Floor Statements

We are prepared to have that debate right now if the gentleman would yield.

Will the gentleman yield?

We heard the gentleman from Massachusetts talk about Big Oil, and Saudi Arabia funding all of the opposition. I can't find the scientists that are getting those checks. But a recent study came out in the last several weeks that says that government money going to climate science on behalf of those who believe in human-cause global warming has been $79 billion over the last 20 years. They have dwarfed anything on the other side of the issue. And they continue to do it.

Would you suggest that maybe that's why they are continuing to hide this situation because the money keeps coming?

I believe the number this year is $7 billion from the government.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I first got interested in this 5 or 6 years ago on a trip to New Zealand. It was a congressional delegation. We had a visit with the leader of the NOAA point there where they leave to go into Antarctica for their expeditions and come back to this scientific center. And they put a PowerPoint presentation together for us and a big chart on the wall that showed that at that time they had dug into the Vostok ice core for 400,000 years back, and that from 400,000 years back to today, temperature increases and decreases and CO2 increases and decrease were in consonance. They moved with each other.

And I asked him, Who was burning fossil fuels 400,000 years ago? He took that as a rude question, and it took me a year to get a copy of that chart. But I studied that chart. And then I looked at the studies about the Vostok ice core. And what you discover when you don't have it on a, 8\1/2\-by-11 piece of paper and expanded is that temperature changes precede CO2 changes by about 1,000 years.

That's correct. One study says 800 years, one study says 2,800 years, but people average it at about 1,000 years.

That's right. And so is the entire IPCC report. CO2 is a trace gas. It is a plant food. It is beneficial to all of life. CO2 is a modest gas. Methane is 23 times more powerful at trapping heat. Sixty-five percent of the heat-trapping gases come from water vapor.

We are not going after them because we are going after people. What you learn when you discover that CO2 levels follow the temperature changes is that there's a reason for it. And the reason is this: we go through ice ages and global increases and declines in temperature. And as the temperature declines globally, the trees at the top of the mountain start to die for lack of photosynthesis, and then the bushes, and then the grasslands. And the dust that blows in the winds that are always here blows out across the oceans. And part of that dust is lead. And when that lead settles to the bottom of the oceans, it catalyzes growth in the largest biological mass we have in this planet, the plankton. And that growth demands CO2 to keep going.

Now the oceans contain 70 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere does. And as the plant life, the plankton, pulls that CO2 out of the oceans, homeostasis, or equilibrium, causes more CO2 to come out of the atmosphere and into the oceans. The reverse happens when the planet warms up through more solar activity. So colder oceans hold more CO2 than warm oceans. And when the planet cools off, the CO2 winds up in the oceans and out of the atmosphere. We have 388 parts per million today.

They have been in a cooling period.

That's correct. They have been in a cooling period. And we have now 3,400 instruments that go into the oceans. And every 10 days they pop up, and they give satellites information of what is on those instruments about the temperatures. And there has been no warming in the oceans.

That's correct.

That's correct.

No, we do not. In the last 2 million years, we have had 20 ice ages, 20 glaciations, the last on average about 100,000 years, interrupted by about 10,000 years of warming. It has been 11,400 years since the last glaciation. It is likely the planet is looking toward going cooler again. We have had less sun activity in the last 11 years than we've had in many, many years.

Than are receding, that's right. But 388 parts per million is not even high. It's at the low end of the comfort scale. Roughly 65 to 135 million years when the dinosaurs roamed this Earth, CO2 levels were five and 10 times as high they are today and produced a tremendous amount of greenery that fed those animals.

542 million years ago was the Cambrian period. It came to be known as the Cambrian explosion because in a very short period of time, 5 to 10 million years, which in a 4\1/2\ billion-year-old planet is the blink of an eye, in that short period of time, all of multicellular complex life that has ever existed on this Earth was deposited in the fossil evidence.

How did that happen? That happened because temperatures were warmer. The CO2 levels were 7,000 parts per million, 20 times what it is today. The entire planet was covered with greenery and had immense amounts of oxygen and all of complex life as we know it, 96 percent of which is no longer existent.

But it would have been better than a glaciation. I always like to ask people who tell me the temperature is growing too much to say what should the current temperature be. Tell me. Should it be the temperature 1,000 years ago when Greenland was settled for agriculture? Or when the people in Scotland were growing wine grapes? Or should it be 879 A.D. when the Thames froze over? Or should it be a little ice age when Greenland was empty of life again?

They don't move to Greenland.

CO2 is a beneficial trace, helpful gas that feeds plants. And this whole notion that we should control it somehow is nothing but vanity. We are not going to change what is put on this planet for 4\1/2\ billion years. Now we are told, and we heard from the gentleman from Massachusetts, that there is a scientific consensus. He said 98 percent of the scientists, tens of thousands, agree with his position. Well, I would like to ask him to produce that list. Because only 600 of them shared the Nobel Prize with Al Gore. A scientist from Australia has said only 35 people actually wrote the IPCC reports, and they were controlled by 10 people.

He did? What is not popularly known is that 32,000 scientists, including Edward Teller, 9,000 of whom are Ph.D.s and the rest masters, have signed a statement that says there is no evidence that humans are causing any impact on the global warming that occurred between 1975 and 1998, none whatsoever. In fact, five scientists who contributed to the first IPCC report said in their papers there is no evidence that humans are contributing. Those five statements were removed by the top bureaucrat at the IPCC and replaced with one statement that said there is no doubt that humans are causing this. He was asked about that under oath in a legal action. Why did he remove those statements? He said under immense pressure from the top of the Federal Government of the United States.

Now, ``consensus'' doesn't mean much in science. ``Consensus'' is important in politics. In science, we have to be seeking truth and fact. Indeed, in science, only two conditions are ever obtained. One is theory and the other is fact. You put forth your theory. You release your underlying documents and sources and methods, and you let your peers review it and try and replicate it.

That is the point at which I got very nervous about this science because I tried to get underlying documents from Jim Hansen, who had the first computer model. He first testified before Congress in 1989, I believe, in the Senate. He recently attested, recently spoke in England. He said, We have 4 years to save the planet. He doesn't release his source documents because he says they are proprietary. Well, he is an employee of the Federal Government. The Federal Government ought to own those documents. They ought to be released. When somebody is hiding something, when somebody is hiding things, you begin to wonder why he is hiding it.

That's right.

That's correct.

What we are learning from East Anglia--and I want to make a point that the gentleman----

I want to make a point that those are not stolen documents. Those documents were released from inside by a whistleblower.

Of course.

But somebody working inside that organization realized they were destroying documents that were being asked for in the Freedom of Information Act, and someone released those documents. I believe that we ought to be thinking about releasing everything. Let scientists pour over it and establish whether the theory is actually a fact and move on.

Will the gentleman yield?

Sadly, that data that the IPCC uses from East Anglia is also the basis of the data that NASA uses in Huntsville, Alabama, and all of the other future models that have been built have been somehow shaped by that data. So there is no place to go now, since all of the source documents have been thrown away, to reconstruct all of that.

I want to make one point.

The data that you are talking about and that we are acting on in this country with cap-and-trade is also the data being used in Copenhagen today, as we speak, to begin what Al Gore called the ultimate reason for all of this: global governance, turning over the sovereignty of the United States to an unelected bureaucracy and the United Nations.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, we have been listening ad nauseam for months from the Democrats, who have been saying that anybody who doesn't support a government takeover of health care is supporting their insurance friends or their friends in the pharmaceutical industry.

Guess who contributes to political campaigns? Lawyers contribute more than all the rest together. To who whom do they give their money? Surprise. Surprise. Ninety-six percent was given to Democrats in this year. Is that why they are left out of the health care reform bill?

Everyone who has looked at this issue for years has said to start with tort reform. Start with tort reform. The three most recent studies all this year said that Americans are spending $200 billion a year on tests and procedures that are unnecessary, defensive medicine, because, if they are not done, the doctors will be sued. That's $2 trillion over 10 years. That would pay for this $1.5 trillion behemoth.

It is ignored except in one fashion: there is mention in this bill that, if your State has already reduced jury awards and has gotten control over tort reform, you will be punished.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is not about health care. This is about rewarding your friends and about punishing your enemies. It has been going on all year, and it is a huge mistake.

Madam Speaker, it is with great honor and enthusiasm that I rise today to recognize Dr. Sheila O'Shea Kahrs, the Principal of Haymon-Morris Middle School in Winder, Georgia, who has been named the 2010 MetLife/National Association of Secondary School Principals, NASSP, National Principal of the Year.

The MetLife/NASSP National Principal of the Year program honors distinguished middle level and high school principals who have provided first-rate learning opportunities for students and made significant contributions to the education profession.

Each state, the District of Columbia, and the Department of Defense Education Activity selects one middle level and one high level school principal to represent them. From these individuals, six finalists are chosen as candidates for the National Principal of the Year award. Dr. Kahrs distinguished herself from these outstanding educators and was chosen as the 2010 MetLife/NASSP National Principal of the Year.

The Seventh District of Georgia is privileged to have such an accomplished educator serving our children. Extending my sincerest thanks to Dr. Kahrs for all her hard work and dedication to the profession of teaching, I wish her the best on her future endeavors.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Six weeks ago, we stood on this floor to discuss a prior version of this bill providing extended unemployment benefits. Since then, we have gotten additional checkups on jobs and unemployment in the United States, and the Democrats' 2009 stimulus plan has received more failing grades. Another 263,000 jobs were eliminated in September, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent. More job losses and higher unemployment are expected to be announced tomorrow. This and other Democrat legislation is perpetuating unemployment, not solving it.

The Democratic energy policies would increase the price of energy and kill millions of jobs. The Democrat health policies would make health care and health insurance more expensive and kill millions of jobs. Democrats promised a stimulus policy that would keep unemployment from exceeding 8 percent. It is now 9.8 percent, soon to reach 10 percent. Despite administration claims that 1 million jobs were saved or created, nearly 3 million real jobs have been destroyed since the stimulus plan was signed into law, and yesterday we found out how they count saved jobs.

Stimulus money went to a south Georgia community organizing group. They took all the money and gave raises to their employees and put information into the administration that they had saved 980 jobs. They have 508 employees. But they gave them raises, and the administration has a formula for how you can call that a job saved.

Like those job losses, the bill before us has only grown. In all, this legislation would now make available a record 99 weeks of unemployment benefits in more than half of the United States, but what it doesn't make available are jobs. Americans are rightly asking, Where are the jobs? Our colleagues on the other side have no answers, other than to spend more, tax more, and borrow more. That is not good enough.

But the good news is that we can start to turn this around. For starters, we could not raise taxes on jobs, as this legislation does. It raises taxes on jobs by $2.4 billion in the coming 18 months, hitting every employee in America, and that's to pay for benefits paid out generally in the next 2 months. How does raising taxes create jobs? It won't. And this bill isn't the end. Far from it.

Before this year is out, we will be back on this floor passing yet another extension of Federal unemployment benefits, only the next bill will be so massive--possibly costing $80 billion--even Democrats won't be able to stomach the tax hikes to pay for it. So we will borrow that money, adding to the $100 billion in unemployment benefit spending already scheduled to be piled onto our debt by the end of this year. How will that create jobs? It won't.

Mr. Speaker, we can and must do better. It is well past time for us to shelve Democratic job-killing tax hike agendas. We will then unleash America's job creation engine so that laid-off workers can once again earn paychecks, not unemployment checks.

That effort can start with not raising taxes on jobs and by offering unemployed workers real help in finding new work instead of just more benefit checks. Sadly, this bill does none of that. How then will it create jobs? It won't.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 3691.

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleagues today in support of this resolution supporting National Adoption Day and Month. I join in recognizing all of the children in foster care awaiting loving adoptive families as well as the many caring adults who have opened their hearts and homes to take in foster or adopted children.

During 2007 an estimated 783,000 children were served by the foster care system, with 494,000 children in care at the end of the year, including 12,236 in my home State of Georgia. In 2006 across the U.S., 50,941 adoptions were completed with public child welfare agency involvement. Significantly, the rate of adoption from foster care has increased from 5.5 percent in 1995 to 10 percent in 2006. That improvement has been driven by specific policies--including the landmark Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997--designed to increase the rate of adoption.

While that is welcome progress, there is more work to be done. Congress took additional steps last year with the passage of bipartisan legislation designed to promote more adoption, especially of children in foster care. As that law, the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, is implemented, I look forward to reviewing the continued progress we will hopefully be making in improving the lives of children. When it comes to promoting more adoption instead of more foster care, we certainly have a solid track record to build on, and cause for optimism.

Beyond the legislation now in place, I call on Congress and the American people to continue working to improve educational opportunities for foster youth, as for all youth. Foster youth face particularly high hurdles in graduating from high school on time, or even at all. The reasons are many, including the multiple home placements that often cause young people in foster care to bounce not just from home to home but also from school to school. Overcoming these challenges is a key goal of last year's legislation, and one that will take the concerted efforts of many in the child welfare and education communities, in addition of course to the dedication of young people and their foster and adoptive parents. Giving each young person a solid chance of success in life starts with ensuring each and every student finishes at least high school and has the basic skills to find and keep a stable, well-paying job.

I urge all Members to support this resolution, and work with the many dedicated faith-based and other groups in their districts who promote adoption not only in November, but in every month of the year. We should all work toward the day when every child will be in a safe and loving permanent home, either with their own parents or, if they cannot adequately care for them, with loving adoptive parents.

Along the way, it is right to recognize both those who have already opened their hearts and homes to these special young people, as well as those who will do so in the future. They deserve our thanks and admiration for the tremendous commitment of love and devotion they show every day.

Mr. Speaker, if we were really debating health care, you could wonder if some of these things could be said with a straight face.

This isn't about health care; it's about control. Who's going to control these decisions? This entire debate could be put on a bumper sticker that says, simply, ``Who Decides?'' The majority wants Washington decisions and we want individual decisions.

Mrs. Clinton summed it up best 15 years ago in the last health care debate. She said, We can't trust the American people to make these decisions.

But the majority can't keep their hands off this trillion dollar decision; so they put into one of the bills things like $1.6 billion for streetlights. How many people are going to get insured with that? Or $10 billion to shore up union--their friends--insurance funds? I wonder how many people are going to get insured with that. Or the payoff to the trial lawyers, who cause us to spend $200 billion a year in defensive medicine to prevent being sued, who's helping them?

Mr. Speaker, this is about control.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation would extend unemployment benefits to as long as 21 months in States where the unemployment rate is 8.5 percent or higher. That's about half the country, and the number is likely to grow.

And we aren't even close to the end of the road. On September 11, 2009, Larry Summers, chair of the President's National Economic Council, said today's level of unemployment is ``unacceptably high'' and will remain so ``for a number of years.'' How high? Today's unemployment rate is 9.7 percent. The Administration's August Midsession Review foresees 10 percent at the end of 2009, 9.7 percent in late 2010, and 8.0 percent in late 2011.

It's highly unlikely Congress will stop paying extended benefits then. We need to ask how long can this go on, and what does any of this have to do with helping people get back to work? Since this extended benefits program was created in June 2008 and expanded twice, unemployment rose from 5.8 to 6.8 to 7.6 to now 9.7 percent, even though the Administration swore it wouldn't exceed 8 percent under their stimulus law. There are now 6 million more unemployed, including 3 million more long-term unemployed, than when this program was created.

We are perpetuating unemployment, not solving it. Larry Summers also has stated that unemployment benefits ``contribute to long-term unemployment . . . by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a `reservation wage'--the minimum wage he or she insists on getting

before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase that reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.''

A senior Labor official in the Clinton administration reflected on what that meant in terms of when unemployed workers find new jobs: ``There are large spikes in the escape rate from unemployment at 26 weeks and at 39 weeks for UI recipients. Spikes of similar magnitude at 26 and 39 weeks are not apparent for UI non-recipients.'' What happens after 26 and 39 weeks of unemployment? State and Federal unemployment benefits end, and there are ``large spikes'' in people finding new jobs.

Is ending a long spell of unemployment easy? Of course not. Does everyone quickly find a job? Unfortunately not. Do those who return to work always make what they did before? No. But government cannot solve all ills, and sometimes makes things worse by trying to. Recent articles have noted that a majority of the unemployed are willing to take a pay cut to get back to work, that ``there is a huge traveling workforce that follows the jobs,'' and that States have innovative options to get unemployed workers back on the job.

But extending benefits to 21 months undermines those return to work incentives, leaving workers worse off, and employment prospects more depressed going forward.

Just currently approved unemployment spending has drained the State and Federal unemployment accounts, and will lead to deficits totaling more than $100 billion by late 2010 and nearly $200 billion by late 2012. Further extensions and expansions will add massively to that tide of red ink. That undermines job creation by requiring even more massive tax hikes to pay for all the continued benefit spending. Already State unemployment taxes are poised to double in the coming years. Extending benefits even more will require even greater job-killing tax hikes, hurting especially the long-term unemployed we are trying to help.

We can and must do better. It's well past time for us to review how we can really increase jobs so laid off workers get paychecks, not unemployment checks.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding funding that I requested as part of H.R. 3183, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.

Requesting Member: Representative John Linder

Bill Number: H.R. 3183, Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Account: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction General

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Savannah District

Address of Requesting Entity: 100 W. Oglethorpe Avenue, Savannah, GA 31401

Description of Request: This project proposes to deepen the Savannah River Federal navigation channel an additional 6 feet, allowing the Georgia Ports Authority to more efficiently serve the demands of U.S. commerce; remain a valuable asset to the marine transportation system; and handle the currently constrained vessels calling the port, and allow for larger vessels expected to call the port following the Panama Canal expansion. $1.3 million of the funds are critical for the completion of ongoing environmental studies in order to move to the construction phase. General construction funding of $33.7 million is necessary to continue the initial construction phase of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project. The expansion will allow the Port of Savannah to accommodate larger ships and provide the economic stimulus that new, larger ships currently bring rival East Coast ports in New York and Norfolk, Virginia.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding funding that I requested as part of H.R. 3288, the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.

Requesting Member: Representative John Linder

Bill Number: H.R. 3288, the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.

Account: Federal Highway Administration Interstate Maintenance Discretionary

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Georgia Department of Transportation

Address of Requesting Entity: 2 Capitol Square, S.W., Atlanta, GA 30334

Description of Request: This project will allow the Georgia Department of Transportation to make modifications to the I-85 interchange at Pleasant Hill Road. This will ease congestion and enhance access to I-85 for through traffic along Pleasant Hill Road. According to the Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, ``the modifications will allow the interchange to meet increasing traffic demand along Pleasant Hill Road for travel across I- 85, as well as to provide access to/from I-85 at adequate levels of service.'' Funding for this project will provide for preliminary engineering, environmental documentation, and right of way planning/ acquisition phases to keep this plan on schedule and ease congestion.

Mr. Speaker, does anybody see what's happening? Does anybody even care? The $700 billion TARP program was to buy troubled assets. Did we do that? No. We bought car companies and banks. And we own them. And then we took the money away from the bond holders of the car companies and gave it to the unions.

The $787 billion stimulus package only stimulated more welfare. It hasn't created jobs. Not one. And now we have put upon us a government takeover of health care that's going to lose, according to Christina Romer's formula, 4.7 million more jobs.

This has never been about jobs for the Democrats. It's never even been about health care. It's about power.

Who's going to make the decisions over your life, the personal decisions? The Democrats think they can. We think you should.

Does anybody see what's happening? Does anyone even care?

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I will submit a statement for the Record, but I'm not going to read that statement. I want to respond to the gentleman from Connecticut, who said we need some honesty in this discussion, and the gentleman from Illinois this morning on the rule. The gentleman from Illinois said on the rule that there are zero peer-reviewed articles by scientists who disagree with the notion that humans are causing global warming.

That will come as a surprise to Professor Morner from the University of Stockholm, who has written 520 himself on sea levels. He's the world's foremost expert on sea levels. Or Richard Lindzen from MIT, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, who has written many peer-reviewed articles. He is a denier. Professor Willie Soon from MIT, one of the world's foremost scientists on precipitation. John Christy and Roy Spencer from Huntsville, Alabama. Fred Singer, who was responsible for leading the charge to get all of our weather satellites in the air from Northern Virginia.

And the five authors of the first IPCC report who wrote in their scientific reports that there is no evidence that humans are causing any of this. And those five sentences were removed by a bureaucrat who replaced them with one sentence that said, It's clear that humans are the cause. In a court action under oath, that bureaucrat was asked why he removed those sentences and replaced them, and he said because of intense pressure from the top of the United States Government.

There are 32,000 scientists, 9,000 Ph.D.s and 23,000 masters in science who signed a petition against this silliness that we're discussing, and they want to join the deniers Galileo and Einstein. Einstein questioned Newton's 200 years of settled science, and he was sent a letter by 100 of the most important scientists in the world who challenged him on his questioning of that settled science, and he showed the letter to his friend, and he said, You would think one of them might have produced a fact.

That's all we ask from you is a fact. Not a computer model but a fact.

``Energy Stamps'' in Democrat Bill Is the Biggest Welfare Program Ever--16 Times Bigger than the Current Welfare Program

Mr. Chairman, some Members deny this bill is a massive tax hike. To them, I can only say you're not paying attention. Everything takes energy. If you raise the price of energy, as this bill does, you raise the price of everything. CBO admits it, again and again.

The authors know very well their bill is a massive tax hike. That's why, as this chart shows, they create the largest welfare program in U.S. history, to relieve some. This legislation would pay checks--call them energy stamps--to 16 times as many people as are on welfare now.

Here's what it says on page 1010:

``The Secretary shall . . . administer . . . the `Energy Refund Program' . . . under which eligible low-income households are provided cash payments to reimburse the households for the estimated loss in their purchasing power resulting from (this bill) . . . each eligible low-income household . . . shall be entitled to receive monthly cash payments . . . if . . . the gross income of the household does not exceed . . . 150 percent of the poverty line . . .''

65 million Americans fall below 150 percent of poverty. Every one would receive a monthly energy stamp check, on top of any welfare or other benefits they collect now.

Amazingly, this number is down from prior versions because Democrats, predictably, removed any vestige of middle class tax relief.

So the other 235 million Americans would get nothing but a new National Energy Tax.

Every family of four earning over $33,000 ``loses''--getting no energy stamps but all the energy tax hikes.

So much for the President's pledge to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. And so much for the Speaker's pledge this won't raise costs for American families.

In his 1935 State of the Union Address, Franklin Roosevelt said ``continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.''

On that President Roosevelt was right, as surely as this legislation is wrong.

Vote ``no.''

Offered By: Mr. Linder

Amendment No. 93: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Sec. 534. None of the funds available in this Act may be

used by the Department of Justice for carrying out or

enforcing compliance with section 5 of the Voting Rights Act

of 1965 (42 U.S.C. 1973c).

Mr. Speaker, this Sunday, millions of American families will honor mom on Mother's Day. Next month, our Nation will celebrate Father's Day. So it is appropriate to also note the contribution of so many adults who step in as foster parents to care for children when biological moms and dads cannot do so.

This resolution recognizes those enormous contributions by foster parents. Every day they step in to care for hundreds of thousands of children across America who cannot safely remain with their own parents. For that, as this resolution expresses, our Nation says ``thank you.''

The children aided by foster care range in age from birth to 21 and come from a wide range of homes. In the congressional district I represent, they include the infant born to a drug-addicted mom, three boys taken in on Christmas Eve after their single mother died of pneumonia, and a little girl who lived in abandoned cars while her father was on drugs. Those are some stories relayed by Suzanne Geske, the executive director of the Foster Children's Foundation based in Duluth, Georgia. The Foster Children's Foundation reflects the efforts of organizations nationwide that coordinate thousands of volunteers, all to better support foster kids and foster parents.

As Ms. Geske says of kids in foster care, ``These children all experience the fear of their unknown futures. Thanks to the love and support they receive from foster parents, mentors and organizations that provide many services to them, there is hope. May is a time when we recognize these individuals and raise awareness so others can get involved to save our children. These children live in our own communities and need our help. Please encourage everyone you know to find out how they can reach out to make a difference in the lives of our children.''

Sound advice.

This town often focuses on policy questions about where billions of dollars will be spent and where the money will come from. We have these discussions in foster care, too, including developing major reforms last year. We hope those reforms work as intended and improve the lives of children and families.

But children care little about policy discussions. What matters to them is if mom is there to see them in the school play or if dad can play catch after work, or if their birthday is remembered and they get their favorite dinner that night. If only that's where the concerns ended for children who suffer from abuse or neglect.

Through this resolution today, we remind all Americans of the role they can play in helping children who have already missed out on much in life and who need assistance. These children surely deserve to make progress in life, like any other child. Through the efforts of tens of thousands of dedicated foster parents, they often do, against great odds. We owe these dedicated individuals our thanks and continued support.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I do not. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.