Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I'd first like to thank the chairman of the Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection subcommittee, Mr. Rush, for his support and help.

I also want to thank Mr. Stearns for his support of the legislation, as well as full committee Chairman Dingell and Ranking Member Barton.

It is clear that our system for recalling dangerous products is simply broken. It is failing American families. The recall system relies on the media to pick up the story and spread the word, but many times the stories are not picked up and the news does not reach the owners of defective products. In fact, some estimate that the recall effectiveness rate for products under jurisdiction of the Consumer Product Safety Commission is a mere 16 percent. Notification targeted to owners of the product is rare, and many parents remain unaware of the dangers.

And that's why I rise in strong support of H.R. 1699, the Danny Keysar Child Product Safety Notification Act, which I was proud to introduce with my good friend from Michigan, Congressman Upton. This bill will begin to close the significant gaps in the recall system by requiring that durable children's products such as cribs and strollers and high chairs come with a postage-paid postcard that parents or caregivers can mail in to be notified if a product is recalled for safety reasons.

This legislation is a commonsense solution to a very real and pervasive problem. Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death among children. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an estimated 64,700 children under the age of 5 were treated in emergency rooms across the country for injuries associated with nursery products in 2003 at a cost of $2.5 billion, and that figure has almost certainly risen in the last 4 years. And even more tragically, an average of 50 children under the age of 5 die each year in incidents associated with nursery products, and about 16 of these deaths each year are associated with cribs.

And this bill is a tribute to one such child. On May 12, 1998, 16- month-old Danny Keysar was strangled to death at his licensed day care facility when a portable crib collapsed, turning the horizontal side rail into a V-shaped wedge that squeezed his throat and strangled him. Imagine what Danny's parents must have felt when they learned that the crib that killed their son, a Playskool Travel-Lite crib, had been recalled by the government and the manufacturer 5 years earlier.

And, sadly, Danny's parents aren't alone. More than 1.5 million portable cribs like the one that killed Danny were made with a similar design by different manufacturers. The crib that took Danny's life had already killed four children. A 10-month-old New Jersey baby became the sixth child to be strangled to death by the Playskool crib just 3 months after Danny died.

Despite the recall, neither the day care center nor State inspectors who had been to the facility just a week before Danny's death knew that recalled products were being used there. And they are not to blame. It was not the State agency's mandate to inspect for recalled materials; and unless someone who worked in the center happened to catch the recall story on the news, there was virtually no way to know that the cribs they used were death traps. And, by the way, Illinois did change its law.

But in case anyone might think this was an isolated incident, think again. In 2005 children's products were recalled on average two times a week. Just over 2 weeks ago, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued the largest recall of full-sized cribs in the agency's history, recalling almost a million of the Nation's most popular cribs because of design flaws that have already killed at least three more children. And a week later, Kolcraft, the company that manufactured the Playskool crib that killed Danny Keysar, recalled 425,000 infant play yards following the death of a 10-month-old child.

Congress needs to act to make sure that these kinds of senseless tragedies don't occur again. When Danny's parents, Linda Ginzel and Boaz Keysar, learned that the crib that had killed their son had been recalled in 1993, they turned their grief into action and founded Kids in Danger, a Chicago-based nonprofit that is dedicated to protecting children by improving children's product safety. It is because of their dedication that we are here today, and I am honored to represent them here today and thank them for their work. I hope with the passage of this legislation no more parents will have to endure what they did.

I believe that H.R. 1699, which allows people to send in a card or e- mail to make sure that the manufacturer will let them know, just as is done with car seats in the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration, a provision that has been so successful that there has been a tenfold increase in recalls and recall repair rates have gone up by 56 percent, that at a cost of a handful of pennies per card, this legislation will save lives of children.

I would appreciate support.

Mr. Speaker, the deed is done. The President just vetoed the Children's Health Insurance Program. He is asking for $190 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet vetoed $35 billion that would provide health care to 10 million low-income American children over the next 5 years.

Let's be perfectly clear. The President is refusing to spend $7 billion a year on children's health while insisting on $10 billion a month in Iraq. The President and Republicans in Congress say that we can't afford this bill, but where were the fiscal conservatives when the President demanded hundreds of billions of dollars for the war in Iraq? He along with many of the Republicans in Congress are willing to throw these hundreds of billions of dollars into a disastrous war, and yet when it comes to providing health care to children, they say we don't have the money.

The truth is we do have the money and, in fact, the children's health bill is fully paid for, unlike the half a trillion dollars we have already spent on this war.

It is time for us to say you are either for covering uninsured American children or you are with a President who prefers to spend this money on an endless war.

Madam Speaker, I think the issue of providing health coverage to 10 million children is important enough to give our constituents adequate time to weigh in on it.

Let them consider whether they want to spend $7 billion a year to provide health care to 10 million uninsured children, an amount equivalent to 2\1/2\ weeks spent on the Iraq war.

Insure our children for $7 billion a year? President Bush runs for the veto pen. $10 billion a month for Iraq? The President asks for $190 billion more.

I urge my colleagues to take this time to listen to their constituents. Look into the eyes of an uninsured child. That child could be sitting next to yours or your grandchild in school.

And remember, unlike the war funding which is all on credit cards, this bill is actually paid for. This is an offer, as someone running for reelection, you can't afford to refuse.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

I want to thank my friend Mr. Price for bringing this important legislation to the floor and would like to thank Chairman Conyers, Subcommittee Chairman Scott and the Judiciary Committee for their hard work on this very important issue.

My amendment would simply require the Department of Justice to issue descriptions of all charges that have been brought against contractors and contract employees in Iraq and Afghanistan and a description of the legal actions taken by the U.S. Government against them as a result of those charges.

H.R. 2740 requires the Department of Justice to issue a report that contains a list and descriptions of investigations that it is conducting into possible violations of U.S. law committed by contract personnel. This report must list the number of complaints it's received, the number of investigations it's begun, the number of criminal cases it has opened and the result of those cases.

My amendment would expand that requirement a bit further to ensure that the report includes a description of the charges that have been brought against contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan and a description of the legal action taken as a result of those charges.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hall).

First, I would like to thank my colleague from Virginia for his support of the amendment and just close with these remarks.

U.S. taxpayers have paid billions to private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. I believe that Congress must know if they are engaging in criminal behavior that puts the U.S. Armed Forces and our mission at risk, and what the government is doing to address it.

Congress and the American people are beginning to understand the vast impact that contractors are playing in our military operations. These private contractors are not, right now, accountable to the military, but their actions often put our brave military men and women at risk.

Currently, the U.S. military is using an estimated 180,000 private contractors in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many are performing duties that are often considered inherently governmental functions, such as military operations, intelligence gathering, law enforcement, security and criminal justice functions. But despite the critical role that contractors are playing, Congress is unable to determine the full impact of contractors on U.S. military operations.

We have all heard about the tragic incident in Iraq on September 16 when Blackwater employees reportedly killed 11 Iraqi civilians, and another unconscionable incident on Christmas Eve 2006 when a drunk Blackwater guard killed an Iraqi security guard for the Iraqi Vice President. He was flown out of the country within 36 hours and has faced no charge or punishment for his crime.

We should be outraged that with incidents like these reported prominently in the press, and with the hundreds of thousands of contractors who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, that only two have ever been charged with any crime.

I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today in support of H. Res. 590, which supports the goals and ideals of domestic violence awareness month and expresses that Congress should continue to raise awareness of domestic violence in the United States and its devastating effects on families and communities.

Domestic violence is a serious and pervasive problem in America and throughout the world. According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, estimates on the number of incidents of violence against a current or former spouse range from 960,000 to 3 million each year; and more than 3 women are murdered by their husband or boyfriend in America every day.

Without question, these statistics are alarming and must be taken seriously. I truly believe that together, we can eliminate domestic violence from homes across the country and ensure that our children grow up in a healthy and peaceful environment.

In order to achieve this change, Congress must continue to pass laws that protect the rights of victims and punish their abusers. In 1994, Congress passed Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, which provided an additional $1.6 billion to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes against women and allowed civil redress in cases prosecutors chose to leave unprosecuted. The results from this legislation are tangible and encouraging, between 1993 and 2004, domestic violence in the United States declined significantly, with nonfatal incidents dropping more than 50 percent, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Nonfatal incidents of intimate partner violence fell from 5.8 per 1,000 residents in 1993 to 2.6 victimizations per 1,000 in 2005.

In 2005, I worked with my colleagues to make further improvements to VAWA by also recognizing male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. In its current form VAWA has so profoundly changed the way our Government prosecutes these crimes that the National Organization of Women heralded the bill as ``the greatest breakthrough in civil rights for women in nearly two decades.''

Today, as we recognize National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we must remember that there is still plenty of work to do to eradicate domestic violence from our homes and communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 642, expressing sympathy to and support for the people and governments of the countries of Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico which have suffered from Hurricanes Felix, Dean, and Henriette. I would like to thank my friend, Congresswoman Hilda Solis, for bringing this resolution to the House floor.

When Hurricane Dean, a category five hurricane, made landfall in Mexico's Yucatan in August, people around the world were stunned and saddened by the damage that massive storm left in its wake. The third strongest Atlantic hurricane ever at landfall, Dean ripped through Mexico, causing at least 42 deaths and $1.9 billion in damage.

After Hurricane Dean, the region braced itself as Hurricane Felix gathered strength off the coast of Central America weeks later. Felix touched down between Nicaragua and Honduras on September 1, 2007 wreaking havoc and causing at least 122 deaths. Also on September 1st, Hurricane Henriette slammed into Mexico's Baja, the first time since 1949 that two Atlantic and Pacific hurricanes hit land on the same day.

In the wake of these massive and destructive storms, Congress must continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the regions affected. As the effects of the hurricanes continue to unfold and we must also encourage concerned U.S. citizens to donate their time and funds to hurricane relief.

After Hurricane Mitch tore through Central America in 1999, I traveled to the Honduran town of Marcovia to help CARE bring relief to the thousands of affected families there. Hurricane Mitch killed more than 10,000 people, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and inflicted billions of dollars in economic losses throughout Central America.

I urge my colleagues in Congress and the American people to reach out to the countries, communities and individuals affected by Hurricanes Dean, Felix and Henriette the way we reached out to the survivors of Hurricane Mitch.

I am proud to support H. Res. 642 and I hope all of my colleagues will lend it their support.

Well, Rush Limbaugh is at it again. Unable to defend an indefensible war in Iraq, he has once again resorted to ``sliming'' the messenger. In this case, unbelievably, the messengers he's going after are the brave men and women who have served their country in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other wars.

Men and women who serve in Iraq differ from Rush Limbaugh in two critical ways. First, unlike Mr. Limbaugh, they actually served in the military. Second, unlike Mr. Limbaugh, they understand that the war in Iraq is making our country less safe and destroying the military.

How dare Rush Limbaugh label anyone who has served in the military as a ``phony soldier.'' How dare he say that his views in Iraq, formed in the comfort of his radio studio, are legitimate, while the views of those whose opinions were forged on the battlefield are not. Could Rush Limbaugh actually face soldiers who have risked their lives and tell them that their beliefs don't matter?

These are soldiers like Brandon Friedman, a former rifle platoon leader in the Army's 101st Airborne Division who fought in Afghanistan in 2002 and commanded troops in Iraq. He says, ``The escalation of the war is failing and now the mission must change. The fact is,'' he says, ``the Iraq war has kept us from devoting assets we need to fight terrorists worldwide, as evidenced by the fact that Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and al Qaeda has been able to rebuild. We need an effective strategy that takes the fight to our real enemies abroad, and the best way to do that is to get our troops out of the middle of the civil war in Iraq.'' Is Brandon Friedman a phony?

Or Josh Gaines, who earned the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the National Defense Service Medal during his 2 years in Iraq, he believes the war in Iraq was a mistake from the beginning. Is he a phony? Or retired General William Odom, the head of the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration. His advice: ``The sensible policy is not to stay the course in Iraq. It is rapid withdrawal, re-establishing strong relations with our allies in Europe, showing confidence in the U.N. Security Council, and trying to knit together a large coalition, including the major states of Europe, Japan, South Korea, China and India to back a strategy for stabilizing the area from the eastern Mediterranean to Afghanistan to Pakistan.'' General Odom says: ``Until the United States withdraws from Iraq and admits its strategic error, no such coalition can be formed. Thus those fear leaving a mess are actually helping make things worse while preventing a new strategic approach with some promise of success.''

Does Rush Limbaugh really want to look General Odom in the eye and call him a phony? I believe that we should all pay attention to the views of Brandon Friedman and Josh Gaines and General Odom whose beliefs, like their military experience, are real. And while we're at it, let's pay attention to the 72 percent of American troops serving in Iraq who also think the U.S. should exit the country within the next year, and more than one in four who say the troops should leave immediately, according to the Zogby poll. I guess they're all a bunch of phonies, according to Rush Limbaugh.

Our military men and women deserve respect. Apparently, however, Mr. Limbaugh thinks they deserve to be smeared and belittled unless they happen to agree with him. I understand why Rush Limbaugh cannot debate this war on the merits, but bashing soldiers and veterans who disagree with him is unpatriotic and un-American.

Mr. Speaker, I want to start by thanking Chairman Dingell as well as the Democratic leadership for working so hard to bring the Children's Health Insurance Program reauthorization bill before us today. H.R. 976 is not a compromise that was easily come by, and it's important to recognize the hard work that has gone into it.

Let's be clear, today each of us is either voting for providing healthcare to more uninsured children, or voting against covering more uninsured kids.

This bill is not the bill that I would have written, nor is it as good as the bill that passed the House. But it will cover the 6.6 million children currently covered by CHIP and will reach an additional 4 million kids. It also provides children with dental coverage and finally puts mental health services on par with other medical benefits covered under the program. This bill will also improve quality improvement, outreach, and enrollment efforts under CHIP, and will target those most in need. It is a good bill that we think will get to the President's desk. Thus, I think the commitment this bill makes to our children should be celebrated.

Yet, we need to push further and pass several provisions that were in the house bill, including meaningful improvements in access to basic health services, including granting access to our legal immigrant children, more affordable prescription drug costs and benefits for senior citizens and people with disabilities, and adequate reimbursements for physicians that provide critical care to the Medicare population.

Incredibly, President Bush has pledged to veto this compromise, bipartisan, bicameral measure. The President and the Congressional Republican leadership say that we cannot afford it. We can't afford to cover children, but we can afford the war in Iraq. The bill to provide health care to children will cost $35 billion over the next 5 years-- but we will spend over $50 billion in the next 5 months in Iraq.

While this bill could have been so much more to so many of our constituents, it does

bring us a necessary, moderate expansion of the Children's Health Insurance Program and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Dingell and Chairman Pallone, Mr. Waxman and Mr. Markey and Congresswoman Eshoo and all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and their hardworking staffs for bringing this landmark bill to the floor today.

This bill strikes to the heart of some of FDA's most troubling issues by granting additional authorities to the Food and Drug Administration that are critical to enhancing drug safety. This bill gives consumers a larger role in deciding how user fees are spent to enhance drug safety, a huge victory for consumer protection. It will take steps to enhance the kind of information that will be available to patients and their families as they make personal decisions regarding their health care.

I am particularly pleased by the inclusion of an amendment I offered that will improve consumer's awareness of the MedWatch program, one of FDA's best but least known ways of monitoring adverse drug events once a product has been approved. Consumer reports of bad effects signal to FDA when prescription drugs pose a threat. The success of this program is crucial to postmarketing surveillance. Unfortunately, 9 out of 10 Americans are unaware that the MedWatch program exists, yet adverse drug and device reactions account for as many as 100,000 deaths every year.

My amendment requires that printed prescription drug ads include information on how to report side effects to the FDA's MedWatch program, both on the Internet and through a 1-800 number. It also requires the FDA to do a study on how we can best include this important information on the TV ads that have become so pervasive and influential in our society. So, again, I thank the chairman and staff for working with me to include this language.

This bill makes a strong statement about the importance of protecting people who rely on prescription medications to get through their day and remain active members of society. I am encouraged by the steps it takes toward a safer, more transparent Food and Drug Administration.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support it.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to bid farewell to one of the most creative, competent, caring and clever Hill staffers, my Legislative Director, Diane Beedle. For four years, Diane has moved a legislative agenda that addresses issues as diverse as the safety of children's products, outsourcing of American jobs, immigrant rights, data security and identity theft, new telecommunications technologies, private military contracts, ending horse slaughter, auto safety, energy independence, expanding health care, preventing cancer, and ending the war in Iraq. She prepared me for all of the many hearings in the Energy and Commerce Committee including, of course, the priority sporting hearings--boxing, steroids, and college bowl games, and far more.

As if that weren't enough, Diane was responsible for identifying and securing funding for projects important to the 9th Congressional District of Illinois. There is less flooding, better law enforcement, improved transportation, and better services for vulnerable people because of Diane's work. How does she do it all? As Kim, our office manager and executive assistant/scheduler said, ``She rose to the challenges and opportunities that the LD position offered, and she is very organized and methodical as well as being a very positive and nurturing presence in the office.''

Diane has a gift for negotiating. I have watched her push my position as far as she could and then a little further, her demeanor always pleasant, her counter proposals always workable, her objections irrefutable. She won the respect and friendship of staff across party and ideological lines. I will truly miss her bargaining skills.

Diane is able to translate complicated issues into language comprehensible to her boss and to constituents. I receive many kudos for letters Diane has written that are clear and directly responsive to the concerns of individual district residents, and not just ``thank you for your interest'' letters and she has prepared me for meetings on issues that would otherwise be too ``high tech'' for me.

On top of all that, Diane has been a leader in the office, providing help to her co-workers in the office in many different ways. Kevin (though officially one of the beautiful people on Capitol Hill and quite slim) has an astonishing capacity for food. Diane affectionately calls him the ``human garbage disposal'' (in a good way), yet still treats him and the rest of the office with her wonderful baked goods, lemon bars being a specialty.

Our chief of staff especially appreciated Diane's magic with naming bills. Her favorite: the Stop Attempted Fraud against Everyone's Cell and Land Line--a bill title that is instantly forgettable until you realize the acronym is the SAFE CALL ACT.

Megan described what Diane has meant not only to her but to other staff members. ``Diane has always been an excellent mentor to me, teaching me how to make the most of contacts and pointing me toward good legislative ideas.'' She also mentioned what we all know: Diane is an excellent punster.

Diane is leaving us now, soon to be embracing a new role in her life--that of Mom. Hearing the good news, everyone in the office wanted to help Diane and her husband Adrian by suggesting some really great baby names. Peter, a new father himself and Diane's ``work husband,'' brought in baby naming books. We had a Name the Baby list put up with interesting ideas such as Noble Eagle, Sparky and Porterhouse, and some more suitable boy names including Mason, Lucas, Oliver, Cooper, Oscar, Lucca, Gideon and Felix. Disregarding our suggestions in total, they chose Franklin.

We all look forward to many visits from Diane, Adrian, Baby Franklin and Suki the dog, who we will also miss very much. All of us love Diane very much, thank her for her service and wish her and her growing family the best of everything.

Madam Speaker, today is an important day in that we are going to hear the anticipated progress report, so-called, by General Petraeus, who will be testifying in a short while before the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, and the case that is going to be made is that there has been just enough progress to warrant staying the course in Iraq.

On August 6, I was in Iraq. What I learned from that visit that day was that in fact that the President's surge has failed and that there is no end in sight for the war in Iraq. I learned that first by talking with the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq that day who said that the night before that former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi had pulled his people out of the Parliament, and the week before the Sunnis had left, and then what was remaining of the Parliament was on vacation. And he said that there wasn't going to be any political settlement by this September, nor would there be by next September, and he didn't say which September.

The point of that is the reason for the surge was promoted by the President and by General Petraeus as creating the space for political settlements in Iraq, which have not only not happened but we have even seen steps backwards. But what is really important today is that people examine the so-called evidence that progress has been made, and that is why I brought a few charts here.

The first one says, is there really less violence in Iraq? Let's look at what is counted, but, even more importantly, what isn't counted.

In the evidence that progress has been made, not counted includes Shiite on Shiite violence which is happening in the south in the Basra area, Sunni on Sunni violence. Car bombings aren't counted. And get this one, this isn't a joke. People shot in the front of the head are not counted; people shot in the back of the head are counted. I thought at first that was just an exaggerated joke. It is true. And, finally, the large-scale bombing like the one that killed 500 ethnic Yazidies in August is not counted. So clearly these numbers are very clearly cherry picked.

Then, if you look at a fact that is important to many Americans, every month in 2007, including the months, of the surge has seen more U.S. military casualties than the same month in 2006. In other words, more and more of our young men are dying. And while the Parliament was on vacation as some commentators said because, after all, it is so hot, about 120 degrees, our young men and women were fighting and dying in their body armor and helmets and heavy packs and weapons out in that 120 degree heat, dying at numbers greater than ever.

And, of course, not included in those numbers has been not only the the number of U.S. troops that have died, but the dollars that have been spent. These are the dollars that we know about right now. Per year, not overall in the war, but per year $120 million; per month $10 million. Actually, I have heard $12 million is the new number. Per week, over $2 million. Per day, $329,000. Per hour, we are doing this for 1 hour right now, almost $14 million an hour. And over $228,000, almost $229,000 a minute is being spent in Iraq. And yet, the political reconciliation which was the goal of expanding the numbers of troops that we have in Iraq has not achieved that; that it has actually gone backwards. And so right now I think what we are seeing is a dog and pony show.

The good news is that a lot of people, unlike the lead-up to the war in the first place, aren't buying it. The front page of U.S.A. Today records 60 percent of Americans seek a date for a pullout: Public wary of report on Iraq, polls show. And there have been many other reports. The Jones report that says it is not working.

Check the information and be skeptical about the progress. Let's get out of Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Udall- Platts amendment. This amendment allows the United States to adopt a renewable portfolio standard of 15 percent by 2020 that fulfills our obligation as the world's lone superpower to be at the forefront in protecting the environment.

The need for a renewable portfolio standard is clear. With only 5 percent of the world population, the United States produces nearly 25 percent of annual global heat-trapping emissions. Electricity generation accounts for fully one-third of these emissions. We have a responsibility and a compelling interest to significantly reduce these harmful emissions. Renewable electricity standards offer a smart, affordable climate solution with a proven track record.

Passing a renewable fuel standard not only reduces our nation's harmful impact on the environment, it also makes us more secure. Today, the United States imports nearly 60 percent of its oil from the Middle East and politically unstable nations such as Algeria, Nigeria and Venezuela. As alarming as this statistics is, evidence suggests that unless we change our behavior, the situation will only become more dire. In fact, a recent study found that if the United States continues its current consumption without increasing its domestic production, by 2010 we will have to import 75 percent of our fuel.

To prevent this sort of prediction from becoming a reality, it is crucial, that the United States takes steps to decrease its dependence on foreign oil. The 15 by 20 principle is the answer to this challenge. It can be achieved by tapping a multitude of natural resources. We can harvest the sun and wind to produce new energy. We can grow a wide variety of crops to produce ethanol and biodiesel and we can utilize livestock wastes to produce biogas and generate new power sources.

In addition to the advantages that renewable energy holds in terms of environmental and national security issues, there is also a strong economic incentive as well. Many renewable energy facilities are located near key regions across rural America. These facilities provide good jobs, often near small towns which have suffered from population declines.

Currently, renewable energy accounts for about 14 percent of the world's energy consumption. While this number is encouraging, the United States lags behind. According to a September 2006 report by the Center for American Progress, just over 6 percent of our electricity needs come from renewable energy sources.

We can do better, and, Americans want us to do better. I believe that setting a goal of 15 percent of America's total energy needs from renewable sources by 2020 sets us on the right path. I strongly endorse this amendment and I urge my colleagues to support it.

This bill is an offense to the Constitution that we are sworn to protect. Let me tell you what we are voting on tonight.

If we pass this bill, we are voting for the warrantless, that means no court order, warrantless surveillance of our phone calls, a warrantless collection of personal data, e-mails, and Internet usage, the evisceration of the power of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, and making it little more than a rubber stamp for Alberto Gonzales. Are these the principles our Nation was built on?

Our Founding Fathers knew better.

John Adams: ``A Constitution of government once changed from freedom can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.''

We have Thomas Jefferson: ``I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than

to those attending too small a degree of it.''

And, finally, Ben Franklin: ``They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.''

We can have liberty and safety. The House Democrats offered that plan. We should heed the word of our Founding Fathers and reject this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a great milestone for one of my constituents, Bella Zelda ``Jeanette'' Kolber. On Sunday, August 5, Mrs. Kolber will mark her 100th birthday, an event that her entire family and many friends are looking forward to celebrating with her.

Born at home on August 5, 1907 to Pearl and Louis Cohn, the first of their six children, Mrs. Kolber has lived in the Ninth Congressional District for decades and the city of Chicago her entire life.

As a child, Mrs. Kolber attended Von Humboldt Elementary School and Wells High School in Chicago. In 1934, Mrs. Kolber married her beloved Leo ``Lefty'' Kolber. After the birth of their two children, Lois and Marshall, she became an active volunteer with the Bernard Moos PTA and was the PTA president in 1951. Mrs. Kolber enjoyed a long working career. She worked for many years at the Heineman's silk company. She also worked at Marshall Field for almost 20 years in the personal shopping department. After being forced to retire from Marshall Field, due to her age, she was hired by Lord & Taylor, where she worked almost 20 more years, and achieved the highest honors--gold and diamond awards for her outstanding work there.

Mrs. Kolber is an avid ballroom dancer. She has danced all over Chicago, winning trophies at numerous contests throughout the years. From Daley Plaza to the Aragon Theater and the Levy Center to outdoor music festivals and family events, she's never resisted a chance to get up and move to the music. And she's still dancing.

On the occasion of her 100th birthday this year Mrs. Kolber has decided she wants to officially correct an error that occurred years ago. She was erroneously given the name ``Jeanette'' upon entering elementary school, by a teacher who simply did not like her given name. As a result, throughout her life Mrs. Kolber has gone by ``Jeanette,'' but has recently asked to be referred to by her given name, Bella Zelda. And so, I am pleased to stand up before the U.S. House of Representatives to honor and recognize Mrs. Kolber and to officially recognize her given name.

Above all else in her life, Mrs. Kolber is devoted to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and her dear extended family and friends. She has done more than her share of caring for and giving to them over the years. Mrs. Kolber brings great joy and inspiration to her family and close friends and I am proud to join them in celebrating this remarkable woman on the occasion of her 100th birthday.

Happy 100th birthday and keep dancing, Mrs. Bella Zelda Kolber.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding to me.

Mr. Speaker, 9 million children in this country lack health insurance coverage, so it shouldn't come as a big surprise that 91 percent of voters support extending to SCHIP coverage to 5 million more children. That is 5 million more children according to the Congressional Budget Office, and that Governors from both sides of the aisle are supporting this legislation across the country.

The real surprise is that our President has threatened to veto this bill, a bill to cover children and to improve Medicare for our Nation's seniors and for people with disabilities. My question is, why are the President and so many of our colleagues saying ``no'' to basic health care to children, for adequate payments to doctors, for protecting Medicare?

In yesterday's New York Times, I think Paul Krugman hit the nail on the head when he said that President Bush must fear the intent of this bill, which is to cover more children, because he fears that it actually might work. That if America sees government helping children, they will wonder why we can't do the same for everyone.

The President said he opposes expanding children's health care because it will hurt private insurance companies. Astounding. Forget uninsured kids. The President is the champion of insurance companies.

And people across the aisle are saying it is really about seniors when they are talking about the Medicare Advantage programs. But let's be clear. The Medicare Advantage HMOs are reaping overpayments of up to 40 percent. The overpayments are being subsidized by 80 percent of the seniors and disabled people who are not in Medicare Advantage plans through higher part B premiums.

I want to urge the former Speaker of the House to cease giving patently false information about the Illinois SCHIP program which insures far more children than their parents.

Let's be on the side of children.