Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, for too long this Nation has been held hostage and has been dependent upon Middle East oil. For too long this Nation has been held hostage and been dependent on the automakers of this country in terms of determining whether kind of transportation we will have in the United States.

Today, just an hour or an hour and a half ago, this House voted overwhelmingly and on a bipartisan basis to break that dependency and to become free again, to become free of Middle East oil, to become free of the automakers who have prevented us from having more efficient automobiles, getting better miles per gallon, and greener, to save our environment.

By that vote, this House spoke for the independence of this country. By that vote, this House spoke for the American people who have been demanding from us now for many years to have automobiles that were more efficient, less polluting, that serve their needs. For many years, they have told us that they have been worried about our national security, about our foreign policy, when we are driven to decisions based upon the dependency of Middle East oil, based upon the dependency of foreign oil, based on the dependency of not having our own energy house in order so we can make those decisions.

When they have seen time and again American lives and treasure lost to secure sources of oil, they have asked for a new direction. They have asked for a new day in American energy policy. Just a couple of hours ago, the House of Representatives delivered to the American people that new energy policy and that new direction. It's a policy that is based in the future, it a policy that is based in American ingenuity, talent and skills. It's a policy that is based in innovation and discovery, the things that America has been great at since this country was founded, that real talent and the strengths of this Nation being pulled together for the new technologies of wind energy, of biotech energy, of ethanol, and the other alternative fuels that are available, to the alternative sources of electricity, whether it's wave energy, solar energy. That is what America does best. We have wasted 8 years while we have refused to embrace the future.

This bill over the next few years will generate 3 million jobs in every geographic sector of this Nation as utilities seek out alternative energy sources for the generation of electricity. That means the people will be going to work in solar facilities, people will be going to work in wind facilities, people will be going to work in biofuel facilities, in ethanol facilities, in all kind of new technologies, new production, new manufacturing, the next generation of manufacturing, the next generation of innovation.

When we were working on our Innovation Agenda, which this Congress passed a couple of months ago and was sent to the President, passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan vote, signed by the President of the United States, when we were working on that Innovation Agenda with the leaders in biotech, in high-tech, in the venture capital community, people who are betting real money on the future of this country, they told us to give them a new energy policy that would drive a next generation of technology in the computer industry, in the telecommunications industry, in the biotech industry; that would drive the next generation of investment in energy and in the future of this country; that would drive the next generation of discovery and innovation.

Today, the House of Representatives delivered that energy policy to the American companies so they can go to work in discovery and innovation and creating jobs here in America in the new industries surrounding the new energy future and the new energy policy.

I am very, very proud this day to be a Member of the House of Representatives, casting this vote for a new energy future for America.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. And, one, I want to commend him on the success of getting provisions in this legislation on renewable electrical sources that he just pointed out will make all of this better in the future as we see a convergence of transportation, as we see a convergence of energy efficiencies in our homes and our businesses, and then to have a clean, green, and renewable way to generate that electricity. This is going to be a remarkable gift to the American people, to the American economy, to American businesses.

One of the things we've seen first and foremost is in so many instances the amount of money that is being saved by those who are investing in this effort in their businesses to make them more efficient, to make them greener, and to make them cleaner.

I am very excited that this legislation, which you have led the fight on, is also going to include the CAFE standards, the improvements in the miles per gallon that people can expect to get from cars in the future, that we will provide for 35 miles per gallon by the year 2020, which will dramatically change the transportation picture in this country, and then joined with the hybrid, with the renewable energies, can change our dependence on imported oil. And combined with other provisions of this legislation, we know that we have the opportunity to dramatically impact for the good the American economy, our climate, our environment, and the health of our neighborhoods and our cities.

So this energy bill, which many people said was not going to be possible at the beginning of this year, will be a major vote for those of us who are concerned about our dependence on foreign oil, our dependence on fossil fuels at all because of the impacts on the climate, the impacts on the health of our constituents. And it's going to be a remarkable vote when it takes place.

This legislation also provides for energy efficiency and renewable energy worker training. We're now starting to see in this country, as more and more investment is made by the private sector, that we need skilled workers who know how to work in these facilities, who understand the technology, who understand the mechanics of these operations. And that's going to provide real opportunity to working people in this country to create jobs all over this country, not just on the coast, if you will, but in the Midwest and the Southeast, in the Southwest, where wind, where other renewable energy sources are going to be developed, are going to be promoted, and are going to be utilized by those communities.

The gentleman from Washington has been in this struggle, started with the Apollo Project. This isn't quite the Apollo Project, but this is a major down payment, a major, major step, after 30 years of this Congress being shackled by the auto industry and the oil industry and others to continue a policy that has not served this country well and that continues to threaten our economic stability, our national security.

I know how much energy the gentleman from Washington has put into this legislation and put into this issue to get the public to understand something like the GM Volt. We had the automobile on the Hill a few months ago. It's a rather impressive automobile, as you pointed out. I think we probably read the same articles about the recent auto shows where it's attracting a great deal of attention, a major commitment by GM. I'm delighted to see GM now make this thrust into these new technologies, and I think that that legislation will provide further incentives for them to do that.

I read a rather interesting commentary. GM also developed a hybrid for the Tahoe, for their SUV. And in the comments about it, it's not the best hybrid in terms of mileage, if you're really concerned about mileage standards, but it's a major effort, certainly a major effort on behalf of a vehicle that's very popular with the American public.

But the interesting thing was, because of the engineering that they had to do to deal with the hybrid technology, the commentary of the auto reviewers was that they made a better car, this Tahoe was far superior to those that weren't. And they were hoping that they would then transfer the technology, the design, the engineering over to the rest of the fleet because they, in fact, would be presenting a car of higher quality, be it hybrid or nonhybrid, to the American public. And I think it's interesting to see what the spin-offs are and what this kind of engineering develops.

Yes, I would be happy to yield.

This bill, when we pass it and send to the President and he signs it, it is just the beginning of this adventure in energy technologies. Earlier this year we passed an innovation bill that dealt with new technologies and encouraging research and development and innovation and discovery, and when we were putting that bill together, we were talking to the CEOs from venture capital companies, from biotech industries, from the high-tech industry. And the question came from a lot of people, when you do all this innovation, you make all this effort, training all the engineers and scientists and others, where are the jobs that result? And Craig Barrett, the former CEO of Intel Corporation and other CEOs of the major tech companies of this country chimed in and said you make an investment, the government must make an investment in energy. That will drive the next generation of technology comparable to the kinds of technologies we saw with that investment in telecommunications, in computers, in the Internet and all the things that resulted from that. Their first choice for that, to drive that technology would be energy and the need that this country and other countries are going to have to develop these sources of energy.

Again, I want to thank the gentleman for all of the work he did. I know how hard he worked, especially on that provision of the bill for the renewable energy standards that are in this legislation. I thank him for his effort on that and also on the Apollo project that kicked off a great part of this debate in the Congress.

What a difference a year makes. Under Republican rule, it took three sessions of Congress just to finish an energy bill that subsidized pollution and Hummers.

But after just 1 year of the new Democratic leadership, we are replacing those subsidies with groundbreaking steps to increase the efficiency of our vehicles, to lower energy costs, to create new jobs, and to combat global warming.

Fuel Economy. The historic fuel economy compromise is supported by labor, the environmental community, and the automobile industry. This is the first increase by Congress since 1975.

The bill will increase fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 for new cars and trucks.

These provisions will save American families $700 to $1000 per year at the pump, with $22 billion in net consumer savings in 2020 alone.

It will reduce oil consumption by 1.1 million gallons per day in 2020 (one-half of what we currently import from the Persian Gulf), and reduce greenhouse gases equal to taking 28 million of today's average cars and trucks off the road.

Renewable electricity standards. This provision requires utility companies to generate 15 percent of electricity from renewable sources--such as wind power, biomass, wave, tidal, geothermal and solar--by 2020.

Green Jobs. This package creates an Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Worker Training Program to train a quality workforce for ``green collar'' jobs--such as solar panel manufacturer and green building construction worker--created by federal renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives.

Major investments in renewable energy could create 3 million green jobs over 10 years.

Thanks to the leadership in the House by Hilda Solis and John Tierney, we reported this legislation from the Education and Labor Committee. In the Senate, this important provision has been championed by Bernie Sanders and others.

Energy efficiency. The bill includes landmark energy efficiency provisions that save consumers and businesses hundreds of billions of dollars through 2030.

The bill will assist those who want to make their homes and offices more energy efficient, and it creates new energy-efficient appliance standards.

This reflects the successful model pursued by the State of California: cutting greenhouse gas emissions and investing in renewables will lead to economic growth.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to praise a public servant who is finishing 20 years of outstanding service to the Federal Government and a total of more than 30 years of public service. Members of Congress and their staff who are engaged with Federal education legislation have benefited from the wisdom and professionalism of Sandra Cook, Special Assistant in the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs at the U.S. Department of Education. Sandra joined the Department in 1988, and has worked with Members of Congress and

their staff on many of our most critical educational issues. In the past 10 years, she has specialized in elementary and secondary education, including No Child Left Behind. Sandra was involved in helping to pass NCLB and has kept the lines of communication open between the Executive and Legislative branches of Government.

Sandra is a career civil servant who knows that Federal education policy matters. She has served under administrations of both parties and has consistently received internal recognition for her professionalism and commitment to excellence. Her quiet, thoughtful comments in congressional meetings and discussions with congressional staff have provided both with information and guidance. Sandra's Rolodex is renowned for both its size and breadth. And no matter how stressful the situation because of time pressures or personalities, Sandra has never lost her calm, composed, and friendly demeanor.

After graduating from Southern Illinois University, where she was an honors student, Sandra Cook began her professional life as a teacher. She taught language arts and history for 6 years in West Lafayette, IN. Though she did not stay in the classroom as a career, those experiences shaped the rest of her professional life, particularly her work at the U.S. Department of Education.

Sandra's public service prior to joining the Department included work for several Members of Congress: Representatives Robert Daniel, Jr., Tom Railsback, and Rod Chandler; and Senator Paul Trible. She also worked for Fairfax County Supervisor Farrell Egge in Virginia, who represented the Mt. Vernon district.

As she retires from Government service and heads back to her family in her home State of Illinois, I am proud to thank Sandra Cook publicly on behalf of this Congress for her many contributions to our Nation and its students.

I want to thank you very much for taking this time to discuss what is almost now a year of the effort by Speaker Pelosi to provide for the greening of the Capitol and the surrounding areas here on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

And her choice of Dan Beard as the Chief Administrative Officer to lead this effort is a wise choice. Dan Beard worked for the Resources Committee when I was Chair of that committee, and really led a transformation in western water usage throughout the western United States. When he was at the Committee, and later at the Bureau of Reclamation, he transformed those programs from huge, wasteful water projects into projects of conservation, ending subsidies that the taxpayers were paying in many cases, or reducing the subsidies that taxpayers were paying that led, again, to water conservation, to new technologies being brought onto the farmland, to level those lands, to provide for drip irrigation, to provide for computerization of irrigation, to mingle water with fertilizers or other things that were necessary for the growing of those crops. That has saved farmers a huge amount of money. It has provided for better utilization of the resource. Water was able to be recycled into fish and wildlife protection in other parts of the State and all through the Southwest, in Montana, in Utah and in California. So, he has a long experience for this.

When he left the Congress and the administration, he went on to work in dealing with public-private partnerships to bring about environmental solutions to very difficult problems and was able to engage the public sector, the private sector, the nonprofit sector to build teams, to build organizations to solve some very thorny problems around this country.

That's the expertise he brought to the greening of the Capitol. And as we've seen in this first year, many things that were just taken for granted here that were so wasteful of our environment, were so wasteful of energy, so wasteful of taxpayer dollars, that now has changed, or started to change. And it's a work in progress, but I think as Members see it, one, they're proud that they're part of this effort. We go back and we have town hall meetings with our constituents and we talk to them about the urgency and the necessity to do this. And sometimes maybe we don't lead as well as we should, but here we are leading in this wonderful, wonderful United States Capitol.

The other one is that this Capitol is part of a neighborhood, and to the extent in which we can reduce our reliance on coal-fired plants in this neighborhood, we improve the air quality from the people who live downwind from the plants that supply the power for the Capitol. The extent to which the Chief Administrative Officer that been able to role that into green energy is very, very important, to reduce the carbon footprint, which so many businesses now see as just not nice talk; it's really about hard decisions,

the yield, immense savings over relatively short periods of time, in many cases for those corporations, allow them to increase their investment in their businesses, their employees, or their own profits. And that's the kind of change that we need. It's the kind of change that we should be leading on. And under this effort to green the Capitol by the Speaker and the leadership with the Chief Administrative Officer, Dan Beard, we all see the benefits of it.

And, again, as Mr. Blumenauer was pointing out, these choices weren't difficult. They weren't costly. They weren't complex. But they weren't being made. And once they are made, people go on with their lives, and all of a sudden they are participating in reducing the tax that our activity puts on the environment, on the climate, on the resources of this Nation.

So I really want to thank you. I want to join and associate myself with your remarks that you've all made. All of you have been involved in this effort on a national basis with your leadership and the protection of the oceans and new forms and methods of transportation and for communities. And, Jay, certainly your efforts on alternative energy has led the way in this Congress. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks, we will be able to go to even a broader initiative, which is the passage of the energy bill, which will lead to alternative energy sources being developed, alternative fuels, and the savings on the cafe standards so that people who are now looking at a $3.50 gasoline, $4 gasoline will be able to have the alternative of buying a more efficient automobile, a less polluting automobile. They'll feel good about it. Their pocketbook will feel good about it, and I think their children will really like the idea too.

So thank you so much for taking this time on the floor tonight.

I want to thank you. It has been a long day. It is now 11:30, so I want to thank you for recognizing what has been done here for the greening of the Capitol under the leadership of Dan Beard and the Speaker. And I want to take my very efficient cell phone, I am going to walk, and it is going to be very efficient, pretty carbon neutral, and I am just going to walk home. And if you are still here I will watch you on C-SPAN. But it has been a great education, and I am sure this House staff would like to officially go home. I think this has been a very important review of our first year, and it is only the beginning. And as Congressman Inslee has said, so many of the changes we are not even aware of because they really don't interfere. They don't change the way we do business or the way we eat at the cafeteria or wherever it is. It is just greener, better, smarter, and in many instances it saves us money. So thank you very much for your recognizing this first year of the greening of the Capitol.

Is your bike outside?

Maybe I will take your bike.

I thank the gentleman, and I thank him for taking this time.

As one who had the honor of serving under Gus Hawkins when he was Chair of the Education and Labor Committee, I would just like to say to my colleague that this was a man of great vision for young people, for students, and for working families. I knew Gus long before I came to the Congress. I knew him as a young man when he and my father served together in the State legislature and they were engaged in the great civil rights battles at that time, the great battles over education and school quality. Gus died when he was 100, but he was thinking about things 120 years from now because that's the way he always was.

Gus was always looking over the horizon for new opportunities and new ideas and new ways of doing things. He was a great pioneer, but he was also a great visionary and he honored us with his service in this body.

I thank the gentleman for taking this time.

Mr. Speaker, more than 40 years ago, we recognized that poverty was robbing millions of children of the opportunity to do well in school and succeed in life.

As a nation, we made a decision to help poor children reach school age ready to succeed by creating the Head Start early childhood program.

In the last four decades, it has helped nearly 25 million children by providing them with high-quality, comprehensive education, health, and nutrition services.

Head Start remains a cornerstone in this country's efforts to help all children learn, to

combat poverty, and to provide all Americans with the opportunity to meet their fullest potential.

We know that Head Start works. Research shows that not only do Head Start students make important educational gains while they attend the program, they also continue to gain ground after they leave Head Start.

Research shows that by the end of kindergarten, Head Start graduates are ``essentially at national norms in early reading and writing'' and have further narrowed the achievement gap in vocabulary, general knowledge and early math.

In other words, Head Start is doing what we expect and demand that it should do--help prepare children to succeed in school and in life.

We also know that there are ways we can improve Head Start.

That is why I am so pleased to be here today with a bipartisan conference report to reauthorize and reinvigorate Head Start.

This bipartisan legislation improves teacher and classroom quality, expands access to Head Start for more children, improves comprehensive services that help children and their families, and ensures that taxpayer dollars only fund Head Start centers that are well-run and high quality.

First, this legislation builds on Head Start's success by integrating the best available science on child development to inform classroom instruction.

Each year we learn more and more about how children's brains develop. This legislation ensures that we improve teacher quality and update classroom practices based on what the research tells us.

It requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to re-evaluate and update early learning standards and use of assessments with the best available science, including a forthcoming study from the National Academy of Sciences.

And it terminates further use of an inappropriate and ineffective testing regime for 4-year-olds. This wasteful testing regime cost taxpayers over $25 million dollars, it took up valuable classroom time and hasn't been useful for improving program quality.

Of course, Head Start is much more than an educational program. Head Start provides health, nutrition and parent education services in addition to a strong educational curriculum.

The conference report recognizes this by also strengthening Head Start's role in meeting these important needs of the children it serves.

This legislation takes important steps to ensure that Head Start centers are well-run and effectively managed. This will ensure that taxpayer dollars are used wisely and that every Head Start center is high quality.

The report allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to more quickly take funding away from bad programs. It requires that new and detailed fiscal management protocols be included in program reviews.

Finally, the legislation also expands access to Head Start in many important ways.

Expansion of Early Head Start is prioritized so more infants and toddlers can attend Head Start during the years their brains are growing the fastest.

And expansion of Migrant and Indian programs is prioritized so more of these children can have access to this important program.

Mr. Speaker, before I close, I'd like to take a minute to thank Congressman McKeon, Chairman Kildee, Congressman Castle, Chairman Kennedy, Senator Enzi, Senator Dodd, and Senator Alexander for their hard work in getting us to this point.

I'd also like to thank the staff for their work and expertise.

In particular, I'd like to thank Liz King and Jean Harmann with Legislative Counsel; Lloyd Horwich with Mr. Kildee; James Bergeron, Susan Ross, Kirsten Duncan, and Jessica Gross with Mr. McKeon and Mr. Castle; Roberto Rodriguez and David Johns with Senator Kennedy; Catherine Hildum with Senator Dodd; Lindsay Hunsicker and Beth Buehlmann with Senator Enzi; David Cleary and Sara Rittling with Senator Alexander; and from my own staff--Lamont Ivey, Molly Carter, Kate Scully, Stephanie Moore, and Ruth Friedman.

This bill will build on Head Start's past successes to create an even stronger program to provide Head Start children with a better future.

I am pleased that we are about to send this legislation to the President for his signature.

I thank my colleagues for their efforts.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4154) to increase the insurance limitations on Federal insurance for bonds issued by the designated bonding authority for Historically Black Colleges and Universities capital financing.

Mr. Speaker, I request 5 legislative days during which Members may insert material relevant to H.R. 4154 into the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the majority whip of the House, who has worked and moved all might here to get this legislation to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cooper).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Mr. Cummings, Mr. Clyburn, Mr. Scott and Mr. Cooper who have worked diligently to get this legislation to the floor. And I want to thank Mr. Keller and Mr. McKeon on the Republican side, and our House leadership and the Republican leadership for facilitating this.

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities Capital Financing Program was established by Congress in 1992 to help these schools fund capital projects to construct, rehabilitate, or renovate existing and new campus facilities.

Under current law, the HBCU Capital Financing Program has a legislative cap or limit to the total amount of bonds that the Secretary of Education may guarantee to provide loans to these schools to undertake their capital projects.

In dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Secretary exceeded, with congressional approval, the original cap that Congress imposed on the amount of bonds the Secretary could guarantee. Given the cap on such bonds was reached during the tragic events caused by Hurricane Katrina, the program is now unable to provide any loans to other schools.

The bill we are considering under suspension today will simply increase the lending authority of the Secretary and establish a new cap to ensure other HBCUs in the pipeline for consideration of such loans will receive those loans. This is a short-term solution to the capital needs of these schools, and we will continue to address the reauthorization in the Higher Education Act the Education and Labor Committee is currently considering.

So I want to thank all of those who participated in this legislation.

I also want to take a moment, as we are talking about historically black colleges, to remember a pioneer that we lost this last weekend, former Congressman Gus Hawkins, who is a former Chair of the Education and Labor Committee and a member of the California delegation.

He was a wonderful politician who had a great vision for this country on behalf of its students and workers. He fought every day of his public life to make their lives better in this country. He was a trailblazer in so many aspects, including advancing legislation that barred employment discrimination and increasing the minimum wage and access to colleges.

I had the honor of serving on the committee while Gus was the Chair and can attest to his passion and dedication to the issues that affect America's students and workers.

As a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus and the first African American to represent California in the Congress, he led the way for many legislators who are here today.

Gus was also the author of legislation which established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which continues to combat employment discrimination. Throughout his career, Gus Hawkins authored more than 300 pieces of State and Federal legislation, a feat that few can claim.

After retiring, he served as director of the Hawkins Family Memorial Foundation for Education, Research and Development, where Gus continued helping many young people find a path to college.

His voice is going to be missed, and I know my thoughts and thoughts of all of our colleagues are with the Hawkins family today.

I also want to say that Gus Hawkins was a wonderful friend of my mother and father when Gus and my father served together in the California legislature where they fought many of these same fights on the State level. They were a remarkable group of people who blazed these trails for justice, economic and social justice, in this country. Gus Hawkins set the bar and the standard very high for all of us, and I think it is fitting that we are also addressing the needs of the historically black colleges here on the day we

choose to remember him and the delegation will have an hour of remembrance and testimony to Gus and his great accomplishments tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 3685.

I thank the Chair, and I yield myself 3 minutes.

Madam Chairman and Members of the House, it is disgraceful but true that in much of the United States, it is perfectly legal for employers to fire workers simply on the basis of their sexual orientation.

I am proud that today the House will vote on legislation to end this discrimination. It has no place in American society.

The legislation we are considering was first introduced in the House in 1975, more than 30 years ago, and in the last three decades, gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans have waged a courageous campaign for their workplace rights. I regret that they have had to wait so long for this vote, but I am pleased that this historic day has finally arrived.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act ensures that employment decisions are based upon merit and performance and not prejudice. Federal law and the laws of 30 States permit employers to discriminate against employees based solely on their sexual orientation. In those 30 States, employers can fire, refuse to hire, demote, or refuse to promote employees on the basis of sexual orientation alone.

Earlier this year, under Chairman Andrews, the Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions Subcommittee heard testimony from Michael Carney, a highly decorated police officer. Officer Carney was initially denied the opportunity to return to his job with the Springfield, Massachusetts Police Department because he is gay. Fortunately, Massachusetts is not one of the 30 States to deny these basic rights to gay workers, and Officer Carney was eventually able to return to his job.

But that was not the case for Brooke Waites, who testified at the hearing. Ms. Waites was fired from her job in telecommunications after her employer discovered that she was a lesbian. Since the State of Texas allows employers to fire workers based on sexual orientation, Ms. Waites had no recourse. She could not get her job back.

It's hard to believe that fully qualified, capable individuals are being denied employment or fired from their jobs for these completely nonwork-related reasons. This is profoundly unfair and certainly un- American. Unless we act to outlaw this discrimination, millions of American workers will continue to live with the legitimate fear that they could be fired or denied a job and wind up unable to provide for themselves and their families. That is why it is essential that this Congress act to protect the rights of all workers, regardless of their sexual orientation.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act extends employment nondiscrimination protections to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual people. It prohibits employers, employment agencies, and labor unions from using an individual's sexual orientation as a basis for employment decisions such as hiring and firing, promotion, or compensation. The bill prohibits employers from subjecting an individual to different standards of treatment based upon the individual's sexual orientation. The bill does not apply to businesses with less than 15 workers, private membership clubs, or the U.S. Armed Forces. And it does not apply to religious schools or other religious organizations.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), the Chair of the subcommittee that did a marvelous job in handling this legislation.

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), one of the pioneers of this legislation.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Pryce).

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

May I just say, Madam Chairman, it's a rather interesting set of remarks, except it has nothing to do with the underlying legislation that is before us today.

I yield for the purpose of unanimous consent to the gentlewoman from New York.

(Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Chairman, I appreciate the frustration of my colleagues on the other side the aisle. They really don't like this bill. They don't believe that we should be outlawing discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals. What they are upset about is that most of the handles that they thought they could grab on to to destroy the consensus for this bill are gone.

Why are they gone? Because we went through a markup. We listened to our colleagues on the other side, and we made adjustments. We had a religious exemption in that many of the religious organizations strongly supported. We listened to the debate. We went back to them and suggested that a straight exemption from title VII would be preferable for all of those involved.

So we have continued to listen as that process has gone through. And, yes, we have a bill here now that is far more acceptable to far more Members of the Congress of the United States because it does what it says it is going to do.

Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Davis).

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Madam Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the distinguished majority whip in the House.

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee).

(Mr. INSLEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, I yield myself 4\1/ 2\ minutes.

Madam Chairman, I rise in support of an amendment to this ENDA legislation that I and Mr. Stupak have written to ensure that this law will protect religious liberties of religious corporations, societies, associations, and in particular, religious schools, including those religious schools that are not affiliated with any particular church or denomination. Our amendment would make it clear that the ENDA exemption matches the religious exemption found in title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under my amendment, a religious corporation, association, or school would be categorically exempt from ENDA.

In addition, our amendment also clarifies that the references to the term ``married'' refer to the Federal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, as enacted in the 1996 Federal law referred to as the Defense of Marriage Act.

With respect to the religious exemption, this issue has been the cause of a lot of confusion in the past weeks. The religious exemption that was part of the ENDA bill that passed out of the Education and Labor Committee on October 18 was exceptionally broad; however, several nondenominational religious schools raised concerns that they might not be covered under the ENDA exemption.

For example, the president of Wheaton College in Naperville, Illinois, sent a letter to Representative Tim Walberg in advance of the Education and Labor Committee's markup on ENDA. Mr. Walberg then shared that letter with the entire committee, and our Republican colleagues argued that Wheaton College, which is clearly a religious school despite the fact that it is not controlled by or affiliated with any specific church, may not be covered by the ENDA exemption. That argument was incorrect.

Wheaton, along with other religious schools and organizations such as the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, asked that we ``ensure that the act categorically exempts religious organizations as in section 702(a) of title VII,'' and we have done precisely what Wheaton College and the Council for Christian Colleges has asked us to do.

Under this amendment, if a religious organization, including a religious school, is exempt under either section 702(a) or the arguably broader section 703(e)(2), then that organization or school is exempt from ENDA, period. So, if a school qualifies for either one of those exemptions under title VII, it is categorically, as they requested, exempt from ENDA. By directly referencing title VII, we also ensure that the many decades of case law on title VII's religious exemption is imported to ENDA.

This amendment provides clarity for religious schools that have experience with the title VII exemption, and it should satisfy all of their legitimate concerns about ENDA.

Let me be clear, the title VII exemption, and therefore, the ENDA exemption, applies to both nondenominational religious schools like Wheaton and church-affiliated schools. And as one court explained, ``Even though a Christian corporation or organization is nondenominational, it nevertheless may subscribe to particular religious views with which other Christians do not agree, and conversely, it may disagree with the religious views of other Christians.'' And to go on, the court said, ``This is precisely the situation for which the title VII exemptions were enacted; the exemptions allow religious institutions to employ only persons whose beliefs are consistent with the views of the religious organization.'' And that is the purpose of this exemption. That is the purpose of this amendment.

In addition to clarifying the scope of the ENDA religious exemption, my amendment also specifically states that the references to marriage in ENDA refers to the definition of marriage as defined in Federal law. Specifically, these terms in ENDA are given the meaning provided by the Federal law that is referred to as the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage for Federal purposes as the union of one man and one woman. That is the definition that applies to ENDA, and my amendment makes that definition absolutely clear.

Madam Chairman, because our amendment offers strong protections for religious organizations, including nondenominational or nonaffiliated religious schools, and because our amendment clarifies that the Defense of Marriage Act operates to define the term ``marriage'' in this bill, I trust that the Miller amendment will receive a large bipartisan vote in its favor.

Madam Chairman, I would like now to yield 4 minutes to my cosponsor of this legislation, Mr. Stupak.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Does the gentleman have additional speakers? We only have one speaker left and we have the right to close.

Madam Chairman, I yield the remaining time to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition.

Madam Chair and members of the Committee, I first want to correct some of the mistaken assumptions that I think Mr. Souder just made in his remarks.

He claims that the language of section 8(a)(3) would undermine the definition of marriage that some States have chosen to adopt. This is untrue. Even after ENDA becomes law, regardless of whether section 8(a)(3) remains in the bill or is taken out, the States, for purposes of State law, decide marriage issues for themselves. Nothing in ENDA would change that. Nothing in ENDA would alter the Federal laws referred to in the Defense of Marriage Act.

Second, Mr. Souder makes a claim that section 8(a)(3) would have prevented an employer from firing an employee who has extramarital sex. Frankly, I don't see anything in the text of 8(a)(3) that discusses extramarital sex. In fact, I don't see anything anywhere in the text of ENDA that discusses extramarital sex, and I can't understand how Mr. Souder's come to this conclusion about extramarital sex. But the entire issue is just a diversion from what ENDA actually does.

ENDA is very simple. ENDA will prevent employers from firing a perfectly qualified gay, lesbian or bisexual employee just because of that employee's sexual orientation.

Madam Chairman, in short, I will vote for this amendment, but the fact of the matter is I don't think it is necessary. But Mr. Souder has pursued this course, and I think that it's important. Another important provision of ENDA is the nondiscrimination section that already outlaws employers from discriminating based upon sexual orientation through any pretext policy including the pretext of marital status.

Moreover, many States, including Mr. Souder's home State in Indiana, have already created State laws that allow a plaintiff to sue their employer based upon marital status discrimination. And those State laws would further protect against pretextual discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans.

Finally, I want to explain in more detail why I will vote for Mr. Souder's amendment. I have realized that section 8(a)(3) is redundant. It is unnecessary. The concern that section 8(a)(3) has sought to address and will actually be addressed in many cases by section 4 of

How much time do I have remaining?

I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).

I yield 15 seconds to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker and Members of the House, President Bush must take a strong stand on the actions of President Musharraf in Pakistan. The constitution of Pakistan must be restored, and democratic rule must be given back to the people. If we fail to do that, then democracy fails in Pakistan and we will see the exact environment in which the Taliban, terrorists, al Qaeda and others are born. Witness Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The restoration of democracy immediately must be high on the agenda of the Bush administration. Failure to do so turns Pakistan into an armed dictatorship with a nuclear weapon.

We have spent tens of billions of dollars in Pakistan to encourage their fight against terrorism and the Taliban. And what have we gotten in return? We now see that the military has started businesses with that money. They have used it to pad their retirement accounts. They have used it to run their private businesses rather than to defend the country and prosecute the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorists that are now in northern Pakistan.

The choice is this administration's. They can speak out forcefully for democracy, or they can watch it wither on the vine and we will have another failed state in exactly a region where we don't need one.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 1429) to reauthorize the Head Start Act, to improve program quality, to expand access, and for other purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I might consume.

I want to begin by thanking Mr. Kildee, Mr. McKeon and Mr. Castle and all of the members of the Education and Labor Committee for their hard work on this legislation, for all of their input and their suggestions.

Mr. Speaker, this bill has been a very long time coming. It has been coming to the floor of this House since 2003, and we have an opportunity tonight to begin the final part of that process, which is to go to conference on this legislation. This is an important piece of legislation, and this is an important program. In fact, it's this Nation's premier program with respect to the early education and the development of our children in this country, and it has been for more than 40 years. It has served more than 20 million children and their families in that time.

Head Start has remained during that time, and continues to remain today, as the cornerstone of this country's efforts to close the achievement gap, to combat poverty, to provide all of its citizens with an opportunity to thrive and to get parents more involved in the education of their children and to show them ways in which they can help in the development and the educational skills necessary for their children.

Head Start's design has always been a science-based program, and this reauthorization builds on the strong foundation by, again, turning to the best science to renew and improve the Head Start program. Both Head Start and Early Head Start programs prepare our country's most disadvantaged children to succeed in school and in life by addressing the needs of the whole child by providing services such as health and nutrition, in addition to the educational curriculum, because Head Start knows and discovered, and based upon fact, that the health and the nutritional well-being of these children determines the outcomes in the schools that they attend and the programs that they attend and in their participation.

Recent findings from the congressionally mandated impact study found that in less than a school year, Head Start narrowed the achievement gap by 45 percent in the prereading skills and by 28 percent in prewriting skills of the children that attended the program.

Head Start also works closely with parents, as I pointed out, empowering them to understand what their involvement can mean to the success of their child and to the long-term educational outcomes of that child. This reauthorization will help more children arrive in kindergarten ready to succeed by improving program quality and expanding the access to more children. We will improve teacher and classroom quality by strengthening the Head Start standards and supporting the best practices in the classroom.

We will end the inappropriate testing of 4-year-olds that has been undertaken by the administration in 2003 over the objections of hundreds of experts in child development and early education and over the bipartisan objection of many Members of Congress.

We will better target available funds to the underserved communities and prioritize the expansion of early Head Start so that more of our Nation's youngest children, will receive this program during the years when their brains are growing the fastest. We will strengthen program accountability at the Federal, regional, and local levels due to the changes made by the members of this committee and the operations of this program to assure that taxpayer dollars are being used wisely. In fact, in the example that was cited by Mr. McKeon, the senior Republican in the committee, is an example that was dealt with a number of years ago, hopefully by the administration but also in this legislation. Amendments that were offered in earlier iterations of this legislation are reoffered again as part of this bill as introduced by Mr. Kildee.

We have, I think, been very diligent in looking after that effort. I would hope that the administration, who has full authority on the oversight of the use of these funds, I wish they had been more diligent at that time.

As the GAO found, they failed in their oversight responsibility of the disbursements of this fund. But that is the past. We are assuming that the administration takes the wise use of these funds, the proper use of these funds very seriously, and that they pursue those who choose to do otherwise with these funds. Head Start dollars are very precious in the budget of this Nation. They are very precious to the families of these children, to these children and to those who dedicated their lives to the educational improvement, to the healthy child development of each and every one of these children. We are not to be frivolous with those dollars.

The minority has offered a motion to instruct. We agree with that motion. We think if there are differences, those differences are very narrow. They will be discussed; they will be voted upon in the conference committee, and that is our intent. We think that is consistent with the wording of the motion to instruct. When the proper time comes, we will urge Members to support that legislation.

Given the scarcity of these dollars, the importance of these dollars and the effectiveness of these dollars, we have no alternative but to be very tough on the accountability sections for this program. This is a trust not only of the children in the care of the Head Start program for the children of this Nation, it is a trust, too, for the taxpayer dollars, because this is a program that we have seen now over these 40 years has continued to receive bipartisan support, not only in the Congress but from every President of the United States. That's why this legislation is so important.

Hopefully, with this conference committee, we will be able to report back to the House and to the Senate legislation that can be sent to the President's desk hopefully in the next week or 10 days. That is our goal, and I thank the gentleman for his motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Just quickly, I yield myself 30 seconds to say that, as I said, this bill has been a long time coming to where we think we can get it to the President's desk. I certainly want to thank the staffs on both sides of the aisle for all of their expertise, experience, and knowledge about this program. And we've been working together to get to this point in the conference committee.

I would urge passage of the motion to instruct.

I reserve my time.

No, I have none.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this weekend a devastating blow was struck against the efforts to try to grow and make sustainable democracy in Pakistan when President Musharraf of Pakistan announced that he would have an emergency order which has essentially become martial law against all those in the country who disagreed with him; against all of those on the supreme court, all of those in the legal community, all of those in general society who disagree with him are now subject to arrest, are subject to beatings, are subject to imprisonment. That is wrong, and this country cannot look the other way.

For too long this administration and this Congress have looked the other way as President Musharraf has worked to limit and now crush democracy in Pakistan. Too many excuses have been offered to allow him to continue this trend against free and open elections, against a growing democracy, against a growing independent press and TV stations because we said he is helping us in Pakistan against the terrorists, the Taliban, in Afghanistan.

Of course, what we know is that he has played us over these many years as he has received billions of dollars in aid. He has continued to play us to suggest that he is really concentrating on the effort to rid both Afghanistan and Pakistan of terrorists, but in fact that is not what has been taking place. In fact, he has cut agreements, he has arranged for safe haven, for safe travel for the Taliban as they have moved back and forth against our troops and against people in Afghanistan who are trying to establish a democracy there.

Some months ago when I visited Afghanistan, we asked the commander of our troops there what was the biggest threat to our troops in Afghanistan, and he said the border with Pakistan. And that remains true today as the Taliban move back and forth, as recruits from al Qaeda move back and forth, and at a time when President Musharraf simply gives voice to the idea that he is going to stop this from happening, that he is going to create an environment where that will not be allowed to continue. That simply has not happened, because President Musharraf has been more interested in securing his reelection as the leader of Pakistan than he has been in getting rid of the extremists and the terrorists. In fact, he has allowed the extremists to grow even in Islamabad, where their presence wasn't known only a few years ago.

We must take a stand against these actions. We must speak out. The administration has spoken out now, but already questions are being raised as to whether or not we will condition aid, whether or not we will forcefully show Musharraf that we cannot have him crush democracy in Pakistan. Pakistan needs more democracy, not less. It needs democracy to strengthen that country so that it can reject ex- tremism and terrorists. It needs free elections so that the people will believe that they are represented, not by the continuing building of a dictatorship by President Musharraf who controls the military, who controls the intelligence, and now is using them against the very people that he is supposed to represent, and that is the people of Pakistan. We cannot stand by while he takes this extraordinary effort to crush democracy, to potentially postpone the elections, to seize the independent media, and to throw hundreds and hundreds so far of his citizens into jail because they simply seek to oppose him and seek a brighter future, a more democratic future for the country of Pakistan.

The time has come for this country to take a very strong stand against the corruption of this government and the growing dictatorship presented by the rule of President Musharraf.

I rise in very strong support of H.R. 2262, and I congratulate its sponsor, Chairman Nick Rahall.

The Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007 will finally end the give-away of our public lands and minerals. The bill secures a fair return for taxpayers on minerals taken from public lands, and it will provide for environmental standards and cleanup for hardrock mining.

For 135 years, American hardrock mining policy has given away public resources, and it has left each new generation a larger legacy of unreclaimed lands and degraded streams.

The 1872 mining law is long overdue for comprehensive reform.

The American taxpayers deserve an updated mining policy, and so does our natural environment.

Chairman Rahall and I have been striving to update this antiquated law for decades, and thanks to his leadership, we are closer today to success than we have ever been.

The Natural Resources Committee's effort to reform mining law began in the early 1990s, when I chaired the committee, but we were derailed by the Republican rule.

Chairman Rahall has spent 20 years introducing bills in this House to get to this point. He has persevered against indifference, opposition, and intensive lobbying.

Today, he has brought a bill to the floor of the House that takes a major step towards reform after many long years of struggle.

The 1872 mining law allows mining companies to take billions of dollars worth of gold, silver and other minerals from public lands for free.

We no longer treat any other resource that way--not coal, oil, or gas--yet under the archaic mining law, we still give away gold with no compensation to the taxpayers who own it.

And over the years, the price tag for mining cleanup has risen astronomically. Since the House last acted on reform legislation, more than 20 mines and mills have been added to the Superfund National Priority List.

The EPA Inspector General has warned of nearly $24 billion in cleanup costs for mine sites, some of which will require treatment ``in perpetuity.''

The 1872 law's failings have had a serious impact on California and the West. The mining law has remained in effect while Northern California's Iron Mountain mine spewed out nearly a quarter of the copper and zinc discharged by industries to the Nation's surface waters; as historic lands of the Indian Pass area in the southern California desert faced destruction from the proposed Glamis mine; during decades of efforts to control acidic, metal-laden discharges from an old sulfur mine southeast of Tahoe; and as the city of Grass Valley spends millions to treat hazardous mine discharges and fight a giant mining corporation in court.

The bill that is before us today, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007, will: put certain irreplaceable public lands off limits to mining, secure a fair return for taxpayers with a royalty on minerals taken from public lands, halt the sale of public lands to mining claimholders, adopt modern environmental standards for hardrock mining; and establish a program to clean up abandoned mines.

I congratulate the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Nick Rahall, and Energy Subcommittee Chairman Jim Costa, our California colleague, for their leadership on this issue.

I also want to commend the staff of the Natural Resources committee for their years of hard work to get us to this point.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this major legislative accomplishment, which will be celebrated by future generations of Americans.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the typical income of American households has actually declined between 2002 and 2006 in inflation-adjusted terms. Last year, the number of Americans without health insurance actually increased by over 2 million.

For years now, Americans have had to deal with stagnating incomes and rising costs for basics like health care, food, energy and housing. For many reasons, Americans are deeply concerned about the future of their economy and their place in it. One cause of

their concern is the negative consequences they see from international trade.

Indeed, Americans find themselves increasingly caught in the crosshairs of the global economy. They have watched neighbors, friends and loved ones lose their jobs when plants close and move overseas. Americans have become even more skeptical about trade agreements, and for good reason. They have watched jobs move to China, and in return they get lead-poisoned toys.

Given these very real concerns, it is critical that we include in trade agreements strong and enforceable labor and environmental protections. And we must provide substantial assistance to workers who are negatively affected by this trade.

On the first part, I want to thank the committee for what they have done in terms of the trade agreements with these labor and environmental protections and I want to thank them for this legislation today.

This legislation we are considering addresses this very important point of what happens to those workers who have the negative consequences of international trade. This legislation helps ensure that displaced workers can help make ends meet while they find a new job, or in the case of older workers, until they reach retirement age.

The bill requires a layoff or plant closing notification if 50 or more employees, including part-time employees, at a single job site are laid off in a 30-day period. It eliminates a loophole that has allowed employers to avoid giving notices by shifting employees around job sites.

The bill increases notice to employees of a plant closing or mass layoff from 60 to 90 days, and that is very important.

And it also says that TAA-eligible employees can extend their COBRA coverage for as long as they remain TAA-eligible, up to 2\1/2\ years. And TAA-eligible employees who are 55 years or older and who have worked for an employer for more than 10 years can extend their COBRA coverage until they are eligible for Medicare at age 65, or covered by another health care plan. The coverage is available to workers today, but only up to 18 months. The bill extends that provision.

This is the most important provision for those workers who lose their income and lose their job, trying to hold their families together, and also see the loss of their health care. COBRA is of no cost to the government. The employee must pay the employer share, the employee share, and the 2 percent administrative cost. Over 40 million Americans have used COBRA coverage. But in any given year, only 2 to 3 million Americans are on the program, and close to 200,000 people are losing that coverage every month. This is an important benefit to these workers and certainly to people who have preexisting conditions and know they will not be able to go in and find insurance that they can afford or that is even available to them.

It is important that we make certain that these older workers are able to bridge the time until they reach Medicare eligibility so they will have continuity of health care.

This is good legislation. I hope my colleagues on the floor will support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

(Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Yes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

I would urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

We could leave this to the marketplace, and you could throw your workers out on the street with no notice, no health care, no training, and that's it, and just tell them, welcome to the globalized world.

We thought we would try a different tack. We thought we would give workers notice where it is practical for employers to do so so the worker would have time to deal with the implications of a lost job on their family, to try to save their home, to try to save their kids' education, try to save the automobile, figure out how to get another job or how to get to retirement.

We also know that many workers that are released don't have health care coverage or can't get it in the marketplace. So we extended COBRA. We made that decision many years ago. Forty million people have used that to get them to another health care plan or to hold on to their coverage as long as they possibly could. We said for older workers, you can take it to Medicare. If you are over 55 years old and you have worked there 10 years, you can use COBRA. You pay all the premiums, you pay the administrative cost, but at least you have coverage. For some people, that's absolutely vital, because once they lose coverage, they can't get it again because they can't afford it or because they have preexisting conditions and they won't write that policy for those individuals.

This is just about whether or not we are going to treat Americans with some sense of decency who work all year long, provide for their families, work hard, play by the rules or whether they are just going to have to crash to the street and lose their income, their houses, their cars, their kids' education. That's the choice we get today.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I rise in opposition to this substitute and in strong support of the underlying legislation.

I really want to say that I think that this is the bare minimum that a society and a government can do for those members of our society that find themselves in a situation, really through no fault of their own, that they suffer job loss because of a decision that is made to close a facility or to transfer their job overseas.

What we have now seen over the last decade is that there has been a huge impact in families all across this country, in all different parts of the region of this country, that have been economically severely displaced, that have had to scramble to try and get job training, to get health care, to get a new job, to get a new profession, to get a new occupation. At first, people thought it was only limited to those who did hot, heavy, dirty, nasty jobs. But that is not the case. What we see is, with the continued trend toward globalization and outsourcing, that it can impact all different classes of Americans.

But at a minimum, what we ought to do is make sure that those people have some ability to make a transition to that new job, to that new profession, to retirement if they are older workers, and not risk losing everything that they built up during the time that they were holding their jobs. They should not be in a position where they are scrambling to try to find health care, job training, saving their home, maybe their kids' education, and maybe even the car they need to go to work. Too often, that is what happens in this country because of the inadequacies of these underlying laws. Trade assistance over the last decade, WIA over the last decade, have not provided comprehensive services for these workers that they can fully engage in.

We need these kinds of changes that are presented by the committee bill coming out of Ways and Means. I believe we need the notification provisions that came out of the Education and Labor Committee, and clearly we need an extension of the COBRA benefits for people who find themselves in great jeopardy of not only temporarily losing health care, but very likely permanently losing health care until they are eligible for Medicare because they may have health conditions that are preexisting and it is either so expensive to get an individual policy or people won't write that policy for them, for whatever excuses they have to cover up the idea of a preexisting condition.

So this is a basic fundamental compact between this government that has made a decision, I think properly so, to engage the rest of the world through trade agreements and globalization, but we have to look at what happens here at home. These trade agreements are now being strengthened through the good work of Mr. Rangel and the committee and Mr. Levin and others, to provide for ILO labor standards overseas so we can compete on a fairer basis with workers overseas, with environmental standards so we don't let them subsidize products by just dumping toxins into the rivers and bays and oceans.

This is an important piece of legislation, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to share encouraging news from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. As many of my colleagues know, I have been fighting for years to ensure that employers in the CNMI--an American territory in the Pacific--pay their workers an honest wage.

But for years, we were blocked from reforming the broken labor and immigration system in the Marianas. The corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff's collusion with then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others here in Congress meant that the CNMI's sweatshop-based economy persisted for almost two decades after we were first made aware of abuses there.

Eventually, Abramoff's dishonest schemes, which caused so much human misery, caught the attention of law enforcement, and the web of corruption is now unraveled. Jack Abramoff is in prison, Representative DeLay no longer serves in this House, and the Congress has a Democratic majority.

That is good news for the workers of America and especially those in the CNMI. Earlier this year, the new Congress raised the minimum wage across the country for the first time in almost a decade. And for the first time, that increase applies to the Northern Marianas. Today, workers there make $3.55 an hour, up from the barely $3 that workers there were paid for years.

This long-overdue reform is already having a positive effect, and I commend to my colleagues the article below from the Marianas Variety (``Labor: Wage hike drives locals to seek jobs''). As the article explains, we still lack good data on the CNMI job situation, but the trend is very encouraging: the number of people looking for jobs in September of this year was up by an incredible 80 percent compared to the same period last year, according to their Department of Labor.

For too long, thanks to policies that reinforced the low-wage garment industry's dominance, there were very few good-paying jobs in the Marianas: if you weren't willing to work for $3 an hour, you could either work in the public sector, or you could live on public assistance. But as the Commonwealth's deputy secretary of labor says in the article, ``There are so many people looking for jobs not only because they need them but because the (minimum) wage is now $3.55 an hour. It's waking them up to go out (and join the workforce).'' The bottom line is that the increase in wages is attracting jobseekers to private sector jobs, exactly as we predicted.

It's an abiding shame that it took the U.S. Congress so many years to bring reforms to the Mariana Islands and to raise the minimum wage. And it was a major setback for workers there when the government of the Commonwealth went back on earlier attempts to raise the wage locally. But even though it comes years after I would have liked, I am pleased, although not surprised, by this early report. Under the leadership of this New Direction Congress, we are starting to turn things around, and we are beginning to see the positive results of raising the minimum wage.

Paying honest wages for honest work is good for our economy and the right policy for our country. Members of this Congress should be proud that we are moving America, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, in a new direction.

[From the Marianas Variety, Oct. 26, 2007]

Labor: Wage Hike Drives Locals To Seek Jobs

(By Gemma Q. Casas)

The 50-cent increase on the local minimum wage in July

resulted in an increase in the number of locals seeking

employment assistance at the Department of Labor, according

to its deputy secretary, Alfred Pangelinan.

He said there were 1,800 local jobseekers in September up

by 80 percent compared to the same period last year when

Labor assisted 1,000 jobseekers.

He attributed the sudden surge to the increase on the

minimum wage from $3.05 an hour to $3.55 and the worsening

economic crisis. ``There are so many people looking for jobs

not only because they need them but because the (minimum)

wage is now $3.55 an hour. It's waking them up to go out (and

join the workforce),'' he said.

He believes that as the local minimum wage increases, more

residents will be enticed to work in the private sector.

The Federal Minimum Wage Act became law in May of this year

and it also applies to the CNMI, mandating an increase of the

local minimum wage by 50 cents every year until it reaches

the U.S. minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

The next 50-cent increase in the CNMI minimum wage will

take effect in July 2008, which will raise the rate to $4.05

an hour.

The Department of Labor says it is also making sure that

local residents who are employed get the monetary equivalent

of their foreign counterparts' non-monetary benefits to

further encourage them to work.

Pangelinan said the real unemployment rate among the local

population is difficult to determine because the statistics

only include those that come forward and seek assistance.

There hasn't been any CNMI-wide survey conducted in recent

years to determine how many local residents are jobless.