Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for withholding on his point of order so we may make our points.

I am most concerned with this amendment with respect to the sections dealing with labor, the issues of forced labor and exploited child labor, and the right to associate and to bargain collectively. Those are all determinations that would be made in the countries that we signed the agreement with. To suggest that somehow we cannot conduct free trade, that we cannot conduct trade with countries in Central America and South America, or anywhere in the world; that if those people have the right of freedom of association, or they have a right to collective bargaining, that that would destroy the trade agreements.

Yet, we have seen a country like Cambodia that now has a textile agreement, that has the ILO poor labor standards in it. We see American companies flocking to Cambodia to do business there, because, in fact, they find those poor labor standards provide a value added. They find out now that when they come under attack for the processes in which they use to manufacture their goods, they have the ability to refer them to the ILO.

It has been settled and many of them have escaped jeopardy because they had done nothing wrong, but there was a neutral forum to do that. The Cambodian Government finds, as I said, that this is a value added for them.

What are they doing? They are allowing people in a country that just a few short years ago was considered a killing field, they are allowing people to freely associate, to collectively bargain, to form the union, and to develop the workers' rights in accordance with that proposition.

That is all we are asking. We are not asking them to take American labor union agreements, the American labor collective bargaining standards, but we are allowing people to freely associate and to participate. And the fact of the matter is, it can work because if you do not do that, then what you simply do is develop what has been written about the first generation of globalization, and that is the incredible exploitation, the incredible exploitation in the Third World countries as we open them up for trade for purposes of manufacturing where the benefits are not shared, the benefits are not derived in those societies, and that has got to stop. Not only is that unfair competition for American workers, but it is exploitative competition for the people in those countries.

Why is it that when banana pickers try to get together in Ecuador, they are beaten by the police? Their houses are set on fire. They are beaten outside the place of their employment. Their families are intimidated. That is fair trade? That is the treatment that we want to bring to people? We do not want to suggest that these people are entitled to more? You can buy 10 pounds of bananas for 99 cents, so that somehow we can justify that?

No. This is about whether or not over a long period of time if these people

have these rights and they are enforceable, they will have the ability to freely associate, to collectively bargain, to get rid of forced labor, to get rid of child labor. And that would be the American market being used for the best of purposes to leverage these people into a better life and a better standard of living.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time; and I rise in support of this amendment.

My colleagues want to argue that somehow to cut the public out of the process, to provide a public process that is discretionary is somehow going to help in the planning of our forests. Well, we passed a bill here to deal with fire. My colleagues want to keep talking about fire, but somehow they do not want to pass the bill. We sent it to the Senate. I do not agree with every provision in it, but where is the Senate bill?

The fires are burning, we have a bill to address that, but now my colleagues want to use fire as an example to gut these regulations. We know what happens when the Forest Service does not involve the public or does not involve the scientists. We had a policy that almost destroyed the forests, either because they mindlessly cut down the forests and destroyed watersheds and destroyed streams, or they mindlessly did not deal with the forests and we built up such fuel loads that we lost them to catastrophic fires.

Now, as a result of a public process, because communities are involved, individuals are involved that live in the area, organizations that know about this and scientists who care about this, we have a comprehensive planning proposal that deals with these forests. These forests are not simplistic. These are complicated, huge watersheds and ecosystems, and that is what we have learned from the scientists.

Now my colleagues want to throw the scientists out of the room and treat these forests and treat these watersheds and treat these ecosystems somehow in a simplistic fashion. There is more to a forest than just the treatment of the fuel load. There is more to the habitat protection. There is more to the species protection than that. That is why these regulations are in play.

What the Bush administration is suggesting is that we just take a simplistic approach; and that if we take a simplistic approach, the first thing we will want to do is to cut the public out of the process. Well, the people in the communities that are impacted by these forests have a stake in it, they have an economic stake, they have a life-style stake, they have a standard of living stake, so they are concerned about those forests. But it would be much easier to cut them out of it. It should be in the direction of the forest manager as to whether he wants to let them in at this point or that point or the next point in the process.

Public participation is not a luxury. It is a right in this country. It is important to developing good policy. And that is why we should support the Udall amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment by the gentleman from New Jersey. What the bill seeks to do, as many have already stated, is to overturn two comprehensive studies about the harm that snowmobiles do to the park. The fact of the matter is that those decisions were made in an arbitrary fashion. While they identified the least environmentally damaging alternative, they chose not to take it. They chose not to take it because their intent from the very beginning was to overturn the rule and to provide access for the snowmobiles. Not only did they provide access, but they increased the level of access.

The fact of the matter is the National Park Service has made its finding that these impair and harm the parks. They cause harm to the individuals who are working in the park at that time. We ought not to overturn that.

To bring up these coaches from the 1950s is not to deal with the issue in an honest fashion. The fact is that there are new coaches that were on order, they have been put on hold because of the change in the rules, and we ought to protect the parks by bringing people in to enjoy the parks, to see the parks, to experience the parks, but do it in a manner which is environmentally compatible with the best interests of the parks.

That is the fiduciary relationship that the Secretary of the Interior has on behalf of the parks and on behalf of the American people. It is not to introduce this source of pollution in an unlimited fashion.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me the time.

I rise in strong opposition to this rule, and I would ask Members to vote against the previous question so that we could have an opportunity to vote on the Obey-Dicks amendment which would restore the $570 million that has been cut from conservation spending in this country.

I also rise to say that I would oppose the Boehlert amendment that would restore $95 million to these programs. The Boehlert amendment simply is an endorsement of these cuts. It simply is an endorsement of the cuts. We were spending $450 million on Federal land and water conservation programs per a bipartisan agreement and the support of this President of the United States. If my colleagues vote for the Boehlert amendment, we are down to $130 million on State land and water conservation, a primary driver of open space and conservation programs and habitat protection and the protections of the community values, $450 million after these cuts. Even with the Boehlert amendment, that is only $118 million.

We are talking about a massive loss of opportunities for local communities to protect and provide for the conservation of land around those communities for public use, for the use of their citizens, because these dollars are matched by private dollars, by local dollars, and they drive these acquisitions.

The Boehlert amendment is simply an endorsement of a policy that is now just wreaking havoc with that bipartisan agreement, with that promise made by this Congress that we would once again start using those moneys coming into the Land and Water Conservation Fund from offshore oil drilling to protect the natural assets of this country and our local communities.

That is why we have got to vote against the previous question and the rule. Because if we voted for the Obey-Dicks amendment, then we would keep the promise that we have made. We have made that with business organizations, we have made that with conservation organizations, we have made that with restoration organizations, we have made that with communities, that these were community values where the Federal Government would help out. All of that is devastated by this legislation, and we cannot buy into an endorsement of that by buying an amendment that simply puts just a few dollars back into these accounts while these accounts initially in this bill get slaughtered by the appropriations provided in this committee.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I thank him for all of his work on this bill and to the chairman of the committee for all of their time and effort to bring this bill to the floor.

But I do want to say how disappointed I am with this legislation in terms of its treatment of the conservation spending and the conservation accounts. As previous speakers have noted, these accounts were created based upon a bipartisan agreement and an agreement to fund them when we had under consideration the CARA legislation, which was really designed to redeem the promise that this government made to the people of this country that, in exchange for offshore oil drilling, we would create an account, the Land and Water Conservation Account, and those monies would be used for the acquisition and protection of public and local lands, stateside land and water conservation for State and local governments to acquire land and communities to acquire land, and the Federal account for Federal lands.

That was the agreement. There were overwhelming votes in the committee on a bipartisan basis; there were overwhelming votes on the floor of the House. The Committee on Appropriations responded with the funding of these accounts, and now we see that those accounts were savaged. This was a promise. This was an account that was created for the acquisition of these lands, both federally and locally. That account has several billion dollars in it in surplus, and yet we see what happens; those accounts were taken down from $450 million on the Federal side and $450 million on the state side.

It is just unacceptable, because what do these Federal dollars do at the local level? They attract corporate money, they attract foundation money, local people make contributions. The fastest-growing organizations in the environmental movement are land trusts where communities come together to try to protect the natural assets of their communities, to protect the values in their communities, to create open space so that people can enjoy a quality of life. That is what those Federal dollars do. They are all matched at the local level.

Now we see instead of $450 million, we are going to have around $100 million. It is breaking a promise. It is breaking a promise with the people of this country. We tried to offer, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) were going to offer an amendment; but it would not be made in order to restore the funding for those accounts. And those accounts should be restored in toto.

Maybe what we should do is we should object to every suspension bill where a Member of the Republican Party is asking to acquire additional land. I sit on the Committee on Resources; and we pass bill after bill where Members of the other party want to acquire land, another 10 acres, another 20 acres, move the boundary east, west, add to this national park, add to this wilderness area. Why do they do that? Because the communities they represent want this done. They are responding to the desires of their constituents. And now instead of $450 million being available, there will be $100 million. If the Republicans dislike the program this much, they should not put in any more requests. There should at least be enough money in this bill to fund the Republican requests for land acquisition. That ought to be the minimum.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Chairman, that was his promise during the campaign, and it was his promise after he was elected. He was asked by the supporters of CARA in the campaign. I hate to say this, but he endorsed the bill and the concept and the money before the Democratic nominee did. He was out there saying this is important. Why? Because he understands this is community-driven. This is the best in our Federal system. Local people have these needs; they have raised local money. The Federal Government provides a catalyst from an account that was set aside specifically for that purpose. The gentleman has done an incredible job on these conservation accounts over the last several years, but now all of a sudden it looks like they just got in the car and drove over the cliff on this one.

We will see who puts in the requests for the dollars. So no more Federal land, and yet bill after bill is passed out of the Committee on Resources, and then the Committee on Appropriations is supposed to fund it.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I want to say there are no two people more committed to education of our young children than the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula). And the budget that we are presented today, or the funding that we are presented today, in this legislation is not of their doing. That decision was made a long time ago when the decision was made to provide for the tax cuts to go out and borrow $2 trillion and give it away in tax cuts, and the result is that we do not now have a sufficient amount of money to fund the promises that were made by this administration, by this Congress for the education bill of leaving no child behind. I am very proud to have been one of the four primary cosponsors of that legislation, to be one of the architects of that legislation. I believe that the reforms that we are asking to come about in that legislation are changing education in America, are giving children who never had an opportunity before, children who were lost in the system, an opportunity. But that legislation is the most significant reforms of the Federal role in elementary secondary education in 35 years.

Constantly, as we met and talked with the President of the United States, we talked about whether or not if we did the reforms would we have the resources, and we were assured we would have them. But today is when the rubber meets the road because today this is the appropriations bill. This is when we decide the real money that we will spend, and of course what we now see is the money that was promised in Leave No Child Behind is not in this legislation. It is not here for teacher professionalization, it is not here for title I, it is not here for after-school, all of which are key components to improving the educational experience and the success of America's children, especially America's poor and disadvantaged children.

We make it a keystone of this legislation, and it is a key to improving education and that is that we have a qualified teacher in every classroom within 4 years; and yet, of course, we see here that the funding is not available. Just yesterday the Republicans promised an additional $300 million for the Ready to Teach Act and yet the money for current teachers for professionalization is not in this legislation. It is short over $200 million, $240 million that would go to taking those thousands of teachers who are not presently certified, qualified to teach the subjects they are teaching, and get them certified and get them qualified so they can teach our children what they should be learning and our children will have an opportunity to learn it.

This appropriations bill, because of the budget decisions made by the Republicans and the administration, is a series of broken promises, promises made by the President of the United States when he signed this legislation, promises made by this administration and made by this Congress to America's parents, to America's children, to our schools, our school districts, that we would provide the resources to carry out these reforms, the annual assessment of children, the determining of which children are doing well and which need additional help. All of that is now threatened by the failure to provide this funding. It is not enough to say we double the funding in past or we tripled the funding in past. This is a brand-new game. It is a brand-new game based upon these very significant, important reforms.

The fact of the matter is there was a bipartisan agreement reached on the money that was necessary to carry out these reforms, and now we are reneging on that, and yet we are continuing to ask school districts to go forward with these reforms. We are continuing to ask school districts to make sure that every teacher is qualified, but we are not going to provide the resources to do that.

We have here the smallest increase in the past 8 years in education. Yes, it is an increase, but the question we should ask, just as we ask in many other parts, is is it sufficient to get the job done as the American public expects?

The fact of the matter is this provision in education funding in this legislation is not sufficient to do that. It is not going to provide the outcomes that we want for America's children. It is going to leave millions of children behind to a substandard education, trapped into results of that substandard education, and the loss of economic opportunity in America's society.

Mr. Chairman, earlier this year the Bush administration initiated a process that is going to take hundreds of

millions of dollars of hard-earned pay out of the pockets of American families. For years these men and women, among them first responders like firefighters, police, nurses, emergency workers, have long qualified for overtime pay when they worked more than 40 hours a week.

For most of those men and women, that overtime pay is not spare change or for frivolous spending. It is essential family income necessary to pay the mortgage, to feed their children, to pay college education and to save for retirement. Overtime is not a luxury. It is a necessity for many American families, because tragically millions of our American families cannot survive economically on working only 40 hours a week. In fact, many workers who earn overtime derive 25 percent of their annual income from the extra hours on the job.

But what would the Bush administration do? The Bush administration wants to exclude employees from ever being eligible for overtime by playing with the definitions of eligibility. According to one study, that would take away the overtime from almost 8 million people who today are qualified. All our amendment does is say you cannot take it away from people who today are qualified. You can expand it, as the Secretary says she wants to do. You will work, but you will not get the overtime pay under this rule.

Congress did not approve it. In fact, we have not even had a hearing on the overtime rule, not a minute's worth of debate. The Republicans say they dispute the findings of the Economic Policy Institute study. Well, let us have a hearing and talk about it before we penalize millions of American families.

Now, this amendment we are debating allows us to have that review. The Obey-Miller amendment tells the Secretary not to issue any regulation that would deprive anyone of their existing overtime pay. This is an opportunity to show America where we stand. If you defend the right of people to continue to earn the wages that they have earned to avoid suffering precipitous loss in income for doing the exact same job they have been doing for years, then you will vote for this amendment.

There is a reason they are trying to cut overtime pay through the bureaucratic administrative rule instead of coming to the Congress and changing it in the open light of public debate. That is because they do not want the debate. They do not want to defend what they are doing. Today you will have to defend what the Department is doing because the Department of Labor is threatening millions of dollars worth of income to working American families. It is not enough that this administration and this House have presided over the loss of 3 million private sector jobs since 2001. It is not enough that the administration and Republican leadership in this House have forced millions of working Americans to remain in poverty by refusing to consider, even consider, raising the minimum wage. Is it not enough that they have denied unemployment compensation for millions of people who could not find jobs because of the desperate state of the economy? Is it not enough that they deny working families a fair tax cut, including the child tax credit, while showering hundreds of billions of dollars on wealthy Americans?

Now, let me ask you this: Is it really necessary now to assault even those people who still have a job today, who have a job, who are working overtime, who need the overtime pay, that they would come along now with this administrative rule to strip them, to strip them of that overtime pay when they work long hours at difficult jobs and time away from their family, and they do it at the request of their employer?

This is not this abstract case. Janice Murphy, who is an equipment specialist for the Navy's ship systems engineering in Philadelphia, 29 years of experience, but under this regulation, because she has all of that experience, she would be ruled as somebody having on-the-job training, learned professional, so she would not get overtime pay as she does today.

Diane Flock, a nurse at Florida Medical Center in Ft. Lauderdale, talks about how she organizes the nurses at the Florida Medical Center because they would be denied overtime because they would be defined out of it. Now, she has been a nurse there for many years, but she has organized the other nurses, and she has petitioned the Congress to have a debate on this matter, and that is what we are doing.

I would urge Members to support the Miller-Obey amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I would just say it is interesting, they talk about everything except this amendment. This amendment does nothing to prohibit the Secretary from expanding overtime to those who may not now be required, but what it does not do is it does not let the Secretary strip 8 million workers who currently get overtime of that overtime pay, including the half a million first responders that go out on Orange Alert.

Under this regulation, many of them will lose overtime for those long hours that they spend guarding the national security of this country. That is what the regulations do. That is what this amendment prevents. It does not keep anybody from expanding into overtime.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say, once again, the gentleman from Ohio tried to suggest that this is going to create two classes of people. This just protects everybody who gets overtime today gets overtime tomorrow.

They say if you get hired tomorrow, well, let me tell you in the Bush economy, nobody is getting hired tomorrow. People are getting laid off tomorrow. Okay. They are not getting hired, so that is not an issue.

Secondly, let me say for first responders, you are talking about people from homicide detectives, you are talking about EMT, the people we expect to respond to these sites, to firefighters. So many first responders wrote objecting to this amendment that the Department of Labor sent out a letter and said, that is not our intent. They said, then exempt us from the regulation. They said we will not do that. So it is not their intent to include them, but they will not take them out of it. You are talking about half a million first responders who will go out on Code Orange and will get no protection of overtime pay.

Your party, your choice, your vote.

Mr. Speaker, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I offer this amendment, along with the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner). This is to provide loan forgiveness for those teachers who specialize in teaching reading.

Just last week we saw the scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress that were released by the Department of Education, and the scores obviously show that we have a long way to go. While the scores of fourth-graders were up slightly, the scores of eighth-graders were stagnant, and the scores for high school students were actually down. This is not acceptable, but I think it does demonstrate that in some areas we are making progress.

I think we also understand that one of the basic tenets of the Leave No Child Behind was that good, qualified teachers in areas of specialties were an absolute cornerstone to the success of this legislation. All of the data suggests to us that where a child is exposed in succeeding years to well-qualified teachers, those children do much better than the children who receive teachers who may or may not be qualified to teach the subject matters.

This legislation to provide loan forgiveness goes a long way in helping us to provide the incentives not only to attract individuals to teaching, but also to make sure that we have a chance to retain those teachers for a period of 5 years. As many Members have said, after 5 years, if the school districts are doing the other things they should be doing in terms of supporting these teachers and providing other efforts at retention, and providing professional development, making sure that teachers are not isolated throughout the school year, that they have a chance to talk with their peers and learn the skills of teaching and learn what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong, then those individuals will tend to stay.

It is not just about money, but, clearly, these teachers also have to make a rational decision about their futures and their careers. This effort to give loan forgiveness to teachers who specialize in math and science and reading, to provide over $17,000 of loan forgiveness over 5 years, I believe, can be very helpful to the retention of those teachers and to the attraction of those individuals to the teaching profession.

I believe this amendment is consistent with the idea that we are trying to do these in the areas of high need, where extra specialization is necessary, and to make sure that we start to develop a corps of individuals who are properly qualified to teaching.

Obviously, reading, whether you are going to be studying math or science or social studies, or whatever else you are going to be doing throughout your educational career, the ability to read is going to determine how successful you navigate your education as an elementary school student, as a high school student, and later, perhaps, as a college student. The ability to read is also identified by employers as a concern as to whether or not employees are flexible enough to learn additional skills as they move through a career and as jobs change so that they are able to adapt.

So this investment in these reading specialists, I think, goes a long way toward improving this legislation, and I believe will be very helpful to school districts who are trying to focus on the requirements and the incentives in the Leave No Child Behind on trying to improve reading at the earliest grade levels. One of the objectives of everybody on the committee is to improve the ability of young people to read so that they can learn to read, and then, as Secretary Reilly used to say, read to learn. We want to accomplish that.

It is also clearly the goal of the President in this bill with the sections that he pushed very hard for on reading and reading readiness in this legislation. And so I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) for managing both of these bills on the floor today and for his contributions to this legislation. I want to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) for all their cooperation on this legislation. I think these bills are consistent with what we have been saying about the importance of teachers in the classroom. I think they finally put some resources in place to help those individuals who want to become teachers and who want to remain teachers, and I would urge passage of this amendment.

Finally, I would say when we see a young child who can read and master these strokes, it is a wonderful feeling. I was very happy when I saw that my granddaughter was actually excited because Harry Potter was almost 800 pages. She was worried that it might be only 300 to 400 pages, but she was excited that the latest book was almost 800 pages so she could rip through it and read it. To see that kind of excitement on a child's face who is comfortable with reading is something that we hope for all of our Nation's children. Hopefully, this amendment will provide a little bit of help to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, in the next few hours, the Republicans in the Congress will engage in the greatest raid and diminishment on middle-class health care benefits in the history of this country. Benefits that have been built up over the last 50 or 60 years in this country that have enabled middle-class individuals to have some health security, to have some access to prescription drugs, to have access to the health care that they and their families need, will come under assault. It begins with this legislation, medical savings accounts, where millions of Americans who now have good health care plans, where they share the payment of those plans with their employers, between employers and employees, will find out that those plans are going to be substituted by high-threshold, high-cost, high-deductible plans, and the theory is that they can pay for that out of their medical savings accounts.

Millions of Americans are going to wake up and find out that the health care plans that they have available to them today will not be available to them tomorrow.

Just as with the passage of the Medicare bill, the prescription drug bill that we will do later tonight, some 30 percent of the people who have prescription drug benefits will wake up and find out that they will get a lesser benefit under the Medicare prescription drug benefit than they are currently getting today. Millions of senior citizens will discover that they have lost their prescription drug benefit as they know it, and they will have to accept something much less than that.

When we come back from the Fourth of July break, we will complete this trifecta assault on middle-class health care plans when the Committee on Education and the Workforce reports out the Association Health Care Plan proposal. Because the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office tells us that over 8 million Americans will lose the health care they have today, and what will be substituted will be a health care plan that is much less comprehensive than they have today. Mr. Speaker, 8 million Americans, 8 million middle-class Americans. And the answer that the Republicans suggest to us is we can all just save and pay for that ourselves.

Well, if we look who is paying into 401(k)s, we know that most Americans do not have that disposable income. That is why they have employer-based health care systems.

But starting tonight, that employer-based health care system, that system that has done so much to keep people healthy, to keep people out of poverty, to keep them from losing their homes, is about to be shredded; and the assault is complete and its comprehensive, and it runs from the seniors to new and young families trying to raise children. All of these people will find out. If my colleagues do not think it is going to happen, just look at the employers who are announcing that these cutbacks are going to come who are supporting the association health care plans, who are supporting medical savings accounts, these health savings accounts tonight, and who are supporting prescription drugs. Because they are lining up to get rid of their obligations for prescription drugs, for health care for young

families, health care for older families, all in the name of their cost savings. But that will dramatically change the middle class in this country and what they have come to know as health care security.

But for the elderly it is going to be even more dramatic. When we look at the prescription drug benefit, it is interesting that the largest elderly group in the country, AARP, everything that they say is essential to protect senior citizens, and a prescription drug benefit is not in this bill. Read their letter. It is not in this bill. They wish it was, they hope it will be, but it is not here tonight.

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

Mr. Chairman, I wanted to pick up where the last two speakers spoke, and that is the question of port security and what we know or do not know about the 20 million containers that come across America's borders every year, come by truck and train traffic, and the rest through ports.

I have to say that I appreciate that the committee is doing a lot. The question is when will the committee be done doing its work, and when will the Nation say that it knows enough about the containers coming into its ports. I am not sure that we can inspect every port, but what is very clear is the amount of information that we have to have about these containers from the point of origin to the time that they embark for the United States is incomplete. Even the effort to go into the megaports, which I think is important since some 80 percent of the commerce is shipped through those ports, that does not tell us, that does not give us the kind of information about the containers even coming to the megaports. That is what has to be established. A system, a credible system has to be established so those individuals responsible for the security of this Nation and the movement of those containers across the borders of this Nation are able to make an assessment as to the security of this Nation posed by those individual containers.

We are not going to be able to inspect every one of them because commerce is not going to allow us to do that. It would break down the system. But we can require a great deal more information about the contents of that container, the sealing of that container, the movement of that container, through electronic locks, through GPS systems, so we can start to trace that. Then we can make our decision upon risk. But by the time that container gets into the port of Hamburg or Hong Kong or Long Beach or Oakland, California, it is too late. If one of these container goes up with a dirty bomb, you will shut down the globalized container system in this world because we then will have to inspect every container. That is too late. That is far too late.

The terrorist does not just have to strike. As we saw, terrorists now understand that beyond the initial act are the economic consequences. They now see what that means. But if they are going to come to the United States and they want to do our people harm, they put in a nuclear device, they put in a dirty bomb, inspecting it in the Port of New York, the Port of Long Beach or the Port of Oakland is far too late. It does not matter if it goes up on the ship once it comes through the Golden Gate, if it goes up on the port property, or it goes up on the railroad train, that is too late. Of those, we are inspecting 2-4 percent of the containers.

At some point we have to establish a deadline so that people will know, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) said, if they want to engage in commerce in the United States, an inspection system has to be in place going back to the point of origin to follow that container all of the way.

We did this in the oil spill liability provisions after the Exxon Valdez. We said in 25 years if you want to continue to have access and ship petroleum products to the United States, you will do it in double- hulled ships. We should

be saying to the shippers, to international commerce, by 2004 or 2005 if you want to continue to have access, you have to provide for this monitoring of cargo, for the transparency of the system and the monitoring of the ships.

We have some 40,000 ships roaming around the world with containers on them. This is the kind of system that the American public is entitled to, and why so. As the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) pointed out, many of the experts which have been briefing Congress since September 11, 2001, have been telling us we are more likely to have a dirty bomb come into this country by way of container than we will ever have the risk of it coming in by way of missile. That is the threat to the home front. That is the major threat.

What we see here, while we are taking these incremental steps and I applaud many of them, we do not have a plan for deciding at what point this is going to be a secure system. We have to start putting deadlines on the transparency of this system, on the security of this system, and access to the American markets. That is how we are going to get unified system.

The gentleman from New York is right. The Container Security Initiative, the Operation Safe Commerce, the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism are all important initiatives, but they are taking too long. They are taking too long. What is the price of security? What is the price of the home front? What is the price of a secure port system and a secure transportation system? Those are the questions we have to start asking ourselves, not whether we have put in another $100 million or $200 million; is the system secure. Right now we cannot tell the American public that in the foreseeable future that our system is secure.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his leadership on this issue in our committee.

Once again, as with pension legislation, unemployment assistance, tax policy, and many other examples, the Republican majority of this House is bringing forward a bill that they claim is in the interest of working families. But once again this is head-fakes and sleight of hand. This bill hurts working people, places their already-meager health insurance coverage at risk, and serves only the interest of the business lobbyists.

I want to add that once again, as with those earlier bills, the Republican majority continues to deprive 206 Members of the House on the Democratic side and the tens of millions of people we represent from being able to conduct a serious debate on this issue. Once again, a contentious bill comes to the floor with no amendments allowed, just a substitute. So there is little time to debate the bill that will cost millions of Americans, including millions of children and women workers, their health coverage, with no ability to offer amendments to improve this bill. These tyrannical and corrupt rules under which we are operating under the Republican leadership in this House prevent us from having that debate and prevent the Republicans from taking votes on amendments we would like to offer.

Let us be clear: this is not a question of whether or not we have time to devote to debate. Week in and week out the Congress comes in on Tuesday or late Monday night and leaves on Thursday or early Friday morning. The Congress has time to adjourn for fund-raisers, the Congress has time to adjourn for golf tournaments, the Congress has time to adjourn for the White House picnic; but apparently we do not have time to be able to offer amendments to legislation so that we can have an honest debate about the legislation before us or have opportunities to improve it or to offer an alternative view on how that should be carried out.

So what do we find out now? We do not have that opportunity here when we are risking 8 million people's health care coverage, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So we will pass today, with almost entirely Republican votes, a bill that deprives 47 percent of the people in this country a role in debating and improving this legislation.

The heart of this ill-conceived bill is a provision that overrides State laws requiring access to basic health care services. These State laws say to people that when they have a health insurance plan, that plan will mean something. It means that they will have access to mammograms, that means that they will have access to emergency services, that means that they will have maternity benefits and well- baby care and diabetes treatment, and it means there will be some mental health coverage and cancer screening. Because those are the things that the American families need in a health care plan.

Now, why are those the rules today in States across this country? Why did the States make this determination? Not to burden small businesses, not to burden health care plans, but because what people were being offered prior to that were essentially phantom plans. They were phantom plans that had little or no benefits to individuals, that did not meet the needs that families had. They had little or no benefits in terms of what women needed in their health care policies. That is the reason for these regulations, or these requirements, that health care insurance plans provide in their health care. That is the purpose of the plans. But that was not what was happening.

So now what we see is that this comes along, and it says we are going to override the judgment of these States, we are going to overrides the judgment of the legislators, the collective wisdom of the Governors and legislatures, the attorneys general, the insurance commissioners and others to make sure that people have adequate health insurance. And the consequences are that we are stripping much of this treatment away from the individuals in terms of preventive services for men, women and children.

We know that these services and treatments save money, we know they preserve health in the long run, and we know that these services were rarely provided voluntarily by employers in the past. That is precisely why so many States have moved to guarantee this coverage. The proponents of this legislation constantly want to say, well, this was good for labor unions and this was good for big industry. Yes, and in those instances the employees are organized and they negotiate on an equal level. That is not the situation with these plans. These people are given a health care plan which they can take or leave. And the purpose here is to reduce the cost of those plans.

The fact of the matter is CBO has reported that approximately 8.5 million workers would end up in AHPs, and over 95 percent would simply be dumped into those from existing health care plans. That means that 8 million workers would be stripped of their current legal right to critical treatments and preventive health care services. Eight million people would end up with less health care the next morning than they currently have under this provision.

I recognize that that means that new people will be given health insurance that do not have it, but we have to weigh the question of the people who will get this stripped-down policy as their health insurance to those people who have relatively decent policies who will lose their access to those policies. Because that is really what this is about. It is about cutting the cost to businesses, not about providing health insurance that families truly need.

That is why, again, these plans were protected in the States and were regulated in the States, and that is why so many of the Governors, both Republican and Democrat, oppose this legislation. That also means that these people are not going to have the kind of peace of mind that so many of them now have with respect to their insurance policies.

We also know that one of the reasons this bill is offered is that health insurance costs are increasing. They are increasing about 20, 25 percent for small employers. What that suggests is that, as people move into these plans, the individuals with higher risk will be left out. Those people who stayed in those kinds of insured pools, those costs will continue to go up; and it means that we will have uneven health insurance for people in this country.

Madam Speaker, this is a very bad bill. It is a bad bill. It really is about false advertising. It is suggesting that somehow this is going to extend to millions of people health insurance that will cover their families. That is not what it is going to do. It would if we were not overriding State law, but here the majority has decided that the collective wisdom of the States and the protection of residents and consumers in those States, that is going to be overridden and individuals be under no requirements to offer those components as part of this health insurance plan. I would hope that the House would reject this plan when it comes time to vote on the legislation.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit, with my colleagues Representatives Kildee, Obey, Owens, Bishop, Woolsey, Ryan of Ohio, Tierney, Danny Davis, Kind, Holt, Van Hollen and McCollum, the Ensuring College Access for all Americans Act.-

Higher education is essential to ensure America's economic prosperity, national security, health and the success of individuals. Yet, as college enrollments swell, states slash higher education budgets and tuition continues to skyrocket, millions of American students and families continue to struggle to pay for a college education.

Despite these pressures, late last month the Bush administration decided to revise methods to determine student financial need, which will force a significant number of students and families to pay a higher price for a college education. As the June 13th New York Times article, ``Change in Aid Formula Shifts More Costs to Students'', documents, these revisions to the Federal needs analysis methodology for the 2004-2005 award year will result in substantially higher college costs for a large number of American students.

These updates, which were completed by the Department of Education without review or approval by the Congress, effectively will eliminate Pell grant eligibility for needy students or will reduce Pell grant awards or the amount of subsidized loans these students can receive. These changes will force students to mortgage their future by going further into debt to attend college.

At a time when the costs of attending college are growing higher every month, as states and private institutions raise tuition and other costs, I question the timing of these revisions.

The Department of Education's revisions to the allowance for State and other taxes are based on three-year-old data. At the time these numbers were compiled, our country had yet to enter the downward economic spiral that we find ourselves in today. Students are going to be denied critically needed financial aid because of the poor performance of the economy. Unfortunately, the failure of the Bush Administration to ensure economic viability has now come to rest on the backs of needy college bound students.

The Ensuring College Access for all Americans Act will reverse the Administration's revision and make certain that students are not denied critical financial aid. I strongly urge my colleagues to join me in honoring this tradition by supporting the Ensuring College Access for all Americans Act. It is an important step to making certain that all Americans can access a college education.

Mr. Speaker, 3 weeks ago, when the Republicans in the House and the Senate were getting together to decide the final version of the tax bill, under the direction of Vice President Cheney, they made a very bad decision. They made a decision that families with children who earn between $10,000 and $26,000, a year who currently get a portion of the child tax credit, would not get the increase that this bill provides for families with children, a $400 increase for many, many Americans per child that they will get checks this July. For whatever reasons, and we think we know why, because they used that money to provide additional tax cuts to the wealthiest people in this country; had they given this tax cut to these families between $10,000 and $26,000 a year, to those 12 million children, people like Mr. Cheney, instead of getting $93,000, would have gotten $88,000. But they chose instead to take $93,000 and these children did not get the tax credit.

This tax credit is terribly important to these families. What the Republicans fail to understand is that many of these families are people who the Republicans accused of being on welfare, they have accused them of not participating, but these families get up and go to work every day, and they work in difficult jobs, and they work in jobs that not a lot of people want to have. And at the end of the year, they end up basically poor. So one of the things this government did a number years ago was create the child tax credit. And a number of things we did in the last administration was to make it refundable so that we can make sure that those people would continue to have an incentive to stay in the work force.

Now, if the Republicans do not like the child tax credit, one of the things they could do is they could increase the minimum wage. They could make it easier for these families to earn more money. They would get less tax credit. But the Republicans do not want to increase the minimum wage. They do not want to provide those children health care. They do not want to provide them a tax credit, and yet, somehow, these people, they are not deserving of this effort.

It was a horrible decision they made. But now we see as that decision has come to light, as the bright light of public awareness is focused on that, last week we saw the Senate, when they realized how upset the country was, how unfair people felt this was, the sense of economic injustice that reigned in the country, that these people would not be taken care of in a tax bill that is going to spend $350 billion, they could not take care of these people for $3 billion. The Senate, on a bipartisan basis, voted overwhelmingly to correct this injustice. They passed a bill in the last days of last week to send over to the House to correct this and to give these individuals the tax credit that they should have for their children, for these families who are working very hard, and even to extend it to some individuals in higher incomes.

But yet, what do we see the reaction of the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives, is that they are not going to do this bill. They want to hold these children, they want to hold these families hostage for some other tax cut that they can give to people who may be far less deserving than these children and these families. But they want to hold it hostage so that they can unite it with something they were talking about last week in terms of a $100 billion bill or more.

These children and these families are entitled to get those checks in July just like every other family in America. It is important to our economy, it is important to the recovery of our economy, and it is important to the wherewithal of these families as they struggle to hold themselves together at low wages.

So the Republicans in the House and their leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader who has said he does not want to do this, that he was not going to take the bill, they must relent. They must relent for the benefit of these families and for the benefit of our economy.

Today, the President of the United States said he likes the Senate bill. He wants to work to see it passed. The President of the United States got the message. The Senate got the message. The Senate Republicans got the message, the Senate Democrats pushed for it, and were successful. And now what do we see? That it is the House Republicans that somehow cannot get the message that this is a matter of fairness, it is a matter of equity; that these people have played by the rules and they ought to be treated like every other American family with children. The time has come for the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), to step aside and let this bill be passed this week so these families can get their checks in July to help them with this economy.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues Mr. Platts, Mr. Kennedy of Rhode Island, Mr. Andrews, Mr. Serrano, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Ms. Solis, Mrs. Davis of California, Mr. Hinojosa, Mrs. McCarthy of New York, Mr. Kildee, and Mr. Sanders in introducing the FOCUS Act. This legislation would be an important step in increasing child care quality for all children.

High-quality child care can play an important role in healthy child development and school-readiness. Just as it is the parents who matters at home, it is the teachers who matter in child care. One of the most critical components of quality child care is a stable and qualified teaching staff. Children learning from more highly educated teachers perform better on tests of verbal and match achievement. Yet, child care staff--who have the responsibility of helping guide children's development--are among the lowest paid workers in America. In 2000, the average hourly wage for a child care provider was $8.16, which is approximately $16,980 annually. Moreover, most providers do not receive health insurance or paid leave and the annual turnover rate is about 30 percent. Academic and government studies conclude that low pay is one of the leading causes of poor quality child care. Low wages keeps qualified providers from remaining in the field and deters new providers from entering the field. A 2001 report by the Center for Child Care Workforce and the University of California Berkeley found that centers are losing qualified staff because of low wages and are forced to hire less qualified replacements. The study also found that not only are wages extremely low, but they are not keeping pace with cost of living increases. States report centers are closing or turning away children because they cannot properly staff their programs.

FOCUS directly addresses the problems low pay creates by providing stipends to qualified child care staff based on the level of education. This legislation would be a mechanism to assist States increase the pay of child care workers and to improve the overall quality of child care. The bill would supplement wages by a minimum of $1000 per year for providers with child development associate credentials and a minimum of $3000 per year for providers with B.A.'s in the area of child development. These stipends will help attract new qualified workers to the field and increase the retention and skill level of current workers. FOCUS also would provide funds for scholarships so that we can continue to increase the qualifications of the child care workforce.

Research on early childhood and brain development clearly demonstrates that the experiences children have early in life have a decisive, long-lasting impact on their later development and learning. We cannot expect children to transition to kindergarten and succeed in school if we do not take the necessary steps to provide quality care in the years prior to school entry. The average quality of child care is far poorer than what it should be in a country as wealthy and committed to our children's future as is ours. It is time we work to make quality child care for all children a national priority. Mr. Speaker, I urge Members of the House to join me and co-sponsor the Focus Act.

Mr. Speaker, Erin Doyel asked the question, ``what about my kid?'' Her kid in this case is Adrienne. Erin works as a financial administrative assistant. She earns $12,675 a year. She goes to work every day. She is eligible for the child tax credit. In fact, she receives the child tax credit.

But what she will not receive is she will not receive the increase in the child tax credit that was passed this year, which would mean $400 to families with children who are eligible. But the Republicans made a decision that people like Erin and her daughter Adrienne will not receive it because they earn between $10,000 and $26,000 a year.

These are families with children who go to work every day, but they will not be given the benefit of the tax cut, they will not get the increase in the child tax credit, they will not have an easier time supporting their family for all of the hard work they do at very difficult and low wages, because the Republicans made a decision that Erin and Adrienne will not be included.

That is why Erin Doyel from Vallejo, California, is asking, what about my kid? Why are we treated differently than the rest of America's families?

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) who had time remaining would not yield to defend his remarks. He did not have the courage to yield to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford) who asked him to do so.

Mr. Speaker, as Americans picked up their newspapers this morning, in USA Today they could read about the controversy about Sammy Sosa or the tragedy of Martha Stewart. As they thumbed through the newspaper, they would also read something else, they would read that the child tax credit is not available to 250,000 of our veterans. One in five children in the military will not get the tax credit. Some 750,000 veterans, veterans, their children will not get this tax credit.

It is a shame. How did this happen? How did 250,000 children of active duty veterans, people fighting for this country, their children will not be eligible for the child tax credit?

Let me set the stage. It is late at night. The Republicans are arguing over tax cuts. Some people want to defend the corporations that go to Bermuda, other Members want to defend millionaires. Vice president Dick Cheney is running between the Republican factions. It is all in the record. He is putting out fires. He has to make a decision: Do you help these veterans? Do you help these active duty people with their children, give them the tax credit? Or, Vice President Cheney, if he does that, he will only get $93,000 in tax cuts. If he gives it to the children of hard-working American families earning under $26,000, Dick Cheney will have to take a reduction. He will only get $88,000.

Dick Cheney is now the chief negotiator running between the House and the Senate. He is running between the extreme position of the House, Republicans who say no tax credits for these children, and the Senate which voted to give tax credits to the children. Dick Cheney does not know what to do. What does he do?

He decides he is going to give himself a $93,000 tax cut; and these kids, it is tough. But one would have thought, Mr. Speaker, one would have thought that a former Secretary of Defense would have just dropped off a little change to the troops, to their families and to their children, and to the veterans and their families and their children. It would not have cost Dick Cheney much. If he just took care of the children, he would have still gotten over $90,000 a year in tax cuts. He could not see it.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I am just reporting what has been reported in the press.

Parliamentary Inquiry

Yes.

Mr. Speaker, the context is this: When the Vice President went into the room, the children of veterans and active duty service people had the tax credit. When he left the room, he had the big tax cut; they had nothing.