Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise yet again with another motion to instruct the conferees of H.R. 2830, the pension bill currently in conference. These repeated motions have become necessary in light of the failure of the Republican conferees to include all conferees and to hear all voices.

The House Democrats have been locked out of this conference since last March, so we have come to the floor again and again with motions to instruct that would press the conferees to protect America's workers and retirees from some of the worst proposals in these bills now being considered in that conference committee.

Again and again, the House has voted overwhelmingly to support these instructions but the Republican conferees don't seem to be getting the message, or they don't seem to care. So I am calling on my colleagues to speak again, and this time a little louder.

This is a new motion that would provide greater protections for workers' pensions in five critical areas.

First. Protecting older workers' benefits in the cash balance conversion when pension plans convert from the defined benefit plan.

Two. Ensuring that airline pilots do not see unfair cuts to their PBGC, the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation, because the FAA required them to retire at age 60.

Three. Providing stretch-out payments for an airline industry that has been shaken by 9/11 and rising fuel costs.

Four. Allowing for the alternative funding agreements when a plan is in trouble so that we can avoid the dumping of pension plans like what happened with the United Airlines debacle.

Five. Providing for more equal treatment of executive and worker pensions. If we are going to restrict workers' pensions when a plan is underfunded, we should also restrict the executives that, in many instances, are responsible for that underfunding of the pension plans. After all, it is the executives who decide whether or not to fund the pension plan.

From all the reports we have received to date, it sounds like the conferees are not moving to include these items in the conference report, despite the fact that the House has repeatedly instructed the conferees to include these worker protections.

Let us go through these one by one and let us understand that this is about the protection of workers, it is about the protection of retirees, and it is about the protection of their families, because it is about the pension plans that these workers now have as a matter of their bargaining, their agreements, and their contracts with their employers.

What we have now seen, and what too many workers have seen and what the American public has witnessed, is that employer after employer is announcing to workers that they are going to forego the support for a defined benefit plan, they are going to forego the support for health care benefits, and workers now see they are trapped. In many instances, those changes, those decisions by the employer snag workers who have no ability to restore that retirement nest egg that they are going to lose when the employer decides that they are going to terminate the pension plan.

That is why we are offering this motion to instruct, to try to protect the retirement nest egg of hard-working

Americans and their families from being devastated by the decisions of the employers on the termination or the dumping of the pension plans into the PBGC.

So let us walk through what we are trying to do here. First. The protection for older workers in a cash balance conversion.

This motion to instruct would have the conferees in the Senate make sure they prohibit against the discrimination of older workers by the practice of offsetting the earned benefit plans they have now with the new cash balance plans, and to make sure that we understand what the GAO has told us; that unless we provide some transition protection, almost all workers could lose up to 50 percent of their expected pension benefits.

Listen to that again. Almost all workers could lose up to almost 50 percent of their expected pension benefits. Again, those older workers, 50, 55, 60 years old, will lose the most. Those are the same workers who have the least ability to save more money for their retirement, to earn more money for their retirement. They will take the biggest hit.

We are asking that at a minimum, you protect employees that are 5 years away from retirement because they do not have the ability to secure additional funds for their retirement. It means a dramatic diminishment of their the retirement plans, of their financial resources for their retirement, for their health care, for the sustaining of their families. That is why it is so important to understand that.

This is what responsible employers have done, whether it is Verizon, or Honeywell, or Wells Fargo Bank or CSX Railroad. But other employers have chosen not do this, and now they want the protection of the law as they take away these benefits of the older workers.

It is also what the Congress chose to do. We chose to provide a transition for Members of Congress as we changed the retirement plan of Congress to the TSP plan as opposed to a defined benefit plan. If it is good enough for Congress, why isn't it good enough for these workers and for their families?

Obviously, when the Members of Congress have been asked to vote on this, they have voted overwhelmingly. In 2002, an amendment to take care of these older workers passed 328-121; in 2003, it passed 258-160; in 2004, it passed 237-162. The motion to instruct this past April, the House voted 248-178 to tell the conferees to protect these older workers.

Unfortunately, either the conferees are hard of hearing or they simply don't care about these older workers, because it appears that when the conference report comes back in the next day or two on the pension bill, these older workers will not be protected.

Second, the case of the airlines. The motion to instruct would have the conferees agree to the Senate provision ensuring that pilots get their full pension guaranteed from the Pension Guarantee Corporation. They get their full pension, for those who were required to retire at an early age.

So you have pilots who were required, under Federal law, to retire at age 60. The pension plan was terminated, through no fault of the pilots, in many cases because of 9/11 or higher fuel costs, and now they are being punished because the Pension Guarantee Corporation will only give you a full benefit if you retire at age 65. They had no ability to retire at age 65 because Federal law kept them from doing so. We think that, in fact, we ought to protect those employees.

And the motion would limit the treatment of those pension plans to those that were terminated after September 11, 2001.

The fix is needed now. United airline pilots are seeing their pensions cut by tens of thousands of dollars each year under you the pension guarantee rules. The retirement nest eggs have been devastated, but they have been twice, once by the unfair dumping of the pension plans and the PBGC by United, and now because the law says that they cannot have those full benefits because they retired before 65.

In a motion this past March, the House voted 265-158 to instruct the conferees to give these pilots their full guarantee. Once again, the conferees either can't here the House of Representatives, they don't care about the House of Representatives, or they don't care about these workers, because they are not choosing to protect these pilots to the extent to which they should be.

Third, we deal with the question of the airlines. We all know that airlines have been hurt by skyrocketing fuel prices since 9/11. They have been hurt by a lack of travel immediately after 9/11, and we have seen one airline after another go into bankruptcy. We have seen United Airlines terminate its pension plans and dump $10 billion of liability onto the PBGC, its workers, its retirees and the taxpayers. We have seen the U.S. Airways dump its pension plan, and we have read how Delta is now seeking to dump its pension plan. It would be devastating to hundreds of thousands of workers across this Nation if more airlines were permitted to dump their plans into the PBGC.

These provisions that we are asking the conferees to impose give the airlines the ability to keep their plans going by stretching out their payments over 20 years instead of 7 years. And these provisions should be made available to all the airlines, not just a select few airlines. They should be available to those airlines that have frozen their plans, as well as those that meet the requirements of the Senate bill to keep their plans running.

In March, the motion to instruct, the House voted 265-158 to provide the airlines with these critical reforms, with this lifeline for their economic health and the well-being of their workers. But the conferees so far haven't heard us and we need to speak louder.

Fourth, the alternative funding agreements. The motion to instruct would have the conferees agree to the Senate provisions, which passed 97-2, designed to prevent the pension plan dumping. These provisions allow the PBGC, the Treasury Secretary to enter into an alternative funding agreement with an employer if its pension plan is in danger of being terminated. If workers and retirees are facing the destruction of their pension plans, Congress should give the PBGC and the Treasury Departments the flexibility to work out alternatives to termination. If such alternatives to simply dumping the plan were available during the United Airline crisis, the largest pension termination in history, it may have been averted. A lot more needs to be done in this area so that we don't see just the callous dumping into the bankruptcy of the pension plans by these corporations that devastates their workers and their retirees.

Fifth, and maybe this is one of the more serious ones, and that is a question of executive compensation. This motion to instruct would have the conferees agree to the Senate provision, again, passed 97-2, on executive compensation that would treat workers and executive pensions equally. Under the House bills, workers pension benefits are restricted if a pension falls below 80 percent funding. But what we see is there is no benefit on the executives unless it falls less than 60 percent funding.

What we are saying is what the President of the United States, Mr. Bush, said during the Enron catastrophe, what is good for the captain is good for the crew.

Once again, it is the executives that make decisions about funding these pension plans. But if they fall below 80 percent, the workers get restricted, but the executives continue to get their pensions, to get their benefits, to get all of the executive perks in that operation. We think that that ought to change. We think it is very clear that the executives, what they have done, in many instances, they ensure their pension plans outside of the bankruptcy system. So as they take the company into bankruptcy, they are guaranteed that they will get a life time pension worth millions of dollars. The workers get bankruptcy and get devastated and lose half of their benefits if they go to the Pension Guarantee Corporation.

We believe the President is right. What is good for the captain is good for the crew, and that we ought to do this.

Again, this past May, in a motion to instruct, the House voted 299- 125 to instruct these conferees. And what do you believe is going to happen? Apparently, the conferees are going to again ignore that vote. They are going to ignore the will of this House. They are going to ignore the will of the American people to have equity and fairness

in the treatment of executives and workers during the troubled times for pension plans.

So this motion to instruct is to take those five areas and to instruct the conferees at this 11th hour to deal with the fairness and the equity in the Pension Reform Bill to make sure that hardworking Americans don't have to crash to the floor, lose their homes, lose their retirement, lose their health care as we restructure pensions, and to make sure that we do treat the million dollar a year or the $10 million or the $20 million, $50 million a year executive, that we treat them the same as we treat the workers.

Very few workers in this country have any say in whether or not these pension plans are underfunded. We saw that in the case of Enron. They were running downstairs telling the employees to buy the Enron stock, and they were running upstairs and selling their stock into the market because they knew the company was going to collapse.

We think people ought to be treated fairly. They ought to be treated equally and clearly, clearly, we ought not to discriminate against older workers. That is what this motion to instruct does. Hopefully, when we send it, this motion to instruct, later this evening, the conference committee will hear us. They will hear the American people. They will quit ignoring the American people. They will quit dealing just with the special interests inside the Beltway, and doing what is good for the special interests, as opposed to what is good for the American public, what is good for the retirement systems in this country, what is good for the economy in this country, and what is fair to the workers and to their families.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague on the other side keeps saying that this is somehow a partisan charade to score points. There are just a little over 200 Members of the Democratic Party in this Congress, and these votes have carried 258, 308, 299, 237. Clearly, there is bipartisan agreement that as we write this pension bill, as we deal with pension reform, we ought to make an effort to try to deal with the plight of these workers in the fairest possible way we can.

Let us look again quickly at what we are trying to do here. We are trying, one, to protect older workers who have a very limited ability to gather additional economic resources as they end their work years, to make up for a dramatic cut in their pension plans. All we are saying is that those workers ought to be protected, those who are 5 years away from the pension plan. Not a radical proposal. Not a partisan proposal. It passed the Senate 97-2. By an overwhelming bipartisan vote, we have asked the conferees to invoke that measure.

We have also tried to say that those airline pilots that were forced to retire at age 60 due to Federal law, a Federal law that we are now considering changing to 65, but because of the bankruptcy of the company and the dumping of the plan by United and others into the PBGC, those pilots ought not to be harmed because they had no ability to reach 65 in their employment. The Federal law made them quit, and they ought not to be harmed in that situation. They may have never been harmed but for 9/11, but for the run up in fuel prices. They didn't do anything wrong, but they find themselves taking a double hit through the bankruptcy and through the PBGC rules.

Then we said let us try to save the airline industry. Let us stretch this out. For those plans, mind you, they have frozen their pension plans. They comply with the requirements of the Senate bill, and we have said let us give them time to recover their economic health and hopefully save these pension plans. We do not know yet, but again on a bipartisan basis overwhelmingly, the House voted to do that.

Then we said let us make sure that we exhaust all of the remedies before we dump these pension plans onto the taxpayers. Let us make sure that we have exercised all of the effort, that we have bargained in good faith, that we have searched every way to avoid this from becoming a taxpayer liability. Again, passing 97-2, the Senate went in that direction and we didn't. They refused those amendments to the legislation.

And, finally, the issue of basic fairness, one that so struck the people of this Nation when they saw how Enron manipulated the pension systems, how they manipulated the stock sales to those pension systems by the executives, and, finally, how they manipulated the company into the downward spiral of bankruptcy and people lost their entire livelihoods.

This bill says that, as Mr. Kucinich pointed out, if this plan is not at least 80 percent funded, you can provide no new benefits to the employees no matter what the reason for that underfunding is; but unless it is 60 percent underfunded, you can keep providing benefits to the executives. There is just a fundamental element of fairness. And again I think by over 258 votes, on a bipartisan basis, the House sent these instructions to the conferees. This is part of the legislative process.

I am here because this is a privileged motion. We recognize the need to communicate from the full House to the conferees on measures that we continue to favor as the conference committee goes forward, and we have done that. But the fact of the matter is that now it appears, certainly from newspaper reports, which I wouldn't know because we have been shut out of this conference committee. The Republicans do not conference with the Democrats in the House. They do not honor that democratic principle. They do not honor that democratic history. So we only know what we have been told through the grapevine. We know in talking to the Democratic and Republican Senators, and we know a little bit by what we read in the press, and it appears that, in fact, in each and every one of these points where the House has spoken with an overwhelming voice to protect the pensions

of workers, of retirees, and of their families, that each and every one of these is going to be disregarded by the conferees.

This is a last attempt to try to bring some openness to this conference, to try to bring some bipartisan participation to this conference committee, and to bring the will of the House, which I think in these cases when we are hearing about pensions, when you go home and you talk to your constituents and you have your town hall meetings, you see how anxious people are about their health care benefits, about their retirement benefits, about their retirement security.

Yet somehow those conferees cannot get that message. Maybe they have been in Congress too long. Maybe they are insulated from it. Somehow they just cannot get it. Well, life outside the Beltway is very precarious for a lot of employees and a lot of industries. And the question that comes to us is whether or not we are going to make an effort to have a pension bill that recognizes the fairness and the equity.

Again, this is not some partisan bill. This is not some bill thought up in the last few moments. The fact of the matter is these provisions are contained, for the most part, in the Senate bill. We do not ask to go beyond that. In the Senate bill that passed the Senate 97-2. And, in fact, if we do that, there will be some economic justice for these retirees and these workers. There will be some economic fairness for these retirees and these workers. And there will be, most importantly, some sense of retirement security for millions of Americans that every day they pick up the paper and they see that yet another group of employees, another company is making a decision about reducing, getting rid of, terminating, freezing the pension plans and the health care benefits of those individuals.

We owe them this legislation to deal with them in a fair fashion, in an equitable fashion, legislation that can increase the retirement security of these families.

I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the motion to instruct.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, under rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 2830, the pension conference report.

The form of the motion is as follows:

I move that the managers on the part of the House at the

conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the

Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2830 be instructed--

(1) to agree to the provisions contained in subsections (a)

through (d) of section 601 of the Senate amendment (relating

to prospective application of age discrimination, conversion,

and present value assumption rules with respect to cash

balance and other hybrid defined benefit plans) and not to

agree with the provisions contained in title VII of the bill

as passed the House (relating to benefit accrual standards);

(2) to agree to the provisions contained in section 413 of

the Senate amendment (relating to computation of guaranteed

benefits of airline pilots required to separate from service

prior to attaining age 65), but only with respect to plan

terminations occurring after September 11, 2001;

(3) to agree to the provisions contained in section 403 of

the Senate amendment (relating to special funding rules for

plans maintained by commercial airlines that are amended to

cease future benefit accruals);

(4) to agree to the provisions contained in section 402 of

the Senate amendment (relating to authority to enter

alternative funding agreements to prevent plan terminations);

and

(5) to recede to the provisions contained in the Senate

amendment regarding restrictions on funding of nonqualified

deferred compensation plans, except that--

(A) to the maximum extent possible within the scope of the

conference, the managers on the part of the House shall

insist that the restrictions under the bill as reported from

conference regarding executive compensation, including under

nonqualified plans, be the same as restrictions under the

bill regarding benefits for workers and retirees under

qualified pension plans,

(B) the managers on the part of the House shall insist that

the definition of ``covered employee'' for purposes of such

provisions contained in the Senate amendment include the

chief executive officer of the plan sponsor, any other

employee of the plan sponsor who is a ``covered employee''

within the meaning of such term specified in the provisions

contained in the Senate amendment (applied by disregarding

the chief executive officer), and any other individual who

is, with respect to the plan sponsor, an officer or employee

within the meaning of section 16(b) of the Securities

Exchange Act of 1934, and

(C) in lieu of the effective date specified in such

provisions contained in the Senate amendment, the managers on

the part of the House shall insist on the effective date

specified in the provisions of the bill as passed the House

relating to treatment of nonqualified deferred compensation

plans when the employer's defined benefit plan is in at-risk

status.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, as we just heard in the colloquy between the majority leader and the minority whip, there is expectation that a conference committee may conclude on the pension reform bill, and that is why I rise today because that bill may, in fact, be coming to the floor of the House of Representatives and to the Senate within the next week.

I rise to urge my colleagues to vote again to send a message to the conferees that they should not conclude this report until they provide for the protection of older workers who are facing the conversions to cash balance plans. That means older workers who the companies are now putting on notice that they will change their benefits, they will no longer realize what they had long anticipated, the benefits of a defined benefit plan, that they will now get a substitute plan for their current pension plan, what is called a cash balance plan.

Despite overwhelming votes in support of protecting older workers' pensions in the House and in the Senate, the Republican leadership plans to thumb its nose at older workers and exclude the vital transition protection. That means that many workers will lose hundreds of dollars a month in expected retirement benefits. Many of these workers will be in excess of 50 years of age, and it is highly unlikely they will be able to recover the loss of their retirement benefits, retirement benefits they have been counting on for many years, retirement benefits they have been counting on in exchange for their labor, that they signed a contract in exchange for their labor with their employers; and today, the Congress is getting ready to tell them we are sorry, we are not going to make the employers live up to their agreements, and we are not even going to provide a transition to you to soften the economic blow.

If this is permitted to happen, it is shameful and it is an abuse of power by the Republican leadership, arrogantly defying the clear wishes of Members of both the House and the Senate on behalf of very special interests that do not happen to be the workers of this country.

The conference language draft by the Republican conferees is a pension Trojan horse and allows companies to legally renege on their promises to workers who played by the rules, who were told that they could accrue benefits to retire, especially those who spent decades at the company.

Here is what AARP CEO William Novelli says about this backroom Republican deal for older workers. ``AARP is deeply troubled that members of the pension conference committee may be considering adopting language from the House bill that would severely undercut pension protections against age discrimination currently provided older workers under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. We cannot support legislation that would undermine the age discrimination laws and permit the reduction of pension benefits for older workers, thus discouraging older workers from continuing to participate in the workforce. Our members, and older workers in general, care a great deal about these issues, and we will be informing them of the outcome of this action.''

The Senate passed its pension bill with these protections 97-2. And the House voted on these measures overwhelmingly in a motion to instruct earlier.

It also not only cuts cash balance, but it cuts the protections to the pilots. Pilots who are required under Federal law to retire at age 60 now take a double hit with their pensions going into the PBGC. Because they retired early, not that they wanted to retire, they are required under Federal law to retire early, but because they retired early, they take an additional hit on their pension, and this affects many, many airline pilots and is an unfair treatment to these individuals.

Again, the House and the Senate have voted twice to protect older workers in cash balance conversions. The House voted twice to protect airline pilots from unfair pension cuts at the PBGC.

This motion to instruct is about fundamental fairness to older workers, specifically for those older workers suddenly faced with cash balance conversions and for those airline pilots faced with federally mandated early retirement.

During the 1990s, hundreds of large employers switched to these cash balance plans, including IBM, CSX, Verizon, and the Federal Government. When we changed our pension plan back in the 1990s, we did this. Motorola, Dow Chemical, Federal Express, Wells Fargo Bank and Honeywell, they all made the decision to provide a transition and a protection for older workers, realizing that those older workers had an expectation of retirement benefit. That was not going to happen, but they would provide them some protection so they didn't take the full brunt of those changes.

It is the decent thing to do. It is what Secretary Snow did when he was at CSX. It is what he voted to do at Verizon. This is the decent thing to do for workers. The benefits to the companies are immense, even if they protect these older workers in this situation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Jones).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 9 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).

Will the gentleman yield?

I think that is an important point. When the Federal Government made the decision to change to the TSP system, which is turning out to be a very successful system, we provided this kind of transition. What the conference committee is about to impose on the American working public no Member of Congress would impose on themselves. They would be asking for some kind of transition, some kind of hold-harmless so that people would be protected who are older, who have more years into the system, because they don't have the ability to gather other income.

And I think the gentleman makes a very important point that, once again, life is different inside of the Beltway than it is outside of the Beltway. And the people outside of the Beltway have a lot less ability to try to make up for that lost savings to manage their retirement.

I thank the gentleman for making the point. I continue to yield.

Will the gentleman yield?

I just want to again thank him for the point that this pension bill cannot be considered in a vacuum. The very same people who are going to be punished as a result of companies that convert to cash balance that will not provide this kind of protection, they can do it voluntarily, but they will not, and many of them won't, and the gentleman has struggled with companies who thought that they didn't have to.

These are the same people that are getting their retirement health care benefits cut back, that are having trouble with or are going to have trouble with paying for prescription drugs. Today, people are continuing to work and people say to people, you know, just save more money.

Well, as we know, most people, the average American working person has a great deal of difficulty saving. And to now tell them to save, if you are 50 years old, according to the GAO, you will lose about $238 a month. If you are 40 years old, you will lose about $188 a month. If you are 50 years old, this has to be net savings that you are going to have to try to save. You'd have to save, before your retirement, a net $40,000, outside of your rent, outside of your house payment, outside of your kids, outside of everything else, if you could get 5 percent return on your money.

Where does the American family go to get that kind of money that Congress is about to take away from them? Where do they go?

Most families, both people are working. And if you are 50 years old, it is highly unlikely that you are going to go out and find a job that is going to replace this loss of savings.

So when people say, well, we can't guarantee the expectations of these workers. No, what we are guaranteeing is a contract that this worker made with the company and the company made with the worker. We understand the benefits and the changes for younger workers, and this isn't about being against cash balance plans. It is about fairness.

I yield to the gentleman.

The idea, again, the suggestion is somehow, when the Senate passed this, 97-3, and when we voted overwhelmingly in a motion to instruct to do this, that somehow you are trying to reserve the status quo. The fact is that CSX, a very successful railroad company, Verizon Telecom, the Federal Government, Motorola, Dow Chemical, Federal Express, Wells Fargo, these are not slacking companies. These are leaders in their industry. They all realized billions of dollars in savings. They also took care of their older workers. And that is what we are asking that this conference committee do.

You do not have to throw these older workers onto the wood pile. They can be protected. The company can realize billions of dollars over the life of the pension plans in savings that they can reinvest in their company, and they can change their pension plans. We just ask that you don't decimate older workers.

I yield to the gentleman.

The vote was 97-3.

It was 97-2.

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

Let me inquire how much time I have left.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, I would hope that when this vote comes on Monday, that the House would, once again, reaffirm its obligation and its commitment to older workers in this country.

This is a defining moment for these workers. This is a defining moment about what kind of retirement many workers in this country who have been working for 20 or 30 years in a company, what kind of retirement they will have.

Will they have the retirement that was promised to them and that they have expected and that they have built their financial planning around, that they have built the decisions today about tomorrow around their families, their children, and others? That is really what this is about.

The gentleman is quite correct. They are quite close. They have been working very hard. It has been a one-party bill, but they have been working very hard, the Members of the House in this conference committee, and they are very close. They are just also very wrong. They are very wrong in how they treat the older workers of this country because, as we see from the GAO report, under the GAO report, under the plan that the Republicans want to bring to the floor, if the conversion plan is done the way it is allowed under the conference report, which will be Federal law, the average 50-year-old worker will lose about $238 in income each and every month of their retirement plan.

The question that most Members of Congress will not ask is, Where does that worker, where does that family, go to make up that income? Where do you go to earn the 40, the 60, the $80,000 you have to have over your retirement life to get that yield back? Most people cannot accumulate that kind of money in a 5- or 10-year period of time. So these workers who are under assault in terms of the retirement health care benefits, their retirement benefits, where do they go?

We know what the savings rate is. We keep telling America to save more. And the fact of the matter is most American families at the end of the month have very little left to save. It is simply not there. Can Congress be that insensitive to how most of America lives? Most of America is bombarded with advice from Money Magazine, from CNN, from Lou Dobbs, from all these people about how to save for your retirement. And they try. Some could do better. But for many families they are doing the best they can. But one of the bedrocks for many people in their fifties is knowing that they have a retirement plan that they thought they could count on. But the fact of the matter is when they pick up and read the business section of the newspaper, they read the headlines of the newspaper, they see that some of the biggest, most reliable corporations in the country are changing their pension plans. United Airlines just went into bankruptcy. Without any showing of desperate need, they just got rid of the plan for their employees. Talk to those fight attendants when you fly home tonight or you fly home tomorrow. Talk to those pilots and realize the extent to which their retirements have been devastated, absolutely devastated. But it has happened to people in all of the industries around the country.

And all that we are saying is follow the model by companies that have done it the right way, companies like Verizon, companies like Federal Express, companies like Wells Fargo Bank, Honeywell. There is a way you can do this and you can realize billions of dollars of savings, which are necessary. These plans are going to be changed, but they ought to be changed in a way that protects the older workers.

That is why the AARP, the American Association of Retired People, is so dead set against this provision. It recognizes the impact this is going to have on future retirees. It recognizes the impact it is going to have on current workers and on their ability to plan for their retirement.

They want to act like this is a carefully crafted pension plan and anybody who wants to suggest another alternative is only for the status quo and does not care about pensions.

The Senate voted 97-2 to treat these older workers right. It is the Republican leadership that has stepped in and twisted that away. We didn't get a chance to vote on that in the House. When I finally did get a vote after the bill passed, the House voted overwhelmingly to protect older workers.

Another class of workers who are at risk in this pension plan are the taxpayers. We now see that PBGC is telling us that current law is a better deal for the taxpayers than the plan they are coming up with to the tune of about $2 billion over the next decade.

Don't shake your head. It is right here. You guys had this information for months. We just had to get it under a FOIA agreement under your wonderful bipartisan arrangements.

So there is a lot to be concerned about with this pension plan. It is going to have a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of tax breaks. It is going to have more things than a monkey going to the circus. And a lot of people are going to vote for it. But what it is not going to have, it is not going to have protection for older workers. And Members of Congress ought to understand that when those older workers start to come to you, as their pension plans are dramatically changed by companies with no obligation to protect workers 50 and over, they are going to want to know where you were, and this is a vote which will tell them where you stand on this. And, hopefully, you will influence the pension conference, because this can be done. As we said, the Senate, after long deliberations on the pension bill, they voted 97-2 to do it the right way.

So I would hope that people would support this motion to instruct. I would hope they understand what this truly means to working people in this country and to their families and to their retirement.

It is a devastating picture when you meet your constituents who have lost their retirement, who have lost big chunks of their retirement, and they come up and they talk to you at the shopping center, they talk to you at the grocery store, they talk to you at a town hall, and they tell you what it means to their plans.

We were all stunned as a nation when pensioners got their plans wiped out and devastated by Enron. We called those people criminals. Here we call them legislators, because people are going to get a devastating hit on their pensions and we are going to say it is the law. There we said it was a crime. We said it was a crime.

You have plenty of time on your side.

You say it is a crime.

What are you doing to people? What are you doing to people?

You have controlled the conference. You control the White House. You control the House. You control the Senate. Control your time.

The fact of the matter is this is the same thing. We are making a conscious decision, a conscious decision, to rip away these pension benefits from these workers. And the most devastating thing about this decision is it is not necessary. You can have massive pension reform to the benefit of the employees, to the benefit of the employers, to the benefit of the shareholders, without devastating the older workers.

So why don't we do it right? Why don't we do it in a humane way? Why

don't we do it right, recognizing the situation that America's older workers find themselves in, people 50, 55, 60 years old? What are they going to do? Take a second job for their retirement? Maybe their spouse can go out and take a third job for their retirement?

That is not the way we should treat American citizens. That is not the way we should treat taxpayers. And that is not the way we should treat hardworking American families who simply do not have enough money to make up for this kind of devastating cut in their retirement.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the motion to instruct. It will be up sometime, I believe, Monday; and I would strongly encourage you to vote ``aye'' on this motion to instruct.

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

No. Well, read the words back. Maybe we can clarify it.

I object, Mr. Speaker.

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

Madam Speaker, we are here today because the Republican leadership has

made a stunning decision that it thwart the will, a bipartisan will of the House of Representatives, a bipartisan majority will of the House of Representatives to increase the minimum wage. They have decided that they are not going to follow the rules of democracy. They are not going to let this body reflect over 80 percent of the American people that believe that the minimum wage that is stuck at 1997 levels should be brought up to date for those workers who work hard every day.

In fact, when the Appropriations Committee spoke on a bipartisan majority, they refused to bring the bill to the floor, because it had an increase in the minimum wage that was put there by Mr. Obey and Mr. Hoyer. We just see last week, 26 Members of the Republican Party of this House wrote the majority leader demanding action before we leave in August.

Two Members of the Republicans voted for our motion on the previous question and we will offer it again today. So what we now understand is there is a majority. If we want to strip somebody of authority, maybe we ought to strip the Republican majority in this House of its authority to block the democratic will of both Members of this House who are duly elected under the Constitution and reflecting the will of the American people to increase the minimum wage. Forget stripping the Court of its authority. Let us strip the Republican leadership.

Just last week the Republican leader, Mr. Boehner, completely misrepresented the record on the minimum wage when he suggested that he had never heard from the Democrats about the minimum wage in an odd- numbered year.

Now, maybe Mr. Boehner doesn't know odd from even. But the fact of the matter is we introduced a minimum wage bill in 1997. I believe that is an odd-numbered year. We introduced a bill in 1999, another odd year; 2001, another odd year; 2005 an odd year.

We wrote to Mr. Boehner, as the chairman of that committee, time and again in 1991, asking for hearings and a markup. We asked again in October of 1999. In March of 2001 we sent Mr. Boehner letters from the members of the committee again asking for actions; in March of 2001 and in July of 2001. There have been numerous events calling upon the majority leader and the Speaker of this House to provide for an increase in the minimum wage.

It goes on and on and on. I have 30 here that I would like to enter into the Record. I suspect there are hundreds where the Democrats have asked time and time again this leadership to provide us an up-or-down vote on the minimum wage. Why do we do that? Because, as Mr. Obey and Mr. Hoyer pointed out, 6 million workers in this country are stuck in a wage that this Congress set in 1997.

No other workers in this country are stuck at that wage except these individuals. These are people who get up every day and go to work at very difficult jobs at the lowest wage you can pay in this country legally, and they go every day and every week and every month. At the end of the year, at the end of the year, they end up poor.

By official action of this Congress, they end up poor. The gas that they buy to go to work is not at 1997 prices. The bread and the milk they buy to bring back to their families is not at 1997 prices. The health care they hope to buy someday for themselves and their family is not at 1997 prices, nor is the housing where they rent homes.

These are people, because of the official action of the Republican leadership of the House of Representatives, these people must continue to be impoverished. Yet we tell them that we value their work.

No, we don't. We ought to strip this Republican leadership so that these people can have economic justice so that they can share in some of the liberties and freedoms that the other side talks about so much. It is very hard to share in liberties and freedom at $5.15 an hour, very difficult to do that. But the Republicans wouldn't understand that, because they just don't understand the plight nor do they care about the plight of these workers. That is why we should raise this minimum wage.

Minimum Wage Legislation Introduced By Democrats in Odd-

Numbered Years

1. 105th Congress 1997: H.R. 2211 ``American Family Fair

Minimum Wage Act of 1997''--Republican-controlled E&W

Committee refused to take action on the bill.

2. 106th Congress 1999: H.R. 325 ``Fair Minimum Wage Act of

1999''

3. 107th Congress 2001: H.R. 665 ``Fair Minimum Wage Act of

2001''

4. 109th Congress 2005: H.R. 2429 ``Fair Minimum Wage Act

of 2005''

Letters to Ed and Workforce Chairman Goodling From Ranking

Democrat William Clay Requesting Action on the Minimum Wage--

in Odd-Numbered Years

5. March 1, 1999, asking for hearing and markup of minimum

wage legislation.

6. October 29, 1999

Letters To Ed and Workforce Chairman Boehner from Senior

Member Miller Requesting Action on the Minimum Wage--in Odd-

Numbered Years

7. March 2, 2001 from all 22 Democratic Members of the

Committee requesting hearings on H.R. 665 to increase the

minimum wage

8. July 16, 2001 from George Miller requesting, among other

things, ``immediate action to increase the minimum wage.''

Press Events/Statements/Reports--in Odd-Numbered Years

9. Ranking Member Clay Makes a Statement in Ed and

Workforce Committee urging passage of the minimum wage,

October 7, 1999.

10. Ranking Member Clay asks unanimous consent in the

Education and Workforce Committee to bring up H.R. 325 to

increase the minimum wage, November 3, 1999.

11. Democrats issue ``A Mid-Term Report Card, the

Republicans Failed Labor Education and Health Care Record''

with section entitled ``Republicans Continue to Block a Fair

Minimum Wage'' and notes no committee action ``[d]espite the

submission to the committee's chairman for repeated written

requests for a markup of minimum wage legislation . . .''

November 29, 1999 (Report).

12. Statement on the Introduction of the Fair Minimum Wage

Act of 2001 (February 7, 2001)

13. Miller Introduces Legislation to Increase the Minimum

Wage, February 27, 2003 (press release)

14. ``Bush Administration Assault on Working Families--

First 100 Days'' calls for Republicans to stop blocking an

increase in the minimum wage. April 26, 2001 (Report)

15. This Christmas, Congress Should Help the Less Fortunate

by Raising Minimum Wage, December 14, 2005. (press release)

16. House Again Refuses to Give Minimum Wage Workers a

Raise, July 12, 2005 (press release)

17. Miller Calls for Minimum Wage Increase, May 18, 2005

(press release)

Sample of Dear Colleagues Sent in Odd-Numbered Years on

Minimum Wage

18. Support a Fair Increase in the Minimum Wage, January 8,

2003 (Miller)

19. Support an Increase in the Minimum Wage, January 31,

2003 (Miller)

20. Co-sponsor the Minimum Wage, February 25, 2003 (Miller)

Sampling of Floor Statements (Congressional Record) on

Minimum Wage by Key Democrats in Odd-Numbered Years

21. Rep. George Miller, October 25, 2005:

``Mr. Speaker, today I rise on behalf of millions of

American working men and women who are in desperate need of a

raise. It has been a disgraceful 8 years since Congress last

voted to raise the national minimum wage which is stuck today

at only $5.15 an hour. A person making the minimum wage today

would have to work for the better part of an hour just to

afford a single gallon of milk or a gallon of gasoline.''

(Congressional Record, Page H9049)

22. Rep. George Miller, May 18, 2005:

``Mr. Speaker, today, together with 100 of my colleagues,

we are introducing legislation to raise the Federal minimum

wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over 2 years. Senator Edward Kennedy

is introducing identical legislation in the Senate. Two

reports that are also being released today, one by the Center

for Economic and Policy Research and one by the Children's

Defense Fund, make obvious the importance of raising the

minimum wage for workers, children, and families.''

(Congressional Record, Page E1024)

23. Rep. George Miller, February 27, 2003:

``Mr. Speaker, today I am honored to be joined by 73 of my

colleagues in introducing legislation to increase the minimum

wage. The legislation that we are introducing today provides

for a $1.50 increase in the minimum wage, in two steps. Our

bill raises the minimum wage from its current level of $5.15

per hour to $5.90 sixty days after enactment and raises it

again to $6.65 one year thereafter. In addition, the

legislation extends the applicability of the minimum wage to

the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Our

bill is identical to legislation introduced in the other body

by the Democratic Leader, Mr. Daschle, and 34 of his

colleagues.'' (Congressional Record, Page E333)

24. Rep. George Miller on CNMI, July 26, 2001:

``Today, I am joined by more than 40 co-sponsors as we

introduce the ``CNMI Human Dignity Act,'' which would require

that the Americans living in the US/CNMI live under the same

laws as all of our constituents in our home districts. This

legislation would extend U.S. immigration and minimum wage

laws to the US/CNMI.'' (Congressional Record, Page E1442)

25. Rep. Rob Andrews, May 23, 2001:

``That compassion is sorely lacking when there has been a

commitment by the majority not to move a bill to raise the

minimum

wage of many of those parents that we are talking about

today.'' (Congressional Record, Page H2601)

26. Rep. Major Owens, March 7, 2001:

``What we are experiencing today is the beginning of

warfare on a large scale which has a psychological

significance. It is very strategic. After we roll over

ergonomics, it is going to be Davis-Bacon's prevailing wage

act. It is going to be onward marching toward the elimination

of any consideration of any minimum wage from now until this

administration goes out of power.'' (Congressional Record,

Page H664)

27. Rep. George Miller, November 3, 1999:

``Now the Republicans tell us that we cannot afford a

prescription drug benefit for our seniors, that we cannot

afford a Patients' Bill of Rights to protect our families

against managed care and HMOs that deny them care, that we

cannot afford a minimum wage for our low-income workers in

this Nation, and that we cannot extend the fiscal security of

social security by even one day. No, the Republicans still

want to try to pass tax breaks for the wealthiest

individuals, corporations, and special interests in this

country. When in this session, in the last remaining 8 or 10

days of this session, when is it that Republicans are going

to start thinking about our elderly, our children, and the

working families of this Nation?'' (Congressional Record,

Page H11376)

28. Rep. William Clay, June 18, 1997:

``Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention an

important editorial that appeared in the St. Louis Post-

Dispatch, Monday, June 16, 1997. It brings to light the harsh

reality of a GOP plan that deprives welfare participants of

minimum wage.'' (Congressional Record, Page E1251)

29. Rep. George Miller on CNMI, April 24, 1997:

``Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation to

address the systematic, persistent, and inexcusable

exploitation of men and women in sweatshops in the

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a territory of

the United States of America. . . . This legislation will

increase the minimum wage in the CNMI in stages until it

matches the Federal level.'' (Congressional Record, Page

Mr. Speaker, under rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 2830, the pension conference report.

The form of the motion is as follows:

I move that the managers on the part of the House at the

conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the

Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 2830 be instructed--

(1) to agree to the provisions contained in subsections (a)

through (d) of section 601 of the Senate amendment (relating

to prospective application of age discrimination, conversion,

and present value assumption rules with respect to cash

balance and other hybrid defined benefit plans) and not to

agree with the provisions contained in title VII of the bill

as passed the House (relating to benefit accrual standards);

and

(2) to agree to the provisions contained in section 413 of

the Senate amendment (relating to computation of guaranteed

benefits of airline pilots required to separate from service

prior to attaining age 65), but only with respect to plan

terminations occurring on or after September 11, 2001.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, the offshore oil drilling legislation that passed the House last month has a lot of problems. One of its biggest failings is that the bill overrides and ignores the long-standing, bipartisan objection to new drilling off the California coast.

The people of California have repeatedly made it clear that they oppose this wrong-headed approach. In fact, opposition to this legislation is unanimous in California that even in the middle of a highly charged race for Governor, the Democrats and Republicans are on the same page on this one issue. State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat, opposes the House bill, pointing out that it would remove the critical protections for California's coastline and also financially punish States that decide to protect their environment and coastal economies by continuing to oppose offshore oil drilling.

The Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, sent another letter to the Senate this week restating his opposition in no uncertain terms. In his newest letter, which I am submitting for the Record, he writes: ``Our coast is not for sale, and no amount of promises of money or other incentives will alter my position on that.''

Well, I am disappointed that so many Members of the House voted against California's interests last month. Our State's Senators have strong records of spelling for the people of California, so I am not concerned about them. But I do want to make sure that the Senators from around the country realize that any legislation that opens the California coast to drilling will be a non-starter in our State and should be rejected.

As the Governor wrote: ``Anything short of upholding the current moratorium in perpetuity would be unacceptable to Californians.'' Governor Schwarzenegger also wrote something very interesting: ``California has the most aggressive energy efficiency measures in the Nation. Because of our efforts, California's per capita energy use has remained nearly flat, while the nationwide energy use has increased by nearly 50 percent.''

What the Governor is telling the people of this Nation is that had you made the same choices that we made starting back in 1974 with the first fuel crisis, you would have been able to save a huge amount of energy in this country. While California has continued to grow, our per capita use has remained flat, and that is 50 percent better than the rest of the Nation. That means that not only do California consumers save a great deal of energy and they reduce the pollution to the atmosphere; they also save a great deal of money.

As the other body considers the legislation that was passed out of this House this last week, I hope they will remember that energy conservation and innovative alternative approaches will guarantee us far more energy independence in the future than the shortsighted House bill that will require the ruining of the coastlines of this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, this Saturday night I will join the many friends of Jim Ghielmetti in celebrating an event that millions of Americans will share over the coming years. The baby boomers are turning 60, and there is nothing they can do about it. Jim's birthday is May 15th, but I think his wonderful wife Laurie wanted to give him a few months to adjust before he faced his many friends who will gather in San Francisco to wish him well. I share a May birthday but a year earlier so I had the pleasure of being ahead of Jim and the boomers.

It has now been almost 30 years since I was introduced to a young builder in my congressional district. Sid Lippow, our mutual friend who introduced us, said that he thought it was important for us to get to know one another. He said that we could give balance to each other and that we were the future of our professions, me in politics and Jim in homebuilding. But as Sid said, Jim was about building more than homes, he was building communities.

For these 30 years we have indeed added balance to one another. Most of the time after long debates over a wide range of issues, from endangered species, the future of Social Security, community planning, the right level of taxation, and so many other topics. We have argued about them in one another's homes, in restaurants and at the kids' soccer games. Through it all we have remained the best of friends.

Jim Ghielmetti has come a long way since those early days when he was learning his profession while working for Shapell Industries of Northern California. In 1983 he struck out on his own and founded Signature Properties. Today, under his leadership, the company has built more than 6,000 homes, with another 3,500 homes currently in the planning or design phases. Signature is well known throughout the greater Bay Area and Sacramento regions for its diverse product offerings in both urban and suburban settings, its commercial and mixed-use projects and its master-planned communities.

True to my first introduction to Jim, he was building more than houses. He has given an extraordinary amount of his time to making the Bay Area a better community. Since 1994, Jim Ghielmetti has focused on local transportation issues by chairing the Transportation Committee of the Tri-Valley Business Council. The Transportation Committee addresses such issues as toll roads, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) expansion to the Tri-Valley area and obtaining matching federal funds for expansion of Interstates 580 and 680.

For the last 5 years, Jim has served on the Board of Directors of the Bay Area Council. The Bay Area Council is an organization that aggressively addresses the challenges that affect the economic well- being and quality of life in the nine Bay Area counties. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Policy Advisory Board for the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2000, Jim served on the Governor's Commission for the 21st Century, a group charged with developing a blueprint for California to follow in addressing transportation, housing, environmental and other issues of the 21st century. In 2003, Jim was appointed to the California State Transportation Commission.

Jim Ghielmetti has been an outstanding citizen participant in the public policy debates in our region and in our State.

Homebuilding is what Jim Ghielmetti does, but his family tells us who he is. Jim and his wife Laurie, a very successful businesswoman in the design field, have been partners in life and in business. They have raised two great sons, Michael and Brian, and recently a grandson Matteo. Michael, specializing in creative urban infill, is working with Jim at Signature Properties, and Brian is in New York doing urban renovations. Jim and Laurie and all of us are very proud of them both.

These are just some of the reasons why so many of Jim's friends will be coming together to wish him a very happy birthday with so many more to come. This birthday may be a shock to Jim, but I can assure him that all of us are very glad that he has had these 60 years and wish him many more to come.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I rise as we consider going to conference with the Senate on the Vocational Education Improvement Act, something that I think we should do and which I support and have been working with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the House and in the Senate to bring that conference to a successful conclusion, but I also rise not just in support of going to conference but also in support of a motion where we will have the ability to stand up for the dignity of 6.5 million workers in the United States making the minimum wage or near minimum-wage pay.

This motion instructs the conferees to make it clear that when the bill states its purpose is to prepare students for highways jobs, that in no event should those jobs pay less than $7.25 an hour. The minimum wage today is just $5.15 an hour, and for nearly 10 years the Republican leadership has stood in the way of a raise for America's lowest wage workers. That is a shame, it is an insult, and it is a moral outrage. This is the year when Members of Congress from both parties should come together and show how serious they are about raising the minimum wage and that they are serious about valuing hard work.

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind my colleagues that the Fair Standards Labor Act, containing the minimum wage, was passed in 1938 to alleviate poverty. Yet now the minimum wage condemns workers to a life of poverty for themselves and for their children. That is what we do when we fail to raise the minimum wage. We put the Federal stamp of approval, the congressional stamp of approval, if you will, on the wages of those individuals, so that even though they go to work every day, every week, every month, and all year long, they will not be able to raise themselves out of poverty.

That is just unacceptable for this Nation, which is the beacon to the world about economic opportunity, which is the beacon to the world about understanding what it means to have every citizen participate in our society. If they work those 52 weeks a year, they will only earn $10,700, which is $5,000 per year below the poverty line for a family of three. The current minimum wage will not even support a single worker and a single child above poverty. Raising the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour will mean an additional $4,370 a year to help minimum- wage earners support their families.

I don't have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, because I know you support this act, but here are the facts. Here are the facts. Those workers today are stuck at 1997 wages. By Federal law, their

wage is $5.15 an hour. That wage was secured by the Congress of the United States on a bipartisan vote to raise that wage to $5.15. Since that time, the Republican Congress has refused to entertain an increase in that minimum wage.

Now, what do we have here? We have the fact that the price of milk since that time has gone up 24 percent, bread is up 25 percent, college is up 77 percent, health insurance is up 97 percent, and regular gasoline is up 136 percent. The fact of the matter is that this minimum-wage worker, after 1 hour's work, cannot stop alongside a gas station and get a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk at the same time. Their wages simply will not support that.

That is the problem that we have, is that we have people stuck at a federally mandated minimum wage from the year 1997. None of us are in 1997 today. This is 2006. And the fact of the matter is that these people who have made a conscious decision to go to work every day are so badly disadvantaged that they cannot raise themselves above the poverty line.

Now, I know that this Republican conference is led by Mr. Boehner, a very good friend of mine, and he is proud of this statement: ``I have been in this business for 25 years, and I have never voted for an increase in the minimum wage. I am opposed to it, and I think a vast majority of our conference is opposed to it.'' Well, that may be true, but I do not believe that a vast majority of this Congress is opposed to it. And what we have been asking is to have a vote on the floor on the minimum wage.

If this Congress continues to listen to Leader Boehner, and the fact is he has always been opposed to it, so if they had listened to him workers would be back to wages set in 1973. They would be working for $3.35 an hour as the minimum wage and paying 2006 prices for bread and for milk and for gasoline and for health coverage and all the rest of that. That is why this is imperative.

This is not a simple economic decision. This is a decision of values. This is a decision about our country and about these people, about 6 million people, many of whom are supporting children, many who are making major contributions to the total income of their families. This is about whether or not we value their work and we value them as full participants in American society.

This is also about understanding that you cannot build a strong and rich country on the backs of poor people. It simply will not work. Around the country we see where democracy flags and lags because of the fact there is such a disparity in those countries between rich and poor. We know. We have charted it. And when you get to the levels of disparity that America is starting to approach now between rich and poor, basic fundamental democracy is threatened. That doesn't mean it will disappear in America, but we have to understand what it does to the institutions of freedom and liberty and democracy when people aren't full participants in our society.

Again, these people have made the decision that they are going to go to work every day and they are going to try their darnedest to support their families, to support their children and to meet their needs. It has been said for a long time by business that if you do this, you will kill jobs; that you will hurt the people you are trying to support. Well, let us again remember what we are doing here. We are trying to bring a wage that is stuck in 1997 forward to 2006, and we are going to do it over a 2-year period.

It has gotten to such a point that the business community is starting to be divided on this. Here you have the largest employer, I believe in the United States, Wal-Mart, and not a company that I am used to quoting, but Wal-Mart has said that America needs a raise in the minimum wage for these people who are earning too little; so little that even shopping at Wal-Mart, at every day low prices as they advertise, these people cannot purchase the basic necessities for their families. They are unable to do that. That is the kind of economic situation these people find themselves in.

Again, they do not find themselves in that situation because they are working at a minimum wage that was increased in the year 2000 or 2003, 2004, or 2005, and now we want to update it to 2006 and 2007. This is a minimum wage which these people are earning which was set in 1997.

So that is the reason that I make this motion to instruct the conferees, because vocational education is becoming an ever more important part of a pathway for students to career opportunities, to increased earnings opportunity, and in the Senate bill we can make sure that the purpose of this bill is to achieve high wages. In the House bill we have no such language, and I am asking that we instruct that there be language that what we mean is that in no event should this lead to wages that are less than $7.25 an hour, which would be the case if the bill that was voted on in the Health and Human Services Appropriation Act, offered by Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Obey, if that became law, because then in two jumps we would get to $7.25.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I would just say, only my Republican colleagues would think that $7.25 an hour is a high wage for working people. In fact, in the motion to instruct he knows it is ``not less than $7.25 an hour.''

My colleague has also said that this is neither the time nor the place. We haven't been able to find out since 1997 where is the time and where is the place to raise the minimum wage for 6 million American workers. That is what the American public wants to know, that is what the American public supports our doing, but we have been unable to find out from the Republican leadership. All we get from the Republican leadership is ``no.''

When it passed in the Appropriations Committee, the bill has not come to the floor because it has the minimum wage in it. Then when those same people had to vote in another Appropriations Committee, the Republican leadership got them to change their votes against the minimum wage.

Our committee has had no hearings and they are not reporting the bill. Where is the time and where is the place? Where do these 6 million poor workers, where do they go to make their case to this Republican Congress? Where is that time and where is that place?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for joining us in the debate on the minimum wage. And with that I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca).

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

Mr. Speaker, I have the right to close. I have no further speakers.

Mr. Speaker, and Members of the House, we are down to a very critical point. We are down to a point whether or not this Chamber, the House of Representatives, the People's House as it is known, whether or not we will represent the people or whether we will represent narrow special interests that have a huge economic interest in keeping the minimum wage at the 1997 level of $5.15 an hour.

That is a decision that we have to make.

We have been trying now for a number of years to force a vote on the minimum wage. I find it rather interesting that the Republicans, who control the Senate, control the House, control the White House, cannot find the time and the place, although apparently they are now sort of for it, to find the time and the place where we could have a vote on the minimum wage.

What is wrong with your leadership? Name the time, name the place. We will be there with our votes. And if your leadership will not cooperate, come on down and sign a discharge petition. Mr. Boehlert and others who are supporting the minimum wage, come on down and sign a discharge petition, and then we will be assured that the American people will get the vote that they strongly desire to have.

Over 80 percent of the American people believe that raising the minimum wage from the 1997 wage level of $5.15 to, today, of $7.25 an hour is, in fact, the right thing to do, the fair thing to do, and the moral thing to do. The only thing that prevents that from happening is the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives.

Even the Senate allowed a vote to take place, but only in the Senate can you pass something by a majority vote. It got 52 votes, a bipartisan vote, and it still does not pass because they say you have got to get 60 votes. But in the House you cannot even get that vote. You cannot even get that vote.

We had a vote in the Appropriations Committee on a bipartisan basis. The members of that committee voted to increase the minimum wage. Under the leadership of Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Obey, they voted to increase the minimum wage. Since that has happened, that bill has been prevented from coming to the floor of the House of Representatives where we could vote, up or down, on increasing the minimum wage. So, apparently, this time and place that the Republicans say they are prepared to go is a mystery to everyone.

Maybe we could have a national contest like they are doing for the Johnny Depp's pirates movie. We could bury the time and the place somewhere in the United States, and we could let people decide and play a game and try to figure out where it is. Where is that time and place? Is it in the gentleman's district in California? Is it in my district?

We all know where that time and place is. The time is now and the place is the House of Representatives on the floor of the Congress of the United States. That is where we are supposed to be doing the people's business.

There is nothing else in this country that is at 1997 levels, not gasoline, not bread, not milk. Do you know what else is not at 1997 levels, where the Congress found the time and the place?

Do you want to know what else is not at 1997 levels? Congressional pay. Because we found six times and six places to give ourselves the cost-of-living increase while we insisted that the lowest paid people in this country could not have more than $5.15 an hour, the same wage they were making in 1997. Apparently, it wasn't good enough for Congress, so we increased our COLA.

I agree with that increase, but think about the message and the morality that you are reflecting when you cannot reach back, after we receive these COLAs, and say to these people who are struggling to support their families, Here, let us give you a hand, let us help you; you have made that decision to participate in the American economic system by going to work every day. But somehow this Congress just does not value their work.

We give tax breaks to CEOs. A guy at Exxon walks out after several years with $400 million in guaranteed pension benefits, $400 million. He made more money brushing his teeth than people make on the minimum wage all year long.

What is the justice of this? What is the equity of this? What is the fairness of this? It cannot be what America is about, about the intentional decision by the Republican leadership that 6 million American people will simply be poor, and they will be relegated to the class of poverty and they will be there by edict of the Federal law. The Federal law will keep them in poverty.

We ought to also tell the taxpayers that when you make that decision, you are also making the taxpayers of this country part of their employment because when they work at those poverty wages, the taxpayers pay for the school lunches and they pay for the housing and they pay for the healthcare and they pay for the utility bills when it is cold and when it is hot. We end up subsidizing those employers who insist that they cannot make a profit unless they pay 1997 wages.

Let me tell you something about those employers. They are not long for this world because there is something very wrong with their business plan that they can only succeed if they pay 1997 wages. Think about that. Think about what you are embracing. You are embracing an economic model that says that success is dependent upon being able to pay forever 1997 wages to my employees. Have we lost our minds here? Do we understand the injustice of this?

Again, these are people working 40 hours a week every day. They drive mostly old cars that consume more gas that costs them more to commute to that job. They still do it.

America has already said it. It is just the Congress, just the Republican leadership. America says, give these people a raise. They know that struggle. They know that struggle. They know it themselves. Middle-class people know what it means to drive up to a station today and say, Fill it up. Most people do not say, Fill it up. They say, How much do I need to get to Friday? That is what they say to themselves.

Well, think about what poor people are thinking.

We value work. We changed the welfare laws to encourage people to go to work. Should we not encourage them to get out of poverty? Should we not help them to get out of poverty instead of sticking them at 1997 levels?

This is fundamental. This vote is fundamental. This debate is fundamental. And the time and the place to have it is now in the halls of the Congress of the United States. We cannot continue to have a Republican leadership that says, this is not right, that is not right, this is not the bill, this is not the subject matter.

Just bring us a bill. Let us vote up or down. You have the majority. You control it. Either you believe in the dignity of these people, in the dignity of their children, in the dignity of their work, or you don't, because you cannot have that and then insist upon these wages.

I ask for an ``aye'' vote on the motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of turn.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, earlier today we had a motion to instruct on the vocational education conference, and the motion to instruct was about the minimum wage and about the need of 6 million people who work at the minimum wage for an increase in that minimum wage. These individuals have been stuck at $5.15 since 1997. They are earning 1997 wages in the year 2006.

Over 80 percent of Americans from all across the country, obviously if it is 80 percent of Americans, from every walk of life, from every social economic strata, believes that these people are entitled to an increase in their wages, and they believe that out of fairness, they believe that out of a sense of fair play for these individuals. They know when they look at their own life, be they middle class or be they rich, the fact of the matter is they recognize that costs have gone up, that the cost of food has gone up, that the cost of bread has gone up, that the cost of milk has gone up, that the cost of education has gone up, that the cost of utilities has gone up, the cost of gasoline of course has soared. And these people in many ways are dependent, whether it is on public transit or whether it is on their own automobiles, it costs them more to go to work.

And so America understands this very clearly. But the critical piece to getting these people the minimum wage is to get the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives to understand the morality of this decision to provide for a minimum wage, because these people are working under a Federal minimum wage that was imposed in 1997. And until the Republican leadership decides to go forward, these people will not get that increase in the wages that they so desperately need.

Now, there is a glimmer of hope, because today 64 Republicans made the decision to support the motion to instruct. I assume they understood that this motion to instruct will not become law. I hope they didn't vote for it because it won't become law; I hope that it wasn't about posturing. I talked to many of them before the vote and after the vote, and they told me that they wanted to speak and vote on the minimum wage and to send a message. And they did that today. Hopefully that message will start to be received by the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and they will schedule a minimum-wage bill for an up or down vote on this House floor, and we will get to speak our wills and hopefully we will reflect what the American people want us to do, and that is to give these people an increase in the minimum wage.

So I would hope that this vote that was taken today will be the beginning of the Republican leadership walking toward that decision to provide for an increase in the minimum wage. I would hope that they would do that because it is the right thing to do. I would hope that they would do that without tricking up the bill, without making the bill so that it can pass the House but it can't get passed in the Senate or it won't get done in conference. I hope they will do it soon enough so that it can become the law of the land.

We all understand the political games that can be played, but these political games are tragically almost lethal to these families. These people go to work every day for a whole year and they end up with $10,700, and out of that $10,700 not only are they substantially below the official poverty line, so you are making a decision that the official minimum wage in this country will keep these individuals locked in poverty.

That is not the only part of it. It means that those people, those people will have more difficulty in providing the necessities for their families, for their children, because many of these minimum wage workers have children who rely on that wage as a means of holding the household together. So as rents have continued to go up and energy has continued to go up and telecommunications has gone up, all of these things have gone up, these people struggle with this every day.

I dare say most of us in Congress, we work an 8-hour day or 10-hour day or 12-hour day, but when we go home we are done. These people have a second job. They have to figure out how to economically hold their household together, how to provide for their children, how to provide food and rent and health care and all of these things together on $10,700 a year. That is difficult. That is tough.

I hope that today's vote with 64 Republicans sending a message to their leadership that they want to speak out, they want to vote on the minimum wage, that the Republican leadership will respond in kind and give the House of Representatives the vote that the American people desire.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, and I just want to join him in his remarks that this really is not about this rule, but this is the only place where we can protest the priorities of this Congress when there are millions of American workers who work at the minimum wage, who are unable to provide for their families the basic necessities of their families. And Congress fails to address that issue and fails to address it especially when it is so clear the voids in the congressional schedule, where there are these huge gaps of time where it would be available to debate the minimum wage, hold hearings on the minimum wage, and report out a bill for consideration by the Members of Congress. And yet that is not being done.

It is not being done basically because the Republican leadership has committed itself to its supporters and the business community that it will not allow a minimum wage vote to come before the House of Representatives, even though it is clear that there is probably enough support to pass this legislation to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour over the next couple of years.

By doing that, we dramatically change the lives of those individuals who today work at $5.15 an hour. We dramatically change the lives of the 1.6 million workers who are parents of children under the age of 18 who earn the minimum wage. All together those parents are working to raise more than 3 million children, and yet with the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour, they are unable to provide the necessities for their family, for those children.

Mind you, these families are stuck at a wage of 1997. The Members of this House cannot think of anything else that is stuck at 1997. The price of bread is not struck in 1997 prices. The price of gasoline is not at 1997 prices. The price of health care is not at 1997 prices. But for these people who work every day and work at very difficult jobs, jobs most other people might not take, certainly will not take at this wage, they end up at the end of the year poor.

At the end of this congressional year, this Congress will not be able to find the time to address this urgent economic need.

We have supporters for increasing the minimum wage, a company I don't generally agree with, but Wal-Mart, who says essentially, even at their stores where they advertise everyday low prices, that the people who shop in the stores at minimum wage are not making enough money to buy the basic necessities that are offered. There is not enough money in the communities to provide for the success of those stores.

This is about whether or not we are going to create an underclass in America, an underclass probably we already have because these people are stuck in 1997 wages. But now that you know it, what is the morality of ignoring them? What is the morality of making a conscious decision that you are going to go out of session today at 2 o'clock as opposed to staying a couple of hours longer and dealing with the minimum wage? What is the morality that you are going to end this session of Congress where I think we have maybe 30 days left before adjournment without addressing the minimum wage?

What is it you are saying to these people about the worth that they are worth, about their lives, about their desire to take care of their children, to provide the necessities, to provide the wherewithal for the education and the health and the nutrition of their children?

Try doing it on $5.15 an hour. It won't buy you 2 gallons of gas today, so I hope you don't have to commute very far. It certainly won't help with health care payments because you have to pay the rent, and today we see rent is going up as housing markets go up.

So we leave these people stranded. And you want to talk about values, you want to talk about families, you want to talk about children, you want to talk about community, and you a creating an underclass that is so desperate, and yet these people make the decision to go to work every day. Explain the morality of that.

No, you are going to spend your morality on Internet gaming. We are going to say to people, if you bet on a horse, you are legal; if you bet on a dog, you are not. If you bet in one State, you are legal; not if in another. If you want to play Texas Hold `Em, you are legal in some States, but not in other States.

No, let's talk about the morality of a family that is struggling every day to hold itself together at a time of increasing utility costs, increasing food costs, increasing transportation costs, increasing energy costs; and this Congress, under Republican leadership, simply will not make time to discuss this issue, to vote on this issue. We are not finding the time under this leadership to vote on this issue.

That is why we are going to ask for a vote on the previous question to suggest to you that there is another way to run this Congress, to run it for the benefit of these desperate Americans who are working hard every day, but not getting compensated in today's pay.

Imagine. You didn't think it was sufficient that you all get compensated here at 1997 wages, so we have continued to provide a COLA. I think it is justified, but the fact of the matter is, for millions of Americans, you have made a conscious decision while we get a COLA, we are going to trap them in 1997 wages.

I thank the gentleman, I thank him for his leadership, for allowing his cooperation on allowing this opportunity to have this vote and again to try to express to this Congress, because now we are lobbying the Congress on behalf of the people that are not politically engaged, are not politically active. They are working too hard; they are working too hard at work, and they are working too hard the rest of the day trying to figure out how they hold their families together.

And what do they get from the Republican Congress? They get the back of their hand. They get the back of their hand. These people's workday does not end at 5 o'clock. They spend the rest of the time trying to figure out how they are going to juggle transportation costs, food costs, health care, education, how they are going to do that for those 3 million children. And we sit by and we end the workday at 2 o'clock? At 2 o'clock, they are just getting started. We end the work day at 5 o'clock; they are driving home and figuring out whether or not they can go by the supermarket. Or we are not going to work on Fridays. They go to work on Fridays. They go to work all day on Fridays. We are going to work at 6 o'clock on Monday night. They went to work at 6 o'clock Monday morning.

Do you start to get the sense of the inequities that are taking place here that are within your power to change?

Let me tell you, you say, oh, you are going to kill jobs. There is no evidence that that is the case. In fact, those States that have increased the minimum wage apparently are doing a little better economically and having more job creation than those States that did not. But let me tell you, if you have a business plan that is dependent upon paying people 1997 wages, there may be something wrong with your business plan.

I do not think we should become co-conspirators in creating this underclass, and we should not be able to look the other way as we live a life that is completely out of touch with the struggle of these people, with our neighbors, with people living in our community. They struggle on the job and off the job because it never ends for them trying to make ends meet. And we stroll in here on a Tuesday morning, we stroll out of here on a Thursday night. We stroll out of here for the month of August and we stroll out of here in November and we can't find time? We can't find time to address this issue?

We are not asking you to raise the wages from today. We are asking you to raise the wages from 1997.

I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing Major Donald F. Fulton, USAF Ret., a resident of Vacaville, California, who has been awarded the Silver Star

Medal for extraordinary gallantry in action while on a combat mission. The incident took place on August 14, 1969 when Maj. Fulton was serving in the United States Air Force as a Forward Air Controller, FAC, while supporting classified combat operations in Laos during the Vietnam War. Approval was announced by the Department of the Air Force for the award of the Silver Star Medal, the nation's third highest award for valor, to Donald F. Fulton.

Don Fulton is a native of New York City, NY, and has lived in the Vacaville, CA, area since 1975. He graduated from Point Lorna Nazarene University in 1965.

As a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he served as a FAC while assigned to Pleiku Air Base, Republic of Vietnam, with the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, TASS. On August 14, 1969, Captain Fulton was the pilot of a lightly armed observation aircraft (0-2) and was participating in aerial flight deep inside Laos in support of Military Assistance Command--Vietnam, Studies and Observation Group, MAC-V SOG, Command and Control Central (CCC). Operating under call sign Covey 538, Captain Fulton coordinated Tactical Air Support for an eight-man Special Operations Strategic Reconnaissance Team while it conducted Operation Sad Sam, a raid on a major North Vietnamese Army unit headquarters. Recon Team New York was subsequently heavily engaged by a North Vietnamese Infantry Regiment and was immobilized with casualties and surrounded at dusk in mountainous rain forest. With a low ceiling and heavy rain approaching, and no tactical air support immediately available, Captain Fulton, firing marking rockets and an M-16 rifle, made numerous aerobatic, treetop level attacks on the enemy forces. During these passes, he was subjected to heavy fire from small arms, 12.7mm heavy machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and 23mm and 37mm antiaircraft weapons, inflicting substantial battle damage to his aircraft. His actions forestalled enemy attacks on the besieged Recon Team, until tactical air support could arrive. Subsequently, Captain Fulton directed the air assets in attacking the enemy and in conducting a night extraction of the Reconnaissance Team during a heavy rainstorm, while his fuel level dropped to near empty.

In his recommendation for the award of the Silver Star to Major Fulton, Lieutenant Colonel Edward Wolcoff, U.S. Army, Ret., stated that the ``operation resulted in the discovery of a major enemy headquarters and nearby main force bivouacs and fortifications, which were subjected to aerial attack and subsequently ground attack by an exploitation force from CCC, whereby the enemy sustained heavy losses and was forced to abandon the complex. The Sad Sam operation and subsequent ground operation caused the enemy to reinforce security in its sanctuary area at the expense of main force units, and its order of battle in South Vietnam was decremented.''

Major Donald Fulton is also the recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Air Medal with eight Oak Leaf Clusters.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and this measure.

Mr. Speaker, today the House will vote on a resolution that is allegedly intended to reaffirm Congress's support for stemming the flow of money to terrorists. I support efforts by this Administration to cut the financial supply lines to terrorists.

But the resolution before us today is really just an open-faced attack on America's free press for telling the American people what its government is doing.

After 9/11, the Bush Administration announced that one of the ways it would go after terrorists was by cutting off their funding sources. A major part of this effort has been monitoring suspect international financial transactions.

I believe that, at the time, this was the correct decision. We can and must do everything we legally can to protect the country from those who wish to bring us harm.

The Administration's efforts to monitor financial transactions have been a frequent topic of public discussion: By members of the Administration; in open, on the record Congressional testimony; and in the United Nations.

However, to date, I am not aware of any harsh recriminations from the President or Republicans in Congress as a result of any of these discussions over the last few years.

But now that the program has been discussed in the New York Times and other newspapers, the radical right wing Republican enemies of a free press in America have come out swinging--again.

Congress had a choice when the NY Times reported on the SWIFT program. It could have announced hearings on the effectiveness of the SWIFT program and on the impact of public reporting on the SWIFT program. But it did not do that.

This extremist Congress instead has chosen a different, but very familiar, path--a partisan political attack for which it has become famous.

The Bush Administration and this republican-controlled Congress represent the most partisan and most anti-free press Republican party this nation has seen since the days of Richard Nixon and his infamous `enemies list.'

The fact remains that this president and this Republican Congress wants to manipulate the press to its advantage through the use of covert propaganda and through lying about intelligence and other matters, but it wants to curb the press's role in communicating to the American people information about the actions of its government.

That sounds more like the Soviet Union before the wall came down than the America that I know and love and whose freedom, and free press, is so revered around the world.

The fact is that the party in control of this Congress is out of gas when it comes to leading, they are out of gas when it comes to big bold new ideas to re-energize America.

They have resorted, nearly every day now, to their tired old whipping posts, including the free press, in a desperate effort to hold on to their power, an awesome power that they have failed to use to help America.

As this bill's sponsor, Mr. Oxley, so wisely stated earlier, we do need accountability in Government.

The President promised to hold those accountable in his Administration involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press. He has yet to do that. Instead he and his rubberstamp Congress choose to go after leaked information only when it suits their political agenda.

We have yet to hold anyone accountable for the falsified intelligence about Weapons of Mass Destruction. Instead we get the rubberstamp Congress's version of a weapon of Mass Distraction just in time for the November elections.

This Congress has not held anyone accountable for pulling military resources away from Afghanistan to prepare for the unjustified war and occupation of Iraq, which allowed Osama bin Laden to escape capture.

If only the Administration and its Republican allies in Congress were as aggressive in attacking Osama bin Laden as they are when attacking the press, we might be safer as a nation.

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. Am I correct in my understanding that if the motion to adjourn carries that there will be no opportunity to address the minimum-wage issue before the Congress goes home for the July 4 break, and these men are raising their voices because they don't want to deal with the minimum wage? Is that what's going on here today?

Could you answer my parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker? We need to understand what's going on here.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from West Virginia for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, there are many reasons to oppose this legislation. You can begin with the fiscal reasons. Just last week, we had the Republicans on the floor pleading for line-item veto so the President could help them cut deficit spending and cut spending. The President now says he opposes the spending in this bill, but they are not going to take that into regard this week. They are going to go ahead and spend and going to go ahead and increase the deficit. So, apparently, they just cannot stop themselves from doing that.

But a more important reason is this. It is because of the threat to the coast that this bill presents and the threat to the coast that is not necessary. If the rest of the Nation would just follow California, we banned offshore oil drilling a long time ago, but we also recognized that we had an obligation as a State to meet our energy needs and not be as dependent on others as we were at that time. What you now see is California is the most efficient energy user per capita in the country.

But that is not enough. We are going to go beyond that. The Public Utilities Commission is putting in a conservation program and energy efficiency program that will end up being a positive payback for the consumers. They will save money at the end of the expenditures of about $2 billion.

We will, in fact, increase the use of biofuels dramatically. The governor has asked for 180 million gallons of biofuels I think in 2010, and we are going to meet and exceed that level.

So there are these alternatives that dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and this is really where we ought to be going.

This is a continuation of a philosophy that has gotten this Nation into so much trouble, and that is, while we use 25 percent of the world's fossil fuel resources and we hold 3 percent of the reserve, that somehow we can drill ourselves out of that problem. It is a continuation of a policy that was in vogue and popular and maybe even right-headed in 1950 and 1960, but everything we have learned since then tells us that we cannot continue in this direction.

So we tried to believe that we could drill our way out of our problem in Alaska, and now we are going to some of those valuable coastlines and risking that coastline on the idea that, again, we can continue to drill our way out of it.

Because the people of this Nation do not want it, this bill has a perverse set of financial incentives to States and localities to try to make money talk, as opposed to the people of that State, to try to get the political establishments to overwhelm the people who have spoken in the Carolinas and Florida and California and Oregon and Washington and elsewhere in the country against this policy. So now we are just going to see if we can bribe them into changing their mind. This is not about an energy policy. This is about an etiology.

Finally, the other reason to do this is that this legislation drains money from every other State, money that would be available to the Federal Government for deficit reduction or for whatever purpose, and throws it into a couple of States that become the winners of this great offshore oil lottery.

This House ought to reject it on budget grounds, on environmental grounds, on energy grounds and on simply a vision of the future.

Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, later today, Mr. Thompson and Mr. DeFazio will offer an amendment seeking emergency assistance for an economic disaster that the Bush administration is creating on the Oregon and California coast, and that disaster is about to strike hundreds of small independent businessmen who fish for a living. These individuals are going to lose the economic support for their families. They are going to probably lose the ability to keep their boats so they can fish if the recovery takes place, and they are going to end up deep in debt.

It is just unfair that this would happen, especially when this is a disaster that was created by the Bush administration. They ought to take responsibility. They ought to be held accountable for their actions, and they ought to provide relief to these hardworking families who are so much a part of our community and our culture and our economy. And they ought to do it now.

The Congress can correct this matter later today by passing the amendment. Unfortunately, we have been put on notice that that won't happen, so we are going to put you on notice. We are not going to relent on this effort until

some relief is forthcoming from the administration, as has been asked by the Governor of California, the Governor of Oregon, the delegations in the Senate, but nothing from the administration except obstruction and an economic disaster for these families from the coast.