Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise to share some observations about the historic career of J. Nicholas (``Nick'') Counter III upon his retirement from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, ``AMPTP''. AMPTP is the multi-employer bargaining agent for more than 350 production companies in their collective bargaining negotiations with more than 20 labor organizations. The production companies include the major motion picture studios and independent production companies. The labor organizations with whom AMPTP engages in collective bargaining include the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, the Writers Guild of America, East and West, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the American Federation of Musicians, and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which is the umbrella union for all unions which represent those workers behind the camera--from costumers and make-up artists to art directors and animators. AMPTP negotiates 80 industry-wide collective bargaining agreements, covering some 250,000 industry workers in the United States and Canada.

Nick joined the AMPTP when it was established in 1982 as its first president and has served in that capacity for the past 27 years. During his tenure, he has successfully concluded 312 collective bargaining agreements with the major entertainment industry guilds and unions. Throughout the vast majority of Nick's tenure, the motion picture and television industry enjoyed unprecedented labor peace and stability. In addition, the industry has thrived with growth in employment and wages and consistently improved working conditions under Nick's leadership. He has presided over dramatic changes in the motion picture industry, from the growth of home entertainment to new media, and he has led producers at the bargaining table through these momentous transformations. Many in Hollywood say Nick has had the hardest job in Hollywood--to maintain unity among the producers and face off with some of the most professional and creative workers in any business.

He has been well-suited to the job. He learned about labor relations up close while working summers at a Colorado steel mill where his father spent his career. An amateur boxer and high school star football player, he graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in electrical engineering and a record of accomplishment as half-back on the football team. Then he detoured to law school, graduating from Stanford University and made his home in Los Angeles.

Nick's accomplishments go beyond his role at the bargaining table. It is well known that motion picture industry jobs come with good benefits--health insurance and pensions. Nick has played a critical role in ensuring those benefits are secure. He serves as a trustee on fourteen guild and union health and pension funds. He is also a trustee on the Motion Picture and Television Fund, a past president and current member of the Board of Directors of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, and a past chair of the Entertainment Industry Foundation. And he has provided his experience and wisdom to many national groups examining health care issues that face our nation. He has also engaged on safety and environmental issues that affect the industry.

After such a distinguished career, Nick has earned his opportunity to live the next chapter. He will give up the all night bargaining sessions for more time with his family--his wife, Jackie; his son Nick IV; his daughter, Samantha, and her husband, Alex Kurtzman, and their son, Jack. As he embarks on this well-deserved retirement, I ask my colleagues to join me in expressing our appreciation for the work he has done and wishing him and his family well.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 522, I call up the bill (H.R. 1886) to authorize democratic, economic, and social development assistance for Pakistan, to authorize security assistance for Pakistan, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1886.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like, for purposes of opening general debate, to yield to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, whom we have worked very closely with in putting together a bill that we can now bring to the floor, a very good bill. His help and the help of his staff, working with our staff, has really been just indispensable to the progress of this effort.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri, the chairman of the committee, for his kind comments, and I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the United States has an enormous stake in the security and stability of Pakistan. We can't allow al Qaeda or any other terrorist group that threatens our national security to operate with impunity in the tribal regions or any other part of Pakistan.

Nor can we permit the Pakistani state and its nuclear arsenal to be taken over by the Taliban.

To help prevent this nightmare scenario, we need to forge a true strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people, strengthen Pakistan's democrat government, and work to make Pakistan a source of stability in a volatile region. H.R. 1886 is designed to help achieve these critical goals.

This legislation would significantly expand democratic, economic, and social development assistance to help lay the foundation for a stronger, more stable Pakistan. The bill provides funding to strengthen the capacity of Pakistan's democratic institutions including its Parliament, judicial system, and law enforcement agencies. It calls for increased assistance for Pakistan's public education system, emphasis on access for women and girls. To help ensure that U.S. assistance actually reaches the Pakistani people, it requires increased auditing, greater monitoring, and better evaluation.

H.R. 1886 also provides critical security assistance to help the government of Pakistan in its fight against the extremists that threaten the national security of both Pakistan and the United States. To strengthen civilian control of the military, H.R. 1886 requires that all assistance flow through the Pakistan's elected civilian government. And to support the administration's request for additional flexibility to address Pakistan's urgent security needs, the bill authorizes funds for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund, or PCCF. The legislation includes some important accountability provisions to ensure that Pakistan is using our security assistance in a manner consistent with U.S. national security interests. An annual Presidential determination is required that determines whether or not Pakistan is cooperating with the United States on nonproliferation, is meeting its commitment to combat terrorist groups, and has made progress towards that end.

Contrary to what some have suggested, these are not rigid or inflexible conditions that severely constrain the military. We appreciate the urgency of the situation in Pakistan and the need for appropriate flexibility. We are simply asking Pakistan to follow through with the commitments it has already made. If their President is unable to make these determinations, then we should be asking ourselves much deeper questions about what we really hope to achieve in Pakistan.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

If their President is unable to make these determinations, as I mentioned, we should be asking the deeper question of why are we doing this. By including these accountability provisions in this bill, we lay down an important marker that Congress will no longer provide a blank check. We've had extensive conversation with the administration, with the Armed Services Committee, as I mentioned earlier, and have made a number of changes to make this legislation and this effort work better.

I want to re-enforce the notion this is not a partisan product. This is a bipartisan bill. We are honored to have two of the most thoughtful and experienced Members from the minority side, Mr. Royce and Mr. Kirk, as original cosponsors of this legislation, and we hope that their actions and this debate will persuade a majority of both parties that this is an effort worth supporting.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee, the gentleman with whom I just traveled to Pakistan, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman).

Will the gentleman yield? After yesterday, why wouldn't you?

Will the gentleman yield?

This isn't for a polemic. It's really just to take what you said.

Number one, I agree completely with the urgency of it. If I didn't-- we don't have a lot of money--we would not be authorizing these sums. We share your sense of the urgency of the situation.

Secondly, the letter you cite is correct. The letter is not correct, but the existence of the letter is correct. But it was addressed to a bill that had been introduced. Since the introduction of the bill, we have gone through elaborate negotiations with the House Armed Services Committee. To deal with some of the issues that letter was concerned about, we have worked through, both in the supplemental and in the authorizing committee----

Good things.

Ensuring that the mission that we are equipping and training for is committed to a counterinsurgency, not an arms race in South Asia.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield to someone who, like the previous speaker, the gentleman from Indiana, has spent a great deal of time in Pakistan looking at the situation. She chairs the Pakistan Caucus. She joined our congressional delegation in Pakistan in the month of April and speaks with great knowledge and experience on this subject, the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee, for 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the ranking member of the Terrorism Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs Committee, a cosponsor of the legislation and another member of the congressional delegation that went to Pakistan last month. In fact, everybody who went to Pakistan with me is supporting this bill. I should have taken more people. But I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the principal cosponsor of the legislation, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nuclear Nonproliferation, and International Trade of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to a member of the committee, my friend from California, the gentlewoman Barbara Lee.

I yield the gentlewoman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Just remember, a decision at this point to give up on Pakistan, it is Pakistan that is providing sanctuary for the people who are fighting us in Afghanistan. It is Pakistan who has nuclear weapons.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman who has made a significant contribution to this legislative effort, the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

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

Mr. Speaker, just a few points. There was reference here to the F- 16s. There is nothing in this bill that prohibits the Pakistanis from deciding to buy more F-16s. Two years ago they signed a contract indicating that that is what they were going to do. What this legislation does is say other than some specific adjustments particularly to deal with utilizing the F-16s they already have, in the counterinsurgency, we are not going to give our taxpayer dollars for a weapons system, an airplane, whose counterinsurgency interests are far less important than other equipment or training we could be providing.

Secondly, Admiral Mullen came to see me about the problems of utilizing the traditional security assistance program for providing the kind of equipment that is needed for the counterinsurgency in Pakistan. As a result of the case he made, we have created and worked with the Armed Services Committee to create an entire fund that waives every provision of law in the foreign military financing program so that we can get this equipment and training to the Pakistanis.

Pakistan is an urgent problem, but doing it right, not just doing it carelessly, is the way to go. I urge that this bill be supported.

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California, the author of her own legislation on security assistance and the question of the proliferation network in Pakistan.

I yield the gentlewoman 30 additional seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), very knowledgeable on issues affecting Pakistan and U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) just spoke in behalf of the Republican substitute, but he's a major cosponsor of the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones. Unlike the bill in front of us, the Republican substitute does not contain the ROZs, the reconstruction zones. I'm wondering how the gentleman squares that with his position.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Tierney), who has done remarkable work on the issue of how the $12 billion given to Pakistan over the past 7 years has been spent.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

The gentleman's point is, I know, inadvertently and unintentionally incorrect.

The Republican substitute replaces the entire bill and, therefore, were the Republican substitute to pass, the ROZs the gentleman has fought for would not be part of the bill that was sent to the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a member of the committee, the delegate from American Samoa (Mr. Faleomavaega).

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield on the Republican substitute 2 minutes to the chairman of the Subcommittee of the Middle East and South Asia, the vice chairman of the committee, Mr. Ackerman.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes on the Republican substitute to the Chair of the Pakistan Caucus, the gentlewoman from Texas, Sheila Jackson-Lee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record a letter from the Premier Pakistani American organization, the Pakistani American Leadership Center, endorsing H.R. 1886.

Pakistani American Leadership

Center,

Washington, DC, June 6, 2009.

Hon. Howard Berman,

Chair, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Berman: On behalf of the Pakistani American

Leadership Center (PAL-C) and other team members listed

below, I am writing to express our strong support for H.R.

1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation

Enhancement Act of 2009. PAL-C was established in 2004 to

mobilize the Pakistani-American community to be more

conversant with the U.S political process and to promote

greater understanding of Pakistan by building lasting ties

with the U.S.

H.R. 1886 reflects our deep commitment to developing a

strong U.S.-Pakistan relationship and will be instrumental in

strengthening Pakistan's democratic government, promoting

economic and social development for Pakistan's citizens, and

creating the foundation for a stronger, more stable Pakistan.

We are particularly pleased that H.R. 1886 accentuates

investments in Pakistan's healthcare, education, and

infrastructure and includes a requirement that all U.S.

security assistance be provided through the elected civilian

government. PAL-C also applauds the requirements for enhanced

monitoring, evaluation and auditing of U.S. economic

assistance. These aspects of the bill will assure the most

impactful application of the funds, create the greatest long

term leverage from the assistance package, and establish the

needed transparency in distribution of money.

We thank you for your hard work and visionary leadership on

this critical legislation and hope that its passage will

initiate the beginning of a new, more positive and enduring

era in U.S.-Pakistan relations. We also stand ready to

continue doing our part as proud Pakistani Americans in

offering U.S. congress special insights into Pakistan, based

on our deep rooted perspective.

Sincerely,

Pervaiz Lodhie.

Pervaiz Lodhie, Founder/President, LEDtronics; Salim Adaya,

Chairperson. IDS Real Estate Group; Muhammad Adaya, IDS Real

Estate Group; Najeeb Ghauri, Chairman/CEO, Netsol; Dr. Satter

Abbasi, Prof. Clinical Medicine, UCLA; Jamal Khawaja,

Director, JFK Import & Export; Dr. Salman Nagvi, COS, Kindred

Hospital OC; Adnan Khan, President, CIDP Inc.; Fiza Shah,

Founder/CEO, DIL; Ghazala Khan, Principal, GK & Associates;

Shezad Rokerya, Chairman, The Interlink Group; Taha Gaya,

Exec. Dir., PAL-C; Jim Moody, Chairman AFHD/NCHD; Salman

Ahmed, UN Goodwill Ambassador, Artist.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly oppose the Republican substitute. I'm pleased to see that the substitute does support the President's request for $1.5 billion a year in nonmilitary assistance for Pakistan, the same amount as the underlying bill. But that's where the similarity ends.

With all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, this substitute amounts to nothing more than a blank check. It requires no real oversight, no serious accountability, no congressional role beyond getting briefings on what we could ask for without any new law.

Since 9/11, I repeat again, we have poured more than $12 billion into Pakistan, with very little to show for it. This substitute is simply a continuation of the same failed policy.

H.R. 1886, on the other hand, expresses our sense of priorities for democratic, economic, and social development assistance without tying the President's hands. Unlike the substitute, our bill provides robust monitoring and evaluation to ensure that the assistance is reaching the Pakistani people. Why would you support another $1.5 billion in economic assistance unless you knew it wasn't just going for ghost schools and to disappear into unspecified budget support? You need the monitoring and evaluation kinds of provisions that we haven't had in the past and that our bill provides and the Republican substitute doesn't.

The Republican substitute treats Pakistan in virtual isolation with a brief mention of the Afghan-Pakistan cooperation. H.R. 1886 requires a comprehensive regional strategy, including the role of countries outside the region in supporting Pakistan's efforts to combat al Qaeda and the Taliban. A global effort is required to make Pakistan a success, and the substitute's failure to recognize this salient fact is another serious flaw.

Read the bill. Please read the bill. Our accountability provisions are not rigid. They're not inflexible. We state very clearly simply that we expect Pakistan to make progress in their fight against the extremists and to sustain their commitment. If the President can't tell us that Pakistan is meeting with that very minimal standard, we should be asking ourselves much deeper questions about what we're really trying to achieve here. The onus is on our minority colleagues to explain why, given Pakistan's recent history, we should provide more weapons without making sure the equipment is being used properly.

In this context I find it curious that the substitute is totally inconsistent with the arguments that my friends made just yesterday during debate on the State Department authorization bill. Then all the repeated arguments were more accountability, we need stricter accountability for critical foreign policy priorities. Here we have the most critical foreign policy priority and in the Republican substitute the absence of any provisions regarding accountability, evaluation, auditing, or monitoring.

This substitute begs the question, why does the minority support total flexibility for President Obama in Pakistan but everywhere else in the foreign policy or domestic sphere, they try to constrain him? This is at the top of our list of national security challenges. Our approach is the better approach.

I urge defeat of the substitute.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion.

I made a mistake earlier. I objected to the reading of the motion to recommit. I should have asked for a reading of the bill. As much as I admire the gentleman, the one thing that is clear to me from his comments is he didn't read the bill.

We have absolutely no conditions or restrictions or efforts to earmark or tie up any of the economic assistance in this bill. Why you would say that is only because someone told you that. Because when you look at the bill, we have some principles, we have suggestions, we lay out things that need to be done to build democratic institutions in Pakistan, to build a school system.

We know that we are providing up to $12 billion, much of it in economic assistance for schools that have no teachers. We're providing money for teachers who have no education and don't know how to teach science and math. So we suggest in this bill some guidelines and tie no one's hands. We don't tie the Secretary's hands; we don't tie the Pakistanis' hands.

Now, the state of play is that when we put together our Pakistan bill, we went to the minority and said, let's work on a Pakistan/ Afghanistan bill. They weren't interested. The problem with the minority's way to do a motion to recommit is the leadership meets in some office--they don't bring in the Republicans from the committee-- and they come up with a motion to recommit, let's join Afghanistan with Pakistan. We've been trying to do that for 4 months in our committee, but the minority didn't want to do it that way.

And by the way, we just had a little vote. We had a vote on a Republican substitute that, on security assistance, had no monitoring provisions, no auditing provisions, no evaluation provisions. This is in the context of $12 billion that's been spent, a huge amount on reimbursements for which there are no receipts for money, that we cannot find what it went for. If you like what's been going on there, you're praising the right of Pakistan to do what it wants to do.

When Musharraf kept making appeasement agreements with different elements of the Taliban, was that a wise thing to be encouraging? I don't think so. The only thing we provide any benchmarks on is the security assistance. And what we say there is, Mr. President, look at how that money is being spent and make a determination whether or not Pakistan has a commitment--that they are now, by the way, demonstrating--to combating the insurgency and fighting the terrorists, and whether they're making progress. And are they cooperating in the efforts to dismantle the proliferation regime, and are they doing things to secure it? And, Mr. President, you make the determination and you make the decision.

We have worked with the leadership of the Armed Services Committee to make sure that the security assistance gets to the Pakistani military as quickly as possible, but not equipment that has nothing to do with the counterinsurgency. We want the equipment, the helicopters, the night-vision goggles, the training, the IMET programs to go as fast as they can. So in our bill, not in yours, but in our bill we waive all the traditions that now exist on traditional security assistance programs.

So this is a motion to recommit that includes an Afghan bill that says, continue as usual, where the lack of end-use monitoring has meant that we have been arming the Taliban because they steal the guns we provide and use them against our forces and the Afghan forces, and repeat in toto the Republican substitute we just rejected.

Let's vote against it. We did it once; let's do it again. Let's try to reestablish some sense of bipartisan collaboration. These differences aren't that great. We can work them out if the majority and the minority cooperate. I say, as the chairman of the committee with jurisdiction over these issues, I would love to put together a bipartisan approach. Maybe we can start working on that for the conference committee.

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

I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding me this time, and I rise in strong support of the rule authorizing the Foreign Relations Act to come to the floor, H. Res. 522. This rule covers both H.R. 2410, the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011, and H.R. 1886, the Pakistan Enduring Assistance and Cooperation Enhancement Act of 2009.

These are both critical measures. H.R. 2410 provides the resources necessary for the President to realize his vision of making vigorous diplomacy a cornerstone of our strategy to promote U.S. national security.

By wisely investing resources to strengthen our diplomatic capabilities, we can help prevent conflicts before they start and head off the conditions that lead to failed states. This approach is a much more cost-effective one than providing massive amounts of humanitarian aid, funding peacekeeping operations or, in the most extreme circumstances, deploying U.S. troops into harm's way.

I think the Rules Committee has crafted a fair rule in regard to the bill, one that continues our efforts to include a number of amendments from the Republican side.

With respect to H.R. 1886 regarding Pakistan, I do not need to remind my

colleagues of the challenge to U.S. national security posed by the situation in that country.

We cannot allow al Qaeda and any other terrorist group that threatens our national security interests to operate with impunity in the tribal regions or any other part of Pakistan. Nor can we permit the Pakistani State and its nuclear arsenal to be taken over by the Taliban. H.R. 1886 was designed to address these threats by supporting democracy, enhancing U.S. economic assistance, and providing the Pakistani military with the tools they need to fight the terrorists.

I am pleased we could work out a consensus on this important bill with our colleagues on the Committee on Armed Services as reflected in the amendment made in order by the rule. And I'm also pleased that the rule makes in order a Republican substitute. This way we can discuss the best way forward to ensure that we get the results we need in this ongoing effort to combat those who threaten our Armed Forces, our allies, and even our homeland.

I urge all my colleagues to support the rule.

I again thank my friend from Florida for yielding me some additional time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to use this time to deal with one of the points made by my friend from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) and then more substantially to the issue raised by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Diaz-Balart cited a letter signed by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense that was sent a number of weeks ago, long before a series of changes were made in this bill. At the time that letter was sent, we had a very elaborate resolution of disapproval process for the Presidential determinations. That has been struck. We had a very high waiver standard vital to national security interests. That has been struck. We had a great dispute that was existing over how the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Cooperation Fund should work. Those issues have all been worked out with the House Armed Services Committee. The House Armed Services Committee has worked through all of these issues with us. They are reflected in the Pakistan bill. This is the committee to whom the Secretary's letter was addressed. A number of changes have been made. My friend's comments relate more to the Pentagon's view of this bill before all those changes were made than they do now.

The issues I would really like to focus on are the issues raised by the gentleman from New Jersey. This is a State Department authorization bill.

The first thing was to put together this bill to say we are not going to use this piece of legislation to change the substantive law on the issue that is so controversial for which disagreements are so strong in this House. This is not going to be a vehicle for changing the law on that subject. So, when a number of the groups came with a compelling case--the pro-choice groups--that we should include a provision in this bill that prohibits any President in the future from imposing an executive order, such as the Mexico City policies, I said I would love to. I support that position, but we're not going to use this bill to do it.

The gentleman from New Jersey, in his heart, is not truly driving at the Office of Global Women's Issues. This is an office that, in one form or another, has been around since 1975. Their purpose is to promote education for women and girls around the world and to promote political empowerment, like the right to vote for women and dealing with problems of violence against women. There is no basis for assuming that this office is going to do anything to promote or to lobby for abortion.

Moreover, in the manager's amendment, which is made in order by this rule that we are now debating, I said let us establish in policy our statement of neutrality on this issue. We include in the manager's amendment a provision which says nothing in this section, and in particular, the duties of the Office of Global Women's Issues, shall be construed as affecting in any way existing statutory prohibitions against abortion. There will be no change whatsoever in existing statutory prohibitions against abortion or in existing statutory prohibitions on the use of funds to engage in any activity or effort to alter the laws or policies in effect in any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated or prohibited.

That means the Siljander amendment, the Helms amendment and the Leahy amendment, which construct the current state of the law with respect to U.S. efforts on this issue abroad, remain in effect and unchanged, and there is nothing in the statutory institutionalization of an already existing Office of Global Women's Issues that will change any of that. We reaffirm that by this statute.

What the gentleman from New Jersey wants to do--he didn't quite say it, but he acknowledges it when asked about it--is change the law. That's legitimate. He can have his efforts; but for those of us who say let's not use this as a vehicle one way or the other and for those of us who have rejected efforts that we, personally, support and to which I am very much committed in

the pro-choice community regarding this issue, there is no basis for saying that this bill is defective because it doesn't serve either side's agenda on this particular issue.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 2410.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, during proceedings today in the House and in the Committee of the Whole, the Chair be authorized to reduce to 2 minutes the minimum time for electronic voting on any question that otherwise could be subjected to 5-minute voting under clause 8 or 9 of rule XX or under clause 6 of rule XVIII.

Mr. Chairman, the United States now confronts the most complex array of threats in many decades, if not the entire history, of our Nation.

Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, drug trafficking and climate change all pose major challenges to our national security. And we must confront these threats in the midst of a global financial crisis with enormous ramifications both at home and around the world.

Our brave men and women in uniform are making unbelievable sacrifices to

protect our security interests around the globe. They and their families deserve our deepest respect and gratitude. But we should not expect the military to shoulder the entire burden.

The State Department and our other civilian foreign affairs agencies have a critical role to play in protecting U.S. national security. Diplomacy, development, and defense are the three key pillars of our U.S. national security policy. By wisely investing resources to strengthen our diplomatic capabilities, we can help prevent conflicts before they start and head off conditions that lead to failed states.

For years we have failed to provide the State Department with the resources it desperately needs to pursue its core missions. With the expansion of U.S. diplomatic responsibilities in the 1990s, and the more recent demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Foreign Service has been strained to the breaking point. Sixteen percent of all positions are currently unfilled. One in nine positions overseas is vacant.

As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently stated: ``It has become clear that America's civilian institutions of diplomacy and development have been chronically undermanned and underfunded for far too long.''

The legislation before us today, Mr. Chairman, takes an important first step in correcting that situation. It supports President Obama's request for funding to hire over 1,000 new staff, including at least 750 Foreign Service officers; 332 of these positions will be used to immediately expand our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other strategic areas. A further 213 positions will be dedicated to improving and expanding training in critical needs languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Urdu.

The bill also provides resources requested by the administration for significant numbers of new public diplomacy officers, arms control experts, counterterrorism specialists.

And the bill has important provisions to promote more strategic thinking in the State Department and help the Foreign Service transition from traditional diplomatic framework to a more expeditionary one.

To help ensure the Department can continue to attract the best and brightest and retain these professionals over the long term, H.R. 2410 closes the pay gap that currently results in a 21 percent pay cut when junior Foreign Service officers leave Washington on assignment.

The bill also authorizes funds to pay our full dues and all recognized arrearages to the United Nations.

The legislation supports a significant expansion of the Peace Corps, an increase in international broadcasting activities, a vigorous public diplomacy effort, and a strengthened arms control and nonproliferation bureau at the State Department, which will soon be under the head of our dear colleague, Mrs. Tauscher.

In addition, the bill creates a new foundation to significantly increase the number of American students studying abroad, enhances U.S. efforts to help Mexico and other Latin American countries reduce drug violence, and addresses a number of key human rights and democracy issues around the world.

H.R. 2410 also reforms our system of export controls for military technology, improves oversight of U.S. security assistance, and requires a report to Congress on actions taken by the United States to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge.

This legislation is supported by a wide range of organizations, from the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, on one hand, to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on the other. From the Aerospace Industries Association, the Satellite Industry Association, on one hand, to CARE, Oxfam, the Peace Corps Association, Refugees International, and the Genocide Intervention Network on the other, the Save Darfur Council, Church World Service, and the American Council on Education, a coalition of all the major public and private universities in this country all strongly support this legislation.

I urge all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 3 minutes to the vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, Mr. Ackerman.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to one of the new members of the committee who has been of tremendous assistance on a variety of issues, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield to another new Member of the House and of the committee, a great Member, Mr. McMahon, for 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to a good friend from California who has been on the committee and has returned, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), the chairman of the Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson), a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to my colleague from California (Mr. Schiff), a former member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a member of the Appropriations Committee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the very active and distinguished member of the committee, the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 1 minute to a great member of the committee, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Carnahan).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the very distinguished chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from American Samoa. He's chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, my friend, Eni Faleomavaega.

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

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, for purposes of a colloquy, I'm pleased to yield 1 minute to a former member of the committee, a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

I want to manifest very clearly my intention to take up a major rewrite of foreign assistance legislation later this year, and we will address the issues raised in the Water For the World Act as part of that effort.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a friend of a very, very long time, a member of the committee as well as the Agriculture Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee--she was, then she wasn't, and now she is--and my friend from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to a great member of our committee, also a member of the Science and Technology Committee, the gentlelady from Arizona (Ms. Giffords).

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield to another excellent member of the committee, former colleague in the legislature in California, the gentlelady from California (Ms. Watson), 1 minute.

I am pleased to yield an additional 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I am now pleased to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) for purposes of a colloquy.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank him for his suggestion. I agree completely that science constitutes an untapped and undertapped resource in America's diplomatic toolbox, and I can assure the gentleman that I am committed to enhancing our capacity in this area, collaborating with him on this effort, including further legislation as well as a role in the foreign assistance reform process that we are working on.

Will the gentleman yield?

I appreciate it.

The answer is, I certainly do agree. In the case of China, under our legislation, all satellites and related components must remain on the United States munitions list.

Will the gentleman yield further?

The gentleman's remarks are worth elaborating on. The whole notion of a domestic commercial satellite industry is very much at stake if we can't, in appropriate situations, export and arrange for those kinds of transfers, and I think it is part of what the gentleman pointed out. That is why both the Satellite Industry Association and the Aerospace Industries Association support this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to include in the Congressional Record an exchange of letters between the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and

Government Reform,

Washington, DC, June 9, 2009.

Hon. Howard L. Berman,

Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Berman: I am writing about H.R. 2410, the

``Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2010

and 2011.'' The Committee on Foreign Affairs reported this

legislation to the House on June 4, 2009.

I appreciate your effort to consult with the Committee on

Oversight and Government Reform regarding those provisions of

H.R. 2410 that fall within the Oversight Committee's

jurisdiction. These provisions address issues related to the

federal civil service and government contractors.

In the interest of expediting consideration of H.R. 2410,

the Oversight Committee will not request a sequential

referral of this bill. I would, however, request your support

for the appointment of conferees from the Oversight Committee

should H.R. 2410 or a similar Senate bill be considered in

conference with the Senate. Moreover, this letter should not

be construed as a waiver of the Oversight Committee's

legislative jurisdiction over subjects addressed in H.R. 2410

that fall within the jurisdiction of the Oversight Committee.

Please include our exchange of letters on this matter in

the Congressional Record during consideration of this

legislation on the House floor. Again, I appreciate your

willingness to consult the Committee on these matters.

Sincerely,

Edolphus Towns,

Chairman.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order by the rule and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

My amendment makes a number of changes. Many of these are minor or technical amendments. Others address issues raised by other committees that have a jurisdictional interest in the bill. However, there are a number of other changes in my bill that are more substantive. For example, the amendment takes care of requests by Members that are generally unobjectionable even though substantive.

For example, the bill adds a provision that would allow the State Department's growing Civilian Response Corps to enhance its capability by drawing on locally employed staff who have significant expertise in unstable environments.

It includes provisions to assist in the compensation for victims of terrorism from the 1998 Nairobi bombing, drawing from a bill that we passed last year on a bipartisan basis and supported by Mr. Jesse Jackson, Mr. Roy Blunt, and our ranking member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

The amendment also updates language currently in the bill, welcoming the end of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam. These are provisions pushed particularly by the gentleman from New York (Mr. McMahon), a member of the committee. The United States, standing with the international community, eagerly looks forward to the government of Sri Lanka's putting forward a timely and credible proposal to engage its Tamil community and address the legitimate grievances of its Tamil citizens so that peace and reconciliation can be achieved and sustained. It also includes two requests by Republican members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, including an amendment by Mr. Wilson from South Carolina, who I agreed to work with during the markup at the committee. It also increases the amount of funds for the State Department Inspector General and the National Endowment For Democracy, as suggested by the minority in their views on the bill.

This continues my efforts to include sensible Republican ideas into H.R. 2410, even though I recognize that very few Republicans appear to be prepared to support the legislation at this time.

In addition, my amendment would also begin the process of modernizing our foreign assistance program by establishing a rigorous system to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of U.S. foreign assistance.

One of the greatest weaknesses of the current U.S. foreign aid program is that it lacks a clear set of goals and objectives, and there's no systematic plan for measuring results. Under my amendment, the Secretary of State would coordinate the monitoring and evaluation activities of the various agencies carrying out foreign aid activities, and would report to the Congress on the findings and lessons learned from such evaluations.

Finally, in recent days--and this is important--there has been significant concern expressed that a provision in the bill authorizing the Office of Global Women's Issues, an existing office at the State Department that focuses on issues like education for women and girls, political empowerment, and violence against women, somehow is a basis for promoting or lobbying for abortion. That is simply not true. The bill as reported out by the committee does not refer to abortion in any way, nor does the office work on abortion issues. That office is focused particularly on women in Iraq and in Afghanistan on the issues of education and political empowerment that I just mentioned.

To reassure my colleagues, however, I have included in my amendment the following new subsection:

``Nothing in this section, and in particular the duties of the office described in subsection (c)''--that is the Office of Global Women's Issues--``shall be construed as affecting in any way existing statutory prohibitions against abortion or existing statutory prohibitions on the use of funds to engage in any activity or effort to alter the laws or policies in effect in any foreign country concerning the circumstances under which abortion is permitted, regulated, or prohibited.''

This language makes it very clear that existing prohibitions on lobbying for or using funds to promote abortion--including the Helms amendment, the Leahy amendment and the Siljander amendment--remain in effect and will continue to apply to the actions of the office. I believe this confirms that the bill does not undermine current law in any way and will reassure my colleagues on this issue.

I think this manager's amendment is a good amendment. I urge all my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

They cannot. If the gentleman is yielding on his time to me, they cannot. You know, Abe Lincoln used to tell this story: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a sheep have? And the answer is four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.

No matter how many times the specter is raised, this office cannot do and has no intention and no plans of doing anything to promote abortions, coerce abortions, fund abortions or lobby for an abortion policy.

It is an office that is focused generally on the issues of women's political empowerment: should women have the right to vote, should they be able to run for office, are they treated as equal citizens under the law. It serves as a promoter of better education for women and girls and a series of causes that you are known for caring about. And it does not. It does not.

If the gentleman will continue to yield, my view is that that office cannot do through indirection, that is by going through some agency, anything that it is not allowed to do on its own. And it is not allowed to do the things that you are concerned about. And the purpose of the manager's amendment----

I will yield more time to discuss this, if you want, but first I am going to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Ruppersberger), who has been waiting patiently. Then, if you want, we can come back to this.

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

I yield myself 2 minutes, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just lay out this Office of Global Women's Issues. First of all, by law, by virtue of the Helms amendment and the Siljander amendment and the Leahy amendment, it cannot and, by practice, it does not and has no intention of serving as a vehicle for either abortion policy or coercive abortion.

What does it do? It is dedicated to ensuring that women around the world can realize their potential by fully participating in the political, economic and cultural lives of their societies.

Women around the globe, and the gentleman from New Jersey knows this, women are bought and sold like commodities and trafficked across international borders for sexual exploitation. Young children are married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers and have their education and childhood abruptly ended. Girls have their bodies mutilated in the name of culture or tradition, leading to complication in childbearing and lifelong pain and incontinence. Young women are slain by their own families for perceived and sometimes fictitious infractions, simply because they are viewed less as human beings and as symbols of human honor.

Women who become infected with HIV, often because of the infidelity of their spouses, are shunned, lose their livelihoods or do not have access to the medicines that could prolong their lives and prevent transmission of the virus to their children.

I say to the gentleman, these causes and these concerns that I have mentioned have always been at the forefront of the gentleman's own concerns, and to hold this entire bill and this office hostage to a desire to change abortion law I think is unfair.

I scrupulously avoided and the committee Democrats scrupulously avoided any effort to change that law in the other direction, and I think it is wrong to try to hijack this bill to hold it hostage for those purposes.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, could I ask if the gentlelady is finished.

Our side has the right to close. Then since I'll be the only speaker and I have the right to close--

I do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, up to 5 minutes.

I rise in opposition to the amendment. I share a lot of the ranking member's concerns, fundamentally, about the countries named in her amendment and about the issue of proliferation. But there are sort of three different levels on which I think her amendment raises serious doubts and causes me to want to oppose it.

The first is the assumption that withholding assessed contributions produces the actions we want. We've had test cases of this.

Wouldn't it have been great if the money we withheld from the U.N. population planning account had stopped coercive abortions in China?

Wouldn't it be great if the dues we are assessed to pay to the United Nations had resulted in the kinds of reforms that eliminated the questionable contact that the minority rightfully points to? There is a real challenge to this assumption that the withholding is what achieves the goal. We can wish it a lot, but it didn't always happen.

Secondly, there are some specific categories of programs here that are involved and should be mentioned because, in some cases, they make some sense. The technical assistance provided by IAEA is constructive and supportive of a number of humanitarian needs, such as the eradication of the tsetse fly in numerous African countries, the fruit fly in Panama, improving cancer diagnosis and treatment in Tanzania, Niger, Mali, Zambia and the Central African Republic, improvements in agriculture in groundwater tracing. These are the kinds of programs that are involved.

Once in a while there may be a project such as in Iran or Syria that may provide a small amount of useful experience in general nuclear science and radiology. But the most important part is to the extent that some of these programs are about enhancing safety.

The U.S. is totally free on the board to vote against those projects at the Board of Governors, and does so. The U.S. already denies extra budgetary funding for technical cooperation projects for state sponsors of terrorism, which the countries the gentlelady mentioned are.

However, the proposed amendment mandates the withholding, not of the voluntary contributions, not of the extra budgetary support, but of the U.S. regular dues to the IAEA.

So what does it do?

It hampers the Agency's primary function, which is the inspecting and safeguarding of nuclear material in foreign countries. This is cutting off your nose to spite your face.

The IAEA's technical assistance program is funded entirely from voluntary contributions. The program that, understandably, concerns the gentlelady is not from the assessed contributions. It's from the voluntary contributions. The amendment is not focused on the voluntary contributions. It's focused on the assessed contributions.

So what will we do? We'll end up cutting the funds that would otherwise be used by the IAEA to ensure that states are not diverting nuclear material from peaceful to military purposes--pretty serious concern--inspections that are in the direct national security interest of the United States. That's what we're cutting.

So that's why I think the amendment, not by its intention, and not even by its focus on these programs, we could live without those programs, but its focus on cutting the assessed dues to the most important functions for the United States of the IAEA makes no sense, and I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his excellent amendment. I strongly support it because it basically works to encourage the development of the fundamental skills of the Foreign Service.

It seeks to broaden the skill set of the Foreign Service by requiring this plan to increase career incentives provided to Foreign Service officers to serve in the bureaus and offices of the Department not primarily focused on regional issues, including the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Bureau of Oceans and International Environment, and the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

It asks the Secretary to consider requiring all Foreign Service officers to serve at least 2 years in a bureau office of the Department not primarily focused on regional issues. And it takes a look at the whole issue of changing the composition of the Selection and Promotion Board to increase the participation of those Foreign Service officers with extensive experience in the nonregional bureaus. Very important. There was a tendency in the past that gets entrenched that the way you get ahead in the Foreign Service is you work in the regional bureaus, you work in the political or the economic aspect of that. And the result is that critical issues involving functional programs and these other bureaus are neglected. We want the best and the brightest in all these different areas, and we should look to remove any internal biases that disincentivize that activity.

I thank the gentleman.

Would the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

While the gentleman may have broken the podium, his amendment does not break the task force; it improves it. The Secretary of Defense should be a member of that task force, and this amendment simply establishes that rather than leave it to the Secretary of State's discretion. That's fine with me.

I support the amendment and urge its adoption. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for his amendment. I strongly support it.

A number of immigrants to the United States from the former Soviet Union worked for decades in the Soviet-run industries, contributed to the state's social security system, and expected to receive their rightful pensions when they reached the requisite age. For a variety of reasons beyond their control, they haven't received their pensions. And some of these workers were forced to renounce their citizenship when they moved to the United States.

As many of the former Soviet states refuse to pay pensions to those who are no longer citizens, these elderly individuals face a bureaucratic nightmare in seeking to reclaim their rights. This amendment expresses our sense of Congress that we should work with the former Soviet states to establish a workable system that enables the

workers to claim pensions that are rightfully theirs. It is appropriate. It's right. And I support the amendment and urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition even though I don't oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman's amendment encourages the administration to create a Comprehensive Interagency Strategy and Implementation Plan for Sudan. I have spoken with Mr. McCaul about his proposal and agree that developing a coherent approach to the situation in Sudan is critical. The United States must make every effort to address the ongoing and interrelated crises in Sudan. The U.S. should work towards a stable and lasting peace in a region that has seen so many tragedies in recent years.

I have no objection to this amendment, and I look forward to working with Mr. McCaul on this provision as the bill moves through the process.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the sponsor of the amendment for yielding.

It's really an excellent amendment. If we want to encourage the international cooperation that's needed in this area, I'm telling you you've got to ensure that the entrepreneurs and the innovators know that their cutting-edge breakthroughs and innovations are protected. This isn't even as much about fair return for the inventors as it is ensuring that people will keep innovating and researching and advancing the technologies because they know that ultimately they will be compensated. So it's a symbiotic relationship. The more we ensure and protect intellectual property, the more we will be able to do in achieving our very important goals with respect to the development and deployment of new energy and environmental technologies.

Last year, the United Nations reported that the global market for environmental technologies could double to $2.74 trillion by 2020 from the $1.37 trillion today because of growth in areas

like energy-efficient technologies, sustainable transport systems, and water supply and efficiencies markets.

This is a very important amendment. Again, I think it is essential to the development and deployment of these new technologies, and I urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim time in opposition to this amendment, although I am not opposed to this amendment.

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

I don't know that we needed to say this, but I'm glad we are saying it. It goes almost without saying that any sovereign country has an inalienable right to defend itself in the face of an imminent nuclear or military attack or threat. Nothing in this amendment prohibits or constrains Israel or the United States from discussing the nature of a threat, the logic of the timing or the nature of the response. So I find this amendment a useful contribution. In a way, it states the obvious, but sometimes stating the obvious is worth doing. I plan to support the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim the remainder of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my friend, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I am pleased to yield the remainder of my time to the gentlelady from Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

I yield back my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, for the life of me, I cannot understand why the gentlelady's amendment seeks to cut what may be one of the most important processes that could take place, to learn how to do things better. I strongly oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), the originator of this proposal.

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Klein).

Mr. Chairman, I simply join the sponsor of the amendment and the ranking member in support of the amendment.

Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during further consideration of H.R. 2410, pursuant to House Resolution 522, it may be in order to consider amendment No. 17 after amendment No. 27.

Would the gentlewoman yield?

I thank the ranking member for yielding.

I just want to add my support. The fact is I had a chance to go to Mexico City, and the gentlewoman from Arizona is absolutely right. The guns are one issue but the huge amounts of cash that are transported are another. Her amendment makes what I think are some good provisions in this legislation on strengthening the Merida Initiative even better, and I urge its adoption.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition to this amendment, although I am not opposed.

Madam Chair, as the gentleman said, and I agree with every word that he said in support of his amendment--I'm not sure I could have pronounced every word as he did, but this is simply a discretionary authorization to the Secretary of State, usually in extraordinary circumstances, to do something which makes perfect sense, to take advantage of the possibility that a foreign national might under circumstances, and particularly with a reward in mind, provide information of tremendous value in capturing target terrorists that we are pursuing. Whether it's the ones the gentleman spoke about or others, why not give this authority?

I urge that the amendment be adopted and we change the law to remove this restriction, which, to me, doesn't make much sense.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise to join the ranking member in supporting very strongly the amendment from the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch).

We have, I think, a general obligation to deal with the issue of the refugees as a consequence of these conflicts both in Iraq and in Afghanistan, but we have a particularly strong duty to deal with the status of people who are displaced or who are objects of persecution, retribution or retaliation because those individuals helped either our military or our diplomats or our AID people in terms of the conflict in either one of those countries.

This is an issue that I, personally, was very involved with in the last couple of years. The gentleman's amendment, I think, helps to spur us to deal with some of the problems in the program now and to do more in this regard. It is certainly an amendment that, if it is passed, I would want to see in the final legislation. I urge its adoption.

As the designee of Mr. Hill, I have an amendment made in

order by the rule, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am operating as a designee for our colleague Baron Hill. I strongly support the amendment that is before the body now. It requires the State Department, in cooperation with other departments and agencies, to report on how best to use government funds to reduce alien smuggling and trafficking in persons.

The State Department estimates that 800,000 people are trafficked in deplorable conditions and in inhumane conditions to cross borders around the world while millions more are trafficked within their own countries. Of these, approximately 80 percent are women and girls. Half are minors. Human smuggling continues to be a significant law enforcement challenge in the international community, and it remains a particular problem for us on our southern border with Mexico.

The United States became a party to the United Nations' smuggling protocol in 2005. It continues to work with other governments, committing substantial resources to end human smuggling and to protect victims from the perilous journeys involved in this profitable enterprise. Some 112 countries are now party to this smuggling protocol.

Madam Chair, in order to more effectively tackle the growing and worrisome problems of human smuggling and trafficking, I support the gentleman's amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have no further requests for time.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, as the designee of Mr. Teague, I have an amendment made in order by the rule, and I ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Madam Chair, I yield the balance of the time to the sponsor of the amendment, under my designee status, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Teague).

Will the gentlelady yield?

I just want to express my strong support for this. The issue of child soldiers is a very important one. I appreciate your raising it, as well as some of the other contributions of other Members on this issue. I strongly support the resolution.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, though I'm not opposed to the amendment.

The gentleman's amendment is pretty direct. It requires the President to report total cash and in-kind contributions by the United States to the entire United Nations system for the period covered by H.R. 2410, fiscal years 2010 and 2011. The amendment makes sense. It encourages full transparency in detailing the logistical and other support that the U.S. provides to critical peacekeeping operations and other U.N. activities in the support of U.S. interests. The Members of Congress have a right to know, the people of America have a right to know, and I support the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not going to speak in opposition.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

The gentleman has touched on a real problem. Just as he describes it, the notion of criminal aliens released because of the limitations on the time they can be held, not taken in their home country, creates a very undesirable situation in our own country. The gentleman's addition to the existing law makes a lot of sense because it's to retaliate against the officials of that government who seek diplomatic visas to come to the United States.

The existing provision of law is very understandable, although I have a little concern that sometimes we're visiting on the spouse of a U.S. citizen or worker with particular skills the sins of the government on that individual or on that individual's American citizen family. But the gentleman has been very flexible in working with us on this amendment, and he is certainly trying to go after a real problem. I wish I had a better alternative than this, but military force isn't my answer. So I'm going to support the gentleman's amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 additional minute to the gentleman.

I have no further speakers. I support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I object.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly oppose the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, what we see in the offering of this motion to recommit is a political party or the leadership of a political party that, number one, is not serious about pursuing an effective strategy to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability and, two, that is using the pretext of Iran to strike every single provision of the bill that we have presented and that has been debated on.

The very first provision in this bill is to strike all that follows after the enacting clause. Then my friend from Indiana takes a bill that I am the sponsor of, along with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and a number of people on both sides--it now has something like 155 cosponsors--to focus on the issue of refined oil products going to Iran. He eviscerates that bill by taking out every single trade sanction and all of the financial institution sanctions, so it totally wipes out the State Department authorization bill. They know that we intend to pursue the policy of seeing if Iran diplomatically, in a short timeframe, can be dissuaded from the course they are now on. If they cannot be, at the same time, we are pursuing efforts to get key countries to come together at the Security Council with a level of, as the Secretary of State said, crippling sanctions on Iran to get that regime to change its behavior.

Will the gentleman let me finish my thought?

Then we will pursue these international sanctions in working with the Russians, the Chinese, the Arab States, and with all of the countries that know that Iran with a nuclear weapons capability is an intolerable situation that cannot be tolerated.

Instead, he jumps ahead to the third part of the strategy, a strategy on which we were going to have hearings in the month of July and see how both the multilateral sanctions and the engagement process--the diplomatic process--worked. Then, if we were not moving ahead, he would take a serious and tough bill that had import sanctions, which said that companies that provided refined oil products to Iran couldn't import, stripped from this bill; and that imposed even tougher financial sanctions that we now have stripped from this motion to recommit.

Meanwhile, all of the things in the State Department authorization bill--all of the issues that my friends praised even in the course of the debate on this bill, which they don't like, every single provision--is stripped.

This is not a serious effort. What really bothers me about this amendment is, with Iran, we should have a bipartisan approach. We tried a policy. I supported that policy of the previous administration: isolate and sanction unilaterally because we could never get effective multilateral sanctions. It didn't work. Iran kept enriching every day while we sat around, railing against them.

We are trying something new because we want this policy to work. We want to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability. I don't know if the diplomatic strategy will work. You guys don't know if it will work.

I don't know if we can get the international community to do the kinds of things that can stop Iran and enforce the regime to change its behavior in this area or on the issue of terrorism or on all of the other issues that we have with Iran; but let's try a policy that's different than the one that has been a total failure for the past 5 years.

We said we won't engage until they suspend. They kept enriching. We said we'll sanction all we can. We caused some annoyances. Most of those sanctions didn't work because no other country was serious about it. Now we're trying a different approach to get the world serious about it. Give it a few months to try and work.

I urge that this eviscerated version of the bill that I am sponsoring in this motion to recommit be defeated and that you don't wipe out the whole State Department authorization bill and the committee's work.

I am not going to yield to you and am going to vote ``no'' emphatically on this thing. This is an irresponsible motion.

This politicizes a very important bipartisan issue.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 2410, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the Fraud Enforcement & Recovery Act of 2009. I want to specifically address the language in this bill that will strengthen the provisions of our Nation's most effective fraud-fighting tool, the federal False Claims Act. With our Nation spending hundreds of billions of dollars to revitalize our faltering economy, now is the time to plug the loopholes that have been created in the False Claims Act over the last quarter century. Now is the time to update this law to ensure that it reaches the modern fraud schemes that are draining our public fisc with impunity. As one of the authors of both the 1986 False Claims Act Amendments and the relevant language in S. 386 which we consider today, I submit this statement to clarify the true intent of the False Claims Act and to send a clear message that all government funds should be protected from fraud.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to pay tribute to my friend, Robert D. Wexler, on the occasion of his thirty years of service to the American Jewish University (AJU), and particularly his service as president for the past seventeen years.

During the first decade of his presidency at AJU, Dr. Wexler launched three major initiatives which promote education, understanding and peace: the Ziegler School for Rabbinic Studies, the Center for Israel Studies, and the Ziering Institute. Under his leadership, AJU started its Community Partners Initiative in which the university reaches out to the many ethnic and religious communities of Los Angeles. He has helped AJU's Whizin Center for Continuing Education become the largest Jewish adult education program in the United States with more than 15,000 participants each year.

In addition to his work at the American Jewish University, Dr. Wexler has served in many community leadership roles. He chaired the Los Angeles Federation's Commission on Israelis and the Committee on Jewish Education. He has also published several articles, including contributions to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Etz Hayim commentary on the Torah, and a volume entitled Israel, the Diaspora and Jewish Identity.

Born in Los Angeles, Dr. Wexler received his B.A. in Sociology from UCLA, and was ordained as a rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York where he also earned a Master of Arts degree in Hebrew Literature. While enrolled in rabbinical school, Dr. Wexler also earned his M.B.A. from Baruch College in New York City. Following his ordination, he spent a year on the faculty of Princeton University, teaching in the Department of Middle East Studies. Dr. Wexler later earned both a Master of Arts degree and a Ph.D. from UCLA in the Department of Near Eastern Languages.

Dr. Wexler is included every year in Newsweek's list of America's 50 most influential rabbis, ranking number three in 2008. He has also been included on the Forward's list of the 50 most significant American Jewish leaders.

Dr. Wexler is married to Dr. Hana Wexler, the Director of the Wadsworth Anaerobe Laboratory at the Veteran's Administration in West Los Angeles. They have four children: Daniella, Elisheva, Zev and Nili.

Madam Speaker and distinguished colleagues, I ask you to join me in saluting Robert D. Wexler for his impressive career and dedication to the community and the American Jewish University, and to congratulate him on the occasion of his thirty years of service.

Madam Speaker, I'm very honored to yield 1 minute to the Speaker of the House. For those of us who were in this Chamber at the time of the Tiananmen Square movement 20 years ago, we all remember that there was no one more passionate or eloquent on the aspirations of those students and more outraged by the dashing of those aspirations, whether the people at the square or of the Chinese people generally or the thousands of Chinese students who were studying in the United States at that time and watching that happen, than Leader Pelosi.

I am pleased to yield 1 minute to the Speaker of the House.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 5 minutes to the chair, or co-chair, of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Caucus, an outspoken advocate for human rights internationally and domestically, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

I am pleased to yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, let me first ask you how much time I may consume.

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

First of all, I would like to thank my good friend, Representative Sandy Levin of Michigan, for his leadership as the chief sponsor of this resolution and as the co-Chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

First and foremost, I would like to express my sympathy to the families of those killed, tortured and imprisoned as a result of their participation in the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and in other parts of China 20 years ago this week.

The world must not forget the horrendous events which occurred that fateful day when the Chinese Army was ordered to clear the square, using lethal force against its own citizens. Hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed or injured. The Chinese Government detained thousands of Chinese citizens in connection with the protests. Many of them still languish today in Chinese prisons.

Even after 20 years, the precise number of dead, wounded, and detained remains unclear. Chinese authorities still censor information that does not conform to its official version of events surrounding the Tiananmen massacre. The government also limits or bans information about the crackdown from appearing in Chinese textbooks.

How can China claim its place as a major global power if the government refuses to address the Tiananmen protests in an honest and candid way? How can China develop into a modern society if its own citizens are prevented from knowing their own history?

This resolution calls on the Chinese Government to initiate a full investigation into the crackdown, to review the cases of those still imprisoned for participating in the protests and to end its harassment and discrimination against those who were involved. Finally, this resolution recognizes those Chinese citizens who have suffered for their efforts to keep the struggle for democracy alive during the last two decades.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, if the gentleman has yielded back the balance of his time, I will yield back the balance of my time.

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

Under clause 2 of rule XII, bills and reports were delivered to the Clerk for printing, and bills referred as follows:

[The following action occurred on May 22, 2009]

Mr. BERMAN: Committee on Foreign Affairs. H.R. 1886. A bill

to authorize democratic, economic, and social development

assistance for Pakistan, to authorize security assistance for

Pakistan, and for other purposes, with an amendment; referred

to the Committee on Armed Services for a period ending not

later than June 5, 2009, for consideration of such provisions

of the bill and amendment as fall within the jurisdiction of

that committee pursuant to clause 1(c), rule X.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to pay tribute to my good friend Professor Charles Dirks, on the occasion of his retirement from Los Angeles Mission College. I have had the pleasure of working with him on important issues in our community for more than two decades and know firsthand of his many accomplishments.

Professor Dirks comes from a long line lineage of community activists, a lineage that has helped fuel his tireless fight for Southwest College, Mission College and the entire Los Angeles school system.

Upon graduating from Occidental College, Professor Dirks got an invitation from R. Sargent Shriver, the Director of the Peace Corps to join ``Ghana One'' and teach in the very first Peace Corps group. During this time, he built two schools in Ghana and helped build the first public library in Liberia. He also set up community development training programs for the Peace Corps in Puerto Rico and helped build flood control dams in Kenya. This experience led to his lifelong mission of rebuilding and working in the Los Angeles education community's areas of need.

By joining the community college district, and becoming the Faculty Guild President, Professor Dirks helped erect permanent buildings in the north-east San Fernando Valley, where a college was most needed. A long time volunteer in politics, he used his experience as a co- campaign coordinator for Bobby Kennedy to lobby then-city councilman Tom Bradley on getting permanent structures on the Southwest College campus.

Professor Dirks knows that ``it takes a village'' and over the years he has received numerous accolades and great support from his community. He is deserving of commendation for his tireless campaign to secure adequate higher education in the northeast San Fernando Valley. With a combination of union backing and political tenacity, Professor Dirks was able to secure a budget for Mission College from then Governor Deukmajian. As one of the founding faculty members of Mission College, he was instrumental in organizing the faculty into a union and putting together support for a permanent site and buildings. The Chancellor and both the California State Senate and Assembly have named Professor Dirks ``The Faculty Father of Mission College.''

Madam Speaker and distinguished colleagues, I ask you to join me in saluting Professor Dirks for his impressive career and dedication to the people of the San Fernando Valley, and to congratulate him on the occasion of his retirement.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to pay tribute to my good friend, Moreen Blum, who was recently honored by the Sherman Oaks Democratic Club for her outstanding contributions to democratic politics in the San Fernando Valley. I have known Moreen for over two decades and have had the pleasure of working with her on many important issues in our community.

A long time volunteer in local politics, Moreen was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She joined the Navy when she was 20 years old and was a member of the Waves until 1952. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles in 1959, she formed the West Hollywood Democratic Club and was a Golden Girl at the John F. Kennedy nominating convention. Currently, she is President Emeritus of the Sherman Oaks Democratic Club, and is very active as the president and founder of the Summerville Democratic Club. Her noteworthy achievements were recognized by the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, as she was presented with the Dorothy Mayer Award. She serves as a worthy example to all political activists.

Madam Speaker and distinguished colleagues, I ask you to join me in saluting Moreen Blum for her impressive career and dedication to the people of the San Fernando Valley.