Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans gave us their November 7 resolution last night. Five years ago, the Nation stood as one, but the Republicans have divided us ever since. They believe dividing America is the best hope for clinging to power in the November election.

They can pass self-congratulatory resolutions that have more to do with November 7 than September 11, but patting themselves on the back is no substitute for protecting the American people by adopting the recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission.

Republicans have not done that. Instead, Republicans have been ordered by the President to continue his fiction that Iraq and al Qaeda were connected. The evidence proves otherwise, so Republican leaders are trying to hide the evidence beneath their rhetoric.

Just remember this: Republicans have propped up this President by spending more on the Iraq war than on domestic security. Republicans have given us fear and fiction around the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Just imagine what they have in store for us in the next weeks.

Fear has never made America safer, but that is all the Republicans have to offer, and that is simply not enough to protect and defend America in the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, What a week this has been. It began on Sunday when the President dispatched his Secretary of State and Vice President to the Sunday talk-shows to re-create the Administration's fiction that Iraq and al-Qaeda were connected.

Their appearances came shortly after the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee told the American people in a bi-partisan report that there were no ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. No Ties.

But, the Secretary of State and Vice President wouldn't let the facts stand in the way. In appearance after appearance, they kept telling the American people to be afraid, to believe their fiction about Iraq.

The truth affirmed--again--that there was no national security interest served by invading Iraq.

The President diverted the nation from Afghanistan and the hunt for bin Laden.

And, the President diluted our resources by continuing to commit manpower and money to the wrong place, at the wrong time, without a national security priority. Instead of leading America back to the front line of the war on terror, the President continues to push America deeper into a civil war in Iraq.

The fifth anniversary of 9/11 could have been marked by the President leading the nation in quiet, personal reflection. Instead, the President used a prime time television address to try to shore up his own faltering support among the American people.

The Administration's singular focus today is to sustain a fiction about Iraq and al-Qaeda. They are trapped inside their own rhetoric and keep talking as if that will produce a different outcome.

On Sunday the Vice President gave us fear. On Monday, the President gave us fiction. On Tuesday, the Republican Majority Leader gave us inflammatory rhetoric worthy of a nation without Democracy as its form of government.

Terrified at the prospect of losing power, Republicans will say anything to make people afraid.

In a meeting with reporters, the majority leader wondered aloud whether Americans who disagree with the President might be giving aid and comfort to the enemy, might be guilty of treason.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that we are a nation of laws, not men, even in a time of war, and that the President must follow the law like everyone else. Instead of affirmation, we got accusations last night from a Republican leader.

The President, Vice President and Speaker of the House--all Republicans--were silent in response.

We are going to need a lot of jail cells to house the millions of Americans, including the Supreme Court, who believe America is a nation of laws worth defending and upholding.

The majority of the American people want their government to remain Of the People, By the People and For the People.

Republicans have a different vision. They govern by accusation in order to obtain acquiescence.

Since Sunday, Republicans have moved from fear, to fiction, from inflammatory rhetoric to closed debate.

House Republican leaders are not interested in having America stand united.

That's why they passed a resolution that has to do with clinging to power, not 9/11.

The resolution will not make America safer, but it was passed in the hope of making Republicans safer.

The Republican resolution was about November 7, not September 11 and Republicans sacrificed patriotism for political ambition.

Trapped by their own rhetoric, and led by a President who has lost the trust of the American people, Republicans have retreated to their last stand--Making you afraid.

Every time they rise, remember this: Republicans have propped up this President by spending more on the Iraq War than on domestic security. Many Republicans in this House know the truth. They just can't speak it, for fear of being outed by their own Party Leadership.

Republicans will only say what the President wants you to hear. And it is not the truth. The American people are getting that somewhere else. Republicans gave us fear and fiction around the fifth anniversary of 9/11. Just imagine what they have in store for us in the weeks ahead.

Fear has never made America safer. But that's all the Republicans have to offer. And that's simply not enough to protect and defend America in the 21st century.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday night, President Bush continued this difficult job he has of trying to connect the war in Iraq with al Qaeda. He said it is the most difficult part of his job. Because there is no connection.

Even the Senate report this past week said, and it is a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is no link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. The Senators wrote: ``Saddam expressed only negative opinions about Osama bin Laden.''

Yet the President had the audacity on Sunday night to say that our Nation's safety depends on what happens in the streets of Baghdad. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have to ask the President, where were you when you set this war up and you told General Shinseki, head of the Army, we didn't need 350,000 people; we could go over there with a minimal force?

You led us into this quagmire, and you have got to give us a way out. We need the strategic redeployment that Mr. Murtha is talking about

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take Mr. DeFazio's time.

Madam Speaker, across America yesterday, we paused to honor the innocent Americans who perished 5 years ago on 9/11. A memorial day is a time for reflection. It also can be a time for action.

As a doctor, I know that grief can be debilitating, but it can also be motivating. There is something America can do to transform our grief into positive action.

Right now, half a world away, there is incomprehensible pain and suffering going on in Darfur. Imagine human suffering on a scale 150 times worse than 9/11. Over 470,000 people in Darfur have gone hungry for the last 3 months. They are cut off from humanitarian aid. They are innocent victims in the middle of what can be described either as genocide or homicide.

The estimates range from 200,000 to half a million innocent people who have been slaughtered in just 3 years. That is the equivalent of a 9/11 attack every single week for 3 full years. That level of death and suffering in our world today might be incomprehensible except that it is happening. It is a reality.

Peacekeepers from the African Union have slowed the genocide, but they are slated to leave Darfur at the end of the month. No one doubts the killing will resume if the Sudanese Government is left without an outside force attempting to restrain them. Unless we intervene, there will be 200, 300, who knows how many times 9/11s in Darfur, to people just as innocent as the Americans who perished 5 years ago.

It is true that the United Nations passed a resolution last month calling for a new peacekeeping force in Darfur, but the Sudanese Government responsible for the killings must approve deployment of these peacekeepers. Nothing more than lip service is going to occur unless we lead the world in demanding an end to the killings, backed up by a multinational force that can finally protect innocent people.

Last year, I and other Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, traveled to the Sudan. We visited camps along the border with Chad and met countless refugees. These were people who lost their homes, belongings, and loved ones. Everything.

A corrupt government says these are people guilty of being born with a certain color of skin and into a particular tribe. Punishment for innocence is death.

The world has seen this before. We know what to do; we simply aren't doing it. The number of innocent people literally starving to death in Darfur is 150 times the number of Americans who perished during 9/11. Humanitarian aid cannot reach them, and that is the situation with soldiers from the African Union attempting to enforce a peace. What chance do these people have if modest peacekeeping efforts disappear at the end of September?

First and foremost, the President should declare Darfur a global crisis and reinforce such a position with diplomacy aimed at uniting the world against evil. Other nations are better positioned diplomatically to demand that the Sudanese Government pay attention.

In close cooperation with other governments, we should do everything from establishing a no-fly zone to keep Sudanese helicopter gunships grounded to serving notice on the Sudanese Government that innocent people should not be starved to death.

Before 9/11, crises as far away as Sudan perhaps didn't find much room in the American consciousness. Post-9/11, we cannot help but see that death, poverty, and injustice anywhere in the world affects those of us who live in the United States.

Yesterday across America, we stopped to remember 9/11. In Darfur, we can honor the Americans who died on 9/11 by preventing tens of thousands of innocent people in Darfur from dying right before our eyes. We have 21 days to unite the world against attacks as horrifying as 9/11. This can be a defining moment for our Nation. I hope the President sees it as just that and acts before it is too late.

Mr. Speaker, the Republicans went home for a month and listened to people and watched the decimation of Lebanon. They watched the continuing mess in Iraq. The President cancelled the return of 13,000 people, or Mr. Rumsfeld did, and they are

keeping them in Baghdad because the place is in a shambles.

But what do we do when we come back, the first week we are back? Do we discuss those issues, or do we discuss the slaughter of human beings?

No, we are here to deal with horse slaughter. When I was in my district, I don't remember in the 18 years that I have been in my district that I have heard anybody come and say, why don't you stop the slaughter of horses?

What is the matter with the Republican Party? Have you nothing to do? Can't you pass anything on port security? Can't you pass anything on immigration? Can't you pass anything about helping the President get out of Iraq? Or about the economy? Gasoline is $3 a gallon. You cut the Pell Grants, and you come out worrying about the slaughter of horses. I vote ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of turn.

Mr. Speaker, you can always tell when the Republicans fear an upcoming election because they start apologizing for their past transgressions.

So it should come as no surprise that the President finally acknowledged the presence and use of secret CIA prisons. The American people happen to think that the U.S. Constitution is a document that was never intended to be shredded and discarded like last week's newspaper, but that is exactly what is happening by the President and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress.

We do not have to subvert the freedoms and principles that make us Americans so that the President can fumble his way through finding and fighting terrorists like bin Laden.

We still believe in the rule of law, the first amendment, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We believe in the Geneva Convention, and the President undermines the American credibility, power and leadership around the world by dismissing a document so important that it is incorporated into the manuals of the U.S. Armed Forces.

America is not a democracy at your convenience, Mr. President. Without the protections provided by the first amendment, the American people might never have known about the abuses at Abu Ghraib; and without the first amendment, the American people would have never known about the unauthorized wiretaps of the American people, even when there is a secret court specifically set up to enable America to defend itself without destroying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the process.

The American people still believe in the rule of law, and they can see that the President suspended the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, and the Bill of Rights because he finds them inconvenient.

The policies of this administration and the Republican Congress have not made America safer, but America is in danger on a whole new front, Presidential indifference to the principles and ideals that we are fighting for.

The President was given the tools and the resources after 9/11, but he pulled out before the job was done. He diverted our soldiers and resolve from Afghanistan to Iraq. It was a bad decision then, and it has become disastrous now in both places.

But with an automatic rubber-stamp Congress in the House and the Senate, the President could tell them what to think, tell them how to vote and get whatever he wanted. There was no balance in our government to ask the tough questions and hold the President accountable. There still is no balance in our government that can protect the American people and our founding policies from the brute force of the Republican power machine.

The President finally admitted he authorized secret CIA prisons, and in the next breath, demands the Congress authorize him to keep doing whatever he wants. And if the Republicans remain in power, they will do exactly what the President wants. No debate, no balance, nothing short of outright misrepresentation of the American people.

The Republicans misrepresent the American people when they rubber- stamp everything the President wants. That is not how America works, and it is not how democracy works. America is all about balance, debating different points of view, coming together as one Nation, standing on common ground. But that fundamental approach requires accountability, and there has been none under the Republicans.

For goodness sake, the Republicans could not even swear in Big Oil CEOs when they were called to Capitol Hill over skyrocketing prices. Republicans could not require these people to swear to tell the truth. Maybe they did; maybe they did not. We will never know.

And that is what the midterm election is really all about. America is tilted not merely to the right, but off the map entirely. Neocons who no one elected are telling the President and the Vice President what they are expected to do and what the Republican Congress will pass.

The American people may not understand the rules of Congress; but know this, Republicans delay every vote on the floor of this House until they can twist enough arms to get what the neocons behind the curtain want. Debate is gone. Accountability is gone. And that is why the Republican control should be gone.

The Republicans have squandered their chance to govern. Republicans have shortchanged the American people for 12 long years. With free speech and free press, now the American people know it.

November is about restoring democracy to the Nation best able to protect it. November is about restoring balance to a Republican Congress that has forgotten that it works for the people, not for the neocons. No democracy can survive without a Congress that looks at the President's policies and asks questions and sometimes says no.

This President has had a free hand for far too long, and this election is a referendum on President Bush. If you want more, vote for a Republican. If you want to change it, vote for the Democrats

Thank you very much. As I sit here and I listen to this today, I think about the Katrina event. You saw the President go down and throw his arm around the guy who was fixing Katrina. He said, Good job, Brownie. I mean, that has become a laughingstock.

Well, this President has done the same thing with Rumsfeld. Beginning in 2004, when Abu Ghraib came out, the President showed up and said the Secretary is doing a great job, right? This will not change as long as the President keeps Rumsfeld in that job, because Rumsfeld is the controlling power behind it all.

As long as the President puts him out there and let's him run, you are going

to continue to have this stuff. Rumsfeld went to Iraq in July while we were on vacation, right at the end, and they found the bodies of 20 kidnapped and murdered bus drivers the day he arrived. A bomber blew himself up and killed seven people. The Secretary of Defense made what I consider to be an interesting statement in response to that. He said, each time I come to Iraq, I see progress.

Now, no one who has any kind of realistic view of this could say that kind of thing. You could not be watching what is going on, when it is to our troops who are dying, or the wounded who are coming home, or the thousands of Iraqis who are being killed and say, I see progress. There is simply, you have got your military people talking about the fact that it is coming apart, you had Rumsfeld this week say to some National Guardsmen from California, no, you can't go home, I know your enlistment is up, but you have got to stay here for another 120 days.

We are going to send you into Baghdad to calm things down. It is a mess, and it has been a mess from the start because Rumsfeld would never listen. Like the President, he wouldn't listen. General Shinseki came in and said, you are going to need 300,000 troops. Rumsfeld said, you don't know what you are saying, you are out of here. Here is your retirement. Get out of here.

That is the response to anybody who comes into this administration and talks. Unless the President will dump Rumsfeld, you are not going to get any change in the policy. What is the alternative to the people of this country? The only alternative they have is on election day to take the gavel away from the Republican majority so that we can have hearings run by Democrats where some questions will be asked, where there will be some accountability so that things will begin to come up into the public view.

We have never found out what Halliburton's contracts are all about. We haven't found out who is responsible for Abu Ghraib. No, there isn't a soldier or a sailor or a marine or anyone near the military.

Only if you care about taxpayer money. I mean, the examples are so bald and so bad that it is almost laughable if it wasn't what was going on today and it was taking us down the wrong trail.

What has been said here today is, I was reading the Middle Eastern papers today, everybody says that half of Afghanistan is now under control of the Taliban. That is universal in the press.

The British general there is saying we are losing this thing; he is worried. We will not get a change unless we get some hard questions asked. We are never going to get them from the Republicans because they are going to rubber-stamp what Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld and all the rest of that bunch put together. I personally think this election is the most important election we have had in my lifetime.

You say to yourself maybe I am getting old or something, but I went through Vietnam, and I went through a whole bunch of things. But this one, if we have 2 more years of ``stay the course,'' God knows where we are going to be economically and militarily and politically and diplomatically in the world. We have got to get some change, and Rumsfeld would be a start. There are some other people that should go, but if the President can't see that Rumsfeld cannot handle it; he threw out Paul O'Neill as the Secretary of the Treasury, and he threw out some other people, Colin Powell and some others went down the road, but he keeps the guy who got us in the mess because it means he would have to admit that he made a huge mistake, and he can't do it. He can't do it, and that is the biggest problem he has.

As politicians, sometimes you have to say, ``I was wrong. I made a mistake.''

We could go on with this for a long time, but we have got Major General John Batiste. He was the commander of the 1st Division in Iraq, and he said: ``Rumsfeld and his team have turned what should have been a deliberate victory in Iraq into a prolonged challenge.'' I mean, that is a guy who was on the ground, who was there when the war was going on.

General Zinni, who was the central command of the whole forces, he served in every level of command, and he said: ``We are paying the price for a lack of credible planning, or the lack of a plan.'' Ten years' worth of planning was thrown away. That is why we are in the mess we are. Because Rumsfeld said we don't need these guys like Zinni, who is my number one guy in the U.S. Central Command. That means he headed everything in the whole area of the Middle East.

Major General Swannack said: ``I do not believe Secretary Rumsfeld is the right person to fight that war based on his absolute failures in managing the war against Saddam in Iraq.'' Now, he was commander of the 82nd Airborne. We all know about the Airborne. We know these are real soldiers. These are people who follow the leader. They do not speak out until they cannot stand it any longer.

And, finally, Lieutenant General Paul Riper said: ``If I was President, I would have relieved him 3 years ago.'' And he said that in 2006.

Now, this man was wounded in action in Vietnam. He won the Silver Star medal with a gold star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star. This man has been wounded, has stood up in the worst kind of war. And, remember, Rumsfeld never served. Bush never served. Cheney never served. Wolfowitz never served. You cannot find anybody who has ever been in a war. And the

guys who know, who have done it, who sent people out to die and been right out there with them say things like, If I was President, I would have relieved him 3 years ago. That is 2003. That is when it started, when they started ill prepared without the battle armor, without the vehicle armor, without sufficient supplies. We are going to just run in and do it, and we are going to be out in 6 months. Remember when they told that lie? And all of us stood around and said, 6 months? Really? This is going to be a cakewalk.

They didn't tell the truth to the American people or to their own troops. And that is why guys like this say get them out of there if we are going to have any change.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order.

Mr. Speaker, we have not returned to Washington, D.C. to legislate on behalf of the American people. The Republican Party will spend the next 30 days trying to make us all afraid. They are afraid of losing power, and the only way they know how to govern is to play the fear game.

It is the Republican mid-term strategy that if you can make us afraid and keep us afraid, maybe they can cling to power. For the rest of September, until the moment the Republican leaders gavel the Congress into adjournment, Republican speakers will rise and implore the American people to be afraid.

Republicans will call it security. And every time they do, just remember they are speaking in code. Republicans really mean insecurity. During September, Republicans will wield the gavel, but they won't make America safer.

We will not consider, much less pass, legislation to protect our ports by inspecting the minimum number of cargo that it takes to stop a potential terrorist threat. We know what needs to be done, but the Republicans are hard on rhetoric and soft on action.

Republicans are going to use their insecure words so often I hope Lou Dobbs, John Stewart, and the others keep track and remind people daily of how often Republicans are willing to talk and how little they are willing to act.

After America was attacked on 9/11, the finest military in the world, the United States Armed Forces, was sent to Afghanistan to hunt down bin Laden and stop the Taliban. They did a magnificent job, until U.S. soldiers were ordered to leave before the job was done and go to Iraq. We don't have bin Laden and Afghanistan is now looking more like Iraq.

A Republican administration is responsible for diverting our military, draining our treasury, destroying our credibility, and making America less safe. The American people know that Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11, but the administration denies that intelligence. Instead, the President mechanically recites his standard PR line.

The American people know that we are off course and adrift in a sea of violence. U.S. soldiers are not fighting a war on terror in Iraq. They are targets in a civil war among Iraqis. When Republicans parade to the rostrum to outdo each other using their insecurity word, think of just how insecure our soldiers are.

Republicans keep saying things are getting better. This is disproved by their own Secretary of Defense, Mr. Rumsfeld, who ordered another 13,000 troops back into Iraq. There are now 140,000 targets. With 2,653 American lives lost and 19,600 wounded, the country deserves Democratic leadership that knows the Republican plan to stay the course is the most insecure plan for our soldiers, for our Nation, and for the Iraqi people.

But the Republicans are going to spend the next 30 days trying to stay in power. Nothing more. They will say their insecurity code word over and over and over again, but they won't pass the recommendations of the bipartisan Commission on 9/11. Republicans won't bring up immigration legislation intended to make our borders safer. Republicans won't address reforms to Social Security. Republicans won't bring up legislation to end taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil or launch a national campaign to end our addiction to oil.

Instead, the Republicans will tell you to be afraid unless you pay through the nose at the pump and Big Oil can drill in every part of the pristine environment on our planet. Republicans will tell you to be afraid for Social Security unless you give your money to Enron

through Wall Street. Republicans will tell you to be afraid unless we mortgage our future in the 22nd century by giving the rich tax breaks now.

Republicans have had their chance and used it to overwhelm the American people with monstrous debt so the rich can have more riches. The Republicans had their chance and used it to divert America away from the real problems of this country.

Americans are calling this Security September. Just remember to be afraid, afraid of what else the Republicans will do if they remain in power after November 8. Don't forget, there is an election coming.

Mr. Speaker, a number of Members have come to this floor and have wondered why there isn't moral outrage. Well, when you have a President who leads you into war on all kinds of misrepresentations, when we have now lost 2,500 Americans, and when we have spent $400 billion with no moral outrage about that, who would expect there to be moral outrage about the fact that somebody is making $5.15 an hour in this country?

Now, we have Members of Congress, of course, who have indexed their salary to inflation. And this year we are all going to pick up $3,300. Nobody is going to blink. That is a third of what a minimum-wage worker makes working all year.

If we had indexed the minimum wage to inflation, they would be making almost $13 an hour. But, of course, we can't think of doing something like that. That would be humane to the people that we have kicked off welfare and all the other things we have done in this society.

We have taken away pensions. We have put companies in bankruptcy. We have shifted jobs overseas, and the few that are working in this country, we want them working for as little as possible.

Well, the Republicans found a cure for that. They waited till after the news had closed for Friday. In the darkness of the night, on a Friday, they are going to pass a bill that they are going to use for their press releases on Monday when they get home to their districts: I voted to raise the minimum wage. I care about the working people of my district, they will proclaim in loud voices.

But the fact is, they know this bill isn't going to pass. And what is going to pass, they hope, is the $300 billion for the richest among us, those poor rich people who can hardly get by. Their hearts are bleeding, but the Republicans are taking care of it. Don't worry, you rich folks. They have got you in mind. They don't care what happens to the poor.

Mr. Speaker, this is one of those bills in the middle of the night; this is a 21-page summary. There isn't anybody here, perhaps four or five conference members may know what is in it. None of us have seen the bill, so you have got to trust the leadership.

Now, this bill imposes new red tape and fees on employers that wish to provide their employees with defined benefit pensions. It makes it harder to give a defined benefit.

Those opposing this measure of course will say they believe that the bill's new requirements will impose requirements to discourage employers from offering a traditional pension plan. Supporters are saying this bill will strengthen everything. But if the aim of this bill is to strengthen pensions, why does it exempt Halliburton from the bill's requirements?

No one could possibly have read the text of this bill. But we do have this 21-page summary, I say, which says that the proposal delays the effective action on funding and benefit limitation rules for defense contractors. Those who are ripping us off in Iraq by the billions are not being brought under this bill. This provision was not in the House nor was it in the Senate version of the bill.

If the funding and limitation rules are so good for everyone, which is what the majority contends, why aren't they good enough for Halliburton? Of course, I know Halliburton is a friend of the Vice President. Perhaps we need CSI to come in here to uncover how this bill got put together, but we know enough to oppose the bill. This proposal continues to promote the philosophy of conservatives, which is that people are better off alone. You are on

your own, folks. We are going to give you a 401(k), and good luck, no defined benefits anymore. This is to end pensions as we have known them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to acknowledge Mr. Tim Friedman's 30 years of dedicated service in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Democratic Cloakroom.

Now 30 years may seem like a long time, but really it's only 6 in ``Tim Years.'' That is to say, six World Series wins resulting in rings for the Yankees. I have to wonder if Tim's retirement may have something to do with the prospect of Barry Sullivan's Boston Red Sox winning a few more World Series' and narrowing the Yankees' lead in titles.

Now safe at home--quite literally--I can publicly disclose how I caused one blemish on Tim's otherwise perfect congressional record. The March Madness NCAA basketball tournament bracket was overseen by Tim for years, and he ran a tight ship. You were in by the deadline, or you were out of the pool--except for this one time.

On a late flight home I realized that I had forgotten to put my entry in for the congressional NCAA pool. As soon as I returned to D.C., I petitioned the court of last resort, Tim Friedman, believing my cause was virtually hopeless, but imagining myself shooting that desperate last second three-pointer to win the big game.

To my complete surprise, Tim allowed my desperate shot to count, and he allowed me to slip in my late entry. Even with his charity, I still managed to go 0 and out in the Big Dance! Still, I'll never forget his wisdom for letting me in, and my folly for believing I could handicap the results.

Tim's sports enthusiasm--near-fanaticism, really--will be sorely missed around the Cloakroom. More than that, however, we will miss Tim Friedman's smile, his warmth and his gracious humanity. We hear a lot about world-class athletes. Tim Friedman is a world-class human being.

It has been my distinct pleasure to work with him, an honor to know such a genuine and goodhearted man, and a sad but proud moment for me to say goodbye and best wishes.

Mr. Chairman, as a long time supporter of India and one of the co-founders of the India Caucus I have watched with gratification over the past decade as India and the United States have emerged as strategic partners. I believe the world's oldest and largest democracies have a lot to learn from and share with one another.

I am concerned, however, that the Bush administration seems to have focused all of the energy in this bilateral relationship on the recent proposal to commence nuclear cooperation. I understand India's growing energy demands and shortages (a crisis which we in the United States also face) and I believe that our two countries should cooperate and share technologies to promote energy independence. That is why, despite serious reservations about the proposed U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement and the Bush administration's ability to properly implement it, I cosponsored H.R. 5682. I believe it is important that we continue to engage India on this important issue, and I supported this legislation to move this process along.

But I have serious concerns with the agreement as it stands. India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and

this type of arrangement with a nonsignatory to the treaty is unprecedented. Exporting American nuclear fuel to India has the potential to supplant the domestic uranium India is currently using to generate civilian nuclear power, freeing up this uranium for military purposes. I worry about the message this arrangement would send to the region and the world, and I do not believe further production of nuclear weapons is in India's or the South Asian region's best interests.

Nuclear weapons remain the most dangerous threat to mankind, and I worry about a mistake in Mumbai or Islamabad. The idea that these weapons can be used tactically or surgically is nonsense; we should be working to scale down nuclear weapon production in the region, not escalate it.

I do not believe this agreement is unworkable, but I do feel that there is one very important thing that India needs to do to move this forward: end its production of fissile material. This would show the U.S. and the world that this agreement is truly going to address India's domestic energy needs and not going to enhance its nuclear arsenal. To this end, I voted in support of the Berman/Tauscher amendment, which would withhold exports of nuclear reactor fuel to India until India stops producing fissile material for nuclear weapons.

However, the Berman/Tauscher amendment failed. In the absence of an Indian commitment to end fissile material production, I cannot support moving forward at this time with this agreement. I hope that those of us who do not support an agreement in the absence of such a commitment do not send the wrong message to our Indian friends. We will continue to support India and there are many areas in which our two countries can continue to engage, including trade, space exploration, anti- terrorism, and other defense cooperation. But I cannot in good conscience support an agreement that, even indirectly, increases India's nuclear weapons arsenal. I don't believe that serves India, the U.S., or the South Asian region well.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday a number of countries met in Rome and they discussed what ought to happen between or in Lebanon, and they came to a decision there ought to be a cease-fire, except one country said no, it was the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, how can it be that the United States of America can condone the continuation of people dying on both sides of the line? The explanation of who started it or who won't stop or who is at fault or when it started or all that must be decided at a peace table. As long as people are dying, the peace table is going to be harder and harder and harder to work out. The sooner we bring the parties to the table, the better off the whole world will be, not just Lebanese, not Israelis, everyone in the world will be better off if we have a cease- fire. Please, Mr. President, listen to us.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have before us today the Senate companion bill to the Herger-McDermott Child Family Services and Improvement Act. We have put the Senate version on the House calendar to facilitate action. The Senate version is slightly different than our bill, but we want to move ahead as quickly as possible, so we are going to strike the Senate language and insert the Herger-McDermott language in its entirety. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

It is a pleasure to work with Mr. Herger on this issue. In doing so, we will make America a little safer for vulnerable kids. Countless children across America need us to protect them from harm. In effect, the House today is fulfilling its obligation as first responders. For too many children, we are the first and the last line of defense.

Mr. Herger and I have produced bipartisan legislation that takes a modest step forward in safeguarding vulnerable children. This bill is an attempt to find common ground so that together we can pursue the common good. I believe this can be a model for the future. Certainly more needs to be done, but every journey starts with the first step.

This legislation renews the program called Promoting Safe and Stable Families. This is a small but vital program that supports the States in their efforts to prevent child abuse from occurring or from reoccurring. We maintain the flexibility of the current program by allowing the States to use Federal money to provide a wide variety of family support, preservation, reunification and other services, and we provide greater support to Native American tribes for these purposes.

We also recognize and support the courageous caregivers serving on the front lines. For the first time in 7 years, the bill provides new Federal funding to the States, $40 million, to help them meet the challenges on two fronts. The first is having the resources to enable monthly caseworker visits for children in foster care. The second is investing more in the child welfare workforce.

We know that more frequent interaction between caseworkers and foster kids leads to better outcomes. We also know that difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified caseworkers negatively affects the safety and permanency for at-risk kids. In fact, the Government Accounting Office warned us in 2003 report about the risks incurred by children when the average tenure of child care worker is less than 2 years. A lot of caring, dedicated caseworkers leave their job, not because they want to, but because they are forced to leave due to financial circumstances. We begin to address this issue in a bill with a $40 million downpayment. This shows, I think, that we mean business.

The legislation also makes changes in other child care support programs that have proven to be effective, and we want to keep them working to benefit kids and families. Despite naysayers, government can be an instrument for good. Today in this bill we can prove it.

Again, I thank my colleague Mr. Herger for his work. Working together, I think we have produced a good piece of legislation.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the good things the Federal Government does is provide a lifeline to American citizens who suddenly find themselves in grave danger. That is exactly what has happened to 25,000 American citizens in Beirut who had signed in at the embassy when the Middle East crisis erupted.

There were plenty of pictures on the evening news of Americans desperately trying to flee the conflict. Many were able to escape on chartered flights. When they arrive back in the United States, a government employee will meet them at the airport and ask whether they need any assistance, including help in securing and paying for connecting flights, temporary lodging, food, or medical assistance.

Many don't need much help, but some do. And an important, but little known, program of the Social Security Act enables us to help Americans who escape the conflict with their lives and little else.

This is government at its best: helping our citizens in a time of crisis, responding quickly and effectively to meet the needs of our people. We are doing more than watching a crisis unfold on television. We are actually helping American citizens. And the Republicans, for some strange reason, want to kill this program. So much for the common good.

Now, this program has worked effectively for a mere $1 million a year in funding. But the crisis in Lebanon has drained the fund, and the administration has requested a temporary increase to $6 million.

That is all it will take to make sure that Americans have a lifeline to reach our own citizens. But the Republicans

intend to cut the lifeline. They will support an increase of $6 million to help Americans trying to flee a war, but only if the House kills the program.

Americans remain trapped in the middle of a war zone, and the Republicans cannot bring themselves to help without extracting a pound of flesh from ordinary Americans. They want to kill a $1 million program. This is with trillions of dollars in debt out there. And they claim they are cutting the trillion-dollar deficit. They want to cut a lifeline to ordinary American citizens, because rich people won't need the help and the rest of the American people don't matter.

We saw that same response in Hurricane Katrina, and we are seeing it here today. The philosophy of the Republicans that we should not prepare for a disaster is what made those awful pictures on television about Katrina; and they create the same thing here today, deliberately, when they are using the program, they are saying, it is like the house is on fire, yes, we should give some gas to the fire truck, but after the fire is over, sell the truck, we don't need it any more, we'll never need it again.

Anybody who knows about what is going on in the world can imagine that we may need this program again. Americans are fleeing a war-torn nation, and it is perfectly all right for the Republicans with the notion that they are on their own. They intend to terminate the program at the end of it.

They terminated their concerns for Americans a long time ago. They are telling us the only way to save the program this year is to kill it next year. Exactly what American value are they addressing by cutting a lifeline to Americans trying to flee a war? Democrats are outraged by this Republican hostility to our own people.

With my colleagues Sandy Levin and Ben Cardin, I introduced legislation yesterday that would simply provide a temporary increase in the repatriation program cap so that we can continue to help Americans leave Lebanon.

Now, there is no reason I can think of why that shouldn't be done. But it is just too easy for our friends on the other side of the aisle. They want to pretend they are fighting government spending. This is a million dollars, folks. That is not a rounding error. That is not drippings. That is practically nothing compared to what they have done in tax cuts for the rich.

Of course that zeal applies to the $5 million, but it doesn't apply to the $18.4 billion they gave to Halliburton, $5 billion of which nobody has any idea where it went. No oversight in this House on an issue like that. But on this, this $1 million, we can't have that program.

And we know we are going to need it. Now, the next time the problem happens, the program won't be there. We will have to come into the House in emergency session and create this program to help Americans get out of someplace that has become a war zone.

This sums up the values of the Republican leadership. Big bucks for the big donors and not even pennies for everyone else. We can do better than that in this House. I think the Senate will send us a better bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is sort of amusing to me that one minute Mr. Herger and I can be working together, and the next minute we have little differences.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mr. Leavitt, sent a letter up yesterday asking for this increase in financing. Nowhere in his letter does he say we ought to terminate it. They have a funding mechanism by which they think they have the money.

I am very seldom with the President, but sometimes I am when he is right. In this case I think we ought to keep the program. I really think that it is unusual that the theory gets out on the floor here that in order to have oversight over a program you have to kill it.

You don't have to have the body. I mean, it isn't like an autopsy. Sometimes you can do oversight on a living program, a program that is actually going on. Now maybe we need to kill the Halliburton program and just kill the whole $18 billion, then we can do oversight. But I think it would be much more reasonable to do oversight on a program that is going on.

I can't imagine how much abuse you could really have in a million dollars, in this sort of situation, given the kind of abuse that we have simply paid no attention to in the Halliburton situation.

So while I think that we can agree that we need some more money in this program, I don't think we want to just put ourselves in the situation of coming back one year from now and putting this program back in.

It may not be called the same thing. We will change the name. But the effectiveness of putting it in the law was that people anticipated that there would be situations like this before.

We have had situations in Rwanda, we have had situations in the Middle East, we have had situations in the Mediterranean, we have had all kinds of places where Americans get caught in a cross-fire and we have to extricate them, and we make available some money to take care of Americans.

That is why this is a good idea and shouldn't be ended simply as a way of saying we are controlling a national budget deficit of $5 trillion, or whatever it is. This is $1 million, guys. Come on.

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