Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Sanders amendment. Let me say that the problem of 9/11 was not with what Americans were reading in the libraries. It is what the intelligence community and the FBI were not reading from its regional offices.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, in 1990, in response to more than 100,000 dolphins killed each year by the tuna fishermen, Congress passed legislation that my colleague, Barbara Boxer, and I authored, creating the popular ``dolphin safe'' label on cans of tuna. For over a decade, this label gave consumers the option to purchase tuna with the confidence that the dolphins were not being chased, netted, and killed along with the tuna.

The dolphin-safe label has been a huge success. Since passage of the label, dolphin mortality decreased by 98 percent, to fewer than 2,000 kills each year.

But despite the success of this program, the Bush Commerce Department issued a finding in 2002 that allowed dolphin-safe labels to be placed on tuna harvested through the chase and encirclement method, a manner that kills dolphins.

With this shift in policy, the Commerce Department ignored its own scientific information showing the high dolphin mortalities caused by this harvest technique. Indeed, this change completely undermined the integrity of the dolphin-safe label.

Now, thanks to evidence uncovered by a lawsuit filed against the change, we learn that while the Bush administration was weakening the dolphin-safe label, it knew, it knew that observers from the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission on Mexican tuna-fishing vessels were being bribed to misreport tuna as dolphin-safe.

An internal NOAA e-mail states that it ``was common knowledge throughout the fleet that the observers were regularly paid off to misreport what happened during the cruise.''

Yet the Commerce Department argues that these allegations are irrelevant to its decision to relax restrictions on foreign-caught tuna. And the Commerce Department has not provided an explanation for its modification of the scientific data, nor has Commerce taken the steps that we are aware of to address the bribery issues.

Meanwhile, the U.S. pays much more for its fair share to the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission, the body allegedly being bribed to look the other way during dolphin kills.

The appropriations bill that we are considering today provides nearly a 40 percent increase for the Tropical Tuna Commission. Yet, the Commerce Department is apparently doing nothing

to ensure that the Tropical Tuna Commission is doing its job.

Without an investigation into these allegations of bribery, and until the Commerce Department decides what science will guide its decisions, we should not be subsidizing foreign fishing practices that damage the dolphin-safe label.

The dolphin-safe label was created at the urging of hundreds of thousands of students from across this country; hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren participated in the process and saw the suggested improvements to protect dolphins enacted into law.

What message is this administration sending to those very same children and to the committed scientists at NOAA by cynically undermining the dolphin-safe label and failing to investigate the allegations of bribery by those who are entrusted to protect the dolphins during the harvest of the tuna, and to make sure that the consumers are aware that, in fact, this is dolphin-free tuna.

Mr. Chairman, I am deeply concerned that we have failed to address these issues while, at the same time, dramatically increasing the funding for the Tropical Tuna Commission.

Mr. Speaker, last month, Vice President Dick Cheney visited the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart and praised the company for the example it is setting for American business. Here is the example that Wal-Mart has set for American business:

If you violate workers' organizing rights, you can get away with it, receiving just a slap on the wrist from weak and ineffective federal labor laws.

If you shift the cost of health care onto workers who cannot afford it, you can increase your profits and have taxpayer-funded programs like SCHIP pick up the tab.

If you distrust your own workforce enough to disregard their safety, you can lock them inside your store overnight without a key.

If you want to increase the wealth of one of the wealthiest families in the world, you can maintain the lowest wages in the industry, laying off your most senior and loyal employees and replacing them with lower- paid entry-level workers.

If you want to eliminate competition in your industry by lowering your wages and prices, you can force U.S. suppliers to outsource their manufacturing jobs, so that you can reap the benefit of cheap labor from countries with even worse workers' rights records than our own.

All of these reprehensible labor practices are detailed in the February 2004 report which I commissioned, ``Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart.'' I urge Vice President Cheney to read it.

Today I submit to you, contrary to the Vice President's remarks, that the employees of Wal-Mart are beginning to set an example for American workers--by fighting back on behalf of themselves and others who are unfairly treated by their employer. This week, as the attached L.A. Times article explains, a judge in California certified the largest employment-discrimination class action in history. A class of 1.5 million women who have worked at Wal-Mart are suing the retail giant for sex discrimination. According to papers submitted in court, female employees are paid less than their male counterparts, promoted less frequently than their male counterparts, and retaliated against when they complain. In today's workplace--all too often rife with employer threats and intimidation--it takes a great deal of courage from workers to stand up for their rights. So I rise to salute one of those workers, a brave woman from my home district,

Betty Dukes of Pittsburg, California, one of the lead plaintiffs in this historic lawsuit. She has worked at Wal-Mart for ten years and simply wants a fair opportunity to succeed. She is now standing up for over a million other women who have punched the cash registers, stocked the shelves, and greeted customers for years without that opportunity. Her courage is to be commended. And I hail her as an American hero.

[From the LA Times, June 24, 2004]

Wal-Mart Plaintiff Still Loves the Store: Worker Who Is Spearheading a

Landmark Gender Bias Suit Says She Just Wants a Chance To Advance

(By Donna Horowitz, Eric Slater and Lee Romney)

Pittsburg, CA.--Less than 24 hours after a federal judge

ruled that 1.5 million women who have worked for Wal-Mart

could pursue a class-action gender discrimination suit, the

lead plaintiff in the case was back on the job here Wednesday

nattily dressed, quick with a smile and talking about how

much she likes the company she's suing.

All Betty Dukes wanted, the 10-year veteran of the company

said, was ``the opportunity to advance myself with Wal-

Mart.''

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Martin J. Jenkins in San

Francisco ruled that the suit originally filed by Dukes and

five other women could be expanded to virtually every woman

who has worked at the world's largest company since late

1998. The suit alleges that Wal-Mart pays women less than men

for performing the same job, passes over women to promote

less-qualified men and retaliates against women who complain.

The judge's ruling set the stage for what could be the

giant retailer's greatest test ever. The sheer number of

plaintiffs means that a loss or even a settlement could cost

the company billions of dollars.

As Dukes was receiving minor-celebrity treatment from

customers and co-workers--``Did you see my story in the paper

today?'' she asked customers, holding up a copy of a local

newspaper--officials from the Arkansas retail colossus

emphasized that Tuesday's ruling did not address the merits

of the case and said it would do nothing to influence the

company's plans to expand in California and elsewhere.

``It really doesn't change anything,'' said Robert McAdam,

the firm's vice president for state and local government

relations. ``Nothing is different as it relates to our

development plans or our prospects for growth in the state.''

The company has weathered a series of high-profile tests,

most recently in Inglewood, where Wal-Mart went so far as to

ask voters to allow a Supercenter in their community only to

be rejected. At the same time, other communities in the state

have actively courted the retailer.

As Dukes smiled and welcomed customers to the store in this

town of 48,000 about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco,

many of the mixed emotions that Wal-Mart tends to evoke

were in evidence around her.

Lorell Belarde, 39, seemed to embody the dichotomy of some

customers.

``I really don't even like the store,'' said the property

manager after a short shopping

spree. ``I don't like the company. They don't treat their

employees right. They don't even treat the customer right.

``But,'' she added, ``the price is reasonable.''

Holly Hamilton pushed her shopping cart through the parking

lot looking not unlike an ad for Wal-Mart. In her cart was

almost everything the 27-year-old nurse would need for an

upcoming camping trip: a fishing pole, beach towels, food and

bottled water, all gathered at a single store for hard-to-

beat prices.

Like many customers outside the Pittsburg store Wednesday,

Hamilton did not know about Tuesday's ruling, but when told,

she expressed some concern and said she might consider

shopping elsewhere if a court determined the company

discriminated against women.

During an afternoon break, Dukes, dressed in a black and

tan outfit with a billowing red scarf, turned an upside down

shopping cart into an impromptu chair.

``Wish you the best of luck, sweetie,'' a male customer

called to Dukes in the store parking lot.

Dukes was hired at Wal-Mart a decade ago, with grand plans

for a quick move up the ladder into management. Instead, she

says, she was passed over for promotions repeatedly, as men

with less experience landed the job.

But she makes $12.53 an hour--an increase of more than 25%

in the three years since the lawsuit was filed, thanks to

generous raises. A volunteer minister, Dukes likes most of

her co-workers and bosses, who ``respect my right to pursue

this matter.'' She likes most of the customers, most parts of

the job. She works at Wal-Mart and shops at Wal-Mart, and

loves the prices.

``All we're asking for is our day in court, and to let the

evidence speak for itself.''

The ruling, in which Jenkins said the ``evidence raises an

inference that Wal-Mart engages in discriminatory practices

in compensation and promotion that affect all plaintiffs in a

common manner,'' however, is by no means the company's first

considerable trial. And even as the number of Wal-Mart

critics appears to be growing, so does the number of its

defenders--and so does the company's reach.

One of the company's previous blows came in April, when

Inglewood voters soundly defeated a sweeping initiative that

would have allowed the company to build a Supercenter the

size of 17 football fields without going through the

traditional layers of city bureaucracy.

The company spent more than $1 million in its failed effort

to pass the initiative, buying television commercials and

handing out doughnuts, all for an election that drew just

12,000 voters. Opponents spent a fraction of that amount and

won the contest, about 7,000 casting ballots against the

proposal and 4,500 in favor.

The contest's David vs. Goliath overtones rippled across

the country. On paper, however, the defeat cost the company

but a single Supercenter.

And the company, which opened its first Supercenter in the

state this spring in La Quinta, southeast of Palm Springs,

has plans for 40 more across California, including stores in

Stockton and Hemet expected to open this year.

The Supercenters are the company's most controversial

because of their size, averaging 200,000 square feet, and the

fact that they stock groceries.

Wal-Mart pays its employees, male and female, less than

many other similar retail outlets as well as grocery stores.

The so-called Wal-Mart effect--the company's ability to

undercut competitors with its lower wages and prices--helped

trigger the longest grocery store strike in Southern

California last year as some grocers sought wage and benefit

concessions they said were needed to compete with the

Supercenters.

Although the company lost its Inglewood battle, and as many

California cities, including Los Angeles, have passed

ordinances that effectively ban such massive ``box stores,''

the company has found open arms in many other parts of the

state. Some describe the Inglewood opposition, the lawsuit

and other attacks on the company as knee-jerk bashing of a

successful corporation.

In Gilroy, where the City Council voted 5 to 2 in March to

approve a Supercenter, Wal-Mart proponents wrote off the news

of the lawsuit ruling as legal hullabaloo.

``Certification of a class-action suit is easy to do,''

said Bill Lindsteadt, executive director of the Gilroy

Economic Development Corp., which embraces the new center.

``It's frivolous. It's another ploy by the unions to force

Wal-Mart to become union.''

While heated fights over proposed Supercenters are playing

out across the state, some observers say the company is

facing increasing difficulties as it moves from rural and

suburban markets into urban areas--and that Tuesday's ruling

may increase opposition.

As Wal-Mart moves ``from the suburban fringe and really

starts to look more in urban areas . . . they're encountering

a different level of concern and opposition than they were

when they were building out amid the strip malls,'' said

Amaha Kassa, co-director of the East Bay Alliance for a

Sustainable Economy. ``These kinds of issues of pay equity

and disparate treatment are very much going to be issues of

concern for urban voters.''

Mr. Speaker, today I am joining with 25 of my colleagues to introduce the Jobs for America Act--legislation that will help protect American workers who face job outsourcing.

Every day, more Americans watch their jobs get shipped overseas. Jobs are disappearing from every sector of the economy--from high tech call centers to health care workers--leaving hundreds of thousands of families and their communities in the lurch.

According to some estimates, 40 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are currently using some form of overseas outsourcing, and as many as 3.3 million jobs may be offshored in the next 15 years. The latest study from Forrester Research finds that offshoring of white-collar jobs is accelerating, with the number of U.S. business service and software jobs moving overseas reaching 588,000 in 2005, up from 315,000 in 2003. By 2005, the total loss of software programming, customer call-center, and legal paperwork positions will hit 830,000 jobs--an increase of 40 percent from this year.

The Jobs for America Act amends the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act to require companies to disclose and report whenever they lay off workers to send jobs overseas. It would require that when a company plans to lay off 15 or more workers and send those jobs overseas, it must:

Inform affected workers, the Department of Labor, State agencies responsible for helping laid off employees, and local government officials;

Disclose how many jobs are affected, where the jobs are going, and why they are being offshored; and

Provide employees at least 3 months advance notice.

Also, the Jobs for America Act strengthens the WARN Act by:

Requiring the Department of Labor to compile statistics of offshored jobs and report them on an annual basis to the Congress and the public;

Clarifying that WARN Act protections, including the 3 months advance notice, apply to all cases where 50 or more workers are laid off, regardless of the reason for the layoff; and.

Ensuring effective remedies for workers who are injured by a company's violation of the WARN Act.

While companies export jobs overseas for cheap labor, American workers deserve--at an absolute minimum--the earliest warning of a job loss. In today's economy, with massive longterm unemployment, workers need as much time as possible to begin looking for a new job or begin retraining for a new career. This bill will expand the amount of time available to workers to adjust to the loss of a job. It will also increase penalties on employers who choose to ignore these simple requirements, providing real make-whole remedies for workers who are injured by WARN violations, including consequential damages.

Moreover, for the first time, the Secretary of Labor will be collecting and reporting large-scale data on offshore outsourcing. Such data collection will help us to better understand the scope and dynamics of this phenomenon and its threat to our standard of living, enabling us to craft more comprehensive solutions to the problem.

While this bill will not by itself solve the outsourcing problem, it does provide critical tools--such as time and information--which will benefit both workers and Congress in their efforts to stem the hemorrhaging of jobs from this country.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Eshoo, DeFazio, Inslee amendment, and I want to thank the committee for agreeing to accept that amendment later, and to thank the committee for their consideration of the economic development projects for shipping in the San Francisco Bay area.

I rise in support of the amendment. Nearly four years ago, energy companies led by Enron purposefully manipulated consumer markets and ruthlessly price gouged California consumers. Recently publicized tapes and financial records from Enron's West Coast trading desk provide the proof. On the tapes, Enron traders can be heard bragging about how they were taking the California utilities--the ``grandmothers''--to the ``tune of a million bucks or two a day.'' Just last week, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the market manipulation and the Enron tapes are a ``display of arrogance and abuse that . . . argue powerfully for the need for government to maintain a level of oversight on energy markets.''

California consumers have a right to recover the billions of energy overcharges that resulted from this widespread illegal behavior. Yet nearly 4 years after the fact, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has simply failed to deliver justice to California's energy consumers. Instead of providing timely refunds for the unreasonable rates California consumers were forced to pay, FERC has ignored court orders to give the parties representing the people of California the opportunity to gather new evidence concerning energy market manipulation during the summer of 2000. As a result, FERC has been able to minimize the amount that energy wholesalers and marketers will be required to pay back. Instead, FERC has initiated a slew of largely closed door investigations against individual generators. Settlements in these dockets represent only a fraction of the billions taken from California consumers and industry during the energy crisis.

In Rules Committee, we offered an amendment to help move the process forward fairly by requiring the Commission to publicly disclose all the documents and evidence obtained in its legal proceedings; by allowing the states, like California, affected by market manipulation to fully participate in any and all settlement negotiations; and by adjusting the timeline for the investigation to adequately reflect the period of suspected criminal behavior. That amendment was ruled out of order.

Mr. Chairman, it's time for the Bush Administration to stop dragging its heels and deliver real justice to the people of Calfornia--and all up and down the West coast--who were bilked by the bigwigs at Enron out of their hard earned paychecks.

Since the broader amendment was not made in order, we are instead offering an amendment to ensure that none of the money appropriated under this act can be used to circumvent the court order to shine some sunlight into this process by making public the evidence attained through the investigations.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I thank the gentleman for his work. But as the gentleman knows, we have been working on some of those solutions. As the gentleman knows, I have been involved in the plants in Yolo County and Solano County and Contra Costa County where we have brought on new generation, clean generation, site-based generation, replacing old, inefficient production of energy. We are working on a cable system now to go under the bay to put power from the East Bay into the South Bay, into San Francisco.

We are working on more efficient pipelines to move fuel around Northern California. So I mean I think clearly those are there.

This amendment is a little different. This is about people who stole money. This is not about people who are building power plants. This is about people who took power out of service. Knowing that if they removed 1 or 2 percent of the power, they would drive up their revenues by hundreds of percent.

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we are forced to debate these very important topics within a nonbinding resolution, but the public ought to know that we are forced to debate these topics within a nonbinding resolution because of the corruption of the process by the Republican leadership in this House where we cannot debate these same items in the budget resolution.

Yesterday we saw that they would not face up to the debt limit extension, so they had to hide it in the defense bill to be added someday in the dark of night in some conference committee in the future. We have seen the corruption of legitimate debate and the exchange of ideas on the floor of the House. I do not know if the Republicans would really want the American public to know that over the last 10 years, the House Republicans have voted for $20 billion less in education spending than was finally appropriated by the Congress of the United States. I do not know if the Republicans really want in real debate the public to know that the House Republicans have decided that we will never have full funding of special education, special education that is very expensive for the school districts of this Nation, where school boards and superintendents and parents and children have come and lobbied this Congress and we have a bipartisan coalition to vote for full funding of special education.

But the Republicans will never get there. They have turned back the promises, they have turned back their votes of the past, they have decided they will add $1 billion a year to special education, and that means we will never get to the promise we made to this country of full funding. The gentleman from Wisconsin adds another $1.2 billion to that and in 6 years we would achieve the goal of full funding and take the pressure off those school districts to increase taxes at the lower level, but more importantly to be able to provide them the resources necessary for the education of those children with special needs.

I do not think the Republicans want to have a real debate about their position on the Pell grants that they have frozen over the last 3 years after the President of the United States promised that these young people would have access to a Pell grant to help them achieve their college education. But the Republicans do not really want to have a real up or down vote on increasing the Pell grants. Once again, they have promised to do that, they simply do not want to get caught voting against that promise, so they have us in a nonbinding resolution.

I do not think the Republicans want to get in a real vote on whether or not they are going to fully fund No Child Left Behind, where currently they are $29 billion behind the curve that they have promised America's schoolchildren, their parents, their families that they would provide because we have provided the most significant reforms in the last 35 years in Federal education policy.

What does that mean? That means that if they do not adopt this resolution, and it is nonbinding, that means that 500,000 low-income children will not get the academic assistance that they need. That means that over 350,000 children will not have access to afterschool care that they need where they get tutored and they get mentored and they get academic help. That means that thousands of teachers will not complete the process by which they become highly qualified teachers in the classrooms of our children. So another year goes by and thousands of more teachers enter the classroom without the professional development, without the credentials, without the certifications necessary to provide a first-class education to America's children.

The Republicans have so corrupted the process that they can continue to make the promises to the public that they are for full funding of No Child Left Behind, they are for increasing the Pell grants to $5,100, they are for full funding of special education, but they do not have to deliver on them because they hide their budget in a conference committee. It was due out here weeks, months ago, it has not been passed, so they deemed a budget, not a budget that they voted on, they just deemed a budget. What incredible dishonesty in the face of the needs of America's families and children to acquire a good education to participate to the full extent of their potential in the American society and in the American economy. What corruption. What dishonesty by the Republican leadership.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, although I do not intend to object, I ask the gentleman to offer an explanation of his request.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his explanation.

Continuing under my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), ranking member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her explanation. And also I want to thank her for all of her hard work and her advocacy on behalf of children in this program and families in this program. She has very much made a difference in the outcome of this legislation by her efforts.

Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Delaware for his explanation. I also want to thank him for all of his work and his participation. He is one of those individuals in this institution that makes a bipartisan agreement like this able to be brought up on unanimous consent because of his cooperation and his advocacy on behalf of our children. So I thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).

Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I thank the gentleman for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), and thank her for her participation in this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, continuing to reserve the right to object, I thank the gentlewoman for her remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Los Angeles, California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation of objection, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments and participation in the resolution of the issue concerning the WIC-only stores.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I thank the gentleman for his comments.

Mr. Speaker, I again want to support this legislation. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner); the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle); and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) for all of their work and cooperation. I know it continues to mystify some people in the House how the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and I can continue to work together, and that the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) can come to these bipartisan agreements with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) on my side.

We have serious philosophical differences on many issues, but we have been able to put them aside from time to time on behalf of the children of this Nation, and here I think we have made major improvements in this legislation to the benefit of the 27 million children who participate in this program every school day, to the 2 million children who will participate in the summer feeding and the child care programs in this country, and nearly 7.5 million poor women and children who participate in the Women, Infants and Children program, a program that has demonstrated that we get many, many, many times the return on the money we invest in the WIC program in the reduction of health care costs to the mother and the newborn child because we are able to interact with them and give them good advice about their pregnancy, about the birth of their child and about the care of their child in the early moments of life.

It was almost 30 years ago this year in this Congress when I stood here on a similar unanimous consent request to extend and make permanent the Women, Infants and Children program. It has returned billions of dollars in savings to this country, and, more importantly, it has provided for millions of newborn babies to be born healthy, to avoid the problems of low birth weight and their mothers the problems of troubled pregnancies and premature births.

For that, we are very grateful to the people who work so hard in this program to develop its nutritional benefits and its healthcare benefits.

I also want to thank my colleagues for working so hard to try to expand the efforts to eliminate and reduce paperwork and to make sure that we are coordinating these programs with other programs, such as the Medicaid agencies and food stamp offices, to make sure they know of the accessibility to these programs, to remove the barriers to migrant children and homeless and runaway youth and to expand the opportunities to military families.

It is unfortunate that in this country we have so many people in poverty or have such low wages, many of whom work the year-round, that are eligible for this program, but it is also very fortunate for those individuals and good for our country that we have this program to extend these nutritional and health benefits to them.

I wish we would have been able to make a better statement, a greater statement, and a better direction for this country on the problems of childhood obesity. These rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the last two decades. We cannot ignore the opportunity we have to work with these children on a whole range of solutions to the problems of obesity while we have them in school. One which is very important to be transmitted to them is the benefit of a good and healthy diet. This program should be compatible with those goals. I hope we have sent a message to the program that we want them to develop a healthier diet, a better diet, but we also want to send the message of exercise, of healthy living outside of school by those young people.

Finally, we have all thanked one another, but this is a rare moment in this session of Congress, in these 2 years, that stand here reporting under unanimous consent a bipartisan piece of legislation of this significance. So I do want to thank again the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) for all of his cooperation in moving this legislation in a timely fashion, so we would have an opportunity to work with the Senate; to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) for developing the substance of this legislation, the changes in this legislation, the reforms in this legislation and the expansion of opportunity for these children and for their families.

I certainly want to thank Senator Harkin, who I came to Congress with, for all of his hard and continuing work on child nutrition and food programs in this Nation and internationally, and Chairman Cochran, who I have had an opportunity to work with on so many programs affecting children in literacy and nutrition and other benefits such as that.

Finally, I want to thank the staff members of our committee. On our side of the aisle, Lynda Theil, Denise Forte and Joe Novotny; the people from CRS, Joe Richardson and Donna Porter, who provided us so much technical assistance and expertise; to Tyson Redpath on the staff of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), and Sarah Rittling on the staff of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle); and the Republican staff in the House, Kate Houston, Stephanie Milburn, Sally Lovejoy, Krisann Pearce and Julian Baer, for all of their work, for their consistence.

The fact of the matter is, it was the cooperation among the staffs that allowed this bill to be reported on a timely basis as we come toward the end of this session of Congress.

I would also like to thank Derek Miller of Senator Harkin's staff and Dave Johnson of Senator Cochran's staff.

Mr. Speaker, I think the House and the Senate can be very proud of this legislation, and I know that those individuals, the American School Food Service Association, the Food Research and Action Center, the WIC directors, the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and so many others that I will submit for the Record, were great advocates of the improvements made in this legislation and the expansion of nutritional and health opportunities for the participants.

Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the list of supporters of this legislation.

American Association of School Administrators.

American Commodity Distribution Association.

American Dietetic Association.

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal

Employees (AFSCME).

American School Food Service Association (ASFSA).

America's Second Harvest.

Anti Hunger Action Committee.

Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs.

Bread for the World.

Catholic Charities USA.

Central Coast Hunger Coalition.

Chicago Jobs Council.

Children's Defense Fund.

Children's Foundation.

Coalition of Labor Union Women.

Coalition of Religious Communities (Utah).

Coalition on Human Needs.

Colorado Anti-Hunger Network.

Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

Community Food Security Coalition.

Congressional Hunger Center.

Connecticut Association for Human Services.

Crossroads Urban Center.

Denver Urban Ministries.

EBT Industry Council of the Electronic Funds Transfer

Association.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Food and Allied Service Trades Department (FAST), AFL-CIO.

Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).

FOOD Share, Inc.

Greater Upstate Law Project, NY.

Green Consulting Services, Miami, FL.

Hudson Valley Poverty Law Center, NY.

Human Services Coalition of Dade County.

Hunger Action Network of New York State.

I Am Your Child Foundation.

Indiana Coalition on Housing and Homeless Issues, Inc.

Institute Justice Team, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas.

Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

Just Harvest, Pittsburgh, PA.

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry--Colorado.

Migrant Legal Action Program.

Monterey County Farm to School Partnership.

National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good

Shepherd.

National Association for the Education of Young Children

(NAEYC).

National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems.

National Association of State Boards of Education.

National Coalition for the Homeless.

National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.

National Council of Jewish Women.

National Farmers Union.

National Grange.

National Head Start Association.

National Priorities Project.

National PTA.

National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.

National WIC Association (NWA).

National Women's Law Center.

Northeast Missouri Client Council for Human Needs, Inc.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office.

Public Children Services Association of Ohio.

Public Interest Law Office of Rochester, NY.

Public Justice Center.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the House for considering the John Muir National Historic Site Boundary Adjustment Act today. My district is home to the residence of John Muir, his orchards, and Mt. Wanda, named for his daughter. Without John Muir's efforts, Yosemite National Park would not exist, and as first president of the Sierra Club, he helped sharpen Californians' appreciation for the Sierra Mountains, which he called ``The Range of Light.''

In addition to its historical significance, the former Muir estate provides valuable open space in the rapidly growing Bay Area. In 1988, we enacted legislation to expand the John Muir Historic Site. Following a survey conducted as part of the development of the General Management Plan, the Park Service discovered that a .2 acre triangle adjacent to the newly acquired parcel did not belong to the City of Martinez. In fact, it did not belong to anyone.

In order to meet the growing needs of site users, the Park Service would greatly benefit from a boundary adjustment to finally put to rest the question of property title to this small triangle of land. This bill will allow the Park Service to either acquire the land if an heir or former owner is identified, or condemn the property if an heir is not found. Once the title to the land is clear, the Park Service would be free to begin construction on a 32 vehicle parking area that would utilize the .2 acre parcel. This will allow greater access for schools, seniors groups, and everyone else interested in wilderness conservation, and the history of modern environmentalism.

This boundary adjustment is supported by Contra Costa County and the City of Martinez. Enactment of this legislation allows the Park Service to enhance public understanding of John Muir's contributions, while also facilitating access to an important recreation area in my district. I thank my colleagues for their support of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Speaker, to listen to the other side, you would think that the margin between chaos and a healthy economy is 7 percent in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The matter is the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) has a very rational amendment.

You have a time when families are being stretched by high oil prices, much of it I guess because of the war in Iraq, at a time when people when we are trying to get the economy moving again, we are trying to hire people, we have industries under incredible pressure because of high energy prices, the transportation industry and the trucking industry and the airline industry. It has been estimated that of the middle class tax cuts, half of it has been taken back in higher energy prices.

The gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) says just take the artificial customer out of the marketplace, which is the Government of the United States. We have filled about 93 percent of the SPRO. We are going to pause right now because there is turmoil in these markets and we are going to give the American economy and American families a break, a breather from $2.50, $2.70 gasoline that we are paying in the San Francisco Bay area. I represent five major oil refineries. Yes, they are working to capacity. But the fact of the matter is, many economists have suggested that if this amendment would pass, people would get a reduction of 10, 15, or 20 cents. Maybe that is not a lot to Members of Congress, but it is an awful lot to people who are driving long distances in northern California to commute to work. The cost of going to work has increased dramatically for families in this country.

This amendment says this is just one of the few things that we can do. There is a lot of discussion that somehow if we had the energy policy that the Republicans were pushing last year and could not get passed, although they controlled the Senate, they controlled the House, they controlled the White House, they could not get it passed. Why could they not get it passed? Because when the day came to pass it finally at the end of the session in the Senate, they realized it was not an energy policy. It was a tax giveaway for a lot of old, tired ideas about the petroleum economy of the past and had very little about the future.

Then they decided, and the majority leader here decided, he was going to protect MTBE, the polluters that are poisoning the wells of small communities all over the country, all over the country. He has decided that those companies are going to be protected from lawsuits from communities that are trying to clean up and recover their domestic drinking water supply, that that was part of the energy bill. Had that not happened, you would have had an energy bill last year, but you thought the MTBE polluters were more important than an energy policy.

It is also interesting when the Senate took a second look at it, they said these $35 billion in tax bills that are paid for by the deficit, we cannot afford it; and they started ripping them out, and they reduced it to 14 billion. And now there is a lot of people on the other side that are upset because they lost their tax cuts in that legislation.

It was never about energy. It was about paying old debts to people that were very supportive in the campaign and had some old, tired ideas that they should not have to pay royalties and they should not have to pay taxes on their earnings in the energy industry. It was not going to produce any new oil. It was not going to produce any new energy.

Yes, we are dependent on foreign oil, and we will continue to be dependent on foreign oil for as far as we can see because we cannot produce our way out of that problem. We simply cannot produce our way out either by natural gas or by oil or even by coal for the needs that we have for that energy.

Now we can change our usage. We can engage in conservation renewables, but that is not what that energy bill was about, and that energy bill did not pass. So we have an option here, to do the one thing that we can do and we can do it immediately, and it is under our control and that is to simply stop filling the SPR, go back to the March levels when these energy prices started running up, and give the American people and businesses a break, and let them recover and to assimilate these costs.

Yes, we would love it that it would drop by 25 cents, but if it only drops 12 cents or 10 cents or 15 cents, that is important. It is certainly important to the business in this country and to the families we have kept our faith with the idea of filling the SPR because we are at the 93 percent level.

So I would urge that people would consider supporting this amendment. I think it is important for our constituents, it is important for their families, it is important for their budgets. We are talking about people in the middle class who are being squeezed.

This is not the only place. It is not only high energy costs. They have seen their deductibles and copayments on health care go up. They have seen their cable rates go up, their utility rates go up, the cost of their kids' college education. This middle class is being squeezed. We can provide some relief here with the Sanders amendment and lower the energy costs to these families in America, and we ought do it.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I rise in support of the amendment. This has been an interesting discussion about the difference between two-cycle and four-cycle engines, and that is very important because the industry has made remarkable improvements in snowmobiles, in the skidoos and the watercraft industry and the motorcycle industry and the off-the-road vehicles of all different types because they recognize that people were having a very serious problem with the invasive nature of these vehicles but also recognizing that this is a very large economy. Many, many people use and enjoy, as family recreation, off-the-road biking, off-the-road vehicle travel, snowmobiling, skidooing, and the rest of that. But because we can do that does not mean we can do it everywhere we can do it. There are some places in this country that are in fact very special. And there are places that do not necessarily need to be invaded by a snowmobile whether it is two-cycle or four-cycle. One can use their cell phone almost every place but there are places we would prefer they not do it. They can but we choose to say no.

The gentleman just asked the question about Yosemite. In the wintertime, one could take a snowmobile and go out to the end of Glacier Point. It would be a beautiful, marvelous trip. In a full moon people go out and they travel on skis and they go out. It is one of the great pleasures in Yosemite National Park in the wintertime. Would people want to run a snowmobile out to the end of Glacier Point? It is a paved road. It is covered with snow in the wintertime. It is not plowed. The answer is probably not because it is a very special place, and I do not think one would want to be out there listening to two- cycle or four-cycle engines for that matter.

Yellowstone is one of those very special places, and we should not be taking this very special place and submitting it to this pollution and to the noise factor in this park. Its impact on the people who have to work there, its impact on the wildlife have been well documented in the reports.

Some people say, well, then we should not allow the snowcoaches in. No. The snowcoaches should continue to strive to be better, to improve their efficiencies, their pollution, and the rest of that. I am not for banning people in Yellowstone in the wintertime. But to have 750 people zipping around on snowmobiles recognizing that they are on the paved road, and that has been a big victory to get them out of the back country, to get them out of the nonpaved areas, but the fact of the matter is that this park should not be invaded in that fashion.

I have been to West Yellowstone. I have talked to the snowmobilers. They are having a great time and I understand all of that. But I think there are many miles of trail that they can ride adjacent to the park in the area and across this country. There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of miles of trails that people can use that are official and unofficial trails that they use in the various States and the various regions where they can snowmobile. But we recognize, as the previous Congresses did when they set aside these great natural assets for this country, there are a lot of things we could do in the Grand Canyon but we would not. There are a lot of things we could do in Canyon Lands, but we would not because we recognize the integrity and the struggle that we have to maintain the integrity of these national parks. And in this particular one we are trying to make a decision that snowmobiling will not be allowed.

The gentleman from Minnesota who spoke said we can ride them in Voyagers. That is fine. Maybe that works in Voyagers. But we do not think it works, and it is incompatible with the protection and the use and enjoyment of Yellowstone National Park, and for that reason I would hope that people would support the Holt amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his handling of this bill for the minority on the floor and his work on it in the committee.

And the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) is quite right. We should oppose this bill. I have to say that I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are simply describing a bill that is not before us, because they talk about this as being supplemental and providing flexibility to the unemployed worker.

Now, clearly, we would like to do that, because we have 8 million unemployed individuals in this country. We have 90,000 people who are exhausting their unemployment benefits a week in this country who still have not been unable to find employment, who are in desperate straits. So, clearly, there is a need for what they are describing.

But let us understand something. What they are describing in terms of flexibility is already available in the law under the WIA bill that we are in the process of reauthorizing. They can provide you child care stipends if it helps you take advantage of a computer training program or a program at the community college or a program of a collaborative in your community. They can provide you a transportation voucher to get to that program if that is what is necessary.

That is why we designed the law that way, because we know that the unemployed come to these programs, and their needs are varied. Some people have automobiles, and some people do not. Some people have access to transportation, and some people do not. Their child care came with the job, and now they have lost it. That is why we built in that flexibility in the current program.

What this says is if you go for the bait on the hook, which is a grant, that could be up to $3,000, you are then prohibited from participating in those programs unless you take the $3,000 or the $500 or the $700. Because at $3,000 you are only going to take care of 16,000 people. We have 90,000 people who are losing their unemployment benefits a week. But if you take the $500, you then have to pay for the programs that are currently available to you in your community under the WIA act for free.

What is the deal here, folks? You are no better off. It is not supplemental. You have just lost your eligibility to what may be very good, comprehensive training programs.

In my community, industry is coming to community colleges and to the work incentive force all of the time to say we would like to structure a program in the community to provide us X number of people in biotechnology and high technology and refining business, whatever it is. That is the needs in our community.

You take this $500 voucher, you lose the eligibility to go to those programs. This is neither flexible nor supplemental. It takes away what people now have available to them. And if you took this $50 million, which obviously, given the President's memo on 2006, is going to be cut from other job training programs, if you added $50 million, you could provide much more child care to those individuals who need that to participate in retraining and to get ready for the next employment opportunity or need transportation costs covered so they can get to the community college or they can get to the training program or to the licensure program, whatever it is they choose. That is all available in law today.

The Republicans have said this is Career Week. This is Career Week in the United States House of Representatives. The only career we keep dealing with is legislation that doesn't do anything. We are making a career out of providing answers that do not answer the questions that workers are asking. We have got to stop this.

We ought to get on with the WIA bill. We ought to get it reauthorized. We ought to make sure that the funding is there so that all of the flexibility that is in that law can be utilized by the 8 million American workers who are looking for jobs in this economy and have been unable to find them.

So I would hope that my colleagues would join the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) and vote against this legislation, understanding that this is harmful and, in fact, it will subtract from the total job training package that this government is making available to those unemployed and to their families.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) that he ought to read the bill, because truth and facts are about what the language of the bill says.

If you read on line 16, page 15, ``For the 1-year period following the establishment of the account, recipients may not receive intensive, supportive, or training services funded under this title except for the fee-for-services basis.''

The gentleman obviously has not read the bill. That means that you either pay for it with the stipend the gentleman says he wants to give them, which provides them no additional new services, no flexibility. So do not stand up here and talk about facts or truth. Read the bill. Read the bill, and the gentleman will find out what he is doing is denying them the services that are already available to them today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, and I rise in opposition to this closed rule to deny a fair and open debate on the real needs of American workers.

Once again we see the Republican leadership shutting down the ability of the House for Members to debate and offer amendments to change the course of lives of American workers, to alter the legislation that comes before us that is really nothing more than a sham. It is a fig leaf to try to present to the American people that somehow the Republican majority cares about the unemployment when, in fact, what we see is we have 8.2 million people unemployed, we have 1.5 million workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits, people that no longer have the economic resources to hold their families together because they have been unemployed over 26 weeks. Those people are out there.

Speaker after speaker on the other side of the aisle has gotten up and lamented the level of unemployment in their district, and yet they refuse, they refuse to allow this Congress to address extending unemployment benefits to those people who they admit cannot find jobs in their district because of the economy, because of the layoffs, but they are going to let those individuals crash to the floor, lose their homes, lose their automobiles, make their chances of getting unemployment even more difficult because they refuse to bring up a bill to extend unemployment benefits. That is what the Republicans are offering.

What are they saying here? They want to offer a bill that says you may get up to $3,000. Well, one of the things we just learned in the most recent memo from the White House is they plan to cut all of these programs in the next budget year, and so this promise is not worth the paper that it is written on. It is up to $3,000. You may not get $3,000. You may get $1,000. It may not pay for the job searches that you are doing or the training that you need. But the Republicans want to suggest for those 8 million unemployed out there, for those 1.5 million workers who have exhausted their benefits, for the 2 million people who lost their jobs since President Bush took office, that somehow this legislation is going to deal with their problems. This legislation in no way deals with their problems.

The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) went to the Committee on Rules, and of course they were shut out. Because the Republicans are afraid of debate on unemployment, Republicans are afraid of debate on the homeland security and the employment of first responders to deal with the needs of this country. So what do they do? Rather than honor the tradition of the Constitution, rather than honor the traditions of this institution, they just close down the debate: Take this bill or leave it.

Well, this Congress ought to leave this bill, because it does not do anything for the unemployed, and it certainly does not help those people who are most desperate in our country, who have found themselves long-term unemployed and their benefits have run out. This is the first administration in decades that has refused to help those individuals who have exhausted their unemployment benefits.

It is unfortunate that we are in this situation. We should be able to consider the Kildee amendment on unemployment benefits, we should be able to consider the Ryan amendment to hire first responders to deal with the security needs of this Nation, but this Republican majority will not allow that. I would urge people to vote against the previous question so we would have an opportunity to vote on the Ryan amendment and do something for this country, for the unemployed, and for the security needs of this country.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the House Women's Caucus led by the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) and the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito) for their sponsorship and their

pushing for this resolution to come to the floor and to thank the House and Senate cosponsors of our resolution, including California's two Senators, Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein, and Richmond's Rosie the Riveter superintendent Judy Hart from the National Park Service and, obviously, the 6 million women who helped build American history.

Many people have learned about the Rosie the Riveter story recently from the great work being done by Ford Motor Corporation to encourage Rosies to come forward and tell the story of the Rosies, along with the National Park Foundation.

This legislation that we are voting on today honors the millions of women who answered the call to service on the homefront during World War II. The Rosies, as they are known, built tanks and ships, working as welders, machinists, mechanics, pipe fitters, electricians and boilermakers and so many other trades and professions during the Second World War while so many men were off in the battles of combat. They learned the skilled jobs previously reserved for men. They earned men's wages, and they gained new independence. The effort by these women made victory abroad possible.

Those who have studied the history of the period will remember how unprepared America was to enter the Second World War. It is because of the effort by these Rosies that we met the challenge and succeeded in winning the Second World War. But it also was a time when there was some dramatic change in the workforce in America. Women and minorities were gaining access to high-paying jobs and industry for the first time. Health care and services for employees and their families were available on a full-time basis for the first time in many instances. Services, including child care, to help parents balance family and work for the first time became available.

The oldest continuous child care center in the program is in my district that was part of the Kaiser Shipyards in the San Francisco Bay area, and it was named after Ruth Powers who was a teacher and a Rosie at that time, and it continues in service today.

We saw these incredible partnerships created between government, industry and the labor unions to take care of the workforce and to train the workforce and to make sure they could report to work every day. It is also clear that this contribution is absolutely tantamount to our winning the Second World War.

This weekend we will have a rivet cutting at the Rosie the Riveter World War II Homefront National Park in Richmond, California, where we will cut the ribbon on the new Visitors Center that is being created there.

Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, where they produced a Liberty ship every day, women comprised over a quarter of the workforce. Their shipyard was the largest and most productive of World War II. The war transformed the economy of California. The State population grew by nearly 75 percent. Richmond grew from 23,000 people to a booming town of 100,000 people in support of the warfront industries that were related there at that time.

Many people today think that 24-7 is a term that came out of the technology revolution, out of the dot.com revolution. Mr. Speaker, 24-7 was a watchword in Richmond, California. We had 24-hour supermarkets because people worked three shifts. We had 24-hour rooming houses where people changed beds according to the shifts that they were working. We had 24-hour child care for families, 24-hour physician services, 24- hour health care, because the effort there was to keep the workforce working so that they could meet the demands of the war, which they did.

It also provided for the most rapid and deep integration of the American workforce up to that time in history, as did much of World War II in the industry base. It changed the economy, it changed our society, it changed the women's movement in this country and their role in American society.

If you have met the Rosies, you understand the pride that they demonstrate when many of them can still show their journeyman's card, when many of them can describe the fear they had on the first day of work when they showed up for jobs that they had never heard of or seen done before, and also the pride when they now recognize what they contributed to: the winning of the Second World War.

I want to thank the cosponsors of this legislation, the House women's organization for pursuing this.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the original author of the World War II memorial legislation.

(Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this decision to go in to work in the industrial forces of this country during World War II was not a decision that could be taken lightly. The fact of the matter is this was dangerous, hard, heavy work that these women were engaged in, in many of these professions. We are told that between Pearl Harbor and January 1 of 1944, 37,000 people were killed in these industrial factories and shipyards and airplane factories, and over 210,000 were permanently disabled, and almost 4 million were temporarily disabled, 60 times the count on the battlefront in that situation. So these women were making serious sacrifices in many instances and, in some cases, their lives.

This weekend, as I mentioned, we will do a ribbon-cutting on the Visitors Center of the Rosie the Riveter World War II homefront Park in Richmond, California, and it is symbolic of so many of the activities that took place on the homefront in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere in the Nation. There are other sites around the Nation that will be added to this park where these homefront activities took place.

But in the western United States prior to the war, for the decade prior to the war, we had produced no merchant ships and, all of a sudden, with the advent of the war, we produced 4,600 ships in 1,300 days. In one instance we produced a ship, the SS Robert Peary, a liberty ship, in 4 days, 15 hours, and 29 minutes from start to finish. That ship was produced and sent on its way to contribute to the war. That effort was possible because of the participation of women in the workforce, the Rosie the Riveters, and the contributions that they made to the homefront campaign to not only ready America for the war, to keep it engaged in the war, but to win that war in Europe and in the Pacific campaigns.

Thousands and thousands of workers migrated across the country to come to California to work in the war industries, to work on the West Coast, in Seattle, in Puget Sound, and elsewhere in those war industries. As they did, they changed, as so many of our colleagues have already spoken to, they changed the face of the workforce, they changed the race of the workforce, they changed the makeup of the workforce, and they changed the attitudes of employers toward workers. Because at the Kaiser Shipyard they knew that they needed to keep every employee on the job all of the time.

That is why we saw what is now the Kaiser health care system. The largest HMO in the country today was started in the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California. It was there because they provided full health care coverage for all of their workers and their families. In my district, of those people who have health care insurance, I think roughly three out of four are enrolled in the Kaiser insurance plan.

That is a legacy of the Rosie the Riveter days of the homefront effort during the war and is the model for child care in the workplace in this country. It was begun in these industries because of the necessity of making sure that these women could balance the care of their children, the good health of their children, and the need of this country to have them engage in the workforce.

I am very proud that one of my aunts, Laura Kerry, was a Rosie the Riveter in the shipyards. My father worked as a labor arbitrator for the shipyards between the workforce and the employers at that time.

So, again, I want to thank the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito) for sponsoring this resolution, and the Women's Caucus and the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) for her sponsorship on this side of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this measure.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, are families and college students better off than they were 4 years ago? Not when it comes to being able to afford a higher education.

In the year 2000, when candidate George Bush said we should make the path to college open for all, that was his promise. Four years later that path is covered in weeds and broken promises, and President Bush and the Republicans must accept responsibility for their failed leadership in this area.

Since 2001 a 4-year public college tuition has increased by almost 30 percent. How has President Bush responded? Each year, he broke his promise to provide a $5,100 maximum Pell grant to all first-year college students. In fact, the Pell grant this year is worth $500 less than it was 30 years ago, and the President's 2005 budget eliminates Pell grants from 95,000 deserving students who need that money to pursue a higher education.

Now the Republicans are rubber-stamping the President's legislation that would force the typical student borrower to pay $5,500 more for their student loan than they currently do. I do not think those students believe they are better off than they were 4 years ago.

Mr. Speaker, for all of the reasons mentioned by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), not only does this budget resolution graphically demonstrate the incompetency of the Republicans to deal with the budget of this country and the budget resolution in this House, but it does something much more sinister than that.

Buried in this resolution is the prohibition against any votes to be taken in the House of Representatives against the provisions offered by the administration, the rules that they put forth to deny millions of working people in this country the right to overtime. When these rules go into effect, if we cannot vote against them as the Senate has voted against them, when these rules go into effect, millions of Americans will be required to work overtime

in the future; they just will not get overtime pay.

That means for millions of America's families, families that use overtime that is so important to them to qualify for the mortgages on their house, to qualify to buy an automobile, to put their kids through school, they are not going to have that in their paycheck in the future because they are going to be excluded from being eligible for overtime.

Now the Senate addressed this rule, and they voted against it. They voted to change it. We fought hard against the original rule because the original rule would have excluded maybe 11 million Americans from the right to have overtime pay when they work overtime. Americans understand why they get overtime pay, because when their employer comes and says they have to work late on Thursday night or Friday night, that means they have to rearrange their child care, that means they have to rearrange their ability to spend time with their family, that may mean they have to rearrange their doctor's appointments, and you have to change your life around for the convenience of the employer. So you get overtime pay.

Now when the employer comes to the worker and says he or she has to work overtime, there will be no overtime pay. That is why this House and the Senate defeated those rules on a bipartisan basis, and the administration now has come up with a new rule. And we find out that even the new rule excludes millions of hard-working Americans from overtime pay, people struggling to hold onto a middle-class lifestyle and standard of living for their families. That is about to evaporate. That is about to evaporate because this House will not allow us, the Republican leadership will not allow us to have an up-or-down vote.

We are fighting so hard for democracy in Iraq, but we cannot have an up-or-down vote in the House of Representatives. We cannot have an up- or-down vote. We cannot have an up-or-down vote because the majority, on a bipartisan basis, will vote to overturn these rules. By a vote of 99-0, the Senate voted to change these rules and exclude from the impact of these rules, to try to save these middle-class families, computer programmers, licensed practical nurses, nurse midwives, oil and gas pipeline workers, oil and gas field workers, oil platform workers, refinery workers. Get the message here?

Millions of hard-working Americans, the Senate voted 99-0 to exclude steelworkers, shipyard workers, teachers, technicians, journalists, chefs, cooks, police officers, firefighters, fire sergeants, police sergeants, emergency medical technicians; 99 to nothing the Senate voted, that means bipartisan. That means all of the Republicans and all of the Democrats voted to protect these workers and their families. In the House of Representatives, the Republicans will not let Members have a vote on this.

We tried twice in the last week to have a vote, and they voted on a partisan straight party line to subject these workers to these rules that will cut their pay this year.

When workers are faced with outsourcing, plant closings, no wage growth, higher health care premiums, now the Republicans have decided to cut their overtime pay. Not only do they show no concern for people who are unemployed; but if you have a job, the Republican's initiative is to cut your pay. But what are they going to do, they are going to continue the cover-up because buried in this rule they have denied the ability of this House to vote on this rule.

Again, the Senate, 99-0, voted to protect construction employees, production line employees, carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, ironworkers, craftsmen, anybody earning an hourly wage because the rule does not protect hourly wage earners. It helps painters, cement masons, stationary engineers, longshoremen, utility workers, welders. Does this sound like Members' constituency? Does this sound like the people who work in our congressional districts every day? Yes, it does.

Mr. Speaker, these are the people who built America, they built the middle class; and now the Republicans are taking away their overtime. But Members will not get to have a vote on that because the Republicans are afraid of the vote. They are afraid of democracy. They are afraid of the people's House working its will so they have shut down the debate and shut down the ability to have a vote.

The Senate had a vote, and they even voted on a bipartisan basis to exclude anybody who has overtime today.

So apparently the Senate can have bipartisan representation, apparently the Senate can have democracy, but this House cannot have democracy.

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Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

If a motion to table this motion on overtime pay prevails, will it have the effect of denying the Members any debate on this issue?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Then to be clear, let me understand that this means that we will not have the hour of debate on the Department of Labor's efforts to deny millions of workers currently eligible for overtime from receiving overtime in the future?

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.