebody to come from the outside and check both our test and our homework. Let us not have a sham or a whitewash.

Mr. Chairman, I want to offer my strong support today for H.R. 889, the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act of 2005.

Over the last several weeks the Coast Guard has been in the national spotlight for the outstanding work it has done to aid in the recovery and relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina victims along the Gulf coast.

While the response of many agencies has been scrutinized, the Coast Guard has not been one of them.

The Coast Guard has been responsible for saving 33,000 lives--six times the number of lives the Coast Guard saved in 2004--since Katrina hit, coordinating pollution response with the Environmental Protection Agency, the state of Louisiana and local industries, and managing the megashelters in my hometown of Houston, Texas, where tens of thousands of the evacuees found relief following the storm.

Coast Guard Lieutenant Joe Leonard and the units in Houston have done an incredible job in managing these shelters that received thousands of people a day in the days following Katrina.

But relief efforts are just a part of what the Coast Guard does.

The Coast Guard, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security, is the lead federal agency for maritime homeland security.

The Homeland Security Act of 2002 specifies five homeland security missions for the Coast Guard: ports, waterways, and coastal security; drug interdiction; migrant interdiction; defense readiness; and other law enforcement duties.

With regard to port security, the Coast Guard is responsible for evaluating, boarding, and inspecting commercial ships approaching U.S. waters, countering terrorist threats in U.S. ports, and helping protect U.S. Navy ships in U.S. ports.

The Port of Houston, which handles more foreign tonnage than any other port in the United States, is in the district I represent, and the Coast Guard provides the security necessary to protect the Port, as well as the people of Houston.

Mr. Chairman, I would again like to thank the Coast Guard for its excellent work in the Katrina relief efforts, and urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2567.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to again update my colleagues on the effort of Houston's and Texas' response to Hurricane Katrina evacuee relief efforts.

From attending daily morning emergency operations meetings in Houston, I can bring a firsthand account of our progress. The city of Houston, which has a Democratic mayor, Bill White, and a Republican county judge, Robert Eckels, has produced an amazingly successful relief effort, hand in hand without partisanship or jurisdictional bickering.

I have always held Texas politics up as an example of the principle that puts people first and politics second. While we have not always upheld that principle recently, our response to Hurricane Katrina shows the best in Texas government, a single-minded focus on getting things done.

The Harris County Housing Department at Reliant Astrodome Complex has been doing an incredible job of moving evacuees out of cramped, uncomfortable shelters and into secure, medium-term housing situations. The Harris County Hospital District, our public hospital district, created a clinic almost overnight to treat our guests from the storm.

The University of Texas Health Science Center has also been a key asset at the George R. Brown Convention Center, where they are providing on-the-ground health care support to evacuees with all varieties of health care conditions, from children to the elderly to the disabled.

We have had our problems too. FEMA's communications capability has been slow. We have not been able to process people over the Internet or over the phone as fast as we would like. Faster FEMA registration is not just a matter of convenience. The faster we can register people for assistance, the faster we can get them out of that shelter which reduces the threat to public health from infectious disease.

Housing right now is our number one concern. We have over 40,000 evacuee residents already in hotels and motels in the Houston area. We have moved 228 families into housing over this past weekend while I was in Houston. As a result of our efforts in Houston, the numbers of evacuees at shelters are going down dramatically, which is good. Sharing a cot on the Astrodome floor with your family is not what I would call a long-term solution. It is very short term.

However, FEMA's reimbursement certainty is also necessary for housing. The city and the county have been trying to get a master hotel contract with FEMA to speed the payment. We do not have the financial reserves to pay hotel bills for tens of thousands of people indefinitely. We understand that this situation is unprecedented, but we cannot let red tape hold up the need of the folks that are there.

I am glad that FEMA now says the public assistance to Houston is expected to start flowing soon, within the next 1 or 2 weeks. Our reserves are running thin and help cannot come soon enough.

Texas generosity has been displayed from the businesses to individuals, but our local tax base cannot absorb the additional 400,000 people in the State or the 200,000 people in the Houston area. Red tape must be eliminated. Houston is still waiting on reimbursement from expenses from Tropical Storm Allison, which hit Houston over 4 years ago. We will be watching and calling and meeting with FEMA representatives repeatedly over the next 2 weeks on these reimbursement issues.

We cannot afford to wait until 2009 to be reimbursed for the sheltering, housing, transportation, feeding, clothing, and medical expenses of tens of thousands of these evacuees. This situation is unprecedented since the Civil War, which is the last time we had such a large number of out-of-state evacuees.

Our laws and regulations very well may need to change to adapt to our new situation, and they should. The next mass dislocation like this could very well be the next hurricane that could hit Houston or a terrorist attack that could hit any city in our country. That is why Medicaid legislation that I

had introduced gives the executive branch the authority to fully reimburse the State's Medicaid share it would otherwise have to pay for out-of-state evacuees.

For every evacuee, that is a resident of Texas who cannot afford to be put on Medicaid now, who must survive without health coverage. That is not acceptable. This is a national disaster and a national public health emergency, so the Federal Government should bear the responsibility.

On the plus side, I am pleased to see the announcement by Secretary Leavitt freeing up funding for the four new federally qualified health centers that were scheduled to receive funding in December. While this funding will be a big help, it does mean that we will have to serve more people for a longer period of time than expected. HHS should have the ability to reimburse federally qualified health clinics' costs for serving the uninsured evacuees.

In addition to housing and medical care, childhood education is also a concern. Our local schools have taken thousands of students impacted by Hurricane Katrina, seven school districts that provide education in my own congressional district of Houston. They have taken over 5,000 students in the last week, and we see more students coming every day.

Even though our schools are already at capacity, we are meeting the challenge of educating the children in the gulf coast impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Estimates by the State show this may cost Texas over $450 million to serve the children that have come to Texas. Currently, FEMA will offer some assistance for these costs, and the Department of Education is unsure of what assistance they can grant. This issue is calling out for a solution by Congress, and we must step up.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot say enough about the efforts of our Mayor White and County Judge Eckels in Houston; but more importantly, their leadership has been more than matched by the efforts of government workers and individual volunteers on the ground. As a result, Houston is showing its best side to the Nation. And I am proud to be part of our relief effort, but our effort is unsustainable without Federal financial assistance.

Hurricane Katrina has devastated Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama. The ability of our local governments to provide vital services is now at risk of devastation as well. We need Federal help in this natural and national disaster.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of what I have seen of what is happening not only in America, but also in my home State of Texas. I think we are all an America, where the tragedy occurred in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama last week, and the human and economic cost is unprecedented in our history. I know our Congress will respond to that.

We pray daily for those who have been affected by this terrible storm, and as we say in southeast Texas, ``There but for the grace of God go us'' in southeast Texas, because we have had our storms and our floods, and that is why I think we have been so willing to help, particularly in Texas as a whole, our neighbors to the east, mostly Louisiana, but possibly Mississippi and Alabama.

I rise to focus on the relief efforts for these evacuees, thousands of which are in my hometown of Houston, Texas. Getting folks out of harm's way is the first objective, and we then have to provide for them during the many months it takes to recover from this disaster.

Today there are over 30,000 in four mega-shelters in Houston where Texans are being the best friends in need that they can be. The Reliant Astrodome, Reliant Center, Reliant Arena, and George R. Brown Convention Center are full or filling up with evacuees.

The American Red Cross has shelters around the area with an estimated 2,600 displaced persons, including Baytown, Texas. And the people of our area, whether in Baytown or across our county, are responding to this tragedy. Countless people are working long hours to serve, particularly, I know, a Baytown City Council member, Sammy Mahan, and Fire Marshal Bernard Olive who literally formed their own shelter and provided so much assistance to our neighbors.

Thousands more are in hotels and private homes across Texas and in the Houston area. There are about 100 seniors that have just moved into a senior housing facility in our district, and thousands more may end up in similar housing.

Some estimate in the Houston area we have about 100,000 to 150,000 total evacuees, maybe more.

The health care, food, and clothing and other needs of these shelters is and will continue to be enormous for a long time.

The charitable giving by individuals, nonprofits, and businesses has been overwhelming. Like 9/11, we are seeing Americans and Texans at their best.

However, most of the burden for caring for these new residents of the Houston area will fall on already over-burdened local governments. So we are relieved that FEMA is up with five disaster relief centers at some of the shelters coordinating the disaster assistance. But we need a lot more. We had 20 centers during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.

Unfortunately, we are having a hard time caring for all the needy folks who live in the Houston area alone, so we are going to have to rely on the Federal Government to respond to this national disaster.

To show how steep the costs are, the city of Houston on Monday, Labor Day, met in special council session and put $10,000 advance cost immediately for evacuee costs. This does not include our Harris County costs. And the amounts are so huge in other jurisdictions, the city has to rely on accountants from the Big Four accounting firms who volunteered to compile these expenses.

I understand our Federal disaster law has never been used to compensate States for such a massive relief operation for citizens who are not from our State.

There appears to be a significant amount of red tape for the money. There are several different ways to flow funds, through Louisiana then to Texas, or Texas may have to bill Louisiana, and then Louisiana gets reimbursed, and Texas may be reimbursed by the Federal Government directly.

In addition, the public health costs alone present a complex situation. And I believe Texas will need a public health emergency declaration just like Louisiana.

Many of these evacuees could already have or be susceptible to infectious diseases that thrive in our cramped conditions. That is why we are trying to move them out of these large facilities to apartments and homes as quickly as we can.

How can Texas afford handling the Medicaid and Medicare costs of Louisiana residents who fled to our State? We cannot even cover our own needy children as we would like to. That is why the Federal Government should pay, at least in an emergency, 100 percent of the Medicaid match in times of emergency and national disaster. And tonight I am going to introduce legislation for that.

While progress is being made on the housing front, there is much work to be done, and the sooner housing is found, the better off for our health situation.

We need to figure out the best way to do this in an unprecedented situation. This event will be the largest charity and volunteer operation ever by Texans, and I think by our Nation. But we are stepping up to the challenge.

Many Houstonians worked through Labor Day weekend to provide the initial relief for our Louisiana brothers and sisters. Donations are pouring into our churches and charities across my district, our community, and our State.

Our religious community, it is great to see these daily meetings in the city of Houston with our Democratic city of Houston mayor and our county judge is a Republican, being problem solvers and dealing with our faith community. Our Catholic bishop and our Methodist bishop, churches of all walks of life are literally out there every day helping. However, local and State governments cannot be equipped.

Mr. Speaker, I know I have used up my 5 minutes. That is why I would like to put the rest of my statement in the Record. And I cannot say too much about being so proud to be a Texan, but also an American.

However, the local and State governments are just not equipped to deal with the scale of the situation. There is a reason that disasters like this are borne on the Federal level.

Therefore, Texas, like Louisiana, will need to be reimbursed for the local government costs of this operation. Otherwise Hurricane Katrina's impact will become ever wider as the costs spread ever outwards.

FEMA has been criticized for its red tape, but on this issue we have a chance to be pro-active. Let's devise a financial strategy that keeps aid and relief moving as fast as possible.

If we need a legislative fix, then we need to find out now, rather than later. We will have at least two more supplementals to address the situation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation to provide $10 billion in emergency supplemental appropriations for the relief effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Without question, this appropriations bill is only an early estimate of the funding needs along the Gulf Coast and will most likely be only the first installment of federal funds dedicated to this devastated region.

As Houstonians learned in June 2001 during Tropical Storm Allison, it takes quite a while to accurately assess the damage and determine just how much is needed to repair that damage after a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina. We remember all too well the flooding and destruction that Houstonians endured during Tropical Storm Allison. The memory of our pain and frustration during that time puts Houston in a unique position to empathize with and help our neighbors in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Houstonians are selflessly rising to the occasion and helping hurricane victims in need. Our hospitals within the Texas Medical Center are using their resources to evacuate the critically ill in Louisiana's hospitals and have done an admirable job of reuniting evacuated patients with their families. The good-hearted members of our community are coming out in droves to volunteer, to help in any way they can. And our schools are opening their doors to the children of Hurricane Katrina, so that the devastating events of the past week will not thwart their education and the bright future that lies ahead of them.

As we applaud the overwhelming generosity of the people of the Houston area--as well as communities all across the country who are coming together to provide much-needed help--it is critical to remember that the responsibility for relief ultimately lies with the federal government. There is no question that the federal government was unprepared for the kind of devastation that has ravaged Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. As we support the local governments who have, without hesitation, stepped in and played a tremendous role in the relief effort, we must ensure that the generosity of these communities is met with a federal commitment to reimburse them for the expenses they've incurred as good Samaritans.

Across our country, American hearts ache as we witness the extreme suffering of our fellow Americans in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. I am proud to support this $10 billion disaster relief bill, which will be the first step in helping our brothers and sisters to rebuild their lives. Yet as we sympathize with their plight, it is impossible to deny that a majority of Katrina's victims fell through the cracks of our country's safety net long before the hurricane hit land. The faces of Hurricane Katrina will long be branded in our memory. Let us not forget those faces as we address future issues facing our country's safety net--a safety net that we know all too well can mean life or death for the disadvantaged in our country.

Mr. Speaker, I thank our ranking member on our subcommittee for allowing me to speak for 3 minutes.

The comprehensive energy legislation is a positive step towards a stable energy future for America, and I want to thank all the Members who worked so hard in putting this together on such an aggressive schedule. I especially appreciate our ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), of our full Committee of Energy and Commerce, and also our Chair of our subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Boucher), for their hard work. I congratulate the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) on both his fairness in the committee mark-up and also in the floor action that we had. We actually made democracy work. But also I know the hard work as I watched a lot of conference committee on TV in the effort to get this legislation where it is today. I think it is a great achievement.

The folks who are opposing it, their biggest argument is we do not do anything about lowering oil prices. Well, the easiest thing we could do is actually produce more domestically instead of importing it from everywhere, but they are the same folks that are opposing any more domestic production.

This bill does so many good things. Energy infrastructure, the bill addresses the bureaucratic blocks that hamstring the growth of our energy infrastructure, particularly regarding natural gas terminals and pipelines. And I am pleased the conference committee has chosen to follow the blueprint of the Terry-Green LNG legislation we introduced last year that first recognized LNG as an international and interstate commerce and thus subject to ultimate Federal jurisdiction.

We need to open at least 10 to 15 liquefied natural gas terminals in the lower 48 in the next 5 to 10 years in order to stabilize our natural gas prices, both residential and commercial prices, and protect millions of our manufacturing jobs.

The petro-chemical industry is in dire need of stable natural gas feedstock prices as elsewhere along the Gulf Coast. Our community would end up looking like the Rust Belt. This committee report helps that.

Domestic production, I am disappointed, did not go far enough in domestic energy supplies. America's vast offshore energy resources remain largely off-limits even though our coast would not be threatened by development. Contrary to political scare tactics of certain organizations, oil and gas can be safely produced, whether it is Florida, California, or the east coast. We have been doing it off Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for

years. Lower 48 production uses pipelines and not tankers so the Valdez is not even an example they can use.

Mr. Speaker, the other concern I have is the loss of the MTBE issue, but I understand the Senate did not want to take it up. So I guess the folks who want to sue for MTBE can go to the courthouse. MTBE actually lowered our air pollution problems in my community in Houston. It was under the 1990 Clean Air Act. I would just hope businesses and communities would still continue to try to find another substances that would clean up our air.

In conclusion, I am concerned about ensuring that we have adequate traditional energy sources because we have to rely on them for the next few decades. I will support anything we do in research to get alternatives, but we also need to make sure we can keep our lights on for this decade.

The comprehensive energy legislation is a positive step towards a stable energy future for America.

I want to thank all Members who have worked so hard on putting this together on such an aggressive schedule. This is a great achievement.

I. Energy Infrastructure

The bill addresses bureaucratic roadblocks that have hamstrung the growth of our energy infrastructure, particularly liquefied natural gas terminals and pipelines.

I am pleased that the conference committee has chosen to follow the blueprint of the Terry-Green LNG legislation we introduced 1 year ago. Our bill was the first to recognize that LNG is international and interstate commerce, and thus subject to ultimate Federal jurisdiction.

We need to open up 10-15 LNG terminals in the lower 48 States in the next 5-10 years in order to stabilize natural gas prices, residential and commercial electric prices, and protect millions of manufacturing jobs. The petrochemical industry is in dire need of stable natural gas feedstock prices, or else the Gulf Coast could end up like the Rust Belt.

This conference report ensures that ``not-in-my-backyard'' LNG opposition will not drive electric prices through the roof and drive manufacturing jobs overseas to Asia and Europe in search of affordable natural gas.

II. Domestic Production

I am disappointed that the legislation does not go nearly far enough to increase domestic energy supplies.

America's vast offshore energy resources remain largely off-limits, even through our coasts would not be threatened by development.

Contrary to the political scare tactics of certain organizations, oil and gas can be produced safely off of Florida, California, and the East Coast. Beaches and coastal areas in the lower 48 have no need to fear a Valdez-like accident from offshore production.

Lower 48 production uses pipelines, the safest form of transportation in the world, and will not mean more oil tankers.

In many decades of oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico, we have not had disasters that ruined any of the beaches or estuaries in Texas, Alabama, or Louisiana. Tourism at Texas beaches like Galveston and South Padre Island is a huge industry and we protect it seriously.

I challenge opponents of offshore production to name one serious oil spill that has harmed a Gulf beach or estuary.

Critics like to say that this bill is projected to do little to reduce gas prices that are squeezing Americans. That may be true in the short run, although if ANWR exploration is approved in the budget that will change. Ironically the real reason there is not enough gas price relief in this bill is the opponents of the bill themselves.

The best thing we can do to stabilize gas prices is produce more oil at home--we cannot wave a magic wand and lower the price of Middle Eastern oil.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 5, legislation to limit non-economic damages that victims may seek when injured by medical malpractice. My primary objection to this bill stems from the Congress imposing its will on the states regarding an issue that rests squarely within State jurisdiction.

The states are responsible for licensing medical professionals and for regulating the insurance industry. In fact, the states have had jurisdiction over medical malpractice for more than 200 years, and it should continue to be that way. This legislation would unnecessarily preempt the laws of states that have taken measures to address this issue. At least 30 states have enacted laws with regard to non-economic damages, so it is unconscionable that anyone would argue that the medical malpractice issue is trapped in a regulatory vacuum.

In 2003, the State of Texas saw a need for action on medical malpractice and enacted a cap on non-economic damages. Having served in the Texas State Legislature, I know first-hand that state legislatures are best positioned to determine whether and how to address the medical malpractice situation in their individual states. The State of Virginia enacted a different cap that best balances the needs of consumers, physicians and health care institutions in that particular state. The situation is different in each state, and a Washington-knows-best approach ignores the hard work and tough decisions that individual states have made.

On a substantive level, I oppose this legislation based on two provisions with significant flaws. First, the bill includes a firm $250,000 cap on non-economic damages without providing for inflation adjustment in future years. While that figure mirrors California's MICRA law, it is important to recognize that California's cap has not been adjusted for inflation in approximately 30 years. Further, California's law was crafted during a time when a $250,000 cap would have sufficed for all but the most egregious jury awards--which, I might add, the judge has the discretion to overturn. That is certainly not the case in the 21st century, and I object to the Congress placing a price on pain and suffering. A cap on non-economic damages would create a one-size-fits-all figure for each and every case of medical malpractice. Members of Congress do not hear the details of each medical malpractice case. Members of juries do, which is why they are best equipped to determine the appropriate non-economic damages based on the facts of each case.

This legislation also contains a dangerous provision that would provide drug companies and device manufacturers with an affirmative defense against punitive damages as long as their products had FDA approval. This provision presupposes that FDA approval is an air-tight process whose integrity need not--and legally cannot--be questioned. Considering

the FDA's recent track record with regard to Vioxx and other pharmaceuticals that have been removed from the pharmacy shelves, it is clear that the integrity of the FDA approval process has been compromised. Until some serious reforms are implemented at the FDA, the FDA stamp of approval should not provide any company with an affirmative defense against punitive damages. Such a provision would only provide drug and device manufacturers with even less of an incentive to report known adverse events before their products go to market and ensure that their products are as safe as possible. Given these concerns, I would urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and leave this issue to the states, which have clear jurisdiction, as well as the ability and willingness to handle this delicate issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this conference report to provide funding for the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency for fiscal year 2006. Despite a tight allocation, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Interior subcommittee performed an admirable task in providing the necessary funding for the continued management of federal lands and the operation of our country's environmental programs. I was disappointed to learn, however, that the bill does not provide much needed funding for a project I requested for the City of Houston and the University of Texas, Houston to conduct a risk assessment of air toxics in the Greater Houston area.

The Houston Chronicle recently completed a five-part series titled ``In Harm's Way'' that investigated air toxics in the ``fence-line'' communities near industrial facilities in Houston's East End. In particular, the series noted that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that folks residing in some of these neighborhoods experience higher levels of potentially carcinogenic compounds than other areas.

For many years, residents have had concerns and questions about the quality of the air in Houston's East End, the potential relationship to local industry, and the potential health effects on their families. The City of Houston, partnering with the University of Texas School of Public Health, is already working to characterize the science and weigh the evidence on health effects. Federal funding would allow us to broaden the scope of these efforts to ensure that we include the full range of risk assessment activities in our effort to improve the air in Houston.

While I remain disappointed that the Appropriations Committee did not include a line-item appropriation for this project, I am pleased that my colleague from Washington, the Interior Subcommittee Ranking Member, recognized the need for this air toxics assessment and has agreed to work with me to encourage the EPA to include this assessment as part of its fiscal year 2006 operations.

I thank my friend, Mr. Dicks, for his willingness to work with me on this effort. The folks in these fence-line communities--my constituents--are often the workers who produce many of the essential energy and petrochemical products we all use everyday, and they deserve accurate information about their environment.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives today or tonight will vote on ratifying the Central American-Dominican Republican Free Trade Agreement, also known as CAFTA. This treaty will follow earlier free trade agreements. These agreements caused the poor in all countries to do worse and the wealthy and the rich to do better.

I have traveled, not as a Member of Congress, in a lot of these other countries, particularly Costa Rica, which is a beautiful country with great and friendly people. This CAFTA follows NAFTA and will cause loss of jobs in manufacturing in our country as well as the CAFTA-DR countries, just like it hurt the average folks in Mexico and in our own country.

This CAFTA is not a dream, as it is called; it is really going to be a nightmare if you are a blue-collar worker in our country or in one of these countries.

Mr. Speaker, the reason we do not have enough time is we have so many speakers; but when people talk tonight about how CAFTA will help us with immigration, obviously this side voted for NAFTA, and we have had a bigger problem with illegal immigration, people who are looking for work, coming to this country.

I was in Michoacan in February and saw villages that were 60 percent depopulated because they had no opportunity to work, and that was 10 years after NAFTA. Just wait until 10 years after CAFTA. It is outrageous that we are trying to sell this as a benefit to the American worker.

The ILO is a weak sister compared to even our laws, and in this case if a country in Central America or Dominican Republic does not enforce their laws, they pay themselves a fine. Come on now. This is so outrageous, I cannot believe we even have it on the floor.

To say we are worried about Venezuela the way we are worried about Cuba, do not sell it on that. Sell it on that we are really friends with Costa Rica and Nicaragua and Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Say we are friends with them, and let us make sure they have a decent standard of living.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3283 on both process and policy grounds. This legislation is on the floor this week simply to provide political cover for members who vote for the flawed Central American Free Trade Agreement. The consideration of this bill is not a real attempt to react to Chinese currency manipulation, trade barriers and state-sponsored subsidies. It is merely an empty, rhetorical response to our valid concerns about China's ability to utilize CAFTA to circumvent U.S. trade laws.

The bill's title--the U.S. Trade Rights Enforcement Act--is, at best, a misnomer, because it actually prevents our country from enforcing its trade rights. While the bill purports to apply U.S. countervailing duty law to China, it contains three glaring loopholes that strip us from any ability to enforce that law. First, the bill limits our use of third-party data when investigating Chinese subsidies in anti-dumping cases. The effect of this provision is to force us to use China's own data in these cases, even though we've learned time and again that China does not play fair in the global trade market.

The bill also exempts Chinese domestic subsidies when industries file both anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases. This provision essentially applies a more lenient standard to non-market economies than to market economies under U.S. anti-dumping and CVD law. Let me remind my colleagues that our goal here is to get tough on China, not give them a free pass while holding our friends with market economies to a tougher standard.

The bill also imposes extra burdens on the U.S. that raises serious issues with regard to both sovereignty and separation of powers. The bill would direct the Commerce Department to essentially pre-clear the application of U.S. law to ensure consistency with the WTO. While every other U.S. law is deemed WTO-compliant unless and until the WTO rules otherwise, this bill makes our actions toward China jump through extra international hoops before it can ever be applied.

Even worse--for the first time ever--the bill would give the Commerce Department the power to align U.S. law with the WTO, without action from Congress. Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gives the Congress--not the executive branch--the sole responsibility for the regulation of foreign commerce. This provision is a serious infringement on the power of the legislative branch and strips the Congress of much, if not all, authority to deal with our country's trade concerns with China.

I urge my colleagues not to fall for the majority's empty rhetoric. This bill will do nothing to help our trade problems with China and is a thinly-veiled diversionary tactic to shore up votes for the flawed CAFTA agreement. Look beyond the majority's smoke and mirrors, and vote against this ill-timed and ill-conceived legislation.