Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and his efforts for helping to bring this bill to the floor. And I also thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) for his steadfast efforts to get this bill before the committee. I also want to take a moment to thank Loren Bausell and Jean Flemma, both former staff of mine, who helped initially craft this legislation when I introduced this bill has year, and worked with the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) on this year's proposal.

I also want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), chairman of the Committee on Resources; and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest), the subcommittee chair, for their efforts. I would like to join the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon) in also thanking Tippi Hedren, who has been involved in this issue for so many years and whom I have had an opportunity to meet with numerous times on this subject matter. To see this bill now come to the floor I think is an important milestone in her effort for the safety of the public and for the welfare of these large animals.

I hope we can quickly reconcile the differences between the House and Senate legislation and get this enacted into law this year. This bipartisan bill represents a firm commitment to protect the safety of the American public and the welfare of wild animals that are increasingly kept as pets.

Our bill provides a first step in addressing a growing national problem. According to best estimates, there are more than 5,000 tigers in captivity in the United States. There are perhaps more tigers in captivity than there are tigers in their native habitats throughout the range in Asia. I have got a stack of news articles over an inch

thick describing instances in almost every State where some exotic pet escaped and was roaming around a suburban neighborhood. There are also more disturbing articles about well-intentioned pet owners who have run out of money because the feeding of a 200-pound tiger is very expensive. Then there are the cases where the animals, which are far from domesticated, harm their owners or others.

Owning an exotic cat is not like owning Morris the house cat. These animals are big, they cost a lot to feed, and they are one degree away from their wild instincts at any moment. The Captive Wildlife Safety Act bars the interstate sale or transportation of lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs and cougars, or their hybrids, in an attempt to exercise some control over the burgeoning interstate commerce of these animals. The legislation would not ban all private ownership of these prohibited species; rather, it would outlaw the commerce of these animals for use as pets.

The bill is specifically aimed at the unregulated and untrained individuals who are maintaining these wild animals as exotic pets. Zoos, circuses, and sanctuaries are better equipped with both the physical and financial resources to care for these animals and are not affected by this legislation.

At a time when almost anything can be bought on the Internet, it is not surprising that the animals can all be purchased through the more than 1,000 Web sites that promote private ownership of these wild animals. The Captive Wildlife Safety Act represents an emerging consensus on the need for comprehensive Federal legislation to regulate what type of animals can be kept as pets.

We simply have got to understand that we have got to do this both for the safety of our neighborhoods which now has occurred both in suburban areas and rural areas and even now in urban areas with the captive keeping of these animals. We have got to do it for the safety of the neighborhoods, and we have got to do it for the welfare of these animals. We cannot let the care of these animals, the welfare of these animals be kept in a haphazard fashion based upon the whims of an individual at any given time simply to grab the ownership of one of these animals only later to find out that they are not trained or capable in other ways to take care of these cats or financially cannot take care of them and they either turn them over to the public or they set them loose or these cats escape and cause danger in the neighborhoods. It is not fair to the animals, and it is certainly not in the best interest of our communities. I would hope that we would be able to pass this legislation right away.

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

Mr. Speaker, 95 million investors have deposited $7 trillion in mutual funds, the largest deposit of retirement savings in this country. They have deposited that money there in hopes of a bright retirement, building a nest egg that can support their family and their standard of living when they cease to work. These are hardearned dollars of American workers in every industry at every level. They were told to invest for the long term, $7 trillion.

Now every morning the American worker wakes up to a new headline, where the powerful, the insiders, the elite, the criminals are looting those mutual funds, are skimming profits off of those trust funds to the detriment of the average investor, the average worker.

Mr. Strong, who runs the Strong Mutual Funds, who is worth $800 million, set up an account for his daughter, for his wife and for himself and secretly looted the savings of American workers. Mr. Strong should go to jail.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for offering this motion to instruct and appreciate his remarks and the remarks of the gentleman from Virginia, the chairman of the committee. The reason this motion is offered is because there has been concern about the deterioration of the conference process between the House and the Senate. As the gentleman from Texas pointed out, the process that we are now witnessing with the energy bill and with the prescription drug bill is a disaster in terms of public participation, public understanding of what is taking place, and the protection of Members of this body as they represent their constituencies.

I am delighted that the Committee on Agriculture has a long tradition of open conference committees. I believe that the Committee on Resources has that same long tradition of ironing these kinds of legislative conflicts out. I think it is also important that this motion to instruct have the date due to try to encourage the conference to get this done.

We do this in the aftermath of the California fire disasters, but the California fire disasters did not happen in a vacuum. It is not that this Congress was not working on this problem; it was that this Congress could not reach agreement. Over 2 years ago, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), and others tried to work on a provision. We ended up reporting from the committee a bipartisan agreement. Unfortunately, at the end of the session, it was not taken up by the Congress of the United States. But it did, in fact, focus the resources on the thinning around communities where we know these catastrophic fires can occur in terms of the loss of life and the loss of property. It expedited the consideration by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to make sure that decisions could be made on a timely basis so we could treat this threat when it was necessary, and it provided for robust public participation and critical environmental protections.

But that bill is in the past. That was not accepted. In our committee we had open debate. People offered amendments. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) went on a different tack this time. I did not agree with that. But it was done openly and it was done with the amendment process. But I have concerns with that legislation now, and I am worried that there are some huge differences between the Senate bill, which I think directs more of the resources toward the so-called urban interface where these catastrophic fires can happen. I want to make sure that we do that. I want to make sure, as the Senate did, that we authorize the money to be spent. I think the House bill is built on a bit of a fallacy and that is somehow that the timber value of the trees that are removed and thinned is going to pay for the fire treatment that is necessary. If you really believe that and if that is the basis on which you are going to operate, as does the House bill, then you would never get around to treating the lands in Southern California because they are not timberlands. There is no value to be extracted.

We were saying earlier, I think, in Texas, you hook up an anchor chain between two Caterpillar tractors and you drag it across the land when you want to get rid of this kind of scrub. That is essentially what you are going to have to do here. There is no value. This is going to cost Federal dollars. Like the Senate bill, we have got to authorize those moneys to be spent.

We also have got to recognize, as we see in Southern California, that this is a patchwork of public and private lands, that we have got to be able to go in and treat those public lands. I think we have got to figure out some cost-sharing with those private landowners, but we cannot let their neglect start fires on public lands or fires that get out of control. In the House bill, we do not address that. We must address that in the conference report.

I think that we have got to understand that time is working against us.

They say that we are going to be out of here on November 21. We cannot go into another fire year with Congress failing to address this issue. It takes time to lay out these treatment plans. It takes time to marshal the resources. Unfortunately, historically what we have seen is the money that is supposed to be used for treatment, the money that is supposed to be used for prevention is not put there because those accounts are raided to fight the fires that result because we do not treat them. We saw this unfortunate situation where California's Governor made application for money to treat the southern lands, many of the lands that burned, joined in bipartisan support from our delegation asking that this money be used, made the application many, many months ago, unfortunately turned down, and then we had the fires. Could we have been able to treat that? Some of it. Not all of it. Not by any means. But it takes time to move into these areas. It is going to take real resources. You simply are not going to be able to take enough timber off these lands if you do it properly and pay for the kind of treatment.

So Congress has got to understand after the disasters of California that I think most of the people in the United States would believe that this is an area of priority where America's government ought to spend money to protect America's forests, to protect the timber crops, to protect the recreational values, and to protect those communities that are now located in that catastrophic zone where fires can get out of control and we have no way to prevent the loss of life and of property.

I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for his comments and for his understanding of what we are trying to accomplish with this motion in terms of an open and public conference committee, and I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for offering this. I also want to thank my chairman of the Committee on Resources, the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), for the manner in which we were allowed to debate this measure in the House. I would hope that this would not get sucked into this whirlpool of partisanship and the shutting down of conference committees, because this is a matter that is desperately important to so many of our communities in the timberlands and the wildlands of the United States.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, when I was talking about dragging the chains across the desert, I did not mean that to be derogatory. That is a practice that works. In California, we cannot criticize that, because then we take the mesquite and turn it into mesquite charcoal for those oven-roasted, free-range chickens.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to introduce along with 20 of my Democratic colleagues on the Education and the Workforce Committee, the Healthy Children Through Better Nutrition Act of 2003.

Since coming to Congress in 1975, I have been a steadfast advocate of child nutrition programs and the significant role they play in meeting the health and educational needs of our nation's children. In my first year in Congress, along with Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, I authored the Women, Infants and Children supplemental nutrition program, and the role of this program, and other nutrition programs, in improving the health, safe development, and school performance of our nation's children remains as strong as at that time.

I have seen first hand--at school cafeterias, summer programs and WIC clinics--children who receive their only meals through our federal nutrition programs. Today, the challenge to increase access to these programs for low-income children remains, and the programs must meet new demands.

Mr. Speaker, our children face a health threat that requires our immediate attention and response. We know that over the past thirty years, the childhood obesity rate has tripled. Among teenagers, childhood obesity increased from 5 percent in 1970 to 14 percent in 1999. This crisis spans age, race and gender groups and is leading to significant increases in the early onset of traditionally adult diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease in young children. Leading medical researchers believe that--in conjunction with expanded exercise and nutritional education--improving the quality of foods served in schools can have a significantly beneficial effect on reducing childhood obesity and its related health effects.

The Healthy Children Through Better Nutrition Act of 2003 offers a multifaceted school- and community-based approach to responding to this dangerous trend in childhood obesity. School- and community-based nutrition programs have been serving the nutritional needs of American children for over 50 years. Today, it is well recognized that schools and communities have an even greater task in responding to the needs of children and families who face daily challenges in securing a healthy and nutritious meal. The Healthy Children Through Better Nutrition Act of 2003 provides schools and communities with the tools and resources they need to promote a healthy and nutritious environment for children in need.

School-based Initiatives

Federal school nutrition programs serve about 28 million children daily through school breakfast, school lunch and after-school snack programs. It is not unusual for a child to receive two-thirds of her daily diet while at school.

Meals served under these federal school nutrition programs must meet American Dietary Guidelines, and we congratulate the school food service program that continues to make real progress toward meeting these goals. However, the school cafeteria also plays host to foods that lack any significant nutritional value. These foods, sold side by side with the national school meals menu, are not subject to any dietary guidelines and can have a negative impact on healthy eating and student participation in the school meals program.

The Miller/Woolsey proposal will direct the Institutes of Medicine to recommend nutritional standards for foods sold side-by-side with foods that are offered as part of the federal school meals in the cafeteria. These standards would take into consideration the different dietary requirements of students in elementary, middle and high schools.

These recommendations would be submitted to the Secretary of Agriculture for implementation.

School food directors are in the best position and are most qualified to make decisions about the nutritional quality of foods made available to students. Unfortunately, in many schools, school food directors have little authority to implement policies that encourage a healthy school nutrition environment. The school food director often faces competing interests from school administrators to increase revenues through the sale of foods outside of the federal school meals program, such as soda, high fat and high sodium snacks. These ``competitive foods'' do not meet the nutritional standards we want for our children. The growing revenue constraints faced by many school districts have increased the proportion of unhealthy competitive foods in the cafeteria and has negatively impacted the school nutrition environment.

The Miller/Woolsey proposal will require schools to establish a nutrition policy and give operation authority to the school food directors. This approach coordinated with new standards for ``competitive foods'' will strengthen and protect the integrity and nutritional quality of the school meals program.

While school food service authorities have made progress improving the quality of school meals, consumer confidence remains low. Currently menus are reviewed for nutritional quality once every five years, and few schools publish the nutrient quality of their menus.

The Miller/Woolsey proposal will increase the number of nutritional reviews of school menus and require that this information be disclosed to the public. Technical assistance will be offered to schools that need additional assistance in improving the quality of meals.

The Farm Bill established a limited pilot in 4 states to provide for the introduction of more fresh fruits and vegetables into the school meals program. The increased availability of fresh fruits and vegetables produced a dramatic difference in the dietary intake of students in those schools.

The Miller/Woolsey proposal will expand the number of states and schools participating in this successful program, targeting schools in high poverty areas.

Nutrition Education provides students with meaningful information on the importance of good dietary habits as well as professional development for nutritional professionals and teachers. The lack of guaranteed funding for nutrition education has limited states in their ability to provide assistance to LEAs.

The Miller/Woolsey proposal will authorize mandatory funding for a nutrition education program that will fund a Team Nutrition Network State Coordinator in each state and promote a coordinated approach for nutrition education.

The Healthy Children through Better Nutrition Act of 2003 also: Streamlines eligibility requirements for school meals for children who are currently eligible for Food Stamps, TANF and Medicaid; makes homeless children automatically eligible for school nutrition programs; provides startup and expansion grants for school breakfast; provides schools with commodities for the school breakfast program; establishes a demonstration project to evaluate the impact of universal breakfast in high schools; and provides grants to schools for improving the use of technology in the school meals program.

Community-based Initiatives

The community outside of the schoolhouse is playing an enhanced role in meeting the nutritional needs of children. The Healthy Children Through Better Nutrition Act of 2003 introduces a new program to eliminate paperwork and streamline participation requirements for community-based providers of nutrition programs.

The Year Round Community Child Nutrition program fills a gap in current nutrition services for children in before and after care programs, homeless shelters, and after-school programs. Currently community-based programs, such as after school programs and homeless shelters, serve up to 2 meals and a snack to the children participating in their programs. Some of these programs run only during the summer, other programs run full year but must submit paperwork for two separate programs in order to serve children year round. Under this legislation, the Year Round Community Child Nutrition program will:

Allow community-based non-profit organizations to serve healthy and nutritious meals to children year round.

Offer up to three meals and two snacks to children who participate.

Make 21st Century Community Learning Centers automatically eligible to participate.

Give program providers greater flexibility in when and where meals are served.

The Healthy Children Through Better Nutrition Act of 2003 also:

Allows more states to serve an additional meal to children in full day childcare programs.

Allows homeless children up to 18 years of age to receive meals Through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) program.

Provides startup and expansion grants for the summer food program.

Streamlines paperwork for summer food providers.

Eliminates unnecessary paperwork for CACFP providers.

Establishes a demonstration project for streamlining the monitoring of CACFP providers.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans on the other side of the aisle keep saying it is not about the numbers, and then they want to argue the numbers. Let me agree with them: this is not about the numbers. This is simply a question of values and ethics. This is whether or not this President and this Republican Party that controls the Congress of the United States will keep their word to America's children and to their parents and to the school districts and the teachers across this Nation.

It is all interesting what you want to talk about before No Child Left Behind passed. But No Child Left Behind is the

most significant reforms we have made to American education in 35 years. And we did it with full knowledge of how much money we were spending, and we did it with full negotiations with this President about the reforms and the significance of these reforms; and this President said, if you can get these reforms, I will get you the resources. We now find out he just simply was not telling the truth. He told the truth for 1 year. He just could not tell the truth for both years, because the resources are not there. We told schools that this Nation wants you to have 100 percent of our children proficient at grade level in 12 years. Schools are working hard to do this. And there are mixed results. But they are doing it. They are working at it. And now we have identified each and every child that is not meeting that standard. Those are called schools in need of improvement.

What do we say in the Federal law for schools in need of improvement? We said we will give you additional money in the second and third year to turn those schools around, to reconfigure those schools to get different results. Those are the exact schools that need the money this year, and it is not there because this Congress and this President refuse to provide it. So what do those poor children do? They have been told that they need improvement. Later there could be sanctions against these schools at the State level, and we have pulled back the money that they were going to use to improve those schools. The Governors have taken the heat for identifying those schools. The school superintendents have taken the heat for identifying these schools. Parents are upset. But the whole idea was that we would help you turn those schools around because it is important to our country, it is important to these children, it is important to their families. But on the eve of the moment that that is supposed to happen, this President reneged on his promise. He got the reforms on a big bipartisan basis, and school districts all across the country are trying to make them work, and he walks out on them because he did not put the money in his budget, and he is encouraging the Congress not to go forward with these kinds of increases.

This motion to instruct is not meaningless. It is important. It is about values. It is about truthfulness. It is about the ethics of our profession when we promise the American people we will do something and then we fail to do it.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, under current practices today, the National Guard gets hand-me-down equipment from the regular Army. In many instances, it is never really anticipated those Guard units will go into combat. Now, because of manpower shortages, we are reaching so deeply into the Guard that we are having the Guard show up in Baghdad with old-generation Humvees without the proper equipment.

We will have an amendment later today to transfer $300 million out of the weapons of mass destruction search by David Kay that has turned up a vial of botulism that we are now told by the experts has never been turned into a weapon, and it was sold by an American company back in the 1980s and given to the National Guard so that when they rotate into Baghdad and into other parts of Iraq, they will have modern equipment.

We cannot sacrifice the lives of these young people because we failed to provide them the equipment or we gave them old equipment 7, 8, 10 years ago and they have to take that equipment into battle. This is absolutely crucial in terms of the safety and protection of our fighting men and women who are in the Guard who now find themselves stationed in combat zones in excess of a year.

Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from California for introducing this amendment and making sure that it was in order. It raises a very important question. It is a matter of life and death for the members of our National Guard.

Currently we have a policy in place which makes a lot of sense in ordinary circumstances for the taxpayer and for the use of our equipment and, that is, that the Guard gets essentially hand-me-down equipment as we buy new equipment for the active forces to engage in combat. But now what we find out is because of our manpower problems and the longer deployments of the Guard and a deeper reaching into the Guard structure in this country to deploy people in Iraq, in Afghanistan, we are in the situation where we now have the Guard entering the field of combat with old and, in some cases, obsolete equipment, equipment that is not compatible, communications equipment that is not compatible, Humvees that are from the first generation that do not provide the kind of protection to the occupants of that vehicle that the newer Humvees do. Yet, now we find, as I have been told by Guard members on the phone from Baghdad, in letters from Baghdad, they are seeing modern equipment being rotated back to the United States as those units are rotated out and the Guard is still left with old, obsolete, unsafe equipment.

The National Guard must not be put into the theater of combat with less than the same equipment that the active Army is put into the field of combat with. We cannot treat them as second-class citizens. This is a policy that

makes sense in peacetime, but this is a policy that is now lethal to our Guard members. I would hope that the committee, in its deliberations, would be able to address this problem.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) on my behalf.

Madam Speaker, I want to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) who just spoke in the well and fully agree with him that we should have been given an opportunity to make the same kind of investments in America that we are prepared now and voting on to make in Iraq. I think we owe it to the American people. We owe it to our economy. We owe it to our families.

Earlier, just a few minutes ago our colleague, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), spoke about the realities of the war taking place in Iraq and the real impact on the young men and women who are there fighting that war, fighting the continued hostilities that rain down on them on a daily basis, many, many times a day.

He has, like so many of us, had the honor and the privilege to visit with some of our soldiers who have returned home in a wounded condition, in many instances in a severely wounded condition. Young men and women who are now amputees, in some cases multiple amputees, who have been received at Walter Reed Hospital for their care.

When you meet these young men and women, you are honored to be in their presence. You are honored by their decision to take part in our Armed Forces. But we have not served them well with the plan that currently exists for postwar Iraq. We did not serve them well in the first days and weeks and the months since this ceasing of hostilities in Iraq with the formal fighting.

And I would like to read a letter from a young man from my district who is part of a military police unit. He sent this letter to me after he talked with me on the phone from Baghdad. And I want to quote part of the letter beginning with, he says, ``Now, I feel it is my duty as an American to point out a few simple facts to the people who depend on me and my compatriots to be strong, reliable soldiers in the National Guard. First of all, often when my military police unit discovers large caches of weapons, 80 millimeter rockets, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades, we are ordered to leave them where we found them, completely unsecure, waiting to fall in the hands of the enemy. The reason? There are not enough EODs, explosive ordnance disposal teams available. So dangerous weapons that are used to kill Americans are left just to sit there. Imagine how frustrating it is to walk away from the weapon cache as neighborhood children climb and play on it, hoping beyond hope that yours won't be the life taken by something in that pile.

``Secondly, it may surprise you that many of us do not even have bulletproof vests and that everyone in my unit is driving an old first- generation Humvee, and, also, that does not repel bullets. My unit was on the ground in Iraq for a month without vests. Our communications equipment is archaic. Regular Army personnel have all of the up-to-date equipment, National Guard gets the leftovers.

``Our unit is now west of Baghdad living in a disgusting old prison that, among many other things, is an asbestos nightmare. Will there be health care available for those when we come home ill? Probably not since the Veterans Administration budget has already been trimmed by $1 billion. I would be willing to bet that the officials who gave the thumbs up to extending the National Guard tours for 6 months to 1 year wouldn't have done so if they had been in Iraq facing the very dangers that we do every day. Morale has begun to go downhill pretty darn fast and we are likely to crash if the extension stays in effect.''

That is a letter from a young soldier who puts his life in harm's way every day doing his duty as ordered by this country. One of the things he points out is that the National Guard units are now showing up in the theater of combat in Iraq with inferior equipment. Hopefully, tomorrow we will have made in order an amendment by the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher) and myself that will take some of the money from the hunt for weapons of mass destruction because we add 600 million new dollars to continue this quest where we found no weapons, we would take $300 million of that and transfer that to the National Guard so that no longer will we send these young people and these military police units that are from my district and from the West Coast to go into harm's way in a Humvee that is a first generation.

The National Guard, which we are going deeper and deeper into calling up them, and the Army Reserve, ought to be able to go in with the same first-class equipment as the Regular Army. These are not second-class citizens. We are relying on them to do a job in Iraq.

We rely on them to do a job in Afghanistan.

We rely on them to do jobs all over the world for the security of this Nation. They certainly are entitled to the care of this Congress by making sure that they have first-class and the same good equipment as the regular Army. We will have a chance to vote on this tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for the amendment that hopefully he will be able to offer later in this debate.

It is very clear now to most Americans that the administration was planning more for war than it was for the peace after the war. The administration continued to insist that actions would be quick, easy, and inexpensive. The administration continued to tell Americans this even though they were advised otherwise. They were advised by the Council on Foreign Relations, by the James Baker Institute, the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, and the Center for Strategic International Studies. All warned of the postwar violence and the instability that would come about if we did not internationalize this effort immediately.

They also warned about the inability of the oil fields to pay for this; about the special training that was going to be needed by our troops and by an international police force; about the likelihood of post-war violence and the need, again, for a specially trained police. By now, it must be clear that that advice was not taken by this administration.

As a result, we were ill prepared for postwar Iraq. Soldiers were put needlessly in harm's way due to poor planning and the absence of proper supplies, and a mission for which they were not trained and which was properly not theirs. They were improperly equipped for the threat that they faced. And that comes on the heels of spending $79 billion.

The failures and the threats have become even worse, and they continue to grow. The threats are more sophisticated, more dangerous. We now see parties from outside Iraq entering into that. The borders are not secure, and hundreds of American soldiers have been killed and severely wounded.

The administration, in fact, with this first $79 billion and its planning for postwar Iraq has failed in its duty of care it owed these soldiers and their families. Now they seek another $87 billion. How will this be different from the first $79 billion, and how can they justify the additional $45 billion to $70 billion they are coming to ask for us next?

This administration has a duty to the soldiers and the taxpayers to explain how is their safety going to be enhanced; how are we going to increase the number of bulletproof vests that are necessary, the bulletproof Humvees that are necessary. And when are we going to stop sending Guard units into this theatre with inferior equipment?

It is clear to all that we simply cannot leave Iraq. It is not good for Iraq, and it is not good for the security of America. But what we must do is insist upon a plan that will bring about real international participation, force security that our soldiers are due, and a fairness to the taxpayer. But that is not this plan, and for that reason I must vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit, with eight of

my colleagues in the House, the 21st Century Job Opportunities Act.

We need to put the nation's unemployed workers back to work. President Bush's policy to cut $3 trillion in taxes for the rich to stimulate the economy has left millions of Americans looking for work, and millions more working less than they need to in order to pay their bills. Others have given up looking for work altogether because of the dismal economy.

Since the beginning of 2001, the private sector has lost more than 3 million jobs, and the number of unemployed has risen in 49 states and national unemployment levels are over 6 percent, the highest in nearly a decade. Today, 9 million people are out of work and an additional 4.5 million people work parttime because they can't find a full-time job.

At the same time, new U.S. Census data shows that the median household income declined 1.1 percent between 2001 and 2002 and the number of Americans living in poverty increased for the second year in a row.

We can no longer tolerate President Bush's ``No New Jobs'' policy. Too many hard-working Americans are struggling to pay the rent, bills and provide for their families.

Providing immediate education assistance to unemployed workers to boost their skills so that they can successfully re-enter the workforce is essential. According to analysis by Postsecondary Education OPPORTUNITY, unemployment rates are more than one and one-half times higher for workers with only a high school degree, compared to workers with at least a Bachelor's degree.

In addition, analysis by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) shows that in 1973, three-quarters of all jobs were held by those with high school education or less, compared to just 40 percent today.

The 21st Century Job Opportunities Act would provide temporary emergency education assistance for workers who have been laid off and who require additional education and training to successfully re-enter the workforce. The Act would help to put Americans back to work by: Providing temporary emergency education assistance for workers who have been laid off and who require additional education and training to successfully re-enter the workforce; Granting eligible recipients up to an amount equal to the Pell Grant maximum award, towards tuition and fees; and, Providing the training for thousands of workers to help fill demands of the highly skilled workforce.

It is clear that the Republican economic policy, based on tax cuts for the wealthiest people, has failed to reverse the job losses in the economy. We need a new approach, one that puts Americans back to work.

It is essential to the nation's economic recovery that we invest in the education of American workers and put them back to work. I strongly encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill and ensuring that Americans can get back to work.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the press reported that Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans was going to travel the country and focus like a laser on the issue of jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, said the headline. He is going to travel from city to city and talk about jobs in America, that jobs are the most important issue.

Today we read that his first stop is going to be in Iraq. I guess maybe that is because that is where the Bush administration is creating jobs as they seek to build new hospitals, they seek to build schools that they will not build in this country, hospitals that they will not build in this country, sewer systems that they will not build in this country. We see these exorbitant contracts being led through Bechtel and Haliburton. I guess that is where the jobs are from the Bush administration, and that is why the Secretary of Commerce is going there instead of going to the Midwest where hundreds of thousands of people have lost manufacturing jobs or anywhere else in this country where over 3 million people have lost their jobs and 9 million people are unemployed.

The Secretary of Commerce would do well to travel the country, as opposed to going to Iraq.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time and thank her for bringing this motion to instruct.

I simply do not get it. I do not get how the wildly unpopular idea of weakening coastal protection can be an issue in this energy conference. The House bill did not have this proposal to do an inventory off of our coasts. The House bill did not have language to lessen a State's right go protect its coastline from inappropriate development. Why then are we confronted with this situation? Because time and again Congress has voted to give States the rights to protect their coastline.

This is like the end of a bad movie. We have seen it before. In spite of our efforts, in spite of the States' efforts to protect their coastline, in spite of this Congress's efforts to reassure them the right to do that, we are now back to where we were with James Watt when he proposed opening the entire United States coastline to drilling. It was so unpopular, as my colleagues have pointed out, we have a moratorium on the coast that goes to 2012 put on by both a Republican President and a Democratic President.

And yet this administration wants to pursue it. It simply does not want to pursue it in the light of day. It wants to pursue it in a closed conference committee. It wants to pursue it where its critics cannot get to it.

So that is why we are here today with this motion to instruct, because we do not want this provision to pass. Those of us who care about the coastlines of our States, who care about the economies of our States, who care about the tourism in our States, who care about the natural beauty of our States do not want this legislation to pass.

This inventory, one can say this is just an inventory, but when we look at the connection between this administration and the oil industry and the Vice President and the oil industry and the President and the oil industry, and it goes on and on and on, this is not just an inventory. This is about opening the coast, and we do not want that to happen.

We know that California has opposed this time and time again. We know that the Floridians have opposed offshore development. The great State of New Jersey time and again has opposed this. Members of Congress from the Great Lakes States when they were under threat opposed this. Oregonians, Washingtonians have all opposed this effort. Why? Because they understand the real value of the coastline to our States, our constituents, and to our citizens.

But yet the Republicans continue to pursue this at the behest of the energy companies. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot allow the oil and

gas industry to cut private deals inside this conference committee in spite of the directions of this House, in spite of the agreements that we made in the committee not to do this, to cut it because the oil industry is insisting that they do it.

This is an inventory that Governor Jeb Bush does not want. This is an inventory that the New Jersey delegation does not want, that the Florida delegation does not want. Certainly the California delegation on a bipartisan basis has made it clear they do not want it; and, in fact, the entire House of Representatives has rejected this.

And, as of today, our new governor-elect of the State of California has opposed this provision. He has come out against offshore oil drilling. He has come out for the protection of the California coast.

So on a bipartisan basis, on a bicoastal basis we are asking the Members to support the Capps' motion because the Capps motion is the means by which we can protect the great coastlines of this Nation.

Again, I want to thank the gentlewoman for offering this motion.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to call my colleagues' attention to two newspaper editorials concerning the leak of a covert CIA agent's identity. These editorials, printed last Thursday in the Contra Costa Times, of Walnut Creek California, and the San Francisco Chronicle, address the very serious federal crime involving the leak of the name and occupation of a covert CIA agent who is the wife of a former U.S. ambassador who investigated and then revealed that the Administration had used false information to justify the war against Iraq. Both newspapers call for a special counsel to investigate the White House's role in this leak, and the Chronicle suggests that Congress might need to conduct its own inquiry. The Washington Post and ABC News recently conducted a poll that found that seven out of ten Americans support a special counsel to investigate this serious matter.

I support many of my colleagues in the House and Senate who have called for a special counsel for similar reasons as stated by these newspapers. It is not credible that the United States Attorney General, John Ashcroft, can independently investigate a potential crime by this White House when not only was he appointed by President Bush but he employed the president's top political adviser on numerous occasions to help him in his Senate election campaign. The credibility of this Administration is already low, when you consider their failure to revive the economy, the clearly misleading nature of the evidence they provided to justify a war in Iraq, and their failure to properly prepare for the post-war conflict. The Administration owes it to the public to ensure that the most independent investigation possible is carried out regarding the leak of the CIA agent's identity.

The articles appear as follows:

[From the Contra Costa Times, Oct. 2, 2003]

Independent Probe

If President Bush wants to find out who leaked information

about a CIA officer to journalists he should support an

investigation by an independent special council, not just one

by the Justice Department. The leak is a serious matter

involving the wife of a diplomat who was critical of Bush's

assessment of Iraq's attempt to get uranium from Africa.

Joseph Wilson IV, in a July 6 op-ed piece in The New York

Times, recounted his mission on behalf of the CIA in early

2002. He was investigating the possibility that Saddam

Hussein was attempting to obtain uranium for Iraq's nuclear

arms program. Wilson charged that the Bush administration

twisted some of the information to make a case for going to

war against Iraq.

Eight days after the commentary appeared, Robert Novak

wrote a column that revealed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as

a CIA official. Novak attributed his information about Plame

to two ``senior administration officials.'' Two other

journalists from Newsday, Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce,

expanded on Novak's column after confirming Novak's

account.

Novak refuses to reveal his confidential sources. That is

his right and obligation as a journalist. But we are

suspicious of the motivation of Novak and those who leaked

the information about Plame. It appears to be retaliation

against Wilson and a warning to others.

The leak and almost gratuitous mention of Plame in the

column put her and anyone she did business with in jeopardy.

We wonder what Novak would have written in his column had

some liberal columnist revealed the name of an undercover CIA

officer.

The damage caused by the leak goes beyond the CIA and into

the White House. Certainly Bush would like to unveil the

leakers, and we trust that the Justice Department has

competent investigators. However, it is important to avoid a

conflict of interest, which would occur if the probe is

handled by Justice, led by political appointee John Ashcroft.

The surest way to both nab the leakers and assure public

confidence is through a special counsel. To do otherwise

damages the credibility of the White House and leaves the

door open for political demagoguery by the president's

opponents.