Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, now that the Democrats have satisfied their base and passed a bill that is guaranteed to be vetoed and delayed the necessary funding for our troops, we need to get down to business and pass a clean supplemental.

Yesterday I received a letter from a marine mom. She said she was embarrassed and saddened by the fact that somebody would leave her son and those fighting forces that are doing such a wonderful job in harm's way without funding their needs as they fight the battle for freedom. This lady was heart broken that a portion of this Congress would vote not to provide a clean bill for her son's protection.

The Chicago Tribune editorial says that President Bush is going to veto this spending bill because it has a timetable for withdrawal, and it goes on to say: ``He is right to do so.''

We have a new commanding general on the ground and he has a plan, and that plan has not even started to be executed. We are already seeing modest improvements.

I urge my colleagues, and that marine mom urges my colleagues, to support a clean supplemental. It is time the Democrat leadership put our troops, not political statements, first.

Madam Speaker, the Democratic leaders have ignored the President's promise to veto legislation which loads our soldiers down with their pork-barrel spending and sets arbitrary deadlines for pulling out of Iraq. They know it is going to be vetoed, but they continue to make our troops wait.

The Commander in Chief, by their provision, would have to wait 15 days to deploy troops in certain circumstances, preventing us from having reinforcements for our soldiers in harm's way. They want to tie the hands of our generals by setting a surrender date. The first surrender date, they said, is July 1 of this year.

We don't need 535 generals in Washington commanding our troops. We need the professionals.

It is past time for the Democrats to do the right thing and pass a bill which funds our troops in harm's way. Their final drop-dead date deadline that they have set is very interesting, April 1, 2008. April Fool's day. Who are they trying to fool?

Would the gentleman yield? I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Very good description of what we are looking at this week. And you are right; this may be one of the most critical votes that the people that hold these valuable seats that our people back home gave us are going to cast in their lifetime, because they are going to cast a life- and-death vote here.

You know, as you mentioned, the troops and the 1st Infantry Division that you represent over there in Georgia, I am very blessed to represent the folks at Fort Hood, Texas. We are the only two division posts in the entire world, as I understand it, and I am very proud to represent the 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division and III Corps.

As we meet here tonight, the 1st Cavalry Division is in Baghdad, and General Odierno and III Corps are in command.

Now, I have my soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, and I call them mine because I care about every single solitary one of those soldiers as they serve our country. I have them in harm's way tonight as we stand here, with great generals who know what they are doing, know their mission, and are ready to accomplish it.

I don't think the American people have really understood what General Petraeus is trying to do with what some are calling a surge, but more familiar to our soldiers is a call for more boots on the ground; or as Jack said, for somebody to take your back.

But the real issue here is what is the plan for victory that General Petraeus has painted for us. Well, the plan is to involve Iraq in their own defense. The plan is for one battalion of American soldiers to back up a brigade of Iraqi soldiers as they go in and execute a new policy in the neighborhoods of terror in Baghdad. The Army will be backing up a brigade with a battalion. There are five battalions in a brigade. So that means it is a 5 to 1 ratio is the plan for the Iraqis to be in the fight versus the Americans. The Americans will provide all of the great resources, all of the know-how, all of the skill, all of the training, all the can-do that our American forces provide to the fight. But the Iraqis will go in and they will take care of cleaning out the neighborhoods in Baghdad. They speak the language. They know the culture and the religion. They know the various groups. They can do this in a much more effective way, with the support of General Petraeus' troops. And he has told us that he needs the additional boots on the ground to make this plan work.

Now, I think the American people are a people that believe in winning. You know, I sit around this House in our off time, and what are we talking about, who is going to win the next basketball game competition that is going on in this country? And we are talking about who is going to win, not who is going to lose.

When it is football season, we are looking for a winning season. When we have a baseball team, we want them to have a winning year and to win the pennant. We are a Nation that likes winners. We have the most effective fighting force in the history of man on the ground today, and they can win. And they are telling us we have a plan.

One of the problems that we have run into in Baghdad, and I have learned this by visiting with these generals. I visited just recently with the general who brought the 4th Infantry Division back, and they are ready and training to deploy again next fall for their third or fourth deployment.

What was said was we have demonstrated we can clear out an area like Sadr City, for instance. The 1st Cavalry Division went in 2 years ago and cleaned out Sadr City, redesigned the sewer system, got the electricity system working slightly, got the garbage that had been in the streets for years under Saddam Hussein cleaned out, and they did this under fire. And they also killed or captured the bad guys that they found, and ran the rest of them out of Sadr City. But they didn't have the resources to hold Sadr City.

This plan is to clear, hold, and rehabilitate. That's the plan that General Petraeus talked to the Senate about. That's the plan he has, as I understand it.

And the Iraqis will set up like stations in the various neighborhoods to do the clear with our help; they will do the hold with our help; and then teams will come in from the Army and the Marine Corps and like from the State Department to do the rehabilitation of the area and give them services they practically haven't had under Saddam Hussein, and some have never had in their lifetime.

This is a plan that I think we owe to our soldiers and their sacrifice, to give them a chance to get done. I am heartsick that we have a plan that is supposed to be funding these troops to get this job done that is coming to the floor of the House, and it has provisions in that plan which it looks like to me are saying we don't think you can succeed. Therefore, we are setting up kind of a track to get you out because by a vote for the bill in its present state, we are saying to our soldiers overseas, we don't think you can get the job done and so here is how we are going to get you out, and here is the drop-dead date, August of next year, when you are getting out, like it or not.

You mentioned General Pelosi micromanaging. I have real problems with this bill, and I hope every Member of Congress will look at this bill and look at it in terms of human beings, i.e. our soldiers. It has a provision, and it has a provision which says no unit can go to the fight unless they are certified by someone, that they are fully trained, fully equipped before they are allowed to go. And if they cannot meet that certification on their demarcation date they will be by this bill defunded because they are not certified to go to the fight.

Meanwhile, there are troops in Iraq who are expecting to have a replacement coming in. They have been there for a year. But what does this bill say about those troops in Iraq? In this case, the 1st Cavalry Division from Fort Hood, Texas, next fall under this bill, once they reach 365 days in theater, this bill defunds those soldiers.

Now, if we fail to certify their replacements and we have defunded the soldiers and now you have a 1st Cavalry Division soldier who is short on gasoline and ammunition in the war, is that where we want that soldier to be? Is that caring for the American troops? And all of this is being managed from here, not from the generals that are in the fight?

I think it is a tragedy that we would even consider doing something like this, thinking we as a body have the military knowledge, superior to the people we just, by the example you gave, by a unanimous vote of the Senate hired a man to do the job.

You go ahead. I have been there three times, and let me tell you, I like the professional soldier and the job he is doing.

Another interesting thing that is not being said that you need to know, and I think it is important and if you talk to the soldiers you will learn this, in the Anbar Province where the marines are operating with some of the airborne folks, and that is where the marines asked for 4,000 more troops to help them, for the first time we have had a change of support from the populace in Anbar Province. Al Qaeda is there. That is where our enemy that blew up our country, that is where they are. The marines are hunting them down, capturing or killing them. They are saying give us 4,000 more, and we will get this job done. Why is that? Because the sheiks are now cooperating. They are now saying to the marines, we will tell you where these guys are.

I think that is a very good point. I also think it is a very good point to note that we are talking about, we need to get back to what we set out to do here in Congress with this supplemental bill. I mean, what did the President and the generals who are in charge of this fight ask us to do as a Congress? Did they ask us to load up a bill with pork so that folks back home would have all kinds of pork projects? No. They asked us to give them what it takes for them to do their job. They did not ask us to run the war. They asked us to help them do their job.

People love to quote generals around here, and, in fact, today I have heard twice quoted generals. Of course, these were all generals that are no longer in the fight, but they quote them, and they are certainly valid sources, and I do not criticize the opinions of those generals. They love to quote them. But I do not hear anybody quoting the opinions of the generals that are in the fight today, and yet they are giving us their opinions.

One of the things that some folks back home ask me, and I think this is a valid thing to pass on to everyone here in the House and to whoever may be listening, General Petraeus was asked about an exit strategy from Iraq. He said, let us get this deal to work because we think we have the right formula to make it work, and as we stand up the Iraqi troops and they show what they are showing us in preliminaries right now that they are now ready to participate, as we have these successes, we can start drawing down the troops.

So he told an exit strategy. How many of us have heard that in the media? All we hear is we are going to war, it is never ending, and there is no exit strategy, and the man that we just elected or voted for in the Senate

unanimously to be in charge has told us, this is not a never-ending situation. It is all about standing up the Iraqis and standing down the Americans, and we can get there if we do this thing well.

This man is considered by everyone in the military as the counterinsurgency expert of the Army. That is why we have got him over there.

So let us get back to what we are doing here. American soldiers, one of the things that just amazes me what the soldiers and marines do, they strap on between 80 and 100 pounds of stuff, sometimes more than that, and they go out in 140-degree temperature in metal vehicles and fight for the freedom of those people in Iraq. But this Congress and this bill wants to load on their shoulders an additional $24 billion worth of pork, and it is a shame.

And why does this bill have this pork in it? What I mean by pork is things that have nothing to do with what we were asked to do, which is help our soldiers do their duty.

We did discuss this last week, and this plan was good hearted. It was designed to help children. But some of our States said, wait a minute, here is our chance, this is free health care from the Federal Government for our State. Let's just include children and their parents, and maybe their brothers and sisters.

And the grandparents. In fact, let's just make it health care for everybody in our State that falls in this category. This is like the Federal Government, and now they have got a shortfall, which that is not kind of hard to figure out if you calculate it, what it costs to take care of the kids, and then you added all their extended family to the program, yes, they will have a shortfall. This isn't rocket science here.

That's the key.

We are sitting here with a concern that goes back 1,000 years between the Sunnis and the Shiites. That is why people talk about civil war.

Now, has anybody read what has been put in the Middle Eastern newspapers about if the Americans pull out, and it blows up in Iraq, the countries that will come to the aid of these two groups? The Iranians have said, we are not going to let Shiites be put down, we will come to their aid. The Saudis have said, we are not going to have genocide for the Sunnis who are the minority party, we will come to the Sunnis' aid.

I think Americans know that if you take Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that is the basic oil production region of the entire Middle East who could become involved in a region-wide conflict because of America's early pullout, as recommended by Speaker Pelosi. Then

you know how upset folks got about $4-a-gallon gasoline? So what happens when over two-thirds of the world's supply is involved in a civil war or region-wide war in the Middle East if you don't care about doing the right thing? We certainly know people care about having $10- a-gallon gasoline. It's kind of a sad, tragic thing to argue.

But let's get realistic about this. If we get stability in Iraq where there is not going to be this threat of genocide, if we can get there by them turning to their government for assistance rather than to militia and terrorists, that is our goal. If we get there, we keep a stable region, and America is affected by having stability in that region.

I think that Americans clearly have a stake in a stable Middle East. If they don't realize they have a stake, they will know it when they go to the pump, if that region goes into turmoil. They will know it. You know, it's sad to have to talk in those terms, but it's the truth.

Let's get back to why we are here. We are here to give our troops the tools they need, the weapons they need, and the fuel they need to continue this fight and to see if this new direction will bring victory for a bunch of folks that deserve a victory.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. That is our issue here tonight. I agree with you. They worked hard to put a lot of the needs in here. Let's not say that these other things that have been, in my opinion, wrongly added to this bill in the way of pork, those things are still very important to this country. Many of those things are important to my district, but I would tell my folks back home, as important as some of those things are, our kids have enough to carry on their shoulders in Iraq without carrying the burden of these projects which can be dealt with in the regular appropriations process which is still to come, and the regular budget process which is still to come.

You know what? If passing legislation, if there were a drop-dead date we were told, we would be voting on this bill today. So if we were going to be having a drop-dead event in world politics today, it would drop dead today, because we didn't pass what we were promised we were going to pass today.

To put a time limit, to do it by the 1st of July or everybody comes home, when we are talking to them, that's the voice of a legislative body talking to another legislative body. And they know they can't meet deadlines in their Congress. We can't meet absolute deadlines in our Congress. Things happen. This is what's wrong with micromanaging from 6,000 miles away.

I thank the gentleman for letting us have this discussion tonight and allowing us to participate in this discussion. It has been a good one. I hope that the folks that are looking at this bill very hard and trying to decide how they will vote, I hope that they will vote to give our American soldiers all the resources they need, and give the trained professionals the opportunity to direct the fight, not certain Members of the United States Congress. And if that happens, I believe that we are on the road to success.

But we will have to have oversight, and we will have to watch it closely, and I for one am in favor of that, because what I care most about is the lives of those soldiers that I get to say good-bye to and welcome back home on the planes in Texas. And they matter to us in Texas, they matter to us in the United States. And we are proud of them, and we owe them everything we can to keep them alive, healthy, and successful. And I thank you for allowing me to participate.

There is talk that the $100 billion war supplemental will include an extra $20 billion in goodies. Such projects are seemingly irrelevant to the mission our soldiers are expected to carry out. For example:

$60 million for the California and Oregon salmon fishery disaster of '06;

$400 million for timber revenue program in Oregon;

$400 million in low-income home energy assistance for State grants;

$448 million unrequested funds for State children's health insurance programs, and;

a half a billion dollars for wildfire management and suppression.

Now, these are valuable projects, but they don't belong in an emergency war supplemental. They appear to be nothing more than an attempt to buy votes at the expense of our soldiers in the war on terror. The supplemental is meant to be an emergency troop funding vehicle and there is no excuse for $20 billion worth of pork in that supplemental.

Let this Congress respect our soldiers and deny this pork.

Madam Speaker, I want to rise today before this House to talk about something that weighs on the conscience of every Member in this House, a news story that broke very recently that has upset us all, the conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. Many Members of Congress have gone out there and looked at these conditions, and we are shocked by them.

Every Member that I have spoken to is as concerned as I am. I am particularly concerned because I am from a district that I would argue has probably put more fighters in this war than any district in America, having Fort Hood, Texas, a two division post, the only two division post in the Army in my district. The 4th Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, along with the 3rd Corps, have deployed now to Iraq on three separate occasions each. The 3rd Corps and the 1st Cavalry are over there right now as we speak and the 4th Infantry Division is gearing back up to go back.

Our soldiers have given a lot of their blood, sweat and tears to this war. They believe in their mission and they go to their mission as heroes, as far as I am concerned. And to learn that someone, whoever they may be, from whatever post in America or around the world, would have substandard conditions at what is supposed to be one of the two or three premier medical facilities for our Army in the country, shocks me and concerns me.

I would think it concerns every Member of this Congress, whether they are for this war or whether they are against it. But for me in particular, having 50,000 soldiers that depend on me and other Members of this Congress to make sure that we have an adequate facility that gives the absolute best medical care that we can give, that we have that, is important. It is very important. It is actually lifesavingly critical.

Now, first, to get the right picture, I have been to Walter Reed. I have been there on multiple occasions. I have visited one patient as he cycled through there a 9-month period of time, maybe even longer than that.

I will tell you that the emergency care, the intensive care that was given in that unit, I can't say enough good about the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies and everyone who was doing the work there. I think that they gave outstanding service, the kind of service we would expect for our soldiers.

The trauma medicine that is developing and has developed in the military today, from a medical standpoint, and I am no doctor, but I have sat in a courtroom and heard an awful lot of medical testimony, the trauma treatment that we have for our soldiers today is, quite frankly, state-of-the-art in what they can do to save lives, and we, by the procedures we have set up for our soldiers, are saving a lot of lives.

But then we learn that people who are there as holdovers, who are at the recovery side of their phase through Walter Reed, are being housed in substandard housing, where there were rodents and infestations of insects, where there was black mold, which I happen to have personal firsthand experience with, having been moved out of my house for a little over a year because of stachybotrys, black mold, and having had my house totally wrecked to get that stuff out of it. I am very familiar with the health hazards that are claimed for that mold.

To know that soldiers who have given their hard work and suffered an injury of some sort on our behalf are being required to stay in substandard housing such as that, or substandard facilities such as that, it is appalling. Quite frankly, if it turns out that is what the black mold was that they found there, that has health implications that affects the breathing of every human being, and it is very critical that we be concerned with that.

So this is an issue where the light of day needs to shine on it, and we need to talk about it. I hope some of my colleagues will join us later here so we can discuss this matter, because I think it is important. I think it is important, and the American people expect, as I expect, that we will give the best quality health care from beginning to end for every soldier and veteran in the United States.

It is Congress' responsibility to ensure that these medical facilities are providing the best possible care. The buck stops here. We have that responsibility.

I think overall we are very proud of the medical care that is provided for our soldiers. But we can only hope to expend much more time and, if necessary, much more resources to make sure that what is going on at Walter Reed is corrected and that we look to see if there is anything we need to do at every hospital in America.

I want to applaud the Army for getting on this deal right away. They have dispatched officials to inspect the quality of care at 11 hospitals, and they are doing that this week and next. Of course, the President immediately acted and appointed Bob Dole and Donna Shalala to head a bipartisan commission to look into the solution to this problem. I think that is commendable, and I think that clearly shows how much the President and the White House care, as we care, about the health care of our soldiers.

Because I have a major hospital in my district, at Fort Hood, I went this weekend out to Carl Darnall Army Medical Center in my district. This wasn't my first trip there. I have been there on numerous occasions. This hospital serves approximately 50,000 active duty soldiers and airmen, approximately 56,000 family members, and over 40,000 retirees and surviving annuitants. This hospital, quite frankly, we have been working very diligently and we are very hopeful that we will expand Darnall so that it can be bigger and better.

I was not concerned from what I had seen on multiple visits in the past that we would find problems at Darnall. But it seemed like to me that in light of the fact that we had this issue at Walter Reed, which by my visits to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed, I certainly did not see these conditions that are being described at Walter Reed, that I should make sure to talk to the folks, to go look at the hospital, to look at where we are housing our medical holdovers, and just see exactly what is going on at Darnall, too.

I am happy to report, Madam Speaker, quite frankly, I was very impressed. In fact, I went into the rooms where some of our holdover medical folks were. Most of them were Guardsmen. They are living in dormitory-like rooms, dormitory barrack rooms, two to a room, occasionally one to a room, the kind of room I checked my boys into when I checked them into Texas Tech University to go to college. They were the kind of room you would put your child in, you would be happy to put your teenager or young adult child in while they were going to school; clean, well-established, well-furnished, kitchenette-type rooms.

I visited some of the soldiers and asked them how things were working, were things working well there at Darnall. They were pleased. I went into more than one room and dropped in to visit with these folks.

I want to say in defense of the people in the Army Medical Corps, these folks do care about our soldiers. I don't

know what fell through the cracks out there at Walter Reed, and I am sure we are going to find out about that, but overall I cannot impress upon this body how much we have to respect these doctors and nurses and the time they are giving, because these folks are being deployed as well as serving our soldiers here. Many of them are being deployed to the two theaters of war today, working in theater hospitals that are part of the lifesaving process that we provide for soldiers today.

It is a tragedy when we talk about the number of soldiers that we have lost and airmen and, of course, Marines and sailors. It is a tragedy when we lose one, and it breaks the heart of every American to lose any soldier. But as we look at what the medical community has been able to accomplish in this war over previous wars, we have kept fatalities down because of doctors and nurses and administrators and the plans they have to get our soldiers to the doctor, to get help quickly.

The key is if they can get them off the battlefield and to a professional in 12 minutes, the vast majority of the time, no matter how serious the wound, we are able to save their lives. That is a track record that we don't have from previous wars. But it has been done by a combination of utilizing our medical facilities that all the branches of the service are involved in, and I have an example from back home that I will talk about sometime today to show how that works.

Also while I was there, I went and visited the Olin E. Teague Veterans Center in Temple, and I will tell you, you think about what you have heard about veterans hospitals in the past. Well, I am telling you, everything you have heard, you need to go visit Olin E. Teague Hospital in Temple, Texas. I promise you, you will be impressed with the quality of health care and the quality of that facility, which houses everything from our old soldiers in nursing care to intermediate holding care to hospital care for our veterans. I am telling you, it is state-of-the-art, first-class medical care that they are providing there.

Their new center, where they have about 400 men and women, it is better than what I live in here in Washington. It is a nice place. It looks like we have got a bunch of really happy veterans in that center. They have a lot of amenities. It is gloriously beautiful. I commend the foresight of those who preceded me to build that hospital up to the quality it is, and I feel very confident any inspections that take place there or at Darnall are going to come back with a very good report card.

But that doesn't get us away from the issue we have been talking about, the Walter Reed issue. These dedicated professionals can do just so much, and I will tell you when the Army was called upon to respond I think they responded very quickly.

I see I have been joined by my friend Robin Hayes.

I yield to Robin Hayes.

I thank my colleague from North Carolina, Robin Hayes, a true friend of the American soldier. He proves it by his actions as well as his words, and I thank you on behalf of our soldiers.

Now I yield to my colleague from Texas, one of my former judge colleagues, Judge Poe.

I am very fortunate, Madam Speaker, to have Duncan Hunter, somebody if you asked people in this Congress who is a friend of the soldier, the first word of their mouth will always be Duncan Hunter. He is the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. He is a hero for American soldiers because he never forgets the needs of the soldier, both on the battlefield and in the hospital and as a veteran. I am honored to have Duncan Hunter join us.

That is a great idea, wonderful idea. We introduced a bill last session, we are going to put it back in this session, that is going to encourage employers to hire the spouses of our soldiers. We give a tax break to employers who hire ex-cons. We ought to give a tax break to employers who hire the spouses of soldiers who have gone to war for us because that is the kind of caring we have got to do, caring about what happens to them when they get back but caring about the worries they carry as they go to battle. That is very popular among employers who are interested in doing that.

There are so many things, and what a great idea you have got, a job fair-type, national job fair promoted by the Congress for our wounded soldiers. That is a great idea.

All right.

I am going to yield to the good doctor, to my colleague from Texas (Mr. Burgess), and one of those fine medical professionals that we have been talking about that serve here in the United States Congress.

I thank my colleague from Texas for his comments and his expertise as a doctor. He is invaluable to this House, and we are very, very proud to have him as a Member of this House. I am proud to have him as a friend.

Does the gentleman from North Carolina wish to be recognized?

Take all the time you need.

Thank you so much for being here tonight. Let me tell a story about an 82nd airborne soldier. This is an 82nd Airborne soldier from my hometown. My son and daughter-in-law are a high school teacher and coach, and they knew this young man; we knew his family. He, in the invasion of Baghdad, he charged out on a bridge in the open to pull one of the fallen, he was a medic in the paratroopers, 19-year-old medic, and he charged out on his bridge and pulled one of his fellow paratroopers to safety. In the process of going back for others, he received a round through his abdomen.

Now, I told this House earlier that this is a joint effort, and Alan Babin is a perfect example of the joint effort. He was immediately treated on the battlefield by a fellow medic, immediately evacuated and flown to the Navy ship offshore, I have forgotten the name of it now, to a mercy ship off the shore, where they treated him. From there he was flown by the Air Force, air evac medical team to Landstuhl in Germany, where he was stabilized and then he was flown to Walter Reed Hospital and had hundreds of surgeries, and for 7 months laid with an open, exposed abdominal cavity which had to be scrubbed clean every day. That boy would have died on any other battlefield, anywhere else in the world; but he was an American soldier, given American medical care.

Today, he is recovering. While in the process of being treated, Alan suffered a stroke. His wounds are healed now, and he is rehabilitating himself with help from the Army on the damage that he received from the stroke while being treated for his wound.

We expect all of us in Round Rock, Texas, Alan Babin, to be back and functioning and doing well and heal completely because his spirits are great and he is working hard like every soldier and every Airborne trooper would; and he is the pride of Round Rock, Texas. He won the Bronze Star with valor for his treatment of his fellow soldiers, fellow paratrooper.

Those stories, there are a million of them. We see them every day in Landstuhl. I wanted to tell that story, because I want the American people to know that is the kind of medical care that our medical doctors are giving. This week, when I was at Darnall Hospital in Fort Hood, they told me about the fact that we couldn't make it if it wasn't for the doctors who were willing to serve in the Reserve.

In this Reserve, we sent 11 doctors downrange to Iraq in our last deployment. Someone has to fill in for those 11 doctors back at Fort Hood. It is the Army Reserve doctors that come in there and do that and the Army Reserve nurses. I visited with a nurse, I believe, from Jamaica, New York, who was filling in as a Reserve nurse who had been called up, or maybe she was a National Guard nurse.

So not only are the heroes in the war but the heroes in the Reserve and the Guard, they are doing a great job. It is abominable that we had this condition at Walter Reed. We will address it, we will fix it, but let's not take away our doubt that these doctors and nurses and medical professionals are doing everything they can to make sure our soldiers are getting the best care they can.

My friend Mr. King, Steve King, has joined us. I want to recognize him and allow him to say a few things here.

I thank the gentleman for joining us here today. On that issue of electronic records, when I was at Darnall on Saturday, we were talking about them implementing the electronic recordkeeping. I said, well, now, I need to know, are the electronic records that you are working on here, are they interoperable with the VA's electronic records? They said, well, they are so far ahead of us, we will certainly work to have interoperability, but we are way behind the VA.

Most Americans wouldn't expect that to be heard. The VA is getting a reputation on their electronic records of having a state-of-the-art electronic records system. People are coming in from the private sector to look at what the VA has done. The Army is using it

as a model to bring Army electronic records up to par. It is important, it is one of the missions we need to have here in Congress to make sure we provide the support and the funds to make sure we have an electronic record system which will take our soldier and track him from the minute he raises his right hand to serve our Nation, until, at the point we all get there, he is buried in one of our veterans cemeteries, until we have accurate records for him that are electronic, easily found, so we can get him the care, he or she the care, that they need.

Madam Speaker, this is an issue that has concerned every American, Democrat and Republican, since it broke. We are all concerned. We all want the American people to know that whatever differences we may have on the issues concerning the war, this is an issue of the lives of the American soldier; and all Americans care for our American soldiers.

I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) for yielding to me. And I appreciate him joining me in the previous hour in our discussion of Walter Reed and the health care for our soldiers and our veterans and how important that issue is.

But I guess, at least in the State of Texas, if what I hear in my town hall meetings is anything to be compared, I think the issue of what is happening on our borders and what we are going to do to resolve the issue of immigration is a topic that has never failed to come up, now, in the past 3 years at literally, every occasion at which I have held a town hall meeting; and I generally hold between 17 and 25 a year with the addition of the new tool of the telephone town hall. I held one of those less than 3 weeks ago for an hour and a half.

And once again, the people of Texas are concerned about the issue of the illegal aliens that have invaded our country. And they are concerned about who is coming, and what are they going to do, and what are we going to do to resolve this problem?

I have a Hispanic Council. The gentleman from Iowa knows that Texas is a State that you would put down as a Hispanic State. In fact, I believe we have now, over 50 percent of the people in Texas are Hispanic. The difference between Texas and some other parts of the world is we have lived with Hispanic neighbors all of our history. I mean, our culture is a kind of a combination of West and Mexican culture. It is the Southwest culture. It has a lot of the influence of Mexico in the Southwest culture. If you don't believe that, come on down to Austin; let me feed you the best Mexican food on Earth.

This is what is going on in Texas. We have lived with our neighbors like this all of our lives. When this issue cropped up I decided I wanted to form a Hispanic Council in my district. And we talk about issues, of course, immigration, the border, these are issues that are primary we discuss. But we made ourselves a promise that we were going to look at the world, all the world of litigation, legislation, and international relations, not just the immigration issue. But we always discuss the immigration issue. And at least my council, which has a membership of folks that are, some of them first generation American citizens, most of them second or third or fourth generation American citizens. All of Hispanic descent, most of whom are from Mexico, although there are some from other places. And we have a let your hair down, no holds barred discussion. And overall, my Hispanic community,

recognizes there is a problem and realizes we have to come up with a solution, and they are supportive of a solution that is within the law.

And I think that is important because, quite frankly, the reason we have a crisis, I would tell my colleague from Iowa, is because we haven't been enforcing the laws we have got and we haven't been enforcing them since 1986 when we cranked out the amnesty program under Ronald Reagan. The key to the Reagan amnesty program being a success was enforce the law. And administrations, Republican and Democrat, have not done it. I mean, those are the facts.

You know, one thing about history, it is history. You can try to write it a different way, but the reality of history is there is only one history and that is the truth of what happened.

And what happened was we didn't enforce the laws. And as a result, we went from a trickle across our southern border and our northern border to a six-lane highway bumper to bumper invasion. And that is what we have been facing now in the last 4 or 5 years.

I would say, I have met with the White House on numerous occasions and been a very big critic of making sure that we got border enforcement. I will say, we are doing better at the border. We are not there yet, but w are doing substantially better. The numbers are down. The catch and release program and the ending of the catch and release program, although not 100 percent, but it is better than it was when it was 100 percent catch and release. We are detaining people. And there are those who want to stop us and there are those who call us inhumane. And, in fact, in my district, one of the real things that we desperately needed was a place to care for families that cross the border. And we had no facility that was family friendly. They built a family friendly, or remodeled a correctional institute to make a family friendly center to hold illegals with children, people who come in this country illegally with children. And it is in my district. It is 22 miles from my home in Taylor, Texas. That thing has come under fire from our neighbors to the south who are sort of San Francisco-like, we would call them, in their views and they have been picketing this facility and claiming it is inhumane. I was there when they started remodeling this facility. I was there two-thirds of the way through the remodel, and so I went back the last month, the last week we were there during the President's Week, and I toured that facility.

I have the expertise of having built two juvenile detention centers as a judge. I was the chairman of the Juvenile Board from its inception in Williamson County until I retired, so until I retired I was the only chairman the Juvenile Board ever had in Williamson County, now a county of about 300,000 people. And so I was in charge of the board that built our first William S. Lott Detention Center, back when we were a lot smaller county. We are probably the second fastest growing county in the Nation every year of the last 20 years. And so now we have built a much larger, 4 or 500-bed facility, the second one, the Williamson County Juvenile Detention Center.

So when I went into this controversial holding situation that we have got there in Taylor, I was looking for the kind of thing that we put our juvenile offenders into. And, you know, juvenile offenders are not, under the law, criminal offenders. It is a very special category of the world. And so I looked at the classrooms, which, quite frankly, were better than the classrooms that my son and my daughter-in-law teach in at Round Rock High School, and I am pretty proud of the classroom that they teach in at Round Rock High School. They were very well managed. The teachers were bilingual and very, very compassionate.

There was a glitch, bureaucratic glitch that caused some of them not to be taught long enough. But now they are meeting the Texas educational standards. They have recess, they have a playground, the rooms are decorated. They have done the best they can to make it juvenile friendly. And I figure if it is good enough for juveniles, it is certainly good enough for their parents.

But there is a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, and I am certain that our crisis is not over on that facility. But why did we have to build that facility? Because there were coyotes in Mexico who knew that if, for sure, if you were caught and you had a child in your possession, they had no place to house you, no matter where you came from. And 97 percent of the people in that Taylor facility are OTM, other than Mexicans. They knew if you had a kid they couldn't detain you. And so we had to have some way to detain. Those things are improvements. But that is the kind of, this is a very complicated situation. And you are right, it is not something that calls for a quick easy fix that suits certain people's political agenda. It needs to be analyzed and it needs to be done, I still say, as we secure the border and get the confidence of the American people that we care about what is going on, and we are getting there. We need to come up with a way to identify people so we know who has the right to work and who doesn't have the right to work in this country. Then our work program, with those who are here with no pathway to citizenship, in my opinion, and then a work program for those that want to come in legally to work in a legal system, work for a period of time and go back type of system, and finally rework our immigration and naturalization laws to where they work, they are workable. And at that point in time, if you have violated the law, and you want to go for citizenship, you reapply from the nation you come from and you get in line like everybody else with some kind of penalty for having broken our laws. That makes sense. That is not something we should throw in in a quick laundry basket full of clothes, everything mixed up, and it will all work it out. We will work it out later, because, my friend from Iowa, ask the people that are in the trenches that are dealing with this immigration problem at ICE and other places. They are overwhelmed now. If you throw the 7 to 20 million that are hiding out in this country back on their shoulders to deal with, what are they going to do if we don't think this out logically?

They are going to be more overwhelmed. And when a government system is overwhelmed, it just stops working. And that is what we are experiencing in the United States today. You can't blame these people. When they have got a pile of a thousand applications on their desk and you walk through the door with 10,000 more, they are going to say, I can't do the thousand, I sure as heck can't do the 10,000.

So I think it is really wonderful that the people in this Congress are willing to keep bringing this issue to the floor and reminding the American people that we care, because there are those of us who care very, very compassionately about this issue. We can do it and we can do it right. And when it is done right, justice will prevail. I have been in the justice business all of my life, and I have been in the justice business as a judge for almost 21 years. I believe that what we owe all people who reside in this country is justice. Justice occasionally requires responsibility for your actions, and these are the kind of things we need to think about as we address this problem.

If the gentleman would yield, I absolutely agree with that. And as law enforcement, we have learned how to cooperate over those jurisdictional boundaries. There is no reason in the world why we can't cooperate over jurisdictional boundaries with the Federal law enforcement officers, also. It can be done. We have done it in Texas, we have done it across the country. We can do it with the immigration issue.

And I do agree with you, also, that no one is talking about what do you do with the people who don't? That has to be addressed, also. If we are going to hold out a carrot of a work permit for people to come out and turn themselves in and report and file whatever pre-procedures this Congress establishes, we have to have a stick for those who don't; that if we don't, it won't work.

I am not for pounding anybody, don't misunderstand me. My whole point is the carrot and the stick policy is law enforcement, the way we do some things in law enforcement. And it is important that we have that. If you don't, there are going to be serious ramifications for not joining and trying to solve this problem.

And those people that are in this country illegally out there tonight, if they are listening, I hope they know that whatever this Congress does, and I am with you, as it works out this thing logically and putting a focus on each element as we move along, not a big trash basket, when we do, we put together a program, we expect you to participate. And if you don't participate, I think there should be serious consequences.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to recognize Mr. King from New York, the ranking member of Homeland Security, for 7 minutes.

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 6 minutes to Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), the ranking member on the Intelligence Committee.

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would yield 5 minutes to Mr. Hunter of California, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee.

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to Mr. McCotter from Michigan, the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the deputy whip of the minority.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam).

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt), the minority whip.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the minority leader.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to yield 7 minutes to an American hero, a hero of the State of Texas, a pilot in Vietnam, one of the longest serving prisoners of war of the Vietnam era and a personal hero of mine, Mr. Sam Johnson.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I spent many years of my life being a trial judge in the beloved State of Texas, and as we are trying to make these decisions here today, I think there is a good parallel to be struck between the decisions that this House is going to make and the decisions that a jury gets asked to be made in the courtroom.

The process always begins with pleadings, and I have here in my hand the pleadings of the majority party of the House of Representatives, pleading for relief from this body.

They begin by section 1, the Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving and have bravely served honorably in Iraq.

Well, they are not really pleading for any relief there. They are not actually

asking us for anything, other than stating this is what they stand for. So we have to kind of fall back on our experience and what we have experienced recently.

We have just experienced a continuing resolution, as they called it, which cut the military over $4 billion. But that is okay, it is going to be put back in the supplemental, we are told. Yet in the argument in this case, I have heard many folks that step up there and start talking about they are part of the Out of Iraq Caucus and they wish to defund to get the troops back home. So if they are going to defund, when are they going to put that money back?

They say they support our troops. They, this Congress, has elected by its vote, General Petraeus, an expert in counterinsurgency, to give us a plan. And he has. He has told us, I need more boots on the ground to back up the Iraqi troops as they go in and clean out these militias and give some stability to Baghdad. That is what he has asked us for. And he has also told us that this type of action by Congress will discourage his troops.

Secretary Gates has told us in his opinion this will encourage our enemies, just this statement, this kind of thing that we are doing here today. And yet we hear arguments that is just not true.

Yet I don't know, I have got a little note here that ABC News, certainly nobody's conservative press, reports that they talked to some Army sergeants in Ramadi. First Sergeant Louis Barnum says, ``It makes me sick. I was born and raised a Democrat. When I see that, it makes me sad.''

Sergeant Brian Orzechowski says, ``I don't want to bad mouth the President at all. To me, it is treason.''

Then in this morning's paper, in the Washington Times, Cal Thomas' column, Army Sergeant Daniel Dobson, 22, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in his second tour in Iraq, says, ``The American military has shown a stone-cold professional veneer throughout the seething debate over Iraq. Beneath that veneer, however, is a fuming visceral hatred. We feel as though we have been betrayed by Congress.''

So the evidence seems to be that this does seem to discourage our troops.

And how will it encourage our enemies? Let's think about that. If the majority gets its way and we pull out of Iraq, the enemy will be able to say, the jihadists of whatever faction they may be, will be able to say, ``We defeated the Russians in Afghanistan; we defeated the Shah and the United States of America in Iran; we have now defeated the United States of America and its coalition partners in Iraq.''

Won't this make a great recruiting poster and slogan for those who seek further jihadists who wish to do us harm?

So although their pleadings don't call for anything other than a statement of what they stand for, the consequences may be dire.

Then we go on to see what also they are telling us that they want to do. They are just telling us that Congress disapproves of the decision of President George Bush, that President George Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 22,000 additional United States troops in Iraq.

Okay. What does that tell us? That tells us they don't like what the President's decision was. That is what it tells us. Does it tell us why? Well, we have heard a lot of people tell us why. So I guess that is what we have to rely upon. Has it told us what alternative they feel like we are going to have? Does what they are asking us to do today give us an alternative? I find nothing else in this piece of paper that says that. I don't find any solution proposed.

So what should Americans expect from what is being asked for here today? I think they should expect discouraged troops. I think they should expect an encouraged enemy. But, more importantly, I think we as we make this decision should realize that what we may be doing is bringing this fight to the very people we are here to represent, so that when we stand in those metal detector lines at our malls we will know it all started with H. Con. Res. 63. Now we live in the unsafe world that the Israelis deal in every day.

Mr. Speaker, the relief sought here today is minimal, this action does nothing to help our troops or help our effort, and the only solution, if it goes bad, is prayer. We have a chance to have a solution here today, and I would submit that that solution is vote against House Concurrent Resolution 63.

I thank you for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about my friend, Charlie Norwood. I have prepared remarks, but I would really like to just relate like others have.

The first time I ran into Charlie I was a new freshman in this body. He sat behind me. And when you are brand new here, you are listening and you are trying to figure out what is going on. And when Charlie Norwood opened his mouth, he was saying things sometimes that others were not, and stood his ground to those things, even though they might be in conflict with both the other side and his party, both. Charlie had a way of standing up for his principles.

I also want to talk about Gloria, because Gloria took my wife under her wing and was kind to her. And I can tell you for this last year and a half, literally every week that I have served in this Congress, my wife has asked about Charlie's health because she fell in love with Gloria Norwood.

Everyone in this House sends out their hearts to Gloria at the loss of her beloved husband. We were proud to serve with him. He was a great American.

Today I rise to honor my friend and colleague Mr. Charlie Norwood from Northeastern Georgia who passed away yesterday morning. As a man of strong character and unwavering convictions, his passing is surely a saddening loss to the American people.

Charlie Norwood served as a brave soldier during Vietnam as part of the Army Dental Corps in the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He was honored for his courageous service with the Combat Medical Badge and two Bronze Stars.

Elected to Congress in 1994, Charlie was the first Republican to represent his Northeastern Georgia district since Reconstruction. During his time in Congress he was known for his endless fight for the patients' bill of rights and his fight for stricter immigration policies.

Charlie bravely battled cancer and lung disease, and in his final days he returned to Augusta to be with his family. The Norwood family will be in my thoughts and prayers. Please join me, Mr. Speaker, in expressing our deep appreciation for the lifetime of service by Charlie Norwood and extending our sympathies to his wife, Gloria Wilkinson Norwood, and their family.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the success and achievements of Liberty Hill High School in Liberty Hill, Texas. In particular, I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to the Liberty Hill High School Panthers football team, who were the Division II, Class AAA champions this year. Winning the championship was an appropriate end to a great year for the Panthers and was very much deserved. Liberty Hill has long been recognized as a school dedicated to academic success, and with this feat they have shown that their prowess extends to the athletic fields as well.

Liberty Hill High School is an example of what a school can achieve with hard work and dedication. I admire what they do to positively mold their student-athletes into model citizens. I am very proud and honored to represent the Panther football team and all of Liberty Hill High School. I wish them congratulations and continued success in their future endeavors.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the outstanding achievements of Copperas Cove High School in Copperas Cove, Texas. Copperas Cove High School has long been recognized as an institution that places a premium on academic success. Recently,

Copperas Cove added to their successes with a commendable performance by the Bulldawg football team, who advanced to the state championship game in 4A Division I. This marks the first time Copperas Cove has played for a state championship in any division and is the fruit of a season marked by hard work and dedication.

Copperas Cove High School has shown what a school can achieve with no small amount of persistence. I am sure that in addition to the achievements of this season they will have an even brighter future. I admire what they do both athletically and academically; I am proud to represent such a fine institution and wish them the best in their future endeavors. I would like to congratulate them on their efforts this season, and their well-deserved success.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the high level of success achieved by Temple College located in Temple, Texas. The Texas Bioscience Institute established by Temple College recently garnered the highest award offered by the Community College Futures Assembly, the distinguished Bellwether Award. The Bellwether Award is given to the highest achieving institute in workforce development. This award is given to only one community college each year, effectively recognizing the Texas Bioscience Institute as the finest workforce development institute at any community college. One chancellor from a California community college was so impressed with TBI he plans to emulate the institute at his school.

This award not only recognizes TBl's success; it is an indicator of the bright future of Temple College and the Texas Bioscience Institute. With this award comes the opportunity to apply for grants from the state and federal governments, ensuring the means for further successes from this institute. Not satisfied to rest on their laurels, the institute plans to increase the number of students by 50 percent to 150 and maintain the high level of teaching achievement they are known for. I am very proud of their work and am honored to represent such a fine academic institution as Temple College and their award-winning Texas Bioscience Institute.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I have here a copy of three letters that I have received out of 500 letters I have received on this bill that we are addressing today, from my constituents in my district in central Texas. They are raising a lot of issues that they are very, very concerned about.

The trend of the letters is, we were promised a 50 percent reduction in interest rates for the money that we borrowed to go to school or that we are going to borrow to go to school and we are not getting that. The only subsidized loans for undergraduates fall in the category of this bill. They are concerned about that. They are unhappy and mad about that.

Then the cost of this bill comes out of the Federal Family Education Loan Program, those other loans that are not being addressed in this bill, to reduce the interest rate which was promised to the American people by the other party. This is a concern for people in my district because many of those people are going to school with the same financial burdens that they thought that were going to be addressed by the bill, that are not being

addressed; and the programs that they work through are going to bear the cost, which is going to make that market weaker and less available for those students who have to go to that market so they can go to school. Quite frankly, these letters are very concerned about that.

And then I have letters from people who work in the FFELP program, who are concerned about the fact that what this bill is going to do is put them out of work. Eight hundred people in my district work in the student loan program and have expressed a concern that this bill will put them out of work because it actually puts the burden of taking care of the subsidized undergraduate students on all the other Federal programs in fees and taxes that are added on.

So I have 500 letters in my office expressing concern, three of which I have with me.

When we tell the American people we are going to do something, we ought to do it. This bill would be much more acceptable, I think, to these people who have written me from my district if we were meeting the promise that was made to the American people, and, more importantly, to our college students, and addressed lowering interest rates for everyone.

So I rise today on behalf of the 500 letters that I have received in my office since this bill came on the radar screen, and I rise on behalf of those of us who wish we could have had some input into this bill so that possibly we could have addressed these issues and possibly we could have come up with better solutions that would not deprive others of the ability to go to school.

Finally, nothing is done here to address the real costs of education for our American students, which is also a promise broken.

So I rise here on behalf of the people of central Texas to express our concern about promises broken

I must oppose this legislation because of the negative effects this program will have on the Federal Family Education Loan Program, FFELP, program. The new taxes and fees imposed by this legislation will devastate the FFELP industry--an industry that has been proven successful by any imaginable measurement. FFELP makes higher education more affordable by using market forces to provide borrowers with the most competitive rates. FFELP also works with students to manage their debts, an effort that has led to record-low default rates. By attacking the FFELP industry, this language will cause decreases and lender competition and affect the ability of families to choose the lender that best suits their needs. I wholeheartedly support attempts to lower the costs of higher education, but the unspoken consequences of the bill will result in less competition and fewer options for these students. That is a consequence I cannot support.

December 21, 2006.

Hon. John Carter,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative: I have worked at Sallie Mae for 17

years and am a supervisor in Killeen, Texas.

Sallie Mae does a great job helping students and parents

get the loans they need for college.

Sallie Mae also works hard to help make our community a

better place and just received an important award from the

President for its community service.

Please continue to support the Field Program that has

worked so well.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Don McCannell.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the efforts and accomplishments of the Nelson Tennis Foundation and support the eighth annual Nelson Scholarship Tennis Classic which will be held in Georgetown, Texas, on October 20-22, 2006. This nonprofit foundation, named in honor of Jane and Charles ``Coach'' Nelson was established to support the game of tennis in the community of Georgetown, Texas. Charles and Jane exemplify a love for the game of tennis and a dedication to education. Combining these two passions, the Nelson Foundation has helped eligible high school seniors in the Georgetown Independent School District pursue their dreams for a college education. Since 1999, the Nelson Foundation has been able to award scholarships to 17 deserving student athletes through the proceeds from the tennis classic.

The Nelsons are retired educators with over 35 years of teaching and coaching experience in public schools. Both Charles and Jane began playing the game of tennis as teenagers in Huntsville, Texas. After several years of teaching and coaching in both Texas and New York, the Nelsons returned home to central Texas where Charles took over as head tennis coach at Round Rock High School for 4 years. This was followed by 3 years as the head tennis coach at Westwood High School in Round Rock and 7 years working with the Southwestern University tennis program. Both Jane and Charles are active in playing tournament tennis and remain outstanding contributors to their community. Through the years, they have been teammates, tennis partners, and friends to so many in the Georgetown and Williamson County area.

The Nelsons have been members of the Berry Creek Racquet Club in Georgetown where they have been involved in the club's Pro-Am Annual Tennis Tournaments. After several years, this tournament was renamed the Nelson Tennis Scholarship Classic for which the Nelson Tennis Foundation was established.

The Nelson Foundation embodies community, fellowship, and a love for the game of tennis. All of these are at the heart of Charles and Jane Nelson and typify the generosity and character of Georgetown, Texas.

Mr. Speaker, on September 21, 2006, I inadvertently failed to cast my vote for rollcall vote 468 due to the shortened period (2 minutes) between votes that evening.

On rollcall vote 468 (H.R. 6095), had I cast my vote, I would have voted, ``aye''.