Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I want to thank Congressman Jim Gerlach for his leadership for the entire Nation in protecting suburban green and open space.

Now, we all support the National Park System, and I believe the next President should set a goal of doubling the National Park System. But we also need to take action to protect more green and open space near home.

Without this bill, more green and open space would disappear in an unending series of strip malls. In my own district, we just set aside 77 acres of Lake Michigan shoreline as part of a new park to preserve habitat for all time. But we need to do more.

Under Congressman Gerlach's leadership, this bill became part of our bipartisan suburban agenda to meet the education, health care, conservation and economic needs of suburban families. This bill advances those needs by making sure that we preserve more green and open space in the suburbs.

In my own State of Illinois, we are losing over 41,000 acres of farmland to development, 71 percent in suburban areas. The rate of farmland loss in our State has increased over 130 percent in the 1990s. This bill directly meets that need, and I want to thank Chairman Goodlatte for moving this legislation that makes sure that suburban families have more green and open space near home.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill with Congressman Jim Matheson awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Margaret Thatcher.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the Nation's highest and most distinguished civilian award. First presented to General George Washington in 1776, the Congressional Gold Medal is awarded to individuals who perform outstanding acts of service to the security, prosperity, and national interest of the United States. Margaret Thatcher's distinguished service to the West included helping to win the cold war and reviving the economies of Europe. During her tenure as prime minister, America had no better ally.

Margaret Thatcher was the first female head of state of a Western nation, and the longest serving British prime minister in the 20th century. Soviet leaders called her the ``Iron Lady.'' And so she was in the West's final chapter against the Soviet empire. The end of the cold war was due in no small part to her close partnership with the United States with the shared goal of defeating Eastern European communism.

Margaret Thatcher was a woman of principle and a strong leader. She resurrected a stagnant British political landscape and forever strengthened the Anglo-American relationship. For her unwavering friendship to the United States, I can think of no greater honor than bestowing on her the prestigious Congressional Gold Medal.

I want to thank my good friend Congressman Jim Matheson for being the lead cosponsor of this legislation. I look forward to working with him and my other colleagues on this important initiative.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 461 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Speaker, news reports indicate that there may be an ongoing military coup under way in Thailand against the democratically elected government.

As a new member of the National Endowment for Democracy's board, I think we should take all threats to new democracies very seriously and lay out a clear policy for the United States to follow. We should support the democratic Prime Minister of Thailand. And if military forces succeed, it should be the policy of our State Department to terminate all U.S. assistance to Thailand.

It should be the policy of our Treasury Department to undermine the Bot, the Thai currency; it should be the policy of the Department of Defense to cease all military contact with the Thai military; and it should be the policy of our government in general to undermine military rulers in Thailand and return a democratically elected Prime Minister to office.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution, which condemns the Government of Iran's repression of the Baha'i community. I would like to thank my very good friend, Congressman Tom Lantos, for joining me as the Democratic cosponsor of this important human rights resolution.

The North American Baha'i Temple is located in Wilmette, Illinois, inside my congressional district. It is a magnificent house of worship, gracing Lake Michigan's shoreline.

The Baha'i faith, founded nearly 150 years ago on principles of peace and tolerance, is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. Yet since the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Government of Iran has intensified a deliberate campaign of discrimination, harassment, detention, arrest and imprisonment against the 300,000 members of the Iranian Baha'i community.

The plight of the Iranian Baha'is has significantly deteriorated during the last year. On March 20 of this year, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief revealed the existence of a confidential letter by the chairman of the Command Headquarters of Iran's armed services to Iran's intelligence services, military and police. In this letter, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini instructed Command Headquarters to identify all Baha'is and collect any and all information on their activities and addresses.

Our Anti-Defamation League recently compared this secret letter to steps taken against the Jews in Europe in the 1930s, and yet the secret order has not happened in isolation.

Over the past 18 months, Iranian security forces have begun imprisoning Baha'is without charges, and Baha'i youth in Iran have been denied access to university.

Further, since October of 2005, there has been a campaign of vilification against Baha'is in Kayhan, the government-sponsored press.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom recently released in its 2006 annual report citing numerous egregious human rights violations committed by Iranian Government officials against Baha'is in Iran. The report says that, ``In the past year, dozens of Baha'is were arrested, detained, interrogated and subsequently released after, in some cases, weeks or months in detention. Charges typically ranged from `causing anxiety in the minds of the public and of officials' or `spreading propaganda against the regime.' ''

Clearly detentions based on claims of causing anxiety or spreading propaganda show a growing weakness in the Iranian regime.

That Congress is considering this resolution today is particularly significant. The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address the United Nations General Assembly today to call for all developing countries to join him in confronting the West. It is incumbent on Congress to reveal the real truth about this Iranian leader. We must demonstrate to the international community that while Iran's President has become a ruthless dictator who espouses hatred, discrimination and tyranny, the United States is standing for liberty and toleration and human rights and freedom, especially for Baha'is in Iran.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and I would like to thank our ranking member Congressman Lantos for his friendship and support on this measure, a tireless advocate, a Holocaust survivor, a man who knows when the authorities call for the names and addresses of a particular minority what the next step is.

We have seen this before, and I want to particularly thank Chairman Hyde and Chairwoman Ros-Lehtinen for their strong support, upon whom this resolution would not be coming to the floor on this crucial day in which the Iranian dictator speaks before the United Nations.

Finally, I would also like to thank Kit Bigelow and Aaron Emmel from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of the United States for their dedication to their afflicted coreligionists inside Iran.

I thank the gentleman. Columbine High School, Colorado. East High School, Green Bay. Hubbard Wood School in Winnetka. Each of these schools bore witness to an attack or an attempted attack using a gun in school. I served as a teacher, and I remember the kids who were the brightest lights of our country's future, and I also remember those who bore scrutiny as people who might bring a gun to class. Americans have the right to send their kids to safe, gun-free classrooms. Just last week, alert school officials foiled a Columbine-style attack on a Green Bay school. In my district, we were not so lucky in Winnetka. There, an attacker shot and killed a child and wounded five others in class. Jeffrey Phillips of my own staff was a first grader in that school on that day.

I spoke with a number of fellow teachers who say they hesitate before searching a child. Dan Larsen and Andrew Conneen, teachers at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, told me that teachers many times hesitate before searching a book bag for a gun. They worry about being punished; they worried about being sued. This bill reassures teachers that they have the power to search any minor child to make sure that their classroom remains gun free. And the Nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association, strongly endorsed this bill.

Like all other American workers, teachers deserve to work in a safe, drug-free, and gun-free workplace. Diane Shust and Randall Moody of the NEA wrote: ``On behalf of the 3.2 million members of the NEA, we would like to commend you for introducing the Student and Teacher Safety Act. H.R. 5295 will help promote a safe school environment.''

The National Education Association knows that there is nothing more important than the safety of children and teachers who have dedicated their lives to education. Let common sense prevail. This bill puts teachers back in charge and makes classrooms safer. If this bill helps one teacher stop one Columbine massacre, then Congress today will have served the Nation well and protected its children. I urge Members to support this bill so strongly backed by the National Education Association.

Madam Chairman, I rise today in strong support in H.R. 503, which would prohibit the slaughtering of horses for human consumption. Last year more than 90,000 American horses were slaughtered in this country by three foreign-owned plants. Horse meat is

not eaten in the United States, but it has been exported to overseas markets, such as France, Belgium, Japan and Italy. Animals deserve to be treated humanely, and I do not support this industry.

This Congress made its opposition to horse slaughter clear in the Agriculture Appropriations Bill for fiscal year 2006. I supported an amendment introduced by Representative Sweeney and Representative Whitfield that would have essentially tied the hands of the horse slaughter industry. Unfortunately the language approved by both the House and Senate, which had the clear intention of ending this industry, was altered in conference and allowed the slaughtering of horses to continue.

H.R. 503 would permanently shut down this inhumane practice. This legislation has wide bipartisan support in the House as well as extensive backing from the animal welfare community. I want to specifically thank Representative Sweeney and Representative Whitfield for their hard work and leadership on this important issue.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation because it will dramatically improve civilian health care, the way this technology has already done for veterans across America. When Katrina hit New Orleans, many civilian hospital record rooms were wiped out, including the medical history of thousands.

Meanwhile, American veterans already had fully electronic medical records, and their medical histories were seamlessly transmitted to other VA hospitals in Baton Rouge or Houston for complete care.

There is a reason why Senator Clinton and Speaker Gingrich both so strongly support a full deployment of electronic medical records. They reduce medical errors and improve care as they already have demonstrated to do so heavily in the VA.

Our Federal law already sanctions any violation of medical privacy with up to 10 years in jail and $250,000 fines.

This legislation is the third part of our suburban agenda, commonsense reforms to improve the health care for all American patients.

Mr. Speaker, to respond to my Democratic colleague, I agree with her that parents cannot be with their children all of the time, but sexual predators should not be with the children at any time, and that is the principle by which this legislation stands. Americans have a right to send their children to safe schools and libraries.

In Lake County, Illinois, we have seen what can happen when Internet predators make contact with children. Last October, Joseph Caprigno molested a 14-year-old boy that he met on the Internet. Caprigno, a 40- year-old man, arranged to meet the boy in a 7-11 parking lot through an Internet chat room.

In January, a 20-year-old man, Michael Zbonski, molested a 16-year- old he met on MySpace.com. Frighteningly, he not only communicated with this girl for 2 years via MySpace, he also admitted to sexual relationships with one of the victim's underage friends.

The Deleting Online Predators Act is a commonsense piece of legislation that empowers parents to play a more active role in their children's activities online. This bill calls on the Federal Trade Commission to issue consumer alerts and to establish a unique Web site to better educate parents as to the dangers posed from Internet predators. Parents are the first and most important line of defense against these predators, but it is imperative to arm them with timely and accurate information to protect their children.

This bill also requires schools to prevent children from accessing social networking sites and chat rooms unless they are doing so for legitimate educational purposes under adult supervision. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars across America in locking school doors and controlling the access to children. This bill takes the commonsense step to make sure that predators cannot sneak in through the library computer.

Our legislation also requires public libraries to provide the same levels of protection to children. I believe this is an entirely appropriate action to help parents determine where their children go and what they do online. It seems foolish for the taxpayer to subsidize what amounts to a loophole that sexual predators can exploit.

Mr. Speaker, Lake County offers one other case that plainly demonstrates the need for this legislation. The Lake County State's Attorney recently filed aggravated criminal sexual abuse charges against two teachers who were accused of soliciting and arranging to molest underage students at a school where they were taught. Jason Glick and James Lobitz didn't just molest two underage students, they arranged to do so using school-owned computer equipment and resources during school hours. The cases against Jason Glick and James Lobitz are still pending, but by passing this bill today we send a message to parents that we will close every loophole sexual predators will use to roam the virtual halls at school.

Mr. Speaker, this is the second suburban agenda bill to pass the House. Tomorrow, Representative Jon Porter's bill will become law, allowing schools to check national felon databases before hiring a coach or a teacher. Tomorrow, we will take up a third suburban agenda item, accelerating the deployment of fully electronic medical records for all Americans.

Mr. Speaker, by tomorrow night, half of the suburban agenda legislation will have passed the House of Representatives. But today I want to thank Chairman Barton, Chairman Upton, and Congresswoman Melissa Bean for their help on a bipartisan basis in supporting this legislation. I also want to thank Howard Waltzman of the committee staff for his invaluable assistance. But, most importantly, I want to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fitzpatrick) for becoming an outstanding leader of protecting American children from online predators.

Mr. Speaker, I will just say, also, this legislation responds to a

rapidly growing phenomenon in America. Over 25 million American children have their personal data on these sites. These sites are now the number one sites on the Internet, and we are applying a tried and true principle of our jurisprudence, now 800 years old, that when you make money off of children, as these sites do, we have always recognized a higher duty of care in the protection of children, and that is the principle that this legislation stands for.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of turn.

Mr. Speaker, the Nation has been focused on the war declared by Hezbollah against Israel this past week. And while most of the media focused on stories of the conflict in Israel or Lebanon, they have not covered an aspect of the story critical to our fellow citizens, the protection and evacuation of American citizens from this conflict.

On the day that Hezbollah started this war, we estimated that there were over 20,000 Americans in Lebanon.

I want to first commend our ambassador in Lebanon and the U.S. embassy team in Beirut for rapidly assembling the plans and data on the Americans to be saved. The U.S. Government regularly plans and sometimes executes what is called a noncombatant evacuation operation, or NEO in Pentagon parlance, to rescue Americans abroad. The scale of the Lebanese NEO was very, very large. This operation, assembled on very short notice, responded remarkably to a rapidly changing, massive movement of our fellow citizens.

Some of the unsung heroes of the Lebanon NEO are the men and women of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. I want to give special thanks to the crews of the USS Nashville, the USS Trenton, and the USS Whidbey Island. Along with the merchant vessel Orient, the crews of these U.S. navy vessels rescued thousands of Americans from Lebanon over the last several days. The crews of these ships were backed by U.S. Marines flying helicopters to save the people in most urgent need.

I also want to thank the men and women of the U.S. Transportation Command who arranged military airlifts for Americans living in Cyprus, and now Turkey, to complete their trips home to the U.S.A.

We must also note the outstanding contribution of the State of Maryland and its governor, Governor Ehrlich, who welcomed them at Baltimore Washington International Airport.

Mr. Speaker, Dr. John Michael of my district called me from Lebanon to ask for his support. I arranged for his registration and quick contact with the U.S. embassy there. Thanks to the work of the United States Navy, the Marine Corps, the State Department and the Transportation Command, Dr. Michael, his wife Christine and their children, Daniel, Ramson, Edessan and Kamber, all from my district, were caught in Lebanon, but now were rescued by the U.S. military and State Department. But for this operation, they might still be in harm's way, but thanks to the work of these professionals, the men and women of the State Department, Navy and Marine Corps, they are home in the United States.

Mr. Speaker, we have saved over 5,000 Americans to date, and I am told today that the number of Americans seeking to leave Lebanon is now declining. We will soon be the first Nation to use this large logistical effort to begin a massive humanitarian aid lift to support the people of Lebanon itself.

Mr. Speaker, take a moment tonight to thank the young Americans who serve on the Nashville, Whidbey Island and Trenton. Due to their training and professionalism, they were there exactly when thousands of their fellow American citizens needed them to escape from Lebanon.

Mr. Speaker, this House should override the President's veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act.

With regard to medical research, science should triumph over politics. Stem cell research offers the best promise of ending diabetes, Parkinson's, and cancer. Americans strongly support the treatment of disease, but we are passionate about finding cures.

America has won more Nobel Prizes in medicine than all European countries combined. This legislation is needed to maintain U.S. leadership.

Mr. Speaker, the leading candidates for President in our country of both the Republican and Democratic Parties support this bill. In the House the Republican chairmen of our most powerful committees, Rules, Ways and Means, Appropriations, and Energy, all support this bill. In the Senate the Republican majority leader and the Chairs of Armed Services, Commerce, Appropriations, Foreign Relations, and Rules all supported this bill.

At worst, the President's stem cell policy will last only 30 more months and be reversed on January 20, 2009, regardless of who wins the Presidency.

Mr. Speaker, today I am pleased to join with Congressman Lipinski to introduce the Great Lakes Water Protection Act. This bipartisan legislation would set a date certain to end sewage dumping in America's largest supply of fresh water, the Great Lakes. More than 27 million Americans depend on the Great Lakes for their drinking water. We need to put a stop to the poisoning of our water supply. Cities along the Great Lakes must become environmental stewards of our country's most precious freshwater ecosystem.

The Great Lakes Water Protection Act gives cities until 2026 to build the full infrastructure needed to prevent sewage dumping into the Great Lakes. Those who violate EPA sewage dumping regulations after that federal deadline will be subject to fines up to $100,000 for every day they are in violation. These fines will go back into State clean water funds. From there, the funds will be spent on wastewater treatment options, with a special focus on greener solutions such as habitat protection and wetland restoration.

This legislation is sorely needed. Many major cities along the Great Lakes do not have the infrastructure needed to divert sewage overflows during times of heavy rainfall. In 2004, the city of Milwaukee dumped 1.6 billion gallons of sewage into Lake Michigan. Sewage pollutes our waters and poses grave health risks to people exposed to it. It also results in beach closings.

Although there was no direct correlation between Milwaukee's sewage dumping and the closing of Chicago-area beaches in 2004, Cook County beach closings nearly tripled from 213 in 2003 to 613 in 2004. I am particularly concerned over the 150 beach day closings in my congressional district in 2004, the latest year tracked. This trend is echoed throughout the Great Lakes region and is one we need to reverse.

Protecting our Great Lakes is one of my top priorities in the Congress. As an original cosponsor of both the Great Lakes Restoration Act and the Save Our Water from Sewage Act, I favor a broad approach to addressing needs in the region. However, we must also move forward with tailored approaches to fix specific problems as we continue to push for more comprehensive reform. I am proud to introduce this important legislation that addresses a key problem facing our Great Lakes, and hope my colleagues will support me in ensuring that these important resources become free from the threat of sewage pollution.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill that will improve No Child Left Behind (NCLB) implementation while maintaining its important accountability provisions.

NCLB provides a crucial level of accountability for the results of study in the classroom. While this change was welcome on both sides of the aisle, this law did present some technical problems in its ground- breaking measurement and assessment of education achievement. I have worked closely with education specialists at the North Central Education Lab as well as local education professionals as part of my Education Advisory Board to gather data on NCLB implementation. This work resulted in a White paper detailing areas of concern to my local schools, coupled with practical solutions to these problems.

Specifically, this Education Assessment Technical Corrections Act focuses on highly-qualified teacher requirements, determinations of Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), and NCLB sanctions. My legislation maintains NCLB's important accountability provisions while improving implementation of the law in these key areas.

Every child deserves an excellent teacher. Unfortunately, several schools are experiencing difficulty meeting the highly-qualified teacher requirements in certain hard-to-staff areas. Much like rural teachers were given relief through rules, teachers in ``hard to staff'' areas should be granted relief for the highly qualified teacher provision in the form of a two year extension. However, schools must demonstrate that they are working towards full compliance in order to qualify for the extension.

Secondly, I strongly support measuring AYP for students. However, current law does not measure individual student improvement, counts students under multiple sub-groups, and creates discrepancies between NCLB and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. My legislation ensures that students are compared for consecutive years rather than two different classes for the same school year, places equal weight on each student, and clarifies Individualized Education Program status under NCLB. All these changes still maintain accountability measures under NCLB but provide more accurate assessments.

Now that this landmark legislation has been in effect for a few years, it is important we revisit its effects. My bill takes into consideration important practical concerns of my local school boards while staying true to the goals of NCLB. I am proud that this bill reflects the advice and counsel of the North Central Education Lab, my Education Advisory Board and the National Education Association. I want to pay special thanks to Dr. Paul Kimmelman, the chairman of our 10th Congressional district Education Advisory Board, who led much of this work.

Mr. Speaker, the Education Assessment Technical Corrections Act represents a strong bipartisan consensus, backed by school management and unions, to make the job of defining success and education achievement more accurate and useful.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 352 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would like to compliment the manager's amendment on reducing the fiscal impact of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation--a bill the President has said ``would reduce Federal receipts by several hundred billion dollars over the next 60 years.'' As the Statement of Administration Policy put it, the administration strongly opposed key provisions ``because of their long-term consequences on the Federal deficit.''

This bill establishes new entitlement programs--mandatory spending mechanisms that already drive up our deficit. It establishes costly oil shale leases and imposes other expensive charges the Federal budget cannot afford.

I am also worried that the bill sets up the oil and gas industry above all other Federal interests. Under section 16, all Federal permitting is prohibited, despite my other marine or naval concerns. Many of these rigs could be put in sensitive waters with national defense implications. Under this bill, the government can consider no other issue--even for the defense of this Nation.

Section 17 allows lessees to request the Federal Government to repurchase leases.

This is an irresponsible provision that allows a transfer of risk from an energy company to the taxpayer. This is ironic because while the Federal Government is in the red, most energy companies are earnings record profits.

Mr. Chairman, we can have an honest debate about whether we should open the Outer Continental Shelf to energy development but there should be little debate on granting new assistance at the expense of the taxpayer to energy companies who are some of the most profitable entities on earth.

This bill, as it has been written, was a great threat to the Treasury. I want to compliment the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member for the manager's amendment they crafted that dramatically reduces the cost of this bill. This amendment heeds many of the fiscal concerns of the President and reduces that budgetary impact of the proposed legislation. I would now urge the authors to further listen to the President's fiscal guidance.