Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague Mr. Cardoza from California for yielding.

I also want to express solidarity with the concerns and expressions of sympathy expressed by the Speaker for the residents of California who are so afflicted by this terribly uncontrollable act of nature. I know the entire Congress, if they had the opportunity, would want to stand up and speak out on behalf of those very same sentiments.

We hope they can get that fire under control and that the people that have been displaced are able to find other housing and some safety. It's certainly one of the worst natural disasters. None of us can imagine what it would be like to be in the line of fire.

Mr. Speaker, my primary purpose for rising today is to express support for the legislation that has been introduced by my good friend and Virginia colleague Congressman Rick Boucher. It's an extraordinary proposal for what it accomplishes in the way of conservation and wilderness protection but also for the collaborative effort it represents to bring different public land uses together to the table and craft a proposal that almost everybody can and does support. In fact, Republican Senator John Warner, the dean of our delegation, has sponsored it over on the Senate side.

The Virginia Ridge and Valley Act will protect nearly 43,000 acres of the Jefferson National Forest in southwestern Virginia as wilderness or wilderness study areas and another 12,000 acres as scenic areas.

Today, wilderness designations are often very controversial. That's because our public lands are visited more frequently by a much more diverse and engaged public, a public that now holds very different views oftentimes and expectations on how the public land should be used. As a result, we have seen fewer and fewer wilderness designations work their way through Congress. That's unfortunate because saving some of our last pristine public lands from resource extraction is an obligation and should, in fact, be a legacy we can pass on to future generations.

My colleague from Virginia, however, is a very persistent colleague. And the time that he and the conservation community have invested to find middle ground and build a consensus to support this legislation is a model that other conservation groups around the country should look to to enact wilderness legislation. It can be done, but it takes that kind of commitment, persistent dedication that Mr. Boucher has shown.

This legislation will protect the scenic and undisturbed character of pristine areas of the Jefferson National Forest.

Now, while all terrain and four-wheel-drive vehicles are prohibited in the wilderness areas, recreational activities such as hunting, fishing, camping, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, picnicking, backpacking, bird watching, horseback riding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, spelunking, rock climbing, and so many other outdoor activities are allowed and, in fact, encouraged. So it is not that the public can't be fully and actively engaged in enjoying this land. But motorized traffic will be permitted only in certain circumstances in the 12,000 acres that have been designated as national scenic areas.

This legislation, though, will protect the recreational, historic, and natural resources in the delineated areas in a manner that is generally similar to the protections wilderness status affords. By finding consensus, this bill has won the endorsement of all the local governments and the counties that it would affect. It is supported by a broad array of businesses and chambers of commerce and enjoys broad support from conservation organizations.

So I encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill. It's a fine bill, and I congratulate Mr. Boucher for bringing it forward.

Mr. Speaker, from 1942 through the end of the Second World War, a top secret military intelligence service operated clandestinely on the shores of our own Potomac River. At Fort Hunt Park, along the GW Parkway, a secret installation operated silently in the shadows of our Nation's Capital.

Known only by its mailing address, P.O. Box 1142, the men and women at this post provided the military intelligence that helped bring an end to World War II and gave the United States an early advantage in the Cold War.

P.O. Box 1142 was an interrogation center. Throughout the war and its aftermath, the post processed and interrogated nearly 4,000 of the most important German prisoners of war.

The men who performed the interrogations were drawn from across the country. The shared attribute is that they all spoke fluent German to be able to interact with their captives. Many were Jewish, to ensure their loyalty to America's mission. And most had friends and family battling on the front lines against Nazi Germany. To them, the war was personal and would impact their lives forever.

Despite these circumstances, their interrogations never resorted to torture, used violence, or implemented cruel tactics to obtain the vital information required to support our Nation at war. Instead, their most effective interrogation technique was to start a dialogue to develop trust with their captives. They all talked with their captives, played card games, took walks, discussed their lives, and ultimately obtained the necessary information from their captives. Despite the apparent simplicity of these methods, these interrogations resulted in the discovery of most of Germany's secret weapons programs.

P.O. Box 1142 learned about research to develop the atomic bomb, the jet engine and the V-2 rocket, all technologies that became essential informational components in waging the Cold War. The detainment and interrogation of high-ranking German officials, such as Reinhard Gehlen, who ran the German intelligence operations, advanced our military intelligence operations well beyond the Soviet Union's capabilities.

In advancing the Nation's interests and uncovering vital secrets, the interrogators at P.O. Box 1142 never resorted to tactics such as sleep deprivation, electrical shock, or waterboarding. Their captives were never sexually abused, humiliated, or tortured. They never resorted to the methods that have recently branded our Nation so negatively. As a result of the war on terror, I'm afraid that America is now haunted by lasting images of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. The current intelligence community can learn from the men of P.O. Box 1142. For all our sake, I hope it's not too late.

Despite the vital work that the interrogators at P.O. Box 1142 performed, their activities remained closely held secrets by those who worked at the post. Many of these men never told family or loved ones. It wasn't until park rangers from the GW Memorial Parkway uncovered declassified documents and met former officers of P.O. Box 1142 that the operations that occurred at Fort Hunt Park during World War II became known.

Under the encouragement of the National Park Service, these park rangers identified veterans of P.O. Box 1142. They conducted professional oral history interviews. The deeper the park rangers dug, the more obvious it became they had discovered a remarkable story that had remained unrecognized by the officers because of their oath of secrecy.

After 2 years of work, the National Park Service decided it was time for the men of P.O. Box 1142 to finally be acknowledged. On October 5 and 6, the National Park Service held the first-ever reunion of the veterans of P.O. Box 1142 at Fort Hunt Park. The veterans raised the American flag in the post's original flag pole setting and memorialized the grounds.

Today, I'm proud to play a small part in giving justified credit for the tremendous work performed at P.O. Box 1142. Along with my northern Virginia colleagues, Congressmen Tom Davis and Frank Wolf, I'm introducing a long, overdue resolution to honor the men of P.O. Box 1142.

Mr. Speaker, I extend my appreciation to these veterans. The Nation owes a great debt to them for their sacrifice to our Nation during a time of war for their pursuit of critical intelligence, while maintaining the highest level of integrity and America's moral values, and for their intrepid actions that have, until very recently, gone unacknowledged.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Virtually every American has been impacted in one way or another by this deadly disease. More than 3 million women currently live with breast cancer. Each year tens of thousands of our wives, our mothers, our daughters will die from it. One of our colleagues, Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis, was just taken before her time from breast cancer.

Unfortunately, despite medical advances, breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death among American women. In the United States, one in seven will develop the disease during her lifetime. But still a cure remains elusive. Congress hasn't given up the fight. H.R. 1157, the Breast Cancer and Environmental Research Act, and H.R. 715, the Annie Fox Act, are two bills that would bring crucial Federal support to two key areas of breast cancer research: research into environmental causes of the disease, and research into the causes of the disease in young women who tend to develop more aggressive forms of it.

Additionally, in this year's Defense appropriations bill, $127.5 million was approved by the House for breast cancer research.

Women all over the country are organizing to raise national awareness. The Alexandria, Virginia Walk for Breast Cancer Awareness this Saturday is a prime example of the activism which is bound to make a difference in our daughters' lives.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the grand reopening of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, VA. T.C. Williams, which serves Alexandria City Public Schools students in grades ten through twelve, recently completed a massive renovation and modernization project in time to open for the start of the 2007-2008 school year.

The modernization of T.C. Williams High School has brought a state- of-the art, 21st-century learning experience to 1,997 Alexandria City high school students. The entirely new building includes computers in more classrooms, a fully-integrated fiber optic network, a new media center, and a completely automated library, making T.C. Williams among the best technologically equipped schools in the country.

In addition to vastly improving the educational experience of Alexandria's high school students, the T.C. Williams school modernization project has won awards for architectural excellence and environmentally-friendly building features. The school was honored by an independent jury of architects, engineers and general contractors in the local building community as Educational Project of the Year in Mid- Atlantic Construction magazine's Best of 2007 awards program. This year, Mid-Atlantic Construction had a record number of entries for its Best of 2007 awards, and honored T.C. Williams along with 45 other projects in 16 categories.

The T.C. Williams reconstruction was also honored with a Green Innovation Award from the Virginia Sustainable Building Network, which named it the Best Institutional Project of the year. The building, which adheres to the standards and principles of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED 2.1 Green Building Rating System, includes a number of environmentally innovative features, such as an advanced storm water management and reuse system, water conservation measures and energy-saving air conditioning operations, and a permanent measurement and verification system to track water and energy usage at the facility.

Madam Speaker, I commend the leadership of the Alexandria City Public Schools and T.C. Williams High School, along with the architects and builders involved, for all their work to make the modernization of T.C. Williams a reality, and for their dedication to renovating the school in a way that was both architecturally and environmentally innovative. I am proud to have such a state-of-the-art facility available to educate the students of Virginia's 8th Congressional District.

Mr. Chairman, the fact is that Americans are in a crisis in terms of affordable housing today. This is the most programmatically rational and fiscally responsible way to address that crisis.

I strongly support Mr. Frank's bill, and I appreciate him offering this opportunity for the Congress as a whole to show that we really can make a positive difference in people's lives.

I would appreciate some clarification on one aspect of the bill, however. Within the bill, at least 75 percent of the funds are set aside for families whose incomes are no more than 30 percent of the area median income, and at least 10 percent is for people whose income is more than 50 percent of the area median income. That only leaves about 15 percent of the trust fund available to be flexibly used by localities.

I represent the Washington suburbs where housing is extraordinarily high, not dissimilar from the Boston suburbs that the chairman represents. Many of these families and governments are concerned that there will not be the opportunity to address the crisis that their middle-class families are facing in housing. In fact, there are more than 50,000 families in northern Virginia who are paying over 30 percent of their income for housing but who are at about 100 percent of the area median income.

What I would like to ask the chairman to do is to clarify how we can address that affordable housing need within this bill's parameters.

That is very helpful.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express deepest condolences on the passing of my fellow colleague from Virginia, the Honorable Jo Ann Davis.

During her time in Congress, Jo Ann was a strong advocate for her constituents and an active voice on issues affecting the Commonwealth.

As Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, Jo Ann was well-positioned and a successful advocate for her district's economic bread and butter--the shipbuilding and national defense industry.

Regarding our joint efforts to grant federal recognition to Virginia's six state-recognized tribes, Jo Ann was a passionate and helpful ally. Her familiarity with the tribes' issues and her testament as to their traditional values and practices helped pave the way for the recognition bill's passage in the House. I am grateful that, despite her failing health, she lived to see the bill receive the unanimous support of her colleagues.

Jo Ann will be deeply missed both within Congress and the Virginia delegation. Our hearts and prayers go out to her husband Chuck Davis, her two sons, and their entire extended family as they cope with the loss of their beloved wife, mother and citizen legislator.

Mr. Speaker, there are as many private contractors in Iraq as U.S. soldiers on the ground. Outsourcing our military should be a cause for concern for all Americans, but the recent uncovering of indiscriminate hostility toward Iraqi civilians and unprovoked killings by security contractors in Iraq is a siren warning that demands immediate attention.

Blackwater, a company that has reaped over $110 million from the taxpayers since 2006 in U.S. contracts, offers one of the most egregious examples of what is wrong with our occupation of Iraq.

Last week, Blackwater security protecting State Department officials opened fire in a Baghdad neighborhood, and in what appears to be an unprovoked incident, Blackwater guards killed at least 11 innocent Iraqi civilians and wounded 12 others. But because of a decree delivered in 2004 by our Ambassador Paul Bremer on his last day on the job, these contractors are granted immunity from Iraqi law and will likely face no charges at home.

This lack of accountability is anathema to our fundamental principle of equal justice under the law and exemplifies why the occupation of Iraq has been such a failure.

I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and Mr. Price for bringing this legislation forward. It is fully consistent with what the vast majority of this House voted for in the report language in the Defense appropriations bill. It needs to be done.

I have to tell you that after talking with so many soldiers in Iraq and those who have returned from Iraq, it is desperately urgent that we do it because things are out of control.

The fact is that many of these contractors, not all of them, but too many of them are acting with impunity. They tell me that they will work all day trying to communicate and working with the people in a village, trying to understand their customs and the like and show them respect, and then it is undermined by the actions of these security contractors who don't understand the language, who don't show the kind of respect that our soldiers do, who get paid almost three times what our soldiers get paid. It is undermining our mission in Iraq.

The fact is that this is not what America is about, conducting oneself with impunity. America is about equal justice under the law. It is about protecting the preciousness of human life, particularly innocent life.

It is not about outsourcing our inherent military functions, giving a contractor $1 billion since 2004 and having 200 incidents of misconduct reported by that very contractor.

This legislation is necessary. Let's pass it overwhelmingly. Let's send that message to our soldiers.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007. As an original cosponsor of this legislation, I commend the majority and minority managers and urge strong support for this measure to support human rights, democracy, independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, peacekeeping capacity building, and economic development in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia; to collaborate with Ethiopia in the Global War on Terror; to seek the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Ethiopia; to foster stability, democracy, and economic development in the region; and, finally, to strengthen U.S.-Ethiopian relations. This is a message not just to the leadership in Ethiopia, but also to the Secretary of State to take specified actions to support human rights and democratization in Ethiopia.

This important legislation expresses the sense of Congress that we should encourage the government of Ethiopia to enter into discussions with peaceful political groups to bring them into full participation in Ethiopia's political and economic affairs. We need to provide the necessary assistance to help achieve such a goal, so this legislation directs the President to provide Ethiopia with resource policy assistance and health care assistance. This legislation is crafted to seek a balance and return democracy to one of the African continent's oldest democracies.

Northern Virginia is home to one of the largest African immigrant populations in America, with significant numbers of Nigerians, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Somalians, and Ghanaians. They both enrich our culture, and enrich our appreciation of what a return to democracy in Ethiopia could mean. Ethiopia's peoples--in my District, in our country, and in Africa are the proud representatives of a great and ancient civilization. I believe we have an opportunity and responsibility to them to help restore democracy, human rights, and the rule of law--goals they want desperately for their own country. It should be our country's policy as well to promote these objectives which correspond to our long-term interests.

What it ought not to mean was last summer's sentencing of 35 opposition politicians and activists to life in prison--in a case where the prosecution had asked for the death penalty against the defendants, who included Ethiopia's top opposition leaders. Those sentenced to life imprisonment include the leader of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, Hailu Shawel; Berhanu Nega, who was elected mayor of Addis Ababa; former Harvard scholar Mesfin Woldemariam; and former U.N. special envoy and former Norfolk State University professor, Yacob Hailemariam.

Thus, this is an important step for the Congress to take to foster accountability for the actions the Ethiopian government has taken that undermine rule of law and fundamental political freedoms. It is an important act to restrict security assistance for Ethiopia until such time as the President certifies that, among other things, the government of Ethiopia has taken steps to release political prisoners, hold security forces accountable for human rights abuses related to the demonstrations of 2005, and the Meles regime is respecting freedom of speech and information and allowing human rights groups to operate without being harassed.

For, as our colleague Chris Smith said, ``Terrorism is not just a military issue; it is also a human rights issue. Terrorists come from countries whose governments failed to respect their human rights. In promoting human rights in Ethiopia, we are attacking terrorism at its roots.'' It is for this reason that the bill also contains provisions for economic assistance and health care assistance for victims of torture, and it authorizes $20 million in 2008 and $20 million in 2009 to carry out these provisions.

Equally important, this legislation is intended to promote accountability for the killing of innocent civilians by government security forces, to build the institutions of democracy, and to provide meaningful support for human rights and those who defend them in Ethiopia. It requires our Secretary of State to support human rights by establishing a mechanism to provide funds to local human rights organizations and victims' support networks to provide legal support for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. In this legislation, we require the Secretary of State to put in place a means to identify and extradite members of the Mengistu regime currently residing in the United States. We are trying, through this effort today, to balance this demand for accountability by supporting democratization through directing the State Department to provide assistance to strengthen local, regional, and national democratic processes through training authorities, political parties, and civil society groups in negotiation skills, campaign management, and election monitoring. The legislation bars non-humanitarian assistance to Ethiopia if the ruling party obstructs U.S. efforts to provide human rights and democracy assistance and training within Ethiopia. It makes it illegal for members of the security forces who have committed human rights violations against civilians to receive U.S. security assistance training.

This bill does provide flexibility for the administration by providing a waiver the President can exercise to continue security assistance to programs with Ethiopia that support U.S. efforts on the Global War on Terror and the Ethiopians' efforts in United Nations peacekeeping and whatever is deemed necessary for the U.S. national interests.

Mr. Speaker, we cannot and must not remain silent, but rather we have an obligation to do much more in order to promote the rule of law and respect for fundamental freedoms in Ethiopia--a very proud country with a tremendous heritage and history. We want to see Ethiopia move back, as it has in the past, to being our good ally. We can no longer allow this situation to fester.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3668, but with a great sense of frustration. H.R. 3668 temporarily extends a number of expiring health programs which low-income individuals depend on. Unfortunately, these effective, important programs are held hostage through their attachment to the Title V Abstinence Education program, a program which is ineffective, which prizes ideology over science, and which harms our children through the provision of medically inaccurate information.

Mr. Speaker, teen pregnancy is a serious issue in this country. In the United States, three in ten girls become pregnant by age 20--nearly double the teen pregnancy rate in Great Britain, four times the rate in France and Germany, and nearly ten times the rate in Japan. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy estimates that teen pregnancies impose an additional $9.1 billion in societal costs every year in the United States--and this is after teen pregnancy and birth rates declined by one-third in the past decade.

It should come as no great surprise that the costs of teen pregnancy are so high--pregnant teenagers are substantially less likely than their peers to finish high school, attend college, or go on to pursue professional careers. Pregnant teenagers are less likely to obtain prenatal care, exposing their babies to an increased risk of low birth weight and of being born prematurely. At the age of 2, they have significantly lower cognitive test scores. And because the majority of children from teen pregnancies are born to unmarried women, they are more likely to be poor, drop out of high school, and have poor grades and school attendance records. This is, of course, to say nothing of abortion--which is still a major consequence of teen and unintended pregnancy.

Teen pregnancy is a serious problem, and it demands a serious solution. Of course we should want to delay the onset of sexual activity in our children--what parent of a teenager wouldn't want that? But we cannot let that desire blind us to the very real fact that teenagers, despite our best intentions, will and do have sex, and that our wanting them not to does not absolve us of our obligation to protect them and keep them safe. Pretending that sexual activity among teenagers does not exist will not reduce the number of new sexually transmitted infections, it will not reduce the number of teenage girls who become pregnant, and it will not reduce the number of abortions performed every year.

We have both a practical and a moral obligation to ensure that American teenagers and their families have the resources and the knowledge to make the right decisions about how to prevent teen pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. When the House passed the CHAMP Act in August, the bill included a reauthorization of the Title V Abstinence Education program that would have ensured that when we teach children about the importance of abstaining from sexual activity, we do it in a way that is age- appropriate, medically accurate and science-based, and that we allow States the flexibility they need to respond to conditions in their schools in an appropriate way.

I commend Chairman Dingell for including these improvements in the CHAMP Act, and I express my sincerest hope and conviction that any long-term reauthorization of Title V that passes this House this year will include similar language. Just this year, reports by the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Mathematical Policy Research and the Government Accountability Office indicate that many of the programs funded through Title V contain staggering medical inaccuracies, and that students actually understand less about sexually transmitted diseases after having completed the programs than they did when they began. We have spent $1.25 billion on these programs since Fiscal Year 2001, paying for teachers to tell children that ``relying on condoms is like playing Russian Roulette,'' and that ``AIDS can be transmitted through skin-to-skin contact.'' I believe we can and must do better, and I will continue to fight for responsible, science-based programs that will meaningfully protect our children.

Madam Speaker, over the past four years, our troops in Iraq have been supplanted by another army of equal size--the contracting force. There are as many private contractors in Iraq as U.S. soldiers on the ground.

Outsourcing our military is cause for concern in and of itself. But the recent uncovering of indiscriminate hostility toward Iraqi civilians and unprovoked killings by security contractors in Iraq is a sirens warning that demands immediate attention.

Blackwater--a company that has reaped over $110 million since January 2006 in U.S. contracts--offers the most egregious example of what is wrong with our occupation of Iraq.

Last week, Blackwater security protecting State Department officials, opened fire in a Baghdad neighborhood. In what appears to be an unprovoked incident, Blackwater guards killed at least 11 innocent Iraqi civilians and wounded 12 others.

But because of a decree delivered in 2004 by former Ambassador Paul Bremer--on his last day on the job--these contractors are granted immunity from Iraqi law and will likely face no charges at home.

The lack of accountability is anathema to our fundamental principle of justice and exemplifies why the occupation of Iraq is a failure.

Congress must not be silent less we become complicit in these acts. The longer we stay in Iraq under the terms of the current occupation the more these incidents which undermine our international credibility will occur.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007. Truly, we face a health care crisis in this country--in the richest country on Earth, 46 million Americans do not have health insurance, including 9 million children. Today's bipartisan, bicameral compromise is not a perfect solution to that problem, but is a decisive, strong step towards covering uninsured kids and fulfilling our moral obligation to our children.

In my home State of Virginia, the CHIP program, known as FAMIS or Family Access to Medical Insurance Security, currently provides coverage to 137,642 low-income children each year. The current population survey estimates that 171,642 children in Virginia remain uninsured, and the CHIP Reauthorization Act will help us cover 74,200 of these children in Fiscal Year 2008. The CHIP Reauthorization Act will ensure that these children have access to high quality health insurance, including the preventative services that children need to be healthy and successful in school and later in life. This bill will provide dental and mental health benefits on par with medical and surgical services--truly ensuring that the whole child's health is provided for.

The CHIP Reauthorization Act does not increase the deficit, through a 61-cent-per-pack increase in the Federal excise tax on cigarettes. In my view as chairman of the Congressional Prevention Caucus, an increase in the Federal tobacco tax is sound public health policy. On the one hand, it provides a reliable revenue source to offset the costs of expanding coverage to low-income children. On the other, given that 70 percent of health care spending in the U.S. can be attributed to chronic diseases, many of which are linked to smoking, measures which reduce tobacco use, particularly among young people, are responsible ways to improve public health and reduce the overall costs of our healthcare system.

The CHIP Reauthorization Act also addresses a serious problem arising from the implementation of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. Opponents of this responsible, common-sense, humane adjustment claim that language in the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) that imposed harsher citizenship verification requirements on State Medicaid programs is the only barrier protecting taxpayer dollars from being spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants. Empirical evidence from the first 9 months of the implementation of this rule demonstrates, in fact, that nothing could be further from the truth.

First and foremost, existing Federal law and provisions in the CHIP Reauthorization Act prevent Federal funds from being spent to provide benefits for illegal immigrants. Section 605 specifically states that ``nothing in this act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not legal immigrants.'' Illegal immigrants have never been eligible for Medicaid, and nothing in the CHIP Reauthorization Act would change that fact.

Secondly, the DRA requirements have overwhelmingly failed to meet their objective--producing cost savings for the Medicaid program. Instead, they have imposed substantial additional costs on taxpayers while reducing health care benefits available to poor children. Wait times have skyrocketed, and measures to streamline the application process have been rendered impossible. In the first 9 months of the implementation of this requirement, six States spent a combined $16.6 million in State and Federal dollars, and found just eight undocumented immigrants out of a pool of 3.6 million Medicaid applicants. The DRA requirements have effectively led States and the Federal Government to spend millions of dollars in additional administrative expenses, funds which have ultimately been put to use denying care to tens of thousands of otherwise eligible American children.

Third, these draconian requirements, which are far stricter than those employed by other government programs, have caused tens of thousands of U.S. citizen children to lose health insurance coverage. In Virginia, there was a net decline of more than 11,000 children enrolled in Medicaid during the first nine months of implementation. Had growth in enrollment continued at the same rate it had during the previous 2 years, the State would have seen an increase of 9,000 poor children in the program during this same time period. Kansas has seen a net decline of 14,000 children. The Virginia State Medicaid Office has

identified a total of two undocumented immigrants during this period; meanwhile, 20,000 poor children have gone without health insurance. Data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggests that these children are overwhelmingly African American, hardly the demographic results we'd expect if our colleagues were correct in suggesting that tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children were being denied coverage.

The debate about reauthorizing SCHIP should be about the public health and improving the health of our children. In a recent survey, 90 percent of parents applying for Medicaid for their children indicated that they have no other health coverage available. Allowing state flexibility in citizenship verification is sound public health policy that would enable thousands of American children access to vital health services to help them live better, healthier, and more productive lives. Because Medicaid is now the single largest cost to state taxpayers, we ought to make a concerted effort to support state flexibility. Twenty-four Senators signed letters to Chairman Baucus asking him to include this measure in the Senate's bipartisan SCHIP bill, and 51 other House Members joined me in requesting that Chairman Dingell include this provision in the House version. I thank the Committees for including this important provision in this landmark legislation.

Reauthorizing SCHIP is sound public health policy--research shows that children who have access to health insurance are substantially more likely to access key preventative services, miss fewer days of school due to illness, get better grades, and continue to have superior outcomes later in life. Moreover, the financial benefits of covering children vastly outweigh the costs--one need only compare the cost of a visit to a primary care provider to the cost of a night spent in the emergency room. But above all, covering all our children is a moral imperative--it is the only possible humane, responsible course of action. I urge a yes vote on the underlying bill, and furthermore, would urge the President, in the strongest possible terms, not to veto this vitally needed, responsible legislation to cover the most vulnerable members of our society: our children.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a distinguished individual who will take command as the 100th Garrison Commander of the Fort Meyer Military Community. Colonel Laura Richardson assumed command of Fort Myer in Arlington, Virginia and Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, DC on July 24, 2007. Colonel Richardson is the first female Garrison Commander in the history of the two installations.

Colonel Richardson grew up in Colorado and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant Aviation Officer upon graduation from Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado. Colonel Richardson's military education includes the Aviation Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, Army Rotary Wing Course, UH-60 Blackhawk Course, Air Assault School, Airborne School, United States Army Command and General Staff College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Among her many accomplishments, Colonel Richardson served in Washington, DC as Military Aide to Vice President Al Gore. Later, she served as Commander of the 5th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, and deployed to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following battalion command, Colonel Richardson was assigned to the Army Staff and served as deputy director and director of the Army's Transformation Office. Following the Pentagon tour, she was assigned to the Industrial College of Armed Forces at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, DC.

Colonel Richardson's awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit Medal, Bronze Star Medal, Army Meritorious Service Medal with three Oak Leaf Clusters, Air Medal (seven),

Joint Service Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster, Humanitarian Service Medal, Meritorious Unit Citation, Air Assault Badge, Parachutist Badge and the Senior Army Aviator Badge.

Madam Speaker, I commend Colonel Richardson for her well-deserved, historic achievement. I am truly honored to have her as a constituent and wish her all the best as she commands the Fort Meyer military community.

Mr. Speaker, how many more thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars need to be spent to enable this President to avoid accountability, to save face for the worst foreign policy fiasco in America's history?

And when all is said and done, when all the blood and the treasure has been spent and we look back at what we will have accomplished, we will have a Shia theocracy far more loyal to Iran than it is to the United States, and probably equally repressive of women's rights and human rights. How is that possibly worthy of the sacrifice of our soldiers? Mr. Speaker, it is not.

The fact is that, if the President's supplemental for Iraq that he is requesting now is granted, we will be spending almost as much in 1 week, $3.5 billion, as it would take to provide needed health insurance for 4 million poor children for an entire year. Isn't it time to put America's priorities in order?

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of the tragic events that took place on September 11, 2001. On that crisp fall morning, we lost nearly 3,000 American lives in an event that shook this nation to its core, violently searing the depths of our consciousness.

Six years removed from that infamous day, we continue to mourn the victims, praise the first responders' heroics and seek out our enemies who committed such heinous, inhuman acts. It is still hard to comprehend what could drive someone to take their own life in order to kill others.

What we do know is that the forces propelling the destruction and devastation of 9/11 were hatred, intolerance and fanaticism. Understanding what triggers this fervor of hate and how to mitigate its ascension is the key to ensuring our nation's long term security.

As we continue to move forward from 9/11, the importance of well equipped, highly trained first responders and a robust but constitutionally balanced intelligence gathering apparatus remains paramount to our homeland security.

The immediate and heroic emergency response to the attacks on the Pentagon from Arlington County's fire and police departments remind us that localities--not just the Federal Government--will play the integral role in any and all homeland security efforts. Further, sound intelligence and the regularity today with which law enforcement and agencies share intelligence across jurisdictional boundaries, which has proven difficult in the past, will lower the possibility of future attacks. Complacency is not an option, but the progress we've made in these areas has put us on the right track.

Mr. Speaker, coming to terms with the realities of a post-9/11 world has been difficult for our nation. But to honor the lives of those lost and protect our current and future generations it is our responsibility to continue doing everything within our power--in line with our values as Americans--to ensure that a tragedy of this magnitude never occurs again.