Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment today to recognize two individuals who exemplify the spirit of entrepreneurship that makes America great.

A father and son team, Currie and Nelson Andrews were recently named 2006 Dealer of the Year Finalists by the American International Automobile Dealers not only for their success managing a dealership but for outstanding contributions to our community as well.

For 25 years, Andrews Cadillac and Land Rover of Nashville, has been part of our community and consistently ranks as one of Nashville's ``Top 100 Privately Owned Businesses.''

Thanks to Currie and Nelson's hard work and commitment to our community, 140 people are employed by their dealership today. We look forward to many more years of community involvement from the Andrews and appreciate the example they set for all aspiring entrepreneurs.

Please join me in congratulating Currie and Nelson for their achievements.

Mr. Speaker, you know the bill on the floor today really should be an easy vote for every single Member of this House. And I think it is important to note that there are those that are a part of the body who keep complaining about high gas prices, but then they are going to turn around and vote against legislation like this repeatedly. As we have brought solutions and action items to the floor, they have chosen to cast a ``no'' vote.

The facts are pretty clear on this. We had 324 refineries in 1981. Today we have 148. We have not built a new refinery in the country since 1976. We have talked about refinery utilization already in this discussion today. It is running confidently over 90 percent and recently as high as 98 percent. That means one more hurricane in a region packed with refineries is a big problem. This is something that we need to recognize; certainly this leadership and this committee does, and we hope other Members do, too. All of these statistics end up meaning higher gas prices for our constituents when they go to the pump.

What will it take for Members across the aisle to do more than just complain? They didn't like the GAS Act last year because of environmental concerns. Now the bill we have on the floor today does not touch those existing environmental rules. All that is spelled out in section 6 of this bill. There are those protections. They are there still. We are not getting cooperation on this issue, and at some point we have to conclude that Members who vote ``no'' over and over repeatedly on energy legislation are simply telling their constituents to get over it and live with higher gas prices.

We have had multiple hearings on the gas prices. We have had multiple hearings on this issue. Our constituents are ready for some action. We have heard from experts in the field that this bill will help. I urge Members to vote in favor of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have all just returned from being in our districts talking with our constituents about the issues that are important to them.

One thing that I have heard over and over in my district, Mr. Speaker, is border security. This is an issue that my constituents and Americans care about. This is an issue where they want to see some action. It is the problem that most of them want to see us address, and they will not accept any sort of amnesty for those who have chosen to enter this country by breaking the law.

We need to secure the border. We need to get a hold on illegal entry into this country. That is the number one priority. And I thank the House leadership for doing the right thing on this issue. Chairman Sensenbrenner has passed a good, solid bill that addresses the problem. The Senate has not. The American people know it.

We look forward to continuing this debate and encouraging all to join in securing the border as our first step toward controlling illegal entry into this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, my friends across the aisle are animated and engaged in this debate, and I commend them for that. But I would like to just offer one thought, and that is, Mr. Speaker, they can't have it both ways. They just can't have it both ways. They can't be against everything that gets put on the table.

One thing we know for certain is that Americans are very, very tired of what they are paying at the pump. Another thing we know for certain is that actions from decades ago have caused the situation that we have before us today. And if we were to say there is a legacy that has been left us by environmental extremists, the high prices at the pump are it.

We don't explore for domestic oil because extremist environmental groups and liberals here in Congress oppose it. We haven't built a new refinery since the 1970s because extremist environmental groups and liberals here in Congress oppose it. The Democratic party is aligned with these groups that have supported having higher prices as a way to discourage oil usage. Their Presidential nominee in 2000, Al Gore, is not shy about praising higher prices for fuels.

Despite these facts, our liberal colleagues are out there slamming Republicans for high gas prices. Well, you know, they can't have it both ways. They have got to be consistent. Well, they are consistent. They are going to be consistent in opposing drilling in ANWR.

So today, we need to do a little setting the record straight and we need to put a little pressure on those that have chosen to stymie domestic exploration. We need to let the American people know that yes, indeed, there is a choice, and that there is indeed a way to lower fuel prices.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that you are yielding the time to us, and we are really pleased to be on the floor tonight to talk about some of the work that we have done over the past few weeks.

Before we start, I do want to say that we are very mindful that this is Memorial Day weekend. We are all looking forward to going home and being with our constituents, and we are very respectful and appreciative of the families who have served our Nation who have given the ultimate sacrifice, and we want to express to those families our continued condolences for their losses, and we also want to express to them our thanks for how they have sacrificed and served and helped to further the cause of freedom.

We would not have the opportunity to stand in this hall, this wonderful People's House tonight, if it were not for the brave men and women who serve in uniform to protect our freedom. Because they are so important to us, we have passed some legislation, the Respect For Fallen Heroes Act, which will preserve the dignity of the men and women who have lost their lives and show respect for those families. That passed this afternoon in this body, and we thank Mr. Rogers of Michigan and Mr. Buyer, who chairs our Veterans Affairs Committee, for their work on those efforts.

Mr. Simmons, the gentleman from Connecticut, and I have filed a bill this week which is the Veterans Identity Theft Protection Act. It is H.R. 5464. This was done in response to the egregious, egregious leak and actions from the Veterans Affairs Department and the employee there who lost the identity information of 26.5 million of our veterans.

We are going to be moving forward on that legislation to protect and try to make right that situation with our veterans when we return. This is something that should not have occurred. It is a failure of the bureaucracy, and it is something that the Members of this House are moving forward to address.

Before we get into talking about our successes in this body, the bills that we have passed, the legislation that we are working hard on for the American people, I want to say a little bit about the immigration legislation. And after we finish our conversation this evening, we are going to finish up with more conversation on the immigration legislation that our friends across the dome in the Senate passed.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have to tell you that the legislation that the other body passed, in my opinion, is a form of amnesty. I have been and remain solidly opposed to amnesty, and I do stand opposed to that legislation that they have passed.

I do continue to support the bill that we passed in the House last fall and sent to the Senate. We know that the Members of this body are going to continue to stand solid that we need to secure our Nation's border first, first and foremost, and regain the trust and confidence of the American people, and make certain that they know that we value, we value, what this Nation stands for and that the sovereignty of this Nation indeed is worth fighting for.

As we talk about where we have concentrated our efforts through the first part of this year, I want to draw attention to a couple of things. We have passed tax relief. We have taken actions and the President signed into law last week the tax reconciliation bill which addressed some of the tax issues, extensions that we had passed previously. We know that there is a second bill that will come within the next few weeks as we address other extensions of tax reductions.

We know that these work. We know that tax reductions work, and we know that this has helped to fuel the economic growth that we are seeing in this country.

We know that the 18 quarters of sustained economic growth are because this economy is robust. We know that the Federal Government doesn't create jobs, it is the free enterprise system that creates these jobs. So, knowing this and realizing this, is the reason that we had the tax relief signed into law last week.

We have also passed a budget, a budget bill that for the second year in a row will put us on the path to deficit reduction. This is so important, Mr. Speaker. It is important for a couple of different reasons, because when we work toward reducing what the Federal Government spends, when we work toward reining in the size of the Federal Government, we know that that helps with our economy. We know that that is a step in the right direction.

You know, one of the things on our economy I do want to mention is that

our first quarter growth has been revised up from 4.8 percent to 5.3 percent, and our unemployment rate is at near historic lows. This is the result of our economic policies and the fiscal policies that we have in this House.

We have taken other action too. Our energy situation in this country, we took action today in this body with looking at where we drill, where we explore, and doing this domestically, looking at the oil supply for this Nation.

I stood here earlier today and said, you know, we can't have it both ways. The liberals can't have it both ways. You can't oppose anything that is to be done on alternative fuels and you can't oppose drilling in ANWR and you can't oppose other forms of power generation and then complain about high gas prices. It just doesn't ring true, and the people know it doesn't ring true.

But we passed legislation in this body to increase our oil supply, to do it domestically, and we are sending it over to the Senate. We know they are going to be on the spot, and we will encourage them to take action. They have to recognize that this is a problem, and we certainly are looking forward to their moving forward on that legislation.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I will yield to the gentleman from Texas, Judge Carter, who has done such a wonderful job being a part of our team that we have as we move forward with the agenda that the American people want to see us working on, working on prosperity, working on our security, being sure that this Nation is productive, that it is safe, and it is secure.

At this time I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. As he said, tax relief works and the actions taken by this body in 2001 and in 2003 going ahead and moving forward again and addressing and extending those tax

reductions, finding AMT relief, looking at dividends for our senior citizens, all of that works. America works well when Americans are in charge.

The free enterprise system works well when small businesses and individuals who have the dream of owning and running that business have the capital to invest and get out there and work very hard to make those dreams come true for them, for their families.

As I said earlier, our budget that we have passed puts us on the path to deficit reduction. This is the second year in a row that we have passed a budget that reduces what we are spending. You know, Mr. Speaker, there are some on the left that prefer to talk about something called PAYGO. And they like to say, well, we need to enact PAYGO.

And as our citizens hear this over the weekend, I hope they will know that that means that they are going to raise your taxes as needed to cover Government spending.

Now, in Tennessee, we feel like that government is never going to get enough of your money. Their appetite for your money always grows. Government is never going to get enough money to cover everything that they would like to spend, because the bureaucracy, this huge great big out-of-control bureaucracy that is a monument, a monument built by the Democrats, a monument to them here in this town.

They like to keep the control. They like to keep your cash. They think they have the first right of refusal on your paycheck. And we think that the citizens have that right of first refusal. You know, Ronald Reagan said that we do not have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. And that is exactly right.

And that is why we have taken the actions we have taken in our budget. I commend Chairman Nussle and the Budget Committee for the work that they have done on those efforts.

You know I have mentioned that bureaucracy. We all know that we have three branches of Government. We have the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branch. But, Mr. Speaker, it should come as no surprise what we have seen happen over the past 2 or 3 decades is this great big bureaucracy.

That is very difficult when they have to respond to you. All of us get frustrated when you call, you dial a number, and you get put on hold. They tell you to push a button and wait. You have nameless, faceless, unidentified bureaucrats that are making decisions for our constituents and our citizens.

They feel as if they know best, because they feel like they are in control, that they are outside of the oversight, that they do not need to answer the questions that we ask on behalf of the citizens. A lot of us have gotten really frustrated. We have watched that bureaucracy. We watched it during Katrina. We have been watching it for years. And as some of my constituents say, whether it is the IRS, the EPA, or OSHA, sometimes you just cannot get them to respond to you.

So one of the things that we are focusing on is working to be certain that that bureaucracy gets right-sized. We have heard of it in the corporate world for years. Right-sizing, retooling, reorganizing, looking for efficiencies.

It seems like it is done the world over. We see corporations do it. We see small business do it. We see families do it. We see local and state governments do it but not the Federal Government. That bureaucracy thinks it can just grow on auto pilot.

Why? Because they think they can come in and get first right of refusal on your paycheck. We have decided that it is time to tackle that. We have worked on this through the past couple of budgets. We have worked diligently. And when we come back from our Memorial Day break, Mr. Speaker, we are going to put some attention on spring- cleaning week.

We have got some CPAs in this body. And they are going to be leading this effort. At this time, I would like to yield to one of those CPAs, Representative Conaway from Texas who is going to be helping to lead this effort.

He has a bill which I will have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is just one of my favorite bills that has been filed here in this House this year. In his legislation, he says that if you want to start a new program, you have got to find one to take off the books, one that has outlived its usefulness.

As I have led the effort for our task force on waste, fraud and abuse, it has been a joy to work with Mr. Conaway and hear his ideas on how we can get Government to develop those best practices and go through the process of reducing its size and becoming more efficient and more responsive to the taxpayer.

At this time I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Conaway).

I thank the gentleman from Texas for his wisdom and expertise and he is so right. We are doing this and we are taking these steps. And you know, as the gentleman said, there are going to be some things that are not rocket science. It is just that, you know, it is like Ronald Reagan said, when you have a Federal Government program, there is nothing so close to eternal life on Earth as a Federal Government program. And it is very difficult to get those programs cut down, but we are up to this task. We have been working on this. We are ready to move full steam ahead. And we want to invite the American people to work with us when they know where there is waste, fraud, and abuse where we should be rooting something out. They should contact us, talk to us, let us know what their suggestions are.

This is going to be not those glamorous big front-page bills that you see passed. This is working on the process of government. This is working on the operations of government. It is time for us to roll our sleeves up and get to work. And we are looking forward to our summer of spring cleaning and working on making certain that people are aware where programs have out-lived their usefulness, where there are redundancies.

We have 342 different economic programs in this country in this Federal Government, and it is time to begin to streamline that, so that our local governments do a better job of utilizing those resources. And we are doing this, addressing all the programs, addressing our entitlement spending because we want to be certain that America stays free.

We are trustees of a wonderful, wonderful legacy. It is a legacy of sacrifice. It is a legacy of service. It is a legacy that the men and women in uniform have fought for and the freedom in this Nation is worth preserving. And we are looking forward to beginning to work on those processes of government and reducing the size of the Federal Government.

I want to turn our attention this evening now back toward the immigration issue where we began our conversation, and spend a little bit of time as we focus this and the concern that this body has, because of our love for this Nation, because of our respect for the men and women who are fighting to keep us free, because of our concern for what we see happening on our southern border and, yes, on our northern border too, and because of what we know takes place every day with illegal entry as individuals break the law, as they enter this country.

Mr. Speaker, you know, it is so interesting, there are laws on the books for prosecution, for penalty, for those that illegally enter your car, your home, your business, and your country. And how interesting, how interesting that we are choosing to say to those that illegally enter the country, we are going to consider to let you stay. How very interesting that we have some that support that.

As I said earlier, amnesty is something I do not support. I have never supported it, and I continue to stand solidly against it. I have two of my colleagues with me for this discussion, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher); and I am going to yield to the gentleman from Texas Mr. Carter for a couple of more comments on immigration and then, Mr. Speaker, I will yield the balance of the time to Mr. Rohrabacher from California.

The gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and we always have such interesting conversations because within my 7th District of Tennessee I have Williamson County, Tennessee, and it is so interesting because my constituents, whether they are in Shelby County or Chester County or Henderson County or Montgomery County or Williamson County, they are saying secure the border first, secure the border; no amnesty at all whatsoever in any way, shape or form.

Enforcement must be dealt with, and employer responsibilities must be addressed, but the first thing first and foremost is securing that border.

What I hear from them is, let us do it right the first time, let us go in here and let us do this right.

Mr. Speaker, I love the fact that my constituents love this country and really take seriously the responsibility of protecting this country, of embracing the freedoms and the opportunity that this country holds. That is a blessing in my life, and I am so grateful that they have that love of this country.

Mr. Speaker, many of us are talking about our veterans. And as we approach Memorial Day, it has been with great sorrow and great concern that we have noticed some of the headlines and the information on personal data of veterans being stolen. That is of tremendous concern to us, and I want to thank Chairman Buyer and the Veterans' Affairs Committee for their prompt actions in addressing this issue.

I also would like to call to the attention of the House a piece of legislation that my colleague, Representative Simmons, and I are working on. It is the Veterans Identity Protection Act of 2006. We will be filing the bill on Friday. Mr. Simmons is a Vietnam veteran, and he understands the problems that veterans face every day.

We know that veterans have placed their faith in the government to responsibly protect their personal information, and that that trust has been damaged. That is why the Blackburn-Simmons bill requires that more stringent controls be placed on the management of personal data. We also want to help those veterans monitor their credit to be certain that no one has stolen their identities.

Government has an obligation to these men and women who have been breached in the loss of this information, and we want to be certain that that obligation is met. Mr. Speaker, I would commend the legislation to each of our colleagues and encourage them to join with us in supporting the veterans of this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I read in the paper this morning that Mexican President Vicente Fox is visiting the United States today. I would like to encourage him to visit the border and to understand why we are so troubled by what is happening there. The reported actions on that border, they are not good for his country. They are certainly not good for our's.

And I hope he does spend some time observing the power of freedom and capitalism, to make a better life for countries which choose to honor these values. That power of freedom is a reason people want to come. We ask that they come legally and respecting those laws and respecting those freedoms.

I also hope that he will speak to those breaking U.S. law, violating the security on our border and tell them he does not condone what they are doing.

Mr. Speaker, the Mexican President should be working with us to guard our borders, not encouraging his nation's citizens to cross our borders illegally. We hope he will join us in the fight against terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, the topic of this week, the topic of discussion with our constituents, with those who are calling us is illegal immigration and their concern over Mexico's choosing and wanting to sue the United States for defending our borders.

Mr. Speaker, America has reached a consensus and our constituents have reached a consensus on this issue. What they are telling us is secure our borders. Show us a secured border. Show us a plan of action. Allow us to know that we can have our faith restored in your ability to secure this Nation.

We hear from them. They are letting us know that they expect us to uphold our oath to defend and protect this Nation. Mr. Speaker, we are listening. In this body we have been listening. Last fall we took action.

We encourage all to join us in securing the border of this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have reached a consensus on the border security issue; so I find it very hard to understand why we here in Washington are having trouble doing the same.

Outside the Beltway people think it is perfectly reasonable to build a wall to protect the border. They do not see a problem with installing surveillance technology to monitor the border. They do not support amnesty.

It is only here where the pundits rule, and in the New York newsrooms, that we see such hand wringing on the border security issue. An op-ed in The Washington Post called people concerned about illegal immigration ``nativists.'' Apparently, worrying about border security and the rule of law makes one a nativist. I find that it is a sad statement on the attitude of those opposed to beefing up our border security.

I ask my colleagues to join me to look past the pundits, past the liberal editorial pages, and do what the vast majority of Americans want done: Secure the border and do it without amnesty.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for his work on our RSC budget. He has done an outstanding job. And you know, this really is a time when we can renew the Contract With America and those goals that we focused on and the principles that were laid forth in that period of time, and this is a budget that helps move us again toward those goals and towards those principles.

Mr. Chairman, I find it so interesting that we are hearing people say, well, you can make an argument for this, you can make an argument for that. You can try to disprove this, you can try to disprove that. And you can make arguments all day long, but it doesn't make it true. It just does not make it true. And I think we have to put our focus on a few simple things that are fiscally responsible.

The budget we have before us that we are debating at this point in time is one that focuses on eliminating wasteful and unnecessary programs and capping growth in mandatory spending. Reducing the size of government and consolidating redundant agencies, this is a place that deserves our focus, it deserves our attention. It deserves our fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, today the phones in our district offices and our D.C. offices are ringing off the hook, and most of those calls are coming in about the situation that our country faces with illegal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, it is not that complicated an issue. The Members of this body and here in the House agree, secure the border first. That is the first thing that needs to be done.

The Republican leadership in the House worked hard to pass the bill that we passed last December, which addresses border security and employer enforcement.

So to my constituents and to the other Members of this body I say, let us say no to amnesty or any type of amnesty. Let us continue to support construction of a border, whether it is a wall or surveillance. Let us secure our border. I do support the use of military presence on the border as an emergency measure.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for action. The time has passed. It is time for us to be certain that this Nation is secure. It is an issue of national security.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to take a moment today to honor Eddy Arnold on his 88th birthday.

I'm fortune enough to call him a friend and neighbor, but like so many Americans, I'm also a fan of his wonderful musical talent.

Raised on a Tennessee farm, the ``Tennessee Plowboy'' started playing guitar at ten and he's been entertaining us all ever since.

He shattered the country and pop charts with 28 number one hits. And he proved that a beautiful song never gets old with hits like ``You Don't Know Me.''

Eddy's songs spanned 5 decades. Whether you saw him at the Grand Ole Opry, watched Eddy Arnold Time on television, or heard one of his songs just the other day on the radio--there's no mistaking that Eddy Arnold is an American icon and we wish him all the best on his birthday.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa for his leadership on this issue, and how much we appreciate that leadership.

Mr. Speaker, you know, I stand tonight for our men and women in uniform. And in my district, the men and women and families at Fort Campbell, and also our Guardsmen and our Reservists, and all of those that are deployed, how much we appreciate their sacrifice, how much we appreciate, Mr. Speaker, the great work that they do in order to be able to be certain that we preserve freedom, that we have the ability for children in this Nation to know that they are going to grow up in freedom.

This is so those children will have the ability to dream big dreams, to look at the future with hope, with the expectancy of opportunities that will come their way.

We do thank our men and women in uniform. And I thank them. I thank this House today that approved a bill that will allow for a pay raise for our military. We are grateful for that and for the actions of this body.

I am so pleased to join you tonight as we turn our thoughts to Iraq and what is happening in Afghanistan because those are centers and they are battles in the war on terror. The war on terror is a global war. When we talk about the war on terror, we are not talking about one specific place or one specific battle. The global war on terror is something that is localized right now in Iraq; but we do know that while this is the battleground of today, while Afghanistan is the battleground, while the Middle East is the breeding ground for much of the terrorism that has been disbursed all across the globe, we know that we have to look at this as a global war.

We have to know that this is going to be a long war. We have been told that by our leaders. We have been attacked. We know that we were attacked for two full decades before we stopped looking at terrorism as an act of civil disobedience and we started responding to terrorism as an act of war.

That seemed to all come to a head when we looked at Iraq, when we had a very evil dictator who continued to defy U.N. resolutions, who continued to just repeatedly snub the U.N. and snub the free world and say, I can be the bully of the region if I want to. And that came to an end after September 11.

We commend our men and women in uniform that have gone there to set free, to set free a people, to begin stamping out terrorism and to be certain that we are standing up, democracy and partners in democracy that will yield a peace dividend for our children and our grandchildren.

I appreciate that the gentleman from Iowa took a few moments to talk about some of the women in Iraq and some of the women that have fought so valiantly for freedom and for democracy and for liberty.

I have had the opportunity to work with our Iraqi Women's Caucus and work with our Department of State, and stepped forward and helped to mentor some of these women as they take those baby steps and then as they lead in putting democracy in place.

You know, it is so amazing to talk to them and to read the e-mails that they send to us as we seek to encourage them and their work and their efforts. Some of the stories that they have told about atrocities that they have lived through, how they watched the vicious nature of Saddam's henchmen and how they would brutalize people, brutalize families, and how these women have lived through that and have moved forward to take that leadership role and to step forward and say, Do not leave us now. Do not leave us now. We are on the right track. And we know it looks messy, and we know it is going to be a long process and we know this is not easy, but do not leave us.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot help but think when I have these conversations with these women and when I see some of them, maybe they are missing a finger, maybe there is something that is wrong, maybe they have suffered pain and torture and agony and you can see it in their faces and you can see it in their bodies, but in their spirit what you hear is the desire to be certain that they have their shot at freedom. That is what they want. They want the opportunity to live freely, to enjoy the benefits of freedom. And I think that we have to keep that in mind as we move forward.

One of the things we repeatedly hear and, of course, I know the gentleman from Iowa is like me, we all want to see our troops come home, come home victorious, and we would like to have them all come home, but I think we have to keep in mind that there is not going to be one specific event or one announced time where we say, all right, the work is done, because this is a work in progress. It is a work in progress, and we have seen tremendous progress. We have seen some tremendous stepping back. We have seen some failures, but we are seeing progress. And we are going to continue to see progress take place.

We have seen the elections in January of 2005, all the way to the election in December of 2005. We have watched the formation of a new government, and now we can look forward as they are putting in place a permanent government. This is not a provisional government. There is a government that will rule in that country. They will govern. They will be making the laws, setting the laws, and at the same time we are watching the Iraqi security forces train, develop the competencies that they need in order to secure their nation and begin to stand up and take charge.

It is exciting to see that type of progress take place. It is exciting to see progress in Afghanistan. It is exciting to see that there is that hope there, and it raises our concerns we have about the rest of the Middle East, about Iran, about the areas that surround there. And you know, Mr. Speaker, I think we have to keep in mind why we do this, why we are there, why we are rooting out terrorism, why we

have rooted out a brutal dictator. Why we do this is because if we are fighting there, we are not going to have to be fighting that over here. How very important for us to keep that in mind.

Taking this battle to them, right there in the Middle East, in that breeding ground of terrorism, taking the battle there helps us to do our best to keep this Nation secure, to allow us to continue to be a trustee of this great and wonderful legacy that we call freedom.

I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa for yielding. I want to thank him for his excellent work that he continues to do to speak out to support our men and women in uniform and to support our troops with the good work that they are doing and always his good words in protecting the cause of freedom.

With that, I yield back to the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues referenced the study from the Law Library of Congress entitled ``Immigration Law Sanctions and Enforcement in Selected Foreign Countries.'' It evaluates the policies and the practices of Brazil, Egypt, Japan, Mexico, Sweden and Switzerland. The countries were selected specifically to provide a geographically and racially diverse group for comparison purposes.

What the study found is that strong enforcement of immigration law and tough sanctions can effectively reduce illegal immigration.

Mr. Speaker, it is of concern to us that we learned yesterday that the U.S. Government is releasing information on the Minutemen border patrols to the Mexican Government. It is very frustrating that our government would be both willing and able to release information to the Mexican Government on these patrols, yet unable to adequately deter illegal entry into this country.

Mr. Speaker, I want to see a border wall or technology improvements that will actually halt illegal border crossings. There is incredible consensus among Tennesseans that enough is enough on this issue. It is time for action.

Mr. Speaker, Dolly Parton is living proof that the American Dream is alive and kicking. She worked hard, harnessed her God given talent, and touched the lives of countless millions.

Not only is Dolly a great entertainer, she's a proven businesswoman and a philanthropist. She is the embodiment of a value my mama taught me--that you always work to give back more to your community than you take. And Dolly has given back so much.

Tennessee is proud of this Smoky Mountain daughter, and that's why we join the 2006 Southern Women in Public Service Conference to honor her with the Lindy Boggs Award. As the U.S. Representative who has the lucky fortune to represent Dolly in Congress, I want to take a moment to be certain my colleagues here in the House of Representatives know just how much she has given back to all of us.

Dolly has put the same passion and leadership she used to make it to the top in business into improving child literacy. In 1996, Dolly's vision led to the creation of the Imagination Library--a program that sends children books each month to help them improve their reading skills. What began in East Tennessee now includes over 600 communities and spans 41 states. There are hundreds of thousands of children across this country whose futures have been changed for the better because of her work.

We simply cannot put a value on the positive effect Dolly has had on these kids, their communities, and this country.

The Imagination Library is just one example of Dolly's work to help raise up others. Today we honor Dolly for her passion and her determination.