Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I wish to associate myself with the remarks of my colleagues from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Communities in my home in New York, including the village of Croton-on- Hudson in my district, are also being threatened by companies who are hoping to exploit this loophole through the STB to process solid waste without facing regulation under environmental protection laws. This type of activity is clearly outside the mission and the purview of the Surface Transportation Board, and I look forward to working with my colleagues and chairman to affirm that reality.

I thank the chairman and the gentleman from New Jersey for their leadership and look forward to working as we go forward with you.

Mr. Speaker, the war in Iraq has cost, as of last week, every man, woman and child in my district, New York's 19th district, $3,077. Now, for that $3,077, the men, women and children of my district have paid for a war that was a strategic mistake and has been horribly mismanaged.

In the latest example, USA Today revealed that the Pentagon has been even slower than we thought in providing safer vehicles for our troops. According to e-mails within the Pentagon, a Marine general in Iraq requested MRAPs, mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, as far back as December 2003. These vehicles offer the best protection from IEDs for our troops. The number one killer of troops in Iraq are IEDs.

However, while Pentagon leadership delayed in providing these vehicles to U.S. troops, they decided to equip the Iraqi Army with these vehicles, while leaving our soldiers with Humvees. This resulted in the unnecessary deaths of at least 600 Americans.

For $3,000, the taxpayers of my district paid for the best equipment we could buy for the Iraqi Army, but left our soldiers and marines with substandard Humvees. It is time we reorient our priorities, protect our own soldiers, and end this war.

Mr. Speaker, a recent CRS report shows that the United States is now spending $10 billion a month fighting the war in Iraq. That is over $2.5 billion a week. And what does the American taxpayer get for this $10 billion a month? An army, nearly broken by repeated deployments; a National Guard that is unwilling and unable to respond to natural disasters or terrorist attacks at home because many of our men and women are in Iraq and most of their equipment is; an escalation in Iraq that has resulted in more death and little reduction in violence; an Iraqi government that is unable to govern; Iraqi Security Forces that refuse to fully stand up.

The war in Iraq costs every man, woman and child in New York's Nineteenth District $3,077. For over $3,000 a person, the people of my district have gotten a war that was a strategic mistake and has made them less safe.

Today, the House of Representatives considered another bill for a responsible withdrawal from the war in Iraq. The Responsible Redeployment From Iraq Act requires U.S. troops to redeploy from Iraq by April 1, 2008. After 4 years of repeated failure and little accountability, the new Congress is working to repair the damage done to our military and change the direction of this country.

When the President came to Congress to ask for additional funding for the war in Iraq, I established a guiding principle for determining my vote. Any legislation I voted for would have to contain a responsible specific timeline to redeploy U.S. troops out of Iraq. Furthermore, the bill would have to contain benchmarks that would hold the Iraqi government accountable.

Following this principle, I voted four times in 5 months to provide nearly $100 billion for extra military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, including extra money to improve our fight against al Qaeda in Afghanistan. These bills also required the Iraqi parliament to meet specific benchmarks to reduce violence and limit sectarian violence. Further, they required the President to follow troop readiness standards established by our own Pentagon. Unfortunately, the President ignored the will of the American people and vetoed the first bill that Congress sent him.

The President blindly insists that America continue down the same path in Iraq. The President's path has left our troops in the middle of Iraq's civil war, weakened U.S. national security, and is devastating our military's ability to fight.

The President refuses to listen to his own State Department's report showing that the Taliban is reemerging as a dominant force in Afghanistan, dramatized by the most recent disheartening sight of young girls being machine-gunned as they left their school, a tactic that is used to try to intimidate parents into not sending their girls to school.

Our men and women in uniform in both Iraq and Afghanistan have performed bravely and worked to achieve every mission their leadership has given them. Our troops have performed heroically in Iraq. But the administration concedes that violence remains high; that the Iraqi government has failed to meet the benchmarks endorsed by the President in January; that political reconciliation is nonexistent.

Finally, after years of silence, even President Bush's allies have realized that the current path in Iraq cannot be sustained. Senator Domenici says, ``There is no reason to wait. I am trying to tell the President that he must change his ways because there is nothing positive happening.'' And Senator Lamar Alexander said, ``The President needs a new strategy.''

It is time our troops had leadership worthy of their service, leadership that will give them achievable missions that improve the security of the American people.

That is why I supported the Responsible Redeployment From Iraq Act that requires that the President publicly justify the number of troops he needs to carry out post-redeployment missions such as protecting embassy staff, force protection, and fighting international terrorist organizations in Iraq. It is time the American people saw a change in our course.

In the time it has taken me to give this speech, we have spent another roughly $1 million in Iraq. $1 million for every 5 minutes we spend in Iraq, for a war that has made us less safe and has weakened our military.

It is time to change our course in Iraq and refocus on the threats in Afghanistan, where the 9/11 attacks were planned and the al Qaeda and the Taliban continue to plot. It is time we end our mistaken war in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, a recent CRS report shows that the United States is now spending $10 billion a month fighting the war in Iraq. That's over $2.5 billion a week.

And what does the American taxpayer get for this $10 billion a month? An Army being broken by repeated deployments; a National Guard that is unready or unable to respond to natural disasters or terrorist attacks at home because many of our men and women are in Iraq and most of our equipment is; an escalation in Iraq that has resulted in more death and little reduction in violence; an Iraqi government that is unable to govern, Iraqi security forces that refuse to fully stand up.

The war in Iraq has cost every man, woman and child in my district $3,077. For over $3,000 a person, the people in my district have gotten a war that was a strategic mistake and has made them less safe. It is time we end this war.

Mr. Speaker, this evening, the House of Representatives considered H.R. 2900, The Food and Drug Administration Amendments of 2007, which, among other things reauthorized the FDA through 2012. I voted for this bill because I believe it's vital for our national interests that the FDA be authorized, and I am aware that the current authorization is due to expire very shortly. That said, I cast this vote with great reservations. The current funding of the FDA is too dependent on the companies that the Agency is supposed to be regulating. There is an inherent and unacceptable conflict of interest in this arrangement. To be a truly effective regulator, the FDA must be a completely independent entity, with no outside relationships. Only then can the American people be absolutely certain that the agency is always acting with their best interests in mind.

It is my hope that during conference with the Senate some greater protections can be added to this legislation to ensure that it is an independent entity in which we can place our full and complete trust.

Mr. Chairman, I am a committed advocate for small businesses, which are a driving force in the economy of the Hudson Valley. To help support these businesses, I cosponsored the Small Business Tax Relief Act, which provided a number of tax breaks to local small businesses including enhancement of the work opportunity tax credit and the ability to claim the work opportunity tax credit against AMT liability. I was proud to see the President sign that small business tax relief package into law earlier this year. The bill we considered today, the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill, included over $580 million for the Small Business Administration. Small businesses are a vital part of the 19th district of New York and the country as a whole, and I am committed to helping small business owners succeed in the 21st century and beyond.

During consideration of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill I voted against an amendment proposed by Congressman Garrett that would have extended a moratorium on enforcement of

section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I am concerned that the amendment would have weakened the Sarbanes Oxley system, which is designed to ensure transparency in America's corporations and protect innocent shareholders and employees from corporate malfeasance. I have not forgotten what led to the demise of companies like Enron and Worldcom, and I am committed to ensuring that such tragedies are not repeated. I look forward to continuing to work with colleagues to pursue ways to support small business growth and corporate accountability.

Mr. Speaker, last week the Senate took historic action by approving the first meaningful increase in CAFE standards in over 30 years.

The Senate bill would raise the average efficiency of all cars on the road to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The result would be dramatic relief for working families at the gas pump, significant cuts in demand for foreign oil, and the reduction of tailpipe emissions that lead to climate change and air pollution.

If we are serious about ending our dependence on foreign oil and combating climate change, we have to take real action on car efficiency. At a time when many cars on the road are already capable of meeting this standard, the consumers are voting with their dollars by buying record numbers of hybrids. We simply cannot wait.

By acting to raise CAFE standards to 35 miles per gallon, this House can take courageous action to meet some of the greatest challenges of our time, keep our domestic auto industry competitive, keep those jobs in these countries, and do not concede the efficiency market to foreign manufacturers.

I hope the House will take this visionary action.

Mr. Chairman, I urge support of the Hinchey- Wolf amendment to force the DOE to take a time-out from its rush to subject giant stretches of this country to eminent domain for energy interests.

In my State, in my district, the New York Regional Interconnect, for instance, NIRE, is an internationally financed private entity which will receive eminent domain rights to seize private land for private profit. It would remove the State environmental review process and all property rights and States rights from the equation and give that all to FERC. I think this is something that needs much closer examination.

New York City, I would reassure my colleagues from downstate, does not need NIRE to have power, especially not this route. In fact, there are alternate routes that the State could and would look at if it had the time that it would normally have under CCRA.

I urge support for the Hinchey-Wolf amendment in the interest of property rights and States rights.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I just want to point out, in response to a couple of remarks that were made, this project that Mr. Arcuri, Mr. Hinchey, and I are concerned with, which could happen anywhere in the country to any of you, is not an interstate project. It occurs entirely within New York State, mysteriously starting in Utica and mysteriously ending in the little town of Campbell Hall. The other shoes have not dropped yet. But in New York State's Environmental Quality Review Act, nothing gets approved in under a year.

The proposal in section 1221 that after a year it kicks up authority to FERC is patently meant to usurp State authority. You can't get a subdivision, a power plant, a landfill, hardly any public project approved that fast. It usually takes a draft environmental impact statement; public comment; a final environmental impact statement; and at long last, approval. But two years is the shortest that I have ever seen. So to have this be one year means to me that the law was written to usurp State authority.

Madam Speaker, later today, we will begin

work on important legislation to finally help America end its dependence on foreign oil and pursue newer, cleaner forms of energy.

I'm excited that the Energy and Water appropriations bill that we will pass this week will take the long overdue step of setting a new course for our energy future by making significant investments in renewables and efficiency.

For too many years, working families have felt the sting of high gas prices at the gas pump and rising home energy costs. Our economy has been made vulnerable to the whims of OPEC, and our reliance on fossil fuels has polluted our air and exacerbated climate change.

All the while, State and local governments have been forced to try to fill the leadership vacuum left by the Congress and this President.

No more. The new Congress is prepared to meet our Nation's energy challenges head-on, and to do so, this bill provides almost $2 billion for renewables and efficiency, significantly more than the President requested.

I am concerned that it continues to provide unwarranted taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power that hide the true consumer costs of this power source, but I support this bill, and I urge my colleagues to ratify it.

Mr. Chairman, later today we begin work on important legislation to finally help America end its dependence on foreign oil and pursue newer, cleaner forms of energy.

I'm excited that the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that we will pass this week will take the long-overdue step of setting a new course for our energy future by making significant investments in renewab1es and efficiency.

For too many years, working families have felt the sting of high prices at the gas pump and rising home energy costs. Our economy has been made vulnerable to the whims of OPEC, and our reliance on fossil fuels has polluted our air and exacerbated climate change.

All the while state and local governments have been forced to try to fill the leadership vacuum left by the previous Congress and this President.

No more. The new Congress is prepared to meet our nation's energy challenges head on. To do so, this bill provides almost $2 billion for renewables and efficiency, significantly more than the President requested.

This funding includes $200 million to get more solar projects on the market, $250 million to help develop domestically produced biofuels and over $235 million for new vehicle technologies to alleviate our demand for foreign oil, about $390 million for efficiency and weatherization grants to cut energy use in buildings, and over $110 million to expand and develop hydropower across the United States.

This funding is an investment in America's future prosperity. By supporting these technologies, we will be able to produce energy sources here at home that do not rely on fossil fuels and do not emit greenhouse gases, particulate matter, and other pollutants that threaten our environment and health.

However, if there is one area where I feel the bill strays off course it is in its continued financial support for nuclear power. I am deeply concerned that the bill continues to provide unwarranted taxpayer subsidies for nuclear power that hide the true consumer costs of this power source and obscure the safety and environmental threats posed by nuclear energy. I am specifically troubled by the provision of $120 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and almost $200 million for new reactor construction and technology development through the Nuclear Power 2010 and Generation IV programs. I believe that we need to curtail these subsidies to make the nuclear industry stand on its own and to make its true costs transparent to the public.

Although I have reservations about the spending on nuclear power in the bill, I am pleased that it does not include funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead, and requires the President to come forward with a plan to adapt to the realities of a post-Cold War world by transforming and reducing our nuclear arsenal.

Overall, the Energy appropriations bill contains significant investments for solar, wind, hydropower, biofuels, efficiency, and other technologies that will help America's families gain cleaner, more secure, more affordable energy. This bill is a significant accomplishment and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment makes a small change to funding at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It would prohibit any funding to be spent for performance bonuses to senior level staff at the Department for fiscal year 2008.

This amendment would effectively mean no person in a Presidential- appointed position or Secretary-level position would receive a performance bonus during the coming fiscal year.

As I begin, let me state that the Department of Veterans Affairs has done a very good job in many areas for our Nation's veterans. In fact, its health care system is rated amongst the very best in the country, and the demand of veterans to get into the system speaks to the high level of care that it provides.

However, there remains a significant need for improvement in many areas. In the last 3 years, the VA has underestimated its health care budget by nearly $1 billion. It has roughly 600,000 veterans claims backlogged and veterans currently waiting an average of 177 days before receiving a decision on their claim.

Furthermore, according to a draft Inspector General's report, the VA is significantly overstating its success in getting patients timely appointments with VA doctors. The number of claims pending before the Department has steadily increased over the last 5 years. The current wait time is nearly 2 months longer than what Secretary Nicholson suggested in front of our Veterans Affairs Subcommittee would be acceptable to him, which was 125 days rather than the 177 currently being suffered by our veterans. That is nearly a 2-month difference.

The Secretary himself called this ``unacceptable.'' However, the awards for bonuses last year ranged up to and included a number of members of high management at the VA of $33,000 in annual bonus. Their award bonuses were because of evaluations of outstanding and excellent. In fact, 87 percent of the senior staff were called ``outstanding'' or ``excellent'' in performance. One of those who got the $33,000 bonus had only served in his position from February 2006 until September 2006. So an outstanding performance for 6 months earned that individual a $33,000 bonus; this at a time when our veterans are waiting 177 days average to have their claims for disability heard. And if they go to an appeal, it is an average of 2 years to wait for that appeal to be heard. This simply makes no sense. It is either unacceptable or it is outstanding, but it can't be both.

I am sure that most of the staff at the Department is dedicated and hardworking and the service they provided in often excellent, but in other areas it is unsatisfactory. Our veterans deserve accountability from the VA. Yet Secretary Nicholson himself has signed off on all of these bonuses, making only one change since 2004.

Veterans in my district and across the country were outraged when The Washington Post and the Army Times broke this story a couple of months ago. The VA Committee and the Subcommittee on Oversight invited Secretary Nicholson to testify this week and explain the bonuses. However, he decline and decided instead to send a substitute who admitted to knowing very little about the issue.

I understand that the chairman wants to study and best address this issue; and I would prefer that rather than eliminating bonuses altogether that we have them tied to performance, as bonuses should be. So if the chairman agrees, I would like to work with him and other Members on a separate piece of legislation to add accountability to the bonus process to the Department.

As in private industry, bonuses at the VA should be tied to performance, and I believe all of us want to see that happen, want to see the backlog reduced, and want to see our veterans get their claims processed promptly.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the chairman.

Mr. Chairman, with the chairman's agreement, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for agreeing to allow the amendment to be withdrawn.

For the record, I would like to say that Under Secretary Mansfield, under oath this week at the Subcommittee on Oversight hearing, at least six times answered that he did not know the information and would have to go back and respond in writing. And one of those times specifically had do with an individual who was identified by the Congressional Research Service as being a presidential appointee who is among those receiving bonuses.

So at least in one case that may need to be clarified.

Amendment Offered by Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, before I address the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, I just wanted to comment that it is interesting, some might say entertaining, to be given a lesson in fiscal responsibility by those Members who helped to run up the biggest deficit and the biggest balance of trade deficit that this country has ever seen. But we will let that go.

For now I would just like to talk about, first of all, the fact that there are no earmarks in this bill. To talk about earmarks on a bill, the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, which has no earmarks is inappropriate and just a distraction.

In terms of first responders, the part that I would like to address, it is particularly important to my district, New York's 19th, which served and continues to serve New York City. Orange County in my district is the farthest north that first responders from New York are allowed to live. The firemen and policemen of New York may live only that far north from New York City because of needing to be there when they are called in a hurry. And as a result, we have had many fire and police who lost their lives on 9/11 and many are subsequently suffering from respiratory ailments from working on the Ground Zero pile. So we know, not only from that but from planning for other incidents, accidents, attacks that we need to be ready for, that first responders need our help and they need it from this bill, and this bill gives it to them.

This bill gives it to them through Homeland Security grants, which meet the needs of first responders including hiring, training, and equipping first responders. The President proposed slashing the grants by 52 percent. Instead, our bill restores this cut, providing $550 million, which is $25 million above fiscal year 2007 and $300 million above the President's request for Homeland Security grants.

Local law enforcement terrorism prevention programs, this $375 million program plays a key role in assisting local law enforcement agents in information sharing, target hardening, and counter-terrorism planning. The President's budget eliminates this program. Our bill provides $400 million, which is $25 million above fiscal year 2007.

Firefighter assistance grants, the President proposed to slash these grants by 55 percent. Instead, this bill restores the cut, providing $570 million, $23 million above fiscal year 2007 and $270 million above the President's request. And SAFER grants, the President proposed eliminating these Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, SAFER, $115 million SAFER grants. The program was eliminated by the President in his proposal. We, instead, provide $230 million, which is $115 million above fiscal year 2007.

So in every instance in which first responders need our help, need the Federal Government's assistance, to be able to respond to fire, police, and other security and public safety issues and events, we are trying to provide them with the resources that they need over the President's objections and over his cuts.

I am proud to support this bill, and I submit that I personally don't have any earmarks in it, and I don't know of anybody else who does. So let's please not discuss it in those terms but in terms of what makes the American people safer.

Offered By: Mr. Hall of New York

Amendment No. 3: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Mr. Speaker, today the House recognizes the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War and congratulates Israel on administering a unified Jerusalem as a city open to people of all faiths.

I want to join in congratulating the people of Jerusalem on the 40th anniversary of the unification of this ancient city. Further, I wish to commend the State of Israel for opening this holy city to followers of all faiths. Jerusalem is the holiest city of the Jewish faith, the third holiest Islamic city, and is the site of many significant Christian sites. Because of its important status to all these religions, Jerusalem must remain an undivided city that protects the rights of all ethnic and religious groups. Israel has recognized this important reality and allows members of all faiths to visit and worship at their holy sites.

It is my hope that all parties in the Middle East will use Jerusalem's example of religious coexistence to work towards a final negotiated peace in the region. A lasting peace between Israel and its neighbors is in the interests of all countries in the region and overall international stability.

Finally, it is my belief that the United States should help to reaffirm its commitment to a strong relationship with Israel by placing its embassy and staff in its capital city of Jerusalem. Accordingly, I hope that the President will consider the relevant language in the legislation before the House today and abide by the provisions of the Jerusalem Embassy Act passed by Congress in 1995. This would be an important step in cementing the bond between the United States and Israel at this critical time in history.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the war in Iraq and I have always said that I would vote for additional war funding only if the bill contained a firm, responsible timeline to redeploy U.S. troops out of Iraq. On those grounds, and in accordance with the overwhelming sentiment I have heard from the people in my district, I could not in good conscience vote for the funding bill brought before the House this evening.