Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 88.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. I think what we do in the U.S. Congress is important. I think what this committee has done on this bill is important. Indeed, we hear from the committee members over and over again, we had many, many witnesses, 12,000 pages of testimony. They put some effort into it.

So why is that same committee afraid of leaving the door open for future Congresses in 10 years from taking another look? Because I can tell you this, as a member of the State legislature who served on the reapportionment committee in 1991: The Voting Rights Act is fluid. It evolves, it changes.

We have seen the Bossier Parish decision. We have seen the Ashcroft v. Georgia decision. We have seen the LULAC decision in Texas. All have profound impacts on the Voting Rights Act, and therefore, I think it is important for Congress to come back in 10 years and take a look at it.

I know the committee has been a little clever with 9 years, but you guys, we could say your reauthorization is 26 years, but the intent is 10 years. We all

know that, but what Mr. Gohmert is saying is, the Voting Rights Act changes, and anybody who has served in the legislature and anybody who has watched the Voting Rights Act knows it changes without one single vote of Congress.

This is the first time we have been voting on it in 25 years, and yet it is totally different than the interpretation of 1982, the interpretation of 1991. Reapportionment in 2001 was totally different than the 110 years before that, and I can say this, it is going to impact lots and lots of minorities.

We tend to think of this as black v. white. There is a huge growing Hispanic population that is totally almost removed from this argument today. Those are the ones 10 years from now that are going to have the most impact. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment

Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Hobson for yielding; and I wanted to thank you and Mr. Rogers for your leadership and Mr. Wolf for working together to come up with a suitable solution to this or at least a step in the right direction.

But I have been very concerned that the middle-aged middle American professional FBI leader would be forced to either take less than a leadership position with the FBI or do a stint in Washington, in which many of them have already done that, and they will do it at the same pay salary that they are, disrupting their wife's career or their spouse's career or disrupting their own career and taking a pay cut effectively, which I believe would run off a lot of our good and seasoned FBI employees. Their other choice would be to stay at home and have somebody with less experience become their boss, and it just does not make sense. We have too many good people in the field with careers running from 15 to 20, 25 years; and we do not want to lose them.

They are the professionals who are running the FBI and doing the good work. So I commend all of you guys for the hard work that you have done on this.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say this: as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am proud that this year the House Appropriations Committee has eliminated 95 different programs and greatly reduced the number of Member projects and earmarks. In each year we receive about 25,000 requests for earmarks. And yet, if there is another tool out there that we can use to scrutinize spending, I don't think any of us should be afraid to do it.

I support the line item veto. I think that the compromise that Mr. Ryan has crafted to get around the questions that we, as a Republican Congress, gave to the Democrat President Clinton administration, I think we should support this for any administration and leave party out of it.

It would give the President of the United States a tool, and it would give a self-imposed threat to this Chamber to make sure that anything that we put in the bill would stand the test of public scrutiny and transparency. If I have put an earmark in the appropriations bill, I ought to be able to defend it, and I ought to be able to defend it not to just any Democrat or Republican on the floor of the House, but to the President of the United States and to the folks back home.

I am not afraid of this. I think this is good fiscal policy. It builds on what the Appropriations Committee has already been doing in terms of eliminating 95 existing programs and bringing down Member earmarks tremendously. So I support this bill, and I hope that everybody else will.

Mr. Speaker, in 2003, we spent $103 billion buying oil from nondemocratic countries, such countries as Iran, Syria and Venezuela, hardly American allies by any stretch, and, in fact, people who in some ways are funding the war against us in the war on terrorism.

We need fuel independence. We need to pass the bipartisan H.R. 4409, which accelerates the market towards flex-fuel vehicles, ethanol-run vehicles, hybrids, and an assortment of other energy-saving measures. It will, in fact, by the year 2020 reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 20 percent.

We need to drive by a cornfield and say, that is our next tank of gas. The technology is already out there. In Brazil, 40 percent of the cars run on ethanol. In America, only 3 percent of them do.

What we need to do is make it so that this technology is affordable and practical for all households in America. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor and pass H.R. 4409.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to my friend, because I can see he has something to say real quick.

It would be an honor to yield to the gentleman from Hawaii.

Mr. Chairman, I thank both of my colleagues, and now I want to claim my time to oppose this amendment, but I wanted to talk about the bigger picture.

Each year, the House Appropriations Committee receives about 35,000 requests for individual projects in all the appropriation bills. Just to give one example, on the Labor-HHS bill there were 10,272 different requests. That is about 25 projects per Member. Yet this committee has worked very hard to scrutinize those requests and to decide which ones are good and which ones have less of a case and we eliminate all of them.

To give you some of the numbers, it is incredible. This bill alone is $1 billion below last year's in terms of Member earmarks. The Ag Committee, which I sit on, is $35 million below last year's. The Energy and Water Committee is 16 percent, or $197 million below last year's in Members' earmarks. The Interior Committee is $89 million, or 32 percent less than last year. Military Quality of Life, $40 million below last year's. The Labor-HHS is $100 million, Transportation-Treasury is $2.1 billion below last year's, and Science, State and Justice is $1.3 billion less than last year's.

And this is a sign of the committee doing their work on a bipartisan basis. We are going to continue to work for earmark reforms. The House Appropriations Committee is the first committee that wants to have earmark reform, something Mr. Flake is a great advocate of, in all committees, not just appropriations.

For example, the infamous ``bridge to nowhere'' did not come from an appropriation bill. We need to have earmark

reform. The Appropriation Committee supports that, but we support it for all committees, if we are going to make it complete. If it is good for one, let us do it for all.

We also have Member scrutiny and Member criteria requests. And this year, more than ever, we are asking for local grant money, State money, matching money so that if we do appropriate something back home, the folks back home have skin in the game, not just something that the Federal Government is paying for.

I have also, Mr. Chairman, a 2\1/2\-page list of some of the programs which the Appropriations Committee has terminated. Now, Ronald Reagan said, if you don't believe in resurrection, try killing a Federal program.

Indeed, that is the case. It is hard as the dickens to kill programs here, and yet Appropriations remains the only committee on a consistent level that is eliminating spending and terminating programs.

In Agriculture, there were about eight eliminated, including the Classical Chinese Garden at $8 million. Mr. Flake, I am sure, would have approved of that. In Foreign Operations we eliminated the Asia Pacific Partnership for $46 million. I don't know what it did. Does anybody here?

We eliminated the Congo Debt Relief, $160 million.

In Homeland Security, we eliminated $21 million for the SURGE initiative, and a new Coast Guard headquarters for $50 million.

In conclusion, Mr. Flake is not the only one applying the big magnifying glass to spending. This committee is doing it, and we need to be talking more about it. I appreciate the gentleman for what he is bringing up, but he is trodding on turf that a lot of us have already driven on at the committee level.

Continued Earmark Reforms for 2006

(1) Include all Member project funding during the House

consideration of appropriations bills.

(2) Sharply limit the number of Member project requests.

Curtailing the number of Member requests per Appropriations

subcommittee would dramatically improve oversight and lead to

a reduction of earmarks. Last year, the House Appropriations

Committee received nearly 35,000 individual project requests.

In the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, 417 Members requested

10,272 projects, or nearly 25 projects requested per Member.

(3) Require that all project requests be submitted in

writing to the Appropriations subcommittee of jurisdiction

via a Member-signed request letter or form.

(4) Establish clearly defined criteria for all project

requests and require Members to specify how each project

meets those criteria. Member requests would also be required

to be strictly germane to the spending bills in which they

are contained.

(5) Increase the proportion of projects that have a dollar-

matching requirement. HUD economic development initiative

grants are among those that ought to be considered for a

local matching requirement.

(6) Require all congressionally approved projects go

through a formal Executive Branch contracting and auditing

process.

(7) Require that all other committees adopt similar

earmarking reforms. Earmarks are not unique to the House

Appropriations Committee. The most notable earmark in recent

history--the so-called ``Bridge to Nowhere''--had its origins

elsewhere.

FY07 Member Project Funding

FY07 Agriculture Member Project Funding: The House bill

includes $435 million in Member project funding which is $35

million below last year's House bill level of $460 million

and $277 million below last year's conference agreement of

$812 million.

FY07 Defense Member Project Funding: The bill includes a

little less than $5 billion which more than $1 billion below

last year's House bill and $2.7 billion below last year's

conference report.

FY07 Energy and Water Project Funding: The bill includes

$1.04 billion in Member project funding which is 16% or $197

million below last year's House level of $1.24 billion.

FY07 Interior Member Project Funding: The bill includes

$188 million in Member project funding for 246 projects. This

is an $89 million or 32% reduction compared to last year's

enacted total of $277 million in Member project funding.

FY07 Military Quality Member Project Funding: Total Member

project funding in the bill is $572 million which is $40

million below the last year's House bill level of $612

million and $804 million below the enacted level of $1.376

billion.

FY07 Labor-HHS Member project funding: The bill provides

approximately $1 billion for Member projects, $100 million

less than previous, comparable levels and less than 1% of the

total funding in the bill.

FY07 Transportation-Treasury, HUD Member Project Funding:

Total Member project funding in the bill is $986 billion

which is $2.1 billion below last year's level. This is an 70

percent reduction from the previous year. In addition, for

the first time ever, the bill requires a 40 percent matching

requirement for grantees receiving Economic Development

Initiative funding.

Science-State-Justice: The bill provides approximately $387

million for Member projects, $1.3 billion less than the

enacted level and less than 1 percent of the total funding in

the bill.

Program Terminations

Agriculture includes 8 terminations for a savings of $414

million.

Healthy Forests Reserve: $3 million.

Invasive Species Grant: $10 million.

Wildlife Air Safety initiative: $3 million.

Classical Chinese Garden: $8 million.

Financial Management Modernization Initiative: $14 million.

Child Nutrition Program, contingency reserve fund: $300

million (new mandatory).

P.L. 480 Title I program: $64 million.

Ocean Freight Differential Grants: $12 million.

Energy and Water includes 3 terminations for a savings of

$4ll million.

Geothermal R&D technology: $23 million.

Natural gas R&D technologies: $20 million.

Construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Plant: $368 million.

Foreign Operations includes 4 terminations for a savings of

$286 million.

Conflict Response Fund: $75 million.

Asia Pacific Partnership: $46 million.

Africa Housing Facility: $5 million.

Congo Debt Relief: $160 million.

Homeland Security includes 6 terminations for a savings of

$154 million.

Office of Screening Coordination and Operations: $4

million.

SURGE initiative: $21 million.

Maritime security response team shoot house: $2 million.

Fast Response Cutter: $42 million.

Citizen Corps: $35 million.

New Coast Guard headquarters: $50 million.

Interior includes 4 terminations for a savings of $54

million.

Stateside Land and Water Grants: $30 million.

Forest Service economic action program: $9 million.

BLM rural fire program: $10 million.

Asia Pacific Partnership: $5 million.

Labor-HHS-Education includes 56 terminations for a savings

of $1.66 billion.

Responsible Reintegration for Youthful Offenders: $50

million.

Women's Educational Equity (FIE): $3 million.

Math Now for elementary schools: $125 million.

Math Now for middle schools: $125 million.

Science-State-Justice includes 8 terminations for a savings

of $96 million.

Grants for Televised Testimony: $1 million.

Forensic Science Grants: $18 million.

Crime Identification Technology Act Grants: $28 million.

Cannabis Eradication: $5 million.

Public Television Facilities, Planning, and Construction:

$22 million.

Microloan Technical Assistance: $13 million.

Microloan Subsidy: $1 million.

PRIME: $2 million.

Transportation-Treasury-HUD includes 6 terminations for a

savings of $742 million.

Rural Housing and Economic Development: $17 million

FTA Small Starts: $200 million.

Housing Counseling Assistance: $45 million.

National Defense Tank Vessel Construction Program: $74

million.

Open Roads Financing Pilot Program: $100 million.

New Coast Guard Headquarters: $306 million.

Denali Commission: $7 million.

Prisoner Re-entry: $20 million.

Community College Initiative: $150 million.

Work Incentives Grants: $20 million.

Management Crosscuts: $2 million.

Working Capital funds: $7 million.

NY State UI: $50 million.

Tech Asst. Nat Activities: $2 million.

HRSA--Health Career Opportunity Program (HCOP): $4 million.

HRSA--Faculty loan repayment: $1 million.

HRSA--Public health/dental training: $8 million.

HRSA--Delta Health Initiative: $25 million.

HRSA--Denali Commission: $39 million.

HRSA--ER 1 Administration earmark: $25 million.

CDC--Pandemic Flu base activities: $168 million.

CDC--Bulk Monovalent Vaccine Purchase: $30 million.

CDC--Mind-Body Institute: $2 million.

CDC--Special Olympics Healthy Athletes: $6 million.

CDC--Diamond Blackfan Anemia Program: $1 million.

CDC--Arctic health program: $0.3 million.

CDC--Hanford study: $1 million.

CDC--Pfiesteria program: $8 million.

CDC--Volcanic Emissions program: $0.1 million.

CDC--ALS Registry: $1 million.

SAMHSA--Access to Recovery: $98 million.

CMS--Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control: $118 million.

Health admin: $1 million.

ACF--Job Opportunities for Low-Income Individuals: $5

million.

ACF--Sex and other severe forms of trafficking program: $5

million.

Early Learning Fund: $36 million.

Embryo adoption campaign: $2 million.

Alcohol Abuse Reduction: $32 million.

Dropout Prevention Programs: $5 million.

Close Up Fellowships: $2 million.

Education Technology State Grants: $272 million.

Foundations for Learning (FIE): $1 million.

Whaling trading partners (FIE): $9 million.

Javits Gifted and Talented Ed: $10 million.

Mental Health Integration in Schools (FIE): $5 million.

Parental Information and Resource Centers (FIE): $40

million.

Ready to Learn TV: $24 million.

Ready to Teach (FIE) $11 million.

Star Schools (FIE): $15 million.

Teacher to Teacher (FIE): $2 million.

Language Teacher Corps (FIE): $5 million.

State scholars (FIE): $8 million.

State Grants for Incarcerated Youth Offenders: $23 million.

Underground Railroad: $2 million.

Byrd Scholarships: $41 million.

Demonstration in Disabilities: $7 million.

Thurgood Marshall Legal Educational Opportunity Program: $3

million.

Interest Subsidy Grants: $2 million.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 861, declaring that the United States will prevail in the Global War on Terror.

We have made great strides in the War on Terror. The men and women of our Armed Forces along with coalition partners deserve our continued support. They have displayed nothing short of true dedication and continued professionalism in carrying out their mission.

It is with high esteem that I rise to say we are winning the Global War on Terrorism. This is highlighted by the capture of Osama bin Laden's Prince of Iraq, al-Zarqawi. This is truly a milestone and has resulted in hundreds of raids which continue to provide an enormous amount of new intelligence to our commanders in the field. As political polls show, a majority of Iraqis wants the violence to end, and that Sunnis, Shiites, and other tribes were coming together to help make that happen. As an example of progress on the ground, he said that the number of intelligence ``tips'' had increased from 400 per month to 4,000 which makes the capture of terrorists like al-Zarqawi possible.

The newly elected prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, the first constitutional prime minister of Iraq since the revolutionaries toppled the Iraqi monarchy and murdered the royal family in 1958, has been successful in establishing a diverse government; one that has demonstrated a willingness to work together. This cooperation has transcended to the general population. A new Iraqi society, one that seeks to live in harmony with each other and believe the government can improve the situation in Iraq, is a society that is much safer because the Iraqi Security Forces now conducted over 32,000 patrols during the month of April.

There are 263,400 forces assigned to the Ministry of Defense and they are capable of conducting over 86 percent of the planned operations. It is projected by the end of this year, the Iraqi Security Forces will have responsibility and capability to fulfill a 100 percent of such operations.

Mr. Speaker, our goal of defeating terrorists, establishing a free and independent Iraq is obtainable if we continue to pursue our current course.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to commemorate the Sophronia M. Tompkins High School Class of 1966 on celebrating their 40th class reunion.

Sophronia M. Tompkins High School was built in 1955 where a dedicated group of educators shaped the lives of hundreds of forthright men and women. Although the school as it was once known is no longer standing, the students that gained life-changing lessons in this learning institution have not forgotten the ideals taught.

This institution has brought forth playwrights, educators, entrepreneurs, nurses, civil servants, ministers, and public servants who credit their tenure at Sophronia M. Tompkins High School to launching their futures.

Mr. Speaker, in 2003, our country was in a very tough recession. George Bush took a bold step to reduce taxes. Now, the Democrats did not like to have tax cuts, because they like to spend your money, because they actually believe that the wisdom in Washington is better than the wisdom on Main Street, America. But as a result of tax reduction, we now have five million new jobs since 2003 that have been created.

The unemployment rate is at 4.6 percent, 4.6 percent. That is lower than the unemployment rate was on average in the 1990s, the 1980s, the 1970s, and the 1960s. Sixty-nine percent of Americans own their own house now. It is a historic high not just for the United States of America, but for any country. Fifty-two percent of Americans are invested in the stock market, creating wealth for their themselves. The interest rates are down and the mortgage rates have remained competitive.

The economy is moving because of Bush economic policies. The last thing we need to do right now is increase taxes and throw these great economic policies out the door.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I thank him for the leadership on this amendment.

While I know there is a question about a point of order, I think it is important to point out that this legislation is also in the form of a bill which has over 80 cosponsors; and as I look at this, one thing to keep in mind is that if you are flying in an airplane right now, regardless of the origination, regardless of the destination, if you pass the south tip of Florida or the extreme islands of Alaska, if you are born while over those U.S. properties, you become an American citizen, which is an extremely liberal, broad policy in terms of granting one of the most precious things that we as Americans have and that is citizenship.

Now, recently, the U.S. Senate passed a bill which probably is not going to get a lot of support in the House on either side of the aisle, but one of the big criticisms of it is that it grants citizenship too easily to people and the reason why that criticism is there is not because, okay, you have got 11 million people who may be here illegally and those would become citizens overnight. It is that once those 11 million become citizens, they petition to have their mom, dad, cousin, brother, aunt brought in. So you actually have 11 million times three or 11 million times four. It depends on who is doing the calculation.

That is exactly what happens here when a mother comes in illegally and has a baby. The baby automatically can start petitioning to bring the illegal mom, the illegal dad, the illegal brother and sister in and break in line in front of people who have been going through the process for many years.

Recently on the Capitol steps, I had an opportunity to go to a reenlistment ceremony for a woman from Poland. She had already been in Iraq. She had already been deployed and served the United States of America for 1 year in Iraq and was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, but she was not yet a citizen. I do not think it is right to

have somebody break in line in front of her, a war veteran, who got in here illegally.

I support ending the birthright citizenship. As I understand, 122 nations no longer have that, and I think America should become one of them.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, what this amendment does is it clarifies Congress' position on a Border Patrol practice or a practice of the U.S. Government that tips off illegal immigrants as to where citizen patrols may be located. As we know, we had lots of testimony and lots of visits from people along the border, and we have seen lots of cameras and lots of videos about just the total lawlessness of people coming illegally over the border at night.

As a response in that area, a group has sprung up called the Minutemen Project, and the Minutemen Project is definitely not politically correct in Washington, D.C. However, they filled a void which the government was unable to fill.

There are over 7,000 volunteers in the Minutemen organization, and I am sure, like any other group of 7,000 people, you could find a bad apple or two. Yet, at the same time overall, their help has been productive and good. In fact, the Border Patrol itself in a CRS study indicates how helpful they have been, and their involvement has reduced the number of apprehensions of people coming over. That is because their folks are watching the border.

What my amendment does is simply says that the U.S. Government cannot tip off the Mexican officials as to where these folks are located. Plain and simple, nothing fancy about it. I am sure the Border Patrol will say, oh, no, we are not doing that, and yet one of the Web pages of the Secretary of Mexico had the information very explicit, and we just do not believe that is a good practice.

So what we wanted to do is confirm Congress' position in an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to my friend from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his support and comments, and I thank my friend from Minnesota on it.

Out of an abundance of caution, I do plan to ask for a recorded vote on this. And the caution is not with anybody in this Chamber, but with our friends in the bureaucracy outside of here; that sometimes we need to have a little statement for them.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I wanted to call attention that the House Appropriations Committee, working on a bipartisan basis, is ahead of schedule for this year. And although that is what we should be doing, it does seem that sometimes in Washington things break down, and there is no progress that is being made.

Unfortunately, a lot of that is happening in the other body. And then the House doesn't get credit for it. We have had some very good debate on the appropriations bills. We will have them under budget and on time. We are having a lot of push-back from some of our Members about, well, you need to cut this item out of it because there is pork here; there is pork there.

And I can say this, that in a $2-trillion-plus budget, you can always find lots to criticize about it. I think we should always be on the lookout for more things to cut. But just to take an example, the agriculture bill, we cut 35 different programs out of it, we reduced spending, and we did it on a bipartisan basis.

So often as Members get up to grandstand over one or two particular

things, they totally forget the bigger picture that the committee has done a lot of work already. I want to just say to the House, Democrats and Republicans, I think we are moving in the right direction on appropriations bills. We are going to continue to do so and work together on it.

I thank Mr. Sessions for yielding to me, and, Madam Speaker, I wanted to talk about two elements of this bill that I hope we will have a chance to vote on, and I hope they will be ruled germane to the bill.

One of them is the Nathan Deal amendment that has to do with birthright citizenship: 122 countries right now do not allow birthright citizenship. Only 36 do, and many of those countries have the advantage of no one wants to go into their country and migrate there.

But the policy in America is so liberal now that if you are flying over America in an airplane, regardless of your destination or your origination, if that plane crosses the south tip of Florida and you are born, you become an American citizen, and as an American citizen, as an anchor baby, you can turn around and petition to have the rest of your family come into the country, and you are given a higher priority.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimates that 42 percent of births to immigrants are to illegal aliens. The birth of illegal aliens right now accounts for one out of every 10 births in the United States of America. Depending on who you talk to, the cost of this may be as high as $10 billion a year to American taxpayers.

We know in the State of Georgia that we spend $58 million a year on emergency medical services for illegal aliens. No one is arguing about spending that on emergency medical costs right now. We are saying, okay, with that, but what we are saying is, you should not become an American citizen just because your mama broke the law to get here and have you born. We want to give you the medical costs but not everything else.

What the Deal amendment does is it does away with birthright citizenship in the United States of America. It is a bill that has a lot of cosponsors. I believe it is a bipartisan bill, and we want to attach it to the homeland security bill as we see a runaway, broken down immigration policy part of our national security picture.

Indeed, many of the immigrants who are coming over from Mexico, legal and illegal, are, in fact, non-Mexican citizens, and in many cases, they are caught and released into the country with hopes that they may or may not come back. I guess they may come back, but many times, they do not.

That is why I am standing in support of the Deal amendment.

I also have an amendment that I have offered, and what my amendment does is it is a payment limitation amendment because our own Border Patrol apparently is tipping off the Mexican government as to where Minutemen are on the Mexico-United States border.

Currently, we have 7,000 volunteers in the Minutemen organization. I say volunteers. These are unpaid people who are so outraged with the runaway illegal immigration problem that they have set up posts along the southwest border to help the Border Patrol and the local law enforcement agencies to tell them where the people are coming in and who is coming in.

I invite all Members of Congress to go to the southwest border sometime this summer and take a look at how outrageous and how out of control this problem is.

But despite the good work of the Minutemen organization, we find that our own Border Patrol now has a policy of tipping off the Mexican government so that they can inform these illegal aliens, these lawbreakers, as to where the lawful American citizens are located.

What our amendment does is says that none of our money appropriated in this bill can be spent to tip off people who are breaking the law as to where law-abiding citizens are who are trying to help border security; do not tip them off.

The Minutemen is one of these kind of politically incorrect organizations which the eastern Washingtonian, big government establishment likes to pooh-pooh, put down as being a bunch of country rednecks who are reactionaries who really just want to shoot people coming over the border. That is absolutely not the case. They are 7,000 volunteers who are good, hardworking American taxpaying citizens, who are really trying to help out and help preserve the security of the country they love, and for our own Border Patrol to be undermining them, when the Border Patrol is not doing sufficient work to begin with, is counterproductive.

So I hope that our amendment is in order and that we do get an overwhelming bipartisan support on it.

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 17: Page 62, after line 17, insert the

following:

Sec. 537. None of the funds made available by this Act may

be used to provide a foreign government information relating

to the activities of Non-Integrated Surveillance Intelligence

System, as defined by DHS OIG-06-15, operating along the

international border between Mexico and the states of

California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, unless required by

international treaty.

I thank the gentleman from South Carolina, and I wanted to say, as we go into the Memorial Day work period, certainly the war in Iraq is going to be on everybody's mind. I think it is very important for us as a Congress and for us as a Nation to acknowledge the great accomplishments that have taken place in the war against terror.

Foremost, we saw last year a constitution drafted by the people in Iraq, an election, December 15, in which 300 political parties participated, and now a government, their first government, an elected government that will take place for 4 years, led by Mr. Malaki.

We look forward to working with the emerging democracy in Iraq, as it will be a huge anchor for freedom throughout the Middle East and throughout the world. This is a very important significant development, and while the press buries these things on page C or C section on page 16, it should be front-page, bold-type news. It never will be in this town, but the American people know it.

I have the honor of representing five military installations in southeast Georgia, including the 48th Brigade and the 3rd Infantry Division, which has had so many soldiers over there. We have lost many constituents.

Yet, as we talk to those soldiers one on one, the people who have actually been to Iraq, not because they heard stories at a cocktail party or they read something in the New York Times, but people who have been there, not just once but two times, three times; they are very proud of the progress that has been made. They are very mindful of the sacrifices of the soldiers who will not be coming home on this Memorial Day with the rest of us.

We owe it to them to continue this mission and stick with it. Mr. Blair was in America today with the President and showing international unity on it. Now is not the time to cut and run as so many people are suggesting in Washington D.C.

Secondly, I want to talk about immigration. Finally, the Senate has passed an immigration bill. That is all we can say about it. It doesn't appear to be a very strong bill, doesn't appear to be a bill that is going to pass the House. We feel in the House, you have to secure the border. We are in favor of some sort of fence.

We believe, and Dave Dreier has a bill, that we need to have a biometric ID card for the people who are over here working on a temporary visa. On the subject of temporary visas, we believe that you have to have a program in which the employer and the employees are protected to know who is legal and who is illegal.

We are going to go into this thing open-minded in the House, but I can say this, that one thing that we have a lot of unity in is we don't want to support any kind of amnesty program, and we are not going to do that.

Thirdly, when we come back from this work period, we are going to continue to work on our tax policy. We are experiencing the lowest unemployment rate since, well, actually, a lower common rate than we had in the 1970s, the 1980s, the 1970s and the 1960s. It is at 4.7 percent. We have more jobs being created now, 5 million in fact, since the Bush tax cuts went in place in 2003.

We are going to keep the economy going through a smart appropriations process. We have passed four and a half appropriations bills. We are going to pass 11 of them before we break for the July recess. If we don't make that deadline, we will still keep the trains running on time and still stay ahead of the historic schedule of Congress. In these appropriation bills, we are cutting spending and staying within the budget.

We passed tonight, and Mr. McHenry had mentioned ANWR. If you can think about the Alaskan wildlife reserve, it is the size of a basketball court. The proposed drilling area is the size of a $1 bill on an entire basketball court. Yet, if you think about the oil that comes are from there, if President Clinton had not vetoed that bill in 1995, today domestic oil supply would be 20 percent higher.

We need to have all the domestic oil supply working for us and producing that we can, yet at the same time we need to continue our drive to ethanol and to alternative fuels.

Now, the gentleman from South Carolina introduced and passed recently a very important bill on hydrogen, giving awards for people who advanced the science of hydrogen technology the furthest. I think it is a very good bill, that passed with bipartisan support in the House. But we need to continue that kind of research on lithium batteries, on ethanol, on biodiesel and any kind of flex fuel.

The bill I have introduced, H.R. 4409, along with Eliot Engel of New York, is a great step in that direction. We need to do everything we can to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, and what H.R. 4409 does is reduce our domestic consumption by 20 percent in the next 20 years.

Finally, let me just say this: We are seeing a lot of work coming out of Washington. A lot of times the press doesn't like to report on the good news, but we have had a couple of good weeks, and we are going to continue to work hard on behalf of the American people.

Offered By: Mr. Kingston

Amendment No. 17: Page 62, after line 17, insert the

following:

Sec. 537. None of the funds made available by this Act may

be used to provide a foreign government information relating

to the activities of Non-Integrated Surveillance Intelligence

System, as defined by DHS OIG-06-15, operating along the

international border between Mexico and the states of

California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, unless required by

international treaty.