Floor Statements

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

First, I would like to comment on voluntary compliance. It has been mentioned here several times. Voluntary compliance programs are usually directed at large employers, not small. This is not where the deaths are occurring. In construction, half of all deaths occur among small firms in construction, many with fewer than 10 workers. Big corporations have understood for some time now that it is to their advantage to have a workplace that is safe, with maximum benefits and working conditions. And big corporations are seldom guilty of willful violations; it is the small employers. I must say that an attempt has been made here to make it appear that small employers have some special virtues, but small employers can be demons often.

I recall my father working in a mill where the straw boss, they called him, told the workers if they would go to the toilet, which was pretty much in the middle of the floor anyhow, a cubicle that you could see the feet and it was open at the top, if you go to the toilet and he does not smell anything, come on out.

I can recall working at a restaurant when I was in college where the employer, the owner of this small business, felt he had a right to pat any woman on the behind regularly, and they were too afraid to complain because they wanted to keep their jobs.

You might say that those were extreme conditions, that is all over; that happened when you were in college many years ago. But in New York we have sweatshops which are as bad as any sweatshops the city has ever known in the 1930s, the 1920s or any other time. It is just that the people in the sweatshops now happen to be Asians mostly, Asian workers who are being exploited.

There is no great virtue in small businesses automatically. Yes, the majority comply, but there are too many who still do not comply, too many who, as I said before, are interested only in squeezing the maximum profits from the situation; and their biggest cost is the labor cost, labor cost in terms of wages, labor cost in terms of conditions that must be established by law for workers.

We refuse to discuss the minimum wage on this floor. We refuse to discuss it in the context of a bill to increase the minimum wage. But today if we are going to talk about workers and worker safety, I think we ought to point out that it is the workers who are making the least amount of money whose safety is jeopardized most. They are the vulnerable ones in conditions that nobody else wants to work in, immigrant workers who take the lowest pay and working conditions where no one else will work.

This is the second quarter of a four-quarter marathon, as I said before. I have heard it called the More Injuries and More Death Marathon Act. It is a covert approach to what the majority Republicans tried when they first took power in 1995. This is covert. This is guerilla warfare, one might say, undermining OSHA from the back, undermining OSHA with sweet words.

Back on June 14, 1995, we had the first taste of what the majority Republicans really wanted to do about OSHA. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) introduced H.R. 1834, and that was a massive overhaul of OSHA to weaken the law and favor law-breaking employers. If you were to go back and retrieve that bill, you could see that most of it was put there in one bill, and it was a frontal assault. It had the same objectives that today's assault has.

There have been 14 of these significant bills introduced since the 104th Congress, I think half of which have been introduced by the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) which are significant in terms of looking at the record of how OSHA has been under attack. Since this House went under the leadership of the Republicans, OSHA has been the target, it has been an obsession, and none of these bills are in favor of increasing any measures to protect workers.

We cannot review and view these bills today in the context of just one bill at a time or even the four bills. The four bills have to be reviewed in the context of the overall policy of the Republican majority toward working families, the overall assault against working families.

We have to have this in context. We have to look at the figure of the 6,000 Americans per year. That figure has been there for some time, averaging about 6,000 per year who die every year on the job.

The little display up front is an example of a centerpiece for a quilt we want to make as a memorial to these workers. We do not want either party to forget what is happening to working

families in this country. In many respects, the failure to increase the minimum wage is one of them, but certainly with respect to health and safety, we must do more to make it known and to put it on the front burner in the minds of Americans as evidence of what is happening in the workplace.

This is not unrelated to other developments like outsourcing, a major development which goes after workers at higher levels, technicians, computer people, scientists, engineers. Their salaries and their working conditions are such that they are found to be offensive and not producing ample profits, so their jobs are going to be taken away completely and contracted out to other nations.

There are a large number of businesses that cannot be contracted out and most of them are small businesses. Construction is one. We can never take construction overseas; that has to happen here. The construction industry, in particular, needs the protection of people who want to weaken OSHA. The construction industry, in particular, is a culprit in employing and exploiting workers at the very bottom.

We must keep this package in context. We must understand that the covert warfare taking place here, what I call the poisoning of OSHA, the slow draining of power from OSHA, is accelerated by these seemingly harmless four bills. The Labor Secretary in this administration is openly hostile to labor and to working families. We have a situation where traditionally the Department of Labor has always been considered the advocate for working families and for workers, but this particular Department of Labor, this Secretary, is just the opposite and this administration has no place for labor to have their grievances aired. So we bring them here today at this time and take advantage of the fact that there is at least time to discuss conditions under which people work.

The policy of denigration, intimidation and oppression of the workforce is a policy which yields high productivity. That high productivity has already been achieved, but they want to go beyond that and get higher levels of exploitation and squeeze more from workers to increase the profits. As I said before, all small business owners are not model Americans. They do not seek to protect and take care of their workers in the best possible way.

We are going to have a monument. This is going to be part of an overall quilt which gives you the number of workers per State, gives you the number each year, since 1993 to the present. Like the Vietnam Wall memorial, it dramatically brings home in an individual way the fact that life is sacred. The lives of workers are as sacred as the lives of anyone else.

I said before, we are losing more workers per day than we are losing on the battlefields of Iraq. I do not want the Iraq battlefield casualties to increase. We would like the casualties in both places to decrease. But the life of a worker who is killed in a situation which has willful violations and the death is totally unnecessary, that life must be given more concern by both parties here in this House.

Workers and their families are under attack. We must come to their defense. One way to defend them is to recognize these four bills for what they are worth. They are the very destructive poisoning of the effectiveness of OSHA.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for printing in the Congressional Record the opinions and the statements by four groups: The AFL-CIO, the UAW, the Teamsters and the National COSH Network. These groups oppose this bill. I submit for the Record their statements in opposition.

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial

Organizations,

Washington, DC, May 14, 2004.

Dear Representative: I am writing to express the strong

opposition of the AFL-CIO to H.R. 2728, H.R. 2729, H.R. 2730

and H.R. 2731, four bills that would erode worker protections

under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. These bills,

which are scheduled for a floor vote the week of May 17,

2004, would change established law and procedures to benefit

employers and stifle OSHA enforcement. They would do nothing

to enhance workers' safety and health protection, while

weakening the OSH Act.

H.R. 2731, Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer

Access to Justice Act--This bill requires taxpayers to pay

the legal costs of small employers (defined as employers with

100 or fewer employees and up to $7 million net worth) who

prevail in any administrative or enforcement case brought by

OSHA or any challenge to an OSHA standard brought by the

small employer against OSHA, regardless of whether the action

was substantially justified.

Under the Equal Access to Justice Act, small businesses are

already able to recover litigation costs where the government

position was not substantially justified. There is no reason

to expand these provisions and create new and broader rules

for purposes of the OSH Act. The bill will drain resources

away from an agency that has perpetually struggled to do its

job with the limited resources available to it. If enacted

into law, H.R. 2731 would have a chilling effect on both OSHA

enforcement and OSHA standard setting, because attorneys'

fees would be available to prevailing employers in both types

of actions. OSHA would be hesitant to cite small employers

for violations of the OSH Act unless there is absolute

certainty that the enforcement action will be upheld in its

entirety. No rational public policy would be furthered by

discouraging OSHA from issuing citations that are

substantially justified, but as to which the government

ultimately is unable to carry its burden of proof of every

issue. Rather, the inevitable result of such a rule, which

would penalize the government every time it loses, would be

to chill the issuance of meritorious citations in close cases

on behalf of employees exposed to unsafe working conditions.

Similarly, unless OSHA is certain that a standard will not be

challenged (which they are routinely for any number of

reasons), it would be very reluctant to development and issue

rules any hazard no matter how grave the threat of the hazard

to workers. This bill would further weaken OSHA enforcement

efforts and standard setting to the detriment of American

workers.

Establishments with fewer than 100 employees make up 97.7

percent of all private sector establishments. These

businesses have a higher rate of fatal occupational injury

than do establishments with 100 or more workers. Hampering

OSHA's enforcement ability in these small establishments

would be devastating to workers, resulting in even higher

rates of worker fatalities, injury and illness.

Also significant is the fact that under H.R. 2731,

employers will be able to recover partial attorneys fees if

they partially prevail in an OSHA proceeding. So, for

example, the notorious Eric Ho, who exposed his employees to

asbestos and made them work at night behind locked gates

without providing them any sort of respirators or training,

would be able to recover attorneys fees under this bill,

because the OSHA Review Commission dismissed two of Ho's

corporations as defendants and dismissed 10 of 11 willful

violations of OSHA's respirator and training standards.

Secretary of Labor v. Ho, Nos. 98-1645 & 98-1646 (OSHRC,

Sept. 29, 2003).

OSHA needs more, not fewer, resources available to deal

with employers like Eric Ho and to enforce the OSH Act's

protections. H.R. 2731 should be rejected.

H.R. 2730. Occupational Safety and Health Independent

Review of OSHA Citations Act--This bill would work a radical

change in the implementation and enforcement of the OSH Act,

and would undermine the Secretary of Labor's authority to

interpret and enforce the law. The bill would overturn a 1991

Supreme Court decision and say that deference should be given

to the OSHA Review Commission, and not the Secretary of

Labor, in interpreting OSHA standards. The AFL-CIO vigorously

opposes this bill and urges its defeat.

In Martin v. OSHRC (CF & I Steel Corp.), 499 U.S. 144

(1991), the Supreme Court made clear that the Secretary of

Labor, and not the Review Commission, should be given

deference when interpreting OSHA standards and regulations.

In the Court's view, the Secretary of Labor should receive

deference because Congress, when enacting the OSH Act,

designated the Secretary as the policymaking official, and

gave the Secretary the authority and responsibility to

implement and enforce the law. Thus, because the Secretary of

Labor is the person who adopts standards and brings

enforcement actions against employers, she has a much broader

and deeper understanding of OSHA's rules as compared to the

Review Commission, which sees only a small fraction of OSHA's

enforcement cases.

Policymaking, and interpretation of OSHA policies, should

stay with the Secretary. The Commission should not be able to

undo by fiat the Secretary's reasonable interpretations of

her rules. H.R. 2730 should be rejected.

H.R. 2729. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission

Efficiency Act--H.R. 2729 expands the number of members on

the OSHA Review Commission from three to five, and mandates

that all members have legal training. Another provision,

removed during the Committee markup on May 5, 2004,

authorized the Chairman of the Commission to delegate to any

panel of three or more members any or all powers of the

Commission and allowed two members to constitute a quorum on

such sub-panels.

The Review Commission has operated with three Commissioners

since it was first formed in 1970. There is no need to expand

the Commission beyond its current membership, and no need to

exclude individuals with relevant training, but not legal

training, from eligibility for these positions. Moreover, it

is no coincidence that Republican members are pushing to

expand the number

of seats on the Commission at a time when a Republican

president would fill the seats.

Proponents say the bill is needed to address the problem of

the Commission at times lacking a quorum to do business. But

with the removal of the provision on sub-panels during the

Committee markup, it is difficult to see how H.R. 2729 would

solve the quorum problem. Three Commissioners would still be

required to have a working quorum. There is no reason to

think that the Commission will be able to retain three active

Commissioners any better than it has been able to retain two.

H.R. 2729 is a solution in search of a problem. It should

be defeated.

H.R. 2728, Occupational Safety and Health Small Business

Day in Court Act--This bill would excuse employers from the

fifteen-day deadline for contesting OSHA citations and

``failure to abate'' notices if they can show ``mistake,

inadvertence, surprise, or excusable neglect'' as the reason.

The bill's practical effect would be to make numerous excuses

into legal reasons for missing the fifteen-day deadline by

which employers currently must respond to OSHA citations.

This action will only encourage more litigation. The idea of

the fifteen-day requirement is to give all parties a

reasonable timeframe in which to take action, and to ensure

that the case is moved along as quickly as possible so the

cited hazards will be corrected in as timely a manner as

possible.

It is also important to note that the bill excuses

employers from missing their 15-day deadline but does not

extent these same provisions to employees or their

representatives who challenge the period for abatement in a

citation. The one-sided nature of this legislation shows that

it is about benefiting employers, not protecting employees.

Proponents of the bill have pointed to one court case as

justification for this legislation. In fact, the Commission

has a longstanding practice of reviewing any missed deadlines

on a case-by-case basis. H.R. 2728 is another solution in

search of a problem, and it should be defeated.

As demonstrated above, these bills undermine the intent of

the Congress when it enacted the OSHAct more than 30 years

ago. Generally speaking, these policies and procedures have

been serving workers well for over 30 years. American workers

deserve a safe and healthy workplace and the full protection

the OSHAct can offer. These bills would surely diminish the

protections provided to workers by the OSHAct. For these

reasons, the AFL-CIO opposes these four bills, and we

strongly urge you to vote against each of them.

Sincerely,

William Samuel,

Director,

Department of Legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), my colleague on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, be allowed to control the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to close for the opposition on H.R. 2729.

As I stated at the outset, neither H.R. 2729 nor any other of these four bills before us addresses the important health and safety concerns of American working men and women. In essence, H.R. 2729 gives us the worst of both worlds, a bigger government bureaucracy designed to accomplish less on behalf of the American worker. Moreover, this bill would mandate legal training as a qualification for appointment to the commission. This diminishes what ought to be a primary qualification as a commissioner and that is expertise in the field of occupational safety and health.

Having stated these clear reasons for opposition to this bill, which I urge my colleagues to follow, I would like to turn my attention once more to the urgent concern about the safety of American workers. That concern is over the protection of workers' lives on the job. At present, OSHA does little more than slap the wrists of employers that are egregious safety offenders. As the New York Times noted in its compelling series on worker deaths, OSHA has a 20-year track record of failing to seek criminal prosecution in a staggering 93 percent of cases they investigated where willful and flagrant safety violations by employers killed workers.

And after you institute this proposal for H.R. 2729, it is just one more little reason why they would have less vigor in prosecuting anybody.

Congress has an important role to play in holding both OSHA and unscrupulous employers accountable. One problem is that under the current statute, OSHA can only issue a misdemeanor penalty for an employer who has willfully caused the death of a worker. A misdemeanor has no deterrent value whatsoever. If you harass a wild burro on Federal lands, you face a stiffer penalty than if you kill an American worker. What signal does this send to a small number of unscrupulous employers who actually build up a history of willfully causing worker deaths? Are we saying to these wrongdoers, do not worry about protecting the lives of your workers because Congress cares more about wild burros than about the men and women in your employ? Pestering a wild burro in a national park can send you to prison for an entire year, but killing a worker only lands you there for 6 months.

More importantly, what signal does that send to grieving family members who are left behind? You cannot receive any justice because Congress does not have a fundamental respect for the lives of your loved ones.

Along with Senator Jon Corzine, I have introduced a bill to make killing a worker a felony offense. I tried to get this bill included in one of these four bills because it is germane, in my opinion; but it was ruled out of order. Rather than a radical departure from current law, this bill is just a moderate adjustment that is long overdue. H.R. 4270 and S. 1272 correct a glaring oversight in Federal policy, and I will describe it in more detail later on.

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

I rise in opposition to H.R. 2730. This bill does no more than any of the others before us today to address any critical safety and health needs of American workers.

H.R. 2730 gives the Occupational Safety Review Commission policy- making authority by permitting courts to give deference to the commission with respect to interpretations of OSHA standards. In this way H.R. 2730 weakens the fundamental powers of the Secretary of Labor. Those of us on this side of the aisle maintain that the Secretary of Labor is best able to regulate and enforce safety standards.

We asked the question, and never got any answer, as to whether the current administration supports H.R. 2730 given its stated purpose. Having stated this clear reason for my opposition to the bill, which I urge my colleagues to follow, I would like to turn my attention once more to another urgent safety concern. This pertains to the highly disproportionate death rate of Latino workers in this country.

As I referenced in my opening statement, a recent series of articles by the Associated Press documented the toll this rising death rate is taking in the Latino community. I would like to relate several egregious cases of Latino worker deaths and put a human face on this alarming social problem.

Case number one, Miguel Victor Canales. Miguel Canales was killed 4 years ago while securing shingles to the roof of a new luxury home being built in Arlington, Virginia. Miguel fell off the roof because another employee had failed to install a safety brace. Miguel's stepson was a coworker who witnessed the fatal accident. Miguel's death so traumatized the stepson that he was unable to speak for the following 6 months.

The employer, Octavio Estevez, was an unlicensed subcontractor without workers compensation insurance. Octavio Estevez had routinely failed to pay his employees their rightfully earned wages. After his death, Estevez refused to pay Miguel's prior earned wages to the surviving family members. The employer relies on day laborers and refuses to provide them with any safety equipment or training.

The second case is Joel Bajorques. Joel was a 21-year-old from Guatemala who was killed when he fell off a roofing job in Rockville, Maryland, into a vat of hot tar.

This took place on a commercial project undertaken by a roofing company. Joel died from severe third degree burns over his entire body. As unbelievable as it may seem, Joel's death was ruled to be the result of natural causes.

Joel's surviving parents and siblings in Guatemala had depended upon his wages to help support the entire family. Since Joel's death in 2002, another worker at the same company has been killed in the exact same way.

Case number three: Juan Vasquez, a Guatemalan worker, was killed using a jackhammer during his first day on the job. He was working at a private home in Bethesda, Maryland, when a brick wall collapsed on him. He had not been given even a hard hat. His employer refused to cover any of the funeral expenses or to provide any compensation to his surviving wife and two young sons. As a result, Juan's family had to borrow more than $6,000 to pay for shipping the body home and burial expenses.

Case number four: Urbano Ramirez was a Mexican farm worker killed by heatstroke while harvesting cucumbers in North Carolina. The exact circumstances of his death are as follows. Urbano felt faint and was told by a foreman to go sit under a tree. Neither he nor any of the other workers had been provided with water. When the foreman had the workers change fields that day, Urbano was left behind and forgotten. His body was not found until 10 days later. Failure to provide workers with water violates an OSHA standard. In the end, the grower was only fined $1,800 for this OSHA violation that caused the death of Urbano Ramirez.

Let me also review how OSHA is faring in addressing the skyrocketing rate of Latino worker deaths. To date, OSHA has limited its efforts to creating a Spanish language Web page and distributing Spanish language pamphlets to Mexican consulates. Yet very few vulnerable immigrant workers are likely to be reached in this manner. OSHA's Hispanic Task Force is mainly comprised of regional administration with no prior knowledge of issues confronting Latino workers. In fact, for the past 3 years, the Bush administration's budget has zero-funded the only OSHA program, called Susan Harwood Grants, to provide union and community- based outreach on safety issues to immigrant workers. Members on this side of the aisle successfully opposed these cuts.

Clearly, OSHA needs to step up to the plate on this issue and take serious, concerted steps to address the crisis posed by Latino worker deaths.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the number of minutes remaining for this debate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt).

(Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned before that I wanted to make an amendment to any one of these four bills because they are all about OSHA, and I thought my amendment was germane. I would like to describe what that amendment would have been.

It is a bill now, H.R. 4270, and it would amend the OSHA Act in three ways. First, it would strengthen sanctions for a worker's death or deaths caused by an employer's willful violations of basic OSHA safety standards. The current sanction is a mere misdemeanor with no more than 6 months in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Some jurisdictions seek stiffer penalties for failure to return a library book. My bill would change this penalty to a felony with up to, but no more than, 10 years in prison.

Second, my amendment would increase the penalty for illicitly warning of an OSHA inspection, from up to 6 months imprisonment to up to 2 years.

Third, my amendment would increase the penalty for lying to or misleading OSHA, from up to 6 months imprisonment to no more than 1 year imprisonment. In all instances, fines would be decided upon in the same way judges decide other fines, in accordance with title 18 of the criminal code.

This bill, H.R. 4270, and in the Senate it is S. 1272, sponsored by Senator Corzine; this bill corrects a glaring oversight in Federal law and policy: the inability to pursue a felony conviction of an employer who willfully causes the death of workers. To quote a New York State supreme court justice, a felony sentence would serve as a warning to other employers; employers who, in pursuit of their own economic interests, care to be cavalier about the lives of others.

When sentencing a man responsible for the collapse of an illegally conducted scaffold that killed five immigrant workers in Manhattan, this same supreme court justice remarked, ``The collapse of this scaffold was not a tragic accident; rather, it was a tragic certainty.'' She went on to say that the case had given her an education as to how ``astonishingly ineffectual'' the Federal Government has been in protecting the workers' lives.

This judge, Rena Uviller, emphasized that OSHA penalties for willful safety violations that result in worker deaths merely amount to a $10,000 fine and a misdemeanor sentence of no more than 6 months' imprisonment upon the first conviction. The maximum penalty for a second-time offender is a $20,000 and no more than 1 year imprisonment.

In concluding her sentencing, Judge Uviller sent a message to us on this floor today by observing, ``Why Congress has adopted such a spineless response to industrial malfeasance is best left to the voters to assess.''

Why has Congress adopted such a spineless response to industrial malfeasance, to owners, managers, bosses who willfully violate the regulations and thus cause the death of a worker?

I think this would have been a germane amendment. I am sorry that in the committee it was dismissed. My amendment addresses the needs of workers. Every other one of these four bills focuses on the needs of employers, ways in which you might frustrate the efforts, dilute the efforts of OSHA so that employers and small business owners would benefit greatly while workers suffer more.

I think it is very important that we note that we have failed in a four-bill marathon of more than 4 hours to allow the minority to address any of the interests and concerns of the working families of America. This is a clear indication of exactly where the majority stands with respect to working families.

They have other programs that they offered, one called HOW, H-O-W, Hire Our Workers, which runs counter to the kinds of activities they have conducted over the last 10 years with respect to the dilution of the powers of OSHA and, at the same time, the dilution of the powers of the organization process of unions.

I think it is important to note that the business of today has to be the business of being concerned about workers. It cannot be merely the four bills which seek to make OSHA safer for employers.

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

Mr. Speaker, point of information.

Mr. Speaker, there is one remaining bill that we have not discussed.

Are you wiping one bill from the calendar?

Point of inquiry. Will somebody explain what happens to the remaining bill?

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

I thank the gentleman.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2731. This bill is the most

alarming of the four before us today. By mandating that OSHA pay the attorney fees of any employer with a total net value of under $7 million and no more than 100 workers if they prevail upon appeal, H.R. 2731 would drastically undermine the enforcement of OSHA's mission.

As I stressed in my opening statement, more than 90 percent of all private firms in the U.S. would qualify for attorney fees upon successfully prevailing in an appeal. What could be more universal than that? H.R. 2731 would have an incredibly chilling effect on implementation of the act.

What would this bill mean for American workers? It would mean that unscrupulous employers could risk workers lives with impunity. Focusing on the issue of worker protection, again, I would like to relate some very personal testimony delivered at a forum I held on May 12 on worker deaths, and some of the photos of the people who testified are in front of us.

Patrick J. Walters, whose photo is on the top row, was 22 years old, a plumber's apprentice who was literally buried alive in a trench collapse in June 2002. Patrick had been sent down into a 10-foot deep, rain soaked trench without any training or safety equipment. Moeves Plumbing, a Cincinnati-based employer, had been repeatedly cited already by OSHA over the years for failure to follow basic safety standards for trench work. Although cited and fined for trench safety lapses in 1983, 1984, 1985, Moeves Plumbing took no remedial steps.

Clint Daley, another Moeves employee had been buried in 1989 in circumstances identical to Patrick's. In Daley's case, OSHA agreed to a settlement based on a promise by Moeves to take required safety action, an example of that voluntary compliance business. Two weeks before his death, an OSHA inspector found Patrick and another Moeves employee working in an unstable, unsafe trench that was 15 feet steep. Again, OSHA warnings went unheeded by Moeves and this caused certain, but tragic, results.

After Patrick's death, an attorney for Moeves Plumbing negotiated down the citation from a willful violation to an unclassified. OSHA also reduced the fine down to $30,000 to be paid over 4 years.

At the May 12 forum, Patrick's mother, Michelle Marts, wondered aloud, ``What is it going to take to stop Moeves Plumbing from sending another boy like our son to his death? Patrick did not have to die this way. This absolutely could and should have been prevented. We do not want this to happen to any other family.''

Joey Israel was a 22-year-old laborer who fell eight stories to his death from Philadelphia's Victory Building on December 31, 2003. Employed by HydroProof Systems, he had been promoted from entry-level employee to laborer only 2 weeks prior to his death. All that is known for certain is that before careening to his death, Joey had been told to pull up a 23\1/2\ pound electrical cord hanging from the window. After repeated phone calls to OSHA to ascertain the status report on Joey's case, OSHA responded by stating that HydroProof had not violated any safety rules.

Joey's twin sister, Jaime, insisted upon a personal meeting with the OSHA investigator. She was told that not one of the eight men who were on the job the day her brother was killed had been questioned by OSHA nor had the employer been questioned about the incident. When Jaime questioned how her brother could have been sent alone some 25 feet up in the air on this job, without any prior training or interview, she was told, ``That's the beauty of America.''

Jaime responded at the May 12 forum with the following quote: ``What an awful thing to be told to a mother who just lost her son and a sister who just lost her brother. I believe this is the downfall of America, where, daily, employers risk the lives of untrained men and women who are doing what they have to do to support their families, to make a quick buck and, in a sense, kill for profit. My brother lost his life for a lousy $60 a day, is that what the lives of our loved ones are worth to their employers?''

Scott Shaw was a 38-year-old husband and father of two young sons who was killed on September 7, 2002. Scott died when he fell into the Schuylkill River, moving from the Hopper Barge to the Work Barge. OSHA investigated and found that Scott's company had committed six serious violations. One of these violations focused on the fact that one barge was 8 feet higher than the other. Also, workers had to climb on rubber tires while jumping from barge to barge. However, OSHA combined these violations into one citation with six items. OSHA's total fine for these violations was only $4,950.

His wife, Holly, testified that ``Scott didn't have a life jacket on. He wasn't required by his company to wear one. There were no life preservers on the barge. Scott's death was needless. The company Scott was working for neglected to follow safety regulations.

``As a teacher and as a parent, I know that it is important that a child understand there are consequences to their actions, and they must accept responsibility for what they have done. Adults must face their responsibility, and must be held accountable for their actions. Please don't let another family suffer as we have. The more that companies are actually punished, the more they realize they must practice workplace safety, and must protect their workers.''

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to understand the seriousness of these discussions today.

This is the final quarter of the marathon four bills today. I hope that the fact that they have been packaged together has not caused anybody not to listen. I hope that they understand that we are talking about life-and-death matters.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the needless deaths of Americans by opposing H.R. 2731.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is left.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne).

(Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), the distinguish candidate for President.

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

I want to thank the members of the minority on the committee for their work on this bill. I want to thank the majority for giving us an opportunity to talk about the very real problems that are faced by workers in the workplace.

Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record an item titled Summary of the AFL-CIO Death on the Job Report, and the second item for the record, Profile of Workplace Safety and Health in the United States.

Summary of the AFL-CIO Death on the Job Report

The report is a national and state-by-state profile of

worker safety and health in the United States. A combination

of too few OSHA inspectors and low penalties makes the threat

of an OSHA inspection hollow for too many employers. Millions

of workers are still left with no OSHA coverage.

Here are some of the ``highlights'' of the report:

15 workers were fatally injured and more than 12,800

workers were injured or made ill each day during 2002. These

statistics do not include deaths from occupational diseases,

which claim the lives of an estimated 50,000 to 60,000

workers each year.

A 62 percent increase in the number of trench fatalities,

from 33 in 2002 to 53 in 2003.

Fatal injuries among Hispanic or Latino workers decreased

about 6 percent, although the 840 fatalities recorded for

Hispanic workers is the second-highest annual total for the

population. States that saw an increase in the number of

Hispanic worker fatalities in 2002 include Alabama, Arkansas,

Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New

Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia,

Washington and Wyoming.

The number of fatal work injuries among foreign-born

Hispanic workers increased to 577 in 2002 from 527 in 2001.

Musculoskeletal Disorders continue to account for more than

one-third of all injuries and illnesses involving days away

from work and remain the biggest category of injury and

illness. The occupations that reported the highest number of

MSDs involving days away from work in 2002 were nursing aides

and orderlies (44,421); truck drivers (36,814); and laborers,

nonconstruction (24,862).

As documented in a December 2003 New York Times series,

prosecutions of recklessly negligent employers are extremely

rare. Of the 170,000 workplace deaths since 1982, only 16

convictions involving jail time have resulted--although 1,242

cases involving work deaths were determined by OSHA to

involve ``willful'' violations by employers (violations in

which the employer knew that workers' lives were at risk).

Penalties for significant violations of the law remain low.

In fiscal year 2003, serious violations of the OSH Act

carried an average penalty of only $871 ($856 for federal

OSHA, $885 for state OSHA plans).

2,240 federal and state OSHA inspectors responsible for

enforcing the law at 8.1 million workplaces. At its current

staffing and inspection levels, it would take federal OSHA

106 years to inspect each workplace under its jurisdiction

just once.

Between FY 1999 and FY 2003 the number of employees who

work in workplaces inspected by federal OSHA inspections

decreased by nearly 12%. The average number of hours spent

per inspection also decreased between FY 1999 and FY 2003,

from 22 to 18.8 hours per safety inspection and from 40 to

34.7 hours per health inspection. The number of citations for

willful violations decreased from 607 in FY 1999 to 391 in FY

2003. The average penalty per violation and per willful

violation increased in FY 2003 from the FY 2002

level, while the average penalty per serious violation

decreased to its lowest level since 1999.

After three and a half years under the Bush administration,

rulemaking at OSHA and MSHA has virtually ground to a halt.

In December 2003, the administration published its latest

semiannual regulatory agenda, which sets forth its regulatory

priorities and plans for the coming year. Having already

withdrawn 22 pending OSHA regulatory actions from its

regulatory agenda, in its May 2003 regulatory agenda the Bush

administration withdrew the glycol ethers standard and the

tuberculosis standard, leaving few major initiatives on the

regulatory schedule.

OSHA still has taken no action on the Employer Payment for

Personal Protective Equipment standard, which has been

through the rulemaking process and is ready for final action.

The only major regulations still on the regulatory agenda

are for silica, beryllium and hearing conservation for

construction workers. But there is no commitment for OSHA to

propose these rules. This will be the only administration in

history not to issue a major safety and health regulation

during its four years in office.

17 MSHA standards to improve safety and health for miners

have been withdrawn, including the Air Quality, Chemical

Substances and Respiratory standard.

Adjusting for inflation, the FY 2005 proposed OSHA budget

represents a $6.5 million cut over FY 2004 appropriations.

The FY 2005 OSHA budget proposes increasing programs for

voluntary compliance with employer assistance while cutting

training and outreach programs for workers and freezing

standard-setting and enforcement programs. At OSHA, the

president proposes to cut worker safety training programs by

65 percent and to shift these funds to employer assistance

programs.

Since we have had a running commentary here about staying on the point, I would like to comment directly on H.R. 2731 by quoting from the Brotherhood of Teamsters objections:

``Finally, we oppose H.R. 2731, the Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act, which would require that OSHA, the taxpayer, pay the legal costs when it loses a case against a small business that prevails in administrative or judicial proceedings, regardless of whether the government's position was substantially justified. We view this as another effort to impede OSHA's and the Department's efforts to enforce the law and provide an avenue for workers to seek redress.

``We see no justification for such an arbitrary departure from the current practice of each party paying for its own litigation costs for only one class of public prosecutions. We know of no other agency, charged by statute to enforce the law, which is impeded from fulfilling its responsibility with respect to a meritorious complaint because it cannot guarantee the outcome.''

If OSHA is forced to guarantee the outcome, it ties OSHA's hands and will rob workers of protections by discouraging OSHA from executing its required responsibilities. Like all of the other items in this marathon package, which I call the More Injuries and More Death Marathon, it stacks the deck against the workers and in favor of the employers.

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

Mr. Speaker, working families continue to suffer under the oppressive policies of the Republican-controlled White House and Congress. With a new low in cynicism, Republicans have made a mockery of the suffering of the jobless.

The Republican unit of dirty tricks, deceitful slogans, and tricky titles has launched a new HOW initiative; Hire Our Workers, they call it. But Republicans refuse to support any of the actions that will relieve the suffering of working families.

Instead of bombarding the Nation with new rope-a-dope slogans, Republicans should just do the right thing and support five basic actions: extend Federal unemployment benefits; end the current tax incentives for shipping jobs overseas; raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to at least $7 an hour; enact a robust highway bill to create 1.8 million good-paying jobs; and invest more resources in key education and job training programs.

Stop swindling the poor with words. Pass these five initiatives without further delay.

Mr. Speaker, the House should hold hearings on the abuses in the Iraqi prisons. The most powerful military machine that the world has ever seen quickly won the hot war in Iraq. It is the occupation of Iraq that is unwinnable. The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) is on target with his analysis. The incompetent, improvised occupation of Iraq, guided by the Department of Defense, is unwinnable. Our troops in Iraq have been betrayed by the blundering of this administration and their top command.

An unqualified Secretary Rumsfeld improvising this occupation has thrown untrained soldiers into the role of prison guards. We owe it to our soldiers in the ranks to have a full investigation, to openly let the American people see exactly what happened. Yes, this is an un- American approach, un-American activity, and it probably involves only a few, but that few operate under top command.

Mr. Speaker, let us have a full investigation. The top command must accept responsibility. Hearings will reveal this truth. Let us have hearings as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, today I am joining with 75 of my colleagues to introduce the ``Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2004''--legislation that will give hard-working Americans a much needed raise. These minimum wage employees--many of whom work full-time, year-round--earn no more than $5.15 an hour. The vast majority do not even receive enough pay in their pockets to lift them above the poverty line.

According to a very stark alarming report, 48 percent of all African American men in New York City are unemployed. Without a job, they do not earn any wages. This bill is not the vehicle to help give the unemployed jobs, but it underscores the importance of increasing the minimum wage. How can we allow full-time minimum wage workers to live in poverty? Last time I looked, we were not a third world nation. Those with jobs at the bottom of the pay scale deserve fair compensation for their labor.

More than a quarter of the constituents I represent in Brooklyn are minimum wage workers. They include the very same child care and nursing home workers, dish washers and laundry workers, taxi drivers, hotel clerks and mail room workers everyone relies upon. Far too many of them are single mothers or fathers, with children to support. According to a recent Russell Sage Foundation study, they are included among a staggering 29 percent of all working families in America who cannot earn enough to keep a basic living standard. That means that close to one out of every three working families in America are just not making ends meet. Some are barely hanging on.

Why do the Republicans continue to nickel and dime these hard-working Americans in low-wage jobs? The last increase in the minimum wage was in 1997. This Democratic bill would give them a pay raise in 3 easy steps: from $5.85 an hour in the two months following enactment, to $6.45 an hour a year after that. On the following year's anniversary, the minimuum wage would finally reach $7.00 an hour.

Why do Republicans reject this bill, giving workers at the bottom of the pay scale a much needed raise? Republicans tout tired old arguments, such as ``only teens work for the minimum wage;'' or, ``it will hurt small businesses and the economy.'' In truth, recent history proves exactly the reverse. Once the dust settled after the 1997 increase in the minimum wage, more than 10 million new jobs were created and over half of them (6 million) were in minimum wage service jobs.

The dividing line between the political parties could not be greater on this issue. There's a saying--``No Shame in My Game''--that minimum- wage workers use sometimes. It is a kind of shorthand that signals a tough and resilient work ethic among the working poor, despite the low wages, lack of benefits and poor conditions. These workers are absolutely correct: there is no shame in their work ethic and daily efforts. The only shame is in the Congressional game, if the Republicans continue to block this bill and our efforts to give minimum wage workers a long-delayed, essential raise.

Mr. Speaker, in concert with the theme that has just preceded me in the 1-hour session, I wanted to talk about the credibility of our present administration with respect to the war in Iraq also.

A lot of us have chosen in say that we are into a second Vietnam. And there are some people who are quite upset that we compared the war in Iraq to the war in Vietnam. It is true that the war in Vietnam cost us 58,000 lives, and so far we have only loss 700 officially in Iraq. But should that be the barometer? 58,000 have not died; 58,000 wives, mothers, sisters have not yet cried.

But why wait until that happens? Why not see every human life as being sacred? Every life is sacred. The men and women who die on the battle field give us their total, and we ought to appreciate that by not jeopardizing it for goals that are questionable.

This is a war that should never have been. This is a war that does not have much to do with fighting terrorism.

Yes, Saddam Hussein is gone. He is out of office now, and that is a great benefit for the world, as well as the people of Iraq, but is the price worth it? Are we not paying too great a price just to get rid of Saddam Hussein?

We were never told that was just the objective. We were told it was a question of weapons of mass destruction, and it was a question of Iraq operating in concert with the al Qaeda terrorists. We were told that there were stockpiles of chemical weapons. We were told other reasons other than just getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein is gone. The price is too high. We are paying financially more than $1 billion a week to keep the war in Iraq going. We are building schools in Iraq while we are denying construction funds to school districts here in America. We are doing a lot of other things in Iraq which drain money away from badly needed programs here, despite the fact that Iraq has oil deposits which should be able to pay the cost of any rebuilding of Iraq eventually.

So what do we do at this point? Do not ask us to keep begging our troops to remain loyal and steadfast and sacrifice their lives unless you have an exit strategy, a reason for it. We do not want to see 58,000 die.

Our Vietnam memorial wall is one of the greatest monuments of its kind. It does not celebrate one general or a handful who led the war. It celebrates and makes us remember every individual who died. All of our war memorials in the future should do that. Every individual gave their life for their country, for the cause. Regardless of what you think of the cause, they, as individuals, are heroes. We do not want another memorial wall of heroes unless it is absolutely necessary.

Vietnam turned out not to be necessary. The domino theory was not correct. We lost Vietnam, and we still won the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We still won the Cold War with the Soviet Union. We did not go on from Vietnam to other areas.

We have a great affinity and alliance with Communist China right now, which baffles me. Why are we so kind to accommodate China and have so many business dealings with them if we fought and died in Vietnam to keep communism from extending itself across the world?

So my plea is that let us understand the lessons of Vietnam without having first to see 58,000 die. Fifty-eight thousand should not have to die for us to understand that we need to work backwards and understand that eventually we are going to settle this war in Iraq like we settled the complex war in Vietnam.

There was an argument about what the shape of the table would be. Let us look at the same table they used in Vietnam, and let us begin right now to negotiate backwards exactly what our terms are going to be and how we are going to get out and maintain law and order. And I am in favor of maintaining law and order until we do have a strategy and exit that can leave the people of Iraq in better shape than we found them.

Let us do it now. Let us share that plan with Members of Congress. Let us share that plan with the public. Let us share power with all of the members of the United Nations Security Council and all the members of NATO. Let us challenge them to come forward and help us bring it into this. We need more troops. Let them come from Russia, let them come from China, let them come from France, let them come from Germany, but give them the power to help make decisions and exit from Iraq before we have 58,000 of our loyal soldiers die.

Mr. Speaker, the execution of democracy in Haiti exposes the warped character of the White House on a scale that the public can find intellectually palatable. The ``shock and awe'' employed in Haiti is easy for ordinary Americans to understand. Haiti is a tiny and violent pre-emptive strike which has a significance far beyond its size. The administration's racist and open contempt for the democratic government of Haiti is the first and most visible atrocity. While the United States is spending billions to establish democracy in Iraq, it refused to deploy a few platoons of troops to protect the government headquarters in Haiti. On the contrary the terrorists who attacked the democratically elected president of Haiti were obviously equipped with modern combat weapons that could have come only from the United States. Further complicity of the administration can be documented through the identification of criminals in charge who have served in the past as CIA assets. The intimidation and pressure employed to eject President Aristide and the blanket denial of Haitian refugees any chance to plead their cases for political asylum are two additional outrages which further illuminate the savagery of the selective and racist foreign policy initiatives applied to Haiti. Members who find the size, scope, and complexity of the United States invasion of Iraq to be too overwhelming to comprehend should review the simple diplomatic and war crimes involved in the United States sponsored coup in Haiti. Since Haiti has no oil to seize and control the obvious difference in the case of this hemisphere tragedy versus the case in Iraq is that the occupation will be as short and cheap as possible.

The 200-year chronology of Haiti is scarred with the pock marks of intervention: First, Napoleon was defeated by a slave revolt in Haiti. For almost a decade none of the world's nations would recognize the new Black Republic. Several plots were developed to overthrow the Haitian government by slave holding interests in America; however, none were implemented. In the 20th century the United States has occupied Haiti several times to protect an oligarchy of rich families with current close ties to the Republican Party. Despite continuous interference Haiti in the last 10 years has managed to enact a constitution and conduct democratic elections. The Clinton administration's support for Aristide returned Haiti to a path of democracy after the reign of a 3 year military regime. Former Senator Jesse Helms, a close friend of the ruling rich families of Haiti blocked any economic assistance to Haiti thus defeating efforts to restart the economy. An economically strangled Haiti became the victim of mass discontent exploited by the ruling families and their White House allies. With 2 years left to serve in his term Aristide was ousted by a U.S.-sponsored terrorist rebellion. Napoleon's revenge has again prevailed. The following Rap poem summarizes this chronicle of injustice.

Napoleon's Revenge

Blacks made him a military jerk

And Napoleon went berserk;

The dictator's disease rained down

Sprouting in confederate ground;

Harassment of Haiti

Became the white rulers' duty:

Black ambassadors speaking French

Was out-of-place and snooty.

The final revenge by Senator Jesse

Has now turned criminally messy:

Terrorist at Haiti's gate

Financed by camouflaged hate,

And the U.S. refuses to debate

This murder of a tiny State.

White House credibility blood

Is now desperately low,

Spin doctors fail to stem the flow.

Napoleon lost the war

When Haiti captured liberty;

On the moral battlefield of eternity

Colon and Condi

Now confront Aristide,

For 200 years

Napoleon's heirs have made Haiti bleed.

The White House refusal to debate

The murder of this tiny state

May seal our President's fate.

Mr. Chairman, once again the CBC budget makes education the highest priority. We are requesting an increase of $18.5 billion for education funding. The CBC understands that at the heart of our efforts to improve homeland security, at the heart of our efforts for leadership in the world, at the heart of our efforts to improve the economy is education. Everybody always seems to forget that.

The CBC is the only alternative budget, for example, with funds for school construction. This Congress blindly continues to ignore the need for school construction, school modernization, and school repairs.

This administration proposes to spend billions of dollars to build schools in Iraq, while it has placed zero in the budget to build public schools here in America. Nearly every Member of Congress has one outrageous situation in their district, at least, where there is a great obvious need for school repair, school modernization, or school construction; every Member beyond the Congressional Black Caucus members.

There is a lot of hypocrisy in the Republican position on school construction. There is an argument that the Federal Government should not be involved in school construction. On the other hand, there is some money in this budget for the construction of charter schools. Charter schools are an exception because, ideologically, this administration agrees with that.

So I urge my colleagues to vote for the Congressional Black Caucus budget because it is the only budget which understands that for homeland security and for all we want to do in America, education must come first.

Mr. Chairman, I rise against this budget because while this administration is proposing to spend billions of dollars to build schools in Iraq, there is zero in this budget for school construction for the public schools in America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to strongly condemn and denounce this cynical resolution which seeks members of Congress to once more endorse the needless war against Iraq. The world is certainly not safer now than it was before the attack on Iraq. Indeed, just the opposite is true. We are bogged down in a war at the wrong place which drains dollars, manpower and creative decision-making energy from our government. This administration has placed our nation in a deadly vise that blocks us from a more effective pursuit of terrorism. Let me just cite one critical example: Pakistan! We are losing our long-term ally, Pakistan, as a result of blatant neglect. The one Islamic nation which clearly has ``weapons of mass destruction'' has received low priority and second class treatment from our government. Even after the President of Pakistan chose to take great risks to assist in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. offered this nation an economic assistance package of less than one billion dollars. At the same time this administration was offering Turkey several billion dollars merely to allow our troops to pass through on their way to Iraq. Pakistan also has a population of more than 150 million people while Iraq only has 25 million people. Nevertheless we are proposing 27 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq while offering the loyal ally, Pakistan, less than one billion dollars.

Mr. Speaker, we are losing our most valuable ally in the war against terrorism because we are obsessed with Iraq. Because I have a large Pakistani-American community in my District I was invited to visit Pakistan 2 years ago. Everywhere there was obviously admiration for America; however, everywhere there was also disappointment and bitterness with respect to the treatment of Pakistan by successive U.S. governments. In the end there is a feeling that their nuclear weapons program is the only way they can command the appropriate attention from the U.S.

Be assured that no high school sophomore is expected to believe that the sale of Pakistan's nuclear secrets to other nations was a crime committed by one super scientist acting without the assistance of the government. These deadly sales to North Korea and other rogue nations represent defiance and revenge expressed by a nation that deems itself to have been grossly mistreated.

Emergency diplomatic and economic assistance are needed to save Pakistan from becoming a Taliban victim or an overt enemy. Loyalties in the nation are now almost evenly divided and the present government is walking on a very thin line. Diverting just a quarter of the economic assistance approved for Iraq to Pakistan would send a meaningful message to our long-term ally. Who is losing Pakistan? The Iraq obsessed White House is losing Pakistan.

Problems in Iraq are impacting on all types and levels of decision- making in Washington. We have been forced into a hardship budget for domestic programs. While there is no Federal aid for public school construction here at home, we are spending billions to build schools in Iraq. While fifty percent of the Black males in New York City are unemployed, billions of dollars are being spent to provide jobs to Iraqi men. There is a possibility that the bitterness and desperation which is the fertilizer for terrorism will create a unique incubator in America.

Is the world better off since we ventured into oil rich Iraq? Are Americans safer? Is the war against terrorism being conducted effectively? The answer to all of these questions is no. Should we pass this resolution which pretends to honor the troops but has been concocted to ambush legislators into stating that they endorse the war in Iraq? The answer is no.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for having this Special Order at this critical moment in the history of Haiti and world relations.

First, I would like to salute Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Father of Democracy in Haiti. In all the years Haiti has existed, it has never had a democracy. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected democratically in 1991. He was deposed by a coup d'etat by the army. He was here in this capital for 3 years.

He went back after the Congressional Black Caucus urged President Clinton and worked very closely with President Clinton to restore democracy to Haiti. He went back, and he gave up the fact that he had missed 3 years. He did not insist on serving 5 years, he just completed the term, 2 years. Like George Washington, he stepped down in order to guarantee there would be a constitutional process going on, just as George Washington stepped down. He stepped down and there was another president for 5 years, and then Aristide came back. He was reelected later on for another 5-year term.

It is important for people to know that Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not in charge of Haiti for all these years that you hear talked about, especially the year that the parliamentary elections were questioned. The parliamentary elections that were questioned were held and the irregularities that were charged, which involved six out of 100-some people elected, those irregularities were charged during a period when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was not in power. It is important to get the chronology straight.

There are many people who say that Jean-Bertrand Aristide has only one fault, and some of us might have a tendency to want to agree with that, and the fault is he is not a seasoned politician. He came out of the priesthood. He was a priest. He was almost murdered three times before he was elected president.

This priest, who some say is an inept politician, also was able to maintain influence, to maintain a following for all the years that have gone on since he was first elected. While he was out of office, he had influence and had a following. Does that sound like somebody who is inept and not a person who knows how to organize people?

He has been accused of being a ruthless dictator. I have been trying to find out what the basis of that charge is. What ruthless dictator do we know who would disband his army? What ruthless dictator would not want an army?

One of the most important things that Jean-Bertrand Aristide did when he went back after being deposed by the army was to abolish the army. The army of Haiti has been in charge ever since the United States created the army.

Most people do not know the United States Marines created the army of Haiti. In their long occupation of more than 30 years, they built the Haitian army. After they left, whenever there was somebody not liked by the rich governing families, the oligarchy of Haiti, whenever there was somebody not liked by the United States, the army was used to remove them. He got rid of the army. What ruthless dictator would get rid of the army?

I just want to say that this democratically elected president, this very unusual person of a magnitude you do not see in politics usually, who is accused of so many crimes in general, but when you start asking people specifically what he did, nobody ever has an answer.

Did he go all over the world shopping, like Baby Doc Duvalier and his wife, spending $1 million on a weekend? Did he have palaces built like Saddam Hussein while the population starved? Where is the personal use of government funds to be seen? Nobody can tell me specifically any of that.

But what I do know is because of his antipathy toward violence, because he understood the long history of Haiti and did not have an army, he has been taken advantage of by terrorists. Terrorists. If you look at the fact, this is

a group of terrorists that has taken over Haiti. Terrorists.

Now, we have varying degrees of suspicion about to what degree our own government was involved. We do know certain individuals well known to our government who have cooperated with the CIA in the past have shown up among these terrorists. We do know that they had modern weapons, United States weapons, machine guns, grenade launchers and so forth, that are not made in Haiti.

We do know that our government said to Aristide, we will not accept your agreement. Aristide agreed to the CARICOM agreement, and our government would not support the legitimate government of Haiti, and say, well, you agreed, therefore we will step in and protect you from the violence until there is some kind of settlement. No. They said to Aristide as long as the opposition, as they called it, do not agree, we will not get involved in trying to guarantee the safety of your government.

They empowered the terrorists. Whatever else they did not do, whatever other lack of complicity there is, there is the open complicity of the United States Government in empowering the terrorists, making them equal to Aristide, saying unless they agree, you have a doomed government.

Beyond our own United States of America, the international community went along with all that, unfortunately.

There is a lesson, unfortunately, here, for all the Caribbean nations of this hemisphere and for small nations throughout the world. There is no more gunboat diplomacy. There will not be any obvious takeover that the United Nations can object to, but look forward to a new kind of takeover process; and that is the process with the use of terrorists.

Evidently, some people think there are good terrorists and bad terrorists; there are terrorists you can use and terrorists you have to worry about. But I say that Haiti is a victim of terrorism, and we should bear that in mind as we start sifting out the facts. As we go to our hearings, as we call into account our own elected officials and our appointed officials connected with this, let us remember to ask the question, have we acted in complicity with terrorists?

I thank the gentleman very much for yielding to me, and again congratulate him on this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 o'clock and 50 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, March 3, 2004, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to join my colleagues in this vital discussion on Haiti. I want to first pay tribute, proper tribute to the people who are on the Haitian Task Force who have kept the caucus position going. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), and a few others have established a firm record of negotiations and letter-writing and they have allowed us to make a paper trail and a record of consideration and compromise that brings us to the point where we are today, and all that has been done, and now it is time for action.

Today, we decided to take action after being frustrated in numerous meetings where nothing was accomplished. We asked for a meeting with the President of the United States. We asked for a meeting with the President of the United States, and I stand here as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who must admit I was more surprised than anybody else that we finally got the meeting with the President of the United States. It took some drama. We were sitting there talking to two of the President's representatives for an hour before finally he agreed to meet with us, and I will not go into all of that. I will not also go into the background of what is happening presently in Haiti unnecessarily.

I have two items I will submit for the Record at this point. One is a press release that I issued today, February 25, and also a letter to Colin Powell which I sent on February 19.

Owens Pleads for French Emergency Action to Save Democracy in Haiti

In response to the dangerous escalation of the violence

driven by a thug army in Haiti Congressman Major Owens

offered the following motion at a Wednesday (February 25th)

meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus: ``To halt the

escalating violence and the possible assassination of

democracy in Haiti all of the members of the Congressional

Black Caucus should immediately go to the French Embassy in

Washington to plead for the dispatch of French forces to

protect the government and the democratically elected

President of Haiti.''

``This White House and its agents are like Pontius Pilate

pretending to wash their hands while the democratic nation of

Haiti is assassinated,'' proclaimed Owens in a speech on the

floor of the House of Representatives on February 24, 2004.

The Congressman from Brooklyn, which has a large community

of Haitian Americans further charged: ``At least one former

CIA asset has been identified as a leader of the band of

savage guerrillas. The people of the United States must turn

their backs on this conspiracy and demand that the democratic

nation of Haiti, the democratic government, the duly-elected

President of Haiti be supported by the United States

Government and that Aristide be allowed to serve out his next

2 years without any compromise with bands of thugs in the

street.''

In a letter sent last week to Secretary of State, Colin

Powell, Owens insisted that: ``History will hold the United

States accountable for the situation in Haiti! Years of

hostile U.S. policy with regard to Haiti has brought about

the current political crisis and deteriorating economic and

social conditions there.''

The Congressman, who from 1991 to 1995, served as Chairman

of the CBC Task Force on Haiti, is applauding other current

actions being taken by the CBC: A demand for a meeting with

President Bush; a CBC Delegation trip on Haiti on Friday,

February 27th; a demand for a second meeting with CIA and

U.S. State Department representatives; and united actions

with students and other Haitian support groups.