Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate a constituent of my district, Tyler Hamilton, who won the gold medal in the Men's Cycling Time Trials in Athens last month. Tyler finished the time trials with a time of 57 minutes and 37.74 seconds.

Many of you in this chamber may remember Tyler in last year's Tour de France, when he finished fourth after he broke his collarbone in the first stage of the race. However, Tyler's athletic career did not begin with cycling. He began skiing competitively with the University of Colorado ski team in the early 1990s. However, after a mountain biking injury ended his ability to continue to ski competitively he turned to cycling. Within a year Tyler became the NCAA cycling champion. He has continued to compete in a series of stage and one-day races, including becoming the first American to win the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, an annual 165 mile race held in Belgium.

Tyler is also actively involved with the Tyler Hamilton Foundation which works with the National Multiples Sclerosis Society and Junior Cycling. His foundation helps to provide care management for people affected by MS as well as promotes ways for people with MS to relieve social isolation and provides tools to live a fulfilling life while living with the disease.

Tyler is also working to promote the sport of cycling in the United States so that young aspiring cyclists can make it over the many hurdles to reach success in the sport. His foundation is working to broaden exposure to the sport of cyclists and expand organized cycling for the youth of America.

Tyler has made more than just a name for himself in the cycling world; he has made a name for the sport of cycling in the United States. I am sure I join many people in our

Nation as I express pride and appreciation for all Tyler has done for the sport of cycling and particularly his admirable representation of our nation in the 2004 Summer Olympics Games.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor one of my constituents, Dede Barry of Boulder, Colorado. Dede represented our country in the Summer Olympic Games in Greece last month. While there she won the silver medal in the Women's Cycling Time Trials, a 14.9 mile road race, with a finishing time of 31 minutes and 35.62 seconds.

Dede at a young age showed talent as an athlete not only in cycling but speed skating, which was her first sport. At the age of 13 she qualified for the Junior National Team in speed skating. As part of her cross training she began cycling in the summer and eventually competing during the summer when she was not skating. In 1989, she won the Junior World Cycling Championships.

Eventually she chose to focus strictly on cycling. Since that time she has won two gold medals at the Pan American Games, two world championship medals and six national championship titles. By winning the silver medal in Women's Cycling Time Trials she became only the fourth road cycling medal won by an American woman cyclist.

The sport of cycling has recently received increase exposure to the American public. However, most of that exposure has been in Men's cycling. Dede's silver medal win has opened doors to increase exposure to women's cycling and encouraging young girls to take up the sport.

Again, I would like to congratulate Dede on her silver medal and thank her for so proudly representing our Nation and the State of Colorado in the Olympic Games.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to join in support of this resolution.

The resolution notes that the National Museum of the American Indian Act (20 U.S.C. 808 et seq.) established within the Smithsonian Institution the National Museum of the American Indian and authorized the construction of a facility to house the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in the District of Columbia. It points out this will be the only national museum devoted exclusively to the history and art of cultures indigenous to the Americas, and will give all Americans the opportunity to learn of the cultural legacy, historic grandeur, and contemporary culture of Native Americans. And it officially recognizes that the new museum officially opens today.

By its passage, Congress--

(1) recognizes the important and unique contribution of Native Americans to the cultural legacy of the United States, both in the past and currently;

(2) honors the cultural achievements of all Native Americans;

(3) celebrates the official opening of the National Museum of the American Indian; and

(4) requests the President to issue a proclamation encouraging all Americans to take advantage of the resources of the National Museum of the American Indian to learn about the history and culture of Native Americans.

Mr. Speaker, this day has been a long time coming--and passage of this resolution will make clear that it is all the more welcomed by all Americans. The resolution comes to us from the Senate, where it was introduced by Colorado's senior Senator, Ben Nighthorse Campbell.

Senator Campbell deserves our thanks, not only for this resolution but even more for his leadership in making this day a reality. He has earned the praise extended in two editorials that I am attaching for the information of our colleagues;

[From the Rocky Mountain News Sept. 21, 2004]

Campbell's Legacy

Kudos to Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell for helping create

the Smithsonian's spectacular new National Museum of the

American Indian, which celebrates its grand opening today on

the Washington Mall.

While serving in the U.S. House 15 years ago, Campbell was

asked to be a prime sponsor of the bill that authorized the

museum. He was more than willing, but on one condition: the

Smithsonian must first agree to return the remains of about

18,500 Native Americans to their tribes for burial, and other

museums nationwide must do the same.

The museums resisted, but Campbell prevailed.

He also helped procure the $214 million needed to build the

museum and fill it with artifacts. He deserves the place of

honor he will enjoy at today's ceremonies.

Mr. Speaker, I think this bill is well- intentioned but I must reluctantly oppose it because I think it goes further than it should and because the House will have no opportunity to consider amendments that would narrow its scope.

As it stands, the bill would not only prevent lawsuits related to personal injuries, but also evidently would apply to complains that rules adopted by these organizations unfairly discriminate against women or otherwise violate civil rights protected by the constitution or by federal laws.

That this is a real possibility is made clear by the Judiciary Committee's report, which notes that ``To further clarify that this legislation only applies to a limited category of claims that arise out of activities on the field in sanctioned athletic competitions, an amendment may be added to this legislation before House floor action to further clarify that the liability relief is not intended to apply to civil rights and discrimination cases that challenge eligibility rules set by such organizations.''

Unfortunately, no such clarifying change was included--and now the bill is being considered under a procedure that prevents the House from considering any amendment.

I also am concerned that the bill as it stands might also inadvertently protect individuals who could potentially harm children. During the Judiciary Committee markup, Representative Lofgren remarked that if a poor hiring rule was in place that did not screen out pedophiles, parents would be barred from suing the athletic association regarding that rule. Here again I think it would have been better for the House to be able to at least consider an amendment to address this point.

Because of these problems, and because the only choice before us is to approve or disapprove the bill as it stands, I will vote against this measure in the hope that it can be reconsidered under a procedure that permits more extensive debate and consideration of amendments.

Mr. Speaker, a week from today, the Boulder laboratories of the National Institute of Standards and Technology will celebrate their 50th anniversary. I rise today to honor NIST and its employees on this important occasion.

It wasn't long ago that we celebrated the centennial of NIST's founding, which Congress marked with the passage of a resolution that Representative Morella and I sponsored.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology was chartered by Congress on March 3, 1901 as the federal government's first physical science research laboratory. Scientists, engineers, and industrialists first advocated the establishment of a standards laboratory, pointing to the new challenges facing the U.S. as a rapidly industrializing world power.

Today, I'd like to draw attention to the work of NIST's laboratories in Boulder, Colorado, in my district.

In 1950, to address the lack of laboratory space, NIST established a cryogenic engineering laboratory and radio facilities on land donated by citizens of Boulder. NIST's Boulder facilities were expanded in the mid 1960s, when NIST and the University of Colorado (CU) joined forces to create the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA), a cooperative effort that has gained widespread recognition in atomic physics and other fields.

The partnership between NIST and CU has led to some amazing discoveries. Beginning in the 1970s, the discipline of cooling and trapping atoms was established in part by experiments with electrically charged atoms by researchers at NIST's Boulder campus. This work inspired Dr. William Phillips and his team to demonstrate both the trapping and the cooling of atoms well below the temperature limits generally believed possible. Dr. Phillips was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 for this work.

In 1995, using these same techniques of laser cooling and trapping of atoms, scientists at JILA--NIST's Eric Cornell and CU's Carl Wieman-- cooled rubidium atoms to less than 1 millionth of a degree above absolute zero. This was 300 times lower in temperature than ever achieved before and created a new state of matter predicted decades ago by Albert Einstein and Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. The Bose- Einstein condensate is widely hailed as one of the century's major achievements in physics, and has been honored with several internationally prestigious awards.

All of this research has enabled the design and construction of one of the world's most accurate clocks, NIST F-1, which is used by NIST (in cooperation with the Naval Observatory) to maintain the nation's time standard. The NIST-F1 is so accurate that it will neither gain nor lose a second in 20 million years! It is approximately three times more accurate than NIST-7, the previous time piece for the nation. This precise time information is needed by such users as electric power companies, radio and television stations, telephone companies, air traffic control systems, the Global Positioning System, participants in space exploration, the Internet, and navigators of ships and planes-- all of whom need to compare their own timing equipment to a reliable, internationally recognized standard, which NIST provides.

I'd also like to mention an interesting tale of ``technology transfer'' that has resulted from the time and frequency research in NIST's Boulder laboratories.

In the early 1970s, NIST developed a time distribution system that placed a hidden time code on an unused part of the TV signal. While the system was not implemented, this technology provided the basis for closed captioning. In the following years, several networks, working with NIST, took up the project and developed convenient encoding equipment and improvements to the captioning format. Then in 1980, NIST, the American Broadcasting Company, and the Public Broadcasting System received Emmys from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for this development. Today the Emmy is proudly displayed at

NIST's Boulder laboratories and is a wonderful example of federal research that led to significant commercial spin-offs.

These are just some of the contributions NIST's Boulder laboratories have made to the nation in the half-century of their existence. NIST is poised to contribute to even greater advances in the 21st century. I will continue to call attention to the Boulder labs' contributions and the necessity of upgrading the facilities so that the Boulder scientists can continue to produce top-flight research.

As the attached article from the Daily Camera notes, Washington scientists who were reassigned to the new Boulder labs in 1954 weren't happy about moving to what they thought was a ``scientific Siberia.'' It's remarkable what a difference fifty years can make. It turns out that NIST's arrival triggered a ``scientific renaissance'' that made Boulder the scientific hub it is today.

I am proud to represent the scientific hub of Boulder and all the talented and dedicated scientists and employees who work at NIST, which has rightly been called a ``crown jewel of the U.S. government.'' I would like to express my congratulations again to NIST's Boulder labs for reaching this important half-century mark.

[From the Daily Camera, Aug. 29, 2004]

NIST at 50

federal labs helped turn boulder into tech center

(By Todd Neff)

Half a century ago this Sept. 14, President Dwight D.

Eisenhower stepped before a new $4 million structure south of

Boulder and dedicated the U.S. Department of Commerce's

Boulder Laboratories. It was a landmark day for the city,

then with a population of 20,000, and not just because it was

the first visit to Boulder by a sitting president. The 10,000

people who braved the beating sun that Monday could not have

known the Boulder labs would, over the course of the next 50

years, bring billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the

area. Nor could those present have imagined the role the labs

would play in turning Boulder into a technology center.

The lab's arrival in Boulder was a combination of good

fortune and determined effort. Some of the good fortune was

President Harry Truman's 1949 secret order to stop clustering

major buildings in Washington, D.C., because of the threat of

nuclear attack. Yet the National Bureau of Standards' Central

Radio Propagation Laboratory needed room to grow. That

laboratory, like other NBS labs, had a basic mission that

hasn't changed: Establish the standards that form the basis

of technological development. Without standards, radio

stations would broadcast on one another's turf, manufacturers

would have no means of assessing the quality of materials

such as steel, and time synchronization critical to

communications, navigation and information technology

wouldn't be possible.

As a Daily Camera editorial on Sept. 10, 1954, put it ``Of

all the agencies of the government, the NBS is perhaps the

greatest money-saving organization we have. Its huge cost of

maintenance is offset many times by what it saves the

government, business and the people in money, time and

safety.'' With the Washington, D.C., area out of the

question, NBS sought a small-town location with little radio

noise, a university and a nearby transportation hub. Boulder,

Charlottesville, Va., and Palo Alto, Calif., were the main

contenders. Some of the key effort came from the Boulder

Chamber of Commerce, led by Francis W. Reich. The chamber led

a 1950 cash drive that raised $90,000--about $700,000 in

today's dollars--in two weeks. They used $63,000 to buy 217

acres of pasture to donate to the federal government. Most of

the rest bought the land east of Boulder that's now home to

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. The local money tipped

the scales. Crews broke ground at the Boulder Labs in July

1952, finishing work in the spring of 1954.

It turned out to be a good investment. A 2002 University of

Colorado study projected that the labs would bring $2 billion

in economic benefit to the state between 2001 and 2005--and

$340 million to the city of Boulder alone. About 450

scientists and support staff--some from Washington, other

from local NBS field offices--had moved in by the time

Eisenhower rode up the Boulder Turnpike from his summer White

House at Denver's Lowry Air Force Base. Yet those scientists

weren't the first at the site. The Atomic Energy Commission,

in a rush to build hydrogen bombs after the Soviet Union's

successful nuclear tests, wanted a remote location to produce

liquid hydrogen for its Los Alamos labs. It tapped NBS's

Washington, D.C.-based Heat and Power Division to build a

plant to produce liquid hydrogen. The plant began churning

out the super-cold liquid in 1952 that would go into the

world's first hydrogen bomb. When a nuclear scientists

decided atomic bombs didn't need mass volumes of liquid

hydrogen, the operation became the NBS's Cryogenic

Engineering Laboratory in Boulder.

By the Boulder NBS' 10-year anniversary in 1964, it

employed 1,400 people in two major laboratories. One was the

original Central Radio Propagation Laboratory, which tested

radio-wave behavior and developed standards associated with

all sorts of radio transmission and propagation, including

weather radar. The second was the Cryogenics Engineering

Laboratory.

The names have all changed, often in mind-bending ways. For

example, NBS' Central Radio Propagation Laboratory moved to

the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1965, then became the

Environmental Science Services Administration and, in 1970,

the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA,

as it's known today. The same 1965 move created the Institute

for Telecommunication Sciences, which did radio-spectrum

work. Today, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences

labs make up the whole of the National Telecommunications and

Information Administration's presence in Boulder. The

Cyrogenics Engineering Laboratory and a host of additions

remained with the NBS until 1988, when NBS became the

National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST.

Then there were the two NIST joint laboratories with the

University of Colorado at Boulder. The Joint Institute for

Laboratory Astrophysics, or JILA was created in 1962. Its

researchers work in everything from astrophysics to atomic

physics. It was two JILA scientists, Eric Cornell of NIST and

Carl Wieman of CU, who won the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics

for their discovery of Bose-Einstein condensate, a new form

of matter. The CU-NIST Cooperative Institute for Research in

Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, was created in 1967 and

focuses on atmospheric physics. NIST, NOAA and the smaller

NTIA make up today's Boulder labs. Combined, they employ

about 1,800 including full-time government researchers,

visiting researchers and students. About 750 are associated

with NIST, 1,000 with NOAA and 75 with NTIA. Research has

evolved even faster than names.

Bob Kamper, 71 a physicist who started at the labs in 1963

and rose to serve as NIST's director in Boulder from 1982

until his retirement in 1994, described how work evolved in

the Cryogenics Division, where he started.

First it was about liquid hydrogen for the U.S. nuclear-

weapons program. But by the 1960s, superconductivity--in

which certain materials have zero electrical resistance at

extremely low temperatures--was a major research interest.

Expertise in super-cold temperatures also led to work in

metallurgy (metals become brittle when temperatures plummet),

work that eventually became part of today's NIST Materials

Reliability Division. Among its efforts, that division is

investigating the causes of the World Trade Center collapse

after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Efforts to

establish the behavior of fluids at ultra-low temperatures

became part of the NIST Physical and Chemical Properties

Division. Kamper said that division played an important role

in figuring out characteristics for new refrigerants in the

wake of chlorofluorocarbon bans, for example.

Superconductivity-bred expertise in magnetics led to more

advanced superconductor work as well as broad research in

computer-storage devices. NIST's $93 million 2004 budget

includes $29 million from outside sources, such as other

government agencies and technology companies. ``You very much

worked on what people would pay for, which is why I would say

there is very little dead wood,'' Kamper said. He said he

doesn't think the research ethos has changed. ``We were

pretty enthusiastic way back when, and talking to the

youngsters now, I think they still are,'' Kamper said.

``They're very much absorbed in their work.''

John Richardson, 82, arrived in Boulder in 1952 to work in

microwave physics. He moved into the new labs when they

opened in 1954. Richardson said NBS's arrival in Boulder

triggered a ``scientific renaissance,'' strengthening the

University of Colorado, luring the National Center for

Atmospheric Research to the city and fueling technology

companies such as IBM and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

Many Washington scientists reassigned to Boulder in the

early 1950s were ``very anxious about it, because they viewed

Boulder as a scientific Siberia,'' Richardson said. Half the

staff left rather than come to Boulder, said Alan Shapley,

85. Shapley came to Boulder on an NBS scouting mission in the

late 1940s and worked at what became NOAA until his

retirement in 1983. ``There were very few who had ever heard

of Boulder,'' Shapley said. But that changed quickly.

Richardson said he and other Boulder labs researchers taught

as adjunct professors at CU. The NBS presence attracted major

scientific conferences to Boulder, as well, he said.

``Visitors came, saw the climate, saw the quality of life,

and I have no doubt that many were persuaded to locate here,

either individually or in business,'' he said. He calls NIST

a ``crown jewel of the U.S. government.'' ``All our

measurements and all our scientific progress ultimately can

be traced back to NIST,'' Richardson said. ``If there were no

NIST, it would have to be invented.''

Mr. Speaker, it is a cliche to say that there is no perfect legislation. But, to use another cliche, this bill seems to be an exception that proves that rule--because it is not only perfectly unnecessary but also a perfectly bad idea.

The bill seeks to prevent any Federal court--including the U.S. Supreme Court--from deciding ``any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution'' of the part of the ``Defense of Marriage Act'' (DOMA) that says no State is required to give legal recognition to a same-sex relationship that is treated as a marriage under the laws of any other State. It also is intended to prevent any Federal court review of the constitutionality of this bill itself.

That would mean that the State courts alone would have the power and responsibility for interpreting two Federal laws. I cannot support that.

My opposition does not mean I think State court judges are not qualified to decide such questions. I have very high regard for their ability and for the vital role that the States and their courts play in our Federal system.

But I have an even higher regard for the fact that each State is a part of a greater whole--of the United States--which make up one nation, based on the principles of ``liberty and justice for all,'' in the words of the Pledge of Allegiance.

And this bill directly attacks that national unity, seeking to replace it with a system in which each of the 50 State supreme courts would be the final authority on important questions involving relations between the States and between the Legislative and Judicial branches of the Federal Government.

This is not only unnecessary--no court, State or Federal, has ruled on DOMA--but both possibly unconstitutional and definitely dangerous.

I say possibly unconstitutional because the Judiciary Committee's report and today's debate show there are strong disagreements about the constitutionality of the bill, even among Members with much greater legal expertise than I can claim.

But while its constitutionality seems doubtful at best, I have no doubt about the bill's dangers and I am convinced that whether or not it is constitutional, it should be rejected.

In reaching that conclusion, I find myself in agreement with our former colleague, the gentleman from Georgia, Bob Barr.

In a letter of July 19th, Mr. Barr notes the potential for the ``chaotic result'' of ``50 different interpretations reached by State supreme courts, with no possibility of the U.S. Supreme Court reversing any incorrect interpretation'' of the Federal laws involved.

But he then goes on to say that the ``principal problem'' with the bill is even worse: ``H.R. 3313 will needlessly set a dangerous precedent for future Congresses that might want to protect unconstitutional legislation from judicial review. . . . The fundamental protections afforded by the Constitution would be rendered meaningless if others follow the path set by H.R. 3313.''

I completely agree with than analysis. And Mr. Barr and I are not alone in that view. In more or less the same terms, it is echoed by many others, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Legal Momentum, and the Human Rights Campaign.

Of course, this bill does have its supporters, and in fact may attract a majority when we vote today. But if today there is a majority for putting DOMA beyond Federal judicial review, tomorrow there may be a different majority with a different idea of what legislation should be given such status.

Will tomorrow's majority want to protect future gun-control laws from the judges who struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act? Or will they want to prohibit the Federal courts from ruling on such matters as State immunity from certain lawsuits? Or might they seek to reverse Roe v. Wade or some other Supreme Court decision by passing a new law and prohibiting the courts from reviewing it?

None of us can know the answers to those questions, because nobody knows what the future holds. But I am convinced that what we do today could shape the future in ways that could undermine the checks of the balances of the constitution and thus weaken the restraints on legislative power that protect the liberties of all Americans.

And because I think it would be profoundly unwise to risk so much on such a radical experiment, I will vote against this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to note the passing of one of this nation's great cinematic artists, composer Jerry Goldsmith. Mr. Goldsmith died on July 21, 2004 at the age of 75. He leaves behind a distinguished repertoire of outstanding and memorable film scores and television themes that are as recognizable as they are innovative.

Scoring movies and television programs is a vastly underappreciated art form. Too often this music is considered as just another part of things that are popular but are only entertainment, not art. However, his scores, like the work of his colleague film and television composers, are essentially classical music pieces. As such, they should not be dismissed simply because they happen to be associated with films and television shows, which in fact are valid art forms.

As anyone in the entertainment industry can attest, music is an essential and integral part of the final artistic product. It sets appropriate moods and tones and can help make action scenes more thrilling and tense as well as stir the emotions in more quiet interludes. Mr. Goldsmith was a master at the full range of his craft often creating path-breaking and innovative scores.

The sound of his echoing trumpets for the soundtrack of the movie ``Patton'' has so permeated the culture that this music is now synonymous with military leaders. His spooky and menacing chants for the film ``The Omen,'' for which he won the Academy Award, is now standard for horror films. And his experimental use of electronics, woodwinds and percussion helped create the sense of ``other worldliness'' in the film ``Planet of the Apes.'' The fact that these musical themes and many others of his are so widely recognized and copied not only acknowledges his versatility and genius, but also underscores the legitimacy of the scoring craft.

Jerry Goldsmith was born Jerrald Goldsmith on February 10th 1929 in Los Angeles, California. At the beginning of the 1940s, he took piano lessons from Jakob Gimpel and Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco. While attending the University of California, he took classes with Mikols Rozsa, the famed composer of such films as ``Ben-Hur,'' ``Ivanhoe,'' ``El Cid'' and ``Spellbound.''

Mr. Goldsmith started his career at CBS television in the early 1950s as a clerk typist and eventually got assignments composing music for radio plays, and later for television broadcasts. He eventually wrote music for such famous television shows such as ``The Twilight Zone,'' ``Dr. Kildare,'' ``The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,'' ``The Waltons,'' ``Barnaby Jones,'' ``Star Trek: Voyager'' and ``Star Trek: The Next Generation.''

Mr. Goldsmith's first motion picture score was in 1957 for a long forgotten B-western

named ``Black Patch.'' However, his first major recognition as a film composer did not occur until 1962 for his score of the Kirk Douglas film ``Lonely Are the Brave.'' That same year, he got his first Academy Award nomination for the film ``Freud.''

Throughout his career, he became associated with distinguished directors such as the late Franklin J. Schaffner who, with Mr. Goldsmith scoring, made ``Planet Of The Apes,'' ``Patton,'' ``Papillon,'' ``The Boys From Brazil,'' and ``Lionheart.'' He also worked on a number of Paul Verhoeven films including ``Total Recall,'' `Basic Instinct,'' and ``Hollow Man.'' He wrote the scores for director Fred Schepisi films ``The Russia House,' ``Mr. Baseball,'' ``Six Degrees Of Separation,'' and ``I.Q.'' And director Joe Dante gave Mr. Goldsmith the opportunity to show his talents for films like ``Twilight Zone: The Movie,'' ``Gremlins I and II,'' ``Innerspace,'' ``Explorers,'' ``The 'burbs,'' ``Matinee,'' and ``Small Soldiers.''

Mr. Goldsmith received 17 Academy Award nominations for his work starting in 1962 for ``Freud,'' and including his work on films such as ``Chinatown,'' ``Hoosiers,'' ``Basic Instinct,'' ``LA Confidential,'' and finally for his score of the animated ``Mulan'' in 1998. He won four Emmy Awards for his television work and was nominated for five Grammy Awards.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in remembering the life and work of Jerry Goldsmith. He was a national treasure. Although we will no longer get the opportunity to hear new scores from him, his musical legacy will live on in his recordings for generations.

Mr. Speaker, today my fellow colleague from Colorado, Representative Beauprez, and I are introducing a resolution to honor this nation's children and express the desire to mark the first Wednesday in March as National Children's Day.

The resolution expresses the sense of the House of Representatives urging the President to proclaim that the first Wednesday of March each year should be named National Children's Day in honor of the future generations of our country.

The Great Sioux Nation can be used as a role model to lawmakers in America as we debate any bill here on the floor of the House of Representatives. They place a high value on the children of the tribe, as they represent the future of the tribe. When important decisions are being made, the Sioux always discussed what the impact of the decision would be, not on the current generation, or the next generation, but the seventh generation out.

The Sioux Nation placed a priority on the future of the tribe, through its children. I believe that it is important that we, as lawmakers, keep the importance of our future in mind as we make decisions everyday here in Congress.

In that spirit, I believe this legislation is fitting as it honors the importance of our nation's children and the role that we as adults have in the upbringing of a child. Through special attention from the adults in a child's life, that child is more likely to experience success throughout their life. This resolution urges American adults to set aside time throughout the day to support a child in their life or community.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution, and spend some time with a child in their lives.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in reluctant support of this bill.

I support what the bill attempts to preserve. Stock options have been an important way for companies to attract and retain talented workers. Many small, start-up companies--competing for employees with larger firms that can pay more--have been able to offset the advantage of these larger firms by offering stock options to their employees.

I am not opposed to companies electing to expense stock options voluntarily--in fact, I voted for Representative Oxley's amendment today that clarifies the right of those companies to continue to do so. But with so many millions of our workers still depending on these options at a time when we need entrepreneurship and innovation more than ever, I believe that if we are going to require the expensing of options, we have to make sure it is done right.

I am not an accountant, so I don't claim to know what is the ``right'' way to value options. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB)--not Congress--is the appropriate institution to be addressing that question.

I do know, however, that I have heard from constituents, business leaders, and small and large companies alike representing many industry sectors that they are concerned about how FASB's current proposal would value options. One business leader wrote to me that ``the FASB rule in its current form is unworkable, complex, extremely hard for investors to understand--let alone management to certify--and costly to implement.''

I also know that I have heard many concerns expressed about FASB's process in formulating the stock options expensing rule, and many calls for Congress to intervene to prevent FASB's current proposal from taking effect. Many expressing those concerns think that FASB strayed from its own mission to be objective in its decisionmaking.

Mr. Chairman, this has left me and some of my colleagues in a quandary. While requiring the expensing of stock options might be the right course, it is the wrong course if it is done the wrong way. And with FASB moving ahead on its rule, I believe it is important to support this bill to send the message that FASB needs to slow down and work to come up with a standard that has broader support.

So let me be clear that my support for this bill is based less on the bill's provisions than it is on what I believe are the inadequacies of the FASB proposal. A better bill would provide investors with the information they need, but without penalizing the entrepreneurial spirit and employee ownership that stock options make possible. The bill we are considering today does not include these improvements.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support making financial statements more accurate and transparent. But I also strongly believe that companies in Colorado and throughout this country have been able to innovate and contribute to the growth of our economy in part because of the stock option plans they have been able to offer to their employees. We must find the right way to value these options so as not to put this country's workers, their employees, and the economy in jeopardy.

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

I join my colleagues in congratulating the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) for bringing this important resolution to the floor.

As we have heard, 35 years ago today, the Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon, and in that short 8-day mission we accomplished miraculous goals, and that mission has stood to inspire us for many years since.

I am also reminded that on the same date in the 1970s, the Viking Mars Lander, the first time we reached Mars, also in penetrating our solar system, July 20, holds a special significance for us.

As many of my colleagues have mentioned here, we have an opportunity now to rekindle that spirit, and that is certainly the intent, I think, of this resolution, as I look at my good friends from Texas. And I know that Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and Neil Armstrong together would say it is on our shoulders to reinvigorate and lead NASA into this new century. And I look forward, as I stand here today, to working with a bipartisan group in the House with the gentleman from New York (Chairman Boehlert) and the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon), ranking member, with the NASA leadership, with the private sector, and with the public that has shown great interest to ratify a new vision for this century and to put the energy and the resources in place to implement that new vision.

That new vision can, like President Kennedy's challenge in 1961, begin a new age of space exploration, inspire our Nation's youth to pursue math, science and engineering and stimulate our U.S. aerospace industry and underline the fact that we are a great Nation that has shown leadership in many, many sectors, including this important area.

So again I want to join my colleagues in endorsing this very important resolution to honor the men and women who so gallantly have gone into outer space

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this resolution, and I would like to elaborate upon the important issues that are involved in securing Israel and peace in the Middle East.

As a strong supporter of Israel, I believe that Israel has every right to defend itself and that a security fence is an understandable response to three years of terrible suicide bombings and other attacks that Israeli citizens have suffered through.

I also believe it was unfortunate that the issue of the fence was brought to the International Court of Justice at all. But the issue was brought to the ICJ, and the ICJ has now made its non-binding ruling. I am disappointed and puzzled that the opinion of the court does not seem to recognize very real Israeli security concerns. Nor does it tell us how Israel or any other state is supposed to defend itself from non- state threats.

But I'm not certain that passing this resolution today will help to advance the cause of peace. And advancing the cause of peace would go a long way toward restoring our credibility in that part of the world where we need it most. To advance the cause of peace, the resolution might have mentioned the thousands of Palestinians who have also died in the violence of the last three years. To advance the cause of peace, the resolution

might have mentioned that both parties have obligations under the Road Map.

Mr. Speaker, I am suggesting merely that balance is valuable, and that it makes sense to seek points of commonality instead of to focus on those that drive us apart. I hope that the Administration can look beyond the ICJ ruling to pursue more vigorously the peace process that has stalled for too long.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in qualified support of the U.S.-Australia Free Trade agreement.

I support the trade agreement because it will open up markets for American goods and services. Our two countries already have a strong trade relationship--Australia is the ninth largest goods export market for the United States, with total trade close to $28 billion last year. The agreement will only strengthen this relationship further.

Colorado, in particular, stands to gain from the agreement. Australia imported $113 million of goods and services from Colorado last year and is the 12th largest foreign market for Colorado. This agreement will only increase opportunities for Colorado businesses to find new markets for their goods and services.

I support the bill because under the trade agreement, nearly all U.S. exports of manufactured goods will immediately become duty-free. Since manufactured goods currently account for 93% of total U.S. goods exports to Australia, this is significant. In fact, estimates are that the elimination of these tariffs could result in $2 billion per year in increased exports for our U.S. manufacturers.

I am disappointed in provisions in the agreement on beef, but am encouraged that duties are gradually phased out. I am also disappointed in the agreement's provisions on wheat. I know that wheat growers are concerned about potential trade distortions and had urged negotiators to seek reform of the state trading enterprise, the Australian Wheat Board (AWB). Though the agreement doesn't reform the AWB, Australia did agree to work with the U.S. in the WTO to eliminate restrictions on the right of private entities to export agricultural products. This is a step in the right direction.

I am concerned about potential precedents that this trade agreement could create. For instance, the trade agreement requires both countries to enforce their domestic laws on labor and environment. This is acceptable in this treaty, since Australia boasts strong labor and environment laws and good enforcement mechanisms. But this approach isn't acceptable in all agreements. I am disappointed that the Administration didn't apply the U.S.-Jordan agreement model to this agreement by including labor and environment standards within the text of the treaty itself.

I am concerned about the potential precedent of the Administration meddling excessively in the internal affairs of a trading partner. With regard to this treaty, the USTR initially sought substantial changes in Australia's drug-pricing program. Though USTR was not completely successful, the agreement does give U.S. drug companies more say in what drugs are included under Australia's universal drug coverage program. While market access for U.S. goods is important, we shouldn't be in the business of bullying the world and potentially undermining a country's ability to provide prescription drugs to its citizens.

Precedent is also a concern with regard to the agreement's incorporation of the U.S. law that protects the right of drug companies to prevent importation of products on which they own patents. Although this is of no practical concern in this agreement given Australia's own laws prohibiting the export of its subsidized drugs, I hope the Administration doesn't plan to use this trade agreement to reinforce its opposition to imported drugs. I don't understand why the Administration included the patent law provision, and I hope we won't see this in future agreements.

I don't believe that the concerns I have listed outweigh the potential good of the bill, so I will vote in support of it today. It is not perfect, but I believe it represents an agreement that is essentially free and fair. Expanded trade is important to this country and the world, but it will only be beneficial to a broad range of people in our nation and in other nations if it is carefully shaped to include basic standards and protect workers' rights and the environment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend the Lundy Foundation (Colorado) for its work, in partnership with Africa Bridge (Oregon), Godfrey's Children (Tanzania) and the Executive Council of Idweli (Tanzania), in building and operating a Children's Center in Idweli, Tanzania.

Idweli is similar to many rural villages in East Africa in that a significant portion of the population consists of children affected by HIV/AIDS. In fact, more than one-third of Idweli's children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS. As their top priority, the children of Idweli identified building a children's center where orphaned and vulnerable children can feel loved and cared for. The Children's Center has now become a reality. The Center will provide temporary shelter for children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, as well as provide adequate food, healthcare and primary education for orphans and other vulnerable children.

The Idweli Children's Center complex will consist of a small hall with a kitchen, dining room and a space for community gatherings, two dormitories that will provide housing for 48 children and four adults, two lavatories and space for recreation, health care, and education. There is also land available for cultivating vegetables and other crops. Skilled laborers in the village are building the Center by hand. All land used for this complex was donated to the Children's Center by the village of Idweli.

While $70,000 in private funds has been raised for construction and operation of the complex, $81,000 is still needed to complete the project. A matching grant of $35,000 has been pledged, if $50,000 can be raised from other sources. Additionally, grants have been submitted to the Tanzanian government and USAID for matching grants to cover ongoing costs of operating the Center.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is particularly serious in Africa as millions of children and adults are living with the disease without adequate support or resources. I would like to commend British Airways and First Data Western Union Foundation for their support of the project and expression of social responsibility. It is vital that public and private funding from the United States continues in order to slow the spread of this epidemic in Africa, while ensuring those infected with the disease receive proper care.

I would like to praise the Lundy Foundation for its tremendous efforts in East Africa. It has not only financial resources to the project, but also project management and organizational development expertise. Through its work, the Lundy Foundation has been able to support the partnership in managing change, resolving conflict, and encouraging effective communication, as bridges are built between two different cultures.

The Lundy Foundation has achieved a great deal not only in East Africa, but throughout the African continent. I know that the Lundy Foundation will be successful as it continues in its quest to make the world a better place.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have got to tell you I am disappointed with this bill, but I do have to also tell you I support it, because it does more for our manufacturing sector than the administration is doing now. As my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), mentioned, the essence of the bill is a version of legislation I introduced last year, the America Manufacturing Works Act; but unlike my bill, this bill does little more than provide an authorization for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. We could have and should have done so much more, such as authorizing the widely supported ATP program, strengthening the MEP program, which we are discussing now, authorizing an independent study on outsourcing and bolstering our manufacturing workforce education, among many other things.

Still, though, reauthorizing MEP is critical. It is one of the most successful Federal-State partnerships in government; and at a time when our manufacturing base is threatened, it makes no sense to eliminate a program that helps small and mid-sized American manufacturers modernize in order to compete in the demanding global marketplace they face.

Whether for reasons of substance or politics, this administration has finally recognized that eliminating MEP is a bad idea. Now, of course we will not know how sincere they are until we see the proposed funding levels for fiscal year 2006. But today this House has an opportunity to save this important program.

The Chairman, my good friend from New York, mentioned the reauthorization of the funding for NIST core laboratory programs; and this is important because as he knows and we all know, NIST worked to set standards and put measurement activities together to directly support the U.S.'s manufacturing base.

I am troubled, and I know the chairman knows I am, that we have refused to include specific amounts for the construction funding at NIST's Boulder campus, and in the past he has indicated his support for construction funds; and I hope that as we move forward he and I can work together so that such language translates into something meaningful.

In conclusion, as I did say, I support this bill. I believe it is a modest and narrow effort to support this country's manufacturing base. We have much more work to do, but this is a first step; and I urge its passage today.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished leader of the Committee on Rules for yielding me this time, and I rise in opposition to this rule. It makes in order only three of the 10 Democratic amendments offered.

The essence of the bill, as well as many of the amendments offered at the Committee on Rules, were derived from legislation I introduced last year, the American Manufacturing Works Act, a bill that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers) cosponsored before introducing his own bill 4 months later.

It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I must say that I am flattered that so much of the bill we are considering today originated from my bill and from Democratic efforts. But the imitation and flattery stopped during the committee markup, during which it was made clear that amendments not acceptable to the administration would not be viewed favorably. This is despite the fact that the amendments being offered made good policy sense and were endorsed, in many cases, by manufacturing groups, such as the Modernization Forum, which presumably have some knowledge about what the manufacturing sector needs to regain its health.

So along with many others, I offered an amendment that was voted down in the committee. My amendment recognized that one of the most critical elements of our manufacturing competitiveness is to have a technically trained workforce. This amendment would have expanded the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technology Education Program to include the preparation of students for manufacturing jobs.

Now, apparently, the Committee on Rules determined, as the Committee on Science majority already did, that providing training for our workforce is not important. The Committee on Rules also determined that we do not need a study assessing trends related to outsourcing and that we do not need to

authorize the Advanced Technology Program, a program that the chairman, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert), and subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Ehlers), support and that they recommended in testimony before the Appropriations Subcommittee be funded at $169 million.

The committee's decision, Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, seems shortsighted, especially since the manufacturing sector is still suffering. In fact, 11,000 manufacturing jobs were lost last month, for a total of 2.7 million jobs lost over the last 3 years.

Mr. Speaker, as I conclude, it is obvious this rule does not give Members an opportunity to improve the bill. It seems like the majority is more interested in getting the bill's provisions right in order to meet the administration's requirements than they are interested in getting the bill right. So for that reason, Mr. Speaker, I oppose this rule and I urge my colleagues to do the same.