Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule and the bill. Without a doubt, medical liability lawsuits and the extravagant awards drain vital resources from our health care system, and the most important resource being drained is doctors.

In Chester County, Pennsylvania, where I live, which happens to be the wealthiest county of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania, we have no more trauma surgeons. One-third of Pennsylvania doctors in high-risk specialties said they plan to leave the State because of the huge malpractice insurance rates. Seventy percent of Pennsylvania doctors have considered closing their practice because of the cost of medical malpractice insurance.

A few years back, the Lancaster Health Alliance, another county I represent, was planning to open a new clinic to serve the poor in Lancaster, but a $1.5 million hike in malpractice insurance forced them to abandon the project.

In Pennsylvania and many other States, we have a crisis on our hands, and the cost of this crisis is measured in terms of doctors leaving, hospitals closing, new clinics not being built, and patients not being served. H.R. 5 is the right answer for the crisis. I urge my colleagues to support the legislation and the rule.

Mr. Speaker, this week we will debate CAFTA. All of the Nation's major newspaper editorial boards support CAFTA. Listen to these quotes.

The Washington Post cites a study that shows U.S. income would increase by $17 billion under CAFTA. The Wall Street Journal says CAFTA would expand the market for U.S. goods with the 44 million consumers of six Central American countries. The Journal goes on to say that American farmers would be among the biggest winners under CAFTA.

USA Today says CAFTA would slash tariffs on agriculture products coming from the U.S. The L.A. Times says the benefits of free trade are evenly spread across society, citing rapid growth and higher income of free trading nations.

Even the New York Times claims that this free trade agreement ``deserves to approved.''

In addition to these editorial boards, Central American workers and leaders overwhelmingly support this agreement. Mr. Speaker, they cannot all be wrong. I, therefore, urge my colleagues to vote in favor of CAFTA. More trade means more jobs.

Mr. Speaker, let me read my colleagues something that a Member of this Chamber told the press recently. She said, ``It is essential for us to take down their numbers; to take down their numbers on Social Security; and to take down their numbers on credibility. If you're the contender, if you're the challenger, you are not going to go up against the leader at full strength. You have to take them down first and then you have to move out in a positive way. I feel very confident about the fact that we've taken down their brand.''

I do not know about my colleagues, but in challenging times like these, I want leaders who care more about ideas and progress than partisan party politics and spin and negative attacks.

Mr. Speaker, last week the minority leader told reporters that ``it is essential for us,'' meaning Democrats, ``to take down their numbers,'' meaning Republicans. And she went on to cite the reasons it is more important to tear down Republicans than offer an actual agenda.

It is obvious from these statements that the Democrat leader's main strategy is obstruction and politics. They care more about partisan spin and negative attacks than ideas and progress.

However, Republican policies are lowering the deficit created by recession and terrorist attacks. Republican policies have spurred the creation of a million jobs this year. Republican policies have allowed the economy to grow faster than any other industrialized country.

And Republican leadership, as opposed to decades of Democrat complacency, have led us into the national discussion on the future of our most important retirement program, Social Security.

The Democratic agenda has lost at the polls. If they cared more about working families than their poll numbers, maybe they would start winning elections again.

Mr. Speaker, July 7 in Britain is not the same as March 11 in Spain. Last week's terrorist attacks were met not with blame, self- loathing, and retreat. They were met with proper expressions of mourning, steely resolve, and clarion calls for justice. I would expect nothing else from the country that withstood the onslaught of the Nazis.

And while all of Great Britain mourns, our friends across the Atlantic should be commended for the face of resolve they have shown in recent days. This resolve was best expressed by London's mayor when he told the terrorists: ``Whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.''

If terrorists thought that the murder of innocent people would further their aims, they picked the wrong country to target. Giving terrorists safe haven in the name of tolerance only encourages the violent intolerance expressed most vividly in last week's attacks. These attacks again demonstrate the reason everyone needs to root out these barbarians.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the minority leader said that the war in Afghanistan is over. That is news to most people, and even more so to our men and women fighting the remnants of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The comments were just the latest in a series of comments that show some people still do not get it. Her comments, like many others made recently by leaders of the opposition, demoralize American troops and incite our enemies. And, worse, they discount the great progress that our soldiers have made in the war on terror.

Fifty million people have received freedom and are fighting for the future of their nation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just a few years ago, 50 million people lived in tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan, and today they live in the dawn of freedom.

Much work is left, but writing off the efforts of our troops today, the sacrifice being made today, the Democratic leader writes off the quest for freedom and the necessity for us to support it. Why is that so hard to understand?

Madam Speaker, today we will debate whether to keep pouring money into Egypt just to subsidize its military expansion. For the last 25 years we poured billions of dollars into Egypt. Each year we give that country about $1.3 billion just in military aid in addition to economic aid.

But all the money seems to do is reinforce a regime that refuses change and excuses oppression. It oppresses religious minorities, it obstructs democratic reforms, it censors the media. I think that money can be better spent elsewhere.

Today, I will offer an amendment redirecting some of this military aid to fighting malaria in Africa, a preventable disease that kills as many as 3 million people a year. Poor nations are most at risk, some 40 million in Africa.

While we have a strategic responsibility to support allies, we have a responsibility to help fight disease where we can, and reducing Egypt's military funding will serve as a wake-up call to a country that votes against the United States over 91 percent of the time in the U.N. We will not indefinitely subsidize tyranny.

Congress has the authority to determine what we subsidize. Today we will make that clear.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I commend the chairman for his work on these complicated issues but I rise to raise an issue that we just heard about from the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and which we have heard about in past years from the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos). I think the time has come to say enough is enough.

Since 1979 Egypt has been the second largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance. Each year Egypt receives about $2 billion in economic and military aid. The money goes to support our strategic ally in the Middle East. But I think this money is largely misspent today on a nation that refuses change and excuses oppression.

The State Department tells us that Egyptian police routinely use torture to extract confessions and detain suspects without charge or trial. Egyptian authorities harass and imprison opposition party candidates on trumped up charges. The government is engaged in an unwarranted and dangerous military build-up. It oppresses religious minorities. It violates human rights. It obstructs democratic reforms. It censors the media. In fact, the media is controlled by the government there and they permit a lot of anti-Semitism and hate speech. It continues to arrest Christian converts who leave Islam. I could go on and on.

Egypt is an ally. But we can no longer afford to excuse oppression with the rhetoric of stability and the politics of fear.

We can no longer afford a wholesale subsidizing of such huge violators of basic human rights and basic freedoms.

My amendment would take some of the money that we spend to underwrite the Egyptian military and send it to programs that fight malaria by increasing USAID's Child Survival and Health Account for other infectious diseases, particularly malaria. Malaria kills as many as 3 million people each year. Up to 90 percent of these deaths occur in Africa and 90 percent are children under the age of 5. And though it is difficult to accurately assess the scale of the disease, the WHO estimates that 40 percent of the world's population is at risk of malaria, and there are between 350 and 500 million clinical cases every year.

Malaria disproportionately affects the poor. Fifty-eight percent of malaria deaths occur in the poorest 20 percent of the world's population, a higher percentage than for any other disease of major public health importance.

Reducing Egypt's military subsidy by $750 million will serve to send a strong message. Money sent to a nation, even a strong ally like Egypt, that refuses to make the necessary political, democratic and human rights reforms should be redirected to a place that better represents our values. In this case I can think of no better use for this funding than to treat and prevent malaria in Africa.

According to the CBO, this transfer will result in a savings of $400 million in FY 2006 in net outlays. A vote for this amendment is a vote for more responsible Federal spending. It is a vote for American values. It is a vote for kids. It is a vote against the status quo of Egypt's dictatorship.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, Members of this body this past week have been told by outside groups that somatic cell nuclear transfer is not cloning. That is just not true. SCNT is the same process that created Dolly the sheep. If SCNT does not create a clone, then Dolly was not a sheep.

SCNT produces an embryo, whether the procedure is done to destroy the human embryo for research or to implant it to produce a child. The fact that creating it does not involve sperm is what makes it a clone. This is unquestioned by serious people. Bioethics commissions, President Clinton, and George W. Bush said that the product of SCNT is a cloned embryo.

In a debate as emotional and important as this one, it is important to understand all the facts; and it is equally important to see through the word games espoused by some groups and Members of this body.

SCNT creates a cloned human embryo. There is no way around it. And that is why this body should move quickly to stop human cloning before scientists start killing human clones like they killed all those sheep when they cloned Dolly.

Mr. Speaker, pancakes with syrup, whole wheat bagels, scrambled eggs. That is not what I had for breakfast this morning, but there is a good chance that the terrorist prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were eating this morning. And it is not something that prisoners held by the Nazis, the Soviets, Pol Pot, or any other despot would eat.

Yet some on the other side of the aisle have advocated closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The prison there has held 800 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists; 235 have already been released; 61 are awaiting release or transfer.

The information shared by these prisoners has saved countless lives here and around the world. We go to great lengths to ensure proper treatment of detainees. In addition to good meals, we take care to offer the freedom of worship freely, like supplying copies of the Koran and prayer rugs. Each person is treated according to the Geneva Convention, though none of these prisoners meets the qualifications of soldiers under that treaty.

The left is content to criticize and demagogue, but Gitmo is a part of the war on terror. And as long as it stands, the soldiers there will be treated properly. That is more than I can say for dozens of prisoners executed by al Qaeda in the past.

Madam Speaker, every Member of this body is mindful of his or her legacy, and that is good.

There is an issue facing this Nation that should cause us all to consider that legacy carefully. The issue is human cloning, and it is closer to reality than we think. We learned that from Korean scientists last month, but we have the ability to stop it here in America before it is too late.

So Members of this body should ask themselves, Do you want your legacy

to be that we stood by as scientists started cloning human beings in America? Members leaving this body after next year should ask, Do you want to tell your grandkids some day that you had a chance to act to stop cloning but did nothing?

If we do nothing, Madam Speaker, cloning will come, and this Congress will be judged not by job numbers or a national energy plan or highway dollars, but by our failure to stop human cloning. I do not want that on my conscience; no one does, but our lack of action will make us responsible for its arrival.

Let us leave a good legacy, a legacy that guards the uniqueness of life. Let us act to stop human cloning.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

I rise in strong support of this resolution. Burma is ruled by a ruthless military regime. I visited the Thai-Burma border a few years ago, and I met with victims of the horrific repression that is occurring there, the IDPs, former political prisoners, democracy activists, women who have been raped, landmine victims, orphans, and widows. The SPDC uses rape has a weapon of terror. They engage in ethnic cleansing, wiping out whole villages and towns, killing women, men, and children. They

seek to eliminate the ethnic minorities in the tribal areas such as Karen and Karenni.

Many believe that we need to reverse our course on sanctions in order to help the Burmese people. They are wrong. The Burmese economy is so rotted under this corrupt regime that trade does not help the people. It is like pouring money into a pocket with a hole in it. The road to change in Burma is not trade, it is political reform.

The SPDC must release Aung San Suu Kyi, the duly elected leader. ASEAN must take a clear stand against the Burmese leadership and deny it from leadership and chairing ASEAN. And the U.S. must do a better job of organizing support at the U.N. Security Council for a comprehensive resolution calling for national transition and reconciliation. Sanctions are absolutely necessary. I urge passage of this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, Edmund Burke once said: ``All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.'' I might change that to read: ``All that is necessary for human cloning to begin in America is for Congress to do nothing.''

When Korean scientists announced last month they had cloned 18 sick people and killed their clones to get their stem cells, some thought that would provide the motivation for the Congress to ban human cloning. They were wrong.

The history of cloning is replete with defects, deformities, and death. It took 277 tries to clone Dolly the sheep. That is 276 dead and deformed sheep. And yet Congress does nothing to stop human cloning from happening in America. The House has done very little to force the Senate to act, and the House has yet to take up a bill this year.

Human cloning is wrong and dangerous, no matter what cause it serves. Yet Congress and its leaders refuse to act, content to wait for a politically opportune time for a vote. But scientists are not operating on our electoral timetable. While we wait, cloning is coming down the pike, and it will happen here sooner than we know if we do not act.

Those who would delay and do nothing will bring shame on Congress and on this body if we do not stop it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. The Chinese Government has a policy of killing unborn children it deems a waste of valuable space in one of the world's largest countries. UNFPA actively and passively supports this policy of thinning the population by killing unborn children. In fact, it has gone so far as to praise China's population control tactics. Until that changes, UNFPA should not get a dime of taxpayer money.

As we debate this bill, let us face the truth: Is that really what we want to support or encourage? I do not think so.

Make no mistake about it, UNFPA is in bed with Beijing on forced abortions; and if we fund UNFPA, Beijing gets stronger. If we fund UNFPA, we only encourage the regime's strategy of exterminating the babies they do not want. If we truly care about human rights, we should support programs that work, programs that uphold the dignity of human life, not programs that allow a repressive, Communist government to enforce a systematic effort of abuse and repression and murder.

Our country does not believe in forced abortion. We do not believe in harvesting the organs of prisoners who are being executed.

Why would we want to support this? A Nation that believes in the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness should not give aid to any organization that does not support these rights.

I urge opposition to and defeat of this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, billions of dollars in coverups, fraud investigations, abuses of power, calls for resignation, shredded documents. I am not talking about the Nixon or the Clinton administrations, though both contained plenty of the above. I am talking about the U.N., that most sacred cow of international organizations. It has been the subject of many scandals. Billions of dollars intended to help the Iraqi people were stolen from the Oil-for-Food program.

It appears that that happened because of conflicts of interest at the highest levels of the U.N. Countries like Syria, Sudan, Libya, North Korea, China and Cuba have had seats or still have seats on the Human Rights Commission, the U.N.'s body for addressing human rights issues. Those nations are all members of the U.N., and we should not kick them out, but they should not be setting policy on human rights. Members of this Commission can veto certain resolutions that come before the U.N.

Sudan, from its seats on the Commission, has vetoed efforts to condemn the genocide it is committing in Darfur. U.N. peacekeepers were recently found to be raping the children, the very people they were ordered to protect, in the Congo. We could go on and on.

The U.N. plays a vital role in mediating disputes, in caring for the poor, and facilitating dialogue. But the system seems to breed abuse and fraud and wasteful spending because of the U.N.'s huge bureaucracy. It is accountable to no one. Much of what happens happens behind closed doors.

Changes need to be made. They need to be made in the structure of the U.N. They need to be substantial, not cosmetic changes. The mess needs to be cleaned up.

I urge support for the Henry J. Hyde U.N. Reform plan, which will make changes of substance.