Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 580, a bill to revoke the Attorney General's unfettered authority to appoint U.S. Attorneys indefinitely.

This legislation would repeal a small provision, with enormous repercussions, that was placed into the USA PATRIOT Reauthorization Act conference report. The provision, which removed the 120-day limit for interim appointment of U.S. Attorneys, allows interim appointees to serve indefinitely and without Senate confirmation.

We now know that the provision was inserted into the conference report at the request of a Justice Department official. Clearly, the Justice Department's effort to insert this provision was just one part of the Bush administration's coordinated plan to purge U.S. Attorneys across the country for political reasons.

My suspicions about the role of this provision in the firing of at least eight U.S. Attorneys have been confirmed after reading the documents turned over by the Justice Department. We learned, for example, that in an e-mail to former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, former Attorney General Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson wrote: ``I strongly recommend that as a matter of administration policy we utilize the new statutory provisions that authorize the Attorney General to make U.S. Attorney appointments.''

The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan entity, has completed a report finding that these firings are unprecedented. Prior to the forced resignation of eight U.S. Attorneys in recent months, and outside the normal turnover of U.S. Attorneys that occurs with a new administration, only 10 U.S. Attorneys were forced to resign in the last 25 years. The 10 U.S. Attorneys cited in the CRS report were all fired for cause, most under a cloud of scandal.

H.R. 580, legislation offered by my friend and colleague from California, Representative Howard Berman, provides the necessary legislative response to restore checks and balances in the U.S. Attorney appointment process by reinstating the 120-day limit on all interim appointments.

The bill also closes other potential loopholes through which Senate confirmation could be bypassed. It clarifies that section 546 of title 28 of the United States Code is the exclusive means of appointing interim U.S. Attorneys.

Additionally, the bill would apply retroactively to all U.S. Attorneys currently serving in an interim capacity. This would ensure that interim U.S. Attorneys appointed since the purge scheme was hatched are not permitted to serve indefinitely and without Senate confirmation.

At a legislative hearing on H.R. 580 before the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law on March 6, this bill received strong support from the president of the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys, as well as a former Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney. It is also important to note that the Attorney General himself has expressed that he is not opposed to rolling back this provision of the PATRIOT Act. And if the Attorney General's claim that he was not aware of the Justice Department efforts to quietly insert this provision are true, it would seem he never wanted the PATRIOT Act changes to the U.S. Attorney selection process in the first place.

Additionally, the corresponding bill in the Senate received strong bipartisan support and passed by an overwhelming margin of 94-2.

Mr. Speaker, we must begin to restore the independence of U.S. Attorneys across the country and return to the bedrock principle of our court system that justice must be served objectively and without fear or favor.

While the consideration of H.R. 580 will not end the Judiciary Committee's ongoing investigation of the U.S. Attorney purge scheme, the passage of this legislation is a critical step in this process to close the loophole in the PATRIOT Act that this administration has improperly exploited for political purposes.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1130) to amend the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 to extend the authority to withhold from public availability a financial disclosure report filed by an individual who is a judicial officer or judicial employee, to the extent necessary to protect the safety of that individual or a family member of that individual, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 1130, the Judicial Disclosure Responsibility Act. This legislation would amend the Ethics in Government Act by extending for an additional 4 years the Judicial Conference's authority to redact information, as necessary, to protect judicial employees and their families.

In 1998, Congress recognized the potential threats against individual judges and authorized the judicial branch to redact, as circumstances may require, information from financial disclosure reports before they are released to the public. This bill will allow the courts to continue taking necessary steps to protect judges, their staffs and their families.

Past incidences of violence against judges and their families demonstrate the need for this legislation. Most notable was the matter involving Judge Joan Lefkow. On April 6, 2003, a defendant was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment for soliciting the murder of Judge Lefkow. Two years later, that same judge returned to her home one day and found her husband and mother murdered by a former litigant whose case Judge Lefkow had dismissed.

We need to restore the judiciary's authority in appropriate circumstances to protect their personal information about residences and other frequented locations so as to better ensure their security and peace of mind.

The redaction authority has been used sparingly. In a report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the Judicial Conference reported that of the 3,942 Federal judiciary employees required to file financial disclosure reports in 2004, only 177 reports were redacted before release, and those only partially. It is with the greatest care that these documents are redacted to maintain an appropriate balance between protection of judiciary employees and the public's right to know about potential conflicts of interest.

This legislation was favorably reported out of the House Committee on the Judiciary. It would ensure the protection of personal information of the judicial branch while ensuring that the public retains its right to access annual disclosure reports.

We cannot expect judges to effectively carry out their duties if they are

forced to expose themselves and their loved ones to danger. The effectiveness of our court system depends on ensuring they can take reasonable steps to protect their safety.

I strongly support this important legislation, and urge its adoption by the House.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I think this bill strikes the proper balance between protecting judges, their staffs and their families, and balancing that with the public's right to know. With that, I urge its adoption by this House.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 545) to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to clarify that territories and Indian Tribes are eligible to receive grants for confronting the use of methamphetamine, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in strong support of H.R. 545, the Native American Methamphetamine Enforcement and Treatment Act of 2007. This legislation establishes the clear intent of Members of Congress to assist Native Americans in combating the threat of methamphetamine.

This threat looms great in our country, and nowhere greater than in Native American communities. Studies have shown that Native American communities have more than double the methamphetamine use rates of other communities. According to surveys performed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, over 70 percent of Indian tribes identified methamphetamine as the drug that poses the greatest threat to their reservation, and also estimated that at least 40 percent of violent crime cases investigated in Indian country involved methamphetamine in some capacity.

From hearings in the House and from other reports, we learn that current Federal laws and programs designed to prevent the spread of methamphetamine use have proven to be reasonably effective, but we identified serious gaps with respect to protecting our Native American communities from this dangerous drug. Unfortunately, the attempt to fix these gaps in the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005, passed in the last Congress as part of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005, inadvertently left out tribal organizations, as well as territories, as eligible applicants for certain grants.

H.R. 545, the Native American Methamphetamine Enforcement and Treatment Act of 2007, corrects that oversight.

Included in the Combat Meth Act were provisions that authorized funding for three important grant programs within the Department of Justice: first, the COPS Hot Spots program; second, the Drug-Endangered Children program; and third, the Pregnant and Parenting Women Offenders program.

Although Native American tribes and territories were included as eligible grant recipients under the Pregnant and Parenting Women Offenders program, they were unintentionally left out as possible grant recipients under the COPS Hot Spots program and the Drug-Endangered Children program.

To correct this oversight, H.R. 545 ensures that territories and Indian tribes are included as eligible grant recipients under programs to, one, address the manufacture, sale and use of methamphetamine; two, aid children in homes in which methamphetamine or other drugs are unlawfully manufactured, distributed, dispensed or used; and three, address methamphetamine use by pregnant and parenting women offenders.

I strongly support this important legislation and urge its adoption by the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall).

Mr. Speaker, I want to just thank Mr. Udall on his excellent work in helping to correct this oversight. I urge this bill's adoption.

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

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 740) to amend title 18, United States Code, to prevent caller ID spoofing, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

I rise in strong support of H.R. 740, the Preventing Harassment Through Outbound Number Enforcement (PHONE) Act of 2007.

I would like to thank Chairman Conyers for his leadership in moving this bill through the committee process and to the floor on a bipartisan basis, and also commend Mr. Scott and the leadership and assistance of the full committee Ranking Member Smith and subcommittee Ranking Member Forbes, along with that of the chief sponsor of spoofing legislation in the last Congress, Tim Murphy, in developing and moving this bill to the floor.

H.R. 740 is aimed at the practice that has come to be known as spoofing. To some, that name might conjure up harmless pranks, but spoofing is very serious. Spoofing occurs when a caller uses caller ID information to hide the caller's true identity in order to commit fraud or some other abusive act.

One of the witnesses at the hearing on the predecessor bill last Congress was Phil Kiko, the Judiciary Committee's chief counsel at the time. He had been a victim of caller ID spoofing when his home phone number was left falsely as the caller ID on numerous calls. Phil and his family were understandably irritated at the numerous calls from people mistakenly calling him back, and it could have been much worse.

Spoofing is also often used to commit identity theft. Call recipients sometimes are tricked into divulging personal and private information under the mistaken belief that the call is legitimate. For example, the AARP has reported cases in which people received calls claiming falsely that they had missed jury duty. They were told that to avoid prosecution they needed to provide their Social Security number and other personal information. The caller ID information that appeared on their phones was from the local courthouse, so they assumed that the caller was telling the truth.

H.R. 740 is intended to help protect consumers from harassment, identity theft and other privacy intrusions.

Recently, the technology needed to spoof has become readily available either through the purchase of Internet telephone equipment or through Web sites specifically set up to spoof. For example, Voice over Internet Protocol equipment can easily be configured to populate the caller ID field with information of the user's choosing. Some of the technology can block any back technology, such as Star 69. In addition, the bill contains a forfeiture provision allowing for the forfeiture of equipment used and proceeds gained by criminals in call spoofing.

Finally, section 3 of the bill has a provision which adds call spoofing to the list of unlawful activities associated with money laundering. Existing law provides that comparable crimes, such as violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, constitutes specified unlawful activities for the purpose of the money laundering statute.

Not all use of fake caller ID information is considered spoofing. When you receive a call from a U.S. House of Representatives number on an outside line, for example, the number that appears on your caller ID is a fictitious number to protect the security of House Members and staff. False caller ID information is also used legitimately for certain law enforcement purposes and by some businesses as well, and these nonmalicious users are not prohibited by the bill.

The bill we were considering last Congress would have made even this nonabusive fake caller ID use illegal. That bill also failed to make a distinction in penalties for spoofing that does not involve fraud or gain, such as the Phil Kiko case.

Further, comments from the Department of Justice were not available when last year's bill was being developed. This is why I opposed the bill last year, though I was in support of the concept of the bill.

We have constructed a bill that makes fraudulent commercial use of caller ID information a felony, with fines and imprisonment of up to 5 years. This commercial motive would require the use of false caller ID information; that is, caller ID information that is not your own. The bill also makes abusive use of caller ID information without fraudulent commercial motives a misdemeanor, such as the Phil Kiko situation. Finally, the bill exempts use of nonabusive fake ID information.

The Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a hearing and markup on the bill in February and reported it favorably to the full committee. At the subcommittee hearing, the DOJ provided testimony and recommendations which we did not have a chance to fully consider by the time of full committee markup. Ranking Member Forbes and Mr. Scott agreed to work together on considering those recommendations in a continuation of the fully bipartisan effort under which this bill had been developed.

After meeting with representatives of DOJ, they have revised the bill as reported out of committee to clarify the offense and punishment language in the bill. The change makes clear that felony penalties are reserved for egregious violations committed with intent to wrongfully obtain anything of value. They also made other technical changes to the bill for its introduction on the floor.

H.R. 740 is important and helpful legislation for preventing identity theft and other abuses of phone technologies. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the author of the bill, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the gentleman from Texas if he is prepared to yield back the balance of his time?

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that this anti-phone-spoofing bill is a thoughtful, well-crafted, bipartisan piece of legislation. I urge its adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, I was unable to be present in the Capitol on Monday, March 12 and was unable to cast votes on the House Floor that evening.

However, had I been present I would have voted aye on H.R. 85, a bill to provide for the establishment of centers to encourage demonstration and commercial application of advanced energy methods and technologies; and aye on H.R. 136, a bill to amend title II of the Social Security Act to provide that individuals and appropriate authorities are notified by the Commissioner of Social Security of evidence of misuse of the Social Security account numbers of such individuals.

I also would have voted aye on House Resolution 89 which expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that a day should be established as Dutch-American Friendship Day to celebrate the historic ties of the United States and the Netherlands. My own district exemplifies how America has been enriched through our relationship with the Netherlands. One of the cities in my district, Artesia, was founded by Dutch dairy farmers in the first half of the twentieth century. While the farms are no more, the descendants of these settlers now thrive in business, the arts and public service. I am proud of the contributions Dutch-Americans have made and pleased to voice my support for this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to show my support for the principles of Black History Month. I was privileged to be a part of the recent Congressional trip to Selma, Alabama. While in that historic city, we joined together and walked in the footsteps of the brave individuals who fought to ensure that the rights and opportunities of our Nation would be available to all of its people.

The Civil Rights Movement was not the first call for freedom and equality in our Nation's history, and it will not be the last. But its success provided a blueprint for future generations to follow, an example of hope to all those who seek to secure the basic freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution.

The history of African Americans extends far beyond the Civil Rights Movement. The works of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall will resonate in American society for generations to come. There are so many African Americans who have made notable contributions to our Nation. For example, Benjamin Banneker blazed new trails in astronomy, accurately predicting solar and lunar eclipses and Dr. Charles Richard Drew developed techniques in blood storage and helped to develop the blood banks which have saved countless military and civilian lives over the years. And there are many others, in fields too numerous to name. What is important is that we take time to honor, to remember, and to revere all of these individuals.

Black History month gives all Americans an opportunity to recognize and continue to learn about African-American history, which is the history of our Nation. I am proud to do my part to help promote the contributions that African Americans have made to our country.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong support of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The ability to form a union and bargain has been instrumental in helping families reach the middle class. Workers who belong to unions earn more and have better benefits than workers who don't.

The Employee Free Choice Act is about ensuring that workers can join a union. More than half of U.S. workers would join a union if they could.

But to prevent workers from forming a union, 92 percent of employers will force employees to attend anti-union propaganda sessions, and 25 percent will illegally fire at least one employee for pro-union activity.

I learned from an early age how difficult it can be to organize a workplace and also how important unions can be to families. At the factory where she worked, my mother helped lead an effort to organize shop workers and get health benefits and pensions.

Later, I tried my own hand at organizing janitors and home health care workers, and, like my mother, faced staunch opposition from employers. It took the pleas of the religious community to get many workers reinstated.

Current law is simply not strong enough. Management-controlled campaigns, firings, and intimidation are not the hallmarks of the democratic process--but they are the hallmarks of the current system in which employers hold all the power.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Madam Speaker, I join my colleagues today to add my support to this resolution.

This resolution is straightforward and simple: we support our troops and oppose President Bush's plan to send more than 20,000 additional combat troops to Iraq.

I support this resolution because we need a new direction in our Iraq policy. This war has been going on for almost my entire service in this House, and during that time, I have heard one misrepresentation after another.

This war began on a flawed premise, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat to the world. After months of fruitless searches, it became clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction; but 3 years after coming to that conclusion, we are still in Iraq.

Then we captured Saddam Hussein and more than 3 years later we are still in Iraq. We were told we needed to be there to fight the terrorists who attacked us, but we all knew that al Qaeda was based in Afghanistan, not in Iraq.

Vice President Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes; and 20 months later, our troops are still in combat in Iraq.

We were told we were in Iraq to establish democracy and freedom. Iraq now has a Constitution and an elected government, but over 1 year later we are still in Iraq.

It was 3 years, 9 months and 2 weeks ago that President Bush declared mission accomplished, but our troops are still in Iraq.

We in this House and the American public have been continuously misled about this war. Enough is enough. If I really believed that sending another 20,000 troops would end the war and bring stability to Iraq, I would support it. It would be worth the sacrifice. But the war in Iraq cannot be solved militarily because it is a political problem.

So when the President wants to send even more troops, we really need to take stock of what that means for our country and the lasting impact that it will have.

We all know the statistics: 3,124 American troops killed; over 20,000 wounded; and over $379 billion spent.

And I have seen the costs beyond the numbers, and I am sure my colleagues have as well.

Each visit that I have made to Walter Reed, every wounded veteran that I have met in my district and each condolence letter I write to the widow or the parent of a fallen soldier painfully reminds me of the great sacrifice we are asking from our men and women in uniform and their families.

There are also costs that we don't have numbers for, but they are worth considering. How many children will grow up without a parent because of this war? How many veterans' lives will be forever altered because of the injuries they have endured? How are we being perceived throughout the world, and has it made us more vulnerable to terrorism?

As we consider the President's decision to send yet more troops and to escalate the costs we are bearing, we need to ask ourselves whether the cost of sending more troops to fulfilled a flawed policy is justified. I don't think it is, and most Americans don't think it is either.

As far as I am concerned, this is a moral issue. We are not doing right by our troops and their families to continue sending them into harm's way without a winning strategy.

And we are not doing right for America. Our continued presence in Iraq is breeding new recruits for terror groups and eroding the readiness of our own Armed Forces.

We are increasingly vulnerable to defending our interests in other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, where just yesterday The Washington Post reports that NATO lacks enough troops to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda.

It is time to change our tactics and bring an end to our current mission in Iraq. This resolution is not going to do that, but it is a first step in articulating to this President that staying the course is not working and it is not acceptable to the American people.

I urge all my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on the resolution.

Madam Speaker, 50 years ago, on January 30, 1957, the village residents of Clearwater and Hynes, who shared a five-square mile area of Southeast Los Angeles, came together to preserve a way of life by merging their communities into the City of Paramount.

Clearwater, first settled in 1886, and Hynes, settled in 1898, were two villages mutually bonded through their shared dairy and hay industries. The new city was named after the main boulevard that ran through the business district. At the time of Paramount's incorporation, the area was one of the Nation's largest dairy producers and the world's biggest receiving point for hay. Paramount began as home to more cows than people, with an estimated 25,000 cows in its city limits. During this time Paramount did $1 million worth of business a month--$150,000 from cream alone. As the dairies thrived, so did the banks, grocery stores, businesses, and restaurants downtown.

During the 1960s and 70s, Paramount transitioned into a more urban landscape with many of the dairies moving out to more rural areas, taking a large portion of the local workforce with them. Neighboring and nearby cities built suburban shopping malls and housing developments, which strained the small merchants of Paramount and aided in the City's loss of business revenue.

By the late 1970s, the major agricultural centers of Paramount, known for its dairies and hay market, fields and feedlots, were overtaken by concrete and asphalt. Unfortunately, county planners thought Paramount was better suited for auto repair shops and salvage yards. The following years brought uncontrolled growth and ultimately lead to an overbuilt environment that eventually deteriorated in many areas of town. Despite such challenges, Paramount's fate was not sealed.

Paramount became the exception to the rule. The City took heed of its ``disaster area'' status in the early 1980s and, rather than sink under the weight of its problems, chose a proactive plan to turn itself around. This eventually turned Paramount's ``Rust Belt'' status into ``The Revitalization of Paramount.''

The City launched a concerted effort to make physical improvements everywhere in town. By using municipal tools like zoning ordinances, planning regulations, design guidelines, redevelopment, and economic incentives, the City took it upon itself to inspire its residents and business owners to think big and reach for something more. Thus began Paramount's turnaround.

By confronting urban blight and providing exceptional city services, Paramount thrived economically and culturally. Paramount, California is now known for its successful transformation and its attractive business climate and quality of life. The City has received numerous awards for its forward thinking.

Today, Paramount is a growing community of landscaped boulevards, enhanced police service, parks, recreation programs, affordable housing, public art, and tree-lined neighborhoods with white picket fences.

I want to share Paramount's success with the rest of our Nation as a model of one city's can-do attitude and ability to overcome the destruction that urban blight can wreak on our most precious assets-- our communities and the people that live in them.

Madam Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the College Student Relief Act. This bill will put college education back in reach for millions of students and their families.

The debt relief in this bill is targeted to help the students who need it most, students from 5.5 million working and middle-class families across the country.

Here I am, a kid from a family of seven whose parents came to this country without knowing English, without much money, and without jobs waiting for them. But with hard work, the great support of family and friends, and some good luck, and mostly because of affordable student loans, I made it where I am today. Each month when I write that check to make that payment on my student loan (because I am still paying off my student loans) I know that I am paying for an investment that was well worth it.

Many young people today find themselves where I was at age 18, wondering what they will do with their lives; and to those students, especially those whose parents did not go to college, the prospect of student loan debt can be very frightening.

When I was working as a bilingual aide in an elementary school to help pay my college bills, I would always talk to my students about going to college, what they would do when they went to college, and how hard they should work to prepare for college.

I used to talk to my kids about college all the time, and finally, one of them asked me, Teacher, what is college?

It is a long road from discovering what a college education is and what doors it can open to choosing the right college and then figuring out how to pay for it.

This bill makes the paying-for-it part a bit easier for millions of hardworking students and families and helps students make an investment in themselves by reducing the burden of debt that high interest rates create.

These students have worked hard to open the door of opportunity that a college education brings them. Those of us who have already stepped through that door have an obligation to hold it open for those who follow, and the College Student Relief Act does just that.

This bill will help make the prospect of college debt less daunting.

In this great Nation, what we teach kids from the youngest age is that there are no class barriers, that they can achieve anything they work for. Finances should not be a barrier between students and their educational training.

This bill will save students and their families thousands of dollars, giving them the opportunity to earn a college education. It will bring many American dreams that much closer to reality.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Fair Minimum Wage Act. This bill will help nearly 13 million workers and their families by raising the minimum wage.

The value of the minimum wage is lower than it has been in half a century. Instead of providing a living wage to hard-working American families, the minimum wage is a poverty wage. It is nearly $6,000 short of the Federal poverty line for a family of three if a minimum wage worker works full time.

Shouldn't having a job raise you out of poverty, instead of trapping you in it?

The minimum wage has stagnated since 1997, but wages have soared for those highest on the income scale.

The average CEO of a Standard & Poors 500 company made $13.5 million in 2005.

The average CEO makes 821 times as much as a minimum wage worker.

With salaries like these it is clear why an average CEO earns more before lunchtime than a minimum wage worker earns all year.

The average CEO is doing just fine looking out for himself. But America's most vulnerable families need somebody who is looking out for them.

This bill is a good bill, it is an important bill, and it is the right thing to do. I hope all my colleagues will join me in voting ``yes'' on H.R. 2.

Mr. Speaker, today, I am voting in opposition to H.R. 6406. This legislation addresses multiple trade issues which will have an important impact on the rights of workers.

I strongly support extending the benefits of the Andean Trade Preferences program, and I would like to vote for its renewal. However, H.R. 6406 only extends the Andean Trade Preferences program for 6 months and then holds any future extension hostage to the passage of the Colombia and Peru free trade agreements. The model used to draft these free trade agreements has failed to protect workers, and any trade agreement with either nation will require substantial review.

Additionally, H.R. 6406 includes an extension of Permanent Normal Trade Relations to Vietnam. Workers in Vietnam are denied basic human and labor rights, including the freedom of association and the right to form independent unions. Vietnam should meet all of the core international labor standards before it receives an extension of Permanent Normal Trade Relations.

Sadly, this legislation mixes good ideas with bad ones. For example, we ought to have the opportunity to cast a clear up or down vote on the Andean Trade Preferences, rather than be forced to vote against it because it is tied to flawed trade agreements. This bill was hastily written and given inadequate time for debate. While I support trade, we must ensure that our trade policy benefits working families, increases exports, decreases our trade deficit, and guarantees basic labor rights. Because this bill endangers these goals, I cannot support it.

Mr. Speaker, on May 22, 2006 I missed rollcall vote No. 178 on the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (H.R. 3858). Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of this legislation that requires local and state authorities to consider the needs of people with pets and service animals in disaster planning. Hurricane Katrina taught our Nation many difficult lessons about preparing for a disaster. We now know that many evacuees, who were fleeing the area, were forced to abandon their animals. This bill works to correct these problems by requiring all federal evacuation plans to protect pets. I know how important a role pets play in the lives of many people, and therefore am proud to be both a co-sponsor and full supporter of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, on September 7, 2006 I missed rollcall vote No. 433, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503). Had I been present, I would have voted in favor of this bill that intends to put an end to horse slaughter in this country for good. The practice of this purely export-driven market which involves the cruel treatment and killing of our horses for trade is unacceptable, and therefore I am a proud cosponsor and supporter of this bill that moves to end these practices.

Mr. Speaker, on September 7, 2006 I missed rollcall vote No. 431 on the Goodlatte Amendment to the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act (H.R. 503). Had I been present I would have voted against this amendment because it is impractical to expect that all the horses that would otherwise be slaughtered would be able to go to rescue facilities. These horses could be humanely euthanized, adopted by other owners or kept longer by their current owners. If passed, this amendment would have severely compromised the underlying bill which I support.