Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate and honor a young Arkansas student from my district who has achieved national recognition for exemplary volunteer service in her community. Shelby Crawford of Eureka Springs has just been named one of the top youth volunteers by The 2003 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards program, an annual honor conferred on the most impressive student volunteers in each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Ms. Crawford is being recognized for organizing a petting zoo event that raised more than $1000 for a local horse rescue center.

In light of numerous statistics that indicate Americans today are less involved in their communities than they once were, it's vital that we encourage and support the kind of selfless contribution this young citizen has made. People of all ages need to think more about how we, as individual citizens, can work together at the local level to ensure the health and vitality of our towns and neighborhoods. Young volunteers like Ms. Crawford are inspiring examples to all of us, and are among our brightest hopes for a better tomorrow.

The program that brought this young role model to our attention--The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards--was created by Prudential Financial in partnership with the National Association of Secondary School Principals in 1995 to impress upon all youth volunteers that their contributions are critically important and highly valued, and to inspire other young people to follow their example. Over the past eight years, the program has become the Nation's largest youth recognition effort based solely on community service, with nearly 150,000 youngsters participating since its inception.

Ms. Crawford should be extremely proud to have been singled out from such a large group of dedicated volunteers. I heartily applaud Ms. Crawford for her initiative in seeking to make her community a better place to live, and for the positive impact she has had on the lives of others. She has demonstrated a level of commitment and accomplishment that is truly extraordinary in today's world, and deserves our sincere admiration and respect. Her actions show that young Americans can--and do--play important roles in our communities, and that America's community spirit continues to hold tremendous promise for the future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill that would greatly expand the mandate of the Department of Defense-Veterans Affairs Joint Executive Committee. This committee would be tasked to oversee the realm of collaborative efforts of not just health, but also benefits and other areas to promote increased resource sharing between the two departments.

While statutory authority to allow resource sharing has existed for more than 20 years, the latest figures tell us that the level of sharing between the VA and DOD remains relatively low. The Federal Government can and must do more to increase resource sharing whenever and wherever feasible.

This bill would allow the Joint Executive Committee to identify changes in policies, to improve services, efficiencies and opportunities for collaboration in order to deliver benefits and services to beneficiaries of both departments. Inefficiencies and duplication not only waste taxpayer dollars, they shortchange military personnel, retirees and veterans seeking the services offered by VA and

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 107, a resolution commending and supporting the efforts of Students in Free Enterprise, and I thank the gentleman for bringing this resolution forward.

Madam Speaker, I authored this resolution with the strong support of the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) to recognize Students in Free Enterprise, more commonly known as SIFE. SIFE is a nonprofit organization started in 1975, which seeks to instill in college students a greater appreciation for, and understanding of, the free enterprise system. Students in Free Enterprise has grown to become one of the largest university-based organizations in the world. SIFE teams are active on more than 1,400 college and university campuses in 33 countries around the world. In my home State of Arkansas, we have SIFE teams on 18 university and college campuses. It is wonderful to see the opportunities that SIFE has provided to students across Arkansas.

Working together as a team and through the mentorship of faculty advisers, SIFE students apply their classroom experiences to develop and implement educational outreach programs that teach individuals in their communities the principles of market economics, entrepreneurship, personal financial success, and business ethics.

Madam Speaker, I will insert into the Record a copy of an article published by the Wall Street Journal on January 14, 2003, entitled ``Program Puts College Students on Business-Leadership Paths.'' The article details a student who was the first in her family to go beyond high school and entered college with a vague dream of being a real estate broker. While attending community college, she found SIFE and went on to compete against other SIFE teams on the regional and national level. This former student has finished her bachelor's degree and is now the manager of the Washington, D.C. office of KPMG.

Thousands of success stories just like this one are associated with SIFE and the efforts of their president, Alvin Rohrs. Mr. Rohrs is to be personally commended. Alvin Rohrs has been SIFE's president and chief executive officer since 1983. He successfully reversed the organization's fortunes by seeking a diverse board of directors to energize the organization.

Rohrs was a SIFE chapter adviser at Southwest Baptist University in Missouri in 1983 when SIFE's national board hired him to try to reverse the organization's fortunes.

SIFE started with a bang in 1975, but lost its spark in the early 1980s as the U.S. economy faltered and SIFE's backers, large industrial corporations, cut their contributions. The roster of SIFE schools had shrunk from 100 in 1981 to 18 two years later. To get the energy back, Rohrs sought influential board members from half a dozen members in 1983. SIFE's Free Enterprise Dream Team, what most of us would call a board of directors, now numbers more than 200 strong. Their board is comprised of presidents and CEOs from a wide variety of corporations, including Wal-Mart, Black & Decker, Valvoline, and American Greetings; and neither Rohrs nor his board believes the organization is close to reaching its potential.

Madam Speaker, I commend Mr. Rohrs on his 20-year anniversary as president of SIFE, and I recognize the incredible organization that has made a difference in the lives of millions. I encourage my colleagues to vote their support of H. Res. 107.

The aforementioned article is as follows:

[From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 14, 2003]

Program Puts College Students On Business-Leadership Paths

When Carole Clay Withers enrolled at Walters State

Community College in Morristown, TN, 15 years ago, she had

never flown in an airplane or eaten in a restaurant with

tablecloths. The first member of her family to go beyond high

school, she wanted to see more of the world than her native

rural Tennessee and had a vague dream of becoming a real-

estate broker.

Then she found SIFE, or Students in Free Enterprise. When

her economics professor talked up the nonprofit organization,

based in Springfield, MO, as a place where she could learn

about business firsthand by doing entrepreneurial projects

with fellow students, ``I flew down the hall to sign up,''

says Ms. Withers.

Her five-person SIFE team taught business concepts to

elementary-school students by creating coloring books that

showed how crops planted in the region eventually were

marketed and sold world-wide.

The team competed against other college SIFE teams in

regional and national contests, where they were judged by

corporate executives. ``When my team made it to the finals at

the national championship in Kansas City, and I stood on the

stage fielding questions from the judges, I felt my life had

changed,'' says Ms. Withers. ``I realized that if I could

answer all the questions being posed by some of the country's

most powerful executives, I had what I needed to become an

executive myself.''

She completed her bachelor's degree in accounting and now

is a manager at the Washington, DC, office of KPMG. ``If not

for SIFE, I would probably be working in a low-paid factory

job,'' she says.

SIFE is offering a lesson all good managers should help to

teach: that business is a part of the fabric of every

community, that it is a skill that needs to be learned by

everyone to some degree in order to survive, and that the

smallest venture can have world-wide reach.

SIFE has chapters at 797 colleges nationwide and more than

500 schools overseas, providing opportunities for students

who come from modest backgrounds and have little exposure to

big business. It has spread to elite campuses such as Notre

Dame and Harvard in recent years, but its roots are in

smaller schools in the Midwest and South.

Yet its mission--igniting an early passion for business

innovation and leadership by challenging students to launch

projects in their communities--is global in scope and

sophisticated in its approach. ``We encourage students to

take what they learn in an economics class and use it to show

others how free enterprise can improve lives,'' says Alvin

Rohrs, president and chief executive of SIFE.

Last year, five SIFE students from the University of Ghana,

in Accra, taught 20 villages in Kpomkpo how to make soap from

locally available coconut and palm oil. Production began

after three weeks of training, with help from Ghana's women's

ministry. The initial trainees have since trained others,

launching a cottage industry.

Founded 23 years ago, SIFE received much-needed help from

Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and his then-chief operating

officer, Jack Shewmaker, in the mid-1980s. ``It developed

just like Wal-Mart, in small towns that didn't have a lot of

other resources,'' says Jack Kahl, former CEO of Cleveland-

based

Henkel Consumer Adhesives and a longtime SIFE board member.

Over the past decade, SIFE has expanded rapidly and

recruited almost 200 executives to its board, currently

headed by Thomas Coughlin, president and CEO of Wal-Mart.

Some other companies represented on the board are 3M, Black &

Decker, Coca-Cola, AT&T, ConAgra, Nestle and Pfizer. Along

with judging regional, national and the international World

Cup SIFE competitions, board members farm talent from SIFE

teams. Some 35 percent of management trainees hired by Wal-

Mart are SIFE alumni. RadioShack in another heavy recruiter.

Luke Robinson, who last year earned an M.B.A. from La

Sierra University, Riverside, Calif., says his experience as

president of the school's SIFE team from 2000 to 2002 altered

his ambitions. ``I went from being a back-office, analytic

accounting type to being quite at ease in front of large

crowds and wanting a front-room leadership position,''he

says.

His team, which won the World Cup championship last year,

launched more than a dozen projects, including a child-care

business course in Riverside that helped about 200 welfare

mothers establish day-care businesses; a campus cleaning

business; a cow bank in Karandi, India, which purchased 20

milking cows for families to help start a small dairy

business; and a llama bank in Peru.

``As a student you're often discounted as wet behind the

ears, but in SIFE we came up with ideas and showed they could

work,'' says Mr. Robinson, a grants manager for La Sierra's

business school and a consultant to small businesses in the

area. ``In SIFE, I got project-management experience that

lots of people don't get until they've been working for 5 or

10 years. And most beneficial of all, I learned how to talk

to people and interact with them.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize our guest chaplain, Pastor Dave Stewart of Wayne, Michigan. Although Pastor Dave is not my constituent, he happens to be the father of my office manager, Liz Yeager.

Pastor Dave is an energetic man who has led a full life. Although he began his working career in public service, he decided to pursue a life in the ministry at age 34. Since then, Pastor Dave has served seven different United Methodist churches throughout Michigan. He is currently the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church of Wayne.

Pastor Dave also has a big heart. Throughout the years he and his wife Ellen, son Kirk and daughter Elizabeth have opened their home to many friends and adopted family. Pastor Dave's faith in the Lord gives him an eternal outlook that encourages him to face each day with energy and joy. This is evident in the way he loves those around him.

Mr. Speaker, it has been my sincere pleasure to have Pastor Dave open the House in prayer.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of House Resolution 132. This legislation expresses that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling against the Pledge of Allegiance is inconsistent with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the first amendment.

The Pledge of Allegiance brings together people of different backgrounds in a shared expression of support for our country. Before the start of business in the House of Representatives, my colleagues and I proudly recite the Pledge of Allegiance, just as I proudly said it before every school board meeting back home in my hometown of Rogers, Arkansas.

Our pledge to support our country and the beliefs on which it was founded is an important part of our everyday life. Every time an American turns to the flag to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, they are reminded of all that has been sacrificed in the name of our country and for our freedom.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit outraged people across the country by ruling the phrase ``one Nation under God'' makes the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. It is unbelievable that a Federal court would rule that the Pledge of Allegiance violates our first amendment.

Mr. Speaker, perhaps now more than ever the need for the unity in America exists. I commend the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) for bringing this legislation before us, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of House Resolution 132.

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

Certainly as an Arkansan I am very aware of the West Nile disease. My brother, Fay Boozman, the Director of Arkansas' Health Department, testified before a Congressional committee that it is very possible that more Arkansans will be infected with the West Nile virus this year. This estimate reflects the fact that the number of cases has steadily increased in Arkansas since the West Nile virus first appeared in 2001.

Arkansas is certainly not alone in this trend. In fact, epidemiologists expect that in the upcoming season the virus will reach all 48 contiguous States, which is why Congress needs to act now. States like Arkansas cannot afford to dip into their emergency funds to combat the spread of West Nile virus. This bill will help States and localities fight this virus by authorizing matching grants of up to $100,000 for their mosquito abatement programs.

Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin) and the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. John) for their leadership on this issue and for bringing this bill to the floor for a vote. I encourage my colleagues to pass this bill and provide much needed relief to our State and local governments who are on the front lines of this fight.