Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at midnight), under its previous order, the House adjourned until today, Saturday, December 17, 2005, at 2 p.m.

Madam Speaker, I very much compliment the prime sponsor (Mr. Matheson) for this bill. This bill really does unlock a secret to very significant cash available to our seniors. This limit that we now have that is going to be removed by this bill really has no particular reason for its existence, and what we are finding is that there is a tremendous demand for these reverse mortgages because it could unlock something like $64 billion of equity that seniors have. Seniors are equity-rich but cash-poor in a lot of circumstances.

We are also finding that seniors are using these reverse mortgages in new ways, to help their grandchildren with their college education, for their recreation, as well as the obvious reasons, for health care and assisted-living facilities and the like. So this has tremendous opportunity.

I hope this is a first step in a continued program to make these mortgages more available. I am working on a bill I hope at some point will pass that will also go to a unified limitation in the dollar amount, the cap that now exists and limits the amount of equity that our seniors can get out of their homes.

Right now, some people can get access to $300,000 plus, but some are limited to under $170,000. So we hope this is a first step in a continued effort to making these reverse mortgages more available. I think seniors will be universally happy with this.

Again, I commend the prime sponsor of this, Mr. Matheson, for his leadership.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address comments made by distinguished Chairman regarding a provision of the bill that addresses the FCC's proceeding on unlicensed operation of wireless broadband devices in the vacant broadcast bands, commonly known as ``white spaces.'' I thank the Chairman Barton for recognizing the importance of additional unlicensed spectrum.

Unlicensed, wireless broadband devices have spurred entrepreneurship, technological innovation and phenomenal new capabilities for the country. Hot spots in coffee shops and airports, and wireless access in homes and offices, have made it easier and easier for people to access the Internet. These unlicensed uses have generated billions in new business for U.S.-based manufacturers, retailers and providers. However, these devices could do more to bridge the digital divide and bring more broadband choices to consumers if they could operate in spectrum below 1 GHz, (spectrum below 1 GHz propagates over greater distances and through tougher obstacles than does the spectrum being used by today's unlicensed wireless broadband devices).

Mr. Chairman, I know you are aware that in some smaller markets, only a handful television stations are actually operating. In some rural or suburban markets, there may be dozens of TV channels available for other uses. Nationwide, the white spaces offer hundreds of megahertz of spectrum for unlicensed wireless broadband devices to operate in. In its white spaces proceeding, the Commission proposes to allow unlicensed devices to operate in those spaces where the spectrum allocated to broadcast television stations is not being used, subject to the additional condition that the devices do not cause harm to licensed television broadcasters and certain other users of the spectrum. The Commission's proposal outlines possible noninterference requirements.

In response to the Chairman's point on preventing harm to broadcast signals, I would note that interference should be easily avoided, because ``smart'' unlicensed devices identify frequencies in use with ``listen-before-talk'' technology and similar capabilities. Developers and producers of equipment for wireless broadband operation in the white spaces have every incentive to demonstrate that their equipment is designed so as to prevent interference to television signals, where such signals are actually being transmitted. The reward of preventing interference is tremendous; the risk of being forced to exit a market because of an engineering mistake is equally weighty. The Commission has had this proceeding open for over a year, and meanwhile, innovation that could occur to deploy broadband to a greater number of Americans has been delayed.

In ordering the Commission to complete the white spaces proceeding within one year, my colleagues and I expect the Commission to promote robust and efficient use of vacant spectrum by unlicensed wireless broadband devices and networks. I thank the Chairman for his efforts on this issue, and I look forward to continuing to work with the Chairman to promote the use of additional unlicensed spectrum in the vacant broadcast bands.

Mr. Speaker, it is true that dogs collect fleas, and so do large fiscal year bills. This bill is no exception. I want to talk about one of those fleas infesting this bill. One of the worst infestations in this bill is a provision slipped in in the dead of night, like many of these things happen, that will essentially give away America's most pristine areas in our national forests to the special interest friends of the majority party.

There is a provision in this bill that will allow places that have been ``patented for mining,'' to be essentially given away to these special interest companies that can take our most pristine national forests, somewhere between 300,000 and 20 million acres, and

give it away to special interests, give it away to special interests and increase the deficit at the same time.

What will happen with that property? Anything the special interests of the majority party wants. It is not about mining. There is a provision in this bill that will allow your special interest friends to come into the Mount Baker National Forest in Washington, the national forest in Colorado, the national forests of California, take that property, pay the taxpayers nickels, literally nickels, and take that property away from the people that want to enjoy those national forests right now.

It is bad enough that that bill will leave future generations $1 billion of debt. You would think you would give them the Cerces to take their kids out to be able to have a picnic in the national forest, portions of which will be gone because you want to feed the rapacious appetites of your special interest friends.

This is a rip-off of American taxpayers. It is unfair to the kids that want to go up to the national forests and enjoy this property. There is no excuse for it. You are doing it in the dead of the night. You ought to be ashamed.

There is nothing sacred to the Republican Party except tax cuts. You would sell anything in America to finance your tax cuts. The Washington monument could be next. This is a shame.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express concern with report language that was included in the Fiscal Year 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations Conference Report (H. Rpt. 109-275). It is my hope that you can assist me in my efforts to seek clarification. The final conference report contains language directing the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to cease funding of an important independent scientific research center based in the Pacific Northwest, known as the Fish Passage Center. The language directs BPA and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) to transfer the functions of the Fish Passage Center in a way that ensures ``seamless continuity of activities'' without giving any

direction about how this transfer should take place.

The Northwest Power Act called for the NPCC to establish a Fish and Wildlife Program. That Program has called for BPA to fund the Fish Passage Center for the past 20 years. The data and analyses the Center has provided have been invaluable to the States and tribal fishery managers of the Columbia Basin. BPA should be clear that this report language does not supersede the NW Power Act or the specific provisions in the NPCC's present Fish and Wildlife program calling for a number of key functions to be performed. I certainly would assume that BPA will ensure that the State and tribal fishery managers will have input into how the Center is reconstituted and will take actions to ensure that the fishery managers continue to receive the same independent analyses they have in the past.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I guess the question then comes down to what the definition of ``know'' is then. Is that really the problem?

I know what the Vice President meant by ``know.'' It was clear from any fair reading of this situation that when a person knows that the person they are trying to punish was an agent for the CIA and was involved in giving that information to a subordinate who destroyed the career and outed a security agent of the United States Government, and then would not want the public to know he was involved in that despicable act, he would say ``I do not know Joe Wilson,'' even though he knew Joe Wilson's name, what his wife did for a living, that she worked for the CIA, and, if he disclosed that, it would destroy her career and out an intelligence agent of the United States of America.

He may not have known him and shaken hands with him, but he departed from the truth on a most grievous matter involving the intelligence service of the United States of America.

Well, Mr. Speaker, if I may, speaking from the State of Washington, what is happening right now is that a young man that I watched growing up, my neighbor's son, I watched him growing up, playing football, spunky, hard-working young man, he is due to go to Baghdad in January; and we all are obviously concerned about it. He is proud of his service. We are proud of his service. We wish the best for him. But it gives a personal dimension to what we are talking about here tonight. Because the reason that this young man that I watched grow up is going into the killing fields of Baghdad is because an administration started a war based on false information.

So this is a very personal matter as well as a public matter in my neighborhood; and it seems to me that, under those circumstances, for him and his mother and his father and his neighbors and all of the other young sons and daughters that could be in Iraq for we do not know how long, this administration owes it to come clean with the American people to tell us how this debacle happened, that they sent our sons and daughters into war based on a falsehood.

They have not done that yet. They have not come clean. And I want to note why this is so important.

I just had dinner with the Chief of Operations for the U.S. Navy, and one of the things we talked about was the need to improve our human intelligence. It has been debased over the years. We have just lost the spies, the old-fashioned spies we have had; and we thought we could do it all electronically. That does not work.

We talked about the need to increase our human intelligence, to do old-fashioned networks of spies. What does it do to our ability to recruit spies when it comes out that the Chief of Staff of the Vice President of the United States, at least under this assertion, was involved with outing the intelligence agency of the United States, which also exposes every single person that Ms. Plame had dealt with when she was overseas. Everyone she had ever met is now under suspicion as well.

What does that do to our ability to recruit new spies internationally? And what does it do to the sons and daughters we are sending to Iraq?

The administration still has not come clean. And let me just make a suggestion for the administration's own benefit, for their own benefit. We have seen this same error repeated over and over again, of administrations that get their hand caught in the cookie jar. What do they do? They get in the bunker. They start trying to hide the ball. They do not come clean. And these things drag out for years.

You know, if the Vice President or President had come forward 2 years ago and said, this is how this happened. This is where the intelligence came from. This is what Scooter Libby said. This is what Karl Rove said. I insist that they tell the truth, and I am going to insist on that or I am going to fire them on the spot. Forget the grand jury. This could have been over with 2 years ago. Instead, we are here talking about it tonight.

Now I want to mention one other thing I think is important in this. We are not sitting here as some criminal tribunal. We are Congressmen and women. We are not jurors. There is this grand jury and this pending indictment. There is a presumption of innocence. Mr. Libby is still presumed innocent in the eyes of the law, and I am going to treat it as such.

But what we are here to do is to make sure that if an administration, Republican or Democrat, tells us tomorrow that Iraq has nuclear weapons and we have to do something about it, that we can trust our administration with this information.

And I got to tell you, I cannot trust my executive branch of the Federal Government now to tell me what is going on in Iraq, Syria or Korea or anywhere else, because the President still has not come clean fully about what happened in Iraq, and that is very, very important.

I used to prosecute cases. I was a prosecutor, just misdemeanors. They were not higher-level felony cases. But I learned one thing in talking to police officers, and that was that there are certain things when you watch people that can indicate that they are up to no good, and one of those things is what is called furtive behavior. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) is an old prosecutor. He knows about this.

Furtive behavior means when somebody does something that looks they are trying to hide. When you do something that looks like you are trying to hide, it makes you think that person thinks that they have something to hide, which suggests that they are up to no good.

Well, let me suggest that there are two things that give me a little pause here. Mr. Libby, when he was talking to all of those reporters, according to Judith Miller, Judith Miller said that Mr. Libby said, hey, when you identify me as the inside source of all of this information, do not identify me as Chief of Staff of the Vice President, or even the executive branch, call me an ex-Congressional staffer.

Now if that is not furtive behavior I do not what is.

The second thing that causes me pause is that on September 14, 2003, we have got it up on one of those charts, Tim Russert, who is interviewing the Vice President of the United States, asks the Vice President, says, Mr. Wilson came back from Niger and said that in fact he could not find any documentation that in fact Niger had sent uranium to Iraq or engaged in that activity and reported back to the proper

channels. Were you briefed on his findings in February or March of 2002?

Vice President Cheney responds, no, I do not know Joe Wilson. I never met Joe Wilson.

Now, why wouldn't the Vice President of the United States of America just tell the truth and say, yes, I know Joe Wilson. We looked into some issues. I had Libby look at it. Why would he not come out and tell the truth? Instead, what he says is, I do not know Joe Wilson, which we now know, according to Mr. Libby, assuming that is accurate, according to the indictment, the Vice President is the one that told Mr. Libby about Joe Wilson. Yet 3 months later we have the Vice President of the United States telling America he did not know Joe Wilson.

Now this causes me pause as an old prosecutor. And this is not a criminal matter. From my basis, we should not be wrapped about the axle of criminality but we should insist that Americans be able to trust the administration when it comes to war and peace; and we do not have that level of trust right now.

We need the cooperation of the President of the United States and the Vice President to come clean about what happened here and ask and answer questions that both Congress has, which they have refused to do, that is why we have the other Chamber wrapped up in this issue today, and ask questions that we ask essentially of the President and the Vice President. America deserves that.

Mr. Speaker, I suppose we should feel ourselves fortunate that the administration, after the failures in Katrina, did not out some other intelligence agent, one of their critics. So I do not know if they have learned their lesson or not. I should not be facetious about such an important thing.

Let me ask a question on this. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) points out accurately, imagine the incredible high level of energy that the highest level of government in the United States, what they were focused on when the truth came out that they told something untrue about the uranium yellow cake in the State of the Union. What did they do? Instead of saying, let us get to the bottom of how this happened so it does not happen again, the first thing they did is say we are going to attack our critics and we are going to attack them by outing the wife of one of the critics. We are going, as you indicated, to spend this enormous amount of energy.

Karl Rove, Chief of Staff to the President of the United States, is it the most important thing he can do is try to destroy the credibility of Joe Wilson who wrote what turned out to be a true article for the New York Times? Is it the best use of time for the Chief of Staff for the Vice President of the United States to organize this sophisticated campaign to smear Mr. Wilson?

Why was it they were willing to make this such a high-priority issue? I think there is a clear answer to that.

The reason that they were so concerned about this is that they realized that their case for war on Iraq was built on this sort of one- legged stool of the mushroom cloud. What they figured out was that the vision, the image of the mushroom cloud could scare Americans so badly that they could win the right to go to this war. Once that was gone, their justification for the war was gone. It was imperiled once the truth came out, because the only thing they had was this uranium yellow cake which was shown to be a fraud.

How do I know it was a fraud? It was not Mr. Wilson. By the way, some people have said Mr. Wilson's report did not show that; it was inaccurate. Well, hogwash. The President of the United States retracted the 16 words from his State of the Union speech once Mr. Wilson blew the whistle. They would not have retracted it unless it was wrong, and it was wrong, and they finally retracted it, but then they went on to smear Wilson.

I want to make a couple of comments about Joe Wilson, and the reason I do so is he has made clear it is not about Joe Wilson. This issue, he is not the important element here. It is the security of the American people and preventing the deterioration of our security service. That is the important thing.

But this administration you would think they would learn to quit attacking their critics after this has caused all this damage to the administration, but, no, they still have their hound dogs out there attacking Joe Wilson, still trying to damage his credibility and say he is the lowest form of life on the planet.

I want to say two things about this guy, and I got to know him a little bit about this. He came out and spoke in Seattle about the Iraq situation.

During the first Iraq War, he was our last foreign service agent out of Baghdad. The very last representative of the United States who left Iraq was Joe Wilson. I tell you two little stories about him, what kind of guy he is.

I ran into a Foreign Service worker by accident on a bus heading to an airplane about 3 months ago who told me that, in the weeks leading up to the first Persian Gulf War, she had a family who came and had some children who were in possession of a stepfather in Mosul. She called Joe Wilson and said, can you help me make sure these kids are okay? She said, I know I am asking you a lot because right now the war could break out at any moment. There is chaos on the roads. Security forces were already in Iraq. Joe Wilson personally made sure that kid was okay at risk to his own life, and he did not tell me that story. I just ran into this Foreign Service worker who told me about it.

The second thing, when Joe Wilson called all the Americans in Baghdad just in the few days before the bombings started and said, I want to try to get you out of the country, Saddam Hussein told Joe Wilson, I will kill anybody who tries to get an American out of here. He did not say so. Obviously, he wanted to maybe hold them hostage. That is a direct statement to you. You better leave those people here. Joe Wilson got those people into a building in Iraq, and it was not widely reported, but put a noose around his neck physically and said, Saddam Hussein, you can come get me because I am taking my people home. He took every single American home. Not a single American was lost to the depravations to that madman thug Saddam Hussein.

I have to tell you I have some respect for Joe Wilson. He stood up to Saddam Hussein, and he stood up to Karl Rove, and I think it took some degree of courage to do both. It was a despicable act of Karl Rove, or whoever is responsible for this, to go after him, after he stood up for America against Saddam Hussein, to destroy the career of his wife and put in danger other security agents of this country.

Karl Rove messed with the wrong guy when he took on Joe Wilson, and I think that is something Americans ought to know.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Just a couple of comments, Mr. Speaker. I want to applaud our Republican colleagues. I am told now there are a couple of Republicans in the other Chamber who are willing to see to it that the American people get this report from the Senate committee about the White House involvement and this misinformation. I think that is very important, and I applaud our Republicans in the Chamber who are standing up to do that.

But I want to mention why that is so very important. The gentlewoman from Florida talked about the fact that Valerie Plame was, in fact, an undercover agent; but I think it is really important to realize what she was working on. Her specialty was trying to suppress weapons of mass destruction. That was her specialty in the CIA.

What a great irony of it that here is a woman who dedicated her professional life to try to suppress the expansion of weapons of mass destruction, and yet she gets attacked and her career destroyed because the administration used bogus information in their State of the Union to assert there was a weapon of mass destruction when the evidence itself showed there was not. And I think her career ought to be respected.

And, by the way, I mentioned this admiral I was talking to today. We talked about the need for spies for the intelligence agency. I was not talking about this specific situation. But this bottom line is about the security interest of the United States, and both Republicans and Democrats ought to care about that, and both Republicans and Democrats ought to be behind getting to the bottom of this. That has not happened and it ought to.

Mr. Speaker, Mark Twain once observed that mankind is the only species that feels shame or needs to. That thought crossed my mind when I was reading about this corrupt effort to punish Ambassador Joe Wilson who told the truth and blew the whistle on the administration's misinformation about the Iraq war. Apparently in the grand jury testimony Judith Miller said, ``She agreed to Libby's request to be cited in stories as a `former Hill staffer,' a rather deceptive description for the Vice President's Chief of Staff.''

Well, the Los Angeles Times got it right. It was deceptive, and there was a reason. Anyone who would participate in any way to punish an American for blowing the whistle on the President's misstatements should feel shame. Obviously, Mr. Libby did feel shame and that is why he hid from the public, or attempted to, that he was actually part of the administration that attempted to punish an American for telling the truth.

We should not wait for the grand jury. This President should root out the corruption and discharge the people responsible for these misdeeds.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I acknowledge the students and staff of Bertschi School in Seattle, WA, for sending heartfelt greetings to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I traveled to Houston to visit the evacuees who were housed in the Astrodome. I brought handwritten letters from citizens of my home town, Bainbridge Island, WA, and handed them out as I met so many courageous individuals who had lost everything; their homes, their jobs, their belongings, and in some cases, their families, during their hurried evacuation of New Orleans. As I handed out the letters written by citizens who live thousands of miles away, I witnessed how meaningful these words of compassion and support were to these displaced Americans.

Students at the Bertschi School in Seattle, WA, read about my trip and the positive impact the letters had on the hurricane victims and they wrote to me, asking if they could also send letters to families during my next visit with hurricane evacuees. While I was not able to return to Houston with their letters, I did have the pleasure of reading over their beautiful and inspirational words and art work before the letters made their way to Texas Children's Hospital, where some of the youngest hurricane victims were relocated.

It is among the greatest honors as a Member of the House of Representatives that I have an opportunity to meet and work with young people who are involved in their communities and who are deeply committed to making our country and our world a better place. Our future depends on these young people, who are capable of reaching out and showing support for their fellow citizens.

Though the students of Bertschi School are only in their elementary years, they already have a deep sense of civic pride and connectedness to the greater world and feel they have something to offer, even if it is, as in this case, sharing words of encouragement and compassion.

I commend the students and staff of Bertschi School for their efforts and wish them continued success in the years ahead.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a giant missed opportunity. We had an opportunity to do something significant. Kennedy said we were going to go to the Moon in 10 years; this bill will not get us to Cleveland. And the reason is it invests in old technology. Did Kennedy challenge the country to invest in propeller plane technology? Here we are simply investing in oil fossil fuel technology, a giveaway to the oil and gas industry of millions and billions of dollars of taxpayer money.

We need a new Apollo energy project. H.R. 2828 will get us there with new technologies and fuel-efficient cars, new technologies and new productive capabilities in wind and solar and wave power and a whole slew of other things. We need new ideas, we need a new vision, not an old giveaway to oil and gas.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is one small misstep for man and one giant leap backwards for mankind, and it should be defeated.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the offset of this legislation. I obviously applaud the extension of transitional medical assistance, which provides health insurance for people leaving welfare and going back to work. This is obviously a great thing to do. I believe, however, it is dangerous to allow 435 Members of Congress, most of whom lack medical training, to pick and choose among which illnesses and which treatments should be deemed acceptable under those provisions.

There are thousands of physicians across this country that have recognized, for instance, the need for ED medicine, not as a recreational activity but as part of living a normal adult life. We also set up a potentially dangerous precedent by allowing Members to pick and choose individual treatments that they feel do not serve sufficient medicinal purposes.

Today, it is a medicine for ED, but should we choose to go down this road, next year we could be having the same debate about mental health treatments or biologics deemed too expensive. This is not the place for these decisions. This is a conversation for doctors to be having with their patients.

I find it worrisome we are on the verge of using the doctor's office as a setting for interjecting our preferred social policies where they do not belong. Doctors today prescribe ED medicine because it treats a serious medical disease that can lead to divorce and depression. ED is a common side effect of prostate cancer surgery and diabetes, and it affects millions of men nationwide which, in turn, can affect their families. There is not just an issue of men; it is a family issue.

This is an attempt to interject a political viewpoint into a personal decision that should be made by a doctor and a patient, and I hope we respect that personal decision more in the future.

Mr. Speaker, the House has voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), a historic measure first passed in 1994. It marked when our country finally recognized that domestic violence is not a private family matter, but a national problem that requires a national response. Since VAWA passed, victims of domestic violence have more options to leave abusive relationships, local communities have developed critical programs to assist victims, and our criminal justice system has become better trained in prosecuting these unique crimes.

However, it is always the incident that happens in your backyard that will highlight the scope of a problem, such as domestic violence. In 2003, the state of Washington State became the focus of a national tragedy. Many have read in the papers the heartbreaking story of how, on April 26, 2003, Crystal Brame was shot in a grocery store parking lot by her husband, David Brame, chief of police for the city of Tacoma. Crystal Brame died one week later, and David Brame committed suicide at the scene.

In response to this tragedy, people in the state of Washington swiftly formed a statewide task force of domestic violence, law enforcement, and criminal justice system experts to determine the best practices for law enforcement agencies, focusing on prevention, training, enforcement, and response. Crystal's death and the state's response, illustrated that despite the progress since VAWA passed in 1994, tragedies of domestic violence live in our communities today, and that we must continue to work towards new solutions.

I think we can do a better job helping people like Crystal, whose abuser happened to be in a profession that responds to crimes of domestic violence. I have hopes that my colleagues will help put a stop to such tragedies and work with Mr. Norm Dicks, Mr. Adam Smith, and Mr. Dave Reichert, and me to commission a study by the Department of Justice to learn more about such incidences and the best response to officer-involved domestic violence. Ending domestic violence is an ongoing effort, and I have seen great improvements to this end. I would like to see an even stronger commitment so that other communities can prevent tragedies--like that of Crystal Brame from happening in their backyard.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address my comments to the Members who do have serious concerns about the Endangered Species Act who have had frustrations from their citizens about its application, but still believe that we ought to have a workable Act, and I want to suggest that voting for this bipartisan substitute and ``no'' on the Pombo bill will really satisfy their needs for five reasons.

Reason number one, the substitute bill will make a significant change to reduce the amount of frustration that landowners feel by moving the listing process of habitat from the time of listing to a time of the development of the recovery plan. And the reason this will alleviate much frustration by landowners is it will allow these services to make a more acute and scientifically sound judgment where this land needs to be listed for habitat and will relieve significant frustration of landowners.

Second, the substitute will make sure that we try to use public land first when we try to protect habitat to take care of these species.

Third, and importantly, it will have a conservation grant program to allow the use of federal funds to help private landowners who will agree to use their lands to help in the preservation of these species.

These are three very significant changes to the Environmental Protection Act which will help property owners avoid some of the frustration that now exist while still moving forward with the purposes of this Act.

But we then need to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill for these two reasons: First, the underlying bill is a massive entitlement program that could be subject to massive fraud because the language is so loose and so speculative, we would be expecting the American taxpayers to shell out literally millions of dollars on highly speculative developments. When a developer comes in there, buys up land that is used for a wheat field and says he wants to put in a strip club or a casino, American taxpayers, under the underlying bill,

would now have to pay entitlement funds where there is no money in this bill appropriated to do it, or even especially authorized for these highly speculative enterprises. Why should the taxpayers have to pay for this flim-flam type of speculation?

And, by the way, nowhere in American law is any taxpayer required in any jurisdiction in this country to do that right now. This is a radical change which exposes the taxpayers to millions of dollars of loss that is not required by the U.S. Constitution and makes no common sense.

And second and lastly, very importantly, the underlying bill provides no enforceable protection for the habitat of these species. Sure, it says that the agencies have to draw these maps, but what is a map if they do not have to follow the map? Five reasons. Members can vote for this with honor, go home and tell their constituents this they have relieved their frustration and protected these species and protected the taxpayers. Respect for the taxpayers and respect for God's creatures at the same time.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is appropriate to refer to the first Endangered Species Act in Genesis. ``Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you, the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground, so that they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it.''

Are we acting in the spirit of Noah when we purport to vote, some may vote, for a bill that would prevent protecting the bald eagle from pesticides, when DDT almost removed it from the treasure-trove of American icons? Are we acting in the spirit of Genesis? I think Americans think we are not. When we act to remove any meaningful enforcement provisions to protect the habitat, are we acting in the spirit of Genesis? Americans think not.

What is a fish without a river? What is a bird without a tree to nest in? What is an Endangered Species Act without any enforcement mechanism to ensure their habitat is protected? It is nothing. This is not a modernization of the Act, this is a euthanization of the Act, and I will tell you why.

The underlying bill says that we are going to have these maps of habitat that will be developed, and that is a wonderful thing. And under the bill, as written, the maps will hang on the walls of these agencies in beautiful pink and blue, and the Cub Scouts and the Girl Scout Troops can come through and look at the beautiful maps. But it has one missing thing. If we pass this underlying bill, we would have removed any single legal enforcement mechanism that those maps had whatsoever. The bipartisan amendment will say that those maps have some degree of teeth.

This underlying bill is a chimera. It is a total falsehood to say it does the first thing for habitat because there is no enforcement mechanism for those maps.

I want to tell my colleagues of a woman who was in my office the other day. She wants habitat protection so she can see those salmon. And just to make sure no one thinks this is just some esoteric thing, her name is Gail and she lives in Miller Bay in Washington State, Kitsap County. She told me about the thrill of seeing the salmon going up the stream on Miller Bay, and they do that because we have an enforceable mechanism to protect habitat. She knows that if we pass this bill, we will remove the ability to protect the streams. We remove the enforcements mechanisms.

Mr. Chairman, that is why we need to do this substitute, which has a better way of identifying habitat in the recovery process so we do not have this frustration with the landowners, so we do not waste 3 years just bothering landowners and not recovering species, but we have a mechanism to get this job done.

I want to reiterate what the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks) suggested. To suggest that an Act that saves 99 percent of the species from extinction is a failure is not a way to keep score. If you want to know how to do more, let us make sure that the executive branch enforces this law. Clinton listed 500. The first Bush listed 250. This administration has done zero without a court order.

Let us pass the substitute bill and reject this underlying bill. Honor creatures, honor the taxpayer, honor yourself.

Mr. Chairman, what possible reason is there for taxpayers to have to pay three, four times for the same protection of endangered species?

Under the bill as written, the taxpayer would have to pay a landowner once for the privileges of not building the casino. That landowner could then sell it to his brother. The taxpayer has to pay his brother a second time for the same project. His brother could sell it to his cousin, and the taxpayer would have to pay a third time for the same casino. This is a failure in drafting. Reject this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the Chair's assistance on this.

We are offering this amendment in an attempt to address an inequity in the committee's clear desire, it is the committee's clear desire to have operation and maintenance costs available as outlined in the Maritime Transportation Security Act for coverage under this grant program.

After talking with the Congressional Research Service and with the Department of Homeland Security, it is clear that, at a practical level, on the ground at our ports, these costs, including overtime compensation for State patrol officers, are not being covered, despite the committee's best efforts.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, responds to legislation passed by the Committee on Appropriations and takes a narrow view that operations and maintenance costs are not eligible to be covered.

I believe that the chairman is of a like mind and believes that operations and maintenance costs during times of increased alert, expenses like extra operators for screening equipment, overtime for security officers, and additional K-9 bomb units, should be eligible for reimbursement by the Federal Government. I am asking for the chairman's help in addressing these issues.

These Federal security mandates place an undue burden on our ports, which are part of the lifeblood of our economy. We need to help them.

I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Yes.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. Chairman, that is the thrust of the amendment.

I yield to the gentleman from Alaska.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the gentleman from Alaska's (Mr. Young) comment.

I would yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo) if he wanted to make a further comment, but the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) seems to have covered the map.