Floor Statements

I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. And I wasn't planning to debate this; I just happened to be walking through the Chamber and I heard what you were saying. People are entitled to their opinions, but they're not entitled to misquote what the bill does, which is what I've been hearing.

First of all, it is quite correct, as the gentlelady from New Mexico said, that the FISA law needed to be updated.

I will say two things. Number one, the RESTORE Act, the bill that was pulled from the floor, number one takes care of that technological problem, just as the bill that was passed in August does, by updating and making clear that foreign-to-foreign communications that come through a server in the United States do not need a warrant. So that's not an issue because this bill does it.

Second of all, let me just make the two points. And second of all, I think I heard you say, both of you, somebody here, that if you were tapping some terrorist abroad and he called into the United States and you heard him talk about terrorism with somebody in the United States, that you could not tap that, you could not use that information. That's simply not true.

Will the gentleman yield at this point?

I can't because I don't know that. I don't know that. Presumably sometime in the next 2 weeks. But would you yield now?

Thank you. Two points. One, what was just said about that motion to recommit, the contents of the motion to recommit, that nothing shall be construed as barring, tapping or wiretapping, whatever the language was, bin Laden, Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, et cetera, was completely unobjectionable. Indeed, it was totally superfluous. Had that motion said the motion is to recommit the bill to committee to amend it to include these words, and to report the bill back forthwith so we could have continued the debate, we would have accepted that amendment. We would have said fine. It doesn't change anything. Fine.

But, as you know, the amendment said report back promptly, which would have entailed at least a 2-week delay. That's why the bill was pulled, not because of the subject matter, but because of the word ``promptly.''

I will answer to the best of my knowledge. I don't know what we're doing now. I'm not part of the leadership. And as I said, I just happened to be walking here. I don't know why the bill isn't back here now. But I know it will be in the next week or so.

Yes. The language was unobjectionable.

Had it said forthwith, it would have been, and I shouldn't speak for the leadership but that's what they were saying at the time, we would have accepted it. But because it said promptly, which the Parliamentarians have told us would entail a considerable delay.

Well, we found out, by the way we thought the Senate was going to pass the bill the next day. It turns out they haven't got their act together, so we have a little more time.

Yes, it was going to pass a different bill. We wanted to pass a bill before they did, so that's why we were in a hurry.

But getting back to the point we said a few minutes ago, I don't have the benefit of the language. I know you have it there from the manager's amendment which I haven't seen, or the context. But I do know the following: The whole point, Admiral McConnell is quite correct when he says, obviously, if you're tapping whoever in a foreign country, you don't know who he's going to call. You're tapping that one point. You're tapping Mohammed in Karachi because you know that he, you suspect he's a terrorist that's involved. If he calls someone else abroad no one thinks you need a warrant or anything else. Under the bill, if he calls someone in the United States, either you hear it, you can't help hearing it. Either that conversation is innocent or it's involved with something that makes you suspicious of terrorism. If it's innocent, you have to engage in minimization procedures so you don't unduly and inadvertently violate the privacy of some American for an innocent conversation. If it's not innocent, then you, with that information, you can continue listening and if necessary you can get a warrant. And that's the general design of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this bill which contains many excellent provisions. But I would like to thank Chairman Oberstar and Subcommittee Chairman Costello, in particular, for including in the manager's amendment two provisions that are particularly important to me.

The first requires the FAA to conduct a study to determine if temperature standards are necessary to protect crew members and passengers from excessive heat on board aircraft. We've all heard the news reports about passengers on planes grounded for hours sometimes in the heat without fresh air and necessary supplies.

The Association of Flight Attendants reports that many crew members have had to work in dangerously high temperatures during ground operations for long periods of time with no ability to obtain relief.

Now, this is not just a matter of discomfort. Heat-related illness can be severe, can even lead to death, particularly for sensitive populations.

My first inclination was to require that the temperature in the aircraft must not exceed 80 degrees during ground operations, but various operational issues make it clear that such a requirement would be premature. I hope that this study will inform Congress of what options are available to us and that it will force the FAA to take seriously this serious problem.

The second provision would mandate the FAA to complete a study of the cabin air quality that we required in the last FAA reauthorization bill passed in 2003. Aircraft in the current commercial fleet are equipped with air circulation systems that bleed air off the engines and are subject to contamination of the air by engine oil and hydraulic fluids. We continue to hear reports from crew members and passengers who have developed long-term neurological problems after documented exposure to oil smoke in the cabin or on the flight deck. In the last reauthorization bill, we included a study to sample and analyze the air on board the cabin aircraft. Unfortunately, the FAA never completed the study.

My preference, again, would be to set standards for cabin air quality now or to require that aircraft use certain filters that can clean the outside air more efficiently. But every time we raise this issue, we hear that the problem has not been properly documented. It is time, and this bill requires that the FAA complete this research.

I would like to thank Mr. Oberstar and Mr. Costello for their support of these provisions and for including them in the manager's amendment. I look forward to working with my colleagues to advance these critical workplace and consumer protections, so that people can breathe the air and not faint from the heat. And I urge support for this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be in Washington, DC on September 10, 2007 when the House considered H. Res. 643, commemorating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I ask that the Record reflect that had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall vote No. 866.

It is hard to believe that 6 years have passed since that fateful day when terrorists struck the World Trade Center in my district in New York, and hijacked planes that crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. September 11th exposed significant vulnerabilities in our homeland security, and much of the last 6 years has been spent trying to fill these holes and make us more secure.

I am proud of the progress we have made to address homeland security, Earlier this year, Congress passed H.R. 1 finally implementing all of the 9/11 Commission recommendations. Included in that bill was a provision I championed to fill the gaps in our port security system. This provision requires that within five years every shipping container must be scanned before coming to the United States so that terrorists cannot smuggle deadly weapons into this country through our ports. H.R. 1 also created a new rail and transit security program, increased risk- based homeland security grant funding, included measures to secure loose nuclear material overseas, and required 100 percent screening of air cargo.

Despite the progress that has been made, we still have not fulfilled our moral obligation to the victims of the September 11th terrorist attack, which includes not just the people who

live and work and go to school in the area around Ground Zero, but also the emergency response workers who came from all over the country to aid in the recovery and who are now sick as a result of exposure to World Trade Center toxic dust.

This week, I, along with Congresswoman Maloney and Congressman Fossella introduced essential, new legislation that ensures that everyone exposed to World Trade Center toxins, no matter where they may live now or in the future, would have a right to high-quality medical monitoring and treatment, and access to a re-opened Victim Compensation Fund for their losses. Whether you are a first responder who toiled without proper protection; or an area resident, worker or student who was caught in the plume or subject to ongoing indoor contamination; if you were harmed by 9/11, you would be eligible. This bill builds on the best ideas brought to Congress thus far and on the infrastructure already in place providing critical treatment and monitoring.

What is also troubling is that 6 years have passed, and the Environmental Protection Agency has yet to conduct a comprehensive testing and cleanup program to remove World Trade Center dust from area buildings. A recent GAO report confirms the horrible reality that to this day, due to their negligence and inaction, the EPA cannot say with certainty that even a single building in the area is free of World Trade Center contamination. As such, we cannot know how many more people will become sick because of lingering environmental toxins in their homes, workplaces and schools. The Administration must act immediately to design and implement a new, proper testing and cleaning program.

For many of us, the effects of 9/11 are always present in our hearts and minds. But I hope that the 9/11 anniversary will serve as a reminder to others that we must fulfill our moral obligation to remove the threat of 9/11 contamination and to provide health care for those who are sick as a result of it. My colleagues and I will not stop fighting until this obligation is met.

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

Mr. Speaker, 1 week ago today, we marked the sixth anniversary of the tragic events of September 11, 2001. I appreciate the opportunity to speak today about an issue that faces not just my district, where the attack on the United States occurred, where the World Trade Center once stood, but our entire Nation.

I am honored to be here today to support legislation sponsored by Carolyn Maloney and myself and others. Carolyn has been such a strong advocate for the living victims of 9/11.

I also want to thank Chairmen George Miller and Frank Pallone for the recent hearings they have held on this issue, one last week and one earlier today.

I am pleased to announce that yesterday, along with Congresswoman Maloney and others, I introduced essential new legislation that would ensure that everyone exposed to World Trade Center toxins, no matter where they live now or in the future, would have a right to high- quality medical monitoring and treatment and access to a reopened victim compensation fund for their losses.

Whether you are a first responder who toiled without proper protection, who came to help in the rescue and recovery from New York, from elsewhere in New York or from elsewhere in the country, or whether you're an area resident worker or student who was caught in the plume, or subject to ongoing indoor contamination, if you were harmed by the environmental effects of 9/11, you would be eligible.

This bill builds on the best ideas brought to Congress thus far, and on the infrastructure already in place providing critical treatment and monitoring.

Mr. Speaker, when the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the towers sent up a plume of poisonous dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey. A toxic cloud of lead, dioxin, asbestos, mercury, Benzene, PCBs, PAHs and other hazardous contaminants swirled around the site and around Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn and Jersey City as rescue workers labored furiously in the wreckage, many without adequate protective gear. Thousands of first responders inhaled this poisonous dust before it settled onto and into countless homes, shops and office buildings where it remains to this day.

Mr. Speaker, I've always said that there were two coverups conducted here, two coverups conducted by the administration. The first coverup was that the air was okay, that no one would get sick from the exposure to World Trade Center dust at or near Ground Zero. The administration denied the air was toxic and insisted that no one would get sick. They lied. They lied deliberately to the American people, to the people of New York, to the first responders. They said the air was safe, when they had test results saying it was toxic. As a result, tests at Mt. Sinai Hospital published in a peer reviewed medical study just about a year ago revealed that of the 10,000 first responders tested, over 70 percent suffer

from lung disease at this point, or at least as of last year. We have seen this in test after test and study after study. All the literature goes in the same direction. Thousands of people are sick who need not have been sick. Thousands of people are sick because the administration lied, and because OSHA failed to do its job.

Mr. Speaker, there was air pollution at the site of the Pentagon attack on this country also. But OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enforced the law. Nobody was permitted to work on the site without wearing proper respiratory protective gear, as the law demands.

Mr. Speaker, nobody is suffering lung damage or respiratory disease today as a result of participating in the rescue and recovery efforts at the Pentagon. But in Lower Manhattan, somebody made a deliberate decision not to enforce the occupational safety and health laws. OSHA did not enforce the laws. People were permitted on the site without respirators. Indeed, public officials went to the site and wore only masks, paper masks, which were worse than useless, we are told by the scientists. Many workers worked without respirators. Many workers had no access to respirators. Police officers have testified they had no access to respirators.

Many workers who did have access to respirators believed the assurances they got that the air was safe and didn't use the respirators because they got in the way of the work. The result is, thousands of people are sick and some are dead, unnecessarily, as a result of the malfeasance, the deliberate malfeasance of the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, two things establish a moral obligation on the Federal Government. One, the people who were hurt, the people who are sick as a result of participating in the clean up, the people who are sick as a result of living in Lower Manhattan or working in Lower Manhattan, the government workers who returned to government offices in the Securities and Exchange Commission or other government agencies and worked there before the buildings had been cleaned and are now sick as a result, are sick for two reasons. They are sick because of the terrorist attack on this country, and they are sick because their government lied to them and urged people to go back into unsafe environments and told people things were safe when they weren't.

We owe, the Federal Government owes a moral debt to all these victims. Because they are victims of a terrorist attack on this country, the words of Abraham Lincoln apply. Abraham Lincoln said that it is the duty of all of us to care for him who shall have borne the battle. The people who are sick today with deadly illnesses, with long- term illnesses, are just as much victims of the terrorists as those 3,000 people who were killed on 9/11, and the United States Government owes them long-term health care, monitoring and treatment because they are victims of the attack on the United States. Al Qaeda didn't attack them individually. They attacked United States. They happen to be the individual victims.

Secondly, they are victimized because, many of them, perhaps most of them would not have gotten sick if the Federal Government had not lied to them and if the Federal Government had not decided not to enforce the occupational safety and health laws. That too establishes a moral obligation to care for the victims of the Federal malfeasance.

Now, that is all the first coverup. But as a result of the Mt. Sinai study, as a result of other studies that have come out all within the last year as a result of some newspaper reports, that coverup has unraveled. Almost nobody today still maintains that these people aren't sick as a result of 9/11. The only question is how best to deal with that sickness.

And the answer, we believe, is that the Federal Government should adopt the bill, Congress should adopt the bill that Congresswoman Maloney and I and others introduced that provides two things: one, reopen the victims compensation fund for people whose health was damaged, who weren't immediately killed, but whose lives were perhaps shortened, whose health was damaged as a result of 9/11 of the attack on our country.

And, secondly, provide for long-term medical monitoring and treatment through the centers of excellence, through the institutions that have treated people and through a network of institutions that would be, not formed, but would be brought into a network around the country that would be fed the latest data on diagnosis and treatment. So this legislation ought to be adopted.

Secondly, Senator Clinton and I have introduced legislation of a more immediate nature to appropriate $1.9 billion for the next 5 years to provide for this medical monitoring and treatment in case we cannot immediately adopt the long-term legislation that Congresswoman Maloney and I have introduced. The mayor of New York estimates that the annual cost of treatment for the first responders is now about $198 million and will increase to $413 million in the next few years as more and more people need more and more treatment.

But I said there were two coverups. The second coverup is the failure of EPA to clean up indoor contamination. When the World Trade Center collapsed, it released, as I said, thousands of tons of toxic dust and debris. Much of it settled on the ground and in the air outdoors; much of it blew in through windows and into heating vents and air conditioning vents, into buildings, all throughout Manhattan and Queens and Brooklyn and perhaps New Jersey.

Now, nature cleans up the outdoor air. The rain washes the toxins away. The wind blows them away.

Nature does not clean up the indoor air. Only people can clean up the indoor air. Only people can clean up the residue of those toxins that are still there. And if they are not properly cleaned up, they will stay there, and they will stay there forever, poisoning people on a daily basis. And that is exactly what we have reason to believe is going on.

Now, the EPA said people should clean up on their own. Under the Giuliani administration, the City of New York said landlords should clean up the exterior surfaces of buildings and the public spaces in the buildings but let the tenants, individual tenants, individual residents, individual small business owners and large business owners, to clean up their space, without providing any help or expertise to do so. And, of course, most of these spaces were not properly cleaned.

The EPA and New York City Department of Health put on its Web site very early on that if you came home and you saw World Trade Center dust in your apartment, clean it up with a wet mop and a wet rag. And if there is a lot of dust, if it's really thick, consider using a HEPA filter.

Now, this advice is illegal because the law says you may not remove or move asbestos-containing material unless you are trained and certified and licensed to do so and unless you are wearing a moon suit, proper protective equipment. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, ruled that all World Trade Center dust had to be presumed to be asbestos-containing material because there were thousands of tons of asbestos in the World Trade Center. We know that. So this advice said illegally move this material.

Now, when we had a hearing in our subcommittee, the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, back in June, I inquired of Christie Todd Whitman, the former head of EPA at the time, I said, Governor Whitman, when you were administrator of EPA, if you were told that some company or some individuals who were not trained to do so were removing asbestos-containing material, what would you do?

She said, We would certainly have arrested them.

I said, If you were told they were disposing of that material in the garage, in the regular garage, what would you have done?

We would certainly have arrested them, she said.

But EPA and the City Department of Health put on their Web site the advice to do exactly that to every individual who saw the World Trade Center dust in their own apartment.

So this was illegal advice, but it was also unsafe advice. It was also unsafe

advice because if you remove asbestos-containing material without wearing proper respiratory protection, you are guaranteed to inhale some of that, and that's poison. That's toxic. Not to mention all the other toxins that we know were in that dust. And, also, if you are not trained properly how to do this, you are not going to do a thorough job. You may think you have cleaned your apartment or your office, but the material is still going to be in the drapes. It's still going to be in the carpets. It's still going to be in the porous wood surfaces. It's still going to be in the HVAC system. It's still going to be behind the refrigerator or the stove. And every time the baby crawls on that carpet for the next however many years, the baby is going to release some into the atmosphere and is going to inhale it. So these indoor spaces are unsafe to work or live in. And we are daily poisoning people.

How many such spaces? Tens of apartments, hundreds of apartments, thousands of apartments, tens of thousands of apartments? We don't know. Over what geographic area does this spread? We don't know because EPA, the Federal Government, never did any proper testing.

Now, they say they did testing, but the EPA's own Inspector General says it was nonsense. The EPA says it did a cleanup in 2002, an indoor cleanup, on a voluntary basis of several thousand apartments. But the EPA's own Inspector General said it was a phony cleanup for any number of reasons I won't go into now. And every time that anyone qualified has looked at this, they have labeled what has been done hazardous and phony.

At my request, back in February and March of 2002, the EPA's ombudsman held public hearings in lower Manhattan to talk about the indoor contamination to examine this. What did the EPA do? They dismantled the ombudsman's office after telling people not to attend the hearing. The EPA Inspector General released a report in August of 2003 labeling the EPA's actions atrocious and its cleanup phony. What did the EPA do? It ignored the recommendations.

Under pressure from Senator Clinton and myself and others, the EPA in 2004 formed a scientific advisory panel to look into this and to advise us what ought to be done. But when the scientific advisory panel of people hand picked by the EPA started coming to the conclusions similar to what I have been stating here, what did the EPA do? Did they listen? No. They dismantled the panel and they didn't permit them to issue a report. The administration has promised us reports; we haven't seen them.

What has to be done? What has to be done is what the Inspector General recommended 4 years ago. What the Inspector General said was that there has to be active testing of indoor spaces, several hundred indoor spaces, in concentric circles from the World Trade Center. Why concentric circles? To see how far the contamination expanded and still exists.

Now, the EPA, when they talked about their cleanup, they established an arbitrary line. They said, We consider that the problem is limited to lower Manhattan below Canal Street, as if there were a 30,000-foot- high wall at Canal Street blocking the plume from going north of Canal Street, as if there were a 30,000-foot wall across the East River and the Hudson River protecting New Jersey and Queens and Brooklyn. Well, I've never seen any evidence of that 30,000-foot wall. We have to assume that the toxins went in these places too. We have to find out where they went. That's why the Inspector General instructed us that we should properly inspect several hundred indoor spaces, randomly selected indoor spaces, in concentric circles from the World Trade Center to see where the contamination extended to. And it may be that in one direction it extends three blocks and in another direction three miles. It may be, as I said, that we are talking about a few hundred apartments or tens of thousands. We don't know. But wherever that extended, wherever the tests in the concentric circles show that those toxins are present indoors, we must draw lines on the map, and then we must go into every single building in those geographic areas, however small or large the areas may be, and professionally clean them up. This may take several hundred million dollars; it may take several billion dollars. We won't know the extent of it until we do the testing. But as long as we don't do that testing, we have to assume, from everything we know, that hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people are being poisoned daily and will come down 10 years from now with mesothelioma, with lung cancer, asbestosis, and other dreaded diseases because they are living or working in contaminated environments.

And we know something else about these kinds of contaminated environments. We know the effects of the toxins are cumulative. That is to say, if you waved a magic wand tomorrow and cleaned up all the contaminated indoor spaces, a certain number of people, we don't know how many, we don't know whom, but a certain number of people, because of the failure over the last 6 years to clean up these indoor spaces, because they worked there for 6 years, are unavoidably destined to come down with these dreaded diseases because we didn't clean it up 6 years ago. But if we don't wave that magic wand, if we don't conduct a proper cleanup, then a much larger number of people will come down with lung cancer, mesothelioma, asbestosis, and so forth 10 and 15 years from now. And the liability, the tort liability, of billions, tens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars, will mount up and mount up.

Now, this second coverup is still covered up in the sense that the government doesn't admit the problem. On the first coverup that thousands of people are sick, almost nobody denies it anymore. We know that. The only question is what we do about it, and I spoke about that a few minutes ago. We should make sure that people are plugged into centers of excellence and networks and we should pass legislation affording them long-term health care, monitoring and services. But this problem that we still have, people who will come down with these dread diseases unnecessarily because they are being exposed on a daily basis to World Trade Center toxins that were never cleaned up, this is still unadmitted by the EPA or by the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, if we are going to be true to what we have said about the heroes of 9/11, if we are going to be true to what Abraham Lincoln said when he said that it is our duty to care for him who shall have borne the battle, we must do two things: We must provide for the long- term monitoring and health care by passing the bill that Carolyn and others and I introduced yesterday. We must also demand that EPA implement a proper indoor testing and cleaning program. Not a cleanup that the EPA's own scientific advisory panel says is a joke and a fraud, not a cleanup that the EPA's Inspector General says is woefully inadequate, but a proper cleanup to test buildings thoroughly, to test for all pollutants, not just for one or two, and that is not limited by arbitrary geographic boundaries in a way that allows the EPA to minimize its responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, for the past 6 years, we have demanded that the EPA, that this administration, fulfill its legal mandate to protect the public health by telling the truth about post-9/11 air quality and by implementing a scientifically sound testing and cleanup program to address indoor contamination. They have absolutely failed on both fronts. The Federal Government has incurred a heavy moral liability because the blood of many of the people who will die early because of these diseases lies on the hands not only of the terrorists but of the administration officials who lied to the people about the conditions and therefore caused people to work in unsafe environments and who are continuing to allow people to work today in unsafe environments. If we are to be true to the survivors and the heroes of 9/11, we must learn something of this nightmare so that, God forbid, if there is a disaster, natural or manmade, we will protect the innocent rather than allowing our malfeasance and carelessness to shorten the lives of thousands of people.

Now, when we have talked about this in the past, some people have said, and Christie Todd Whitman, the former administrator of EPA has said, the fault for all the people who are suffering and dying is the fault of the terrorists. Of course that is partially true. If the terrorists hadn't attacked us, none of these people would be sick.

But it is the job of government and of government officials to minimize damages, to mitigate damages, to make sure that the number of people who get sick and die because of a terrorist attack is the fewest possible. Not to act in such a way that thousands of people who would have been fine had it not been for the malfeasance of government are not going to be fine. So for that it is the terrorists' fault but it is also the fault of these government officials. And that is another reason why the government has a heavy moral responsibility to clean up the indoor environment so that people stop being further exposed to the toxins so that we put a halt to further numbers of people getting sick from this. And, secondly, the government has a heavy moral responsibility to help those who have lost their jobs because they can no longer breathe, who are getting sick, who are sick, to minimize their damages by making sure that their health care is not a problem, by enacting legislation to provide for long-term health care and monitoring.

So I thank you for yielding to me. I hope that these rather harsh words but realistic words and absolutely truthful words will get some response from an administration that has been completely callous toward the survivors and has paid only lip service toward the survivors, and I hope that we can redeem the moral values that we all share on behalf of the Federal Government by doing the right thing in the future on this if we have not done so in the past, which we have not.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 6 o'clock and 45 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, September 19, 2007, at 10 a.m.

Madam Speaker, when the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001, the towers sent up a plume of poisonous dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan. A toxic brew of lead, dioxin, asbestos, mercury, benzene, and other hazardous contaminants swirled around the site of the disaster as rescue workers labored furiously in the wreckage, many without adequate protective gear. Thousands of first responders, residents, area workers, students, and others from around the country inhaled this poisonous dust as it settled onto and into countless homes, shops, and office buildings.

Now, 6 years later, there is no doubt that thousands of people are sick from World Trade Center contamination. A study released in September 2006 by Mt. Sinai Hospital found that 70 percent of the more than 9,000 first responders studied suffer health problems related to their work at Ground Zero. This number does not include the Stuyvesant High School students whose school sat near piles of debris from the towers, the nearby residents whose apartments still contain poisonous dust, or the thousands of people who work in offices that were never properly cleaned.

Abraham Lincoln once said that we must ``care for him who shall have borne the battle.'' And so we should. Today, I, along with my colleagues, am introducing essential, new legislation that ensures that everyone exposed to World Trade Center toxins, no matter where they may live now or in the future, would have a right to high-quality medical monitoring and treatment, and access to a reopened Victim Compensation Fund for their losses. Whether you are a first responder who toiled without proper protection; or an area resident, worker or student who was caught in the plume or subject to ongoing indoor contamination; if you were harmed by 9/11, you would be eligible. This bill builds on the best ideas brought to Congress thus far and on the infrastructure already in place providing critical treatment and monitoring.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I must say that I am from the Upper West Side, not the Lower East Side, although my district does cover part of the Lower East Side, and that is certainly no insult.

Mr. Speaker, I do thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I want to thank her for her leadership on this issue. I am pleased that we will soon be introducing legislation together to provide long-term health care to all the first responders, residents, area workers and students who have become sick as a result of the collapse of the World Trade Center. Our legislation will build on the efforts of the Centers of Excellence of New York City and will extend to people who came from all over the country to aid in the massive rescue and recovery effort after 9/11.

When the World Trade Center collapsed on that sunny morning 6 years ago, a plume of poisonous dust blanketed lower Manhattan, and not just Lower Manhattan, but parts of Brooklyn and possibly Jersey City, too. The cloud was a toxic mixture of lead, dioxin, asbestos, mercury, benzene, PCBs and other hazardous contaminants that swirled around the site where the World Trade Center once stood. The cloud blanketed the area as rescue and recovery workers worked around the clock. Many did so without adequate or without any protective gear. Thousands of first responders inhaled this poisonous dust before it settled onto and into countless homes, shops and office buildings in the area.

For the past 6 years, we have demanded that the EPA fulfill its legal mandate to protect the public health by telling the truth about post-9/ 11 air quality and by implementing a scientifically sound testing and cleanup program to address indoor contamination. They have absolutely failed on both fronts.

While America watched these brave men and women working fearlessly at the World Trade Center site, their government failed them and continues to fail them. As the Nation and the world united in solidarity, our government, this administration, put politics over science and safety.

Federal law mandates that when there is a terrorist attack in which toxins are released into the air, both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration have specific responsibilities. EPA is charged with the cleanup and is the lead agency to deal with the pollution. The American public deserves to know why and how that did not happen. We are getting some answers though, painstakingly.

As Chair of the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, I chaired a hearing in June on the failures of the Federal Government in responding to the environmental crisis that resulted from the World Trade Center attacks. Senator Clinton held a companion hearing in the Senate. At the hearing we heard for the first time from Christine Todd Whitman, the former administrator of the EPA, who said her agency did nothing wrong, that they were honest with the public and that they listened to their scientists. But we know that EPA lied and to this day continues lying. We know that early tests revealed high levels of asbestos and other toxins and that EPA in statements vetted through the White House misled the public with their assurances that the air was safe to breathe. Independent scientists who testified in the hearing said that no amount of asbestos should be considered safe and that everyone knew that those buildings contained asbestos, hundreds of thousands of pounds of it before the buildings collapsed and released it into the air.

Indeed, there is no doubt that thousands of people are sick as a result of the contamination at the World Trade Center. Thousands of people are sick who would not be sick today if they had not been lied to by their own government and worked without protection on the pile for 13 and 14 and 15 weeks.

A study by Mount Sinai Hospital found that 70 percent of the more than 9,000 first responders who were studied suffered health problems related to their work at Ground Zero. These health problems include things like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, interstitial lung diseases and reactive airway disease.

A recent New York Times article highlighted the clear link between the World Trade Center dust and life-threatening diseases. The article cited the report from doctors from the Fire Department of New York and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which again confirms what we have known for years, that we are facing a major health crisis as a result of September 11.

These studies do not even address the students at Stuyvesant High School and the Borough of Manhattan Community Colleges, schools that sat near piles of debris from the Towers, the nearby residents' apartments still contain poisonous dust or the thousands of people that work in offices that were never properly cleaned. These factors combined present an unprecedented challenge to public health not just to New York City but across the country.

In the days and weeks after 9/11, workers and volunteers came from across the country to help. The great citizens of this country came together, but the Federal Government has failed in its obligations. To this day there has been no comprehensive testing and cleanup of the affected areas, and to this day, there is no adequate provision for long-term monitoring of health care of the people who suffered in the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster.

Now we are making, finally, small strides in providing health care to those who became ill. The emergency supplemental appropriations bill passed earlier this year because of the efforts of Mrs. Maloney and myself and other members of the New York delegation included $50 million for 9/11 health needs. The 2008 House Labor-HHS appropriations bill includes $50 million for the World Trade Center monitoring and treatment program.

I was also extremely pleased to learn from Senator Clinton that the Senate appropriations subcommittee has included $55 million in their version of the labor appropriations bill. The Senate version of the bill includes funding for residents, offices of commercial workers, volunteers and students. I hope the House will follow suit in making Federal funding available for residents too.

But much more remains to be done. The estimates of the costs are not $50 million a year but starting at $198 million and expanding to $400 million a year as more people become sick in the next few years. And we need to develop a comprehensive approach to 9/11 health that includes residents, nonfirst responder workers and school children. We need to secure funding that is not subject to the yearly appropriations battle. We must commit ourselves to act and to help all of those who are still waiting. That is why we are going to introduce the bill that Mrs. Maloney referred to a few minutes ago to provide a long-term comprehensive

funding source, a bill that I hope this House will consider.

But in addition, there's a second cover-up. I have always said there are two cover-ups conducted here. One about the health care disaster that followed 9/11; that cover-up has unraveled. In the last year with the revelations of the Mount Sinai study, the New York Daily News reports and other reports that have come out, now everybody recognizes that first responders and residents are suffering, thousands and thousands of them, because of the air pollution after 9/11, because of the government lying to them and saying that the air was safe to breathe and therefore they didn't use respiratory equipment or they were there in the first place when they shouldn't have been, not the first responders, but residents who could have gone elsewhere. But that was one cover-up that has now unraveled, and we have been talking about what to do about it and how to provide long-term medical monitoring and long-term care for it, and that is the legislation we are talking about.

But there was and is a second cover-up, and that cover-up is the fact that the indoor spaces that were polluted were never properly cleaned up. A GAO report, which Senator Clinton and Mrs. Maloney and I unveiled yesterday, pointed out that the EPA to this day cannot guarantee that any single building, except for its own building which it cleaned up properly at 290 Broadway, other than that, they cannot guarantee that any single building in Lower Manhattan is clean today and does not contain toxins that are slowly poisoning people on and on.

The EPA never properly cleaned up, nor did the City of New York, indoor spaces. Nature cleans up the outdoor spaces. The rain washes the stuff away. The wind blows the toxins away. Nothing cleans up indoor spaces. The EPA Inspector General reported in 2003, it is 4 years ago already, that the so-called cleanup the EPA conducted in 2002 was a phony, that it didn't clean up anything adequately. And they said that what had to be done, the EPA Inspector General, was that the EPA should inspect several hundred indoor spaces, apartments, residences in concentric circles going out from the World Trade Center to find out where the contamination is, maybe 3 blocks in one direction, maybe 3 miles in another. And wherever they found the contamination, they had to go in and clean up every single building in those areas. That may cost money, but until that happens, the babies crawling on the rug 10 years from now or today will be poisoned. The people living in those apartments, working in those spaces, will be poisoned, and we will reap the bitter harvest 10 and 15 and 20 years from now with thousands of unnecessary and preventable cases of mesothelioma and lung cancer and asbestosis.

Mr. Speaker, it is our job to do two things. If we are going to be true to what we have said to the heroes and about the heroes of 9/11, we must do two things. We must provide legislation and funding for long-term monitoring and health care such as that that Mrs. Maloney and I and others have been talking about in the legislation that we are introducing. We must also prevail upon the administration, by legislation if necessary, to do the proper indoor testing the way the EPA Inspector General said, and then to do proper cleanup. Not a cleanup that the EPA's own scientific advisory panel says is a joke and a fraud, not the cleanup that the EPA's Inspector General says is a joke and a fraud, a proper cleanup that does the entire building, that looks at all pollutants, not just asbestos, that is not limited geographically to below Canal Street, but wherever the contamination went as scientifically determined.

These are what we must do. If we do these things, we are true to the survivors and the heroes, and we will learn so that, God forbid, when there is another disaster, natural or manmade, we will do it properly and we will not have thousands of people with preventable illnesses and shortened lives as a result of our malfeasance or carelessness.

So I thank Mrs. Maloney for arranging this special order. I thank her for her leadership and in bringing to all our attention the struggle and the continuing health problems caused by 9/11 and in helping to craft legislation to deal with it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Zoe Lofgren).

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this dangerous and ill-considered legislation.

Once again, this House is being stampeded by fear-mongering and deception into signing away our rights. If you trust this President and if you trust this dishonest Attorney General to exercise unfettered power to spy on Americans without any court supervision, then you should support this bill.

If you still believe in the America our Founders, the Framers and every succeeding generation has fought and died for, then you must oppose this legislation.

This bill is not what the Director of National Intelligence told us he needed. That was embodied in the bill that we considered last night and that we should be considering tonight, the House bill. We were told that we needed to fix the foreign-to-foreign intelligence. That bill fixed it.

We were told we had to compel electronics companies to do what the government needs to do on properly authorized surveillance. That bill did it. The Director of National Intelligence told us we had to deal with all foreign intelligence, we had to deal with recurring communications into the United States from foreign targets. That bill did it. That bill dealt with everything we were told was necessary for national security.

This bill is what Karl Rove and his political operatives in the White House decided they need to win elections. That is not national security, that is political warfare.

I do not believe we will soon be able to undo this damage. Rights given away are not easily regained. This bill is not needed to protect America from terrorists. * * *

We should stand up for America. We should stand up for our freedoms. We should stand up for our security. We should reject this bill so we can go and do the right thing and pass the bill that we had on the floor last night that did everything necessary for our national security. It gave us all the right to do the wiretapping and the surveillance we need. We should all be willing to stay here as long as it takes. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of our getting home at some reasonable hour, I will be happy to withdraw the truthful and accurate statements I made a moment ago.

Accurate statement I made a moment ago.

I am withdrawing them.

I withdraw them without any reservations; but I retain my opinion.

Madam Speaker, we were told by the administration, by the Director of National Intelligence, a couple of weeks ago that they needed two things: They needed to clarify that we didn't need a court order for a foreign-to-foreign communications. This bill does it. They needed an assurance that telecommunications companies would be compelled to assist in gathering of national security information under this bill. This bill contains it.

Yesterday, we were told they needed three more things: They needed that we should deal with not just relating to terrorism but to matters relating to our foreign intelligence. It's in this bill. We were told we should eliminate the requirement that the FISA Court adjudicate our recurring communications to the U.S. from foreign targets would be handled. It's in this bill. We were told that we should allow for foreign targets to be added to the basket warrant after the warrant was approved. It's in this bill.

The DNI, Admiral McConnell, said that this bill would significantly enhance America's security until he spoke to the White House, and now he changes politically, and he says we need more. This is the bill that gives them everything they said they needed. It's the bill we should pass to protect our civil liberties, and we should go no further.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the time of the gentlewoman be extended by 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I was asking for unanimous consent so the gentlewoman would have 1 additional minute, which I would hope she would yield to Mr. Crowley, Mr. Weiner, Mr. Fossella and myself.

I just want to say that I associate myself with the sentiments expressed by Mr. Weiner and Mr. Crowley. The Asian Longhorned Beetle is a serious problem, and we have to devote as much resources as possible to deal with it. I hope the committee will take that into consideration.

Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, this bill would restore to employment discrimination victims the realistic chance at justice that the Supreme Court recently took away from them. What is important to understand about the Court's decision is that everyone agreed that Lilly Ledbetter was the victim of intentional discrimination for 19 years. The Court said something truly astonishing, that the only discriminatory act was the initial decision to pay Lilly Ledbetter less than her male coworkers. Once the employer had successfully concealed that fact from her for 180 days, she was out of luck and Goodyear could openly go on paying her less just because she was a woman forever. The initial decision to discriminate was illegal, but the continuing decision to continue paying her less was perfectly okay. This upset 40 years of settled law, 40 years in which the companies of this country went under the rule that this bill would restore.

The Court's decision is an open invitation to employers to violate the law with virtual impunity. Once again, Congress must correct the Supreme Court and instruct it that when we said discrimination in employment was illegal, we meant it, and we meant for the courts to enforce it. And anyone who says that discrimination in employment should be illegal but should not be enforceable if the employer can hide the discrimination for 6 months is really saying let the discrimination go on forever. Let the women and the racial minorities and other people who are discriminated against be discriminated against forever.

Shame on the Supreme Court, and shame on those who would make employment discrimination victims helpless by opposing this bill. I urge adoption of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report.

The bill contains several critical homeland security improvements that have been mentioned before. I won't mention them because I want to concentrate on the 100 percent scanning that the gentleman from California opposed.

I have pushed for the 100 percent scanning for almost 5 years. The language in this bill is modeled on the language that I introduced 2 years ago, along with Mr. Oberstar, in the SOS, Sail Only if Scanned Act, which was then supporter afterwards by Mr. Markey.

As we just heard, the Republicans have opposed this. The Republican leadership opposed it, and last year, it failed on practically party- line vote. This year, it passed on a practically party-line vote, and I thank Mr. Thompson and I thank our leadership for making sure that this was included in the conference report.

Twelve million containers a year come into our ports. Our risk-based inspection inspects 6 percent of them. That leaves 94 percent of the 12 million containers uninspected, any one of which could have a chemical or nuclear or radiological bomb inside it and we wouldn't know. We must inspect them, or electronically scan them to be precise, before they're put on a ship bound for the United States in the foreign port if we're going to be safe. We can do it.

Yes, this wasn't included in the 9/11 Commission report. This bill improves upon the 9/11 Commission report, and I commend the Democratic leadership of this House and of the Senate for doing that.

We are told it's impractical. It is not impractical. The technologies exist for doing it. There are three or four different technologies that exist for doing it. When we were told last year that the tamper-proof seals didn't exist, General Electric had a van across the street from the Rayburn House Office Building showing three different models of the tamper-proof seals that sold for $50, $100, and $150 at the same time.

This is eminently doable and it must be done. A few years ago, I debated Mr. Rogers who said we will inspect the high-risk containers. I said, wonderful, they'll put the bomb in the low-risk container. The fact is there is no such thing as the low-risk container. The most reliable shipper with the best record, all it takes is one driver on his way from the factory to the port to have lunch and someone replaces a television set with a nuclear bomb or vice versa in the container.

This is a great step forward. It will greatly enhance the safety of this country. I urge that we adopt this, and I thank the leadership of this House for their steadfastness in supporting this very essential measure.

Would the gentleman yield for a question?

Is your amendment limited to saying you can't use funds to enforce criminal penalties against what the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional, or does it have broader effect against other provisions of the McCain-Feingold bill?

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment will increase the Violence Against Women Prevention Programs by $5 million intended to fund a specific provision, namely the Jessica Gonzalez Victim Assistance Program. To offset this cost the Department of Justice general activities accounts will be reduced by the same amount, $5 million.

The Jessica Gonzalez program places special victim assistants to act as liaisons between local law enforcement agencies and victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in order to improve the enforcement of protection orders. It develops, in collaboration with prosecutors, courts and victim service providers, standardized response policies for local law enforcement agencies, including triage protocols to ensure that dangerous or potentially lethal cases are identified and prioritized.

Victims of domestic violence need the Jessica Gonzales program because the current system has undermined the effectiveness of restraining orders. In Castle Rock v. Gonzalez, the Supreme Court held that the police did not have a mandatory duty to make an arrest under a court-issued protective order

to protect a woman from her violent husband. This case came as a result of an incident in 1999 involving the kidnapping of Ms. Gonzalez's children by her estranged husband. Despite her numerous pleas to the police to arrest her husband for violating a protection order, including providing them with information on his whereabouts, the police failed to do so. Later that night, Mr. Gonzalez murdered their three children.

The Jessica Gonzalez Victim Assistance Program restores some of the effectiveness of restraining orders that the Supreme Court took away with its ruling.

This is the first opportunity we have had to grow the Jessica Gonzalez Victim Assistance Program since it was first funded last year after its initial authorization in the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization of 2005 in order to strengthen the effectiveness of restraining orders.

This program strengthens the efficacy of restraining orders against the prevalent matter of domestic violence. Tragically, as we know, violence against women is a pervasive problem which goes beyond class, culture, age or ethnic background. Every 9 seconds a woman is battered in the United States, and every 2 minutes someone is sexually assaulted.

According to the Department of Justice, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day. More than 2\1/2\ million women are victims of violence each year, and nearly one in three women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood. Many more cases go unmentioned as women, fearing to come forward, leave the assaults unreported.

The Jessica Gonzalez Victim Assistance Program helps to enforce restraining orders and protect women who are victims of domestic violence, and it is a great step forward from when we authorized it 2 years ago and when we first funded it last year.

Mr. Chairman, we need more funds for this program. I am aware that this bill, because of the good work of the chairman and the committee members, includes approximately $430 million to support grants under the Violence Against Women Act which is $47 million more than the current budget and $59 million above the President's meager request for fiscal year 2008.

I'm also aware that in amendments we passed last night, we increased funding for the Violence Against Women Act by about 40 or $45 million, and I hope that some of that will survive in conference.

And in light of that, I will now withdraw the amendment, but urge my colleagues to support the CJS appropriations amount granted to programs that protect women and their families, especially the Jessica Gonzalez Victim Assistance Program, and hope that in conferences all of these matters are hashed out, that a little more money can be spared for this program, especially in light of the amendments approved last night.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I commend the chairman of the committee for including in this act a provision that no funds shall be made available to authorize or issue a National Security Letter, NSL, in contravention of current law. That should go without saying, but as we have seen, apparently not with the current administration.

My amendment asks for an accounting by the Department of Justice of the FBI's collection and use of information on U.S. persons who are not suspected of being terrorists or agents of a foreign power before we provide further funding for the issuance of more National Security Letters.

This amendment prohibits funds from being used to issue a National Security Letter under the provisions amended by section 505 of the PATRIOT Act until the Department of Justice conducts a full review and delivers a report to Congress on the use of NSLs to collect information on U.S. persons who are not suspected of being agents of a foreign power, or terrorists, as that is defined in 50 U.S.C. 1801.

The underlying bill asks for the FBI to conduct a report within 2 months on what has been done to implement the inspector general's recommendations with respect to NSLs. This would simply ask that that report be more specific and more inclusive and include the following information:

How many National Security Letters have been issued; what standards are used to determine when to seek information on a person who is not suspected of being an agent of a foreign power; the current guidance as to what is ``relevant'' to an investigation when the targets are not suspected of being agents of a foreign power; how that information is stored; how the information is used; whether the information is used; whether that information is ever destroyed; whether that information has led to any substantial leads in terrorism cases; whether that information has ever been used in criminal cases; and whether that information has led to any adverse government action against people not suspected of being enemy agents, agents of a foreign power, or terrorists.

Almost limitless sensitive private information from communication providers, financial institutions, and consumer credit agencies can now be collected secretly by simply issuing a National Security Letter on an FBI field director's simple assertion that the request is merely relevant to a national

security investigation. These communications and records can be of people who are U.S. citizens who are not suspected of being agents of a foreign power or terrorists. These communications and records can be demanded without any court review or any court approval. Worse yet, the target of the NSL will never know that his communications and records were inspected by government agents because the company, the financial agent, the service provider, the bank is barred by law from telling him or anyone else of the demand. And as we know from the FBI inspector general's audit, this broad discretion has been abused by the FBI, whose agents may have violated either the law or internal rules more than 1,000 times while misusing the authority to issue National Security Letters.

This recent IG report heightens the clear need for more adequate checks on the FBI's investigatory powers with respect to NSLs. The FBI has far-reaching compulsory powers to obtain documents in terrorism investigations without NSLs. In criminal investigations the FBI can obtain a search warrant if there is a judicial finding of probable cause or a grand jury subpoena issued under the supervision of a judge and a U.S. attorney. And in international terrorism cases, the FBI has sweeping authority to obtain records under section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, all this separate from NSLs.

I intend to introduce this week, with Congressman Flake, the National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007 to address more fully the issues presented by section 505 of the National Security Letters.

The bill would restore a pre-PATRIOT Act requirement that the FBI make a factual, individualized showing that the records sought pertain to a suspected terrorist or spy. It also gives the recipient of a National Security Letter an opportunity to obtain legal counsel. It thus preserves the constitutional right to their day in court.

Already courts have found part of the NSL authority to be too broad and unconstitutional. The provisions that state that NSL recipients are forbidden from disclosing the demand to the targeted individual and are forbidden even from consulting with an attorney have already been struck down. Another court found the NSL authority to be unconstitutional on its face because it violates the fourth amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The National Security Letters Reform Act of 2007 would allow the FBI to continue issuing National Security Letters by correcting the constitutional deficiencies in the law. This bill would enable the FBI to obtain documents that it legitimately needs, while protecting the privacy of law-abiding American citizens.

I ask that my colleagues vote for this amendment so that we can protect the privacy of U.S. persons who are not terrorists or agents of terrorists before we provide funding for those broad and sweeping powers provided under the PATRIOT Act.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Yes. Upon reflection upon the rules, the gentleman is quite correct in his reading of the rules, and I cannot object to his objection.

I do express the hope that in the report that the underlying bill demands that they will include the information requested by this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I entirely agree with the gentleman from New York. I entirely agree with the purpose of this amendment. The problem I have with this amendment is that, as I understand it, it says no funds may be spent to enforce a court decision.

If that is what this amendment says, and I just heard it briefly, then it is the wrong way to do it. We have to put in a bill. I am sure the Judiciary Committee will entertain, I assume would entertain it quickly, to clarify the law and say that that is not what the law is, and that what the gentleman seeks to do we ought to do legislatively.

But the idea of saying we will not permit funds to be used to carry out an order of a court destroys, undermines, and subverts the rule of law in this country. We cannot subvert the rule of law in this country by denying funds to carry out an order of the court.

If we don't agree with the order of the court, and I agree, I certainly don't agree with the order of the court in this case, it is terrible, we ought to change the law. That is why we have a Congress. That is our job. Let's change the law.

If the court interprets the law wrongly, as it has, in my opinion, along with the gentleman, we ought to put in a bill, change the law and clarify it. I think that bill would sail through here pretty quickly in all likelihood. That is the way to do it.

But to make an amendment to say no funds appropriated may be used to enforce the court order, what's next? A different court order that we dislike? That subverts the rule of law. It is the wrong way to go.

Mr. Chairman, I hope this amendment is not agreed to.

I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I will be happy to work with the gentleman and anyone else who will try to effectuate this policy. I would hope that the gentleman and others and I can address the administration and urge them for the next few weeks that it may take for the Congress to act, for the administration to withhold action, that they should not engage in deportations.

Now, I hope that comity with the administration would allow them to delay a little on enforcing. After all, the court didn't say, ``You must.'' The

court didn't say, ``You must deport these people.'' It said, ``You may deport these people.'' It is up to the administration to determine that.

So I would hope that the administration would delay for the few weeks it may take for Congress to show our will on this matter and that we don't agree with the court. But, again, I hope this amendment doesn't pass because it sets a terrible precedent. It may even be unconstitutional. I am not sure.

But clearly we don't want to start passing bills that say you can't enforce a court order, because once you start down that road, where do you end? But I certainly do anticipate working to make sure that nobody is deported under this. I hope the administration will delay that, and we can move legislation quickly on that.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to support the bill and, in particular, its provisions to help families obtain affordable housing with Section 8 vouchers and to help people with HIV/AIDS to secure housing with the assistance of the HOPWA program.

I want to thank the chairman for including $300 million in this bill for Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS, the highest funding level ever for this program; and for providing $403 million more than current funding for the Section 8 Tenant-Based Rental Assistance program. For years, we have had to fight for every nickel of funding and offer amendments for modest increases. It is a true pleasure to be working with a Chairman who better understands the needs of the American people and who is able to dedicate resources to areas of great need.

Rising housing costs and stagnating incomes have created serious housing affordability problems for growing numbers of low-income families. Years of Republican budget cuts have seriously damaged our public housing stock and forced thousands of people onto waiting lists for assistance. The list in NY grew so long that they stopped accepting applications. They have only recently announced their intention to reopen it, and they have been inundated by qualified people seeking help. To reduce the number of low-income families with severe housing affordability problems, it is critical that Congress increase Section 8 funding and resume funding for incremental vouchers, which I am pleased this bill does. The section 8 housing voucher program provides safe affordable housing to approximately 2 million American families in urban and rural communities in every State across our country. These vouchers are often the only resource for low-income families confronted by our Nation's affordable housing crisis.

In the past, my colleague Representative Velazquez and I, often with the support of Chairman Frank, have offered amendments that have passed with bipartisan support to increase the Section 8 program. We were successful in passing amendments in 2003, 2005, and 2006 to increase funding so that more families would be able to obtain affordable housing. While we can always do more and clearly there are still many unmet needs, I am pleased by the increases in today's bill.

[See Roll Call 267, 109th Congress 2nd Session (243-178), Roll Call 339, 109th Congress 1st Session (225-194), Roll Call 453, 108th Congress 1st Session (217-208)].

HOPWA is the only Federal housing program that specifically provides cities and states with the resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with HIV/AIDS. Americans living with HIV/AIDS are often forced to choose between expensive drug treatments and necessities such as housing. According to the National AIDS Housing Network, rates of new HIV diagnoses among the homeless are 16 times the rate in the general population, and HIV/AIDS death rates are five to seven times higher. People with AIDS who are homeless are more likely to be uninsured, use an emergency room, and be admitted to a hospital.

Inadequate housing is not only a barrier to treatment, but also puts people with HIV/AIDS at risk of premature death from exposure to other diseases, poor nutrition, stress and lack of medical care. Tragically, at any given time, one-third to one-half of all Americans with HIV/AIDS are either homeless or in imminent danger of becoming homeless.

There is a desperate need for HIV/AIDS housing, and HOPWA answers this need. By providing suitable, reasonably-priced housing, HOPWA enables cities and states to design and provide community-based, cost- effective housing for thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. It provides maximum flexibility so that states and communities can implement strategies that respond to local housing needs and shortfalls. In addition, the administrative costs of the program are capped, ensuring the money goes directly to serving people with HIV/AIDS.

Providing supportive housing is crucial to the well-being of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS, and is a cost-effective approach to the AIDS housing crisis. Again, I thank the chairman for supporting HOPWA and Section 8.