Floor Statements

Madam Chairman, I have heard concerns about the Cincinnati area's Planned Parenthood Clinic's alleged mishandling of claims of abuse. This is an ongoing legal process, and we must wait for the verdict before determining the truth of the claim. As a mother, I can only imagine how difficult this time must be for the young woman.

Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri states in their mission that they are ``committed to providing confidential, affordable reproductive health care to all individuals, regardless of their ability to pay.'' Planned Parenthood provides a wide array of basic health care services to both women and men. They offer cancer screening for women and men--we know that early detection can help people fight and win their battle with cancer. They provide confidential screenings for sexually transmitted diseases so that people can get treatment and prevent the further spread of disease. They offer counseling for women going through menopause on what to expect and what types of treatment they could consider. They diagnose infertility problems for women and men trying to build a family. They also conduct workshops for parents and youth to discuss topics related to sexuality. The workshops build self-esteem, promote a positive body image and build communication skills. They also offer a workshop called ``choices and consequences'' that helps youth understand what abstinence means. In the workshop, youth and Planned Parenthood advisors work together to identify the skills and knowledge that someone needs to use abstinence effectively.

Despite the numerous types of health care services provided, Planned Parenthood is best known for assistance in family planning. To be clear, Planned Parenthood cannot use any of its Federal funding to perform abortions. The family planning services they provide are critical for women's health. Women depend on contraceptives for better health to regulate their menstrual cycles and treat endometriosis. Access to family planning services helps prevent unintended pregnancy and helps in the timing of planned births. If women can control when they become pregnant, we can significantly reduce the number of abortions--a goal I believe we should all support.

Planned Parenthood's services are confidential, and perhaps more importantly, affordable. They provide basic health care to many of my constituents who might not otherwise be able to afford it. In 2005, Planned Parenthood served 13,601 Kansans. I will continue to support funding for health care for my constituents.

Mr. Chairman, when most of us think about law enforcement, we imagine police patrolling the streets, or we think of lawyers and judges in a courtroom. But there's another chapter to the law enforcement story. Once a criminal has been caught, tried, and convicted in federal court, the U.S. prison system is charged with detaining him--sometimes for the rest of his life.

Just as Congress talks about supporting police and protecting judges, we need to talk about supporting our prisons. In recent years we have seen the Federal inmate population grow without a corresponding increase in the number of corrections officers. This is a dangerous situation that we cannot allow to continue.

Since 1980, the population of inmates in Federal prisons has increased from 24,000 to almost 200,000--an 830 percent increase. Unfortunately, funding hasn't increased nearly that fast, and too many facilities are facing staffing shortages. Right now, Federal prisons are overcrowded by about 37 percent.

Frankly, that isn't right. We can't claim to be tough on crime and neglect our prisons. Congress has to provide enough funding to the Bureau of Prisoners to ensure the safety of our guards and the quality of our prisons.

As a member of the House Corrections Caucus, last month I authored a letter to the House Appropriations Committee requesting increased funding for the Bureau of Prisons. Together, we requested $427 million over 2007 for the Bureau of Prison's ``salaries and expenses'' account and $210 million for the ``buildings and facilities'' account. Unfortunately, resources are stretched thin and that amount could not be met.

In order to continue managing the increasing prison population and providing a safe work environment for our correctional officers we need to provide the BOP with the necessary funding. We must ensure that the BOP receives the funds it needs to conduct maintenance on current facilities and build the new facilities necessary to deal with overcrowding.

Congress can never remove all of the risk from the job of guarding a prison. Risk accompanies any law enforcement job. But we can provide the resources to help our guards do their jobs as safely as possible and demonstrate that we are tough on crime.

I thank the chairman for all the hard work that has gone into this bill.

I rise in opposition to the Kind amendment. I believe, actually, that they are doing it with the best of intentions, but what will happen to independent and small farmers in Kansas is not a good thing, and I will not be able to support it.

But, Madam Chairman, I would also like to talk today about something that I have been speaking about in Kansas for now 4 years, and that is closing the loopholes on these corporations that move offshore just to avoid taxes. The people in Kansas certainly are not happy that this has been allowed to go on for year after year. And I am proud to work on the farm bill, what I thought was a very bipartisan group, and I get to kill two birds with one stone, hopefully, and that is to bring home a farm policy that is going to be a very good thing for our country and for Kansas farmers, and we get to

finally close a loophole that should have been closed years and years ago.

The bottom line is we can't borrow and spend. We have to pay for the things that we want. It is a bipartisan bill, it is not a tax increase, and I ask my colleagues to support our farm bill.

Mr. Chairman, would the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I, too, am in strong, strong support of this. The House has overwhelmingly voted 411-3 to pass this amendment. To be honest, I think it is just an egregious grab of power by the administration to take the will of the American people and the will of this Congress and completely disregard it.

There are not systems or laboratories in place to test for drugs. There isn't documentation in order to make sure that we have inspected our trucks, that we have the training, and that there is drug testing. It is just a complete farce to be told that these safety requirements are going to be met.

Mr. Chairman, I know that I, as well as the people of the Second District of Kansas, are strongly urging the President to stop this. I certainly support this bill, which will stop the funding and stop this pilot program.

I rise in opposition.

First of all, Mr. Flake, I would certainly like to just say thank you so much for this opportunity. I've had a lot of people on both sides of the aisle say that this whole thing is a complete waste of time. And I personally just want to thank you for the opportunity to stand up and talk about Leavenworth County, Kansas. We don't get that opportunity enough.

Actually we have many prisons. We probably have more prisons in Leavenworth County, Kansas, than any other county in the United States. Let me tell you about three of them. Lansing, which is in Leavenworth County, hosts and houses the Kansas State correctional facility for the entire State. Then, of course, we have the United States penitentiary. It is an historic penitentiary, has got some names of people who have been housed there: George ``Machine Gun'' Kelly; the NFL running back Bam Morris; Leonard Peltier; Fritz Duquesne, a Nazi spy; and Robert Stroud, who later became the Birdman of Alcatraz. So it has a huge history there. But it currently still houses close to 2,000 prisoners for the United States Government, Mr. Flake.

Then let me tell you about the detention barracks, which is part of Fort Leavenworth. Actually, for the first time in, say, 50 years, a unit from Fort Leavenworth was actually sent to Iraq because they were so expert in detentions and in handling these kinds of extremely difficult and sensitive issues that they went to Iraq to try to clean up some of the mess that was made by some of the detention problems.

So, Mr. Flake, I would just say to you that I don't think this is a joking manner in any way, shape, or form. It is very easy for you to go tell the people of Arizona that you are tough on crime. But let me say that it is a very difficult thing to do, and we take a great deal of pride about it in Kansas. It does take a lot more than talk to say that you are tough on crime.

The local residents are proud of their heritage and rightly so, and they see it as part of their responsibility to preserve this history. Let me talk about what they are doing. They are raising $2 million of private funds for this.

So I am proud. And, again, I just thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this. We are asking for $100,000 to add to this museum. But let me talk about one other thing. Mr. Flake, I don't know if you understand this.

Madam Chairman, real life corrections work is sometimes dangerous, and it involves loss of life and injury. This memorial, this museum, will actually be a memorial to those fallen who have, again, at the U.S. penitentiary as well as our State, as well as our fort, and the detention barracks that are there, this memorial will offer an appropriate tribute to the sacrifices that these people have made.

So, again, it is very, very easy to say that we are tough on crime. The men and women who do the corrections work in Leavenworth County, Kansas, understand that it takes a heck of a lot more than talk to get behind this and be tough on crime to be able to do what we know needs to be done in this country.

Again, I am glad to have the opportunity to stand up here. Leavenworth County has a rich tradition. We were part of the border wars when it came to the settling of one of the biggest issues in this country about slavery. We have the United States penitentiary, which is just so intense in its history. We have the Leavenworth, which has played a huge role in keeping our country safe.

So I appreciate this. We would like as many people to come. This is going to be a tourist attraction, and we are inviting as many people as we can to Leavenworth County, Kansas, while we are building this museum and certainly as well as after it is built.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, Madam Chairman, I would just reiterate that the people of Leavenworth County, Kansas, are proudly working hard to raise $2 million of private funds. And I stand before this body today and am proud to say that $100,000 will go to this. And, again, I am very proud to do this on behalf of Leavenworth County, Kansas, and invite everyone to come see the rich tradition that makes Leavenworth County a great place.

Madam Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter into a colloquy with my colleague from Kansas, Ranking Member Tiahrt, and Chairman Dicks.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to bring to light an issue of great importance to southeast Kansas, and I think we have a visual down here that we can point to in a minute.

Treece, Kansas, is a small town of about 150 people. It is part of the Tri-State mining district of southwest Missouri, southeast Kansas and northwest Oklahoma, producing lead, zinc and coal. Much of the lead and zinc that was used in ammunition and equipment to win World War II came from this area. However, this mining has led to incredible environmental problems, to include significant subsidence and health problems from chat piles, otherwise known as mining waste. The photograph that we have here on the easel, those are the chat piles we are talking about.

This problem has been under study for years. In 2004, Senator Inhofe from Oklahoma arranged for the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a subsidence risk study for northern Oklahoma towns similar to Treece. The results of this study lead to a voluntary buyout program allowing Picher, Oklahoma, residents to move.

The Kansas Geological Survey did a stability study and hazard evaluation of southeast Kansas mining areas in 1983. The report indicated that Treece is ``located within the Picher field and is surrounded on all sides by abandoned mine workings and is extensively undermined.''

In a letter to me dated March 30 of this year from the EPA in D.C., they note that, ``The Treece sub-site is part of the former Picher mining field centered near the town of Picher, Oklahoma.'' In fact, Treece was originally platted as part of Picher, Oklahoma. It sits right on the Kansas-Oklahoma border and is separated from the town of Picher only by a political boundary. Treece receives its electricity and emergency services from Picher, Oklahoma.

The geology of Treece and mining techniques that were used are the same as in Picher. In fact, and this is the point I would like to make, Treece, Kansas, and Picher, Oklahoma, are in fact the same minefield.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to make two points: First, if we must, we will ask the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a study similar to the one done in Picher. But we should not have to. The Treece community should be treated the same as Picher.

Second, while Treece is designated as part of the EPA Superfund site, EPA has yet to approve a request for funding that would remove the chat from Treece and other sites along the Kansas-Oklahoma border. This requested funding would allow removal of this dangerous material over a 10-year period.

Addressing both of these issues for the good people of Treece, Kansas, is long overdue, and we certainly appreciate this committee's attention.

Mr. Chairman, I would say thank you to both of the gentlemen. The good people of Treece are very deeply appreciative.

Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to share a couple of freshman stories here. I am one of the new kids. And when I campaigned, I actually campaigned for 3 years. And you can image what I heard about veterans issues. It was about access mainly.

Our veterans hospitals in Kansas are good, but they only had a certain amount of money, and getting access, waiting times, waiting lines was just a tremendous problem.

So when I got here, I went to Chairman Filner's office with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder, and I said, listen, I need to know what we're going to do for veterans, what's going to happen. And listen, I want to know the truth. Don't tell me something. Don't let me go home to Kansas and then come back and not be truthful.

He said, Mrs. Boyda, we are going to take care of our veterans.

And then when we did our first continuing resolution and put $3.5 billion immediately into that pipeline, I heard something that I just absolutely couldn't believe, and that was someone who said, that's just a down payment. So I actually began to have faith that people in Congress do what they promise to do.

Let me tell you another quick story, too, and that was when I spoke with Chairman Edwards and he was telling me about what was going on, because I have been a tireless advocate for this. He said, Nancy, we're going to get this done, and we are going to do an historic funding for this, and we're going to get that done by June.

And then the next thing we're going to do is spend the next 6 months on oversight because we have to make sure that those funds are used in a way that makes a difference to our veterans, and we have to make sure that every cent of that that we have appropriated we can do the best we can to make sure that those funds are used appropriately.

So I am thrilled to be here with the new Democratic majority that is keeping its word to veterans, and saying that we're not only funding, but I believe that we will go and do the oversight that's needed to make sure those funds are used for the best benefit of our veterans.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today dismayed by the Department of Transportation's decision to rush dangerous Mexican trucks onto American roads.

In the last month, this House voted twice to impose severe restraints on any cross-border trucking program. Three weeks ago, we passed my Safe American Roads Act by an overwhelming, bipartisan 411-3 margin. The supplemental appropriations bill included similar language. It passed both Houses, and it was signed into law by the President of the United States.

But although we have twice loudly and unambiguously rebuked the Department of Transportation, they are simply ignoring the American people. On Friday, they announced plans to launch a cross-border pilot program anyway, in clear violation of both Houses and the will of the American people.

Their actions are deceptive, and they are intolerable. The people's House cannot be sidestepped through bureaucratic trickery. I urge the DOT to put the brakes on this profoundly undemocratic course of action. The safety of our highways is at stake.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 433, I was meeting with constituents in the Rayburn Room. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, last November, voters charged a new congressional majority with a clear mandate: End the scandals and clean up Congress. At first, we embraced the voters' charge. The Democratic majority passed an ethics reform package that banned Members from accepting gifts from lobbyists, we blocked Representatives from flying on corporate jets, and we prevented Congressmen from pressuring private businesses to hire or fire for political reasons.

Now the time has come for another step, and our actions in the next days will determine the strength of our resolve. Did we mean it last November when we said we would change Congress, or were our words just mere election-year slogans?

If we meant what we said, then it is clear what must happen next. First, the House Ethics Committee must launch investigations into public reports of congressional corruption, including accusations that Mr. William Jefferson committed crimes such as racketeering, soliciting bribes and money laundering. This committee must investigate. No excuses and no delays. And if the Ethics Committee proves unable to complete this, its most basic responsibility, then Congress must create a more independent Ethics Committee, capable of the initiative and oversight that the American people deserve.

But that isn't enough. Although Mr. Jefferson should and must enjoy the presumption of innocence granted to all American defendants, as a Member of Congress he has a special pact with the American people. If Mr. Jefferson left Congress today, if he were to resign today, as I know many of us wish that he would, then tomorrow he will begin drawing a Federal pension for his service in Congress. According to the National Taxpayers Union, that pension will exceed $40,000 a year.

This, and I mean this word literally, is an outrage. Taxpayers should not fund the pensions of Members of Congress who had to resign or have resigned in disgrace, and Congress has the responsibility to end this state of affairs.

We must strip the pensions of any Member of Congress who commits a major Federal crime while in office. I offered a bill, the Pensions Forfeiture Act, to do precisely that, and it passed the House of Representatives earlier this year. A similar bill has passed the Senate, and now it must be sent to the floor as a reconciled bill that we can finally send to the President.

Let's not permit committee delays or needless procedure to interfere one more day with real, meaningful ethics reform. Let's pass the Pensions Forfeiture Act into law, and, what's more, let's end the revolving door. Let's establish an independent ethics commission, and let's begin to rebuild the trust of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, last month my congressional office was flooded with letters asking me to cosponsor the National Eosinophil Awareness Week Resolution. All of these heartfelt notes, as it turned out, were authored by the family and friends of an 11-year-old girl who lives in my district, Jessica Seidel. Jessica and her mother are here with us today.

Jessica suffers from a rare eosinophil disorder that causes her body to mistake common proteins as foreign bodies. The disorder makes Jessica's life very hard. Only last week, she had to move out of her house because her basement flooded, rendering the house unliveable for her.

Despite these challenges, Jessica remains a remarkable girl. She is visiting me here in Washington today, and I am impressed by her poise and her courage. I am very pleased that on Monday, the House unanimously approved the Eosinophil Awareness Week Resolution. Our vote was meaningful and it was important, not only to Jessica and her family and friends, but to every sufferer of an eosinophilic disorder across the United States.

Thank you, Chairman DeFazio. I certainly appreciate your support.

This is a tremendously huge issue in my district. People want to know that Congress is out there making our roads safe. I have two children and went back and forth on I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis for years with two little kids. The truck traffic is amazingly dense. We spent years encouraging truck safety and spending billions of

dollars on safety and environmental standards, and it just does not make any sense to now watch that be reversed.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Transportation has unveiled a pilot program that will permit poorly regulated Mexican traffic onto American highways. In its present form, the DOT proposal exhibits reckless disregard for America's road safety, not to mention our border security and our economic interests.

Under current law, trucks registered in Mexico can drive only within a narrow border zone in the United States before cargos are transferred to an American vehicle. This system not only protects U.S. highways from unsafe Mexican traffic, but it prevents drug smuggling and illegal immigration, and it safeguards American transportation jobs.

But the DOT intends to halt this very sensible system. Under their pilot program, Mexican-domiciled trucks could penetrate far into the American heartland. The traditional safety standards required for vehicles on American roads, such as frequent safety inspections, limits on the number of hours driven in a day, drug testing and criminal background checks for drivers hauling hazardous materials, either would not be applied or would be weakly enforced.

Mexico certainly does not have a system right now for keeping these kinds of records in place. It's ridiculous for us to consider that they will be able to enforce these regulations in any way that comes up to our standards.

Again, let me say that our trucking industry has spent so much money getting our trucks, making them safer and so much to bring them up to environmental standards, it's just crazy to now say that we are going to bring in trucks that do not have to meet those same standards.

If the DOT pilot program proceeds as planned, drivers in Kansas and all across America will soon share their roads with unsafe Mexican trucks. The flood of foreign traffic will inevitably rise, result in collisions, injuries and even fatalities.

I introduced the bill now under consideration, the Safe American Roads Act of 2007, to rein in the Department of Transportation. The bill requires the cross-border pilot program to comply with 22 specific strict safety criteria. It creates an independent review panel to monitor and evaluate the pilot program after it launches, and it provides that the program can be terminated at any point if the Secretary of Transportation does not comply with all of these provisions.

By decisively approving the Safe American Roads Act, Congress can protect the millions of American families who drive our highways every day. I'd also like to thank Chairman Oberstar and Chairman DeFazio for their assistance and support, and I certainly urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 344, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chairman, I appreciate the Chairman's willingness to highlight the potential cost savings to the Nation through the research and commercialization of plastics technology utilizing renewable energy sources for common plastics applications. I hope that the Director of the National Institute of Technology will give attention to the collaborative efforts between universities and small and medium-sized businesses in the development of economical methods of manufacturing common plastic items from renewable energy sources.

I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Small Business Lending Improvements Act of 2007, passed yesterday by this House by an overwhelming margin.

Small businesses are critical to the Kansas and American economies. They create jobs, they keep wealth in our local communities, and they spur innovation. But in order to succeed, small businesses need ready access to startup capital and financial services.

The Small Business Association's 7(a) loans have helped tremendously. Last year alone, 757 Kansas businesses received $104 million through the 7(a) program.

The Small Business Lending Improvements Act will increase the accessibility of small business loans, helping to drive the Kansas economy forward. I especially support its provisions benefiting the rural lenders that serve so many entrepreneurs in my district.

I was pleased to vote for this important and innovative bill.