Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Joseph Cameron Morgan, Evan Carlin O'Rourke, Christopher Anthony Piemonte, William E. Pierce, and Joshua Paul St. Louis of Alexandria, Virginia, for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. As members of Troop 648 in the Chain Bridge District of the National Capital Area Council, these Scouts have exemplified the finest qualities of leadership and citizenship in earning Boy Scouts' most prestigious award.

At Troop 648, these Scouts have provided leadership in a variety of positions. They have led as Senior Patrol Leaders, Assistant Senior Patrol Leaders, and as Troop Representatives to the Order of the Arrow, Scouting's national honor society. They have also served as Junior Assistant Scoutmasters to Troop 648 supervising and supporting the other Boy Scouts.

Together and collectively, these Scouts have trekked through the mountains of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, explored underground caves, sailed the Chesapeake Bay and gone on numerous camping trips. They have earned dozens of merit badges and many service awards, including the President's Volunteer Service Award (Gold) for providing over 250 hours of service to the community in a twelve month period. They have earned numerous environmental awards including the World Conservation Award and the William T. Hornaday Award. These young men are truly exemplary Scouts.

For their Eagle Scout Leadership Service Projects, these young men have organized and managed dozens of volunteers. They have led conservation projects, trail construction and park restoration involving hundreds of hours of work. Our communities are truly a better place to live because of their efforts.

Madam Speaker and fellow members of Congress, I ask you to join me in commending these present and future leaders for their accomplishments with the Boy Scouts of America and for achieving the distinction of Eagle Scout.

Mr. Speaker, I thank both my friend from North Carolina and my friend from Virginia, as well as the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for bringing this forward, as well as those who have spoken on behalf of this bill.

This is not just a nuisance industry. This is a malicious industry that represents a very, very serious public health threat. We are very much concerned that the interstate or international transport, especially of birds used for cockfighting, could spread an influenza outbreak. The World Health Organization has reported at least nine confirmed human cases of avian flu in Thailand and Vietnam that they expect is related directly to cockfighting activity.

The American Veterinary Medical Association, the poultry industry, all the animal protection associations, of course, but the National Sheriffs' Association as well has urged us to pass this bill.

Yes, there are 50 different State bills against dog fighting, 49 against cockfighting, but many of them are different. And the fact is there is a great deal of interstate commerce that takes place, so you need a Federal law banning this, because it is so closely associated, and this is what the National Sheriffs' Association tells us, so closely associated to illegal gambling, trafficking of narcotics, public corruption, dangerous gang activity. There are so many reasons why we should ban this practice.

As has been said, it is cruel, and it is inhumane. They drug these animals so that they are hyper-aggressive, so that they will continue fighting until they kill or are killed. That is not right. It is not moral. But even beyond the cruel and inhumane aspect of this practice, it represents a very dangerous public health threat, as well as a source of a great deal of other illegal criminal activity.

This House would be well-served to listen to the more than 300 Members who have cosponsored this legislation and pass it today.

Mr. Speaker, today we will demonstrate that this Nation is not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Forty years ago we were in another war. We had lost just about as many soldiers, about 3,000 young men, at this point in the Vietnam War. Our President urged the Congress to stay the course so that he could save face, and the Congress did, as the President demanded, until we had lost another 55,000 soldiers before we eventually accepted the fact that it, too, was an inconceivable war.

Today, the Congress is going to end this war, this fiasco that we never should have begun. It is going to focus on our priorities of strengthening our military, going after the people who actually did attack us in 2001 and reinvesting in our nation's true priorities.

We will bring our troops home as soon and as safely as possible. We will not repeat history. This is an important vote, and all of the American people should be proud of their Congress.

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the arguments against this bill, and no one has made the argument that this is not the right thing to do. The opposition is hiding behind the language of the Constitution. I say ``hide'' because there are any number of interpretations and any number of conservative constitutional scholars who have said this is fully constitutional.

But it is the right thing to do because there is no jurisdiction, no State, no local government that has had more legislation passed in this body affecting them than the onerous provisions directly affecting the citizens of the District of Columbia and uniquely affecting them.

Forty-four thousand veterans are in the District of Columbia. Every D.C. resident pays Federal taxes.

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They are solid American citizens and there are more of them than in the entire state of Wyoming. They deserve voting representation.

Let me say one further thing. I represent the area in Alexandria that used to be part of the District of Columbia. When that area retroceded back to Virginia, on the front page of the Alexandria Gazette they described the freed men and freed women on their knees begging for citizens of Alexandria not to do this--not to deprive every black person of all their rights. But the entitled white people of Northern Virginia voted to deny them their rights because of racism. The history of this disenfranchisement of D.C. residents is not a pretty one. It needs to be undone.

I thank the chairman and thank the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee who has put this together.

My colleagues, a short while ago when President Bush was asked how long will this war last, he said: ``We will be in Iraq as long as the Iraqi people want us there.''

Well, this bill says that we will be in Iraq as long as the American people want us there. And the American people realize this is a war that is not worthy of the sacrifice of those men and women in uniform who are bearing the whole cost of this war.

This bill is about that young son who was told by his daddy one day that he has to leave him to go off and fight for our country. And day after day he asks his mommy: When is daddy coming back? And finally one day his mommy, with tear-filled eyes, has to say: Daddy is not coming back.

Well, we have to ask ourselves: Is this war worthy of that sacrifice? This bill says it is not because there has never been a strategy for success. This bill will bring our troops home as soon and as safely as possible.

Madam Speaker, last year representatives and leaders of Virginia's Native American tribes left their communities and flew to England to participate in ceremonies that were a prelude to the 400th anniversary of the first permanent English settlement in America. Some of the distinguished Virginia residents who made this trip are the blood descendants and leaders of the surviving 7 tribes that once were a part of the Great Powhatan Confederacy that initially helped sustain the colonists during their difficult first years at Jamestown. Virginia's best known Indian, Pocahontas, traveled to England in 1617 with her husband John Rolfe and was received by English royalty. She died a year later of smallpox and is buried in the chapel of the parish church in Gravesend, England.

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown. It would be a sad irony if the direct descendants of the native Americans who met these settlers, were still not recognized by the federal government. I, along with fellow Virginians, Reps. Jo Ann Davis, Bobby Scott and Tom Davis of Virginia, and Reps. Nick Rahall, Neal Abercrombie, Dale Kildee, and Frank Pallone are introducing legislation today entitled the ``Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act.'' This legislation will finally, and at long last, grant federal recognition to six Indian tribes in Virginia: the Chickahominy Tribe, Chickahominy Indian Tribe Eastern Division, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock Tribe, the Monacan Tribe, and the Nansemond Tribe.

Like most Native Americans, the Virginia tribes first welcomed western settlers, but quickly became subdued, pushed off their land, and, up through much of the 20th Century, denied full rights as U.S. citizens. Despite their devastating loss of land and population, the Virginia Indians successfully overcame years of racial discrimination that denied them equal opportunities to pursue their education and preserve their cultural identity. That story of survival doesn't encompass decades, it spans centuries of racial hostility and coercive state and state-sanctioned actions.

Their story, however is unique in two ways. First, they signed their peace treaties with the Kings of England, and second, they suffered centuries of state sanctioned hostilities. Unlike most tribes that resisted encroachment and obtained federal recognition when they signed peace treaties with the federal government, Virginia's six tribes signed their peace treaties with the Kings of England. Most notable among these was the Treaty of 1677 between these tribes and Charles the II. This treaty has been recognized by the State every year for the past 329 years when the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia accepts tribute from the tribes in a ceremony now celebrated at the State Capitol. I understand it is the longest celebrated treaty in the United States.

In the intervening years between 1677 and the birth of this nation, however, these tribes were dispossessed of most of their land and were too weak to pose a threat. They were, therefore, never in a position to negotiate and receive recognition from our nascent federal government. Last summer the English government reaffirmed its recognition of this treaty with the modern Virginia tribes.

Their unique history speaks to the reason Congress must act to recognize the Virginia tribes. They have experienced what has been called a ``paper genocide'' and been persecuted by the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the time when the federal government granted Native Americans the right to vote, Virginia's elected officials were embracing the eugenics movement and began adopting racially hostile laws targeted at those classes of people who did not fit into the dominant white society.

These actions culminated with the enactment of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. This act empowered zealots, like Walter Plecker, a state official, to destroy records and reclassify in Orwellian fashion all non-whites as ``colored.'' It targeted Native Americans and

sought to deny them their identity. To call yourself a ``Native American'' in Virginia was to risk a jail sentence of up to one year. The law remained in effect until it was struck down in the federal courts in 1967.

For up to 50 years, state officials waged a war to destroy all public and many private records that affirmed the existence of Native Americans in Virginia. Historians have affirmed that there is no other state that compares to Virginia's efforts to eradicate its citizens' Indian identity. All of Virginia's state-recognized tribes have filed petitions with the Bureau of Acknowledgment seeking federal recognition.

But it is a very heavy burden the Virginia tribes will have to overcome and one fraught with complications that officials from the Bureau of Indian Affairs have acknowledged may never be resolved in their lifetime. The acknowledgment process is already costly, subject to unreasonable delays, and lacks dignity. Virginia's legacy of paper genocide only further complicates these tribes' quest for federal recognition, making it difficult to furnish corroborating state and official documents and aggravating the injustice already visited upon these tribes.

This wasn't corrected until 1997 when Governor George Allen signed legislation directing state agencies to correct state records that had deliberately been altered to list Virginia Indians on official state documents as ``colored.'' The law allows living members of the tribes to correct records, but the law cannot correct the damage done to past generations. Two years later, the Virginia General Assembly adopted a resolution calling upon Congress to enact legislation recognizing the Virginia tribes.

There is no doubt that the Chicahomony, the Eastern Chicahomony, the Monacan, the Nansemond, the Rappahannock and the Upper Mattaponi tribes exist. These tribes have existed on a continuous basis since before the first western European settlers stepped foot in America; and, they are here with us today.

I know there is great resistance from Congress to grant any Native American tribe federal recognition. And, I can appreciate how the issue of gambling and its economic and moral dimensions have influenced many Members' perspectives on tribal recognition issues. I think the circumstances and situation these tribes have endured and the legacy they still confront today, however, outweigh these concerns. We have made significant compromises to give the State the option to say ``no'' to gaming. Congress has the power to recognize these tribes. It has exercised this power in the past, and it should exercise this power again with respect to these six tribes.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

cosponsors of legislation introduced by the rep. jim moran recognizing

six virginia tribes

The Honorable Jo Ann Davis; the Honorable Bobby Scott; the Honorable Tom Davis; the Honorable Nick J. Rahall II; the Honorable Neil Abercrombie; the Honorable Dale E. Kildee; the Honorable Frank Pallone, Jr.; the Honorable Robert C. Scott.

Madam Chairman, I rise today in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.

As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, ``It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it has free and independent labor unions.''

Today we are considering legislation that, in the spirit of FDR, would allow workers seeking free and independent labor unions a fair shot. The Employee Free Choice Act would change our current system, one prone to intimidation, harassment and discrimination; into a fairer, more democratic process.

In most cases, to get elected to public office in the U.S.--whether at the Federal, State or local level--you need to win a majority of the votes. Based on this democratic principle, The Employee Free Choice Act provides that when at least 50 percent plus one of the employees decide to form a union, the will of that majority is carried out.

The current system for organizing a union has some very undemocratic components. Under existing law, employers hold all the cards when it comes to the election process for employees to decide whether they want to form a union. The result is often a bitter, divisive, drawn-out process, in which union supporters are frequently spied on, harassed, threatened, strong-armed, and even fired. Surveys show that in 25 percent of elections campaign workers are fired and that 78 percent of the time employers force supervisors to deliver anti-union rhetoric to workers whose jobs they oversee. While this type of coercive action might seem reminiscent of a banana republic, it is happening today in 21st century America.

Madam Chairman, despite the views of some in this body, unions do benefit the working man and woman. Union workers earn 30 percent more than non-union workers; they are 63 percent more likely to have employer-sponsored health care and four times more likely to have guaranteed pensions.

We should be removing undemocratic hurdles impeding the formation of unions, not protecting them.

Since 1935, the majority sign-up process has been available and used by fair-minded employers. It is a tried and true method, having stood the test of time. Making that process mandatory prevents employer abuse and gives workers a fair shot to form a union.

Madam Chairman, our workers need good representation at the bargaining table and unions best provide that leadership. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation which would make the unionizing process fairer, more democratic and more representative of the will of the American worker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the staff of the Mount Vernon Recreation Center in Alexandria, Virginia on receiving the Heart of Potomac West Award.

The Mount Vernon Recreation Center has been a key partner in the Del Ray Potomac West community of Alexandria for decades. The Center's staff has built long-lasting relationships with the community, including neighbors, businesses, and visitors, by ensuring that the Center's doors are open and that every community member is welcome.

Each year, the Center staff helps to organize and assist with numerous events for the residents and businesses of Del Ray. These include the Annual Holiday Tree Lighting, the Annual Halloween Parade, Art on the Avenue, Cinema Del Ray, First Night on New Year's Eve, and countless programs for seniors and youth.

Without the support of these dedicated, hardworking, and caring staff members, such events could never take place.

The staff of the Mount Vernon Recreation Center has stood side by side with the community during times of crisis. When Del Ray lost two of its citizens, Kevin Shifflet and Nancy Dunning, the Center staff acted as a support beacon for a community in mourning, providing a home where citizens turned for comfort and support. These devoted and committed staffers have always gone far above and beyond the call of duty.

The Mount Vernon Recreation Center is a marvelous asset of the City of Alexandria, and this has occurred through the hard work and dedication of the Center staff. I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Center staff on being awarded this great honor.

Madam Speaker, I would like to paraphrase a poem that Rudyard Kipling wrote upon the death of his son in World War I that seems particularly apt to the war in Iraq:

When they ask why the young men died

Tell them it's because the old men lied.

Madam Speaker, when the White House announced 4 years ago the U.S. military would attack Iraq under the guise of the global war on terrorism, there wasn't one single uniformed military officer who believed that Iraq was part of a global war on terrorism. Saddam had had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack.

Saddam wasn't harboring any al Qaeda cells that did attack us. In fact, they understood that starting a new war would distract us and limit us from accomplishing our immediate need to eliminate Osama bin Laden. Saddam was a vicious, secular, despotic dictator, but he saw al Qaeda as a threat to his control, and al Qaeda viewed Saddam as an enemy of their religious extremist world vision.

The U.S. Intelligence Community knew that there was no clear evidence that Saddam was a threat to the United States. There was no failure of our professional Intelligence Community, but there was an abysmal failure of our political leadership.

So how did we get to this point? First we were scared with the threat of Saddam's arsenals or weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda training camps, an Iraqi meeting with the 9/11 hijacker, mobile labs, aluminum tubing, yellow cake uranium. But there were no weapons of mass destruction, Madam Speaker.

The training camps didn't exist. Mohamed Atta never met an Iraqi agent in Prague. The White House knew, before they informed us about the mobile labs, that our experts had determined that they were not in any way related to chemical or biological weapons. Likewise, the aluminum tubing was bogus information. Well before the so-called yellow cake uranium from Niger was cited as evidence at an attempt at nuclear armament, our Intelligence Community had informed the White House that it was a hoax.

Yet we were told repeatedly by the President and the Vice President that Saddam was a threat to global stability, that there was a direct connection between Iraq and al Qaeda and September 11. We were told in the buildup to the war that our troops would be greeted by the Iraqis as liberators, being offered flowers in the streets. This was propaganda that the State Department warned the White House not to believe, but they nonetheless peddled it to the Congress and to the American people.

We were told that to liberate Iraq was to spread freedom and democracy, to keep oil out of the hands of potential terrorist- controlled states. We were told that the war would pay for itself with Iraqi oil revenues. Yet all we have done is to finance our enemies, the insurgents and Iranian Shiia interests.

After Baghdad fell, we were told that America had prevailed, that the mission was accomplished, that the resistance was in its last throes, that more troops were not needed. As things went from bad to worse, we were told of turning point after turning point, the fall of Baghdad, the death of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, the capture of Saddam, a provisional government, the trial of Saddam, a charter, a constitution, an Iraqi Government, elections,

purple fingers, a new government, the death of Saddam, all excuses for triumphant rhetoric while the reality on the ground continued to worsen.

We were told, as they stand up, we would stand down. We would stay the course. Now we are told that there is a new course, but it is in the same misguided direction. Falsehood after falsehood unravels each day, with the morning paper reporting even more deaths.

Now the American people are being asked to put 20,000 more sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives into the line of fire, and into the dead zone between the sectarian sides of a civil war. A message was sent to President Bush on November 7, 2006. This surge of more troops into Iraq defies the will of the American people.

But this is a new Congress. We will no longer be cowed by leaders using 9/11 as a political ploy against sensible people who oppose the administration's failed Iraq policy. Today for the first time since the war began, Congress will go on record opposing the President's failed Iraq policy. Some will argue that it is a nonbinding resolution, that it will not have the impact of a law, that it will not stop a roadside bomb or bring a single soldier home to their family. But the President understands what this resolution means. It is the beginning of the end of this wrong war of choice

Mr. Speaker, last November, the American people demanded a new direction for America. Democrats are now providing that new direction, consistently bringing with them more than 60 Republicans on all the major votes, and they are delivering results on the priorities of the American people. Let me quote from a random sample of newspapers around the country.

The Seattle Post Intelligencer wrote, ``Well, slap us twice and call us Betty, the Democrats in Congress actually accomplished what they pledged to do, on schedule no less.''

The Charlotte Observer concluded, ``House Democrats are getting high marks from the public for their legislative moves in the first 100 hours of the new session of Congress. They are on the right road.''

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel wrote, ``Democrats in the House made good on their promise to pass significant legislation during their first 100 hours in power. Actually, it took less than that time to pass the six bills the House Democrats hailed as their top priorities. This belies the perception that nothing ever gets done in Washington.''

Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether it is because they elected Democrats or because we put a woman in charge, but things are happening in this House, and they are all good.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the career of Mr. Richard J. Connelly. Having served his country for more than 38 years, he retired from the Federal Government on January 3, 2007. His record of achievement during this period reflects great credit upon himself and upon the organizations with which he has served.

Mr. Connelly is a member of the Senior Executive Service and has received numerous awards over his career including a 2003 Presidential Rank Award of Meritorious Executive. Beginning his Federal career as an Army Signal Officer in 1968, Mr. Connelly joined the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) in 1972 as a management intern in the budget office. In 1986, he was appointed to the Senior Executive Service and was named the chief of the

budget division. He later served as DLA Comptroller, as Administrator of the Defense National Stockpile Center, and as the Director, DLA Support Services.

Mr. Connelly grew up in Boston and graduated from Boston College in 1968. He attended Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps, and served one year in Vietnam. Mr. Connelly attended Stanford University Graduate School of Business as a Sloan Fellow and received a Master of Science degree in management in 1978.

Mr. Connelly became Director of Defense Energy Support Center (DESC) on November 3, 2003, directing the Department of Defense organization that is responsible for purchasing and managing all petroleum resources used by the United States military. In addition, Mr. Connelly has guided the growing mission of total energy support by developing strategies to buy and sell deregulated electricity and natural gas to federal agency customers.

Madam Speaker, I am honored to ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Mr. Richard J. Connelly on his retirement from Federal Civil Service. He epitomizes the dedication and professionalism that make our Federal government a model all over the world.

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman, and I also thank Speaker Pelosi for making this a national priority within our first 100 hours agenda

This is about the middle class and those struggling to make it to the middle class.

Frankly, I am stunned at the opposition from the Republican side. I guess I shouldn't be because the Republican Party opposed the GI Bill of Rights half a century ago which in so many ways created the middle class in this country by enabling soldiers coming back from World War II to be able to afford to go to college.

I guess I shouldn't be stunned either given the fact that when 9 months ago Chairman Miller suggested that we increase the value of Pell Grants for low income families and reduce the cost of student borrowing, it failed on virtually a party-line vote 220-200.

I guess I shouldn't be stunned either because 6 months ago, the White House and what was then the majority Congress, decided it was more important to give tax breaks to the very wealthiest

people in this country than to give some help to those middle class and working class, families who couldn't afford to go to college. Then they took $12 billion out of college student aid to pay for those tax cuts. You have to ask yourself, where are there priorities?

You know, the cost of college has gone up by more than the cost of health care. It has gone up by more than the cost of inflation per capita personal income and by more than the cost even of health care.

The fact is, right now, here in January, there are hundreds of thousands of families trying to decide whether they can send their child to college. How can they afford it? And there are also any number of college students trying to decide whether they can become a teacher or work in health care or any other number of professions we critically need because they have to pay off their college student loans and those professions generally don't pay enough.

This is the right thing for America. It will make America stronger and smarter.

Madam Speaker, I want to note for the record that a constituent of mine, Jim Holman of McLean, VA, was installed as an Eagle Scout at a ceremony on January 13, 2007. Jim is an outstanding young man who will graduate from Langley High School this June.

As many of my colleagues know, it is not easy making Eagle Scout. It takes a great deal of time, effort and determination, all of which Jim has in abundance. Jim's accomplishment is in a long tradition of scouting in the Holman family. Jim's two older brothers, Luke and Tim, were both Eagle Scouts, and his parents, John and Kay Holman, have played a significant role over the years in scouting.

Again, I want to extend my congratulations to Jim on his wonderful accomplishment.

Mr. Speaker, the President's proposal that he will announce tonight to increase rather than decrease the number of troops in Iraq defies the reality on the ground and the advice of our wisest military commanders. This decision will only serve to put more forces in the crossfire of a growing civil war. If there ever was a justifiable mission to depose a ruthless dictator, that mission has been accomplished. The Congress never authorized this military occupation. It is irresponsible and, in fact, immoral to allow more innocent American lives to be lost in vain.

Iraq is an artificial nation that was created by Winston Churchill and Gertrude Bell in 1922 to promote their concept of British imperialism. The reality is that this was never a winnable war for the United States of America nor in my view is it a sustainable civil society, and adding more troops is not going to change that reality.

I thank the gentleman from Florida.

Madam Speaker, the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel will bridge the current divide between the oversight

and the funding of our Nation's intelligence community, and it will make a significant long-term contribution to the safety of the American people.

The robust and lawful collection, analysis, and integration of intelligence on our enemy's activities is one of the most powerful tools in the battle against terrorism. But over the last several years, this Congress has been reluctant to ensure that this powerful tool is, in fact, used to its fullest capability.

It is time for Congress to fulfill its oversight responsibility by undertaking hard-nosed assessments of the intelligence community's operations. This oversight panel will be in the position to make these tough and needed assessments, and based on these conclusions, to make recommendations that will enable the intelligence community to deliver the highest level of performance. For example, our human intelligence assets must be able to infiltrate developing global terrorist networks. The exodus of long-serving professional agents from the intelligence community must be reversed, and a new generation of analysts must be recruited.

The Inspector General within the Directorate of National Intelligence must be empowered to identify waste, fraud, and abuse whenever it occurs throughout the intelligence community.

Madam Speaker, Speaker Pelosi's proposed panel will, in fact, improve the operations of the Nation's intelligence community and, in so doing, will advance the security of the American people. That is why this proposal should be passed overwhelmingly by the Congress.