Floor Statements

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) who's been very, very involved in the drafting of this legislation and also in other matters before our committee to keep children safe in whatever setting they're in.

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Rothman).

If the Chair might advise us of how much time we have remaining.

If the gentleman has no further speakers, I would be happy to yield back the general debate time.

I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) for all of his assistance, for his remarks, and we all recognize that this is a bill that is a work in progress. I think certainly at this stage we have it about right, but we will continue those discussions. Again, I thank him for his assistance.

Madam Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk, the manager's amendment.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes.

I rise in strong support of this manager's amendment, and I offer this manager's amendment on behalf of myself and Congressman McKeon, who worked with us on this amendment to improve the legislation.

It is the intent, as you have just heard from the debate on this legislation, to ensure that children are safe no matter what settings they are in. And this amendment further refines the legislation to improve the legislation.

The main changes that are offered in this amendment--and Mr. McKeon pushed for these changes and recognized the need for them--one is to broaden the Federal oversight to include public residential programs as well as private ones. It strikes the right provided under this Act for families to sue in Federal court for violations of the national standards. And it strikes the requirement that the Health and Human Services conduct site inspections of all covered programs at least every 2 years.

It was my belief that we continue and are able to maintain the intent and the purposes of this Act to make sure that children are safe in these varied settings, as we heard from Mr. Murphy of Pennsylvania, children who are very difficult to handle in many instances and parents who have run out of the capacity to deal with these children seeking to have this care.

I believe that the manager's amendment further refines the legislation, strikes a better balance in the bill, and I want to again thank Mr. McKeon.

I reserve the balance of my time on the manager's amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no further requests for time if the gentleman would yield back.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I want to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to thank the Rules Committee for reporting this rule to the floor and I want to thank Mr. Cardoza for managing this legislation. He has spent his entire public life being concerned about children at risk. And clearly the children we seek to protect in this bill are at serious risk.

I also want to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy) for all of her effort on this legislation. She, too, has spent her entire time in Congress trying to make sure that our children are safe in whatever setting we have responsibility for, whether it is in high schools or colleges or in this case residential programs.

This legislation is designed to address in a reasonable manner a very serious problem that has come to the attention of the Education and Labor Committee this last year when we started looking at the abuse and neglect in teenage residential programs. Tragically, a number of these cases have resulted in the death of a child.

This legislation will help ensure that children are safe no matter what setting they are in. It will also provide parents with the information they need to make safe choices on behalf of their children.

The rule we are considering today is a fair one. It makes in order the Miller-McKeon manager's amendment and one other amendment offered by Ms. Shea-Porter, a member of the Education and Labor Committee. Mr. McKeon and his staff have worked alongside our staff to make sure that we could do this is in bipartisan fashion, and the manager's amendment reflects the changes to be made to improve the legislation since it left the committee.

Of the 10 amendments originally submitted to the Rules Committee, our bipartisan compromise incorporates and makes unnecessary seven of those amendments. It would be disingenuous for anyone to come to the floor and oppose this rule since it takes into consideration those concerns.

I want to thank Mr. McKeon for working on this legislation so that we would have a bill with few amendments but we would address the concerns of the Members. In the course of crafting the manager's amendment, we worked with several Members on provisions that are now reflected in the compromise. Representatives Cuellar, Rothman and Matheson each made valuable improvements to the manager's amendment, and we thank them for their input.

Mr. Bishop of Utah submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee which we believed raised legitimate concerns, and we made a number of changes in the manager's amendment to, we believe, fully address his concerns. Two other amendments on the other side of the aisle were made moot by the bipartisan agreement, and yet they were not withdrawn.

This should not be a partisan issue. The GAO has found thousands of documented cases and allegations of child abuse and neglected children--stretching back decades--in teen residential programs.

In hearings before our committee, we heard horrific stories about the way children in these programs were treated by uncaring, untrained, and abusive staff members. For example, children were forced to eat food to which they were known to be allergic. They were required to remain in so-called ``stress'' positions for hours, and to keep hiking even though it became clear they needed immediate medical attention.

Madam Speaker, the time for Congress to act is long past due. The weak patchwork of State laws and regulations governing teen residential programs have permitted these abuses to continue for far too long. We must act to prevent children from being put at risk. This bill will help keep children safe and help parents get information they need to make sound choices about the care of their children. I hope that we can adopt this rule.

Madam Speaker, let me just say this. I have been involved in this issue for almost 30 years. These abusive programs of children in wilderness camps and boot camps and whatever they call themselves, wagon trains to the future, have gone on for many years. There are many, many programs that take care of children in residential settings, very troubled children, and these programs offer specialized care to those children and treatment of those children, and many parents have written to Members of Congress and my friends and others who have sent their children to these programs, have experienced some success with the care of those children to get rid of addictive behavior and abusive behavior on behalf of those children.

But yet within this industry, there is a group of homes that continue to travel from State to State without awareness by the State or not caring by the State, or falling through the regulations, no Federal regulations, no State regulations, and those are the programs that have abused these children.

We have worked with professional associations. We have worked with trade associations. We have worked with individuals who run homes of high reputation to develop a set of regulations that make sure that parents will be aware of the placement of their children, the care they are likely to receive, and the skills and the training of the people who take care of them, because that is not true today.

As we found out in a GAO report, as Mrs. McCarthy pointed out, there are deceptive practices of people who have huge financial interest in the outcome of referring a family to those homes.

I thank the gentleman.

And that is what this is about. That is where we saw this incredibly abusive behavior, and in a number of instances, simply lethal, to these children. The children died in the care in which their parents had placed them because the parents were not aware of how poorly run these facilities were. In a couple of cases, referrals for criminal proceedings against those individuals have been made.

Why is this bill important, because these children are out-of-home placements, and we have to understand the responsibility of those individuals who represent themselves that they can provide treatment and they can provide care. If that's not true, the parents ought to know it. This is simple awareness by parents of the care their children are going to receive.

It is hard to believe that you could put your child into a program and the child could die of dehydration or die of simple neglect because people refuse to

call medical personnel to the care of these children because they said that the children were faking. No, they weren't faking, they were dying. They were dying, and people stood around and said they were faking it, don't touch them, don't go near them, and they died on the trail. They needed water. No, they were faking, and they pushed them on to hike out in the desert in the heat, and they died of dehydration.

Children standing in stress positions that look more like Guantanamo Bay than look like a care facility for American children. Children standing in a stress position with their hands out with a hood around their neck and a hangman's noose for hours while others children watched and participated in the treatment of those children. That's not the care of children. There is no professional organization that recognizes that kind of care for the treatment of children. And yet those homes blemish the reputation of facilities and organizations that are trying to care for very difficult children.

And as Carolyn McCarthy said, these parents are at their wit's end. They have tried almost everything. We need to make sure that the next thing they try is safe and well-organized for the care of their children.

Mr. Speaker, today, with the passage of H.R. 5781, The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2008, Congress will finally recognize the vital importance of providing paid parental leave to millions of families who want to start a family.

I would like to thank Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney who first introduced this legislation and urge my colleagues to support this important measure.

Currently, there is no paid Federal parental leave policy. If Federal employees wish to start a family or expand their family, they must take unpaid leave or cash in their sick or vacation days so that they may continue receiving an income while they are at home.

With the rising prices of food and gas, unpaid leave poses an even greater economic hardship for working families, not to mention the extra costs that are associated with providing for a newborn.

Unfortunately, the absence of a family leave policy for Federal workers forces mothers and fathers choose what is more important: either stay at home with their infant and forgo a steady income or head back to work without spending adequate recovery or bonding time with their newborn.

The Federal Government lags behind the private sector in this area. The current lack of a parental leave policy for our Federal employees impairs efforts to hire and retain the best and the brightest our Nation has to offer.

Family-friendly policies like guaranteed paid leave not only help parents balance work and family, but will also help ease our, impending Federal personnel crisis. Federal employers will benefit from increased retention rates, decreased absenteeism, and improved productivity.

Several States have taken the lead to provide coverage for employees. In fact, over 6 years ago, California successfully enacted a paid parental leave law and it has been a great success. New Jersey recently passed a similar law in April and several other States even cover maternity under their disability insurance laws.

H.R. 5781 seeks to amend the current Federal family leave policy by allowing mothers and fathers up to 4 weeks of paid lave for the birth or adoption of a child. Federal employees should not have to make choice between their family and their job but should be covered under a fair, paid parental eave policy.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5781, The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and appreciate the committee bringing this bill to the floor.

It is just so fundamental that one of the times when government should step in and lend a family a hand is when that family, through no fault of their own, has lost their job. The difference is whether or not that family will be able to maintain and hold on to their home, to their car, to their kids' education, to provide the wherewithal for their children. And for millions of Americans, that's what's happened. And since they've lost that job, they have also exhausted their unemployment benefits that has enabled them to keep their head barely above water. They're gone looking for jobs, they've gone looking for work. They've tried to retrain. They still haven't been able to

secure the employment because this is a terrible market for employment.

What we need to do is to extend those unemployment benefits to those families so that they can hold themselves together. It should not be a policy in this country that when you lose your job through no fault of your own, that you crash to the ground, you lose your home, you lose your kids' education, and you start all over again. It's not good for the economy, it's horrible for these families, and it's wrong for this government not to take every step we can to prevent that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) for agreeing to handle this rule on this piece of legislation, and for her strong support of this legislation to provide for green high-performing public schools and the facilities in which our children learn.

This legislation comes along at a time when the record is very clear that in far too many instances our Nation's school buildings are literally crumbling around the students that we send to them every day. They're in desperate need of renovation; they're in desperate need of remodeling; they're in desperate need of modernization, so that our students who attend those schools every day can have a safe learning environment.

Not only will this bill help improve student achievement by providing students and teachers with modern, clean,

safe and healthy learning environment, but it will also give a boost to our economy and help make schools a part of the solution to the global warming crisis.

It is this kind of forward thinking and innovative policy that is needed to strengthen our Nation and help build a brighter future. By addressing a number of key challenges at once, this bill is a clear win for our children, for the workers and for our planet.

I would like to thank my colleagues who were instrumental in drafting this legislation and working on it many years. I want to thank Congressman Ben Chandler, the author of this bill, for the hard work and dedication of moving this legislation through the House.

I would also like to thank Congressman Dale Kildee, the Chair of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education for his work on this bill. Mr. Kildee has been a longtime champion of efforts to improve the physical conditions of our Nation's schools, and he deserves great credit for his leadership in this area.

I also want to thank Congressman Dave Loebsack, who joined the fight the moment he stepped foot into the Congress. Like Mr. Kildee, Mr. Loebsack is a former teacher, and he understands firsthand the difference that a top-notch facility, that a modern facility, that a safe facility, that a clean facility can mean to a child's education. That's the promise of this legislation.

And I would like to recognize the efforts of Congressmen Rush Holt, Charlie Rangel, Bob Etheridge and Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, who is the head of the Green Schools Caucus.

As study after study has told us, we don't have a choice when it comes to rebuilding our schools. We simply won't be able to provide every child with the world-class education they need and deserve unless we're willing to help the States and school districts improve the conditions of these buildings and facilities. It's not a question of if we should modernize and repair our Nation's schools; it's a matter of when. It's simply a decision that we have to make and we can make it today.

Today we have that opportunity to begin this investment, an investment that will yield great results for our children, our economy and our future.

Finally, I want to thank all of the members of the Rules Committee for the consideration of this rule, for the reporting of this rule, and to Chairwoman Slaughter for her diligence in making sure that this rule came to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, it's interesting that my colleagues on the other side railed against this legislation in the name of energy.

It doesn't do a lot of good to pump more energy into these schools, more air conditioning into these schools, more heat into these schools when the schools are such inefficient users of energy. It makes no sense to pump more and more electricity into the schools, to use lighting that's outdated, outmoded, harmful to the learning of these children.

The purpose of this legislation is to take a major institution in our country, our elementary secondary education system, and have the Federal Government lend some support to local efforts that are struggling now, trying to accelerate their programs to cut their energy costs in the running of their schools.

That's what this bill allows us to do. It allows us to put in place as they renovate, as they repair, as they remodel these schools, trying to recover, as all businesses are all across the country, as homeowners are all across the country, to reduce their energy costs. It allows us to partner up with them and to provide some assistance in doing that.

It's rather interesting that all they can talk about on the other side is somehow that they didn't get to go to Alaska. If they'd gone to Alaska, it probably would have made a penny or 2 cents or 3 cents a difference in a gallon of gasoline today.

But the fact of the matter is why would you go to Alaska and put it into cars that are getting 12 and 13 miles a gallon? But you never went to the question of efficiencies. You never went to the question of better automobiles.

We did. The first time in 30 years, this Congress improved the mileage standard for automobiles. Just think if we had done it when George Bush said he wanted it done. Today, it would have been an entire different industry.

But no, you listened to the oil industry and you listened to the automobile industry. Well, listen to them today as the chairman of General Motors has to admit that they didn't see it coming, they didn't see it was going to happen. They laid off 20,000 workers. They shut down four plants making SUVs and trucks. Why are we listening to those people?

If we continue to listen to them, we'll be the only people in the world that are listening to them. They've made one bad business decision, one bad energy decision after another for the last two decades, and it cost them almost 450,000 jobs to the workers. It cost them market share, it cost them productivity, it cost them profit. Now what are they doing? They're trying to play catch-up.

Well, we don't think the school districts in this country should play catch-up like General Motors. We think the school districts in this country ought to have an opportunity to make these facilities more efficient in the use of the energy, more efficient in the conservation of energy so that they can come into the modern age and they can make the changes that all of the studies indicate to us not only will save them energy, not only will make the facilities safer, cleaner and better for the learning environment that these children need, it will also dramatically change the cost of running these school districts.

It's happening, but too many school districts in too many areas don't have sufficient funds. We think the Federal Government ought to put its shoulder to the wheel and help these school districts conserve their energy.

Will the gentleman yield?

What would you prefer that they do, have the schools do nothing when they know that they have a waiver? Every business in America is investing in energy conservation.

This doesn't take anything away from local responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend and insert extraneous material on H.R. 3021.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

I rise in very strong support of H.R. 3021, the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public Schools Facility Act, legislation that would invest in modernizing public schools across the country.

This legislation is an example of how well-crafted public policy can address a number of key challenges all at the same time. This bill has something in it for improving the education of our children, improving our economy, and improving the environment.

First, this legislation will help improve student achievement by providing more children and teachers with a modern, safe, healthy, clean, place for learning. Second, this legislation will give a boost to our economy by injecting demand into a faltering U.S. construction industry. And, third, this legislation will make our schools part of the solution to the global warming crisis by encouraging more energy efficiency as well as the use of renewable energy resources.

Any one of these three reasons alone would be enough to support this bill; but when you put all three of them together, this is a clear win for our children, for our communities, for workers, and for our planet.

For children and teachers, unfortunately, the reality is that in too many of our communities the schools are literally crumbling. In 2000, The National Center of Education Statistics said it would take $127 billion to bring schools into good condition, including that 75 percent of the schools were in various stages of disrepair. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. schools a D for national infrastructure report card. Just last month, the 21st Century School Fund called for a $140 billion Federal investment in school facilities to bring all school districts up to the level of the highest income districts followed by ongoing annual Federal investment.

The fact of the matter is that those children who have the most difficult time receiving an education are receiving that education in some of the worst schools in this Nation. This is an effort for us simply to partner with local school districts on a formula basis so that they can then carry out their plans to renovate, to repair, to remodel existing schools so that they can save energy, they can provide better lighting and a better atmosphere for the schools to learn.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that it is interesting that again they talk about the increased energy costs for schools. And at the same time that we are considering legislation which is designed to lower those energy costs for schools, they are arguing against the passage of this legislation.

This is a modest effort by the Federal Government to help these schools get on with the refurbishing, the repair, and the renovation of these schools so that they will lower their energy costs, whether it is heating or air conditioning, so that they can then put that money back into the educational program.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Chandler), the author of this legislation who understands the importance of this contribution to the education of our children at the local level.

Madam Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education, and an incredible advocate for the Federal role in school construction for many, many years, and a coauthor of this legislation.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Loebsack), a member of our committee and a primary sponsor of this legislation.

Madam Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), a member of our committee and a sponsor of this legislation.

I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a member of the committee and subcommittee Chair.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the committee, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare).

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

It's wonderful to listen to this conversation among two people talking about fiscal responsibility back and forth to one another. When the Bush administration came into office, they were given a $5 trillion surplus. Now, 8 years later, it's a $9 trillion deficit. And in that time, they never found the way to fund title I. They never found the way to fund IDEA. And yet, somehow, they were fiscally responsible, and now they've run this economy and this country into a ditch, with $9 trillion of debt in 8 short years, and they inherited a $5 trillion surplus.

Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Courtney), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, all day long we have had an interesting double argument here from my colleagues on the other side. All day long they have insisted that school districts are in trouble because of increased energy costs, because of the increased cost of electricity, natural gas, air conditioning, heating, fuel for the buses, and all the rest of it. And they have spent all day long arguing against a bill that's designed exactly to deal with the energy costs of those schools, by helping those districts to refurbish, to rebuild, to remodel, to reconstruct old facilities that do not use energy efficiently, that do not have state-of-the-art facilities for the conservation of energy, for the better use of energy.

We are giving out tax cuts and have for many years in a very sensible program to help businesses come into the modern age in energy. Businesses, homeowners, and others are reaping huge savings. But schools aren't.

So this bill simply says that the Federal Government will join in a partnership with local districts who have already set out their priorities to provide for energy efficiency, to provide for new technologies so that they can provide the best learning environment for the children in those school districts. And when they do that, what we're seeing across the country is those schools that are fortunate enough to have the money are dramatically reducing the amount of their budgets that go to energy and they can use that on curriculum or extracurricular activities or teacher pay or whatever else it is.

But most schools can't afford to do that. And so what we are saying is we will simply partner up with those districts most in need and see if we can help them reduce their energy budgets over the years so they can put it into education. That is the bill that Mr. Chandler introduced. That is the bill that is designed and has been voted on on this floor today, because that is the need of the school districts. That is why the school districts, the State Superintendents of Schools, local school districts, are supporting this legislation, because it meets the need they have.

Now somehow after arguing all day long that this is too heavy of a hand, we now see an amendment that we've never see in committee, we didn't see on the floor, we didn't see in Rules Committee, that is suggesting somehow we just pay the ongoing maintenance cost of the districts. I don't know if that is what you wanted to sign up for. We thought we'd sign up to be a partner in district priorities to refurbish and rehab schools and improve the energy efficiency of those based upon the district policies. I didn't know we were going to sign up for a long-term grant for the maintenance of school districts.

I would like to yield now to the author of the bill, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Chandler).

I thank my colleague.

All day long in this Chamber we have had amendment after amendment saying that if we weren't putting money into school construction to refurbish these schools in need, they would put it in IDEA, they would put it in title I, they would put it in after-school care, they would put it in monitoring. You know what? When they had the money and they were in control, they didn't put it anywhere.

They inherited a $5 trillion surplus, a $5 trillion surplus, and when they had the money, they didn't put it anywhere. Now we have a $9 trillion debt and they still can't fund education. That is why we have got to stop it. We should reject this motion to recommit. This is enough to kill the bill. What we need is in fact more money for our schools.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, in the engrossment of the bill, H.R. 3021, the Clerk be authorized to correct the table of contents, section numbers, punctuation, citations, and cross-references and to make such other technical and conforming changes as may be appropriate to reflect the actions of the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats have fought to bring America's addiction to oil to the forefront of our national attention for years. We must reduce our dependence on oil in order to stimulate the economy, to protect our country and to curb the harmful effects of global warming.

Since Democrats gained control of the Congress last year, we raised automobile fuel efficiency standards for the first time in over a quarter of a century, despite the opposition of President Bush.

And the House recently passed a comprehensive renewable energy bill. Our renewable energy bill will reduce America's dependence on oil. It will lower energy costs, protect the environment, and create hundreds of thousands of new skilled green jobs all across America.

While Congress is working hard to reduce our oil dependence, my constituents are working hard to do their part to battle rising energy prices and reduce their own carbon footprint.

I recently asked my constituents to tell me what they were doing to reduce their personal energy consumption and to reduce the cost of energy in their monthly lives, and I promised that I would share some of these best ideas right here on the House floor.

Here are some of the comments I've received so far. Many of my constituents are already following some of the more conventional but important methods of energy conservation, including replacing traditional light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights, unplugging appliances that aren't in

use, drying clothes outside in the California sun. Many more are taking advantage of public transportation options throughout Northern California and the San Francisco Bay area.

Patricia Kneisler of Benicia, California, gangs all of her errands together. By doing this, as she says, her ``gas guzzler,'' the 1995 SUV, is only used when absolutely necessary and in the most efficient manner.

Gina Hale's family in Pittsburg, California, attached ultraviolet blocking film on all of the house's windows to cut down on air conditioning costs during the summer.

Melissa Miller of Concord, California runs her dishwasher only when it is full and at night when the electricity rates go down after 7 p.m.

I have posted on my Web site sources of information about how consumers can reduce their energy consumption and save money and help protect the environment. I invite you to visit my Web site. While you're there, post your own comments about your ideas of saving energy. It's at www.georgemiller.house.gov. Small changes have big impacts. Not only are my constituents reducing their own energy bills, but they're also contributing to our future energy independence.

Mr. Speaker, Congress can and must continue to support all of the individuals who are working to reduce energy consumption. We must work to pass legislation that invests in renewable energy, encourages innovation and investment in green technology and supports the creation of green jobs.

Congress is obligated to move America into the future, into a modern energy policy, and stop the reliance on the past fossil fuels policy that has kept this country in bondage to the oil companies and to the suppliers from overseas. Our economy and our environment depend upon it.

It is a tragedy that President Bush and 12 years of a Republican Congress stood in the way of energy independence, stood in the way of a modern energy program. While the President told the Nation and Congress that we're addicted to oil, he did nothing to alter that addiction-- nothing other than to call for more oil drilling. Spoken like a true addict.

Now is the time to move forward. The price of gas and oil is at a crisis to America's families, and we must act quickly and boldly to come to grips with this crisis.

Our future depends upon reducing our demand for oil, increasing energy efficiency, and providing sustainable energy sources to relieve consumers of the crippling energy costs that invade their lives on a daily basis and to stimulate the next generation of innovation.

I appreciate the contributions of my constituents, and I look forward to hearing from more of them and to bring them to the attention of the House to see what decisions they're making about reducing energy costs in their personal daily lives.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dean Rex R. Perschbacher on the occasion of his retirement as the Dean of the UC Davis School of Law. Dean Perschbacher served as Dean and in the Dean's office longer than anyone in the history of the UC Davis School of Law. He served for 10 years as Dean from 1998 to 2008. Before becoming Dean, he served for five years as associate dean for academic affairs in the School.

Dean Perschbacher is best known for strengthening the 40-year-old UC Davis School of Law's reputation as one of the nation's best public law schools. Students are recruited nationwide, and the School is frequently honored for the diversity of its faculty and student body. Under his leadership, the Law School recruited 26 ladder-rank faculty members, expanded the clinical program, started a master's program in international commercial law, and established an outreach program for underserved college students--many of whom have gone on to law school.

He worked with campus, university, and state officials to secure campus and state funding for the first significant expansion to the School's facilities since the completion of the Law School 40 years ago. He built a strong foundation of alumni philanthropy and volunteerism upon which the next generation of leadership at UC Davis School of Law can expand and is credited with increasing private giving over tenfold. During his tenure, the School added five endowed chairs and professorships, bringing the total number of seats to six. He also raised more than $3 million in private donations for the building expansion and renovation project.

Dean Perschbacher taught at UC Davis since 1981 with an emphasis on the areas of Civil Procedure, Professional Responsibility, and Clinical teaching. He received the Law School's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992 and a Special Citation Affirmative Action and Diversity Achievement Award in 2001. He has published articles in the areas of civil procedure, professional responsibility and lawyers' negotiations. He is co-author of United States Legal System: An Introduction (1st and 2d eds.); Cases and Materials on Civil Procedure (1-5th eds.); California Civil Procedure; California Legal Ethics (1-6th eds.), and Problems in Legal Ethics (3-8th eds.).

The Dean has also been involved in law school accreditation activities having served for six years on the American Bar Association's Accreditation Committee; and on two separate standing committees of the Association of American Law Schools, AALS, and two section executive committees. Currently, he is Chair of the AALS Section of the Dean. From 1990-1996, he served on the Board of Directors of the Legal Services of Northern California and two related boards. He has also served on the Governing Committee on Continuing Education of the Bar from 2000-2003.

Dean Perschbacher received his J.D. degree from UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where he was Articles Editor of the California Law Review and elected to Order of the Coif. After graduation, he served as law clerk to The Honorable Alfonso J. Zirpoli of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Later he entered private practice with Heller, Ehrman, White & McAuliffe in San Francisco. He has taught at UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall), the University of Texas, Santa Clara University, and the University of San Diego law schools.

Madam Speaker and colleagues, now is the appropriate time for us to acknowledge Dean Perschbacher for his years of work and service to UC Davis and the broader legal community. Please join me in thanking him and wishing him the very best as he enters retirement.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to praise a public servant who is finishing 20 years of outstanding service to the Congressional Research Service. Members of Congress and their staff who are engaged with Federal education and disability legislation have benefited from the wisdom and professionalism of Richard Apling, Specialist in Social Legislation Rick joined CRS in 1988 and has worked with Members of Congress and their staff on many of our most critical education issues. Rick has received numerous outstanding performance ratings as well as the gratitude of all of the Members and staff whom he has served throughout his career at CRS.

Rick earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College, two master's degrees from the University of North Carolina, and a doctorate in education from Harvard University. Previous to joining CRS, he worked as a middle school history teacher and as a senior research associate at two private sector firms, senior research associate at Advance Technology, Inc., and at Policy Studies Associates.

Since he began his service at CRS 20 years ago, Rick has been a nationally recognized expert on numerous aspects of major Federal education policy. Rick has been the lead policy analyst responsible for a variety of important and complex education programs and statutes, particularly the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, and the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act. Rick has also been responsible for a number of the larger programs authorized by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, including the Impact Aid program, and the increasingly important and complex issues of assessments and accountability for students with disabilities at the intersection of the ESEA and IDEA.

Rick is a leader in developing analytic capacity within the entire Education and Labor Section of CRS' Domestic Social Policy Division. He never fails to provide valuable input to colleagues; he has advised staff from throughout Domestic Social Policy Division, DSP, on allocation formula programming and a wide range of data analysis issues and has frequently served as a very effective mentor for junior staff.

Rick is a thoughtful, responsive and hard-working civil servant who has supported Members of Congress and staff with his tremendous depth of knowledge, history and analysis--always with a wry smile and incredible patience. His ability to research details and explain complex information is unparalleled, and no matter how tight the deadline or how stressful the situation, Rick always responds in a friendly and composed manner. Rick's work is an outstanding example of high-level analytic support for the legislative process, and collaboration and leadership in capacity building. He will be missed greatly, but his influence will continue to be reflected through support of Congress' deliberations by the many

remaining CRS staff whom he has mentored or advised, who will carry on his tradition of service.

I am proud to thank Rick Apling publicly on behalf of this Congress for his many contributions to our Nation and, in particular, on behalf of students with disabilities.

Mr. Speaker, today, the House has an opportunity to restore Congress' intent to allow flight attendants, pilots, and reserve flight crew members to take unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 without fear of losing their jobs.

Passage of H.R. 2744, the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act, will ensure job protection for these workers when they need to time off to recover from an illness or care for newborn children or sick family members.

While millions of American workers are guaranteed up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave, narrow Department of Labor regulations have rendered more than 200,000 flight crew personnel unable to take advantage of the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The problem is that flight crew workers are not paid or scheduled for work in the same manner as industries that are governed by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Currently, the minimum threshold to qualify under the Family and Medical Leave Act is based on working at least 60 percent of a normal 40-hour work week--or 1,250 hours annually.

However, most fulltime flight attendants' and pilots' work schedules are calculated based on their ``in-flight'' time--generally only those hours spent while the plane is moving. They are not paid for the time spent between flights or during layovers.

This means that an average flight attendant spends approximately 13 hours on-duty for every 5 hours of actual flight time. But only those 5 hours are counted towards their FMLA eligibility.

Work schedules for full-time flight attendants, pilots, or reserve personnel make it almost impossible to meet the minimum 1,250 threshold because of their unpaid time doing pre-flight and post-flight work activities.

The problem is that flight crew workers are not paid or scheduled for work in the same manner as industries that are governed by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Currently, the minimum threshold to qualify under the Family and Medical Leave Act is based on working at least 60 percent of a normal 40-hour work week--or 1,250 hours annually.

However, most full-time flight attendants' and pilots' work schedules are calculated based on their ``in-flight'' time--generally only those hours spent while the plane is moving. They are not paid for the time spent between flights or during layovers.

This means that an average flight attendant spends approximately 13 hours on-duty for every 5 hours of actual flight time. But only those five hours are counted towards their FMLA eligibility.

Work schedules for full-time flight attendants, pilots, or reserve personnel make it almost impossible to meet the minimum 1,250 threshold because of their unpaid time doing preflight and post-flight work activities.

On average, a flight attendant is scheduled for 960 in-flight hours each year, and according to FAA regulations, pilots are prohibited from flying more than 1,000 hours a year.

The legislative history is clear that airline attendants and pilots were meant to be covered when Congress enacted the original legislation in 1993.

The Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act clarifies that flight attendants and pilots are entitled the benefits afforded by the Family and Medical Leave Act.

The legislation provides that airline attendants, pilots and reserve personnel meet the hours of service requirement in the Family and Medical Leave Act if they work or are paid 60 percent of the airline's monthly work schedule and if they work or are paid for at least 504 hours.

This number represents about 60 percent of the monthly work schedule of a typical airline.

Hard working flight attendants and pilots should be able to take needed family and medical leave, and they deserve the protection of the law in securing their jobs when they return from tending to their personal and family medical needs.

I would like to thank Congressman Timothy Bishop for introducing this important piece of legislation. I also thank the ranking member of the Education and Labor Committee, Mr. McKeon, for working with us to help craft a true bipartisan bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Conference Report on H.R. 2419, the Food and Energy Security Act of 2007.

With the U.S. economy faltering and food prices rising, this conference agreement takes critical steps to reduce hunger, ensure that healthy foods are included in federal nutrition programs, and meet the nutritional needs of many low-income Americans.

To help low-income families hit especially hard by high food prices, this legislation invests more than $7.8 billion in the food stamp program, now renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

This commitment will slow the erosion of food stamp benefits caused by increasing food prices, provide food assistance to recipients without requiring them to spend down their education savings accounts and retirement plan assets, and increase food assistance to households with high child care expenses.

The bill also invests $1.25 billion in commodity purchases for food banks, which will strengthen emergency food assistance programs' efforts to serve needy families.

Our nation is facing a growing child obesity epidemic--an issue that demands strong efforts to improve the quality and nutritional value of foods offered through school meal programs.

H.R. 2419 includes important provisions that will expand children's access to healthy foods during the school day, and that will help inform our efforts to reauthorize the nation's child nutrition programs next year.

I am also pleased that this report increases the volume of fresh fruits and vegetables available through federally-supported domestic nutrition programs, and, as part of that, invests more than one billion dollars in expanding the fruit and vegetable snack program.

Thanks to this significant investment, the snack program, targeted primarily to low- income children and to schools that disproportionately serve low-income families, will now provide thousands of students in every state with greater access to healthy foods.

This bill also supports local food systems and farm-to-school programs by encouraging child nutrition programs to use a geographic

preference when purchasing foods--allowing schools and other programs to select more nutritious agricultural products such as fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, eggs and meat.

In addition, it will require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct a national survey of the foods purchased by the school lunch programs.

Science and research overwhelmingly tell us that providing our children with healthy, nutritious foods from the earliest years on is one of the best things we can do to help our children succeed.

I am very pleased that all of the child nutrition provisions throughout this bill retain a focus on providing healthier foods and nutritional benefits as supported by scientific research.

When we last reauthorized the child nutrition programs in 2004, we required children in low-income households receiving food stamps to be automatically enrolled for free meals at school through a process known as ``direct certification.''

This simplification reduces work for school administrators, eliminates a duplicative application process for low-income families, and improves the accuracy of the school meal enrollment process.

We had hoped that school districts, states, and the USDA would do everything in their power to make sure that every eligible low-income child would benefit from this simplification. Unfortunately, the evidence to date indicates that the implementation of this provision has been inconsistent.

The USDA must act more aggressively to help states and school districts reach all children who could benefit from this coordination of efforts. This bill will ensure that we get information from USDA that will allow us to monitor this progress and promote best practices through their new annual reports on direct certification.

While this conference report contains many positive accomplishments, I am disappointed that it does not include a proposal from the House- passed bill that would ensure that public employees conduct eligibility determinations for food stamp benefits.

Without this proposal, the food stamp determination process will now be open to for-profit companies, many of which may be more focused on boosting efficiency and revenue than serving the best interests of vulnerable Americans.

The House provision would have re-established longstanding and productive public-private partnerships that help ensure that the right balance of private contractors and public employees are included in this process. It is frustrating that this was excluded from what is otherwise a very strong conference report.

By making the right investments to strengthen the quality of foods provided to our Nation's children, this bill is a down payment on a healthier future for this country.

I would especially like to thank Chairman Peterson, Congressman Goodlatte, and Senators Harkin and Chambliss for their hard work on this conference agreement.

The House Education and Labor Committee is committed to building on this effort to improve child nutrition in this country, and to ensure that the National School Lunch Program, the School Breakfast program, and the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children (WIC) are available to all eligible children and families.

I urge the passage of this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise today and invite my colleagues to join me in honoring Philmore Graham, of Vallejo, California, for his many years of service to our Nation and our community. Mr. Graham has provided remarkable leadership to our young people during his lifetime, especially by founding and then expanding the Continentals of Omega Boys and Girls Club.

Philmore Graham, the ninth of ten siblings, was born August 29, 1938, to now deceased parents, John Archie and Louise Graham, in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He attended Laurinburg and Lincoln Heights High Schools and was a well-rounded student with a 3.9 grade point average. He was president of his class from eighth grade through the completion of high school, was captain of the football team, played basketball and was principal for a day.

Philmore's father died when he was age 4 and his siblings and he missed the first 6 weeks of school to pick cotton and help their mother buy food and clothing for school. His hatred of picking cotton inspired him to do well in school because their mother would remind them that their choice was either go to school or continue to pick cotton.

Philmore graduated from Tennessee State University with bachelor of science degrees in mechanical and metallurgical engineering in May of 1962. He has done graduate studies in material science at UCLA and UC Berkeley. He was commissioned as an officer in the United States Air Force through the University's ROTC program. While in the Air Force, he served as a project engineer for the Titan Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program at Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, California, from 1962-1965. During his tour of duty here, he worked in the Materials Engineering Department and developed a number of material specifications for missile components. He received a Superior Accomplishment Award for completing a record number of projects updating the Titan and Atlas Missile programs.

Philmore also worked in the community while at Norton Air Force Base. In 1964, he spearheaded the project to establish a new chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Pi Rho Chapter, in San Bernardino, California. The chapter offered scholarships and social-economic programs to the community under his leadership. He was selected as ``Chapter and District Omega man of the Year.''

Philmore received an honorable discharge from the U.S. Air Force in August 1965 and accepted a position with Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California, in October 1965, where he directed the Foam Salvage Vessels Research and Development Program. He received a Superior Accomplishment Award for developing an economical method of testing the flotation material in the laboratory rather than the costly ocean testing.

In 1972, Philmore was promoted to technical support branch head of the Nuclear Inspection Division of Mare Island Nuclear Submarine Overhaul Program. He received a third Superior Accomplishment Award for Outstanding Supervision of Training, Technical Support and Records of Naval Nuclear Work. From 1979 to 1983, Graham worked as an internal auditor for the Nuclear Reactor Division of the Nuclear Engineering Department and was assigned as the Director of Training for the department and supervised the training of some 250 engineers and technicians. In 1986, he was promoted to Supervisor, Nuclear Engineer and became the first and only African American supervisor in the Nuclear Engineering Department's history of Mare Island Naval Shipyard. During his administration, the Department received the highest grades to date on written exams during an audit from Washington, DC, and Philmore was awarded one of the highest monetary awards in the history of the Nuclear Engineering Department's incentive awards program for outstanding performance in upgrading the training program.

Philmore continued his work in the community by establishing a new chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity in Vallejo. In 1966, he started the Continentals of Omega Boys Club with six boys; it has grown to more than 500 members and is now called the Continentals of Omega Boys & Girls Club, Inc. The organization is considered one of the top boys and girls clubs in the country. The club has produced a number of doctors, lawyers, businessmen, educators, engineers, skilled workers, and many other outstanding citizens. Academics is the major focus of the club and more than 70 percent of the membership achieve school honor rolls each year. More than 200 members have attended colleges and trade schools across the country and Philmore and members have received more than 63 awards for outstanding community contributions during the club's existence. When he retired from Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Philmore devoted himself completely to the club, growing it into the valuable asset it is today.

Through the years Philmore was nominated for a multitude of awards and is the proud recipient of the NAACP Outstanding Citizen of the Year, Good Neighbor Award, Salute to America Lifetime Merit Award, Profile of Excellence Award, Martin Luther King, Jr., Humanitarian Award, ``Who's Who'' among Black Americans, Outstanding Young Men of America and several selections as Omega Man of the year and Citizen of the Year for the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc.

Philmore has always been active with Friendship Baptist Church in Vallejo, where he served 10 years as superintendent of Sunday Church School and has taught Sunday School for 37 years, including his years in high school.

He was married to the late Jamella Nelson Graham and they have two children, daughter, Deidre LeNore Graham and son, Montoya Reed, both graduates of Tennessee State University. Deidre obtained degrees in English and criminal justice and Montoya' earned a BS degree in biology and has done graduate study at TSU in animal science.

Madam Speaker, because of Mr. Graham's devotion to his family, his community, and his country, I am delighted to have this opportunity to recognize his tireless efforts and ask all Members of the House to join me in wishing him well.