Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, on July 26, 2007, I was unable to be present for all rollcall votes due to an unexpected delay.

If present, I would have voted accordingly on the following rollcall votes:

Roll No. 734--``aye.''

Roll No. 735--``no.''

Roll No. 736--``no.''

Roll No. 737--``aye.''

Roll No. 738--``aye.''

Roll No. 739--``aye.''

Roll No. 740--``aye.''

Roll No. 741--``aye.''

Roll No. 742--``aye.''

I thank my friend for yielding, and I thank both the chairman and ranking member of my committee.

I bring to this discussion and this bipartisan support, I hope, the perspective of having been in the trenches and having dealt with this issue.

I can't count on all the digits that I have the number of times that I have sat in a meeting of the Williamson County law enforcement group about the overcrowdedness of our jail in Williamson County, Texas, now a county of about 350,000 people.

We always look to see how many Federal prisoners we had in our jail, and always we would see 22 to 30 percent of these people would be what we considered Federal prisoners, illegal aliens, that had committed crimes. Now, yes, this is an immigration issue. Yes, it is a border protection issue. And these are issues that we all agree we must address. We will, I am confident, address them. But it is also a law enforcement issue. It is an issue that our people who enforce our laws at the local level and do the right thing, take them to court, try them, convict them, hold them while they are ready for trial, have space taken up by a responsibility of our Federal Government. And what we are doing here today is providing resources for those local people so that they can do their job and enforce the laws of the United States and of our various States.

This is a good use of our money to assist our locals, counties, States, and other authorities that have this duty of enforcing our laws in America, to help them do their job so we are not burdening the taxpayer at the local level and shifting funds from good things that keep our communities safe in order to keep these people in jail. And, believe me, they will do what it takes to keep them in jail.

So, therefore, let's do our job. Let's pass this additional funds for helping those who would incarcerate criminals on our behalf, and by that, I think we will be doing a good thing for our country.

Madam Speaker, on July 23, 2007, I was unable to be present for all rollcall votes because I was returning from Iraq where I was able to meet with soldiers from Fort Hood.

If present, I would have voted accordingly on the following rollcall votes:

Roll No. 687 on H.R. 404, the Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act--``yea.''

Roll No. 688 on H. Res. 553, Mourning the passing of former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, and celebrating her life and contributions to the people of the United States--``yea.''

Roll No. 689 on H. Res. 535, Commending David Ray Ritcheson, a survivor of one of the most horrific hate crimes in the history of Texas, and recognizing his efforts in promoting Federal legislation to combat hate crimes--``nay.''

Roll No. 690 on Previous Question on H. Res. 558, Providing for consideration of the bill making appropriations for the Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development--``nay.''

personal explanation

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 550, I was unavoidably detained and unable to be present to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 549, I was unavoidably detained and unable to be present to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

I thank my friend and colleague from North Carolina.

This is an interesting document that we have got here. I have got a copy, certainly a smaller version than is on the board there. These Top 100 broken promises, I thought it would just be interesting to just thumb through here and turn to a page and see if we can find one that we might find interesting.

I am just going to randomly look here. Let's see, energy policy, Energy Independence Day.

Promise: ``We will make this 4th of July Energy Independence Day.'' That's coming up next week, I believe. That's from Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi back on May 9, 2007, at a press conference. ``The House energy bill has evolved into a heated internecine battle'' that threatens to spoil Democrats' hope of passing an overall energy policy by July 4. ``Pelosi versus Dingell Heats Up.'' ``Energy Tension Rises At Meeting,'' Roll Call, one of our newspapers here on the Hill, June 13, 2007. ``House Members will depart for the 4th of July district work period without passing independence energy legislation of any kind.'' That's a quick look through here.

Let's look over here at something else. ``Eliminate Reliance on Foreign Oil,'' promise: ``To free America from dependence on foreign oil, we will achieve energy independence for America by 2020 by eliminating reliance on oil from the Middle East and other unstable regions of the world.''

``Nancy Pelosi, A New Direction for America,'' her speech, page 6. ``During the first 6 months of the Democrat-

controlled Congress, no energy independence legislation has been passed by the House, much less sent to the President's desk. But 228 Democrats voted to impose more than $6.5 billion in new taxes on small and independent American energy producers, which will lead to less domestic supply, higher prices for consumers, and an increase in America's dependence on foreign sources.'' That's also from Roll Call.

Let's turn over here a couple of more pages and look at what we can find.

Probably one of the things that Americans worry about most is their security for their families and their that children. You know, we don't ever want the United States of America to have to suffer the kind of terrorist activity that our friends in Israel suffer where, when you send your kids to the park to play ball or just swing or just visit with their friends, there is some idiot that wants to blow you up and kill you. We don't want that in this country. Homeland Security is important.

The Democrats, when they ran the last election, they made promises that they would implement all of the 9/11 Commission report. That was kind of their campaign.

``On the first day we control Congress, we will begin by passing all of the 9/11 Commission recommendations,'' that's what the then minority leader Nancy Pelosi promised in the last election cycle campaign.

Another part of that promise, ``House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says she plans to pass all of the 9/11 Commission recommendations within 100 legislative hours of a Democrat takeover of the House of Representatives.'' That comes from Congressional Quarterly.

But, now, I am afraid that promise got broken. Let's see what they actually did here. ``But the 9/11 package will not include a reorganization of congressional oversight of Homeland Security Department or an attempt to declassify the intelligence budget, despite the fact that those two were key recommendations. Although the Democrats pledged during the election to implement all of the Commission's unfulfilled recommendations, aides now concede that doing so will be harder than they thought,'' Congressional Daily, December 15, 2006.

``Pass clean spending bills without Iraq policy changes. House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member John Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, told reporters last week that he would not use the spending bills to enact policy on Iraq, a war he strongly opposes.'' That's from Congressional Daily.

Then we have ``A Broken Promise.'' An editorial in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette accused Democrats of using the supplemental spending bill to author resolutions that would severely restrict supplies and reinforcements for American troops in harm's way and would tie the President's hands by imposing all kinds of conditions on his ability to reinforce the troops. It comes from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette editorial, February 21, 2006.

CNN John Roberts questioned John Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, about his slow-bleed scheme to undermine our generals and our troops on the ground on the American Morning, CNN, April, 2007. Mr. Roberts asked ``You heard what President Bush said, that Congress shouldn't be micromanaging the war. What do you say?'' John Murtha, ``That's our job, John.''

On the upcoming Department of Defense spending bill, it's clear that House Democrats and Representative Murtha do intend to attach to the latest version of his slow-bleed scheme to undermine our troops. House Democrat leaders are considering votes next month on another legislative package aimed at changing course in Iraq and might announce those plans this week,'' said aides Monday. ``The Iraq language would be an attached to the Defense Appropriations bill.'' This was June 26, 2007, ``Democrats Weighing Attempt to Change Course of Iraq War,'' another broken promise.

Let's thumb over here just a little bit more and see what we can do. Something that--I just heard a lecture this morning by an expert from over at Georgetown University on international terrorism, where he told us in an hour-long lecture that the resources that we have on the ground, and the intelligence community and the special operations forces that operate are critical in being able to bring down al Qaeda, which is a world-wide network, and, quite frankly, very, very much still alive in countries like England and Western Europe, and their number one target is still to attack the United States of America.

He stressed that we have got to have intelligence at every level assisting us in finding these people. I think this was recognized when we started this session of Congress.

Here is a promise, ``We all, Democrats and Republicans alike, take very seriously our responsibility to protect the American people. We know the important role that intelligence plays in that.''

Another bill, another promise, ``This bill contains robust funding for critical intelligence programs.'' The first quote was from Nancy Pelosi. This is from Silvestre Reyes, chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

But here is the broken promise. ``Democrats pledge to provide full funding for critical intelligence programs. But just months after taking power, they took precious resources away from critical intelligence programs and used the money to fund research on global warming instead. Led by U.S. Representative Silvestre Reyes of Texas, a coalition of D.C. Democrats say national security will be better served if the CIA cash is used for global warming research, because apparently there just aren't enough people studying this issue out there.'' This is from an article that says Intelligence Committee Threatens National Committee, Detroit News editorial, May 13, 2007.

We can move on. This is fun. You just turn to a page and see what we have got here. I welcome anybody to come turn the page for me. I am not making these things up here.

``Reform Entitlement Spending to Protect Future Generations. This summer, Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman said the administration would return to entitlements and taxes in earnest following the elections. Senior Democrats on the House and Senate Budget Committees, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, and Representative John Spratt of South Carolina, responded by saying Congress, not the administration, must drive these efforts.'' That's from The Hill newspaper.

But the broken promises, but the Democrat budget plan puts off tough and divisive decisions. Democrats did not include proposals to control growth and entitlement programs that are projected to swamp the rest of the budget in coming decades as the baby boom generation retires.

That comes from Congressional Quarterly March 29, 2007. Democrat budget does nothing to curtail runaway entitlement spending, Tallahassee Democrat editorial April 16, 2007.

So we've just got promise after promise after promise. And as my colleague from North Carolina pointed out to us tonight, we've got an approval rating of this Congress at 14 percent, the lowest in the history of the United States Congress, by my understanding. The last time we were close to this low was back when the Democrats were last in power back just before 1994.

This is a sacred body here. And it's important to win elections, and people use a lot of tools to win elections.

But back where I come from, and where a lot of the folks around here come from, when you tell somebody you're going to do something, you ought to do it.

I once had a man tell me, if you ever serve in a legislative body, the greatest tool you take to that body is your word. And if you give somebody your word, you ought to keep it. And if you don't keep it, you ought to go home. And that's a man named Bob Johnson, who there now is an office building in the Capitol complex in Austin, Texas named after this great Texan. That is great advice. And that's why these broken promises, I think, should weigh upon all of us because, quite frankly, a man or a woman's word ought to be their bond. And if you say you're going to do something, you ought to do it, and if you can't do it, you ought to at least try. And if you're not going to try, then you've broken your promise. And that's really not what this House ought to be all about.

I know there's a lot of campaign rhetoric, but a lot of these things were not said in campaign and, in fact, many of them were said right on the floor of this House as a pledge to the colleagues in this House. These pledges shouldn't be broken. We have a duty to raise the level of honor that it now seems to be the American people seem to be perceived is lost in this House of Representatives. I hope we can all take my friend Bob Johnson, who's now passed away, his advice. Let's make our word our bond.

I'll yield back to my colleague from North Carolina.

Will the gentlelady yield?

And I thank the gentlelady for yielding to me.

As you were reading those interesting broken promises, I was thumbing through here and saw my name in one of them so I thought I might read about it. Broken promise No. 43: Protect U.S. Borders. Promise: ``I believe there is virtually unanimous agreement in Congress that we must secure our borders and know who is entering our country.'' Then-House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, press release May 25, 2006.

Promise: ``Democrats are for the rule of law. We want to get the border security right. We would do what's necessary to protect our borders.'' Then House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, press release December 15, 2005.

Broken promise: ``Just 6 months after Democrats took power in the House, 114 House Democrats voted against a Republican proposal to provide the funds necessary for construction of at least two layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barrier, roads, lighting cameras and sensors pursuant to section 102 (b)(1) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1986.'' This comes from the GOP Motion to Recommit, a rollcall vote, June 15, 2007.

Broken promise: ``218 Democrats voted against an amendment by Representative John Carter, Republican,

Texas to strike new bureaucratic hurdles in the Homeland Security Appropriations bill designed to undermine the Department's efforts to complete the construction of the fence along the border. As Brit Hume said recently on Fox News: `House Democrats added more than a dozen new rules the administration must meet before it can spend more money on the border fence.' Special report, Brit Hume, Fox News, June 18, 2007.'' And I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Madam Speaker, on June 22, 2007, I was unable to be present for all rollcall votes due to an unexpected delay. If present, I would have voted accordingly on the following rollcall votes: roll No. 543--``nay''; roll No. 544--``nay''; roll No. 545--``aye''; roll No. 546--``aye''; roll No. 547--``aye''; roll No. 548--``nay''.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I thank the chairman for recognizing me. I would also like to

thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey) my colleague, who has joined me as a cosponsor of this amendment. I am very pleased to thank the chairman of this subcommittee, who has done a wonderful job on this bill, and I am very honored to serve with him. I would also like to thank the ranking member, Mr. Rogers, for all the hard work has done on this bill.

We all agree, our southern borders are in crisis. We don't want to create any problems to get our fencing that's authorized and appropriated for. We don't want to have any interference. This amendment removes bureaucratic and environmental obstacles that restrict funding for the construction of the fence on our southern border.

This amendment strikes a number of restrictions on the border funding of fencing and tactical infrastructure, including various reporting requirements attached to funding restrictions, requirements that DHS must coordinate with Interior agencies to minimize the impact on wildlife and natural resources, requires DHS must formally consult with State and local communities and solicit their advice and support of the projects, ultimately giving them some sort of veto, and restricts the funding for the use of the Secretary's environmental waiver until the waiver has been published in the Federal Register for a period of 15 days.

Each one of these things has the potential to slow down or interfere with or stop the construction of the fence. Bureaucratic hurdles are not what we are looking for on the southern border. It's protection for our southern border.

To ask for advice and support gives local communities potential for a veto. Our border security shouldn't be held hostage to some group like that. We do consult with the landowners, over 400 have been consulted, one Governor has been consulted, 60 Governors' assistants have been consulted. A multitude of city and council officials have been consulted as border and fencing plans are developed.

We are doing the job. We don't want funding withheld. That's what this does.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to my colleague from Georgia (Mr. Price).

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

To my colleagues whom I highly respect, let me say this: I'm concerned about the part about withholding funds as we consult.

I agree that we should consult. I do not agree that they have to support it. And the question I would raise is, what happens if they don't? Do we then not build the fence that the Border Patrol in Laredo, Texas, told me they had to have to survive? So that's the secret word that I'm concerned about.

Consult, I'm all for. But if they vote 4-3 on the city council not to do it, then what happens to the funds? What happens to the fence?

On the issue of wildlife in Texas, we have wildlife-proof fences in south Texas on literally every ranch there because, quite frankly, the deer on those ranches are very expensive and they protect them. And already we are providing water gaps for those whose cattle graze in the Rio Grande.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Chairman Price, in Texas, it's my understanding that over 400 landowners have already been consulted. The Governor of the State has been consulted. Sixty of the Governors, Homeland Security advisers in our State and other States have been consulted. Thirty-five city mayors and county judges have been consulted. Twenty-eight local sheriffs have been consulted, and seven town hall-type meetings have been held to discuss the border.

We are a part of the country where private property borders Mexico from Brownsville all the way to El Paso. And so we are very, very aware of private property rights and the rights of our cities, and we are consulting with them.

My concern is the withholding, the stall or withholding of funds when the process is already in place. We've already been working with our landowners on wildlife. And the environmental concerns, should we hold back our homeland security because of a fear that trial lawyers are going to file frivolous lawsuits to try to stall this fence on environmental concerns?

I think we need to take a hard look at what our goal is. And, quite frankly, our goal is to secure the people of the United States along the border and protect our borders from incursions.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

First, I'd like to start out by saying that I do serve on the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee. It's a deep honor for me to be there. It's a deep honor for me to work with Chairman Price, who is an honorable man and has done hard work on this bill. It's an honor for me to work with Ranking Member Rogers, who has done hard work on this bill.

And I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that there has been a lot of diligence on this bill, a lot of hard work on this bill, and in my opinion, every Member of this Congress probably has, as a first thought, what the Homeland Security Department does to protect our families from terrorists around the world and from other disasters that can strike our families. I can assure you that this subcommittee certainly does that.

This hard work being done does not mean that there aren't differences of opinion on how things should be done because, in fact, in our very subcommittee, and in the overall committee of the Appropriations Committee, there is a difference of opinion on directions that we should take.

Just, for example, on the issue of the border fence, there are those who think that the border fence needs to be built and it needs to be built now, and all obstructions have to be taken away from that that might obstruct building that fence. I happen to be one of those people, and yet, honorable men and women disagree. And those who are in the majority, they do set the policy for the bill that is before us today.

I personally think that it's our duty and responsibility as Members of Congress to debate the issues, whether you're on the Appropriations Committee or not, and by raising issues that are being raised on this side of the aisle on this bill, that we are saying that the Appropriations Committee has not done their job. We're saying we want to put a microscope, put sunshine on the process and see what we see, and then each Member, whether they be right on their amendment or whether they be wrong on their amendment, certainly has the responsibility to submit their opinion on this bill.

We talk about a term that I think that's kind of peculiar, and I certainly was not a Member of this Congress when whoever came up with the term ``earmark,'' but there's a whole lot of folks in the United States that know what an earmark is, and it doesn't have anything to do with what we're doing here in Congress today.

It has to do with a method of identifying livestock, and in old days and maybe in some more rustic scenes today, an earmark was actually the notch cut in the ear of an animal. Now, I'm sure that's offensive to many people, but today, it generally is a tattoo or a tag that designates what the owner intends to do with that animal. And at least in the ranching business, they go out and they mark those that are the keepers and the culls. There are the animals that they're going to keep in their breeding stock, and there are the culls which are the ones they're going to take to market and sell as one way the earmark functions.

And the owner of that livestock designates someone to make that designation of how they should earmark the livestock, and I assume that whoever came up with the term ``earmark'' as it relates to special projects in the appropriations process thought it was a good term because basically, that's the decisions that the owner, i.e., the voter, the American public, asks their individual representative to make about the spending on special projects that's going to be done by the United States Congress.

And so who is the designated person for the 31st Congressional District to make this decision? And I think the people elected me to do that. I think there are 435 individual people here that the folks who originally own this money and gave it to us to use, they said you make the decision on how this money is going to be spent. This is a republic, and we have sent our representative to speak on our behalf to say this is a project that has worth and this is a project that has no worth; this is a keeper and that is a cull.

And that is actually the duty and the responsibility by our oath of every person who sits in every chair of this House.

Mr. Chairman, the reason we are in this debate today, one of the reasons, is we have created a process where instead of 435 people will meet their constitutional obligation of their oath to determine how the earmarks will be spent, we have narrowed it down to one or whatever his designation may be, and I think that is inappropriate, although I will say and I wish to end by saying Mr. Obey is an honorable man, and I have the greatest respect for him.

But that's not the way we were supposed to act when we came to Congress. We were supposed to participate in this process of determining the earmarks.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I just wish to correct your mistake in your opening statement.

I have been serving on this committee for the last 2 years, and the House of Representatives has finished the appropriations process by the 4th of July both terms that I served in Congress. So I think the statement made as an opening was a mistake.

I beg to differ. These bills were passed by the House of Representatives, in the last two terms I served on this committee, before the 4th of July. I think you can check with the subcommittee chairman, and he will agree with me on that.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

This has been a stimulating debate, and I want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle for joining in this debate. Yesterday evening we were accused of delaying and taking up all of the time, and I think we have equally shared the time this morning, and I am very proud to have the help of the Democrats on the other side of the aisle in continuing this debate because I think it is important that we hear from all sides. In fact, that is what this is all about.

We keep talking about us, but I think that the Democratic Representatives on the other side of the aisle individually have the same right to see and debate these earmarks as the people on the Republican side of the aisle. I am not arguing this point only for Republicans. I believe that the individual Members who are elected by the people in their district to make sure they are on top of spending have the same right.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, this has been a wonderful debate. For about 30 years, I hung around courtrooms and watched lawyers talk to juries, and a lot of times lawyers use terminology that people didn't understand.

We just used a ton of terminology, and every once in a while pick up on one or two that I think that maybe newcomers to this House really don't understand, maybe someone else that might be in the House or listening to the House might not understand. I want to talk about some of those things.

First I would like to address, before I do that, I want to point out that we have done an awful lot of talk about history. You know, last year is history.

In fact, yesterday is history. Today is reality and tomorrow, who knows.

But there was just a tirade of numbers thrown out of Congresses just a few months ago. If you want to play that game, then let's take the 40 years prior to the Republicans coming into the majority of Congress and say, what about those 20 Congresses that had the opportunity to reform the appropriations process?

That's a ridiculous argument. That argument carries no water whatsoever. The reality of the problem that we are addressing on earmarks actually came to the forefront when the vast majority of the people that sit in these chairs, in both parties, were surprised by the activities of a few who violated their sacred trust to the United States Government.

We had an election where all of us got painted with the brush of that few. But the reality is, the vast majority of people on this side of the aisle, and I am sure my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, were shocked to disbelief over some of the things that occurred with Members of the Congress, and are continuing to occur, to come to light. Recently, we had light spread on another shocking event that we have had here in Congress.

You know, the nature of democracy is that problems leap up in your face, and you react to those problems. We have had leap into our face that secretism when dealing with money causes people like Jack Abramoff to end up in prison, and those that may be associated possibly end up in prison.

If you look and study what happened, it's all secret things. That's the real offense we are talking about, when we say let's let daylight in on this earmark process. A term that we have used a lot is airdrop, but most people think airdrop, plane, parachute, that drops it in.

What we are really talking about is once a process goes through the House and the Senate, bills come to a conference committee, which is made up of representatives of both bodies. It is in a closed room behind closed doors where the bills are worked out to where they can get a compromise that both bodies can then vote on.

When we refer to airdrops, these are these expenditures and appropriation bills that when it comes back to this body, if we can dig through and find it, we go, where in the heck did that come from? We can't find any record anywhere of anybody talking about that in the Senate of the House. There it is. Where did that come from? So it's like it dropped out of thin air.

I think that's where the term ``airdrop'' gets its meaning. It's that when the Members of this body and the other body look at the final product and say where did that come from.

I think the proposal that's being made by the majority on their new earmark reform, by its very definition, creates a large body. We hear 31,000 possible ``where did that come from'' from for every Member of this body, except maybe one and some staffers who, some believe, are more competent than the Members of this body.

Mr. Chairman, when we had these scandals, and we had the debate last term of Congress about this airdropping, this appropriations process, the public asked us to put what we were doing under a microscope and then let them see it.

That's what we are doing today. That's what we are going to continue to do until the whole process is visible and out in the daylight, and that's what this is all about.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

No, I haven't.

Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that I follow my colleagues that have worked in law enforcement, for I, too, have worked in the court systems of criminal justice.

This 287(g) program to me is an exciting idea that has great potential, and I would love to see it expanded to where we have trained every law enforcement officer in America in just the style that my colleague from Washington just described, so that they can not only honor the diversity as he described, but also can participate in enforcing the laws of the United States, where the resources required for interior enforcement of the immigration laws, the number is overwhelming. To me, it is a good use of resources to use good, honest law enforcement wherever it exists to enforce the laws of this land.

I thought about this the other night, because it's an experience that most everyone here probably, if they will confess, has had. If you live in Houston, Texas, where my colleague, Ms. Jackson-Lee, lives, or pick a town, it doesn't really matter, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Ohio, and you get a parking ticket, if you fail to pay that parking ticket, you're probably going to get a notice from the department that takes care of parking tickets, and they're going to send you that notice and tell you that you have failed to appear to answer to this parking ticket.

They're going to stick a fine on there to go with the parking ticket fine. It could be $100, it could be $50, whatever the jurisdiction chooses, and then that letter is going to say, if you don't pay these two offenses, then we're going to issue a warrant for your arrest on a parking ticket.

Believe me, it happens every day. Ask my daughter, okay? Now, they probably aren't going to get out and serve that warrant unless they do some mass roundup, but generally they don't do that. But you're driving down the street, if you get that ticket in Houston, Texas, and you happen to be in Dallas with a broken taillight, and a police officer stops you to tell you he wants to give you a warning about your broken taillight and he runs the national system of warrants that's available across this Nation. Guess what he finds? They have a warrant for your arrest for a parking ticket in Houston, Texas, and he will arrest you; and he will put you in jail or hold you until you deal with that ticket.

Now, that's what happens to every American citizen that follows the scenario that I just gave you, or could happen to them.

Now, 18 months ago, when I was meeting with ICE people, I asked them how many absconders we had from these folks that were catch-and-release that had been ordered to court and had failed to appear on the ICE warrants. I found the number was approximately 700,000 people. It's probably more now, because I'm talking about 18 months ago; that's the number they gave to me.

And I asked the ICE agents, are there warrants issued for their arrests? Are they in the system? And will local law enforcement respect those warrants? And I couldn't get an answer. I was privately told, ``No.''

Now, this program, with trained officers out on the street, at least we could pick up violators of the Federal law who had disrespected the court system created by this Federal law and had failed to appear in that court. At least we could pick them up in the manner we pick up people who get a parking ticket.

We have to be inventive in this problem that we are facing with massive violation of the law in the immigration system. And I think the 287(g) is the core, so that we train to find these people in prison. There were times when we were at the jail commission trying to close our county jail for overcrowdedness that the district judges would review it every Friday evening, and we would find that 30 percent of the inmates in our jail would be illegal aliens. Thirty percent. And sometimes higher.

Let's have trained people. Let's support this amendment. Let's have trained people and let the departments that want to participate put trained people on the street to deal with ICE issues.

I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, first, I would like to thank Chairman Price and Ranking Member Rogers for the hard work that they have done on this Homeland Security bill. What we are trying to do is secure our Nation with our Homeland Security bill, and this goes a long way to doing that. But I have some concerns about this bill, and I have expressed them.

We have got to secure our Nation, and it is of primary importance to this country that we secure this Nation at every level. We have been working diligently and hard to do that. We have tried to use an open process in the Homeland Security Subcommittee, and that is, we lay all our cards on the table in our appropriations bill. We have historically let all the spending on homeland security be laid out before this House so that the daylight and reality of how we are spending the American people's money is in the bill.

I am concerned, and I wish to express the concern that in the appropriations process this year there is a lot that is going to be done in the dark. In this particular bill, it is a very small item as compared to what is coming down the road at us, but there is $16 million for bridges which we won't know exactly how that is going to be spent for this House to examine it, but it will be ``air dropped'' in in the conference committee. That is an indicator of what we are looking at as we deal with Member-initiated spending with the nickname of ``earmarks'' in the future.

At present, the plan is to set aside the money but not tell us how to spend it, and, oh, by the way vote for it. But I think in the last election the American people told us that they wanted sunlight on this process. They wanted to be able to see how we spend our money, including they wanted our names put on the things that were individually requested. In fact, the Republican House passed such a rule, to put the names on every earmark.

Yet we see in a very small part in this bill, and much expanded in the bills to follow, that there is going to be no sunshine on this process. In fact, it is going to be inside closed doors in the conference committee where there is really not a whole lot this House can do about it.

With increased nonemergency spending of $81.4 billion, these are issues that American people want to know about it. They want their elected Representatives to take a look at it and be able to figure out how the money is being spent. We debated this process the last session of Congress. We made it important to us as individual Members. We talked about it and discussed it and voted on it.

Now, all of a sudden, we have a process that has gone behind closed doors in secrecy, and as we vote these things

out, as Members of Congress we are voting a bill which has a fund set- aside which we are not told how that fund is going to be spent. We are told it could be published over the break. This is inexcusable.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move to strike the requisite number of words on this issue.

I believe I have the right to object.

Okay. I'll wait for the bill.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Reichert

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I have absolutely the highest respect for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Obey. He has worked very hard on this, along with Ranking Member Lewis, on the overall appropriations process.

The conversation he had with this House a few minutes ago concerns me in that I think Mr. King, what Mr. King has proposed, it is small but it is frugal. It is trying to set a tone. As our chairman points out, we have offered, there have been offered over 100 amendments to this bill. What does that tell us? That tells us there are people who are looking at this in detail and trying to see if we are doing things wisely. We are exposing this bill to scrutiny.

I think the message that we are trying to send to the Congress and to the process is that it is good to lay out before the world honestly how we spend our money. And, in turn, it is a way to show concern for a process that has been created by the chairman which will not disclose how we are going to spend special project money as we debate these bills.

Two of the previous speakers have raised this concern. Quite frankly, the chairman mentioned we are trying to shut down the House. Well, if examining the work of the House is shutting down the House, examining it in detail, then, yes, I guess we are trying to shut it down. But I don't think that is the way you shut it down. That is the way you open it up. You let sunlight come on the process and let everybody look at it and decide: Is it worth that extra $79,000 or not? That is what this process is all about.

But in the earmark process that is being proposed in appropriations this year, there is no sunlight upon that process. This process is in the dark. In fact, we are being asked over the next couple of weeks to vote on numerous bills that have billions of dollars set out in some sort of unidentified account that tells you we are going to spend this money, we will let you know how.

I am sure my beloved wife, whom I love dearly, would love to have that deal; and I am sure there are a lot of other people who would love to have that deal. Here is the pot of money; I will let you know how I am going to spend it later, but I am going to spend it.

In this particular process, it is going to be done behind a closed door. And behind that closed door, and the Members of Congress, who by the way in this Republic were sent here to do just what we are doing here today, examine this spending in detail, we were sent here to take a look at this spending on the earmark process. But we are being excluded. And if we have an objection that we think is offensive to America, we should be able to have a process to stop that.

But when you ``air drop,'' as has been described, secretly drop into a conference committee the earmark process determined by one or more small groups of people without the 435 Members of Congress looking at it, too, I don't think that is any sunlight at all. That seems to be a dark, dark room where legislation is taking place. And it will only be exposed when you get a ``take it or leave it'' proposition back on the floor of the House. Take it or leave it. You can't amend it; you can't deal with it. Take it or leave it.

Really, we are showing what it means to put sunlight on a procedure. We are going to try to continue to put sunlight on this procedure because the American people have raised the issue to us at the polling place that we spend too much money. So let's let them see how we spend it.

I commend those who have examined this bill in detail and are willing to come in and make such delicate surgical cuts so as to say, this guy doesn't deserve an extra $79,000. You know, that is the kind of thing that is going to save this Republic. If we can just get the earmark process to be done out in the open, in the sunlight for all of us to see, it would be a better process.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Well, we are right back doing what we said we were going to do because we think it's important. We are talking about cutting back the level of administrative costs that we had last year. And you know, for a whole year, almost 2 years, the now majority, then minority, told us what a lousy job the Department of Homeland Security was doing, and in some ways I agreed with them. Well, I don't give raises to people who do lousy jobs. I don't think that's the way you ought to do it. I don't think you just automatically get a raise in this world, that your department should automatically give an increase if you're not doing the job. And in some areas I think a message needs to be sent that you hold the line and do the job we paid you to do, and you will be doing what we want you to do, and then we will talk about what your needs are for the future.

But I think the present, going back to the 2007 budget numbers, is the proper thing to do. I support the gentlelady's amendment. It is about telling the American people that we are ready to tighten the belt and show fiscal responsibility. We are not willing to push spending levels so high, as this process is doing in the Democratic plan, to where, once again, if you look at their budget, and it has been talked about tonight over and over, if you look at it, it is an inevitable road to a massive tax increase, which, quite frankly, as my friend from New Mexico was saying, is not good for the United States.

So, once again, let's let the sunshine in. As the sun rises over the mountain, let it shine on this appropriation bill. And let this appropriation bill be open to all in the United States. And how do we do that? Well, one thing we've got to do is we've got to talk with the chairman; he has got to be convinced to put some light on the process of earmarks.

And I want to make something very clear, Mr. Chairman, nobody on this side of the aisle is fighting for their earmark. We are asking clearly, whatever the process may be, we want to be able to see it so we can do something about it. The American people told us, do something about earmarks. We wrote a law that would work, the Democrats agreed, and now all of a sudden the whole process is behind closed doors. And somebody, and I am not sure exactly yet who, will be behind those doors to make the decisions of how Member-initiated projects will be funded.

This debate is not about Member-initiated projects. The debate is about letting us see, while we still have a chance to do something about it, and don't airdrop this into committee where it can't be done. I don't think this is hard to figure out. I think this is an easy process, and that is a process that the chairman can work with us on and come up with a solution for.

It is important, Mr. Chairman, that we have sunshine upon the earmark process. And if we get that, I think we will have what the American people asked us for in the last election. It is very critical.

Offered By: Mr. Carter

Amendment No. 29: Page 14, line 16, strike ``Office:'' and

insert ``Office.''.

Page 14, strike line 17 and all that follows through page

16, line 2.

That is correct. And I thank the gentleman for yielding. As it turns out, we have got a whole room full of folks here that want to address this issue. But we talked earlier between you and our neighbor from New Mexico, and we have each been three times.

But let me point out that as Congressman Pearce pointed out, the men and women that are in Iraq today, most of them are on their fourth rotation over there. Many of those people have been there four times, four times for a year, sometimes, or better, each time they've been. When we go, we are very blessed to be able to go over there, but generally time is very short and if we spend 3 or 4 days in country, we have been there a long time. These soldiers have gone over there voluntarily.

You know, one of the things that I think is a misconception that seems to be played out both in our coverage in the media and in the comments that we hear from our colleagues across the aisle is that they think that we are dealing with people who are being forced to go over there. These people volunteered. These men and women are true American heroes, and they know what their mission is, and they will tell you they know they are accomplishing that mission. They wonder why what they are accomplishing is not what they are viewing on American television. They wonder that a lot, and they say that to you a lot when you go over there to visit them.

And so it has been said here tonight already, but I think it is very important that the American people think about this. The Democratic Party in this House and in the Senate is in the majority. They have a responsibility now to govern this Nation. They ran on a campaign that promised what they were going to do when they got here to govern this Nation. And as we heard in the early hour, we do have three distinctive parts of the government. The President is one, but this is a coequal branch of government with the authority to take charge and be responsible for what you promise. And if it means to the American people what they think it means to the American people, that we have to get out immediately of Iraq, they have the authority and the ability to vote to bring our troops home.

But you see, it is easy to talk about wanting the responsibility, but taking the responsibility becomes very difficult. In fact, the real story of this debate that we are having on what should happen is they don't want to take the responsibility because they really, I would hope, in their heart of hearts, realize that the consequences are dramatic.

My friend Congressman Pearce mentioned to you, and I think it is everybody's opinion that looks at that map of Iraq, that should the American troops strike their colors and march home tomorrow, that the southern part of Iraq falls almost immediately into the hands of the Iranians, because they fought a whole war over that issue; and only because the Iraqis stood up their Armed Forces and fought to a standstill that the Iranians didn't take those southern oil fields. But the Iraqi Army, which we are in the process of building up, would not be able to do that in today's life. They are too busy straightening out their own country.

We hear so much about the American soldier. And God bless the American soldier. The American troops are doing an outstanding job, but so are the Iraqi troops. And that is the news item that is not out there these days. The Iraqi troops are dying actually at much greater numbers than the American troops, side by side with the American soldier, learning as they go how to fight the kind of war that professional soldiers fight. And they are doing a good job. And we have to give them the opportunity to finish the job and stand up their military and stand up their police force.

And that is what our soldiers tell us when they go over there, and they tell

us that from the corporal or the private all the way up to the four- star general.

And the surge has a purpose. It is more than just feeding in troops. It is clearing a neighborhood, and then having the Iraqi troops, along with Americans, to hold those neighborhoods until we are able to get this thing done.

And you know, al-Anbar Province, when I was over there the second time, that was the Wild West. That was the worst province in Iraq, al- Anbar Province. Now the Marines report to us on a daily basis that because the sheiks who are the tribal leaders of that area, and particularly one sheik who's got the vast majority of the tribes in that area, have joined the fight, told their people, when you shoot at an American, you shoot at one of us; join us in getting rid of this al- Qaeda that's trying to come in here and turn all sides against each other to create turmoil in our country. And we are having outstanding success in that area, because the indigenous population is joining in the fight.

When an Iraqi hears a pounding on his door and calls the local policeman, this war is won. But they have lived for a long time under a dictatorship where the local policeman was the bad guy. We have changed that.

Ask a soldier, what was your mission, and he will tell you, sir, we've accomplished a whole lot of our mission. Our first mission was to go in and take out Saddam Hussein, and, sir, we did that. And I'm proud to say that the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, which is in my district, pulled that tyrant out of that hole and started him in a lawful judicial process established by a government that the 1st Cavalry Division, which is also from my district, helped to defend as they voted, and in a properly impaneled judicial process we took care of Saddam Hussein. That's part of our mission. Mission accomplished.

The second mission was to help rebuild the Iraqi people. And if you look at that map at the number of projects that we're working on currently, and then you have a young soldier say, you know, sir, they reported last week that they killed an American soldier, what they didn't report is that we got water for the first time almost in the history of this country to a village of 400 people that never had water, because that's not a big fancy news item for The New York Times and the Washington Post. But that is a very, very important news item for the 300 people who had to pack their water in small jugs to have drinking water, that we got water, drinkable water, usable water to those people in the desert community. This is the kind of thing that changes the future of Iraq. If we pull out of Iraq, we create disaster.

Now, as I pointed out, the Democrats have an opportunity to do what they promised everybody to do and stop this war, but they don't have the will, and they don't have the courage to be responsible for their actions. So instead, they have prevented necessary supplies to keep our men and women in combat safe now, for 100 and what days?

For 108 days.

I got a phone call last night from Fort Hood, actually from a newspaper in Fort Hood, asking about the fact they a bad rain out on Nolan Creek, and some people got stranded out there. And, of course, when you are next to the largest military facility on Earth, the helicopters went out and started pulling people off of the roofs.

And this reporter called and was worried that she had heard that maybe the resources were not as available as they had been before or wouldn't be as available because there were cuts going on on the post. We had already checked that out with Fort Hood, and that actually was not true of this event.

But I told her, you know, you are from a military community, so we who have a military community know what happens when the Congress doesn't do its duty to the military when they have troops in harm's way, like in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

The Army doesn't leave, or the military doesn't leave their soldiers without the gear. What they do is tighten their belt back home. And that's happening now, and it's going to get worse and worse as this delay continues over and over.

It means training missions could be in jeopardy. It clearly means that operations on these large military posts around our country have to be reduced. Expenses have to be cut so that we keep the people in harm's way supplied, because we don't leave our dead or wounded on the battlefield, and we certainly don't leave our fighting soldiers on the battlefield without the equipment it takes to do the fight.

And so the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines and the Coast Guard will all be contributing from home to the war zone until this Congress does its duty. And I think it brings shame to know that those folks back home just came back from their fourth rotation, and their resources they are counting on for their year back home are being cut back. They're doing it willingly, but they are being cut back so they can supply their fellow men and women in arms over in Iraq, in Afghanistan.

This is a crisis that people don't realize the strain we're putting on our soldiers. And then to constantly tell them, like the leader, the Democrat leader in the Senate, this war is lost; and those soldiers are looking around and saying, what war is he talking about? Where's he see the loss? We haven't lost. We're winning this war. That's what the people who are there are saying. Give those folks a chance.

If the gentleman would yield just a moment.

Hearing my colleague from New Mexico reminds me of another vote that was taken on the floor of this House that had to do with our intelligence for our United States military. And in the bill, the Democrat Party had diverted millions of dollars to take our Intelligence Community and have them study global warming. I have this vision of one of our spy satellites being relocated over the North Pole to check on the polar bears that was sitting over Baghdad checking on the terrorists.

I think the American people want our American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen to have on the ground intelligence, which they cut, and in-the-air intelligence, which they want to move to study global warming, so that we can make sure that our soldiers, our American citizens in harm's way, have the security of good intelligence. But there's a vote that we took. We tried to fix that, and that fix was voted down. And so now we have an intelligence bill that has a big chunk of it set aside for global warming.

Meanwhile, it was discovered when we had the debate that there are 13 agencies in this government studying global warming right now. And why does our Intelligence Community have to study global warming at this point in time when American soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coastguardsmen are at war? That's a question that the American people ought to ask themselves.

I thank my friend from California for recognizing me on this very important issue to the people of the United States of America, the opening of our borders and the pouring in of somewhere between 12- to 20 million people who have broken the laws of the United States of America.

I want to talk a little tonight about what's going on in my district and what's going on in Texas and what's going on in the country. But, first, I would like to respond to some talk that took place in the last hour, just for a second.

When we talk about gasoline prices, you know, all this talk about gasoline prices, I saw in this last hour, they kept trying to say all this was President Bush's fault. The Democrats are in charge of Congress. They have told us tomorrow that they are an equal branch of government, and that they are, in fact, in charge of this Nation at this time, and they are responsible for these gas prices. It's time to be responsible to go along with your rights. The Democrat majority has something they can do about gas prices, but, of course, let's look at what they have done.

The first thing they did in Six for '06 was take away the incentives to encourage domestic drilling and, in fact, place a tax on gas production, and, thus, decrease the availability of American petroleum to replace our burden on foreign petroleum. They proposed a cut-and-run theory on dealing with the issue in Iraq, which, if we cut and run, would turn over the second largest oil reserve in the world to Islamic terrorists.

They propose now, out of the Senate, to open our borders to the illegal aliens that are already here and to put together a policy which would encourage more illegal aliens to come across our borders and consume 20 million people's worth of oil and gas in this country. These are the things that they are criticizing the Republican minority for causing the gas prices to go up?

But that all just gives you a picture of where we are going right now. Now the Democrats have come out of the Senate, remember, they are the majority in the Senate, too, and they have come out with a proposal to, they say, solve our immigration crisis.

I want to say, and I have told this to the White House, and I have told it to my colleagues here in Congress, and I tell them again, the American people want a solution to the illegal immigrant problem. That's where they see and know the crisis is, and they are saying you have the tools and have had the tools to do something about this problem for a long time, over 20 years, and nothing has been done. The American people see this as a crisis, and they are right.

You know, for 20 years I sat on the bench as a district judge in Texas. When people broke the law, the people of our country, in Williamson County, Texas, they wanted the laws enforced. They called upon our sheriffs and our law enforcement officers to enforce the law, and they called upon our courts and our juries to enforce the law. I am proud to say we did.

This issue is a law enforcement issue as much as any other issue. There are between 12- and 20 million people in this country, we are told by some, came here to start a new life. You don't start a new life by breaking the law, and the American people know that. The American people want something done about it.

The American people want us to defend our sovereign borders of the United States and to tell these people, you cannot break the laws of the United States and then expect to come into this country and get the benefits and the privileges of being a United States citizen. They are unhappy.

When the Senate bill was announced, I believe it was last Friday, before the end of the day and into Monday, we had over 1,000 phone calls, an estimation. I know we had over 400, I think it was, right here in D.C. Then our other two offices were overwhelmed with phone calls, all from citizens who we, you know, who are people of our community, who live and work in our community, and every one of them said this is an outrage. Do not support this concept of amnesty for people who have broken our laws. They have to be responsible for their own behavior. We raise our children to be responsible for their behavior, and we expect them to be.

We tell the American citizens, we set up a series of laws, we call it the rule of law. It is a basic principle of the Republic of the United States that the people respect the rule of law. Without it, democracy and the Republic cannot function. Yet we have proposed a bill that will waive the rule of law for up to 20 million or possibly more than 20 million people that are in this country illegally.

That's just not right, that's just basically old country boy not right to the folks back in Texas and to the folks, I believe, across this Nation. They get up

every day, and they abide by the laws of the United States. They pay their taxes. They do the right thing for the right reasons because that's what Americans do. That's the kind of people we want in the country, people who abide by the law.

To just say that it's a good way to start a new part of our population by letting them break the law to become part of our Nation, it just flies in the face of everything America thinks is right. We hear the argument, we are sure they are good people. I am sure they are good people. They are hard-working people. I have lived in Texas all my life, and I have seen this phenomena all my life.

These are hard-working people. I have visited with many of them in my limited Spanish and find them to be people looking for a job and who are hard-working. But it doesn't change the fact that they are starting their life in the United States of America illegally. This is wrong, and the American people know it's wrong.

Absolutely. And you hit on a very good point, and I thank the gentleman for yielding. The point that you hit on is that there are people that are trying to do it the right way, that have been waiting patiently to do this the right way in countries around this world; not just from our neighbors to the south, but all over this world that have waited patiently to get the opportunity to come to the United States, following the rules in the effort to go to work, enjoying the freedom of the world we live in, and ultimately by doing the right thing, the right way, hopefully become American citizens.

And I thank the gentleman for yielding. And you mentioned that your wife came here as an immigrant, and my wife came here as an immigrant also. And I'd like to share just a little bit of our story because I think it gives us a good comparison to what's being proposed in the Senate today and what we used to operate under in this country when you do it right.

I am very blessed to the fact that my wife, Erica, fell in love with a law student from the University of Texas law school back in 1965. And I happen to humbly be that law student. And we married in 1968.

And to be very honest, I really never even thought about the fact that my wife might have to actually apply to come to the United States after she had married a red-blooded American. You know, I thought that was just the ticket, but quickly found out that wasn't the ticket.

We had to go down to the embassy, and we had to fill out all these papers. We had to have someone pledge $5,000 to ensure that she would have a sponsor who would take care of her when, if she was allowed to enter the United States and ultimately get a green card to be a resident alien of the United States.

She had to take a physical, and as she took a physical with several other women her age, one of whom looked very much like her, when they got the lung exams back, this is a personal

thing that happened to us, they came to us and said, I'm sorry, but our exam of your wife's X-Rays shows that she's got tuberculosis, and she may not enter the United States, which we were newly married. We hadn't even been married a month at that time, maybe a month and a half. We were crushed. And then the doctor came back and said, I'm sorry, we got the wrong X-Ray. This is something we will never forget. And unfortunately, that X-Ray was for another redheaded girl who was in the same physical group that had their physicals, and so I felt very sorry for her, who was also marrying an American, but she was not going to be allowed to come to the United States because she had tuberculosis. But, praise God, it wasn't my wife.

So we paid our fee. We took our physical examination, we had the background check which is required for all people coming into the United States, and then when we arrived in the United States, in those days every year you had to register with the Federal Government. Every person who was not a citizen but had a green card, between January 1 and January 31 you went down to the post office and you filled out a form every year and told the United States Government where you were if you were a green card holder in the United States. We don't have that provision anymore. It went away.

We did all those things. My wife learned American history. She learned the English language. In the meantime, she had three American children, but she still met all the qualifications that you had to have to get to be an American citizen. And in 1976, I was very proud to see my wife raise her right hand and take the oath of allegiance to the United States of America and become a United States citizen. And I am proud of her for many, many reasons, and that's one of them today.

That's how you do it to do it right, to do it legally, and to become part of what this mysterious wonder that is America. It's not to sneak across a border in the middle of the night and hide out as a lawbreaker to make money. That's not the way you're supposed to come into the United States of America.

And as you pointed out, we have a procedure where people legally come here by the millions, and we welcome them.

And let me point one more thing out, and then I'm going to yield back, and that is here about a month ago we had about, I don't know, looked like several hundred people walking around this building with T shirts on that said ``Legalize the Irish.'' And I stopped some of them in the elevator and said, what in the world does that mean? And they said, well, we're all here illegally, and we want to be made legal.

This is not an Hispanic issue. This is an issue for the people who came to Disneyland and never went home. This is the people from all over the world that have overstayed their visas and are staying in the United States, as well as those who come across our borders. They are just as big starting life as a lawbreaker as people who swam the Rio Grande or walked across the desert of Arizona or California or New Mexico in the middle of the night. This is something that is not the right way to become an American citizen, and we can do better than this, and we must. And I yield back.

And I thank the gentleman for yielding. There are a lot of interesting things in this bill that common sense tells you that nobody's thinking about this. I'll just give one example. They have told us that there are people that have been waiting legally, and they're going to make sure that these illegals will get behind those people, and it will take approximately 8 years to process these people.

Now, I just sat down and looked at it. If you take the people that are in the pipeline right now, and I don't remember the number, but it's a couple of million, I think, and we're going to process them over 8 years to get them processed in doing it the right way, these are people doing it the right way, and I can tell you this, I know this for a fact. The last time I checked, which was about 3 months ago, those people we were helping who were doing it

right processed their papers through the San Antonio office, which is where, our part of Texas, I live just north of Austin, San Antonio office, they were still working on 1999 and 2000. They may be up to halfway to 2001 right now. So they're 7 or 8 years behind. So they got the number right.

Now they're going to tell us that they're going to take 12 million and instantly process them for a Z visa. About 18 months they say it'll take. So that tells you right off that the standards have got to be different. They have to be different.

And I was asking questions of someone who seemed to have some knowledge of the bill, and he said, well, you take a full handprint, you run it through all the criminal records, and you find out whether they've got a criminal record. Well, if that's so easy, why is the number one answer that we get from the Immigration and Naturalization Service when we call them, why are we delayed, FBI's got to do background checks? These things are extensive. They take a long time. Wait a minute. Take a full handprint and run it through the records. That's what we're told we're going to for these Z visas. That's not enough for the legal people, but it seems to be enough for the illegal people.

How about the fact that we've got diseases south of our southern border which are incurable, like a strain of tuberculosis? Shouldn't everybody that's here have a medical check? Where is it? Is it going to be there? It doesn't sound like it is.

Not even mentioned.

So, you know, I think there was some good-hearted people tried, but they tried miserably on this bill. The American people want to take our time and do this right. And right now their concern, if you ask them, you don't hear them say, I want new immigration policy. You hear them say, I want the illegal immigration problem stopped, which means pour the resources to the border, pour the resources to law enforcement, enforce the laws that are on the books. And then when the American people say, you know what, we can trust our government again to enforce the law, that's when they will be willing to say, now let's work with coming up with alternatives to make this whole thing work. And we can do it right the next time.

This is the wrong bill, the wrong time and, as Ms. Foxx pointed out, shoved down our throat by the Democrat majority.

If the gentleman would yield, I am very honored to appear here with you, Mr. Chairman, with all the great work you are doing on the Immigration Caucus trying to come up with a solution to this illegal immigration in this country. I salute you and all of our colleagues who join you in this effort to come up with reasonable solutions for a very difficult problem.

I want to join you in saying to the world, we are asking the rule of law to prevail. It's very simple. This Nation was built on the rule of law. Let the rule of law prevail. And the rule of law does show compassion on the poor and the downtrodden, but it has to exist or they have no protection. And if we start to tear down the rule of law, it is going to be as harmful to those who are downtrodden and poor as it is to the richest man in the world because the rule of law is the basis of our Republic.

So I reach out to the Hispanic community who feels like this is targeted to them and say, no, it is targeted to all who come into our country illegally. I reach out to those friends back home that say be compassionate, and say to them we can be compassionate. Let's get law and order back in our land and then let's show compassion. But law and order must come first. It is what this country was built on.

I thank my good friend and fellow judge from Texas.

I would like to ask a couple of questions. This Second Chance Act is a very new concept in criminal justice from my viewpoint. When you point out that we are actually going to create a series of benefits for people who have committed felony crimes that are not available to the average American citizen, not even available to those people who stand in harm's way and stand on the wall to protect our Nation every night from harm, and yet they are going to be available to people who commit acts, felony acts, punishable by long terms in the penitentiary.

I want to get clear exactly this Second Chance Act and these benefits, almost entitlements that are being created by this bill, does that pertain to only people who are incarcerated in Federal penitentiaries or does it expand to the States and localities?

I apologize to my colleague, Mr. Gohmert. I didn't hear all of the benefits because I came in on the tail-end, but you and I have talked about this briefly. But this training and finding jobs benefit, would that include being able to get a grant to say attend the University of Texas or your beloved Texas A&M University?

So you could apply for a grant to attend the college or university of your choice?

I think you will agree with me at least in the Texas prison system, an ambitious prisoner who is trying to turn his life around can get a bachelor's degree, can also get a master's degree, and I suppose if he stayed in prison long enough, he can get a doctor's degree. One school that has correspondence courses is the University of Maryland, which is not far from here, and a prisoner in the Texas prison system can get the degree of his choice if he is willing to work hard enough there.

I happen to know in the Texas prison system one of the most sought- after jobs, and I point out jobs where you work for the skill, is in the print shop with very high tech print training. And most of the people who finish that training, and I have actually had prisoners that I have sent to prison who have asked not to be paroled until they have completed their term of working in the print shop because after they have done their print apprenticeship, they could get jobs coming straight out of prison at $60,000 to $75,000 a year as a master printer. It is not like we are not offering an opportunity to work your way to success in prison today; would you agree with that?

Right now you are talking about $350 million. If this program continues the way most programs that we breathe life into in Congress, then it will continue to grow like mushrooms after a rain, and at some point in time, this theoretically could go on forever in the life of a prisoner. But did you say they are also being guaranteed medical benefits?

So if I understand what you are talking about here, we have people in the United States today that work 10 or 12-hour days, some of them 6 days a week, and they are struggling to pay their own medical bills and pay for health care insurance. They are asking us, crying out to us for help on paying their medical bills.

So there is an easy solution to their problem. Under this bill, quickly get a handgun and commit a felony. You serve a little time, and you are back out with the ability to get grants to pay for your medical bills.

It reminds me of stories that we have heard and experienced of the guy who just before Christmas throws a brick through a window so he can spend a warm night and have Christmas dinner in the county jail. There are people who do that. You know that happens and I know that happens. But is that what we want? Are we saying that the good-heartedness of the American people, and I think there are good-hearted people that are behind thing.

I don't think they have thought it out, and I am not for punishing criminals. I'm for giving them a start, but what do we owe to the people who have violated the laws of our society? I think we owe them a fair chance, but I don't think we owe them an open-ended chance for the rest of perpetuity.

I think they told us that that $25 million was all food stamps was ever going to cost us. I don't even know what the number is, the billions of dollars that we are into that now. These programs do tend to have a life of their own.

I thank you for raising this issue. I think this issue is important for the Members of Congress and for America to know that we are, unfortunately, starting down the road of, in my opinion, the possibility of awarding illegal behavior. It concerns me greatly, and I thank you for raising this issue.

I want to expand a little bit on what my good friend from Tennessee was talking about.

I happen to be blessed to have Fort Hood, Texas, in my district, which is the only division 2 post in America. It is the largest gathering of military forces on Earth, and we have experienced already, since I have been in Congress, a delay on getting a supplemental to the post.

Now, I think the American people need to know, and I would hope my colleagues in Congress would know, that today, as we speak, there are between 4- and 5,000 American soldiers going door-to-door in Baghdad and looking for three soldiers. Why is that? Why that concentration of effort?

Because the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps and every one of our services, they value every human life that they have. They care about their soldiers, and they are showing it by 24/7 putting their lives on the line looking for these guys, because they know what happens to these prisoners, what has happened in the past, people who were castrated and skinned alive, and their throats cut, and left on the side of the road dead with bombs strapped to their bodies. So they care about those soldiers.

This issue goes right down to what happens at home, when the supplemental money that provides the bullets, ammunition, transportation, vehicles for our soldiers in harm's way, when this Congress fails to meet its obligation to those brave men and women. By passing a supplemental, what does the Army do? Do they let the guys in the war suffer the consequences? No.

What happens is they look into the pocketbooks back home, and they have to cut the soldiers that are back in Texas or back in Tennessee or back in one of the other fine States in this union, they have to reduce what they have available for training, for services on their post.

You know, last year, when we didn't get the supplemental done until August, I can tell you that the people of Killeen, where Fort Hood is located, the people on the post, were talking about will we have enough money to pay the bills, the kinds of bills that American citizens understand, light bills, water bills, service bills, cutting the grass.

Are we going to be able to provide that at this post because the money, first, goes to the war fighters. They don't leave American soldiers in harm's way. So they cut their own pocketbooks.

Are we going to be able to pay the people we have contracted with to provide services? These issues are facing our soldiers today, because of the 100-day delay in providing this supplemental for our soldiers.

So it's important to know that our Army will not leave those guys without the goods that they need, and they will cut whatever they have to at home much.

But what does that mean to the next round of people that may have to go back to that war or any war? Also, you have at risk the possibility of cutting the training budgets for these soldiers, and what makes the American fighting man so superior to anybody on Earth? He is the best- trained soldier that ever took to the field. But if you cut the training bills in order to provide bullets for the guys in harm's way, then the training has to sacrifice. We can't get to that point. It is critical that we get a supplement passed from the standpoint of the American soldier.

Finally, today, we heard all rhetoric on this great, by the way, great bill

that we just passed on defense authorization. We are providing funds for the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, yes, in 2008.

But what are we going to do about it now? I think this is something that really has to be addressed because we are harming the best military on earth.

I agree completely with what my friend Judge Gohmert had to say. You have given a very good history of what has been the history of the Democrat Party when they were in the majority or where they were in control of the White House. They have a history of cutting and providing less than the necessary supplies for our military.

In fact, one of the great brags that Al Gore used to say is that he reduced the number of employees in the Federal Government by this huge amount. But if you looked at where they came from, they were United States soldiers. Members of the military made up the vast majority of the numbers of reducing the size of government that were taken credit for during the Clinton administration. They cut our Army down from multidivisions, down to where it is now.

But you know what? That is all water under the bridge. You had mentioned something that is very important to me: We took an oath.

We took an oath, and our colleague from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) got asked a question by one of his folks back home: Why do you feel so that you are doing the right thing by providing for these guys that are fighting over in Iraq?

He said, You know, it is easy to criticize. But when you become responsible, then you have really got to look at it. And he said, I am by my oath responsible to the American public to provide for the common defense.

It as a perfect answer. That is exactly what we all did, Republican and Democrat, is we took an oath to be responsible to the American people to provide protection for those people. And some of these are hard calls and hard votes. These are not for me. These are not for me nor for anyone in this room. But it is a hard vote for some. So it is just sad. And sometimes we have just got to remember why we are here.

I would like to mention one more thing because I know our time is getting late. But we talked about this $392.5 billion tax increase that is coming down the road. Let me point out to folks that are paying gas prices. If you don't like $3 a gallon gasoline, which, by the way, there was supposed to be an instant solution for that problem when the new majority came into power, but we haven't seen it. In fact, it has only been made worse, in my opinion.

But take that, and I looked at that long list of what it means to everybody's district for this tax increase, and everybody gets--at least $2,000 it is going to cost the average family, At least $2,000. So take that money that you are putting aside to pay for that gas and subtract $2,000 a year from it. So the price of gas is going up. If nothing else, the price of gas is going up for the average American family by this tax increase, and it is something that will hurt our economy and turn us in the wrong direction.

I just wanted to mention that before we have to quit.

Madam Speaker, the City of Killeen, Texas celebrates its 125th birthday, today, May 15th, 2007. The City of Killeen was born May 15, 1882, when the Santa Fe Railroad extended its line westward. Named for Frank P. Killeen, an official of the railroad in Galveston, some believe that Killeen may have been among the railroad dignitaries on the train that arrived to mark the beginning of the town, but it has never been confirmed. The town of about 300 people became a shipping point of the area for agricultural products, cotton in particular.

In the next 60 years, the city prospered and grew to over 1,200 people. But in 1942, this small railroad town became home to military post Camp Hood. The military camp's impact was tremendous more than quintupling Killeen's population in its first few years.

After World War II, the Army was looking for a place to train soldiers in tank destroyer tactics, and Killeen fit the bill. Camp Hood was named for Confederate General John Bell Hood. The initial installation covered 160,000 acres; most of Killeen's best farming land, forcing many families from their homesteads. In 1950, the camp was declared a permanent post changing its name to Fort Hood.

Killeen was now a military town, so its goal became to make it the best town for military families to live. Supporting our soldiers and their families is still the top priority today.

The town and the fort grew together. Killeen worked to develop infrastructure that would incorporate the military base and its needs. Immediate needs were water leading to the construction of Belton Lake and later, Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir; the construction of better highways to meet military and civilian travel needs; major construction to provide housing; and an accompanying growth in retail business.

This small agriculture turned railroad turned military town now has a population of over 100,000 people and is bustling with commerce. Killeen has a young, diverse populous served by good schools and affordable housing and will continue to thrive in its next 125 years.