Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, you know, we are mighty proud that we serve in the people's House. And what we try to do and we endeavor every day to meet is what the people of the United States care about and need.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of the accomplishments of the Republican majority over the period of time that I have served in this Congress, because the efforts that we have made have been for the lives of the people of the United States and to a lesser extent people around the world

Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues has just told you, we have had one of the longest continued periods of prosperity in the history of the Republic. But let's relate this to people, real people. Let me share a story with you about a young man that lives in Round Rock, Texas.

He got laid off. It has been about almost 3 years now. He got laid off on a job. He had a good job. He had a college education. He got laid off and it was a bad time for that young man at that time because he had a brand now baby girl.

Life looked a little bleak for him and for his family. But he, being a typical American, who would never say no, he went out and got two part-time jobs to keep the wolf away from the door at his house as he looked for another job.

But about the same time within that neighborhood, we started to see what happens when you give the American people their tax money back and let them spend and invest their tax money, based upon a tax bill passed by this Congress for the people of the United States.

For those taxpayers who pay taxes, we reduced their taxes. And that money was starting to work on behalf of this young man in Round Rock, Texas. The other day I ran into that kid with his almost 4-year-old daughter now coming back from one of her little dance recitals, on their way to their new home.

He was real proud of his new job, which is directly associated with providing a satellite industry that services the new Toyota plant that is opening in San Antonio, Texas. All of this, Mr. Speaker, is the result of the good tax policy of this House which encourages investment, employs people, and brings our unemployment to a record of all time, consistent low unemployment.

But it is really about that little girl and her daddy and her mamma and how life is better for them in Texas today. These stories, those untold stories are everywhere in this Nation as a result of the actions of this House.

I am very honored and privileged and humbled by the fact that I now in my direct represent the largest military facility on earth, Ft. Hood Texas. 50,000 solders have marched to war on multiple occasions on behalf of this Nation in the very recent past, and currently we have almost 19,000 solders over there now doing their duty for the United States.

And this House remembers these people in uniform who are serving our Nation. And we have remembered them by the greatest increase in spending on behalf of our veterans, overwhelming what was done in the past few decades.

We gave our military retirees and our veterans the opportunity to have better health care, and we strengthened TRICARE. We strengthened veterans benefits. We have increased benefits for veterans every year. And the veterans life is better than it was 4 years ago.

And they know it and they are grateful for it. And we solved a concurrent receipt problem that they had for 100 years. Mr. Speaker, why do we do it? Because those are the people of the United States. And this House is about the people.

As we face an immigration debate, an immigration debate that harms our Nation, the fact that we have got an invasion coming across our border, it was the House, the people's House that recognized it, not only the strain and stress upon the American people, but the harm being done to those foreign invaders.

They came in unlawfully into this country. Let us not forget these human beings that come across this border who suffer and hide in the shadows. But this House stepped up and said we are going to stop the bleeding. And we passed, what has it been, almost 8 months ago, passed a bill that said enough is enough. We are putting resources on the border and we are going to put a stop to it.

And this House is going to stand firm to hold the border secure of the United States for who? For the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud and very humbled that I have colleagues such as my colleagues that are here tonight that are going to speak to you to tell you that we have done our duty for the people of America. And when we see that we have given them the extra income, we have given them the freedom of their time, we have allowed people to invest, and maybe they can give up that second job, so they can go to the ball park, take vacations, have a life with their families, which we treasure so greatly in this country.

Mr. Speaker, that is what it is all about. It is all about the people of the United States. And it is all about the people's House remembering the people. As Mrs. Blackburn said, tomorrow we are going to go home. I get home every weekend, and most of the Members of the House do that, because we want to be with the folks that sent us up here.

We want to know where they are shopping, what they are spending, how much their milk costs, not the milk in Washington. We want to be able to say they are our neighbors, because that is what we are up here for, to represent our neighbors. And I think we have a proud record that we can go back to our neighbors on and say we have given you a better life.

Life is better today as the result of the people's House, the House of Representatives. I am honored that I have the opportunity to serve that House. I am honored to be with the colleagues that are here tonight, and all of my colleagues, especially my Republican colleague on this side of the aisle who never throw up the obstructions that we face from the other side, but always try to do what is right for the people.

Energy, the other issues that the people are so concerned about, we have got a solution not rhetoric. And we are moving forward as Mrs. Blackburn said.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee, my mother's home State, and say that I am very, very pleased to tell and report to you today that the people's House still firmly stands for the people of the United States. With that I yield back.

Mr. Speaker, we have an old saying around the courthouse, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. We have tried a bill just like the one that the Senate sent over to us. It is headed our way that they just passed back in 1986. And President Reagan, a man who never lacked in the courage to speak the truth, called it what it was, an amnesty bill. That amnesty bill resulted in 15 million additional illegal immigrants coming into the United States. It was a plum that said, come on up here, boys, the water is fine.

Now, why in the world would we ever think that the same exact program would bring any different results? I join my colleagues, both of my colleagues here in totally opposing amnesty. Amnesty is not a solution to this problem. It is the problem. I take the position and I think most of the Members of this House take the position as I mentioned that we have got to stop the bleeding at the American border.

The other night I went into detail about the criminal activity that is going on on our southern border. I am sure we got problems on our northern border too, but I only live about 130 miles from our southern border so I have firsthand knowledge of what is going on on the southern border.

I have visited that border. I have seen the drug dealers that are crossing in waves, bringing evil that I spent 20 years on the bench fighting. The biggest drug pipeline in the world runs up I-35 right through the middle of my district. I have seen the night vision pictures of troops of drug dealers hauling large satchels of illegal substances across our southern border. These are not folks coming over here for work. These are folks coming over here for evil.

We have got to secure that southern border and all of our borders. If we cannot protect our own sovereignty, Mr. Speaker, we are having a hard time arguing we are a sovereign Nation. So our sovereignty is important enough for us to take our time and plug the hole and make our life safe for the American citizens. And then my position is at that point in time these other issues that we are discussing is, address them sensibly, take the time to examine all the options and fix all that is broken in our immigration policy from top to bottom; and believe me, Mr. Speaker, in my district, background checks on people wanting to come into this country legally, we are now working on those backgrounds checks from 1999 and 2000.

We are going to have a real interesting crisis when we dump 15 million people into a background check program. That is just one of the little things we need to take our time and figure out.

So I am going to join, I guess the colloquy with my friends here and we will talk about all of this. Mr. Rohrabacher, I have heard him. He is passionate on this subject, and I am looking forward to his passion. But most importantly the thing we want to say is to the American people, we haven't forgotten you. We hear you. We hear you.

I just got off the phone less than an hour ago to one of my folks back in Williamson County and the other counties I have in the 31st Congressional District of Texas.

They are united like a solid front for border security only. Our people that live on the battle line know where the battle is.

One individual, out of his own pocket, has sent out the phone number of every senator in the United States Senate to every voter in my district, paid for it himself, just to tell them to call the Senate and tell them what they thought of the Senate bill. That is passion for this war that we are fighting to protect the sovereignty of our Nation.

So, as we are getting passionate, we are passionate because the people are passionate, and I am just glad to be able to step up here with my colleagues and tell you that we have not forgotten you. We know the American citizens' concern is from Maine to California, from Texas to Minnesota. You have told us, we listen.

Exactly.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, it is very seldom that we get good news around here, but the purpose of this amendment is the continuation of a program that is a success.

Tarleton State University has put together a data mining program in which they have been examining the operations of the crop insurance program. And they have to date saved this country $450 million in waste, fraud and abuse from the crop insurance program. And it is estimated that they have at least prevented the same.

Mr. Chairman, this is a good program that returns 22 to 1 on its expenditures.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the ranking member, also, for working with me on this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran).

I thank the chairman for his support and also Mr. Goodlatte, the chairman of the committee, has expressed his support of this program also. It is the future of looking at how we do government, and I am excited to be able to be going forward on this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate being recognized and the ability to have the chance to address the House this night on the issue we all know is the most critical issue our Nation faces today, that is the security of the American borders and the sovereignty of our Nation.

I rise because I am from Texas, and I grew up crossing the Mexican border with our neighbors from Mexico all of my life. I have even been several times to the great international celebration in Nuevo Laredo for George Washington's birthday, a time in which thousands and thousands of Texans joined their neighbors in Mexico for a great fiesta. I consider Mexico, my entire life, I have considered them my friend and our neighbor to the south. I actually went to school in Mexico. I am very familiar with the country, and I have a warm regard for the people of Mexico.

However, the world we live in today is not the world I grew up in. I have had the occasion in the last 6 months to visit Nuevo Laredo with Congressman Cuellar on two occasions. I have been down there with Congressional delegations that have visited the border to talk about the incursions into the United States by literally hundreds of thousands and millions of people coming out of Mexico across our southern borders from San Diego to Brownsville.

But the world I know is Texas, and I am going to talk about the Texas border that I am familiar with. I want to tell you that I sat out in a pickup truck on the side of the Rio Grande in a mesquite thicket in the dark with one lone border patrolman and his electronic equipment, which was a camera that scanned 2.5 miles in either direction, a stretch of the river, right in the city limits or on the edge of the city limits of Laredo, Texas.

I got to sit out there on that lonely job with that young man for a pretty good while and talk to him about what he has experienced. He says what every rancher and farmer and homeowner that lives on the border of Texas today repeats: This is not the same bunch of people that used to come across our border.

They are coming in waves, and they are doing damage and breaking into homes, and they are stealing things. Whereas they used to come by a pepper's house with their hat in their hands and the rancher wife would put dinner out on the back porch for them, today they break into the house; they have no regard for private property. They have no regard for anything that is going on in Texas. They just think it is their right to come into Texas, and they are acting that way.

This young man told me, he said, I asked him, I said, how many people? The first time I visited was in the wintertime. I said, how many people will come across? He said, well, it is winter. Maybe a couple of hundred tonight. But in the summer, maybe a couple of thousand in my sector that I will turn back on some given nights.

This is a number that way surpasses anything we have ever experienced in our State, and all the other States along the border are experiencing this problem.

But, you know, I have been thinking about this, and this is not a problem that just started last week. I firmly believe that we enhanced the problem of the Mexican border, especially our southern border, with the amnesty bill that we passed in 1986. We gave a message, and in that message, it was clear: Come on in, boys, you are welcome, and in they came.

Their thoughts were, I can go, most of them came for jobs. But I used to be able to say, when I was a young man and a teenager, the people who came over here are coming to work. I am telling you, you can't say that today. You can't say that every person that crosses that border comes to work. That border patrolman told me a tale that will chill your soul. In the El Paso sector in December, they stopped 15 illegal immigrants, all of whom claimed to be from Mexico, all of whom voluntarily agreed to return.

So they fingerprinted them and processed them and took them back to Mexico. They ran those fingerprints through, I think it is NCI or whatever it is that they use with the Border Patrol, and about five of those finger prints had previously been recorded by the United States Government. Those prints came from a cave in Afghanistan. Now those were not people coming across our border from Mexico to get a job. But they were blending in with those who were.

We live in the world of 9/11. We live in a time when an enemy has launched and successfully accomplished the worst attack on the United States in the history of the United States. We have people we don't know coming across our border.

We are doing a lot of talk about enforcement. We are doing a lot of talk about writing new laws. We go, oh, my gosh, let us rush out, and we have got to come up and figure out how we get a work program. We have got to come up with citizenship for these people. We have got to know what to do with these people. Sure, these are problems that we have to address sometime, and I am sure soon.

But my concern is, we are not analyzing this problem the way the problems should be analyzed. The legislation we are hearing that is coming this way from the Senate, and my way of thinking, is a totally improper way to analyze a problem of the United States.

I spent almost 21 years as a district judge in Texas. I had many, many, times, where I had a multiple-issue case that I had to choose. But a jury would use the same analysis to try to figure out a solution to a problem. So I will use that example. But the same example could be used for a surgeon in an emergency room.

You have a problem, and you look at that problem, and you say, well, this problem has multiple issues we have to deal with. We have evidence to cover these issues. We need to examine those issues, that evidence closely and come up with a solution to these problems.

But first where is the ongoing harm? Where is the bleeding? You have got to

stop the damage that is there right now today before you move on to the damage that may be coming down the road or to work on other issues to determine the solution. I would say the bleeding is at the border. We have got to stop the bleeding.

The surgeon that is at the emergency room when they are bringing someone, if there is arterial blood flowing, he is not worried about a CAT scan or an X-ray or whether this man might have cancer or diabetes. He wants to stop the bleeding.

If we don't go and address the issues on the border as the House bill has done to stop the bleeding, if we don't do that, we are analyzing this problem wrong.

You know, we could stand around in this House, and we can talk about whose fault is it. You know, hindsight is 2020, but the truth is, the fault lies across the board, and we ought to step up and say so.

From 1986 until the present, we have had both Republican and Democratic administrations. We can all point the finger and say, you did it. But as you point that finger, point it back to you. The fact is, we have not met our duty to the American people.

But now we see a crisis. Ask any American, where is the crisis in immigration, and something like 90 percent of them will say, at the border. Before we deal with anything, we have got to stop the flow. That is why the House bill is so very important that we go forward on it.

You know, we took an oath in this House. The President of the United States took an oath. That oath was that we would, to the best of our ability, perform the duties of the office to which we had been elected and preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We took an oath to do our job. Those people we hire to work for us assist us in doing that job.

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned that as we rush to judgment on the issue of immigration, that we start talking about amnesty and we start talking about creating a program where people who have broken the laws of the United States are going to be given special privileges that even people who are born here don't get. There are things now being proposed in the Senate bill as to collecting back Social Security, having the Davis-Bacon Act apply to all of your wages, and unbelievable things where even every American doesn't have those benefits. Talk to my teachers back in Texas about some of their missing Social Security benefits they have been trying to get for, Lord, it has got to be 50 years. And yet we are looking at this and putting patches on it, and the patches are getting worse and the tire is going flatter.

Mr. Speaker, the executive and those on both sides of the aisle have failed. When we wrote the law in 1986, we had laws that pertained to crossing our borders and we didn't enforce them. We had laws that pertained to employers and we didn't enforce them, and the Congress failed in its duty to do that also.

I would argue the worst offender of all are the bureaucrats. But all that is beside us now. We cannot continue on with a system that doesn't work at the border, where some nights 16,000 people come across that border.

I went out and pulled up some of the old law books just to find a few things, because you hear people say well, they are not really breaking any laws. Shame on you. Somebody wants to make this a felony. I don't think anybody has ever looked to see what it is. It is a civil, not a criminal file for the first crossing. But it continues on. Illegal entry carries a punishment of fine and imprisonment of up to 6 months. Harboring undocumented aliens carries a fine and imprisonment of up to 5 years. Alien smuggling carries a fine and imprisonment up to 10 years. Those are felonies, 5 and 10 year sentences, in my opinion.

A crime that causes a serious bodily injury to any person, the penalty is a fine and a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. Reentry into the United States is a felony charge punishable with fines and/or imprisonment for 2 or more years. If reentry is after a previous non- aggravated felony, it is up to 10 years. If it is after an aggravated felony, it is up to 20 years.

Now, I would like to know, are we enforcing those laws? I used to sit in the courtroom and do a jail call every Monday morning. I would call the jail and we would bring people over and find out who was in jail. Inevitably, once, twice, three times a month, we would have anywhere from two to 20 illegal aliens in the jail. Inevitably.

We would call INS and tell them, we got some of your people here. You need to pick them up. They would say if they are there on Thursday, we will get them. They would all bond out on Tuesday and be gone.

Now, is the Immigration and Naturalization Service doing the duty that our laws gave them to do? No. We have failed to enforce the laws that are on the books today. So we are not in a panic to create laws to prevent these people from coming in here. We have laws we are not enforcing. Now the tide has become overwhelming for law enforcement. This overwhelming of us is what we are talking about. This is where the bleeding is. This is where the bleeding has got to be stopped.

The bill that we passed through this House, I would like to add things to it, were I given the opportunity. Hopefully there will be more resources for our Border Patrol, resources on the border, electronic surveillance, unmanned drones and all of the other things that technology provides for us today, to help us stop this invasion.

I use the term ``invasion,'' and I don't take that hesitantly. While I was there, I saw a film of what now we are being told were drug dealers coming across the border in what looked like to everybody there Mexican military uniforms, carrying satchels of drugs with automatic weapons and vehicles. Now, it has not been resolved as to exactly who those people are, but, you know, if it looks like the Mexican army, I wonder if it is? I think we ought to know that. I think we ought to have an answer to that.

Most of Europe went to war over an invasion in 1939 and it ended up being World War II. I am concerned about the invasion across our southern border. I am concerned we are not enforcing the laws.

I am convinced that the solution to this problem is to do our job, and if we do our job and enforce the laws that are in place and make a conscientious effort to study the best possible solution for every one of the multiple problems that exist in this immigration and border security issue, let's stop the bleeding at the border and then let's put the good minds in this House on both sides of the aisle to work in cooperating to come up with real lasting solutions, and not forgetting that we have laws we can enforce now as we come up with solutions for these other things.

That is basically the way I view this thing.

I want to yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), who also would like to address this House on this important issue.

Mr. Speaker, can I ask how much time we have left?

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield to Mr. Gingrey.

Reclaiming my time, I want to thank my colleague for joining us here tonight. He is always a very calming influence when he addresses the House, and I am always fascinated to listen to him speak.

This is my whole premise that I was talking about, Mr. Speaker, is that it is time that we take a deep breath and address one of the biggest issues that this House has had to deal with in a long time and an issue that actually can be, as has been explained here tonight, a nation-changing issue.

I personally have a great, as I started out saying, have a great compassion for our neighbors to the south. And I welcome good, honest legal citizens of this country as does everyone. And no one in this House is talking about the Trail of Tears massive deportation to the border. We have issues that have to be addressed. But the problem, the hemorrhaging, the bleeding is at the border today. That is where we have got to go and get this slowed down and get it ready. And then you know I would like to hear quite honestly from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We have never really.

The Democrats' plan for immigration does not seem to be out there today. I would like to hear their solution to the

problem. I would like for both sides of the aisle to sit down and say, let's work this thing out intelligently. And I will give you just one example, a couple examples not being addressed. One right now, there is a tremendous backlog on background investigations of people who are coming and have come into this country illegally to get their visas extended. They have to have a background check or to get into this country with a background check. That thing could take anywhere from 18 months and the backlog just once they start processing it, it can take up to 18 months or longer.

Right now in my part of Texas, our San Antonio office is working on the years 1998, 1999 and 2000. We are going to take that system in its present condition and dump 15 million-plus people into that system for background checks? Or do they get to miss that part that the legal immigrants have to take?

Health exams have to be done for everyone that comes in the United States. What are we going to do to examine the health of 15 million people in this country to make sure that there are not communicable diseases in this country? This is an issue that is part of our law. It is required by law. If we are going to process them, that needs to be here.

Then a question I do not hear anybody addressing is what do we do to the people who do not join our program? We love America and we think everybody comes here to be an American citizen. But I can tell you from personal conversations with people who have come here, I have worked building fences side by side with folks that, I never asked them, but since they did not speak any English and they told me they were from Mexico, I kind of figured they were illegal aliens. I can tell you, they didn't come here to be American citizens. They came here to work. And their families were back in Mexico, and they really wanted to go back there. And they sent 80 percent of their paycheck home because they were able to live on social services over here so they can afford to do that.

Now, what about the guy who says, well, that is great, but I do not want to pay back taxes and I do not want to pay a $200 fine, and I do not want to get a health check, and I do not want to get a background check; I will just stay in the shadows. Are we addressing that issue? Are there going to be consequences to those people who continue to stay in the shadows? If you care about the people that come in here, do we want anybody in this country starting their life on American soil under the cloud of criminal behavior?

But we know that 15 million people crossed our borders and broke the law. I did not say felony. I did not give a classification. I said broke the law. We have laws in this country, and it was broken. Let's be intelligent. Let's be smart. Let's seal the borders, put our resources there and then study this program and get a system that we can administer and we can work and we can pay for.

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to rise to say that one of the great blessings in my life that has been bestowed upon me is that I have been given a district now where we have almost 50,000 of the people who stand on the wall and defend our Nation, Fort Hood, Texas.

It has made me realize the real duty that we have to the American soldier, the American military personnel. Being on this subcommittee and being able to try to do what is good for these men and women who give their duty, honor, to our Nation every day, is a great blessing to me personally.

This bill that we have got here today is an honest attempt, within the resources, to do a great job for our military. I think, quite frankly, we have done a great job.

I would urge, and I listened to what Mr. Edwards had to say. Mr. Edwards and I worked together. He also is a very good friend of Fort Hood.

I would urge my colleagues, as they look at, as we proceed in this debate, that they, first and foremost, keep in mind that soldier, sailor, airman and marine, that stand on the wall every day and defend this Nation's freedom. As they look for technical challenges and other things that may occur, hopefully, will be corrected, that they will take that soldier's best interest in mind first.

This is, if there is a piece of legislation that goes to the Congress at any time, that thinks about the individual guy carrying a rifle, this is it.

If we can, we have to; and we must make sure they have the best health care, the best living facilities, the best facilities on post, the best equipment, the best that we can give them. I think we have done our very best to do that, and so I rise to speak on behalf of the American soldier and ask this House to keep the American soldier in mind in this debate.

Mr. Chairman, in 1991, the Texas legislature authorized the establishment of the Texas Institute of Applied Environmental Research (TIAER) at Tarleton State University. Congress quickly recognized the merits of the effort and since 1992 has provided an average of $500,000 a year and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has added $4.5 million dollars. These dollars have been effectively leveraged, and when added to state and private funds, total funding has exceeded $45 million. This project is an excellent example of how critical federal support can effectively trigger matching funds to help meet the needs of this country.

The mandate for the organization has been to:

Conduct applied research on environmental issues that have public policy implications

Provide a setting for environmental studies that focuses on the interface between government and the private sector

Provide national leadership on emerging environmental policy

Establish programs and partnerships with public and private institutions of higher education, governmental agencies, or private entities to develop and implement new policies, technology, strategies, relationships and sources of funding.

The organization's mission statement is: ``TlAER conducts scientific research, economic inquiry, and institutional, statutory and regulatory analyses to address pressing environmental issues facing the state and nation and assists public entities in developing and implementing policies that promote environmental quality.''

strong economy, healthy earth

TIAER continues to fulfill its mission by assembling and supporting a multidisciplinary research staff. TIAER houses economists, engineers, attorneys, agricultural scientists, mathematical modelers, communication specialists, water quality scientists, graphic artists, computer scientists, and water quality monitoring specialists to address the next generation of Clean Water Act initiatives.

TIAER was among the first to recognize that emerging environmental issues in agriculture required new policy. TIAER developed the Planned Intervention Microwatershed Approach (PIMA) to address landscape-based, polluted runoff issues. PIMA uniquely links USDA voluntary programs with EPA programs in a manner that is tailored to the needs of production agriculture. PIMA protects privately-held lands from government intrusion.

TIAER operates a one-million-acre outdoor laboratory, the Bosque River watershed, which consists of cropland, ranch land and, in the upper reaches of the North Bosque, a 250,000-acre watershed that is home to one of the largest concentrations of dairy farms in the Nation. The Bosque River watershed provides TIAER with a cross-section of agricultural lands and enables TIAER to address many of the environmental issues that production agriculture will face over the next quarter-century.

industry-led solutions (ILS)--leadership toward environmental solutions

A major focus of TIAER's work began with the conception of ``Industry-Led Solutions'' (ILS) in 1999. TIAER has hosted four national workshops and two regional Gulf of Mexico workshops with leaders of animal agriculture, the row crop industry, environmental groups, and government to explore ways that agriculture can proactively address environmental initiatives that will enable agricultural producers to be good stewards of the land while maintaining the economic viability of the industry. The intent is for ILS to serve as a ``think-tank'' for agricultural environmental issues.

The Nation is at a strategic point in determining how agriculture can meet Clean Water Act objectives. ILS is TIAER's response to the need for agriculture to become proactively involved in both policy initiatives and developing science-based programs that will lead to sustainable agricultural practices that provide for a strong economy and a healthy Earth.

Agricultural producers and TIAER work together in a unique manner. Agricultural producers lead all ILS initiatives. TIAER provides staffing for ILS programs. The multidisciplinary staff of TIAER enables ILS to address all issues related to resolving environmental issues in agriculture. TIAER is unique in other ways:

TIAER recognizes that the U.S. economy must remain strong in order to have a healthy Earth--``Strong economy, healthy Earth.''

TIAER has the capacity to move quickly to address new initiatives. The TIAER Director reports directly to the Tarleton State University President. In addition, TIAER staff work full-time, further enabling TIAER to move quickly.

The institute operates in an entrepreneurial manner. TIAER has no permanent funding. Therefore, the institute must address issues that are seen by TIAER clientele as pertinent and useful in addressing problems and issues they face.

As a proponent of ILS, TIAER brings together the distinct concerns of entrepreneurs and environmentalists to develop effective public policies and cooperative, science-based solutions.

In the past 30 years, efforts to improve the Nation's waters focused on cleaning up point source discharges--with great success. Now, however, water quality efforts will increasingly address nonpoint sources for the next increments in water quality improvements. The Clean Water Act of 1972 provided little insight into how agriculture would address polluted runoff from crop and ranch lands. It has become evident over the past decade that agricultural lands are in the crosshairs of the EPA and environmental groups. The challenge lies in developing programs that are specifically tailored to the needs of agriculture. At this fifteen-year anniversary, TIAER looks toward facilitating future successes in improving our Nation's air and water quality. That is a laudable goal, and it is made possible by congressional appropriations support that triggers valuable matching dollars. I hope my colleagues will continue to support successful efforts like this--responsible federal funding triggering additional financial support. That is a partnership that makes sense.

Offered By: Mr. Carter

Amendment No. 5: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), add the following new section:

Sec. 7_. The Secretary of Agriculture may use not more than

$3,600,000 of funds made available under section 522(e) of

the Federal Crop Insurance Act (7 U.S.C. 1522(e)) for program

integrity purposes, including the data mining project.

Mr. Speaker, this morning, and every morning in my memory, members of my district, Americans all across this country and my colleagues in the Democratic Party went out and got in their cars, started them up and drove to work or drove to school. They wouldn't have done that if there hadn't been gasoline or diesel in those automobiles. And yet, the Democrats have been opposing refining capacity, opposing pipelines, opposing drilling in ANWR, opposing going to the reserves that we know are available if we will just drill the wells and produce the petrochemicals that are necessary to keep this country running.

The reason we have got the problem today is obstructionism to solve the problem which is, let's put gas and diesel in our tanks so we can keep America going to work.

Mr. Speaker, on February 28, 2006, Williamson County lost a hard working friend of the community with the untimely passing of Williamson County Commissioner S. Thomas McDaniel. Tom was an effective, grassroots politician. A close friend and advisor, I had the honor of swearing Tom into office as Williamson County Commissioner for Precinct 3 on November 2, 2004.

Well-respected by his colleagues, Tom brought a new perspective to Williamson County politics. In some areas he probably stepped on a few toes and in other areas he was a breath of fresh air. Commissioner McDaniel was a steward of the communities in Williamson County's Third Precinct, continually working to improve the region's infrastructure. He continually encouraged efficient, effective operations at the county level. During his service as Commissioner, construction began on the City of Georgetown Public Library and the Williamson County Courthouse Restoration began, among other successes.

Born in Terrell, Texas, on April 1, 1944, Tom is a third generation Texan. Tom is survived by his lovely wife of 32 years, Linda, and his son, Ryan.

Tom was a really fine man, and I am going to miss him terribly. He will be missed by me, my family, and all of Williamson County.

Mr. Speaker, my son Johnny and his new bride bought a house last fall. He is a baseball coach at our local high school. He has joined a record number of people, the largest in the history of the United States, who own their own home. The great American Dream, to own your own home.

The naysayers say the economy is struggling, but the facts do not prove out to be the truth. More people own their own home in America than at any time in the history of our Nation.

We are growing. We have an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, and that is one of the lowest in history. Texas unemployment is at an all-time low in modern history. Our economy grew a solid 4.1 percent in the third quarter, the 10th straight quarter of GDP at a rate above 3 percent.

We are producing more. We are growing more. We are providing more jobs. We need to prevent the tax increases that many in this body wish to make. We need to make sure that we maintain a good tax structure and keep the tax cuts in position so that this growth will continue. It is good for the American Dream.

I thank the gentlewoman from Tennessee and all those who gather here today to talk about our national security.

One of the things that has been bothering me here recently, there was a movie that just came out called War of the Worlds, and in that movie they were flipping cars around and the space invaders were coming around, and you saw the fear and panic on the faces of the people on the streets as this made up story of the invasion of our country from outer space.

And I could not help but be struck by the fact that we saw exactly that same live and in color fear on 9/11 when those people were watching those buildings burn, and all of a sudden the first one came crashing down. And we saw films on television of that absolute panic of American citizens as they ran in abject fear from the falling of those buildings, the attack on our Nation.

We saw films of people leaping from windows.

This is what our national security is all about. As Judge Poe said, it is about protecting the American citizen. While this is the subject of such conversation all over our Nation today, let us do not forget we have got to protect ourselves.

Now, I, like Judge Poe, have been dealing with law enforcement most of my adult life. I have tried a substantial number of felony criminal cases. One of the things that we always would do that we worked into law enforcement is we wanted to have interagency cooperation. We wanted to be able to let the DEA and in Texas the Texas Highway Patrol work together on a drug

case, work in cooperation, share information. But as we approached a view of how we were going to secure this Nation, we discovered that we had a lot of agencies in this Federal Government and in the State governments that really were not coordinating, working together. Tools that we have used for years in criminal justice were not being used for securing our Nation. So some brave folks got together here in the Congress, and they wrote the PATRIOT Act.

This PATRIOT Act, because of partisan politics, in my opinion, and the fact that this is a world where everybody likes to criticize everybody else, we forgot about those people panicking in the streets of New York now, and we are starting to tear up a document that makes sense. And I think it makes sense to the American people. I think it makes sense to say I would sure like to know that every agency that is involved with somebody who might want to attack me or my family in this country talks to each other, shares information, does not have bureaucratic boundaries set up which prevent them from doing this.

The FBI should share information with the CIA. The CIA should share information with the DEA. And all other codes for the various groups that are up here, they should get together and share that information. The PATRIOT Act set up those procedures to do that. Does anybody have a problem with that? I cannot imagine an American citizen having a problem with that.

Do you not want your FBI agents and your prosecutors, the people who work on this stuff, to talk? Do you not want them to be able to communicate, share what they have got?

Now, if I think somebody is planning on blowing up a building, just like I am really concerned about somebody who might be worried about smuggling drugs into this country and I want to have a surveillance on that facility where I think this illegal activity or this terrorist activity is taking place, I do not see anything wrong with being able to have procedures set up, which we have used in fighting the war on drugs for years where you go in and take a look and then you back off until the perpetrators get there and then you go in and make your raid.

But you can put a title on that, a sneak and peak warrant, and it sounds horrible. It sounds terrible. It sounds like the government is sneaking around peaking on private citizens. No. Why should you let them know when you are not there that you have been there? Go get them when they are there. We are here to stop these people. Why should we have to conduct investigations and tip off the people we are investigating? Does that make sense? So we have proper legal proceedings that have gone on in this country for a decade or so in fighting the war on drugs and the war on crime. We are using this in the war on terror. That is part of the PATRIOT Act. I do not see why the American public would feel like they were intruded upon at all. Law-abiding American citizens are not intruded upon at all by this.

Some people are just shocked that the PATRIOT Act actually looks into business records. How do you think you finance people to come over here, train to fly a 747 or a 727, and crash into a building without some money? If that money is being done for terrorist activities, why would you not want the investigating agencies to have the ability to go into business records and find out about these things? It certainly makes common sense to me, and it is something we have used. In fact, many of you may recognize now in your life there was a time you could come into this country and deposit money or you could go down to the bank and deposit any amount of money you wanted to in the bank. But there were people coming from other sources with huge sums of money that they were laundering through our banking system for the drug business.

So what did we do? You have to report every $10,000 deposit and every $10,000 withdrawal. Nobody got all upset about that in the United States. That is dealing with people's business records. But it helped us find out where the drug dealers were, and it helped to keep their dirty money out of our legitimate system. Now we want to know where the terrorists' money is, and I think it is appropriate that we look at those records.

Now, does it make sense to you that you have to hunt for somebody to issue a warrant when there is a criminal procedure, a criminal procedure that is going on all over the entire United States, that you have to go to just one particular jurisdiction to get it when it affects all jurisdictions? No, it does not make sense. You should be able to seek a warrant anywhere there is jurisdiction. The PATRIOT Act allows that to happen on terrorist activities.

This is a good law enforcement tool. The warrant still has the same checks and balances and protections and probable causes that are there for anybody. But why do you have to hunt down a judge in Arizona when you can find one in California when it all affects the same territory?

The PATRIOT Act increased penalties on these terrorist crimes. Now, I personally am a penalty guy. I believe in penalties. I have sentenced a person to 20 years in prison for one rock of crack cocaine because I believe punishment works. That is my personal philosophy, and some Americans might not agree with it. Our county happens to have the lowest crime rate in the United States, but that is my argument. But the point is the terrorist penalties have been enhanced by the PATRIOT Act. That is good. That helps us use another tool to keep people who want to harm our wives, our children, our husbands, our communities, give them extra punishment for what they do. Those who harbor those who would harm us we also have tools to go after.

This is the goal of the PATRIOT Act. That is what it was established for. It is a good tool. It is a tool that is effectively helping us. One of the major reasons that all those who deal with these issues talk about them right now, today, is because we have been able to protect this Nation since 9/11. Nobody is sitting here telling you that everything is perfect; but if you throw away your tools and you put up the things that help you solve the problems, in my opinion, for political reasons, it concerns me greatly that the real purpose of homeland security is lost, and that is protecting our families and our way of life.

The USA PATRIOT Act should be renewed. We should continue this tool for the American agencies that deal with terrorism and law breakers and making sure that when our kids go to bed at night, they feel a little bit safer.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of Homeland Security would look at all technical solutions to find the best solution for effective two-way communication on the United States border. By specifically requiring the Department of Homeland Security to include satellite communications as part of this solution to curing the inefficiencies of existing communication on the border, Congress would be ensuring the consideration of the only proven communication tool that can maintain the constant connection to the Border Patrol officers in the field, thereby saving their lives and providing homeland security seamlessly and flawlessly.

In many instances during the recent natural disasters of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, satellite technology was the only reliable method of communication. Moreover, this technology has been used extensively by the U.S. military in inhospitable and remote areas of Afghanistan and Iraq. Satellite communication has proven its worth.

During the Katrina disaster, I had a conversation with the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter) about going down with a load of provisions to help folks down there. When he arrived at the town, I do not remember the name of the town, he ask if they had talked to FEMA and they said, yes, they gave us a phone number to call, but, unfortunately, our cell phones do not work, and our land lines are down so there is no telephone in this town.

Mr. Porter had his satellite phone with him. He shared his satellite phone with those disaster victims, and they were able to communicate with FEMA.

Given the unique characteristics of our border area, satellite technology would be specifically useful in alleviating many of the communication problems that currently exist and can be done in a very cost-effective way to the U.S. taxpayer. This amendment ensures that all available options would be considered instead of limiting the Border Patrol to outmoded and frequently ineffective technology.

I ask my colleagues to support this amendment because it will greatly enhance the U.S. Border Patrol's ability to protect our Nation's borders and provide for their individual safety.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, this year the President of the United States, George W. Bush, raised the issue and started the great debate on Social Security. The American public learned that our Social Security system is in trouble, and they know that if we do not do something, we are going to be facing a crisis.

You can debate when that crisis is going to happen, but no one now will doubt that there is a crisis. I believe we can dream a dream for an America in which everyone can have a living amount of money that they can retire on. Right now, if Social Security is all you have got, you are in trouble. It is time for us to continue this debate.

It is time for us on both sides of the aisle to come to the table and address Social Security and come up with solutions which will increase the amount of available income to our retirees and to our elderly, so that all people in America can live the American Dream, both now and when they reach their golden years. Let us not stop the debate on Social Security. Let us continue to look at this important issue.

Mr. Speaker, this week, seniors across the country can take the first steps towards much-needed prescription drug benefits when they enroll in the Medicare prescription drug plan. The plan gives seniors the power of choice. Seniors will select from multiple plans and choose the option best suited to their needs. With the cost of prescription drugs increasing every year, the ability to choose a plan tailored to that senior's specific health needs is invaluable.

Not only that, but choice encourages competition. Private companies will be making their prices available for seniors to compare. This, in turn, will lower prices in an effort to secure those seniors' business. By giving the seniors choice, we give them lower prices.

Mr. Speaker, the Medicare prescription drug coverage card is long overdue. I am proud of Republicans for providing a viable solution to America's seniors, and I encourage seniors all across the country to take advantage of these added benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remind seniors all across America that they can sign up for Medicare prescription drug coverage starting today, November 15. As of January 1, 2006, Medicare begins offering participants drug coverage for citizens 65 and older. Medicare will work with employers and unions to ensure that people who currently receive prescription drug coverage through their employer or union will continue to do so.

Like other insurance, if you join, you will pay a monthly premium, generally about $37, plus a share of the cost of the prescriptions. Costs may be different, depending on the drug plan you choose. Plans will vary in the prescription drugs covered, how much you have to pay, and the pharmacies you can use.

All drug plans will have to provide at least a standard level of coverage which Medicare will set. Some plans may offer more coverage and additional drugs for higher monthly premiums. I encourage you to join the drug plan that best meets your needs.