Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize David Keeley for his tireless leadership over two decades in the field of coastal resource management and to congratulate him for receiving the 2003 Walter B. Jones Memorial Award for Coastal Steward of the Year.

For over 25 years, Mr. Keeley has worked at the local, state and regional level in environmental management, policy development and planning with an emphasis on coastal and estuarine issues. Over thirteen years ago, Mr. Keeley created the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment, a voluntary regional governance structure that includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as representatives from Canadian and U.S. federal agencies. The Council is an excellent example of a bilateral regional governance organization and is one of the best in North America. It is also a wonderful example of David's dedication and leadership. The success of the Council can be, in large part, directly attributed to the activism and involvement of Mr. Keeley, who nurtured, encouraged and challenged the group to succeed. Like so many other coastal issues and projects in which David becomes involved, the Council is where it is today because of his long- term guidance and support, and his unwavering ability to question, respond, and deliver. For all of his hard work and dedication, David was recently honored with the 2003 Walter B. Jones Memorial Award for Coastal Steward of the Year.

Mr. Speaker, Maine is honored, grateful and fortunate to have a devoted citizen like David Keeley. His tireless work to protect our coastal

resources has truly made a difference to the great state of Maine and to the entire nation.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the Blue Dog budget. As a cochair of the Blue Dog Caucus, I was proud to work with my colleagues on this fine proposal. In my 22 years as a State legislator in Maine, I have always delivered a balanced budget, and I can tell you that the Blue Dog budget is a great budget.

My time is brief, so I just want to make three vital points about the Blue Dog approach.

First, this budget is balanced. We achieve a $15 billion surplus by the year 2009, and we have $2 trillion less in debt over the next 10 years than the President's budget.

Today we spend 18 cents of every dollar on servicing our debt. What a waste of money. This is a debt tax that every American pays, 18 cents on every hard-earned dollar.

We balance the budget and control the debt. The Blue Dog approach reduces waste, and it lowers the taxes that we all pay. Now, that is a tax cut that we all can agree on.

Second, this budget is fair. It funds defense at the same level as the President, it gives tax relief to everyone, and it includes $60 billion in immediate economic stimulus, including desperately needed assistance to States, States like the State of Maine, which the Committee on the Budget does not provide for.

Third, this budget is just. The Committee on the Budget resolution cuts mandatory spending in many areas. One of the most unconscionable cuts is a $15 billion reduction for veteran programs. On the very day we go to war, how can we vote to neglect our veterans like this?

Not only does the Blue Dog budget restore these cuts, but it also restores

other funding to vital domestic programs like education, child care, dislocated workers programs and homeland security, and it does all of this within a balanced budget.

I say to my colleagues that this is not a party issue, it is not a political issue. This is about keeping our commitments, investing in our priorities and meeting our responsibilities.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reach across the line that sometimes divides us and unite today for a budget that is balanced, that is fair and that is just.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in support of this resolution that expresses our appreciation for our Armed Forces and their families. As a proud member of the Veterans Committee, I have worked to champion the causes of our brave men and women in uniform every day. As we enter a time of peril for our troops, and a time of concern in the hearts of their loved ones, it is important that the Congress is steadfast in our support.

I do have reservations, however, about the full content of this resolution. It mixes a statement of support for our troops, a sentiment that unites this Congress and our Nation, with support for the policies and plans of the administration--policies that remain controversial in this body and among many Americans.

It is the right--indeed, it is the duty--of elected representatives in a Democracy to question, to debate, and to voice the concerns of their constitutes. This resolution seeks to suppress all such concerns in a cynical act of politics, by forcing members either to vote in favor of all of the policies, or risk showing disdain for the troops. This kind of politicking has no place in what should be a pure and genuine expression of national unity.

I am voting for this resolution tonight because the sacrifice of our troops and their families deserves to be honored. But I object to the way in which this was brought forward, and I hope that this body will show a greater regard for all of the voices in our Nation in the future.

Mr. Speaker, today, along with my good friend Tom Allen, I am introducing the Commercial Truck Highway Safety Demonstration Program Act of 2003. This bill would allow Maine to increase the weight limits for trucks on interstate highways, by granting a three-year waiver of federal rules. It mandates a study process that will help demonstrate the positive safety effects of these changes, and permit the waiver to be extended pending these safety determinations.

This bill is important both for public safety and economic reasons. The administration of the current 80,000 pound federal weight limit law in Maine has forced heavy tractor-trailer and tractor-semitrailer combination vehicles, traveling into Maine from neighboring States and Canada, to divert onto small State and local roads where higher vehicle weight limits apply under Maine law.

The diversion of those vehicles onto such roads causes significant economic hardships and safety challenges for small communities located along those roads. Permitting heavy commercial vehicles to travel on Interstate System highways in Maine would enhance public safety by reducing the number of heavy vehicles that use town and city streets, and as a result, the number of dangerous interactions between those heavy vehicles and other vehicles such as school buses and private cars.

It would also reduce the net highway maintenance costs in Maine because the Interstate System highways, unlike the secondary roads of Maine, are built to accommodate heavy vehicles and are, therefore, more durable.

Finally, this bill would ensure that Maine can remain competitive in the transportation and manufacturing sectors, and that our neighbors do not pass us by in development. This change is fair, and will promote parity in transportation throughout New England.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, which will enhance safety, lower maintenance costs, and promote economic development.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the Cardin Democratic alternative on the Welfare Reauthorization bill. This bill would reduce poverty, promote State flexibility, and help move welfare recipients into real jobs.

It adds a strong new work requirement, but it also provides welfare recipients with support through education, training, and childcare, and it gives states adequate resources to fund these programs.

In contrast, H.R. 4 would leave Maine with a $56 million dollar unfunded mandate over five years. Just as bad, right now, a Maine family of three receiving the maximum benefit only reaches 39 percent of the federal poverty level.

H.R. 4 doesn't give any new resources to change that. Instead, it simply asks states and welfare recipients to meet new goals, without giving them a real change to achieve them.

So let's support the alternative, and pass welfare reform that works.

Mr. Speaker, today, the House considered the Omnibus appropriations measure for Fiscal Year 2003. It is the legal duty of the Congress to fund the government, and the time to vote on this funding was long overdue.

As is often the case, the majority decided to use this desperately- need bill as a vehicle to insert ``riders'' and other language that would be unlikely to pass on its own. In this bill, there was language that would open the way to preliminary studies of the feasibility of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. There was language that would increase logging in national forests. There was a cut to conservation programs, and a severe underfunding of border security and first responders money.

I object to these provisions in the strongest terms. This is a sneaky, underhanded way of creating policy. At a time when funding for so many valuable programs in Maine and across the country is desperately needed, it is wrong to extort the Members of Congress into voting on these highly controversial measures. The majority is saying: vote in favor of this bill, with these odious measures included, or lose the entire bill.

So when the Motion to Recommit was offered, I gladly voted in favor of it. This motion would have instructed the Appropriations Committee to remove this offensive language, and pass a clean bill to fund the government. I would welcome the idea of a short delay in passing the omnibus if it were to mean removing these environmental sneak-attacks.

However, when that motion failed, I felt that the remainder of the bill was too important for Maine to be allowed to fail. The omnibus includes millions of dollars in direct aid to Maine. I have worked hard to obtain funding for projects in agriculture, health, transportation, construction, science, and labor. This includes $900,000 that I was able to convince my colleagues to include to help the workers in Millinocket and East Millinocket who have lost their health care in the wake of the Great Northern Paper Bankruptcy. This includes language that I was able to insert prohibiting the Department of Labor from consolidating the Bangor and Portland OSHA offices without further consultation with Congress. This includes Medicare payments to physicians and support to rural hospitals in Maine, money to develop the East-West Highways, money for education, federal housing loans, and small business loans.

I voted in favor of the omnibus so that Maine would not be deprived of all of these vital resources. I am extremely disappointed that this bill contained such detrimental, misguided environmental policy as well. I will continue to oppose measures such as these. I have already worked hard in my first month in Congress to oppose drilling in ANWR, to safeguard our environment, and to promote energy efficiency and alternative fuel sources. I have written letters, cosponsored bills, and worked with my colleagues already on these issues, and my determination to advance these causes will not diminish.

I am pleased that we could pass this bill, and bring important funding to programs in Maine and around the nation, and I wish that the majority party had not exacted such a high price.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 23, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise on the day when President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address to America. I can tell you that in Maine we are proud of America and hopeful about the future. But we are also concerned about where we are today. We are concerned because Maine's rate of unemployment keeps rising, in some counties as high as 9 percent, and in some labor-market areas as high as 32 percent unemployment. We are concerned because we have lost over 23,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 8 years. And we are concerned because just 3 weeks ago we received devastating news that Great Northern Paper Company, where I worked for 29 years and one of the largest employers in my district, has filed Chapter 11, and both mills have been shut down since December 26.

I know that across the country people are hurting and they need our help. Unfortunately, I do not believe that the plan the President will discuss tonight will bring that help.

The so-called economic stimulus package is based on tax cuts that go primarily to the wealthiest Americans. It does nothing to create jobs or fuel the economic activity that would help folks back home at Great Northern Paper Company.

Mr. Speaker, there is another way. Today I ask the President along with my colleagues here on both sides of the aisle to at least consider the Democratic stimulus plan. This plan means targeted tax relief for working families, 1 million new jobs, money in the pockets of average Americans, a boost for consumer demand and business investment.

The Democratic plan does all this, and it does it living within our means. It is fiscally sound. It does not borrow from our children or our grandchildren, burying them with debt and taxing them with interest on that debt.

Mr. Speaker, we all have to work together on this because today Americans' number one worry is the economy. Americans are worried about whether their jobs will be there tomorrow. Americans are worried about earning a decent wage, and Americans are worried about being able to afford the same medicines as everyone else. That is why making prescription drugs affordable for all Americans should be a central part of our economic plan.

In Maine we created a law that allows the State to negotiate with drug companies that uses the free market to get a better deal for consumers. We called it the Maine Rx program. In the coming weeks I will introduce legislation in this House to bring that historic innovation to the rest of the Nation. It is called America's Rx because all Americans deserve to have their government work on their behalf and using the free market system to get them affordable medicines.

This means a lot to real people. A friend of mine, a man who worked next to me at the paper mill for almost three decades, has cancer. He cannot retire. He would have no health benefits if he does, and he cannot afford his medicine on his own. He has to keep working while he is sick, but now, with the company in bankruptcy, he does not know what he is going to do.

These are the kind of people we need to help. This is why the cost of prescription drugs is so important, and this is why keeping people working in their jobs is so important, and this is why the health of our economy is so very important.

I look forward to working with my colleagues here in Congress to create a real economic stimulus package, and to create real job security, and to create real health policies that works for all the people.