Floor Statements

Well, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) so much for the opportunity to join the gentleman tonight, and thank the gentleman for his leadership. As I have said, I have learned a lot from the gentleman. Actually wrote the book on trade agreements called the Myths of Free Trade. You can get it at a book store. If they do not have it, order it. It is a good read and educational.

What we are seeing right now is a growing bipartisan consensus that CAFTA is not a good idea.

I realize there are all kinds of pressures going on on the side to get Members to vote for it, and I think the reason is very simple.

Why do we have trade agreements? Well, of course, we have now an increasing global economy. That is inevitable. It is going to happen as the world gets smaller, because of technology, because of our capacity to trade with each other across borders, and that is a good thing. But we are at a point now where we have to decide what are the beneficiaries, who are going to be the winners and the losers of this international trade.

Clearly, we are talking about businesses being able to sell their products and import products and to set a level playing field, but we want to make sure that it is not just multinational corporations, the huge companies that benefit from this global marketplace, but that it is consumers, that it is workers, and that at the same time we are not damaging our environment. The thing about trade agreements is that it is possible to craft trade agreements that are not only good for business, but they are also good for workers and that they do take into consideration the environmental impact.

We had a trade agreement with Jordan that, if we used it as kind of a template for how we write these agreements, could have been a model for how we do it around the world, but instead, this trade agreement speeds up or at least contributes to what we call the race to the bottom; that is, the kind of agreement that does nothing to lift the wages or the living standards of people in the Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, and makes it easier to actually lower the standards of workers here in the United States. It starts pushing down wages, pushing down working conditions, and that is not the kind of globalization we want, where the whole world is diminished in terms of its workers by these trade agreements.

I went to Cuidad Juarez right across from El Paso at the 10th anniversary of NAFTA, and it was a trip that was organized in large part by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). When I went there, what I saw were workers living in the packing crates of the products that they were manufacturing, often American companies, who had crossed the border and set up shop there so that they could pay very low wages to Mexican workers who were benefiting hardly at all.

I mean, yes, they wanted some kind of a job, but their standard of living was to live in packing crates without health care, without certainly any kind of a living wage. In fact, we saw children who looked pretty sick, but they could not afford to take them to the doctor or even to send their children to school.

Is this the kind of world that we want to help create with these trade agreements? Is this good for the people in Mexico? Is this good for Americans? Because then those jobs go to places where there are low wages and where it is dangerous to try and organize for higher wages and higher benefits. It is dangerous to talk about unions. In our country, every 23 minutes a worker gets fired for trying to organize a union. In some of those places, you can get killed if you try to organize a union. It can be very, very dangerous.

So the United States is the richest country in the history of the world. It could be a leader in saying we want to establish rules that lift all people, that make it possible for our workers to have a living wage here at home, to have our consumers be able to buy products from other countries where the people who produce them are not living in slave or near slave labor conditions. I feel bad because often it is posed, you are either for trade agreements or you are not; you are an isolationist; you do not want to.

It is not that at all. We could craft an agreement. We could go back to the drawing board, and we could craft an agreement that would work for workers here and workers there, too.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for yielding to me.

I want to express my appreciation for all that he has done to draw attention to the plight of United employees and how what has been happening with them really reflects the larger looming pension crisis in our country. He has repeatedly called on Congress to protect defined benefit plans and to ensure that the rank and file workers have the same retirement security that executives with golden parachutes do. As he frequently says, ``What is good for the captain is good for the sailor.'' I thank him for his leadership and his fight for workers, and I really appreciate working with him on this important issue.

As he knows, United Airlines, like so many other corporations, has exploited loopholes in the law to disguise the true financial standing of its pension funds. The company knowingly underfunded its pensions and hid the truth from its workers about their retirement security, all quite legally. The nearly $10 billion shortfall at United was only revealed when the company asked the bankruptcy court to terminate its pension plans and now the employees are the ones that are going to have to pay the price. These dedicated employees have had the rug swept out from under them, and their retirement security is in serious question through no fault of their own.

United employees have tried to be responsible. They have tried to plan ahead. When they signed up for their jobs they believed they were making informed financial decisions for today and for their retirement. United offered luring packages of benefits, included defined benefit pensions, meaning employees were guaranteed a set figure for their retirement when their years of work for United Airlines were done, years down the road.

Now, because United is using the bankruptcy court to back out of its pension agreements, United employees and retirees are being tossed into retirement without a parachute. Tens of thousands of the flight attendants and machinists that are affected are in Illinois, 10,000 of them. It seems now that the only ones who are making honestly informed decisions about what they were getting into were the executives like Chairman Glenn Tilton, who squirreled away his $4.5 million retirement fund in a trust that cannot be touched during bankruptcy proceedings. He made sure to protect his retirement package because he, like his employees, knows exactly how important planning ahead is.

I would like to share a few stories from United employees in Illinois who, because they were being fiscally responsible, know exactly how losing their pensions will affect them. These are letters that came through the E-hearing, the on-line hearing that the gentleman and his committee held.

This is the story of Michael Moore from Crystal Lake, Illinois. It is the other Michael Moore. He writes: ``I hope you have some time to hear from a small voice and on a quiet street in Illinois. I am a 54-year- old maintenance mechanic for United Airlines. Having 25 years for the company in today's world is a trick in itself. My wife and I have raised our four children and they are out building a life of their own. You work, you plan and you save for this point in your life, only to have lost it all. I have only 4 months until I was planning to retire and now I can't. I have lost $60,000 in the United Airlines employee stock option plan back in 2001, gave up a total 23 percent wages in the last few years, sold my home and now will lose my pension and health care. What is next?

``There has to be a better way. We can't just allow large corporations to just terminate pension plans. The pension plan is our deferred wages traded from our current wage to provide a retirement in the future, a legal contract. Now it is not worth the paper it was written on.

``I feel I am a perfect example of how Mr. Bush's Social Security plan will fail. As the employees of United continue to give and give and give, our top management make more and more. Something isn't right.''

If I could go on, I have a couple more. This is what Paula Carlson from Oak Lawn, Illinois, had to say: ``I have been a flight attendant for almost 20 years for United Airlines, and if my pension is terminated I will be paid as if I terminated my employment at 47, even if I continue to work and retire from United Airlines when I am 62. My retirement plans were for the full pension I was promised, a 401(k) and Social Security. Now I will have to live off of $400 monthly approximately from my pension, instead of $2,800 monthly.

``I can hardly contribute to my 401(k) due to pay cuts at United. I will be at

poverty level and may have to be a burden on my son, who is only 16, but hopes will make a decent enough living to help me out.

``We have been deceived our whole lives about hard work paying off. The only ones paid off are the CEO and the board of directors. They come in with their guaranteed payoff and the company they have been hired to build or maintain can collapse right from under them, while the workers who built the companies lose everything and become a burden on their children and our society. What has happened to our country?''

Let me read one more. This is a good one. The following is Joseph Gillick's story. He is a flight attendant based out of Chicago, lives in Espyville, Pennsylvania:

``If you have traveled frequently on United Airlines during the last 13 years, chances are you have become familiar with my voice and face. I have worked as a flight attendant for United Airlines for 29-plus years. My name is Joseph Gillick, I am based in Chicago Illinois, and I am the safety video spokesperson seen on United flights worldwide.

``I submit United senior executive's bankruptcy strategy under the leadership of CEO Glenn Tilton is an affront to basic human values, financially wrong and unquestionably unpatriotic.

``If senior executives are successful in dumping pension obligations, forcing the PBGC to take responsibility, I will immediately lose 50 percent of my meager $1,100-a-month pension benefit. I am presently the primary caretaker of my 89-year-old mother. With ever-increasing health care and home care expense, my mother and myself are just two out of countless thousands of citizens who will be unquestionably harmed and placed in dire financial circumstances.

``No question United is operating under severe financial circumstances. Difficult decisions must be made. Corporate change must occur. Yet at the end of the day, will we be able to say all possible solutions were explored before allowing United executives to dump employee pension responsibilities?''

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, let me say one thing about that. It is not as if they are saying we want things to be exactly as we were promised when we came in. These employees have given up about $3 billion in benefits already.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I will submit for the Record an article in the New York Times entitled, ``Pension Loopholes Helped United Hide Troubles.''

The article, by Mary Williams Walsh, discusses loopholes in the current laws that allow corporations to grossly underfund their employees' pensions, and to do so legally. They use accounting tricks to give the appearance of healthy financial standing; and as Senator Grassley says, ``We saw similar practices and events at Enron but, unfortunately, this time it is perfectly legal.''

These companies keep the poor health of their pension funds hidden from the public until they decide to terminate them, as United Airlines currently is doing. United knowingly underfunded its pension fund as it faced bankruptcy, shielding from its workers the truth about their retirement futures.

I would like to share two statements from hard-working people in Illinois who are personally affected by pension-accounting sleight of hand. These statements are from the more than 2,000 dedicated United Airlines employees and retirees who submitted testimony to the online hearing that the

gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and I held highlighting the United pension crisis and clearly showed just how devastating losing one's retirement security can be.

The first letter is from Joseph Krist, Jr., Schaumburg, Illinois: ``I am 68 years old and worked for United Airlines at O'Hare Field as an aircraft mechanic from September 1959 until October 2000. I was an aircraft mechanic in the United States Air Force from 1954 to 1958.

``My job at United Airlines was very challenging. We accomplished much work outside in all kinds of weather. In the winter months, if the hangars were full, the work was done outside with one man working while another would hold a heater on his hands. We worked with all kinds of hazardous fluids, which has given me and many of my fellow mechanics cancer and other medical problems. My oldest son was a mechanic for United for 11 years when he came down with leukemia and died 9 weeks later at the age of 34.

``Now that the pensions are being dropped by United Airlines, dumping it on the PBGC, we will be losing more of the money promised to us. I do not live high on the hog. We have two older cars and a 28-year-old house in Schaumburg, Illinois, which still carries a $124,000 mortgage on it. We presently have this house on the market, as we will not be able to afford the mortgage and the real estate taxes with the estimated reduction in our pension. How will we pay for the increased cost of gas and other living expenses in the years ahead? How will we pay for medical insurance, treatments, and prescriptions?

``The thousands of people and their families who are being hurt by allowing United Airlines to terminate our pensions will surely snowball and affect everyone in the country as more companies shirk their responsibilities. We need someone to support us and give the retirees who sacrificed and dedicated their lives to making this airline and country great the money they earned by the sweat of their brow.''

Another one from Karen Harvey-Kincaid of Streamwood, Illinois, and she writes to Congressman Miller:

``I have been a United flight attendant for 20\1/2\ years, never missing a trip, never being late for check-in. I have truly been the friendly skies. I am now 46 years old, not old enough to retire from United, and not young enough to start over at another company. The truth is I do not want to work anywhere but United. But will I be able to afford to work there? I am not talking about the financial toll this has taken on me. It's the emotional roller coaster they have put us through for the last 2\1/2\ years. I honestly believe my health, sleeping, and eating habits have all suffered.

``I am now divorced after 12 years of marriage. I didn't take half of my husband's pension because I wanted to keep mine. If I only would have known. I lie in bed at night worrying if I will lose my house, thinking how many more trips can I pick up this month, knowing that I am paid $9 per hour less, paying for all of my benefits, losing thousands in vacation pay, and now, a reduced pension.

``I implore you to use this letter as part of your Congressional Record. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. I got up at 4:15 a.m. and walked into my house at 7:21 p.m. tonight, after going to San Francisco and back. I welcomed and made happy all 694 passengers today. I only wish I was welcomed and happy at work.''

That is again from Karen Harvey-Kincaid from Streamwood, Illinois, one of the more than 2,000 people who wrote to tell their personal stories, how they are being affected by the loss of their pensions. This may only be the beginning, Mr. Speaker, of what we hope will not be the opening of a floodgate of companies that want to escape their pension responsibilities.

[From the New York Times, Jun. 7, 2005.]

Pension Loopholes Helped United Hide Troubles

(By Mary Williams Walsh)

Loopholes in the federal pension law allowed United

Airlines to treat its pension fund as solid for years, when

in fact it was dangerously weakening, according to a new

analysis by the agency that guarantees pensions. That

analysis is scheduled to be presented at a Senate Finance

Committee hearing today.

A second report, by the comptroller general, found that

most companies that operate pension funds are using the same

loopholes. Those loopholes give companies ways--all perfectly

legal--to make their pension plans look healthier than they

really are, reducing the amount of money the companies must

contribute.

United's pension fund failure is now the biggest since the

government began guaranteeing pensions 30 years ago. Most

companies are able to keep their pension plans going, despite

the chronic, hidden weakness, because they are generating

enough cash to meet their obligations to current retirees.

Only when a company files for bankruptcy, as United did in

December 2002, and terminates its pension plan, as United

has, does the government step in and make the plan's true

economic condition apparent.

``We saw similar practices and events at Enron, but

unfortunately, this time it's perfectly legal,'' said Senator

Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of

the finance committee. He said he had scheduled today's

hearing because he wanted to find ways to keep pension

disasters like the $10 billion failure at United from

happening at other companies.

``The rules are full of serious holes that need to be fixed

as soon as possible,'' Senator Grassley said. ``No on should

make the mistake that this is an airline-only problem. The

reality is that companies everywhere have used the same

arcane pension-funding rules'' to shrink their contributions.

Many analysts believe that the federal Pension Benefit

Guaranty Corporation will one day require a bailout because

it has been forced to pick up a number of large failed

private pension plans. The more big defaults there are in the

meantime, the more the eventual bailout will cost.

The federal pension law was enacted in 1974 after a number

of scandals in which companies went bankrupt and their

workers discovered there was little or nothing set aside to

pay the pensions they had been promised. The law was supposed

to make pension failures a thing of the past by requiring

companies to set aside money in advance--enough each year to

pay the benefits the work force earned that year.

The law also required that if a pension fund got into

trouble, its sponsor was to quickly pump in more money, warn

its employees about the problem and pay higher premiums to

the federal pension insurance program.

United did none of those things, even as its pension fund

withered, because its calculations were making the fund look

healthy. The fund is made up of four individual plans for

various groups of employees.

United's calculations followed the letter of the law until

July 2004, when the airline announced that it owed $72.4

million to its pension fund but would not make the

contribution. By that time, the company had filed for

bankruptcy protection.

The $72.4 million would have done little good by then,

because the pension guaranty agency told the bankruptcy court

that the pension fund had a shortfall of $8.3 billion.

In its analysis, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation

found that in 2002, when United was determining how much it

had to contribute to its four plans, it calculated that the

plans for its pilots and its mechanics each had more money

than needed. It further calculated that the plans for its

flight attendants and its managerial workers were close to

being fully funded, and did not need any special attention.

On the basis of those calculations, United, a unit of the

UAL Corporation, made no pension contributions that year.

Those numbers are on file with the Labor Department. But

they do not square with the pension numbers United provided

to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That agency

requires companies to calculate pension values in a different

way. At United, that method showed the four pension plans to

be only 50 percent funded; that is, they had only half as

much money as they needed to make good on United's promises

to its workers.

Pension calculations done for S.E.C. filings have nothing

to do with the rules for calculating contributions. But had

United been required to use the S.E.C. pension numbers to

determine its contribution that year, it would have had to

pump money into the plans quickly. The pension law requires

companies to make special catch-up contributions any time

their pension funds fall below an 80 percent funded level, or

even when they fall below 90 percent funded, if they stay at

those levels for several years. A plan that was only 50

percent funded would be considered a real emergency.

But the law allowed United to say its pension plans were

fully funded, or nearly so, and, therefore, no more money was

needed. United's employees were not informed that anything

was amiss, as the law requires of badly weakened plans. Nor

did United have to pay the higher premiums to the pension

guaranty agency that the law expects.

The discrepancy between a company's pension report to the

S.E.C. and the Labor Department is but one example of the

problems. At today's Senate hearing, David M. Walker, the

comptroller general, is expected to testify that companies

have so many ways of tweaking their pension calculations that

they almost never have to make the special catch-up

contributions that Congress required of plans that are

slipping.

A recent study by the Government Accountability Office,

which Mr. Walker runs, examined eight years of records for

the nation's 100 largest pension funds, and found

that only six plans in the entire group ever had to pay the

special contributions in that period.

For two of the plans, it was already too late by the time

the special contributions came due. Years of insufficient

contributions had taken their toll, and those plans collapsed

and were taken over by the government.

The G.A.O. study attributes some of the misleading pension

math to the use of inappropriate actuarial assumptions in

projections and some to a process called ``smoothing,'' in

which actuaries attempt to eliminate short-term volatility by

spreading changes over several years.

But the pension agency's analysis of United's case shows

that the rules for tracking contributions made in prior years

have also caused a great deal of trouble. The rules allow

companies that put in more than the required minimum in any

given year to keep the excess amount on their books and to

use it to offset their required contributions in years when

cash is tight.

These excess contributions from the past are kept in a

running tab called a credit balance.

The trouble is that at United, as at many companies, money

contributed in the 1990's was invested in assets that lost

value during the bear market that began in 2000. But the

pension rules allow companies not only to keep their pension

credit balances on the books at the original amount, but they

are even permitted to allow their credit balances to compound

in value at some interest rate determined by the plan's

actuary.

When United's calculations finally began to show that

contributions were quickly needed, in 2003, the airline was

able to satisfy the requirement with just a small amount of

cash and lots of bookkeeping entries from its credit balance.

Senator Grassley said he believed many companies were

``booking phony investment gains to hide that workers'

pensions are going down the tubes.''

He said he hoped the hearing would lead to legislation that

would eliminate the loopholes that made such maneuvers

possible.

In a later session today, the finance committee is

scheduled to hear from executives of some of the major

airlines, and from the leaders of some of the unions for

airline employees.

Mr. Speaker, I stand today in strong support of the bipartisan Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005.

One of the few places this is really an extremely controversial bill is right here because the majority of Americans strongly support embryonic stem cell research. They want the Federal Government to fund research that is critical for some 128 million Americans who suffer from juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, spinal cord injuries, ALS, and other diseases.

Stem cell research is a medical issue, one that should and fortunately does transcend political lines and instead focuses on human lives. One such life is that of Clara Livingston, a 9-year-old girl with diabetes. During her testimony last week in a hearing in Chicago, Clara said, ``There are things I don't like about diabetes. I have to put a one-inch needle into my skin to connect my insulin pump. I don't like pricks or shots. I don't like having high blood sugar and not being able to eat. I don't like going low and fainting.'' She continued, ``I would like to find a cure because finding a cure will help make America and the rest of the world not worry about diabetes.''

Most scientists agree that embryonic stem cell research offers the greatest hope to patients like Clara. There are limitations on the usefulness of adult stem cells when compared to embryonic stem cells. For example, there are no adult stem cells in the pancreas. That means that adult stem cell research will be inadequate in helping Clara or any other patients who are patients hoping for a cure for diabetes.

While it is important to continue working with adult stem cells, it is also vital to fund the research funding embryonic stem cells. We do a grave disservice to millions of children and adults living with serious illness, as well as the millions who will develop these conditions in the future, by prohibiting promising research. This bill will lift these arbitrary restrictions and permit funding of cell lines regardless of where they were created. Federal funding guidelines assure that research will meet ethical standards and allow advancements to be made as quickly as possible. As Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis said, ``This is not a contest between adult and embryonic stem cells. This is a contest between us as a society and disease.''

I hope my colleagues will vote ``yes'' on this bipartisan legislation.

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

I rise today as a cosponsor and in support of a strong consumer and privacy protection bill, H.R. 29, the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act, or the SPY ACT. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) for their work on the SPY ACT.

I would like first to commend the manner in which this bill was handled. The process was thorough, open to input and willing to address each other's concerns; and, most importantly, the work was organized around the goal of creating a strong and effective consumer protection bill. I believe we have accomplished our goal.

Spyware is software that has tracking capabilities so pervasive that it can record every keystroke computer users enter. It can take pictures of personal computer screens. It can snatch personal information from consumers' hard drives. People can see their bank account numbers, passwords, and other personal information stolen because they quite innocently went to a bad Web site or clicked a misleading agreement. Spyware is a serious threat to consumer privacy and potentially a powerful tool for identity theft, a serious crime that is on the rise. Spyware is a nonpartisan issue. As we learned last year while not yet a household word, spyware is a household phenomenon.

America Online recently released a study which found that 80 percent of families with broadband access had spyware on their computers. Earthlink found that in 3 million scans of computers, there was an average of 26 instances of spyware on each and every computer. With those kinds of numbers, spyware will soon be a part of everyone's vocabulary.

Technological advances have brought ``the world into our homes,'' and the purveyors of spyware have interpreted that as an open door to come in whenever they want, whether invited or not. Still, because the software does have shady purposes, it usually comes in through the back door of consumers' computers. Because consumers do not know that spyware is on their computers, people are still surprised to hear about it. They experience the noticeable effects of the software, impossibly slow computers, hijacked home pages, unstoppable pop-ups, but they do not know where their problems are coming from or what is going on behind the scenes.

For instance, someone's computer may be sluggish because she may unwittingly have downloaded a program that records every key stroke entered and passes it on to a third party who wants to steal bank account numbers and passwords. The explosion of pop-up

ads may be because a program has been tracking a consumer's every move on the Web. Serious privacy and security issues are at stake here. Spyware could be a major contributor to the fact that identity theft is the fastest-growing financial crime today.

The time has come for a bill like the Spy Act. The gentleman from Texas (Chairman Barton) very clearly outlined the specific provisions of the bill, but it bears briefly repeating. The Spy Act ensures that consumers are protected from the truly bad acts and actors while also protecting proconsumer functions of the software. It prohibits indefensible uses of the software like keystroke logging or the copying of every keystroke entered. Additionally, it gives the consumer the choice to opt in to the installation or activation of information collection programs on their computers, but only when they know exactly what information will be collected and what will be done with it. Furthermore, the Spy Act gives the Federal Trade Commission the power it needs on top of laws already in place to pursue deceptive uses of the software. The Spy Act puts the control of computers and privacy back in consumers' hands, and I am very glad I was a part of the process that brought this bill to the floor today.

So, again, I thank my colleagues for their work on this proconsumer, proprivacy, and bipartisan legislation, and I urge all Members to support it.

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

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

I can only heartily agree with all that has been said. Let me just add a few words.

Spyware has changed the computing experience for so many people. Increasingly, consumers are finding that their home Web pages are changed or that their computers are sluggish; and they get, as I said, the pop-up ads that will not go away no matter how many times they try to close them. They find software in their computer they did not install and they cannot uninstall; and their computers are no longer their own, and they cannot figure out why. And consumers tend to blame viruses on their old computer or their Internet service providers, but because spyware is bundled with software people do want to download or because it is drive-by downloaded from unknowingly visiting the wrong Web site, people do not know that in many cases the real cause of their headaches is spyware.

And some of the above examples can be written off as merely annoying. Spyware is so much more than merely annoying, as we have pointed out, and there are these serious privacy and security issues at stake.

These problems of slow computers and pop-up ads are just symptoms of the real trouble spyware can cause. Again, the software is so resourceful that it can snatch personal information from computer hard drives and track every Web site visited and log every keystroke entered.

Spyware is a serious threat to consumer privacy and potentially a powerful tool for identity theft, a serious crime on the rise. As the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, reports, in 2003 there were nearly 10 million Americans victimized by identity theft. Over the past 5 years, there have been 27 million victims, and my State of Illinois is in the top 10 for identity theft occurrences. On-line predators, like spyware transmitters, provide an easy access to personally identifiable information that can be used to steal people's identities and put them at greater risk of

being financially and otherwise victimized.

So this is now the time, once again, for the House to pass this important bipartisan legislation. And I too want to thank all of the leaders who have been involved in bringing this bill once again to the floor. I want to particularly thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), whose statement, though he could not be here today, will be in the Record, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who has worked on this legislation from the very beginning with the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono). And I want to thank the staff on our side, Diane Beedle and Consuela Washington, and the Republican staff for their hours of work.

I want to join the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Stearns) in urging our Senate colleagues to move on this very important legislation. It is time that we not only pass it in the House, but that we make it the law of the land, and I look forward to seeing that happen in the near future. I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to work with all of them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention to the first annual National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day today, May 19, 2005. This day seeks to raise awareness among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders about the devastating impact of HIV/ AIDS on their community and to highlight AIDS prevention and treatment opportunities.

AIDS has claimed the lives of over 20 million people worldwide since it was first diagnosed in 1981, and the numbers continue to grow at an alarming rate. An estimated 5,500 of 750,000 Americans who face the perils of AIDS today are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, but with the fastest-growing racial/ethnic population in the nation, this number is increasing at a staggering rate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of AA/PIs living with AIDS has increased 10 percent annually over the past five years.

Many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders living with HIV/AIDS too often do not take the steps necessary to prevent and combat the disease due to cultural stigmas around issues of sex, sexuality, and drug use. Other obstacles include the fact that nearly 40 percent of AA/PIs have limited English proficiency and 13 percent live below the federal poverty line. Nearly one in five are uninsured, and many others lack adequate health insurance. That is why this day is immensely important in communicating the facts and preventative practices regarding HIV/ AIDS. With increased national awareness and improved communication, HIV/AIDS information will become more widely available and more effective in crossing the social, linguistic, and economic barriers this population faces.

It is also critically important that we expand the budgets of the CDC, especially the Office of Minority Health and the National Institutes of Health, and reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act to ensure that HIV/AIDS is addressed seriously and with adequate resources. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders face a serious health threat, and they are just one segment of the American population which battles this deadly disease on a daily basis. Our financial support is critical in providing information, medicine, care, and ultimately a cure for this debilitating disease.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in acknowledging the first National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and working to enact healthcare solutions to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Mr. Speaker, Senate Republicans are preparing to blow up 200 years of tradition in the U.S. Senate, abusing their power in order to force through a few judges who have been unable to earn a bipartisan consensus for their lifetime judicial appointments.

Democrats have helped confirm 95 percent of President Bush's judicial nominees. The few that our Democratic colleagues in the Senate have opposed are those who have had serious questions raised about their independence, fairness, and record on issues involving our most vital rights.

Republicans are willing to attack the constitutional system of checks and balances and change the rules of the Senate in the middle of the game, all of this for seven extreme judges.

Senate Republicans know full well the impact their nuclear option will have on the bipartisanship that is necessary for a productive and effective Senate, but they simply do not care. If Senate Republicans are successful at abolishing the rights of the minority, what is next?

Mr. Speaker, later this month, people in Chicago will gather to celebrate the life and achievements of William ``Les'' Brown. Les Brown had an enormous influence on the way our nation thinks about homelessness. He was a person of intelligence, creativity, passion and caring who showed that we can each make a difference in helping to create communities that provide support and opportunities for every individual. I am fortunate to have known and been inspired by Les and I, like many Chicagoans, will miss him.

Les Brown was best known as the founder of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, formed in 1980 with the help of the Travelers and Immigrants Aid Society, the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, and other service providers. Karen Singer, executive director of the YWCA Evanston/North Shore, called him the ``moral compass'' of the movement to end homelessness. Ed Shurna, the current executive of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, acknowledges him as ``the chief strategist and idea man behind most of the Coalition's successes'' in providing housing, jobs programs and health care for the homeless.

A social worker, former Air Force medical corpsman and a blues pianist, Les Brown used all of his skills to push for solutions. While others ignored the problem, he taught us that homelessness can be solved and that individuals living on the street deserve to be treated with dignity. In 1983, he organized the first national conference on homelessness in Chicago. In 1984, he underwent a heart transplant but never let that slow him down or limit his dedicated activism. For his entire life, he fought to keep this issue at the top of the political agenda, reminding us that the homeless are not nameless beings or numbers, but infants and children, working mothers and fathers, returning veterans and those living with illnesses who deserve our support and a safe, decent place to live.

Les Brown grew up in rural Georgia, where he learned his values from his parents, who taught him the values of fairness and social justice. It was the love of the land that he developed in childhood that gave him the inspiration for ``Growing Home,'' an initiative that helps the homeless learn job skills at an organic farm in Marseilles, Illinois. According to Les, ``Homeless people often are without roots. They're not tied down, connected, not part of their family anymore. Our organic farming program is a way for them to connect with nature--to plant and nurture roots over a period of time.

When you get involved in taking responsibility for caring for something, creating an environment that produces growth, then it helps you to build self-esteem and feel more connected.''

There are concrete reminders of Les Brown's accomplishments throughout the Chicagoland area--low-income housing units that would not have been built without him, organizations and coalitions that would not exist but for his leadership, initiatives like Growing Home that grew from his vision. Some of the best evidence of his legacy can be found in the people he touched and motivated and who will carryon his work.

Les Brown had an enormous impact and influence on the people he met, creating a generation of advocates who will follow in his path. One of them, Fred Friedman, wrote the following in commemoration:

Les Brown's Legacy

Les Brown died the other day. I did not know him very well

or very long but he was very dear to me.

I first met Les when I was still living in a homeless

shelter. As you might guess, it was at a meeting about

homeless youth. Later, he was kind enough to see me in the

office of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. I was

trying to decide what, if anything, to do with my life. At

that meeting, I told him that people, including myself,

sometimes had trouble seeing me as anything other than a

mentally ill homeless person. He said that he understood, and

that some people had trouble seeing him as anything other

than a person with a bad heart. I am sure that was a lie, Who

could think Les had a bad heart? However, it was incredibly

kind.

I got to know him a little better at many endless Continuum

(of Care) meetings. Eventually, he nominated me for the

Governing Board of the Continuum. Still later, he, along with

Paul Selden and I, founded Next Steps, NFP. Still later, I

got to hear him play a mean Jazz piano.

I do not know his family, or if he left any property to

them, but I do know that he left me a great legacy. Les saw

people without homes and tried to find them homes. He saw

hungry people and tried to feed them. He saw people without

power, and tried to empower them. He saw people without hope

and tried to give them hope. He took his work, but not

himself, seriously. He could disagree without being

disagreeable. He understood that good people could disagree

with him, and that he could be wrong. In short, Les left me a

legacy of trying and working, even when trying and working

seems silly. In other words, he left me legacy of hope. I

promise to use that legacy to continue his fight, until no

one

goes to bed hungry, and everyone has a home and hope.

Mr. Chairman, I stand today in strong opposition to H.R. 1279, the so-called gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act. Despite its deceptive title, its primary purpose is to punish more young people as adults. This bill would expand the use of the death penalty, treat juveniles as adults and impose mandatory minimum sentences. The research conclusively shows that prosecuting young people as adults does not reduce youth crime. If Congress is serious about reducing youth violence, it should fund evidence-based programs that have proven effective.

Federal prosecutors are already armed with the Continuing Criminal Enterprise, CCE, and Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organization Act, RICO, statutes to combat gang crimes. This bill would unnecessarily federalize a host of crimes currently and competently handled by the states; penalize even non-violent crimes and misdemeanors as crimes of violence, including garden variety State offenses like resisting arrest; expand without reason the definition of criminal street gang; unwisely leave to the sole discretion of the government the unreviewable decision to try juveniles as adults; impose unduly harsh and discriminatory mandatory minimum sentences; and expand the use of the federal death penalty to new offenses.

I agree that gang violence and youth crimes are serious concerns today. Unfortunately, this bill does nothing in the way of jobs or education for at-risk youth. Instead, this bill would lock up young people in adult prisons and take away judges' discretion to review on a case-by-case basis crimes committed by youth. Research shows that young people who are

prosecuted as adults are more likely to commit a greater number of crimes upon release than youth who go through the juvenile justice system. Locking young people up in adult prisons will actually compromise public safety.

We know what works to prevent violent crime. Research demonstrates the effectiveness of focused family interventions such as family therapy and multidimensional treatment foster care. Certain school- based interventions such as the Bullying Prevention Program and the Project Towards No Drug Abuse, and careful monitoring programs such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America have also proven effective. Instead of funding these programs whose empirical effectiveness can be demonstrated, supporters of this bill insist upon approaches that lack any evidence of actually deterring and reducing violent youth crime.

Furthermore, state juvenile justice systems are more appropriate and effective means for addressing youth offenses. Studies have shown that comprehensive, locally tailored strategies are the most effective in preventing gang and youth violence. Existing state legislation is more than adequate to comprehensively address youth violence--increased federalization of juvenile crime is not the answer.

The Judicial Conference of the United States, child advocacy groups, criminal justice groups, industry and business-oriented groups, religious, human rights and civil rights organizations all oppose this bill. It is the responsibility of Congress to the young people of this nation and to all citizens to ensure public safety. I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 1279 because it would only exacerbate youth violence in the United States.

I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), one of our best experts on trade. And in fact, the gentleman actually wrote the book, or at least a book on trade called ``Myths of Free Trade,'' a book I am happy to have and learn a lot from. And I am pleased to join all my colleagues. It is interesting that, so far anyway, those of us who are here tonight are from the Midwest where we have seen so many of our manufacturing jobs lost since the passage of NAFTA over 10 years ago.

But, you know, I think as a people, as a Congress, certainly, we have to say why do we want free trade agreements? What is the purpose of trade agreements?

I think all of us here think that we know that there now is a global marketplace, that the goal of economic integration, when done in the right way, is not only inevitable but can actually be desirable. The question is who benefits from it? What are, who are the winners and who are the losers? And what is CAFTA for?

And, unfortunately, what we find is that the ordinary people of this country, and the ordinary people of the Central American countries now, the Dominican Republic and the Central American countries that are supposed to be part of CAFTA, it is the ordinary people, the everyday citizens, the hard-working people that are the losers, and the only ones who are the winners are corporations that really have no particular loyalty. They can pick up their capital, they can move their plants, as they did from Illinois. We lost about 100,000 jobs because of NAFTA. We saw a plant, a profitable plant, a Maytag plant, a nice manufacturing plant in Galesburg, Illinois, pick up and take with it over a thousand jobs. This was a plant that was actually making money. Why did it move? Because it could actually make more money by exploiting workers when they moved to Mexico.

In a trip that was in part organized by my colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), I had the privilege of going to Ciudad Juarez last year, a town that is really in the metropolitan area of El Paso, Texas, separated by the Rio Grande River. And on one side of the river you have got workers who are looking for good jobs to support their families; and on the other side of the river, we see people who are working in the plants for American companies. And what we saw were workers who were actually, some of them, actually living in the packing crates of the products that they were manufacturing for the companies, the American companies that took those good-paying jobs and went to Mexico.

As the gentleman remembers, that woman had children who she could not afford to send to school. It costs money to send them to school, a modest amount of money by our standards but out of reach for her because she does not make the kind of income that even would allow her children to go to school or have adequate health care.

Is that the point of a free trade agreement?

The United States should and could lead the world by example through a trade policy that improves the lives of individuals and not just adds to the profits of the major corporations. We could and should benefit workers here in the United States and create and sustain jobs that help small- and middle-sized and family-owned businesses grow. And D.R. CAFTA, Dominican Republic CAFTA, is not going to accomplish those goals for us here, for our small companies, for our workers and is simply going to increase this race to the bottom so that, how cheap can we get labor?

I wanted to make a point about, are we really looking for markets in these Central American countries? Do we really believe that we are going to find people who are going to be buying our products? The combined purchasing power of the Central American nations in CAFTA is the same as Columbus, Ohio, or New Haven, Connecticut. The average salary of a Nicaraguan worker is $2,300 a year, $191 a month. Are they going to buy that car that is made in Ohio or in Michigan?

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to monopolize this conversation. I do feel so strongly that, as the greatest country on the face of the Earth, the wealthiest country, the country that has the capacity to create jobs, to help people, to lift our own people and people around the world, to help lift them out of poverty, to set a standard that would at least work towards that goal. What a shame that we have before us a trade agreement that, as the gentlewoman said, my sister, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), just a repeat of NAFTA, and we know the devastating results both here in the United States and in Mexico and in Canada, that it did not do anything for us.

So I just am encouraged actually that we are seeing growing bipartisan opposition to this. Let us go back to the drawing board and come up with a real trade agreement that is going to achieve the goals that we want, that is going to be helpful to us and to our neighbors around the globe and certainly our closest neighbors here in Central America in the Dominican Republic.

Mr. Speaker, you can imagine a fairly mid-sized, kind of small-town community, when a major employer like that leaves town, it does not just impact that business or those workers. It resonates throughout the community in a very negative way, and it is really hard to recover from that.

I want to say, just bringing a Wal-Mart to a community like that so you can buy really cheap products, is that our future in this country? That we will be able to buy imported goods? Flags made in China? T- shirts that are made for 12 cents? And that is not our future if we are going to continue to be a great country. So it hurt Galesburg. It is hurting communities all over our country.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to tell the gentleman that I was visited by a group of religious leaders from CAFTA countries who said exactly what the gentleman said. They said, we know that in many cases our governments are supporting this policy, but we represent the interests of the people in our countries, our parishioners, the people who come to us every Sunday and during the week. And we know they are really suffering, and we know that this trade agreement is just going to be license to further exploit those people and their poverty, not lift them out of the poverty.

And they were asking Members of Congress like myself to consider the people; and that is, the gentleman is right, we have to think about the faces. We have to think about the mothers and the fathers and the little children that suffer because of that and in our country, too, when those jobs are lost in our community.

Mr. Speaker, if I could, it is bad enough I suppose that usually these workers are paid such low wages, but should those workers try to organize themselves into a union to try and stand up for better working conditions and better wages, we know that in those countries that human rights violations for people who want to form a union are rampant; and the problem with CAFTA is that it really does virtually nothing to protect those workers who want to organize.

We hear in CAFTA, ostensibly it requires enforcement of the local labor laws, both that may exist in the country. Of course, those could change, but even then the penalties are very, very weak. Violations of core labor standards cannot be taken to dispute resolution, and the commitment to enforce domestic labor laws is subject to remedies weaker than those available for commercial dispute.

So every time we put the rights of capital, the rights of intellectual property, the rights of the corporations up here and the rights of workers even to stand up for themselves to try and collectively bargain for better conditions or wages, and it is often at peril of their lives that they do that, not just job loss, but we find in many of those countries that it is very dangerous to be a labor organizer. You can find those people dead.

The other thing is we spend a lot of time around here talking about illegal immigration; and, again, if you think about it in human terms, people do not generally want to leave their homeland. They would prefer to stay there, the place where they are born, where their families live, where their ancestors are, where they have roots. Why do they leave those countries to come to the United States, to risk crossing that river, risk crossing that border? It is because they cannot make a living. They cannot provide any kind of a decent life for their family, and they are willing to do anything to do that and so they come here.

If we want to be able to protect our borders and to have good trade policies, then we have to look at things that will help to lift those workers in other countries so that they can prosper in their homelands.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

As the author of this legislation, and with the honor of representing the Ninth Congressional District of Illinois, home to the headquarters of Rotary International, I rise in strong support of House Resolution 142, a bill marking 100 years of service to humanity by Rotarians around the world. I am so happy that the other body, under the leadership of our Illinois Senator, Richard Durbin, also passed an identical resolution.

I want to thank the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform for their assistance in moving this bill to the floor, and my colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), for his support of this legislation.

The celebration of Rotary's centennial will culminate in the place where it all began, Chicago, during the organization's upcoming convention to be held in mid-June. There, Rotarians from all over the world will mark 100 years of service to humanity and to rededicate themselves to Rotary's ongoing mission of service above self.

Rotary International was founded on February 23, 1905, in Chicago, Illinois. It is the world's first service club and one of the largest nonprofit service organizations in the world. Rotary provides humanitarian services, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build good will and peace in the world.

Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs located in 167 countries. Approximately 400,000 Rotarians belong to clubs throughout the United States and in virtually every congressional district. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, all races, and all creeds.

The main objective of Rotary is service in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities, and international exchanges for students, teachers and other professionals, and vocational career development.

The Rotary motto of ``Service Above Self'' is an example for all humanity, and certainly one for the Members of this body. Today, Rotarians are united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians raised $240 million to immunize the children of the world. By the end of 2005, the Polio Plus program will have contributed $500 million to this cause. Rotary has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at national immunization days in polio endemic countries around the world.

In 2000, I had the privilege of traveling to India with President Clinton and happened to be there on a weekend when Rotary was doing immunizations of children in India against polio. Along with many coalition partners, the Rotarians succeeded in immunizing approximately 125 million people in a weekend. Imagine the kind of volunteer effort it took for such a massive campaign and for such great results.

Due in large part to Rotary's efforts, the number of polio cases has fallen from an estimated 350,000 in 1988 to less than 1,300 in 2004, a more than 99 percent decline in reported cases. More than 200 countries and territories are polio-free.

From the launch of the global initiative in 1988 to the eradication target date of 2005, five million people who would otherwise have been paralyzed will be walking because they have been immunized against polio. It is my hope that today we will not only pass this resolution but that we will also dedicate ourselves to meeting Rotary International's call for adequate funding for the fight against polio in 2006.

Rotary is seeking a total of $106.4 million for the polio eradication efforts of the CDC and $32 million for the polio eradication activities of USAID. This Congress should support Rotary's great work by providing those needed funds.

Rotary International shares the mission that drives so many of us in this body. Rotary International promotes world understanding through international and humanitarian service programs and educational and cultural exchanges. It is supported solely by volunteer contributions from Rotarians and others who share its vision of a better world. Since 1947, the foundation has awarded more than $1.1 billion in humanitarian and educational grants.

Again, I want to urge my colleagues to join me in passing this legislation in honoring the work and members of Rotary International for 100 years of service to humanity and for their role in improving the world. I hope over the next 100 years Rotary's membership will continue to grow and its great service will continue.

Mr. Chairman, this bill imposes a Federal parental notification requirement on the 27 States, including my own of Illinois, that either have no parental involvement law in effect, or require parental involvement but allow flexible alternatives, such as allowing an adult family member to be notified or give consent.

Since Illinois has no parental involvement law in effect, the bill will impose tough and unrealistic requirements to Illinois providers for the first time. Under the bill, doctors will be asked to comply with other State laws, verify the information provided by patients, and obtain in-person parental consents, even if the parents were abusive or guilty of incest.

To make matters worse, because this bill lacks an adequate exception for medical emergencies, Illinois doctors could be force to withhold needed medical treatment from their patients in order to comply with this Federal law.

Young people from Missouri, Indiana, and other neighboring States often travel to Illinois for safe abortion care, frequently because the nearest abortion provider happens to be located in Illinois. Yet this legislation would criminalize responsible adults.

Mr. Chairman, I stand today in strong opposition to H.R. 748, the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act. It is a direct attack on a woman's right to choose, it endangers women's health, and it forces young women facing unintended pregnancies to choose between dealing with it on their own or enlisting the help of a trusted adult who could possibly be put in jail as a result. This bill makes it a crime for anyone other than a parent, including a grandparent or a religious counselor, to accompany a minor across state lines for an abortion if the minor has not complied with her home state's mandated parental consent or notification law. This bill also makes it a federal crime for a doctor to perform an abortion on a young woman who is a resident of another state unless the doctor notifies the young woman's parent in person at least 24 hours before the procedure.

I agree that, whenever possible, minors should go to their parents for help in difficult situations. And research tells us that the majority of the time, young women do talk with their parents when making difficult decisions about pregnancy, whether their state requires parental consent for an abortion or not. Unfortunately, H.R. 748 ignores the reality of many situations where a young woman may choose not to go to her parents, possibly because she fears violence or because she was the victim of incest or because their parent is not available. Very often in those situations, young women seek help and guidance from other trusted adults in their lives, such as grandparents, aunts, and ministers. Yet, this law would deter many young women from seeking help and would instead tell them that they must deal with this situation on their own.

The reality is that CIANA will not make more young women tell their parents about a pregnancy if they do not want to, nor will it reduce or prevent abortion. What it would do is endanger the health of young women who feel they have no other choice but to seek illegal or self- induced abortions and who will be limited in their options for receiving health care. The American Medical Association has noted that ``the desire to maintain secrecy has been one of the leading reasons for illegal abortion deaths.'' The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine all oppose this bill because of the dangers they pose to young women and the need for confidential access to physicians. The coalition of health groups in their letter urging Congress to oppose this bill state, ``Our primary responsibility must be to our patients.

The potential health risks to adolescents if they are unable to obtain reproductive health services are so compelling that deference to parental involvement should not stand in the way of needed health care for patients who request confidentiality.''

This bill would force minors to delay urgent health care and, contrary to proponents' claims, infringe on the rights of parents. There is no exception to either the waiting period or the notification requirement in cases where a person is facing a serious but not life- threatening medical emergency. In a medical emergency, a young person would be forced to wait 24 hours for an abortion that could avert serious risks to her health. The abortion must be delayed even when the minor's parent accompanies her and requests medical help.

Furthermore, many young women who obtain abortions outside of their home States do so for reasons that have nothing to do with avoiding their home States' laws. The most prevalent and compelling of these reasons is the lack of abortion providers. Only 13 percent of U.S. counties have an abortion provider. Several states, in fact, have only a single provider or a provider who may be located many hours away from a young woman's home.

Lastly, CIANA violates the basic principle of federalism by attaching the laws of a woman's home State no matter where she travels in the Nation. The Supreme Court has held that States are required to make abortions available to visitors on the same legal terms under which they make them available to residents. Since Illinois has no parental involvement law in effect, this bill would impose tough and unrealistic requirements to Illinois providers for the first time. Under CIANA, doctors will be asked to comply with other State laws, verify the information provided by patients, and obtain in-person parental consent even if parents are abusive, guilty of incest or absent from the household. CIANA imposes a punitive and arbitrary federal parental notification requirement that will trump the public policy judgments of the 27 States that lack such requirements. It will mean that physicians who comply with their State's laws and provide medical care to their patients could be treated as criminals.

Make no mistake, this law is a direct threat to a woman's right to make decisions about her reproductive health. We need to see this bill for what it really is--another attempt to chip away at Roe v. Wade and deny women choice.

The Government cannot mandate healthy family communication where it does not already exist. We must face this reality and work to help teens receive the treatment, counseling, and support they need when it comes to reproductive health. I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 748 because it would endanger young women's health and force them to be alone at a time when they are most vulnerable and most in need of support from a trusted adult.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a presentation by Charles Benton, chairman of the Benton Foundation, entitled, ``Where's the Public? Media Reform in the Digital Age,'' which he gave at the Engaging in Democracy Series at Ithaca College on January 25, 2005. It is my hope that Congress will address the problems of media consolidation that Mr. Benton discusses. It is our duty to ensure that the public airwaves are meeting the public need.

``I believe the future of media and communications in America is cause for serious concern. In April 2004, I delivered this message to the Council on Foundations, and I repeat it tonight. As we move from an analog world to a digital one, we are truly at a crossroads. At stake is who controls what we see, hear, and read. At stake is our ability to get our message out and make a difference. At stake is nothing less than the health of our democracy. We all have a stake in this debate.

I come here three months after Representative Maurice Hinchey and Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps spoke to you about media concentration. Given Congressman Hinchey's representation of this district, I feel I'm visiting the people who brought the message of media ownership reform to Washington--perhaps you can think of this address as Washington reporting back.

The debate over media ownership restrictions is just the tip of an iceberg that has jolted our time-honored communications policy priorities of competition, diversity and localism. Some would say we are now rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic . . . that media concentration and consolidation are inevitable, and we will drown in a sea of commercialism. But I see it differently. I believe we are embarking on a new journey--kept afloat--and indeed propelled--by the interest, enthusiasm, and energy of a new generation of people concerned about our media future.

Collected in this hall tonight, I hope, are new enlistees in the battle to preserve, protect, and strengthen the public space in America's media environment. Beyond this hall, I hope this message is received by other committed people and organizations who will offer their time, talent, and resources to prevail in this ongoing fight.

By law, as reaffirmed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public interest. The government provides broadcasters on loan and free of charge exclusive access to a portion of the public airwaves--spectrum--for broadcasting in exchange for their commitment to serve the ``public interest, convenience and necessity.''

Under the '96 Act, the amount of spectrum given to television station owners was doubled. The policy rationale for this was to enable them to convert their signals from an analog to a digital format, thereby increasing the number and technical quality of their broadcast channels. For the spectrum needed for one analog channel, broadcasters can now simultaneously air six standard-quality digital channels or one or more high-quality high-definition channels.

When at least 85 percent of homes in a broadcasting market can receive digital signals, the spectrum currently used for analog channels is to be returned to the government for public safety uses, with some spectrum to be auctioned off. Digital television and radio make broadcasting more competitive and valuable in the market, and should enable broadcasters to better serve basic public needs. Remember that broadcasters are supposed to serve as public trustees in their use of the publicly owned airwaves. That at least is the theory on how the system is supposed to work.

Let's look now at the reality, starting with who owns the media. Today, five companies own the broadcast networks, own 90 percent of the top 50 cable networks, and produce 75 percent of all prime time programming. People of color constitute over 30 percent of America, but they own only 4.2 percent of the nation's radio stations and around 1.5 percent of TV stations. The current media landscape already shortchanges our historical commitment to competition, diversity and localism, but in June 2003, a majority of FCC commissioners voted to further weaken it. The FCC decided to relax media concentration safeguards and open the door to a fundamental reshaping of the media landscape. The action would have significantly deregulated broadcast media ownership rules, removing restrictions on the number of outlets a broadcaster could own and control. It would also eliminate ``cross ownership'' rules that prevented newspapers from buying broadcast stations and vice versa in the same community. The debate leading up to the decision sparked an unprecedented outpouring of public concern over the future of media in America.

Millions of Americans spoke out against relaxing the ownership rules--more than in any other FCC decision to date--yet the FCC acted to allow big media companies to get even bigger--reducing competition at the expense of the public's need for diverse and local content. The sense that the FCC no longer cares about protecting the public interest may have led broadcasters to believe they can get away with more commercialization without protecting the public interest.

But in June of last year, the United States Court of Appeals in Philadelphia reversed the FCC's action. This is a big, big win for diversity, competition and localism in the media, the three stated goals of the FCC. The judges ruled that preserving democracy is more important than freeing big companies to grow bigger. Perhaps the most important part of the decision is the Court's holding that the FCC improperly applied a presumption in favor of deregulation in its review of the broadcast media ownership rules. Thus, it sent the case back to the FCC for better analysis of public impact. This court action gives the public the chance to argue that ownership rules are necessary for preserving local civic discourse.

In November filings to the Supreme Court, Media General and a coalition of major TV network owners made clear that they are seriously considering challenging the Philadelphia court decision by attacking the bedrock legal rationale for regulating the nation's broadcasters-- Red Lion. In the landmark 1969 Red Lion decision, the court held that because broadcasters use a scarce government resource--the radio spectrum--to deliver programming over the air, the FCC is justified in its special regulation of the industry in the public interest. The scarcity argument justifies a range of FCC broadcast regulations, from ownership restrictions to prohibitions on indecent broadcasts. But Red Lion is used as a rationale for regulations that benefit broadcasters, too, including obligations of cable operators to carry the signals of local broadcasters.

Why risk this important commercial benefit? Broadcasters appear sick and tired of FCC regulations limiting their ability to add broadcast stations to their portfolios, regulations punishing them for off-color programming that may seem tame on cable, and regulations requiring them to serve the public interest, not just their commercial interests.

I am confident that even if the Supreme Court hears arguments launched by Media General and others against Red Lion and the ``scarcity rationale'' for broadcast regulation that the decision's underlying principles will prevail. The most important of these, according to the Supreme Court, is that the First Amendment rights of viewers are paramount.

These giant companies claim that we live in a time of unprecedented media choice: hundreds of TV and radio stations provided by terrestrial broadcasters, cable operators, satellite radio and TV systems, national and local newspapers, and. the Internet. But who owns most of this media? You know the names: Time Warner, Fox, Viacom, Disney, GE Universal. Do we really have diverse, competing and local voices?

Additionally, spectrum remains a scarce resource. Wireless telecommunications companies are willing to spend billions--some estimate up to $100 billion--to start providing services over spectrum currently used by broadcasters. Perhaps if broadcasters are willing to enter auctions for spectrum--like other users are forced to do these days--then they can be freed from what they call burdensome regulation. Until and unless they do so, they should be part of a constructive conversation to spell out their public interest obligations in the digital age.

Some responsible broadcasters are doing just that. As long-time commercial broadcaster Jim Goodmon, who served with me on a Presidential Advisory Committee that examined and made recommendations on digital broadcasters' obligations, puts it, ``The broadcast company is fulfilling a contract between itself as the user of a public asset and the public body that owns the asset. As with all contracts, both parties to the agreement need to know exactly the responsibilities that they have to each other. With minimum standards spelled out, there is no question. As a broadcaster I would like to know what is expected of me in serving the public interest. Required minimum standards and a voluntary code provide the benefit of certainty to broadcasters. I like to know what the rules are.''

Scarcity is not the only argument for regulating broadcasting. Television is ubiquitous and has become the engine of our consumer society. As former FCC Commissioner, Nicholas Johnson, used to say, ``TV programs are the flypaper to get people to watch the ads.'' Its importance in our democracy is easily highlighted by the vast amounts spent by candidates and organizations on political advertising. It is through these ads, unfortunately, not broadcasters' programming, that most voters learn about candidates and issues.

In exchange for the use of our scarce spectrum, broadcasters have a commitment to serve the ``public interest, convenience and necessity.'' These basic obligations, called public interest obligations, are critical tools that are designed to ensure that television, at least in part, serves fundamental public needs. Unfortunately the vision and the reality are often at odds.

The FCC has been working on the transition to digital television, at the behest of the nation's broadcasters, for some 20 years. Absent so far has been a comprehensive proposal for establishing public interest obligations that match digital television's capacity.

Americans everywhere have begun to realize that as broadcasters get bigger, the public's benefits are getting smaller. But there is more at stake than the impacts of media concentration and consolidation.

Television has never played a more important role in our lives. But today's television is too often out of touch with today's realities: parents struggling to find educational programming for their children, voters struggling to find basic coverage of local campaigns and elections so vital to our democracy and the effective use of television for emergency alerts to serve needs of the disabled. In each case, broadcasters have too often lost touch with the needs of the people who own the airwaves. We have the right to demand and the FCC has the mandate to ensure that television and radio stations provide programming that is in the public's interest, not just in the owners' commercial interests.

Public interest obligations are about whether our children can turn on a television and find at least three hours per week of truly educational content, about whether in an emergency our televisions can keep us alert and informed. It is about whether we can be active and intelligent participants in our democracy. It's about whether the blind and deaf can access closed captioning and video descriptors for digital works. And about whether we can work towards a day when the voices and views on our airwaves reflect the diversity of our country.

A growing number of Americans are working to ensure these public interest goals are met not just because the law says we must, but because we will be richer as a nation when we do. I hope you will join that fight. The transition from analog to digital television does not just represent a technological change, but an important opportunity to reassess whether the public's airwaves are being used to meet the public's needs.

Last year the Benton Foundation joined forces with two broad coalitions of organizations focused on delivering public dividends with the transition to digital television. Working with these groups, the FCC recently extended a requirement that broadcasters air a minimum of three hours a week of quality educational and instructional programming for children to all of their new digital channels. It is also exploring proposals that would benefit our democratic process and our society by requiring broadcasters to (1) Air a minimum of three hours per week of local civic or electoral affairs programming on the most-watched channel they operate; (2) Promote the FCC's often-stated goal of diverse viewpoints and voices on television by ensuring that independent producers provide a minimum of 25 percent of their most- watched channel's primetime schedule; and (3) Tell the public how they are serving the interests of their audiences by making this information available in a standardized hard copy and website formats.

These really are minimal requirements, but nonetheless often opposed or ignored by the broadcasters. We are arguing that it's time to put the remote control back into the public's hands and once again give the public greater control over the kind of democracy they participate in, the children they raise, and the security they deserve.

Congress, the courts, regulators and companies are continuing to make communications policy decisions. These decisions will have far-reaching consequences for competition and innovation and ultimately consumer well-being in the media marketplace. While public concern was raised over the FCC's media ownership decisions, too few individuals are aware that broadcasters are obligated to serve them--or that they can get involved in ensuring they do. For those who understand the crucial role of media in this democracy, our first task is to inform and educate the public about this debate and the right of all Americans to participate in it.

In addition to a clearer television picture, consumers need a clearer regulatory picture for how the digital television transition will impact their lives. Consumers deserve to know how broadcasters will serve their day to day television needs--healthy programming for children, healthy programming for our democracy, and healthy programming for our communities. Citizens need as much information about the TV that comes into our living rooms, as about the food that comes into our kitchens.

But to achieve these goals, parents, voters, community leaders, activists, and concerned citizens need to pick up the television policy remote control--and change the tune coming from policymakers in Washington. It takes letting policymakers know that you want reality based public interest obligations that can help make a difference in your lives.

The first product of a coalition of national and local media advocates is a Citizens' Bill of Media Rights--a positive statement of principles and goals of a media reform movement. The Bill has recently been circulated for sign-on. If my message tonight makes you want to get involved, here's the first thing you can do: Read ``Citizens' Bill of Media Rights,'' go online, and sign-on.

At the Benton Foundation, we are releasing the Citizen's Guide to the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. Our guide will serve as a primer for the organizations and people considering taking the policy remote control out of the hands of media giants and their lobbyists and returning it where it belongs--in the hands of the American people, especially in your community. Action item two: check www.benton.org for the guide.

This year in mid-May, activists, media creators, academics, and policy makers will meet for three days of learning, sharing, networking and momentum building at the 2nd 2005 National Conference for Media Reform in Saint Louis. Visit www.freepress.net for more information. Action item three: Meet Me In Saint Louis.

There are many valuable resources for keeping up to date on what's going on in media policy--let me highlight two. At the Benton Foundation, we provide a service which summarizes the top communications policy stories of the day. The service, Communications- Related Headlines, is delivered via e-mail and is also available on our web site free of charge, www.benton.org. Action item four: subscribe to Headlines.

HearUsNow.org follows Consumers Union's long tradition of promoting a fair and just marketplace by empowering consumers to fight for better and more affordable telephone, cable and Internet services or equipment. By focusing on major media, technology and communications issues and emphasizing local stories, HearUsNow.org will help explain increasingly complex issues and the connections between these issues, underscore what's at stake, and offer ways to make improvements. Action item five: Visit www.hearusnow.org. Obviously, when working against corporate interests ready to devote billions of dollars to their cause, even more resources will be needed to win the day. Last April, I delivered this message to an audience of philanthropists asking them to fund the ongoing efforts to shape our media future . . . to fund media policy research, education and advocacy. I am happy to say that there's hope coming from this important arena: The Arca Foundation board has committed $1 million-- $1.5 million per year for the next 3-5 years to a strategic media policy campaign for policy advocacy, organizing, research and content development. With Ford Foundation leadership, the Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media's new Working Group on Electronic Media Policy was formed to respond to the burgeoning interest among grantmakers to build and share knowledge about key issues in media policy, as well as undertake targeted activities to help advance the dynamic media policy field. All participants hope that this funder cooperation will result in real capacity building for the media reform field.

Several members of Congress, including Representative Hinchey, are forming a Congressional Media Reform Caucus this month to focus on media ownership, digital transition, and other media-related issues. Last year, Representative Hinchey introduced the Media Ownership Reform Act. This proposed legislation has three goals: (1) To curb the deregulatory zeal of the Republican majority at the FCC; (2) To restore the Fairness Doctrine; and (3) To reform the broadcast license renewal process and require broadcasters to report both on their public interest performance and their plans for doing so every two years. In today's political climate, the legislation may seem improbable. But most significantly, it provides a vision of where we'll be when we have true democratic media reform in this country.

Again, we're at a crossroads. Left to its own designs, the majority at the FCC will fight to allow greater consolidation in media ownership while further weakening public interest obligations. With public pressure, with your participation, we may help the FCC envision a democratic media future. In this alternative vision, we, as Americans, could have a media environment that delivers a vigorous, uninhibited marketplace of ideas. In this alternative vision, we could have a media that reflects and responds to local communities. In this alternative vision, we could have a media environment that embraces and enhances the public interest.

Wouldn't you like to be part of that debate and help shape this more democratic and more open media environment? If so, why not join us and get involved?''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, which is taking place this week, April 17 to 23, 2005.

Despite remarkable advances in cancer research, prevention, and treatment, minority groups disproportionately fall victim to cancer. In honor of this year's National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, we must make a strong commitment to support public health programs dedicated not only to improving awareness in communities of color but to finding a cure for cancer and guaranteeing access to quality health care.

Minority populations have higher chances of developing life- threatening diseases like cancer, and poorer chances of early diagnosis, optimal treatment, and survival. Minorities face significant barriers to accessing health care, including the lack of adequate health insurance; unequal access to research, clinical trials, and treatment; and cultural and linguistic barriers. This unequal treatment is an unacceptable form of discrimination. We must eliminate health disparities affecting minorities by breaking down the barriers to access to quality health care.

Minority health disparities affect all Americans. While minorities make up only about one-third of the U.S. population, they represent more than half of uninsured Americans. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, by the year 2050 nearly 1 in 2 Americans will be a member of a racial or ethnic minority. It is critical that we act now to eliminate health disparities and to reduce the number of uninsured Americans. The cost of inaction will mean more preventable illnesses and deaths, higher health care costs, and lost productivity.

As we recognize National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, I hope that we will also work to expand public outreach and education efforts, accelerate medical research, and strengthen Medicaid and other public health programs.

Finally, we must also make a commitment to provide access to affordable, comprehensive and quality health care for all Americans, regardless of their race, gender, income or geographic location. As the only industrialized nation in the world that does not guarantee access to health care as a right, it is time for a change.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor and remembrance of Steven Zourkas, devoted husband, father, brother, friend and dedicated public servant. Mr. Zourkas' commitment to the safety of residents defined his four-year tenure of outstanding public service as a police officer with the Village of Niles. He also served as an evidence technician with the North Regional Major Crimes Task Force.

Mr. Zourkas graduated from Niles North High School. A former paramedic, Mr. Zourkas joined the Niles Police Department four years ago and rose to become one of the department's top auto accident investigators. The Niles Village Board recently honored Zourkas at their March 22, 2005, meeting for helping to solve a burglary.

Friends and colleagues said they will remember Mr. Zourkas for his tremendous personality and utmost dedication to his job. Mr. Zourkas died after losing control of his police car to avoid hitting a pedestrian. Mr. Zourkas saved a man's life but in the process lost his own. Mr. Zourkas is believed to be the first Niles police officer to die in the line of duty.

Mr. Speaker and Colleagues, please join me in honor, gratitude and remembrance of Mr. Steven Zourkas. As a police officer, Mr. Zourkas dedicated his professional life to the safety of his officers and the security and safety of the entire Village of Niles. I extend my deepest condolences to his beloved wife, Ivy; his beloved sons, Andrew and John; his beloved parents, Anthony and Elaine Zourkas; his beloved brothers, Anthony and George; and also to his extended family and many friends. His courage and kindness will live on forever within the hearts and memories of his family, friends, and the public he so faithfully served.

I commend my Colleagues' attention to the article remembering Mr. Zourkas, which was published in the Niles Journal on April 13, 2005.

[From the Niles Journal, Apr. 13. 2005]

``He'll Be Sorely Missed''--Niles Police Remember First Officer To Die

in Line of Duty

(By Michael Sebastian)

During a damp and cool Tuesday morning more than 250 squad

cars from various Illinois police departments followed a

somber procession through Niles to Elmwood Cemetery in River

Grove where the first Village of Niles police officer to die

in the line of duty was laid to rest.

Niles police Officer Steven Zourkas, 33, was killed early

last Friday (Apr. 8) while traveling in his squad car west

along Golf Road. Zourkas was heading to a disturbance call

that was reportedly between a cab driver and passenger at

Omega Restaurant, 9100 W. Golf Rd., when he lost control of

his squad car and crossed over into the east bound lanes of

traffic on Golf Road. The car slid to a violent halt in the

Highland Towers condominium parking lot after it turned over

on its passenger side and struck two parked cars. The

accident, which occurred in the 8800 block of Golf Road,

snarled traffic last Friday morning for hours. Emergency

workers crowded the scene as radio and television news

helicopters hovered above.

Officials said Officer Zourkas died at the scene from

injuries associated with the accident. He was 33 years old

and a member of the Niles Police Dept. for the past four

years. He is survived by his wife and a five month old son.

Officials would only say Zourkas was from a ``far northwest

suburb.''

As accident investigators from the Cook County Sheriff's

office continue to piece the morning's events together,

reports have indicated that Zourkas swerved his squad car to

avoid a pedestrian who was stepping off the curb on Golf Road

as the officer approached. Although this could not be

confirmed with police by press time, Niles Mayor Nicholas

Blase said this pedestrian came to the Niles Police Dept.

last week to tell officials he was the man that stepped

from the curb.

Niles police Sgt. James Elenz noted last week that Zourkas

was among the department's top auto accident investigators.

Flags have flown at half staff in Niles since the tragic

accident occurred last Friday. Black and purple cloth is

draped over the entrance to the Niles Police Station, at

Touhy and Milwaukee Avenues, in honor of Zourkas. Niles

police personnel are also wearing black armbands in memory of

their fallen member.

Friday's accident marks the first time in Village of Niles

history that a police officer died in the line of duty.

Village Manager Mary Kay Morrissey said social workers and

grief counselors have been available to help those mourning

Zourkas' death. Members of the second and third shifts have

shuffled their schedules so the officers who worked with

Zourkas during the first shift, which lasts into the

morning's wee hours, can begin coping with the loss.

According to Blase, a female officer at the department is

continuing to help Zourkas' wife as she mourns the loss of

her husband.

``He was one of those very well liked policeman--

exceptionally so,'' Mayor Blase said.

Members of the police department are describing Zourkas as

man with a tremendous personality who was very dedicated to

his job.

``Everyone liked him,'' Blase said about Zourkas. ``He was

a very able guy and because of that the tragedy intensifies.

``So many people are grieving.

``He'll be sorely missed.''

The funeral held Tuesday was an appropriate send-off for

Zourkas, said Niles fire Deputy Chief Barry Mueller, who,

along with numerous others from the village, attended the

ceremonies. Two fire engines from Elmwood Park crossed their

ladders at the entrance of the cemetery in River Grove. A

large American flag was draped from the ladders. Later, about

25 bagpipers played, Mueller said.

Village Manager Mary Kay Morrissey said being part of the

enormous line of mourners driving from the funeral mass to

the cemetery was unlike anything she'd ever seen before.

Squad cars with their lights activated stretched as far as

most in the procession line could see. Blase estimated that

at least one hundred Illinois police departments, probably

more, were represented during the funeral. Some downstate

communities sent representatives to the ceremony, he said.

Streets in each community the funeral procession passed

were blocked by various police departments, officials said.

Even ramps leading to and from I-90 were blocked to make way

for the mourners.

Morrissey praised the Niles Police Dept. for organizing the

funeral during this difficult time. ``There's certain

protocol you follow when someone is killed in action,''

Morrissey explained. ``I'm very proud of the way the police

came together.''

Visitation took place at Colonial Wojciechowski Funeral

Home, 8025 W. Golf Rd., on Monday (Apr. 11). Tuesday the line

of mourners proceeded from the funeral home to St. Isaac

Jogues Church at 8149 Golf Road for a funeral mass. Various

lanes of traffic on Golf Road were blocked-off Tuesday from

about Washington Avenue to Milwaukee Avenue, according to

Morrissey. Streets leading into Golf Road were also closed,

officials said.

The funeral procession traveled from St. Isaac Jogues south

along Milwaukee Avenue to Touhy Avenue so Zourkas could once

more pass the Niles Police Dept. The car then drove along

Touhy Avenue to Cumberland then south to Belmont Avenue and

the cemetery.