Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Tonya Jones, a small business leader and president of Mark IV Enterprises, Inc. in Nashville, as she is inducted into the 2007 Building Industry of Tennessee Hall of Fame.

Tonya Jones has been a trailblazer in the building industry throughout her career. She became involved in construction in Nashville in 1980, started her own business in 1985, and in 1986 was the first woman elected to serve on the Builders Board for the Home Builders Association of Middle Tennessee.

Tonya Jones was instrumental in the establishment of the Home Builders Association of Middle Tennessee's Legal Defense Fund, and was the first to urge that HBAMT move forward with litigation against a county for unfair housing policies. Additionally, she was highly influential in cementing the success of the Self-Insured Worker's Compensation Trust Fund as one of its founding Trustees.

Tonya Jones has been named a Life Director for the National Association of Homebuilders, and in 1995, she earned the Home Builders Association of Tennessee's highest honor, Builder of the Year. The Better Business Bureau recognized her integrity and ethics in business by naming her Ambassador of the Year in 2006.

In addition to these accomplishments, Tonya Jones has served on boards of directors for numerous organizations, including Habitat for Humanity, the Better Business Bureau, TRICOR, Nashville Metropolitan Planning Commission, U.S. Bank Regional Board, and Nashville's Metropolitan Board for Parks and Recreation.

Madam Speaker, please join me in honoring Tonya Jones for her exemplary contributions in business and in our community, and in congratulating her on this well-deserved award.

Mr. Speaker, more than 4 months ago the House passed an appropriations bill designed to provide benefits for our soldiers and veterans. H.R. 2642 passed the House by an overwhelming 409-2 vote. A similar bill went through the Senate 92-1. But since then, nothing has happened.

It has been 131 days since we passed the legislation, and still nothing has been sent to the President's desk for him to sign. The Senate appointed conferees to hammer out a compromise between the two bills 6 weeks ago. But the House leadership? Nothing has been done.

The question is why. Why would the new majority play politics with the health care of our brave men and women in uniform? There is no reason, a month into this fiscal year, that the bill is unresolved.

I ask all my colleagues, all 408 of them who voted for this bill, to demand that the House appoint conferees. Stop doing nothing. Do what needs to be done to meet the needs of our men and women in uniform.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1808, legislation to VA Medical Center in Augusta, GA as the ``Charlie Norwood Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center.''

Simply put, there is no more fitting vehicle to pay tribute and honor our friend and former colleague, Representative Charlie Norwood.

As many of my colleagues have so eloquently noted, Dr. Norwood was first and foremost a friend of the American veteran. Having served in wartime conditions in the Republic of Vietnam in 1968, Captain Norwood helped develop the Army Dental Corps operating procedures that is now the standard for delivering dentists to forward-fire bases.

In so doing, Captain Norwood provided quality dental care to his fellow combat servicemen, and established standard practice that continued to benefit servicemen long after he left the Army.

That is an appropriate metaphor for Charlie's career in the U.S. House. As a Member who served his constituents passionately during more than 12 years of service, he dedicated his government service to ensuring access to quality healthcare for every American, and for guaranteeing veterans the benefits and respect that they deserve.

We all miss Charlie. But even though he is no longer with us, the good doctor's passion and dedication to American veterans is not forgotten. This legislation is a true memorial to his service, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding and I thank him for his leadership on the security issues that affect our great Nation.

And, Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman from California knows, national security is one of the major issues that we hear about every single day. Our constituents want to be certain that America, that our interests, that our communities are safe, and certainly, as we are looking at FISA, this is an issue that is coming before us.

One of the things that we hear regularly from constituents is, what are you doing about it? What are you doing about tracking down these terrorists? What are you doing about finding those that want to kill us? What are you doing?

Well, we did some good things last year. As the gentleman from California mentioned, the provisions that we passed, Admiral McConnell's recommendations, the pathway forward for us, how we were to proceed to be certain that we could use the information that we had. And now the RESTORE Act, and I do like the acronym that he is using, Repeal Effective Surveillance Techniques Opposing Real Enemies. That is an appropriate acronym for the bill that they brought forward.

And I think, Mr. Speaker, that our colleagues across the aisle forget that it is FISA. Maybe they think it is the U.S. Intelligence Surveillance Act, or USISA. They forget that it is FISA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

We do seek to find those who would seek to do us harm and end our way of life. That is something we should be about every single day.

Now, we've heard from lots of people on the FISA issue, and the gentleman

from California brings such a wide range of knowledge on this, and I know he is going to be joined by others, others of our colleagues who are going to touch on this issue. Many of them are from the Republican Study Committee, and they're going to bring their expertise to bear on this.

I want to touch on one quick point. The gentleman from California highlighted some of Admiral McConnell's recommendations and procedures that we took to be certain that we closed the terrorist loophole. And the measure that the liberal leadership brought forward, the RESTORE Act, would reopen the terrorist loophole. The Democrat FISA bill creates a process by which a court order is required for U.S. persons who are outside the United States.

As the gentleman from California mentioned, if a foreign target operating overseas, such as Osama bin Laden, has either had contact with a U.S. person or called a U.S. number, our intelligence officials would be required, if this bill passed, to obtain a FISA court order to listen to those communications.

Well, in Tennessee, we would say that just doesn't make good sense, and it doesn't, Mr. Speaker; and it is frightening to think that there are those among us who may want to deal with terrorists more delicately than they would handle the welfare and well-being of our communities.

I would also highlight the New York Post and a comment that they had as we were working through the FISA overhaul and looking at these situations dealing with these cumbersome legal requirements. The New York Post quotes in an October 15, 2007, article: ``A search to rescue the men was quickly launched. But it soon ground to a halt as lawyers obeying U.S. strict laws about surveillance cobbled together the legal grounds for wiretapping the suspected kidnappers. For an excruciating 9 hours and 38 minutes searchers in Iraq waited as U.S. lawyers discussed legal issues and hammered out the `probable cause' necessary for the Attorney General to grant such `emergency' permission.''

We know the emergency. We know the probable cause. Men were under attack and they needed to be found. We are in a time of war. The terrorists are there to end our way of life. We have to stay a couple of steps in front of them, Mr. Speaker; and as the gentleman from California has so eloquently said, the way we do this is with a commonsense approach and very thoughtful approach to our intelligence surveillance that we have on our foreign enemies.

The gentleman from Missouri is exactly right.

These are people who do not seek to do us well. They seek to do us harm. That, we have to keep in mind.

As the gentleman from Missouri mentioned, we have had tremendous technological changes with how our signals are transmitted when you are dealing with telephones, with cell phones, with satellite phones, with voice, video and data, with those communications.

Things have changed, and we are not focused on the end use; we are more focused on the technology and the changes that we sought in August would allow, and that we gained in August allowed our intelligence community to be able to exercise a little bit more leeway in obtaining these communications from those who would seek to do us harm.

I want to bring the attention back to the poster that is on the floor there. Just as he would say, this is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

As I said earlier, it is not USISA. It is not the United States Intelligence Surveillance Act. This is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

That is so important that we keep this in mind. As the gentleman said, these are people who are not U.S. citizens who are seeking to do us harm.

Mr. Speaker, the issue we hear of regularly is national security, from Tehran to Turkey, back to the local community: How does it impact me? That is what our constituents are asking. They are concerned about security from the national and the local level. I think many of them are frustrated that those of us in Congress haven't done anything to address the criminal illegal alien situation.

I want to let the body know last week the Board of Supervisors in Prince William County, Virginia, took a stand by unanimously approving a tough local crackdown on illegal immigrants. They are doing it to make their community a safer place. It denies some county services to illegal immigrants and adds to enforcement powers already available to cops on the beat.

We can do the same thing at the Federal level with the bipartisan CLEAR Act, which I introduced last month. It would get dangerous criminal aliens off the streets and require the Department of Homeland Security to pick them up within 48 hours.

It is H.R. 3494, the CLEAR Act. I would encourage my colleagues to cosponsor this bill and do what the Prince William supervisors have done: put citizen safety first.

Madam Speaker, today the liberal leadership of this House will attempt to override the President's veto of SCHIP.

For weeks, they have been taking to the airwaves and talking about anybody that opposes this bill is against disadvantaged children. Well, that's just not what this bill is about.

Their bill would change a block grant program to an entitlement; it would provide taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrants; it would add more adults and what the IRS calls high-income families to the government health care rolls. It would even remove people from private insurance rolls and place them on the government rolls. And, most important, it's going to move that decision between a doctor and a patient to a bureaucrat. Well, that is what they are for.

I suggest that we show respect for the children of the working poor that this bill was initially set up to address, that we sustain the President's veto. Let's start over. Show the issue the respect it deserves.

Madam Speaker, we do all know what this debate is about, but I think there is still confusion about the context of this bill and the content of this bill. We have heard our colleagues across the aisle saying that it has to do with supporting health care for disadvantaged children. But, unfortunately, that is not exactly what this bill does.

We are all for health care for children of the working poor, but some of the things that this bill is about: It would move a very successful block grant program to an entitlement. It would provide free taxpayer- funded health care to illegal immigrants. It would add more adults than what our own IRS calls high-income families to the government health care rolls. It would remove people from private insurance and put them over on the government rolls. It would, in many cases, replace the doctor-patient relationship with the bureaucrat making the decision.

It doesn't live up to its name. It doesn't live up to what it is supposed to do. How do you pay for it? With budget gimmicks. Look at what happens in 2012. Let's show respect for the issue. Take it back. Sustain the President's veto.

Mr. Speaker, when we talk with our constituents, we are constantly hearing over and over, protect our freedoms, make certain that America is secure. Making certain that our homeland is secure is something that comes to the forefront this week.

The Democrat RESTORE Act does fall short. It falls short of what is needed to give our intelligence community the effective tools they need to detect and prevent terrorist activities. That is what we want to do, prevent it. This bill would restrict the intelligence community, and in many cases it gives the appearance of favoring those who do not have our best interests at heart. Is that a message that we would seek to send? Our intelligence community deserves the full resources of the Federal Government, not the red tape of a typical bureaucracy.

While we agree that proper oversight is necessary, oversight should never prohibit the men and women in the intelligence community from doing their jobs.

I encourage my Democrat colleagues to reconsider their support for the RESTORE Act.

Madam Speaker, what I'm hearing from my constituents is they are still very concerned about our national security, about border security, about the security on their streets and in their communities. That's why I would like to raise one issue with the House this morning.

For the second time in the last several months, a mobile foreign consulate has traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, on the western edge of my district, to issue government IDs and passports, the latest courtesy of the Guatemalan Government.

Now, many illegal immigrants in this country are using these matricula consular cards to access American financial markets. And some American financial institutions are offering illegal immigrants credit cards and access to our financial services and financial markets based on the issuance of these cards. Only reason you need one, you're in the country illegally.

I've even had an industry representative tell me that they think they should be able to ``bank illegal immigrants.''

Madam Speaker, that's why I've introduced H.R. 1314, the Photo ID Security Act, to close this loophole that allows illegal immigrants access to these services.

I encourage all to join me in sponsorship of this bill.

Madam Speaker, I too today stand to pay tribute to our colleague Jo Ann Davis and to express my condolences to her family, her friends, and her staff. She will be missed in this body.

I also rise today to have a little bit to say about the economic news that is coming out. We have a Presidential debate on the issue tonight.

The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office has released a reported today; and according to the CBO, the Republican tax cuts going back to 2003, the tax cuts started then have fueled our growing economy and they are responsible for shrinking the Federal deficit, this time by 35 percent. What incredible economic news.

We also find out that Americans paid a record $2.5 trillion in taxes in 2007 and Federal receipts have climbed since when? Since the 2003 tax reductions were put in place. And it has fueled the largest 4-year revenue increase in U.S. history.

Madam Speaker, it is good news on the economic front. I highlight this good news to my colleagues and encourage them to read the CBO report.

I thank the gentleman from Texas.

Madam Speaker, this veto will be sustained, and I hope it will allow us to return to the core issue of discussing health care for children, needy, poor American children. That is what our focus should be. It should not be about a secret, giant step towards nationalized health care. It shouldn't be about health care for adults or for middle-class families. It should be about meeting the needs of poor American children. That's what the program was set up to do.

Unfortunately, as H.R. 976 is constructed, we are only talking about 800,000 additional children. For all of the hype, for all of the talk, that is what you are talking about. We have seen numerous gimmicks used to try to make this bill work. We have heard about income disregards today. Now, in this bill, there are provisions that would allow you to go to 800 percent of the Federal poverty level. So instead of addressing the needs of poor American children, what we are talking about is providing coverage for families making over $206,500 a year. Madam Speaker, that is not the original intent of this program.

Another budget gimmick, in mid-2012, all of a sudden the funding is going to be cut 80 percent.

Madam Speaker, what is going to happen to SCHIP in mid-2012? How are we going to meet the needs of those children? This is what we need to do; return to the core issue, strip away all of these attached issues, and get back to what we need to do to be certain that we meet the needs of poor American children, not provide health care to illegal immigrants, not provide health care for the middle class.

SCHIP is about those children that are of the working poor, 200 percent of the poverty level. It is a program that deserves to be reinstated under the same rules that it was put in place in 1997.

Madam Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to rise today on behalf of an Arlington, Tennessee resident, Lieutenant Commander Tracy G. DeWitt, who has devoted his life to defending the United States of America. Please join me in commending Commander DeWitt on a career spent serving our Navy and our Country. On October 1, 2007 he will retire after 24 years of service to a grateful Nation.

Born and raised in Gravette, Arkansas, Commander DeWitt began his service in the

Navy by enlisting when he finished high school. After basic training in Orlando, Florida, Commander DeWitt completed tours in Diego Garcia and Pensacola, Florida before being accepted at Auburn University as part of the Navy's Enlisted Commissioning Program.

Commander DeWitt received a Bachelor of Science degree in Management and was commissioned as an Ensign in August of 1994. He has served aboard many of the Navy's finest ships, including the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, the USS Stout, and the USS Thomas Gates. In August of 2004, Commander DeWitt was ordered to U.S. Naval Personnel Command in Millington, Tennessee, where he served as the Head of Sea Special Assignments and the Head of Enlisted Separations.

Along with completing both his Master's degree in Management from Troy State University and his doctoral work in Management from Northcentral University, Commander DeWitt has received numerous citations to include the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, the Navy Achievement Medal and the Navy Good Conduct Medal.

Madam Speaker, please join me in again congratulating Lieutenant Commander DeWitt on his record of service and wishing him, his wife Gillis, and their three sons Tyler, Justin and Andrew a fulfilling and enjoyable retirement. May God bless him and his family.

It is such a pleasure to come to the floor tonight as we start a new fiscal year for the U.S. Government.

A new year is a time where you get to look back at what happened last year, where you get to redirect your focus and talk about what your priorities are going to be and the goals that you want to set.

Now, we all do that with our families as we get to the end of the calendar year and start the new calendar year in January. It is a time that we enjoy.

I hope for each of us, as Members of the House, as we start this fiscal year, that we will put some attention on what we spend and how we spend.

Now, Madam Speaker, over the weekend, I had the opportunity to do a town hall with some of my constituents. We

got together yesterday afternoon after church over lunch. One of them said, ``Do you know, I have been reading Alan Greenspan's book. My goodness, it is amazing to me, absolutely amazing to me what Congress spends, how much money they spend. It is amazing to me that we have seen this debt skyrocket through the '70s, through the '80s and begin to level off through the '90s but still continue to grow. It is amazing to me that decisions are made that grow that debt. It is amazing to me that earmarks are out of control. Explain earmarks.''

My constituent posed this question before the group because, like so many, once he looked at the issue, he realized that every time we grow a program, every time some new program comes along, every time Congress stands and says, ``We must meet this need,'' that there are two costs to that program. Of course, there is the dollars cost, and then there is also the opportunity cost, because if Government steps in and meets that need, the private or not-for-profit sector is not going to step in and meet that need. So my constituent posed this for the group to talk about. I said, ``What a great discussion to have. This is the last day of the fiscal year for the U.S. Government. Tomorrow is a new day. They turn a page in the book and start a new slate with the new budget.''

Now, my constituent said that he would have loved to have seen the U.S. Government get to the end of the year and brag about how much money they had saved. But in reality, he knows that probably there is going to be more bragging done about special projects that go back home to the district in the form of earmarks.

So we talked a little bit yesterday, Madam Speaker, about priorities, about earmarks and about how earmarks came to be. When communities have trouble coming in and going through the process, they will say, ``Oh, can you help us, Member of Congress, to get this set aside in the bill? Can you help us to find this money?'' Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, we all know not all earmarks are bad. It is the abuse of earmarks that are bad. As I came back this afternoon, I found on my desk a copy of Congressional Quarterly Weekly. You can find this at cq.com if someone wants to pull it up. In the article, they are citing that there were 7,000 specific House-passed earmarks in just eight of the bills. There were 500 sought by the White House; roughly 1,000 were identified with more than one sponsor. That left 5,670 earmarks worth a combined $44.2 billion, each linked with a single House Member. And then it goes on and talks a little bit about how many and how much are here in the earmarks game and a little bit about who gets what. But it is the process and the abuse of that earmark process that has our constituents confused, frustrated and, rightfully, a little bit angry.

We know that many of us have pushed for greater transparency in this earmark process. We have pushed for changes, for knowing what is taking place in our earmarks so that people know what is in those bills when they come to the House floor, so that it is easy to find, to pair it up, to know who is asking for what, where it is going to be located or what program it is going to go to, and then how much of the taxpayer money is being spent.

Madam Speaker, it is not our money. It is not government's money. It is the taxpayers' money. So like my constituent who posed the question yesterday, ``Tell me how much you are spending and how you go about spending it and explain these earmarks,'' those are questions that, yes, indeed, they have the right to ask, and we as Members of Congress should be answering those questions and discussing what is in those bills, what is in those appropriations bills, and what we find in those earmarks.

Now, I will have to say that this is a year when we have started our fiscal year on what is called a continuing resolution, and we passed that last year. I will say that the new majority did a good job of bringing a fairly clean continuing resolution before us so that we were running today, so that we didn't have to shut government down. What the continuing resolution basically does is it takes last year's funding numbers and rolls them forward. A lot of people would like to see us hold everything at exactly the same spending level it was. That is not all bad. But the new majority was not able to get one single spending bill through both Houses and to the President to be signed, so that is why we are operating on the continuing resolution.

We have seemed to have time to talk about global warming and pass bills pertaining to global warming or conservation. We have named post offices. We have expanded programs. We have passed billions in new authorizations and new spending. But we did not get the budget done, so we are on a concurrent resolution.

It is our new fiscal year. We are going to spend a little bit of time tonight talking about how we spend that money and looking at what takes place through this earmark process and why we, as Republicans, and why we, as members of the Republican Study Committee, are continuing our push for earmark transparency and earmark reform.

Madam Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling) who is chairman of the Republican Study Committee, and I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his remarks. He does such a wonderful job in directing the activities of the Republican Study Committee. You can find out a little bit more about the Republican Study Committee going into Mr. Hensarling's Web site, House.gov/Hensarling, and enter in ``Republican Study Committee.'' It will take you there to some of our activity and the work we are doing.

We also have a little ``money monitor'' that we use every single week, update it, to show you what the majority in the House is spending, show you how this is going to affect your budget. As he said, the priority is the family budget, to be certain that families have the opportunity to decide how and when they want to spend their money.

As the gentleman from Texas said, unfortunately, since World War II what we have seen is the Federal budget has grown four to five times faster than the family budget. The Federal budget growing four to five times faster than the family budget. That is exactly opposite of what our Founding Fathers would want.

I hope that my colleagues across the aisle will join us, join with us as we fight the growth of this budget, as we fight the growth of spending. When it is a new fiscal year, it is a good time to sit down and review this and say, okay, when we get to the end of the fiscal year, what do we want to look back and say we accomplished? Wouldn't it be a great thing if we were to say this is what we were able to save, this is how we were able to find ways to reduce the size and cut what government spends? So we invite our friend across the aisle to come over and join us and work on this issue.

I would like at this time to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.

Price), who has been a stalwart in working on the earmark issues, the earmark reform, and a real leader in the push for earmark reform, greater transparency and more fiscal accountability from the House.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia so very much. We have started our new fiscal year, and the new majority was not able to get one single spending bill to the President's desk, so we do operate on a continuing resolution.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, some of us who want to reduce what the Federal Government spends, holding the spending at last year's level is not such a bad idea. We kind of like doing that. But for a new majority who said we are going to have transparency and openness, to come in and continue to spend more and more and more, not less, but more. More of the taxpayers' money, putting more of it into earmarks.

The gentleman referenced the cq.com article which referenced 7,000 earmarks in eight bills; 5,670 of those earmarks with a combined worth of $4.2 billion linked to individual House Members. And the concern with that, as my constituent said, how much you spend and how you spend it and concern over the earmarks.

You know, we have seen quite a bit of hypocrisy from the new leadership. As the gentleman from Georgia said, we do have House Resolution 479. This is something people can go on and pull up on the Internet and take a look at it. We are trying to get that voted on, forcing the transparency issue and restoring those rules that we passed last year to make certain that an individual's name is there, that you can find what individuals are earmarking, not trying to hide this, but you can find it and know who is asking for what in that budget.

We have 193 signatures on the discharge petition so we can force it out of committee, force it to the floor, and force a debate for the American people so they know what is going to be spent here in the House.

I encourage our Members to take a look at that legislation and to come join us on this first day of the new fiscal year. Again, I encourage our colleagues from the other side of the aisle to embrace the issue of reducing what the Federal Government spends, to embrace transparency in these earmarks, and to work for earmark reform, to join us in continuing to work for earmark reform.

Mr. Speaker, I want to yield to Dr. Virginia Foxx from North Carolina who certainly has conservative credentials and understands so very clearly how to work with earmarks, how to work with Federal budgeting and making certain that we remain true to our conservative principles as we address our Federal budget issues.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina, and she is precisely on target with her remarks.

A year ago, we had some of the senior House Democrats that joined us Republicans in calling for earmark reform in Congress, saying new transparency rules should apply to all earmarks, not just on appropriations bills, but on tax bills, on authorizing bills, transparency for all earmarks of any kind. And House Republicans later delivered those reforms last year when we were still in the majority.

But now that we have the new Democrat majority, they have retreated from those promises. They've gutted the reforms implemented by the Republicans, and they are denying Members the ability to have a full debate on those earmarks.

As the gentlewoman from North Carolina said, this is so unfortunate that this is what they're doing in the House because the people do expect better from us, and as she said, there were promises that were made and there are promises that have been broken.

I want to yield once again to the gentleman from Texas, our Republican Study Committee chairman, Mr. Hensarling for a few more comments on the earmark issue.

I thank the gentleman from Texas, and Mr. Speaker, as we come to the close of our hour that we have had tonight where we put the focus on spending and put the focus on earmarks, I would remind my colleagues that a couple of months back Republicans successfully forced the Democrats to restore two critical GOP reforms from last year, and that was disclosing earmarks and their sponsors before spending bills are voted on on the floor and then the right to challenge those bills on the floor. Those were important changes we made last year, and we forced those to be reinstituted so that we could begin to have some debate. Now, they may try to cover up some of those. We're going to keep digging and playing hide-and-seek and figure out who all of those earmarks belong to.

I want to give you a couple of quotes that tie into this. From the AP, ``Democratic leaders gave in to Republican demands that lawmakers be allowed to challenge individual Member-requested projects from the final version of each appropriations bill.'' That's from June 14.

From June 18 of this year from the Charleston Post-Courier, ``A House compromise achieved Thursday night shows that the worthy cause of earmark reform is far from lost. When the Speaker recently signaled a retreat from her repeated vows to fix that problem, House Republican leaders cried foul.''

We called for that accountability. The cost to the taxpayer for earmarks not being disclosed is hundreds of millions of dollars of additional spending.

I hope that as we start this new year that our colleagues across the aisle will reach out to us, that they will join us in signing the discharge petition on Leader Boehner's bill, H.R. 479, and get the 218 signatures we need so that we can come to this floor so that we can have a debate and ensure the public that all taxpayer-funded earmarks are publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and debate on this floor. The future of our children, the future of this government depends on getting our spending under control.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the time this evening. I thank you for the opportunity to address the issue of out-of-control earmarks and the need for earmark reform by this body.

Mr. Speaker, a couple of weeks ago I introduced the Charlie Norwood CLEAR Act, which targets violent criminal aliens and gives local law enforcement the tools they need to get them off the street. This legislation now has bipartisan support and has 140 sponsors, cosponsors; and we are adding to that.

Last week I conducted a telephone town hall, and the overwhelming majority of the callers on that phone call demanded that Congress take action, take some action, not just talk about removing criminal aliens, but take action to get them off the street. This bill accomplishes that goal.

Mr. Speaker, as we hear about the events that have taken place since September 11, Fort Dix, Newark, and in Arizona recently, we know it is needed. So I encourage my colleagues, cosponsor the CLEAR Act, H.R. 3494. Support ridding our streets and our communities of criminal aliens and absconders.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Marty Dickens as he retires from his position as president of AT&T Tennessee after a distinguished 39-year career in the telecommunications industry.

Beginning his career with the company in 1969, Marty worked in the public affairs and regulatory departments and comptroller's office before joining BellSouth International in 1992. He has served on the boards of directors of BellSouth operations in Brazil, Venezuela, Panama, Nicaragua, Israel, China and Denmark.

Since moving to Nashville to become president of the company in 1999, Marty has become a force not just in the Nashville business community, but in its charitable and civic life as well. Not content with the challenges of running a major regional employer, Marty sought out other ways to contribute such as serving on the Board of Trustees at Belmont University, on the community boards of the YMCA, Boy Scouts, Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, as well as the Adventure Science Center, among others.

Marty has also served on the corporate boards of Genesco and First American Financial Holdings and has served as chairman of both the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. Most recently, he was honored as the 2007 Outstanding Nashvillian of the Year by the Kiwanis Club of Nashville.

Madam Speaker, please join me in congratulating Marty Dickens on an exemplary record of service in business, in charity and in our community. He has set an example that we would all do well to emulate, and we wish him well in his retirement.