Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 976, the Children's Health and Medicare Protection Act. While the bill is not as strong as the House passed version, it has several good provisions that deserve our support. This bill invests $35 billion in our children, providing health insurance for an additional four million children and bringing the total number of children covered by SCHIP to ten million. This bill will also help states provide millions of children with the dental and mental health services they so desperately need.

While this is a very good bill, it is not perfect and I hope it will serve as a starting point in a larger conversation about how we find a way to ensure coverage for everyone, but particularly for children and low income seniors, the most vulnerable amongst us. I look forward to working with my colleagues in the House and Senate to come to an agreement on how to increase coverage to the level the House bill provided. Additionally, I would like to join my colleagues in covering legal immigrant children and pregnant women, which the House bill ensured. Finally, I hope that the House and Senate will agree upon a strong Medicare bill that rolls back payment cuts and addresses payments based solely upon where a physician practices. This has made it incredibly difficult for physicians in Sonoma County to continue to see Medicare patients. The House bill addressed the geographic inequity and is a great starting point for a conversation about how to address this serious issue.

Additionally, as the Chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I am proud to support the language in this bill that will provide military families with the protections they need in the workplace. For the first time since Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) fourteen years ago, this bill will amend FMLA to provide the spouse, child, parent, and closest blood relative of an injured service member with six months of unpaid, job protected leave to care for their injured loved ones. Congressman George Miller and I worked closely with Senators Christopher Dodd and Hillary Rodham Clinton to ensure that the provisions of H.R. 3481, the Support for Injured Servicemembers Act, were included as part of the final compromise reached between the House and Senate, and I commend the Democratic Leadership for their strong support for our Nation's wounded warriors and their families. Military families should never have to risk losing their jobs in order to meet the needs of their loved ones, and with this bill, we are one step closer to fulfilling our promise to them.

Passing this bill will mean a real investment for our children and I hope that we consider it a starting point for a conversation about covering every child.

Mr. Speaker, 9 days ago, 11 innocent Iraqi civilian were killed in an incident involving American military contractors. The circumstances surrounding the tragedy are not clear, but what is clear is that not enough attention has been paid to civilian deaths in Iraq.

By the most conservative count, over 73,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed since the occupation began. Just about everyone agrees that the real figure is much higher, since many deaths aren't even reported. But even if you accept the low 73,000 figure, you can see how catastrophic the occupation has been to Iraqi society.

The population of the United States is about 12 times greater than that of Iraq, so 73,000 Iraqi deaths are comparable to over 875,000 American deaths. That is more than the population of Cleveland and Kansas City combined, or Atlanta and Omaha combined. This 875,000 is more than the population of an entire congressional district.

I would also like to call my colleagues' attention to the article in The Washington Post this morning concerning civilian casualties in Iraq. The article points out that the Pentagon's official count of civilian casualties in Iraq shows an increase over the course of this year. This is in stark contrast to the charts that General Petraeus showed us in his testimony earlier this month, which only showed the narrower category of civilian deaths. This is further evidence, Mr. Speaker, that General Petraeus' testimony was part of an overall administration spin campaign to convince this Congress and the American people to keep their support for ``stay the course'' in Iraq.

Iraqi civilians are also suffering, because the violence has forced over 4 million of them to become refugees. The U.N. referred 11,000 refugee applicants to the United States for processing by the end of this fiscal year. In February, the United States promised to admit 7,000. Then that number was downgraded to 2,000. But, so far, only 1,035 refugees have been admitted, and the fiscal year expires in 5 days. This situation is like so many others we have seen during the occupation of Iraq. The administration makes big promises about what it can achieve, then retreats from its promises, and then fails to deliver altogether.

To make our refugee record even worse, the Government Accountability Office has reported that the number of condolence payments the United States Government pays to families of dead or injured Iraqi civilians plunged by 66 percent from the year 2005 to 2006. The condolence payments are, at most, $2,500, $2,500 per incident. Would any one of us consider $2,500 to be a condolence payment for the death of a beloved child or spouse? No, Mr. Speaker, we wouldn't.

This Congress will have failed America, both morally and politically, if we allow the occupation to continue and ignore the suffering of the innocent. We have only one real tool that we can use to end the occupation, the power of the purse. We must not appropriate another dime for the continuation of the occupation. Instead, we must fully fund the safe, orderly, and responsible withdrawal of our troops and the estimated 180,000 military contractors who constitute an even larger army than our 160,000 troops. This is what the American people sent us here to do, and we have a moral obligation to do it. We have an obligation to bring our troops home.

Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today to recognize the passing of one of our notable journalists, cartoonist Phil Frank. Phil died of brain cancer this month, but not before leaving an enduring legacy to the people of Marin County, where he lived, and to those of the San Francisco Bay Area and across North America.

Admired by other cartoonists, loved by his family and fans, and appreciated by local historians, Phil was the creator of a host of cartoon characters, the most famous being Farley, a San Francisco reporter on a newspaper named The Daily Requirement. Farley's world was peopled by an assortment of politicians and animals, including Bruce, the raven; Orwell T. Catt, feral feline; a collection of bears that ran the Fog City Dumpster and avidly supported the San Francisco Giants; and of course, the high-class band of feral pigs in dark glasses, who traveled Marin County in BMWs, led by their guru, De Pork Chopra.

With these characters and others, Phil targeted daily events in the Bay Area, including the actions of every San Francisco mayor from Dianne Feinstein to Gavin Newson. Phil's co-worker Carl Nolte, a staff writer at the Chronicle, where the Farley comic ran almost every day for 32 years, remembers a good example. When Mayor Frank Jordan once appointed a lowly politician to a high office in his administration, Phil's comic strip showed the cartoon mayor appointing one of the feral cats to run the municipal aquarium.

``But he was never mean-spirited,'' said Nolte. ``He was humorous in the best sense of political humor.''

Fellow cartoonist Kathryn Lemieux of Tomales agreed. ``He could poke fun at someone without being cruel,'' she said. According to Lemieux, Phil was also a generous mentor to other artists, always willing to share his support.

He also shared his talent with innumerable organizations all over the Bay Area, drawing a t-shirt design, adding a cartoon to a city mailing, or illustrating a California park system notice. Suzanne Dunwell, who lived for a while on a Sausalito houseboat not far from Phil's floating studio in the pilot house of the ferry City of Seattle, recalls the first annual Humming Toadfish Festival, which she started. Phil designed the t-shirt, and after the first ones were printed, Dunwell gifted one to Phil. He graciously thanked her, then placed the shirt in a drawer brimming with Phil Frank-designed t-shirts from other charitable groups.

Phil was generous not only with his talent, but with his time. A self-educated historian, he was an important figure in the Sausalito Historical Society, and acted as exhibitions coordinator for the Bolinas Museums' History Collection. ``He knew the history of places from the human side,'' explained Nolte.

One of his most popular cartoons, published in Sausalito's weekly newspaper, exposes the persona of his hometown with well-intended humor. It shows the Sausalito Fire and Rescue squad being called to the downtown park to assist a 90-year-old resident who had fallen off her platform shoes and couldn't get up by herself because her jeans were too tight.

Phil could make us laugh at ourselves. He was one of those genuinely nice guys. He lived with enthusiasm. He made us smile. He is already missed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to draw attention to the surge, or escalation, of the occupation of Iraq. This time it is not an escalation of troops; it is the escalation in spending to continue this senseless, apparently endless occupation.

Recent estimates put the cost of the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan at $808 billion by the end of this year. That's just knocking on the door of $1 trillion, Mr. Speaker. Let me say that again: we are closing in on $1 trillion, and we haven't even begun to put together a plan to bring our troops home.

This administration has talked about a Korean- or Vietnam-like presence in Iraq. This could mean as much as 50 more years of U.S. boots on the ground. Conservative estimates put just one more decade of military spending at $1.5 trillion. Who knows what it will be after 20 or 30 or 50 years.

The United States has an obligation, both moral and political, to help the people of Iraq to rebuild their nation. Whether through reconciliation or reconstruction, our commitment must be ongoing. But we can't start either of these while we are funding this administration's occupation.

Despite the bravery of our men and women in uniform, we all know that we can't bring peace and stability to another country down the barrel of a gun.

A recent report by the Congressional Progressive Caucus found that this misdirection of funds may actually be endangering our own homeland. Each of my colleagues can go to my Web site, www.Woolsey.house.gov, and find out what it is costing their congressional district.

My district of Marin and Sonoma counties in California have already paid $1.3 billion for the occupation of Iraq. That could have paid for nearly 25,000 public safety officers or nearly 18,000 port container inspectors to provide real security for our homeland.

Instead of passing on a war deficit to our children and grandchildren, we could have been investing in their future and, Mr. Speaker, we must. So far in paying for the occupation, we could have paid for 20,000 more elementary school teachers, or we could have provided almost 500,000 more children with health care, or 200,000 college scholarships to worthy students.

America's working families have demanded, they went to the polls in November, they want us to end this occupation. They want real investment in their own communities. They want this Congress to stand up to the White House and demand that our troops and military contractors be brought home, not in 10 years, not in 50 years. They want our troops home in a safe and orderly responsible manner by the holidays.

Enough of the endless occupation. Enough of the misspent billions. Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. Let's bring the troops home. Let's provide for a secure future for American and Iraqi families.

Mr. Speaker, this week, we heard reports that private military contractor Blackwater has been ordered out of Iraq and had its license revoked after a shootout that took the lives of at least eight Iraqi civilians. This didn't happen in the ``wild west'' of Iraq, not even in the so-called ``triangle of death.'' Mr. Speaker, it happened within the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad. That's the area where the so-called surge was supposed to bring peace and stability.

One account of the scene goes like this: a witness, Muhammad Hussein, saw his brother killed in the gunfight. Muhammad said, I was driving behind my brother's car and suddenly there was an explosion and firing. I tried to figure out what was happening when I saw a black convoy ahead of us, he told an international news agency, and went on to say, Soon after, I saw my brother slumped in the car. I dragged him out of the car and tried to hide to avoid the firing, but realized that he had been shot in the chest and he was already dead. That's what he said.

So, Mr. Speaker, one week after General Petraeus came up to the Hill to brief Members of Congress, we are seeing private military contractors killing civil civilians in the streets of Baghdad. Is this the measure of success of the escalation? I should hope not. I should think not. To this date, the administration has either been unwilling or unable to account for all the private military contractors in Iraq.

Contractors have their own rules. No one knows to whom they are accountable. Reports of these contractors, however, have been anything but promising. The Center for American Progress estimates the total number of private contractors in Iraq to be 126,000 to 180,000; 20,000 to 50,000 of those are private security guards. They zip through Iraq, through Iraqi towns and neighborhoods in their convoys of armored SUVs. Are they accountable to an international law of war? Are they accountable to U.S. law? Can the Iraqis hold them accountable for acts of violence within Iraq? Nobody knows. Are these contractors receiving any mental health assistance? Are we ensuring that no one being paid by the United States is hitting the streets of Baghdad with PTSD? What is the screening process? We have no idea who's out there in the name of the United States of America.

Every single day we open the paper to find report after report that the occupation of Iraq is a failure. Despite all of the heroic acts of our men and women in uniform, we cannot bring peace and stability to a nation at the point of a gun. We cannot win an occupation.

This administration needs to get real about the situation on the ground. It is time, it is past time to fully fund a safe and orderly redeployment of our troops and of our military contractors from Iraq. That is all the Congress can accept.

We support our troops. We support Iraqi sovereignty. We support a surge in diplomatic efforts. What we cannot, what we will not accept is another year, another decade or another flag-draped coffin.

Let's bring our troops home. Let's bring our contractors home. And let's allow the people of Iraq to reclaim their country.

Madam Speaker, on June 11 of this year, the Supreme Court decided the case of Long Island Care at Home Ltd. v. Coke. It held that home health care workers employed by third-party agencies are not eligible for the overtime and minimum wage protections provided under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). At issue in the Coke case was a narrow exemption to the FLSA created in 1974 for ``companionship services'' for babysitters and caretakers for seniors and the disabled.

In 1974, when the exemption was enacted, homecare, like babysitting, was largely provided by family and friends. Today we live in a different world, and caregiving is one of the fastest growing industries in the United States. Today about 2.4 million workers are employed by nursing homes, home health care agencies, assisted living, and other residential facilities.

Low wages and high turnover contribute to the shortage of workers in this fast-growing field. In 2003, direct-care workers earned an average of $9.20 per hour, significantly less than the average U.S. wage of $13.53 for all workers. Nearly 20 percent of all direct-care workers earn annual incomes below the poverty level, and they are twice as likely as other workers to receive food stamps and to lack health insurance. In addition, most home health care workers are minority women, likely to be single heads of households.

When Congress created this exemption, it never intended to exclude those workers who were ``regular breadwinners,'' and there is substantial evidence that the exemption was directed to only ``casual basis'' workers.

The ``Fair Home Health Care Act is a narrow bill clarifying that home health care workers are entitled to labor protections under the FLSA so long as they are not employed on a ``casual basis.''

These workers provide valuable services to our Nation's older Americans and people with disabilities and help them maintain their independence. Currently, 1.3 million Americans require long-term assistance in their home, and this need is expected to double as baby boomers age. Providing workers with FLSA wage protections will not only provide them with a living wage but will help attract workers to this rapidly growing occupation.

Madam Chairman, I rise today in support of this bill, which will help hundreds of thousands of families realize the American Dream of homeownership. This bill helps protect those vulnerable to unscrupulous subprime lending, and helps those who are currently struggling to make their payments by refinancing their loans at a more affordable rate.

It is not right for anyone to be struggling to meet his or her mortgage payments due to the unfair lending practices of predatory lenders. Putting lower-income families on the path to homeownership helps them become more financially solvent, and helps them have more of a stake in the health of their community. Homeownership leads to healthy families, healthy communities, and rosier financial situations for all.

I also applaud the passage of an amendment introduced by Chairman Frank that will help more families, in my district specifically, afford homes. This amendment raises the Federal Housing Administration's single-family loan limits so that lower-income families are not barred from buying homes in the higher-cost markets where they may work. Why should a firefighter who works in my district be forced to commute a long way to her or his home instead of buying an affordable home near the fire station? This amendment will allow potential residents of high-price home markets to afford homes.

This is a good bill that will help America's families in numerous ways. I thank my colleague Maxine Waters for introducing it and look forward to benefits it will bring to the hard-working families in my district.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr, a Presbyterian minister committed to justice for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. A self-described lesbian and feminist, Janie is retiring after 33 years.

Born in Pittsburgh, PA, with her twin sister Joanie to Chet and Susanna Adams, Janie was ordained a Presbyterian minister in December 1974, to the Hazelwood Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. From 1975 to 1979 she served as assistant pastor of First Presbyterian in San Rafael, CA, and in 1979-1980 was the executive director of Oakland Council of Presbyterian Churches where she was encouraged to resign after coming out as a lesbian.

Janie began her ``out'' liberation work with and for LGBT people as the minister of pastoral care in the Castro area of Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco from 1980 to 1982. In 1982, this ``lesbyterian'' founded the Ministry of Light, which later became the Spectrum Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns. She served for 10 years as the executive director of Spectrum.

In 1991, Rev. Spahr was called to serve as a copastor at the Downtown United Presbyterian Church in Rochester, NY, marking the first time a Presbyterian Church had chosen an ``out'' pastor. The call, however, was challenged, and the Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church refused to allow Rev. Spahr to assume the coposition. In response to the ruling Janie was hired by the Downtown United Presbyterian Church and the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon, CA, who formed the ``That All May Freely Serve'' project. She was employed to work within the denomination to end discrimination and increase inclusiveness for all people.

In 2006, Rev. Spahr made national headlines when the Commission of the Presbytery of the Redwoods ruled she acted within her ``right of conscience'' as a Christian when she performed commitment ceremonies for two lesbian couples. The Presbyterian Church's highest court ruled in 2000 that ministers could ``bless'' same-sex unions but not preside over them or call them marriages. Janie challenged the church's constitution and won a victory for justice and inclusion, but the battle is not yet over as the Prosecuting Committee has filed an appeal.

During her undergraduate years at Penn State, Jane met Jim Spahr whom she later married and had two sons, Jim and Chet. Jim now fondly refers to Janie as his ``wife emerita'' and the ``sister-in-love'' of Jackie Spahr, Jim's partner, and Bill Fenton, her sister Joanie's partner.

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to honor Rev. Dr. Jane Adams Spahr whose courageous passion for justice and inclusion for LGBT people has left a legacy that is paving the way to a better future. Rev. Spahr has touched so many lives as a minister, and though she is retiring she will remain a mentor and role model to all.

Madam Speaker, I rise with pride today to invite you to join me in congratulating the Town of San Anselmo, California, on its official centennial.

This charming town in one of the most beautiful counties in California derived its name from the Mexican designation of the area as La Laguna y Canada de Anselm, or the Waters and Valley of Anselm--after a Miwok Indian who was buried there. His tribe, the Coastal Miwoks, inhabited the land for thousands of years before Mexicans and Europeans arrived, surviving on the bounty of its creeks and forests.

Since the early 19th century when it was formally established as a land grant under the Mexican government, the town has served as a transportation hub for the area and an intersection between rural West Marin and the county's municipal centers to the east. To this day, in fact, downtown San Anselmo is still referred to as The Hub.

After California became the 31st of the United States of America, in 1850, the southern part of town including The Hub, was purchased from its Mexican owners by James Ross, whose descendents still live and work there. Since then, San Anselmo has grown to become everything that epitomizes small-town America--welcoming to strangers, benevolent to neighbors, supportive to businesses and education, and environmentally friendly to the habitat.

For example, when the Transcendental poet Ralph Waldo Emerson visited his niece in San Anselmo in 1871, he noticed of her husband's acreage that ``Three or four wild deer still feed on his land, and now and then come near the house. The trees of his wood were almost all new to us-- live-oak, madrona, redwood, and other pines than ours; and our garden flowers wild in all the fields.'' Even now, the wild deer still come to San Anselmo to feed in the gardens under the diverse arbors, verdant and prolific in what is one of Marin County's largest watersheds.

Indeed, San Anselmo retained its pastoral quality even after the North Pacific Coast Railroad laid rails through the town beginning in 1874. Already a transportation hub, the town went on the map as Junction, California. The coming of the industrial age did not, however, despoil the area's beauty.

But San Anselmo is not just another idyllic town. Since 1892, it has been the home of the San Francisco Theological Seminary, which is known because of its architecture as San Anselmo's ``castle in the sky.'' With the establishment of this key Presbyterian institution, the town began to grow, and grew even more after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, when refugees from the City's North Beach transplanted their homes to the hills around San Anselmo, planted grapevines and gave the neighborhood the nickname ``Little Italy.''

The next year, the town incorporated under the name Junction.

Another institution that establishes San Anselmo as more than just a pretty place is the Carnegie Library, built in 1915. A gift of Andrew Carnegie, the ``patron saint of libraries,'' it is one of only 1,940 such libraries in the nation. Its Spanish revival style building still serves this town where more than 96 percent of the adult population have earned a high school diploma, and 60 percent have one or more college degrees.

With the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937, many of those who had previously come to San Anselmo only to escape the cold San Francisco summers decided to make the town their permanent home. Schools and churches replaced ranch and farm land, and by 1974, when it officially became the Town of San Anselmo, thousands of families called it home.

But San Anselmo is not just a propitious town for its residents. It welcomes visitors with equal neighborliness. In fact, Marin County newspaper readers recently chose San Anselmo as the ``Best town other than your own.'' A town without a single shopping mall, San Anselmo has also been voted ``Best in the West'' by Sunset magazine for antiques, offered for sale in 130 boutiques that line the two main streets of this small town.

Despite the routine flooding of San Anselmo Creek, the weather in San Anselmo is ``nearly perfect,'' says Connie Rodgers, president of the San Anselmo Chamber of Commerce. She adds that ``You can't find a better place to live in the whole United States.''

Indeed, where else can you find less than three square miles containing a castle, a creek, a series of world-class antique shops and five of the top 100 Bay Area restaurants?

Madam Speaker, I offer my congratulations to San Anselmo on its first 100 years and a wish for many happy returns of the occasion.

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Out of Iraq Caucus sponsored a very important meeting this morning to review the dire situation in Iraq and to explore ways to end the occupation. At this event, we heard from Dr. William Polk, one of America's leading experts on the Middle East.

Dr. Polk taught Middle Eastern history, politics, and Arabic at Harvard before joining the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Council responsible for the Middle East and responsible for North Africa. Later, he became professor of history and founding director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Polk is the author of many books, including the recently published book entitled, ``Violent Politics, a History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerilla Warfare from the American Revolution to Iraq.'' To write the book, Dr. Polk studied insurgent movements throughout world history. He found that they were motivated by many different causes, including race, religion, culture, economics, and language, but he found that they all had one thing in common, an opposition to foreign occupation.

Dr. Polk's research has clear implications for our policy in Iraq. It tells us that the American occupation of Iraq can never solve the country's problems. Only the Iraqis can solve Iraqi problems. And it tells us that the only policy that now makes sense is to withdraw our troops in an orderly but rapid way, and couple that action with a carefully constructed program that will help the Iraqis to pick up the pieces and to rebuild their country with the help of the regional international community.

The lesson of history is clear, Mr. Speaker; yet, our leaders in the White House continue to follow a disastrous course of foreign occupation. Their blindness has put our Nation on a very dangerous course. The administration has called for an enduring relationship with Iraq, meaning many years, perhaps even decades, of American military involvement.

If the administration has its way, babies now in diapers will grow up and march off to Baghdad while the neo-cons who crafted our Iraq policy play golf in their retirement communities.

The administration's policy of endless occupation will cost us trillions of dollars and countless casualties. It will lead to the deaths of countless Iraqi civilians and surely force millions more to become refugees. Meanwhile, al Qaeda will continue to hatch its plots against the United States in their safe havens far from Iraq.

It is clear that Iraq will never stabilize and find peace while we are present. Our occupation of Iraq prevents Iraqis from finding solutions to their own problems, and it prevents the regional and international diplomacy that is absolutely needed to help them reconcile and to rebuild.

The timely withdrawal of American troops is the essential first step in solving the Iraqi problem. So long as our troops and military contractors are there, the situation can only and will only get worse.

In the days ahead, I and others will urge Congress to move to end the occupation. Congress has the power of the purse. We must pass a bill requiring that all spending related to Iraq be used for only one purpose, and that is to fully fund the safe, orderly, and responsible withdrawal of all American troops and military contractors.

If we fail to do this, we will have failed the American people, who sent us to Congress last November with a clear message: End the occupation of Iraq. And we will have failed our country morally, we will have failed our country politically, and certainly we will have failed it economically.

It is time, Mr. Speaker, to do what we know is right and what is best for our country: bring our troops home.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the President called for an enduring relationship with Iraq, a relationship that extends beyond his administration. He did not tell us exactly how long this would last, but we have to have a good idea, because the White House and the Secretary of Defense have said that our involvement on the Korean peninsula should be the model for Iraq. That would mean they are planning to occupy Iraq for 50 years or more.

Consider what this means: A lame duck administration is committing the United States to decades of occupation that will cost trillions of dollars and result in the deaths of countless American troops and Iraqi civilians. This is simply, simply, intolerable.

We were also told last week that the next Petraeus report will come in this coming March and we must wait for that report before we act. But we can't sit around and we can't wait. We can't wait for another Petraeus report; we can't sit around and wait for another Crocker report, because we are fiddling while Iraq burns. We have already had a 4\1/2\-year sugar-coated spin and TV show from the Oval Office.

Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. The occupation is damaging America morally, politically and economically, and it must end. The Congress has the constitutional power and the Congress has the responsibility to end it.

It is time to take bold action. It is time to use our power, our power of the purse, to bring our brave troops home. We must pass a bill requiring that all war spending be used for one purpose and one purpose only, to fully fund the safe, orderly and responsible withdrawal of American troops and military contractors. Commanders on the ground would be given what they need to ensure the safe redeployment of all troops. The bill should also set firm and doable dates for the start and the end of the withdrawal.

We can then help the Iraqis by replacing military action that isn't working with the strong regional and international diplomatic efforts that can work, work to bring about reconciliation and reconstruction to Iraq.

By using our power of the purse, the Congress can set the political agenda. We can build political momentum for withdrawal by offering the American people a clear and easily understood plan for ending our involvement in Iraq. And we can change the terms of the debate from the narrow ``is the surge working'' to ``how soon can we get on with the job of bringing peace to Iraq and restoring America's moral leadership in the world.''

If we use our constitutional power of the purse, the administration would surely attack us. They would say we are cutting off funding for the troops. But that would be false. The troops would get every single last dollar they need to come home to their families, come home safe and come home sound.

To those who might have objections to this plan, I would say, is there a better way to end the occupation once and for all? I think the answer is no, there is none.

I ask all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me. Do what the American people sent us here to do: End the occupation of Iraq, and end it now

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in honoring the life of Eleanor McGovern and in support of H.R. 2654, a bill to name a post office in South Dakota, in tribute to her legacy.

Eleanor was a great advocate for children and families, both through volunteering and personally helping underprivileged families and by addressing these issues through public policy. Most people know her as the wife of Senator George McGovern--but she was an influential and outspoken figure in her own right. While her husband was running for president, she traveled across the country displaying her impressive rhetorical skills and changing traditional perceptions of a woman's role in public life.

She was also a key advisor to her husband, one of our most distinguished American statesmen and humanitarians, and a very principled anti-war leader. Eleanor believed wholeheartedly in the causes they championed, in the battles they won and those they lost. She contributed her time and efforts to a number of organizations over the years, serving on the boards of directors for the Psychiatric Institute Foundation, the Child Study Association, the Erickson Institute of Chicago, and the Odyssey House of New York. Following her daughter's death, she also helped found the McGovern Family Foundation dedicated to research into alcoholism, and established the Martha Movement, which championed the rights of homemakers.

I pay tribute to the legacy she leaves behind and the tremendous good work she did. She was truly a force for change. I'm so thankful for the life, the service, and the good will of Eleanor McGovern.

Madam Speaker, our Nation's responsibility to the people of the gulf coast has not ended since Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast region 2 years ago. Since then, volunteers, first responders, and officials from across the Nation have boldly confronted the challenges of rebuilding damaged areas by dedicating their time and effort to help restore these vibrant communities. However, the challenges the region continues to face are far from over and it is clear that this administration has fallen dramatically short of fulfilling the promises made to the people of the gulf coast.

Two years ago, despite multiple warnings of Katrina's severity and the approaching devastation that would result if residents of the gulf coast were not evacuated, the ill-prepared Bush administration failed to offer the necessary support to the hundreds of thousands of people in the storm's path. Vulnerable populations without the economic means or available transportation to evacuate were left with no choice but to weather the storm in their homes or shelters. After the storm ended, at least 1,800 people lost their lives in five States; more than 1 million people were displaced from their homes; hundreds of thousands of homes, schools, and businesses were destroyed; and countless communities and habitats were uprooted.

Despite the outpouring of congressional support for reconstruction and disaster assistance, the administration has poorly managed the disbursement of funds and failed to ensure that home and business owners receive the aid they need. Of the $94.8 billion that Congress appropriated in response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, almost half has been spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on debris removal and temporary housing assistance. Only $3.4 billion has been spent on permanent infrastructure repairs, and FEMA's consistent underestimation of the necessary costs associated with permanent rebuilding has resulted in billions of dollars of aid being tied up after costs exceed FEMA's initial estimates. As a result of the inadequate management and inefficient use of funds, thousands of residents have not returned to their homes. According to the Congressional Budget Office, CBO, 107,000 gulf residents displaced by Katrina are still in FEMA-provided temporary housing.

The administration could have chosen to overcome its original failure with a concerted commitment to rebuild the gulf coast and ensure that the victims of this disaster receive the assistance they need. Instead, over the last 2 years, they have chosen to ignore these problems and the needs of the gulf coast residents. The administration's continued indifference to the devastation caused by Katrina has prevented these residents from rebuilding to their communities and tackling the lingering poverty in the region. This administration's failures have been compounded with time, continuing to postpone the complete restoration of the gulf coast.

Madam Speaker, today, we must recommit ourselves, at all levels of government, to rebuild the gulf coast in a responsible and comprehensive way. As we honor those who lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina, we cannot allow this important work to be pushed to side any longer.

Mr. Chairman, the patent reform bill before us today is a necessary step to modernize and streamline our patent process to ensure American innovation will keep our country competitive. It's been over 50 years since we have updated our patent process. That's before the Internet, before personal computers, and before digital music. Actually, it's 5 years before they launched Sputnik. So, there can be no doubt that reforming the system to accommodate a new era of innovation is needed.

Although this bill isn't perfect, I think that it does move the ball forward in terms of reforming the system. Clearly, additional patent reform is needed in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industry as there are many issues left unresolved by H.R. 1908. Hopefully these issues can be addressed in conference with the Senate.

Mr. Chairman, I commend my colleagues on the Judiciary committee for all of their hard work on this bill, it's been fifty-five years in the making, and it's time for an update.

Mr. Speaker, over the past 5 years, the Bush administration has repeatedly asked the American people to put their faith and their judgment in the judgment of the White House, especially as it pertains to our position in Iraq.

But as we have seen, and we have seen it time and time again, that judgment is based on ignoring voices of dissent and the reality on the ground in favor of a stay-the-course mentality.

When General Petraeus presents his report on Iraq next week, we cannot allow the voice of the American people to be ignored. We watched this administration relaunch its public relations campaign to sell ``the escalation'' to the American people, and now they insist that the escalation is working. All this in spite of the Iraqi Government's failure to achieve most of its key benchmarks for military and political progress and the dramatic increase in American and Iraqi casualties since the escalation began.

The administration continues, Mr. Speaker, to resist all attempts supported by the overwhelming majority of Americans to bring our troops home. In essence, we are in the middle of another PR campaign, this one to stifle the will and undermine the judgment of the American people again.

Today Congress is again faced with the choice of trusting its own judgment or the claims of the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the past miscalculation and failed predictions of the administration have resulted in tragic consequences.

In 2003, the administration insisted that an invasion force of 130,000 troops would be enough to secure Iraq and restore peace after the invasion. They claimed Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction to use against our country. They promised that we would be greeted as liberators, and in May 2005 we were told that the insurgency in Iraq was in its last throes. Time after time, they have been wrong, wrong, wrong.

Earlier this year when Congress passed the emergency spending bill for Iraq, the Bush administration argued that benchmarks are the only way to measure progress in Iraq. As a result, the Government Accountability Office

released a report this week showing that Iraq has failed 11 out of 18 benchmarks. And those seven that did not fail were barely, barely worked upon at all. In response, the administration now claims that these benchmarks should no longer be used to measure progress. It is clear that the administration will never accept the reality about Iraq. The only way to end the violence is to fully fund a safe and orderly redeployment from Iraq.

The shallow fortune-telling of the Bush administration cannot replace what every American knows: The only right course in Iraq is to bring our troops home by fully funding a safe redeployment of our troops and military contractors. The American people want bold leadership, and they have called on the Congress to take action, action now. The occupation has been a total failure and the American people will not accept taking a wait-and-see attitude. They know that the only sensible moral and responsible course is to fully fund the redeployment of our American troops and military contractors. And they want us to get started on it now.