Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I want to commend the gentleman for his statements and for his effort this year. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) has gone all out working with the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) to craft a solution here. I have supported his efforts and I have Fort Lewis, Washington, McChord Air Force Base, in fact, in Fort Lewis we have one of the RCI, the Residential Construction Initiatives. It has worked better than any project for housing in the history of the country. And that is why this is so destructive. And we are not talking about spending additional military construction dollars.

All we are saying is we are going to raise a limit by $500 million so that these transactions can occur in a public-private partnership.

This is what we have always heard from the majority party is the right way to go, these public-private partnerships. Down in Fort Hood this is a great success.

I went out with General Soriano, the Commanding Officer at I CORPS. We went out and walked through these brand new houses being built under the Residential Construction Initiative. The wives of the sergeants were telling us this is the greatest thing that has ever happened in the Army.

I have been out there when these deployments occur, and one of the things the spouses say and one of the things the members of the services say when they are deployed is they worry about their family, they worry about the housing, they worry about health care, they worry about what is going to happen to their families while they are gone. I know from my years of experience, 26 years on the Subcommittee on Defense, 18 years on this subcommittee, that quality of life and having this new housing and getting it done in a timely way is crucial.

That is why the objection to this by the majority party to me is so unexplainable, because one thing we have always been good about in this

House is on a bipartisan basis rising above limitations, things of that nature, to get the job done for the men and women who are serving, and especially now when we are in a time of war, especially now when the services are stressed in a most difficult way, and with all these deployments. We are over-deployed.

We saw what the GAO said today. There is not enough money out there to properly deal with the problems we have got. So to pile this last thing on, this poke in the eye of the military families by not raising this limit, to me is one of the worst things that has happened in my 28 years in the House.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Edwards).

Reclaiming my time, I want to say here is a situation where this does not cost extra money. All we are talking about is raising the limit. The Office of Management and Budget is for this. The Secretary of Defense is for this. The service Secretaries are for this. The Chiefs of Staff of each of the services are for this. I mean, the President is for this. And it would seem to me with all of that support and with the chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), who has been a tremendous leader on this, why is it that we cannot get this done? Why is it that we cannot take care of these people?

To me this is unexplainable.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. Speaker, this is a disgrace. I have served on the Subcommittee on Defense of the Committee on Appropriations for 26 years, the Subcommittee on Military Construction for 18 years.

The administration, the Department of Defense, the House Committee on Armed Services, the House Committee on Appropriations and the Subcommittee on Military Construction all support raising this provision. The Committee on the Budget is coming in here and prevailed on the House leadership.

Now, I have heard a lot of rhetoric in this Presidential Campaign about certain votes in the other body where people did not vote for a certain supplemental appropriation for our troops. I want to say it very clearly. The American people are going to judge the majority party here today. If they go out here and vote for this rule that allows this provision to be stricken, they are voting against the men and women in the military of our country. It is simply that clear.

I have always believed this House would always rise up in a bipartisan way and get the job done, when it counted, for our men and women in the field. This will be one of the few times in my 28 years in this House where that does not happen because of the Committee on the Budget and the CBO.

OMB supports this. DOD supports it. The President, the Secretary of Defense, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young). Come on. Let us support this bill.

Let us override the Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chairman, we did not have much time on the rule to discuss this issue on the cap on family housing, and I want to first of all congratulate the chairman (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) for working together in a very bipartisan basis in our committee. The chairman could not have done more to help bring this provision to the floor of the House. We all regret, and I think it was a mistake in judgment for the Committee on Rules, to make a decision to not protect this provision, and this provision which raised by $500 million the cap on family housing was sought by the administration.

Each of the services testified before our subcommittee. The Secretary of Defense and his people supported it. The White House supported it. OMB supported it. The chairman of the Committee on Armed Services supported it. Of course our distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations also supported it. And we are going to make a decision based on an arcane rule coming out of CBO that is in conflict with OMB.

Now, my view in this situation, if I were in the majority party and the administration wanted this done, I would be trying to find a way to make it happen; and this is a big problem, because there are, I think, about a dozen projects.

Here are the projects that will not go forward this year if the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) has his way: Fort Drum, New York; Dover Air Force Base, Delaware; Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina; Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico; Fort Monmouth/Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey; Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Fort Bliss, Texas; White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma; Eglin/ Hurlburt Air Force Base, Florida; Lackland Air Force Base, Texas; Langley Air Force Base, Virginia; Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas; Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma; McGuire Air Force Base/Fort Dix, New Jersey; MCAGCC Twentynine Palms, California; MCSA Kansas City, Missouri; Camp Lejeune/MCB Cherry Point, North Carolina; Stewart Army Subpost.

Those projects will all be delayed because of this decision; and as has been suggested, we are in a time of war. We are in a war on terrorism, a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan. We have our troops deployed all over the world.

The one thing the people who are deploying say and their spouses say is one thing we really would like to see an improvement in, in the services, is military housing; and we have worked at Fort Lewis. I have a major project out there that is going forward. It is one of the greatest successes. We can get more housing, new housing and more restored housing faster under this public-private sector project; and usually the majority party is thrilled about public-private projects.

In this case, this decision will adversely affect the quality of life of men and women serving in the military and their families, and this is over an arcane budget rule. To me, the insistence on striking this out is one of the worst mistakes I think we have made around here in a long time.

One thing I have always been proud of, this House has always been able to rise above partisan or short-term considerations and work towards a bipartisan cooperation on defense. Let us not ruin that today.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman on his statement; and when he is right, he is really right. I thank him.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I think the chairman is operating in totally good faith, but the way to move forward is to support the Military Construction appropriations bill, which came to this floor on a bipartisan basis.

The subcommittee wanted this problem solved. We solved it in the full committee with the help of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards). This thing was worked out.

The reason we are doing this is because of this Congressional Budget Office rule, and OMB, the administration, the Defense Department all want us to do this. Why can we not figure out a way to do this today? Why do we have to wait for months when we could get this thing done?

He makes all kinds of excuses, but we might be able to put this into another bill and maybe it will go into the CR if it passes the House.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, I would hope that the gentleman from California would talk to his leadership, too, because his leadership has got to play a role here in giving some guidance to senior Members, because they are in charge of the House, because they are the majority party.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, this is a good program, too. That is the point we want to make. This is working, and it is not costing the taxpayers money. We are using the payments to work with the private sector. This meets all the tests of a great program.

The other thing is, this is not mandatory. I mean, in other words, we can get out of this program. If the military does not need the housing, then the private sector will take the project over and operate it. That is why I am wondering why this big scoring rule when, in fact, we are not putting real money into this, we are just giving a guarantee, and that way we get the housing done and it is much more effective than military construction.

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to the distinguished chairman that it was because the chairman of our subcommittee, who has worked so hard on this, asked us to do this in full committee. We did not raise it in subcommittee. We had a long discussion about it. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg) asked us to hold up and do it in full committee. So the committee on a bipartisan basis agreed to that strategy.

This was not because it was not a big priority. It has been a big priority all year. So the gentleman from Iowa, the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, is misinformed on this subject.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to rise in support of the Reyes amendment. I wanted to go back to the Rogers amendment just for a second, and I wanted to compliment the ranking member for opposing it.

Mr. Chairman, I served on the committee from 1990 to 1998. There was an understanding at the end of the Cold War, this was during the first Bush administration, that we were going to cut Defense by about 30 percent, 33 percent, but intelligence would be protected and held at about a 10 percent cut. It was believed that everything within this Defense budget should be reduced at that point in time.

So this was the policy laid down by Dick Cheney and Colin Powell. This created the base for us, and when the new administration came into office in 1993, Jim Woolsey was the head of the CIA, and he felt that they had to make some contribution. But we protected Intelligence. We protected it at the time.

So the gentleman's information, the gentleman from Michigan's information, here is inaccurate; and I think it is too bad, really, that this is in these findings, because we all want to support the intelligence community tonight. But I could not support these findings. I could not ask one single Member of the Democratic Party to support these findings, because they are inaccurate. They are not correct, and they are distorted. Also, I thought we had a rule around here that we are not supposed to disclose intelligence information. I guess percentages do not count, but saying that the budget was cut a certain percentage, I think, is a mistake, and to acknowledge that publicly is a mistake.

So I just wanted to stand up here tonight and say this: the Reyes amendment is about not getting to the bottom of this. I remember when my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), and I were on the committee together. We had every investigation imaginable into the Clinton administration. One could not think up something that we did not investigate. We went along with that, because we felt that doing the investigations was the right thing.

Now, on this one, guys, if we do not get to the bottom of this Guantanamo Bay and Iraqi prison thing, and if we do not insist that we get the information, I will be up here with a resolution of inquiry to demand that these Departments disclose this information.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Chairman, I want to take back my time. The gentleman has time on his own now, and he can use his own time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer a preferential motion.

Mr. Chairman, I want to take very strong exception to what the chairman of this committee, who I consider to be a personal friend, said to attack the Democrats in this House. And I was the ranking member of this committee for 4 years from 1994 to 1998. And we had bipartisan support for intelligence. And I think this is wrong to try to go back now and say after the Cold War was over, and there were some efforts, and it was first by the Bush administration, to reduce the money for defense. I mean, Dick Cheney was one of the biggest budget hawks and cutters on defense. He cut the B-2, he tried to get rid of the V-22, the F-15, F-16. One can go right down the list.

Colin Powell was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. They had what they called the base force which was one-third less than the size of the existing force. And as part of this downsizing, the intelligence community was cut by 10 percent.

That was the policy of the first Bush administration that was inherited by the Clinton administration. And I must say during the years that I was on the committee under Dan Glickman as chairman and Larry Combest and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) as chairman, we were able to work on a bipartisan basis. And we supported intelligence. Now, we did not throw money at it. We tried to make sure that we invested wisely. We had to modernize all of our national technical means. But this was done on a bipartisan basis.

I am very sorry to see this breakdown this year, for the first time to see the partisanship enter into this. Because I do not think it is in the best interest of our Congress or our national security, and especially at a time when we are in a war-time situation. But to attack the Democrats, I say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), I think is uncalled for.

I yield to the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. Chairman, I have to use the time. Again, I just want to say that during the time I was on the committee, we tried to do the best we could for the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the intelligence community, we supported it. I am very proud of the record that was achieved, was done on a bipartisan basis. I hope we can go back to that.

I know it is painful when your person is in the White House and you have to defend the administration and you want to fend off all these investigations, I can just tell my colleague this, we investigated everything under the sun when Bill Clinton was at the White House because the majority party insisted on it. Now, when it is their person as President of the United States, they are not so excited about investigations and getting all this information. But I think it is important for the American people that we do get the information, that we do find out about these detainees, and that we do get in information in a timely way.

If they are going to stonewall, then we will have to use other tactics like a resolution of inquiry to get the information from the Department of Defense.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Inslee-Van Hollen amendment. Last year, Congress gave the Department of Defense the authority to design a new civilian personnel system for its employees as part of the defense authorization bill. I opposed that part of the bill because it included a blanket waiver for the new system from all of the worker protections which Congress has wisely enacted through the years. Unfortunately, the House was denied a chance to vote directly on these changes in 2004, I must assume because of fear about how the vote would turn out.

Now the Department of Defense is designing the new system, and the initial proposal published by the Department this spring, as mentioned by others, has confirmed every fear voiced by members of the House, such as myself and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) about the new system. The initial proposal produced by the Department would have trampled worker rights in a wanton and deliberate fashion.

More recently, Navy Secretary Gordon England has been assigned to work this issue for DOD, and he has pledged to work with DOD unions and employee organizations to design a fairer system. I am strongly encouraged by his involvement, but I also believe that DOD must design a new system which is consistent with strong worker protections. This guarantee is all that the Inslee-Van Hollen amendment would add to the bill before us today.

Furthermore, there is an important monetary reason for supporting this amendment which is appropriate on the bill which deals with the defense budget. DOD has proposed creating within the Department of Defense two massive new bureaucracies which would duplicate the work of the existing Federal labor relations authority and the Merit System Protection Board. I believe that it would be irresponsible in the extreme for this committee to divert funding from badly needed warfighting priorities just so that the Department of Defense can duplicate the functions of independent government agencies under the control of the Secretary of Defense.

This harms national security at the same time that it undermines worker rights.

For all these reasons, Mr. Chairman, I ask that my colleagues support the Inslee-Van Hollen amendment and put the new personnel system at DOD back on the right track.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, the distinguished Democratic whip.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Yes, I am.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, we did have a proposal in our written document that went to the chairman that laid out a proposal, a different approach to this; and it would have just protected the public shipyards, both on the east coast, the west coast, and Hawaii.

And I appreciate the gentleman's willingness to discuss this issue. I know of his concern for government workers, because he has many in his own district; and I know that he will treat them as fairly as he has always treated me.

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I just mention this to my friend from Pennsylvania, that the Steel Workers Union of America is strongly in favor of this legislation. They want to see workers protected.

Mr. Chairman, I would just point out one other thing to my distinguished chairman. I had no idea that this amendment would be offered on the floor; but once it was, I felt compelled to speak on behalf of it.

Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Chairman, has the gentleman supported the reintroduction of the wolf as the predator in Montana?

Madam Chairman, would that not be a natural thing to do if they have these animals that are overpopulated?

Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Madam Chairman, there is no evidence, is that not correct, that even the National Wildlife Federation letter says that this part of the case is overstated, the threat of the buffalo to the cattle has not been established, I mean in terms of brucellosis being picked up by the cattle? Is that not correct?

Also, Madam Chairman, I ask the same question to the gentleman from Montana. I ask him the same question. Many of us supported the reintroduction of the gray wolf, which was extremely controversial because it would give them the top predator in the food chain, who would then go in and take down the sick and aging elk and buffalo, and I know that is sensitive, but if my colleague says he wants to reduce the size of the herd, the natural way to do that is with predation.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Chairman Taylor).

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the sponsor of the amendment, to respond to the chairman.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, it is my understanding that the Department of Energy does have the authority to do something of this nature. I think Secretary Richardson did this at a previous point in time, and I assume that the theory of the gentleman's amendment is that since we are at 661 million barrels inside the SPR and under his amendment we can only be at 647 million barrels, that they would then have to sell the difference between those two numbers into the market.

Now, I think the Department of Energy has the authority to do this. Maybe it would be best for us to talk to the Secretary of Energy about this and see if we cannot get him to do it. It might be a lot faster and help in a more timely way than a bill that will not probably be enacted until October 1.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to associate myself with the gentleman's comments. I completely agree with him on this particular issue.

I understand there has been a lot of progress made with four-stroke snowmobiles over two-stroke, but still you wind up with the noise factor. I look at my friend from Minnesota, and I would say we have got the Forest Service lands that surround the national parks, where people can do that kind of recreation. We have the Olympic National Park in the State of Washington; we have Mount Baker Forest. There are areas where you can do these things; and, yes, maybe they will raise these issues.

But the top officials in about the last four administrations who run the Park Service believed that in Yellowstone this should be reconsidered. All the science is on the side of this. In my view, it is just like the jet skis. In certain areas, Lake Crescent within the Olympic National Park in the State of Washington, banned the jet skis because they were noisy. We had one county that did this because the people did not like the noise.

It is something about being out there in a national park where you want to enjoy the wilderness, the moment. This noise level still, in my judgment, is unacceptably high.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment I have offered with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), and I think the chairman is prepared to accept it.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, one of the objectives of this bill is in the area of historic preservation through the Park Service and through the Department of Interior. This has been something that I have worked on in my own district.

I completely concur that we must protect our past, and especially when we have these very sensitive sites that are important to the people of that area and the country. I commend the gentlewoman for taking leadership on this issue, and pledge that we will continue to work with the gentlewoman on this matter.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman making this speech, and we all regret the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) is unable to be here today. I know both of you have been very active on the Everglades issue, and we want to see that all parts of the community, the minority and disadvantaged community, are not left out, and we will continue to work with you and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) to make sure this is accomplished.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding me this time and thank her for managing this rule every year so very effectively. I look forward to our joint efforts today to try to help the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

Like her State, the State of Washington, Seattle, Bremerton, Tacoma, the tri-cities, have all benefited by this funding. I just think it is one of the most important things that we do. I remember those great days when we were at $176 million before the Reagan Revolution came to town. I would also like to compliment the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings) from the Fourth Congressional District. We work together. I just want him to know we were over in the Energy and Water appropriations full committee markup today. I think the tri-cities did as well as they have ever done and even our joint project we worked on, Hammer, $8 million is very, very generous. Our delegation has always worked very effectively together.

There are some things, though, that concern me about this bill. First of all, I wish we could have done more for the operation of the national parks. The administration asked for a $22 million increase. Our committee increased that by $33 million for a total of $55 million. But that simply is not enough. We need more money for the operation of our parks. I think part of the problem, as the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), chairman of the Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, has said, we have got a problem with the management of the Park Service and we have got to get priorities straightened out at the Park Service.

I love Fran Manella. She is a wonderful person. But she has got to realize that it is the operation, the day-to-day operation and availability of those parks that the American people count on. Let me give my colleagues the numbers. The Olympic National Park is either third or fourth in the Nation in visitation. Two years ago we had 130 summer workers at that park.

That is now down to 25. And we have 202 authorized FTEs for the Olympic National Park. It is down to 120. It was 146 a couple of years ago. Why is that? Because the administration in their budget request is not covering the cost of the COLA, the increase that we give in pay every year, and also there are other fixed costs that have to be paid that are not being covered in the budget request, the increase in the budget request.

So what do they have? The only choice they have is to reduce the number of personnel, not to fill slots. So when people go to the park this summer, they are not going to have the same quality of a visit. There is not going to be a ranger out on the trail to tell them about the important cultural and historic areas within the Olympic National Park. They do not have people to take care of cultural assets, to take care of the buildings and infrastructure. And this is not just Olympic; this is across the country.

This year even with this increase of $55 million from last year's level, we have 388 parks; 241 of them will be funded at below the 2003 level. That is a prescription for disaster; and it is coming down, down, down. And we have got to step up. We, the Congress, cannot allow this to happen on our watch. And, yes, a big part of the problem is the inadequacy of the Presidential budget request. This is not just this administration. This goes back to 1994. This has been going on for a 10-year period of time, and that is why it is even more devastating, the consequences of this. And we have to continue to work together to come up with the resources.

I think this is a top priority within this bill that has not been properly met. We have made a modest increase here, but not adequate to the task. In fact, if my amendment that I brought up in committee had been accepted, we could have increased it by $45 million, and that would have meant that every

park in the country would have gotten an 8 percent increase. We are talking about $45 million in the operating account would have done that. Each park would have gotten an 8 percent increase.

So this is the one major thing that upsets me in this bill. Yes, we do not have money in here for land and water conservation, which I regret. I regret the lack of funding on the conservation amendment. But the thing we tried to do is protect our core agencies, the Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service. And yet they have these same problems.

One very good thing that we did in this bill was to deal with firefighting in a much better way. There is money in here, $500 million in 2004. When this bill is signed, it would be immediately available for the firefighting season. Another $500 million for 2005, $500 million for 2004, and I think a $167 million increase in the bill for firefighting itself. So we are trying to face up to that reality. We have got a drought out in the West. This is going to be a very serious problem.

We are also working, of course, on other important issues. In my own area, Hood Canal, we are working with the USGS on dealing with this oxygenation problem. We have a problem with too much nitrogen in the saltwater, which is having a devastating effect on all the fish and creatures there, and we have got to deal with this problem; and the USGS, which is part of this bill, is helping in that respect, and it is a very important priority of mine.

We are also working on the restoration of salmon runs, and we are doing a new process of mass marking with these fish so we can tell the wild fish from the hatchery fish. It is another important priority in our State. So overall, I think this bill, even though it is very deficient, below last year's level in terms of overall funding, below the President's budget request, we have tried to fund the things that are most crucially important; and I intend to vote for this bill on final passage. I hope we can improve it with several of the amendments that will be offered today.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments on the conservation amendment, but I also want to underline one other thing he said that I forgot to say, and that is that the President's budget requested an $18 million increase for the National Endowment for the Arts and for the National Endowment for the Humanities, and neither one of those has been accomplished. I think we have increased Humanities by $3 million, but this is below the President's budget request; and Mrs. Bush, who I think is a very thoughtful first lady, has been a proponent of these two increases. So I was somewhat surprised that it was decided to take out the money for these important programs, especially since they were requested by the first lady.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, first of all I want to thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Chairman Taylor) and the staff of the subcommittee, both majority and minority, for a very good bill and a hard-working effort.

Obviously there are deficiencies in the bill. The chairman mentioned the fact that we are below last year's level and that our allocation was a couple of hundred million dollars below the President's budget request. So obviously we had limitations on what we could do in this bill.

I do think that adding $500 million in 2004 for fire fighting, assuming we get the bill signed, and also for 2005, was an important step. We have also increased the overall funding for fire fighting by a significant amount of money.

There are some deficiencies. The majority decided not to fund the request of the President for the $41 million increase for the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. We were unable to come up with the money to fund the conservation amendment. But in other areas we were able to come up with funding to increase the money for the parks.

As I spoke on the rule, I talked about this problem we have with our national parks. We do not have enough money to cover the fixed costs. Therefore, their operating budgets are not able to cover the number of people necessary. I used the example of the Olympic National Park.

Three years ago, they had 130 temporary workers during the summer. That has been reduced down to 25. That is unbelievable. They had, I think, 3 years ago 146 employees, full-time; now it is down to 120, and they are supposed to have 202 employees. So my colleagues can see that this lack of funding is causing serious problems in the operations of the parks themselves. We are just not going to have the same number of rangers out there. This is a problem that I hope we can continue to deal with.

So I want to thank the chairman for all of his kindness and his willingness to work with the minority party here in the House on this important bill, and we will continue to work together until we get this bill finished.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), who has been a very good friend and a strong supporter of this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), the distinguished ranking Democratic member of the full Committee on Appropriations.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Slaughter-Dicks-Shays- Leach amendment. In order to find this offset, we talked to the Inspector General of the Interior Department. He made a recommendation that this was an area that had been very wasteful and that this would not hurt any of the programs there.

I want to say this is my 28th year on the Interior Appropriations subcommittee, and I started on this subcommittee under the tutelage of Sid Yates of Chicago, who was a tremendous supporter of the National Endowment For the Arts and Humanities. And I had worked in the other body and knew, of course, Senator Pell, who was the author of both the National Endowment For the Arts and Humanities legislation. Over the years I have followed how, with the increase in funding, even though we took a major cut, that we have seen an explosion in the growth of art institutions all over this country--more operas, more ballets, more theatres, more performing arts. This funding from the National Endowment for the Arts has been like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

We have today two of the finest administrators in these parts, Bruce Cole running the National Endowment for the Humanities, who I had a chance to talk to yesterday; and Dana Gioia, who is running the National Endowment for the Arts. These are real professionals. They are running these departments very effectively, and so we have offset this amendment completely. I think it is a choice of priorities, and I believe that what is happening in the arts and humanities is so important for the citizens of this country, and they appreciate it.

Every community in my district has benefited from the National Endowment for the Arts and by the National Endowment for the Humanities. We have the Pantages Theatre and the Broadway Theatre District in Tacoma, the Admiral Theatre in Bremerton and Fort Worden up at Port Townsend. Port Angeles has a summer arts festival. These things are appreciated by the American people, and they are terribly important for the education of our children.

And yet this year, even though President Bush and Mrs. Bush asked for substantial increases in the arts and humanities, our committee rejected that, completely. And, yes, we had a very bad allocation, but I do believe that in these two areas, we had a good hearing. The chairman of both endowments came up, testified before our committee; and they were so excited about what they can do with this money for the American people, especially on the humanities area, where we need to have more education about civics and our history and give our kids a better opportunity. And there are programs that are going out to all the schools all over the country that are supported by this, and it is a very fundamental part of our education.

So I am going to ask our Members, as we have done for the last 4 years, to vote for this. I want to compliment all those on the other side of the aisle who spoke today. I know there is always tremendous pressure to go along with the leadership; but in this case, we did not get the job done in the subcommittee. This is a chance for the House to correct this and show the American people again that we have gotten beyond this ideological fight. We can support the endowments, because they are doing good work. They have got good leadership, and they deserve our support.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote, and pending that, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. Chairman, obviously a $60 million cut in the National Endowment for the Arts would be a disaster. I certainly understand the gentleman's concern about law enforcement and other issues in the budget, and we will be glad to work with him on those issues, but not to take $60 million out. A similar amendment was rejected by a vote of 112 to 313 last year.

Mr. Chairman, I would urge my colleagues in the House to again soundly defeat the Tancredo amendment. This amendment would have a devastating consequence on the Endowment for the Arts, and I think the endowments, as I said previously, are doing a tremendous job for our country and deserve to be supported. So I urge a no vote on the Tancredo amendment.

Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will yield, I want to tell him that I will be glad to cooperate and glad to work with him on this issue. We can call a meeting with the Fish and Wildlife Service or whatever he wants to do to see if we cannot clarify what the problem is.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would certainly be willing to accept it if the chairman will accept it.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I want to commend the gentleman for his amendment and I want to bring this to the attention of all the Members of the House, because I made a speech earlier today on the rule to point out the fact that the number of people that are working at the parks is going down because, in many cases, 90 percent of the operation account is personnel. Therefore, when you do not have enough of a budget increase to cover the COLAs, to cover these emergencies, then they have to eat it out of their existing budget. In fact, at Olympic National Park in my district, they 3 years ago had 130 summer employees they brought in for temporary work. This summer they have 25 because they cannot afford more. They have lost so much money. They are about $6 million short of what they need to operate the park this year.

This has got to be dealt with. This year with the increases that we gave, still 241 parks out of 388 will have less money to operate than they did in 2003. The amendment that I proposed and that the gentleman proposes, the $45 million, would have given every park, all 388, an 8 percent increase. If we could get $25 million in conference, it would be a 6 percent increase. This is the way we have got to do this. We have got to get this thing turned around. The committee has done a good job but we have got to do better because it is not good enough. That is the problem we are faced with. We are working hard. We are trying to work with the department.

The National Parks Conservation Association also has done a lot of good work on this that really lays out what the problem is. The chairman has been very tough on the director and the staff down there trying to get them to cut out wasteful expenditures, but we can only go so far with that approach. Some travel is justified, some travel is necessary because of these emergencies. It is just the foreign travel that has been basically stopped. I hope that we can continue to work with the chairman and his staff so that we can find an answer to this and maybe we can get a little more allocation. But this is a real, serious problem that must be dealt with. I congratulate the gentleman for raising it here on the floor.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I also want to thank the gentleman for his work and look forward to working with him on this issue. I realize how difficult this issue is in his area and complicating this, as he mentioned, is a drought that has affected the entire region. So I know how difficult this is. We all want to protect the wildlife, the waterfowl, the salmon, all of which are affected by this. So this is an important issue, and the gentleman deserves our cooperation on this.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, can the gentleman tell me, what is the issue here? He is saying that they are using

the recreation demo money that was collected for maintenance purposes and they are using that for enforcing the Endangered Species Act?

Mr. Chairman, so the gentleman is arguing that they should be using the money that was appropriated for listing under the Endangered Species Act for this purpose, not fee demo money?

Maintenance and those kinds of things.

Mr. Chairman, I think that was clearly the understanding that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and I had when we were responsible for getting this thing established some time ago. Obviously, the Endangered Species Act is still in place, and they have other money to look at these things. What the gentleman is saying is that is money they should use for this purpose.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions. I appreciate the gentleman's yielding to me.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, have there been hearings on this issue before the gentleman's committee?

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to ask the gentleman, have there been hearings and could the gentleman describe what the status of the Rahall amendment in your committee is. I am an appropriator. I would like to see the Members deal with this issue in their committee. I think that is a much better way to do it than doing it on a rider on an appropriations bill. I agree with the gentleman.

I am a little concerned myself about an ability for this self- described sacred lands on Federal lands. I mean, the consequences, the possibilities of this are extraordinary. But I think we have to give some assurance to the gentleman from West Virginia that the gentleman is going to continue to look at this issue in the gentleman's committee.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

I just want to go back to the executive order and read so that everybody here has an understanding of how this would work.

Sacred site means ``any specific discrete, narrowly delineated location on Federal land that is identified by an Indian tribe or Indian individual determined to be an appropriately authoritative representative of an Indian religion, as sacred by virtue of its established religious significance to or ceremonial use by an Indian religion, provided that the tribe or appropriately authoritative representative of an Indian religion has informed the agency of the existence of such a site.''

So in this case, the tribe or an individual--it would not even have to be a recognized tribe--it could just be an individual identified with an Indian religion who could say, ``these are our sacred lands''; and the agency then, under the Rahall amendment, would have to protect them. This is not some way of having to come in and go through a process and explain that there is some history here or something else; it is just an individual who walks in and says, ``these are our sacred sites,'' and, therefore, no money could be spent.

Now, I cannot support that. I hope that we will take time. This is why it is so bad to do riders on these appropriations bills that come right out of the wind; and in this case, I think this is going way too far. We need to have more time. The gentleman who is the ranking member of an authorization committee can get hearings on this in his committee, and that is where this should be dealt with.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

I just went through a situation like this with a tribe in my district, the Elwah Tribe up in Port Angeles, Washington. There was a major State project and it was done on an Indian burial site, and when we started the project we found out that there were actually graves there, and this was a very, very sensitive matter with the tribe. What I did was sit down with the Washington State officials, with the historic preservation people, with the tribe, the local community, the port of Port Angeles, and we worked this thing out, and we protected the tribe's interest.

Now, I think Federal agencies are going to be sensitive since you have an executive order. If the tribes feel that there is some problem in the gentleman's State or in my State or in West

Virginia, why not get together and work it out with the Forest Service, the BLM, whichever agency it is, rather than trying to do something here with a meat ax that is going to cut off the funding and we have not got a clue of who these people are that are going to come in and make these determinations about what is a sacred site.

I mean, to put this into Federal law at this point, to me it just does not make sense. Why not go through and help the people with the sites that are affected and make sure that they have an opportunity to be heard.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the point is the tribe should go to their Congressman or their Senators and say, there is a problem here. Would you work with us, with the BLM and the Forest Service to resolve it, rather than putting a prohibition in an appropriations bill that says no money shall be spent. I think that is just overkill in this situation.

Reserving the right to object, would the chairman and the ranking member have the right to strike the requisite number of words once?

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman for his statement here tonight. I was thinking of the same thing. There is a gap of several billion dollars in education. The same thing is true here. There is a significant gap in the amount of money necessary to go in and go do the thinning and the pruning, to do the adaptive management to reduce the fire risk. It is because the administration has given all the money away in

incredibly large tax cuts, and now they cannot fund these bills.

We are not funding the parks, and we are not funding this area either. It has nothing to do with fire fighting. It has everything to do with the fact that the deficit is big and they do not want to spend the money.

They have all kinds of accounts in this bill that are underfunded because of that fact, and it is because we have a lousy allocation. We are $200 million below the President's budget request, which was totally inadequate in the first place.

So I commend the gentleman. I also believe one thing, and we learned this the hard way in the Pacific Northwest. ``Scientifically credible, legally defensible.'' When you start walking away from the scientists, when the scientists start saying this does not hunt and you cannot change these rules and do it this way, you had better wake up, because you are going to go into court, they are going to testify and have that biologist up there, and he is going to say you have not done these regulations properly. This will not protect the species and the wildlife in the area.

And we did not meet the scientific standard. It was not met out in the Northwest until the President's plan came into place. It was not perfect, but at least then we started protecting the species and we started taking care of some of the remaining old growth.

In my judgment, the reason I support the Udall amendment is because I do not trust this administration and the way they have approached these regulations.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham) and I work very closely on defense issues. Here is one issue that bothers me in this discussion. I know I had a study done of Region 6, which is Washington and Oregon. I do not think Northern California is in Region 6.

Here is the problem. We do not have the money in the budget to do the thinning that our foresters say we should do to deal with this problem, and it has not been there for a number of years.

But the problem is that it is not the forest regulations that are stopping us from doing it. The forest regulations are not saying you cannot go in there and thin.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I have to rise in very strong opposition to this. The Smithsonian Institute is one of the most popular agencies of government in the United States. Here we are, coming up on the summer season and at a time when people are going to come in and visit the Smithsonian, and I just wonder, this is cutting construction but construction goes across the board and affects every one of these.

Do we really want to cut out money for the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture; the Archives of American Art; the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Freer Gallery of Art; the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the National Air and Space Museum; the National Museum of African American History and Culture; the National Museum of African Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the National Museum of American History; the National Museum of the American Indian; the National Museum of Natural History; the National Portrait Gallery; the National Zoological Park; the Astrophysical Observatory; the Center for Materials Research and Education? I mean, the Smithsonian is important.

This is a bad amendment. Let us defeat it and let us send the young man home this evening with his tail between his legs.

Mr. Speaker, Catherine May Bedell was an outstanding member of the House of Representatives. She came from our great State of Washington, from Yakima. She was a graduate of the Yakima Valley Junior College and the University of Washington. She was a noted writer, teacher, journalist and radio broadcaster. In fact, she had the first Betty Crocker radio show in the country.

She was elected, as mentioned, to the legislature in 1952, served to 1958, and then won her first campaign for Congress in the 86th Congress. She served very well on the House Committee on Agriculture, where she was a strong voice for farming, irrigation, hydroelectric power generation across the State's expansive 4th Congressional District.

She served very capably in the House from 1959 through 1970; and, after that, President Nixon appointed her to the U.S. International Trade Commission on which she served for 10 years.

She was a great role model. In fact, she was the first woman elected to the House from the State of Washington.

Many of us in this Chamber today know her son, Jim, who served as the Executive Vice President of the National Association of Broadcasters and today is the President and CEO of the Air Transport Association.

Congresswoman Catherine May Bedell was also survived by a daughter, Melinda May Mazzetti, of San Francisco. I had the honor, when serving on Senator Magnuson's staff as an assistant, to work with her. She was a delight. She was a hard worker. She was a credit to this institution.

We are very sad to learn of her passing. I had a chance to talk to Jim, her son, today; and, of course, the family was very pleased to hear that she would be remembered today on the floor of the House of Representatives.

[From the Yakima-Herald-Republic, Jun. 2, 2004]

Catherine May, Political Pioneer and Mentor to Women, Dies

(By Leah Beth Ward)

Yakima native Catherine Dean May, the first woman elected

to Congress from Washington, died of natural causes Friday in

Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 90.

May was first elected to the 4th Congressional District in

1958 when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom she greatly

admired, was president.

Scholars have noted that she was one of the few women in

national politics at the time to win office on her own. Many

others were appointed to replace their husbands.

``She was very much a pioneer,'' her son, James C. May,

said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Described as strong and articulate by those who knew her,

May inspired and personally encouraged other women to run for

political office.

``When I first saw her, she was standing in a group of men

and they were listening to her. She could hold her own,''

said Rep. Mary Skinner, R-Yakima, recalling a Republican

Party luncheon more than 30 years ago. ``I was a great

admirer.''

May's political career began in 1952 in the state

Legislature, where she served as a representative until the

Republican Party nominated her to run for the congressional

seat of Otis Halbert, who was retiring. In what was called an

upset, she beat Democrat Frank LeRoux of Walla Walla.

May was re-elected to Congress six times until 1970, when

she lost to Democrat Mike McCormack, a research scientist at

Hanford. That year she remarried, taking Donald W. Bedell's

last name.

Born Catherine Dean Barnes on May 18, 1914, she graduated

from Yakima High School in 1932 and attended Yakima Valley

Junior College through 1934 before earning a bachelor of

science degree in 1936 from the University of Washington.

May's parents ran a Yakima clothing store.

In 1937 she received a teaching certificate and taught

English for three years at Chehalis High School. She

interrupted that stint in 1939 to study speech at the

University of Southern California, according to her

congressional biography.

Her son remembered his mother as very much the English

teacher, correcting grammar whenever necessary.

``In my household you grew up watching your language,''

James May said.

After teaching, May parlayed her language skills into radio

broadcasting, first with station KMO in Tacoma, and later

stations KOMO and KJR in Seattle. From 1942 to 1944, she

worked in advertising for the Strange and Prosser Advertising

Agency and the Federal Insurance Co., both of Seattle.

NBC radio of New York City hired her between 1944 and 1946

to produce the first Betty Crocker show, sponsored by General

Mills.

May returned to Yakima and continued in radio journalism as

``women's editor'' at KIT in Yakima from 1948 to 1957.

According to research of her congressional record by

Washington State University, upon her election, May was the

first representative from the state in six years to win a

seat on the House Agriculture Committee. She held the

assignment throughout her tenure and used it to fight for

dams.

In her last term in office, she received a second committee

assignment, the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, where she

fought an attempt to close Hanford.

Though she never touted herself as a woman's rights

activist, May was a quiet champion for the cause. She

supported the Equal Rights Amendment and worked to include

the prohibition against discrimination based on sex in the

landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Political defeat far from ended May's career in public

service. President Nixon appointed her to the U.S.

International Trade Commission, where she served from 1971-

81.

In 1982, President Reagan named her special consultant to

the president on the 50 States Project. She was president of

her own firm, Bedell Associates, in Palm Desert, Calif.

May's survivors include her son of Washington, DC, and her

daughter, Melinda May Mazzetti of San Francisco.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Catherine

May Bedell Scholarship Fund at Yakima Valley Community

College.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Tauscher amendment for two reasons. Conventional precision-guided munitions are a better technical solution than the Robust Earth Penetrator for hardened and deeply buried targets; and because the fallout, both figurative and literal, from the use of nuclear weapons will make the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator an extensive showpiece rather than a usable weapon.

We have the B-2. We have the means of delivering a JDAM missile, a 5,000-pound bunker buster, and the EGBU-28. All of these are a better approach than a nuclear option. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, says that nuclear weapons are for deterrence, that we are not entering an era of nuclear war-fighting; and so if we are going to have to use something, then we want to make sure it is a conventional weapon to go after these deep underground targets.

We have seen the fallout from what has happened in Iraq in this prison. Did the United States use tactics that were questionable? Think of what the fallout politically would be if we were using nuclear weapons in a war-fighting context. Conventional weapons are a much better choice. Let us approve the Tauscher amendment. Let us improve our intelligence. Let us improve the conventional capabilities. Why? Because they are usable. Nuclear weapons are not usable; conventional weapons are.

Mr. Chairman, I think the point that the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) was making and that I am making is that we think there are conventional alternatives to a nuclear weapon that are usable. So my concern is if we have a conventional approach with JDAMs, with the 5,000-pound bunker buster, EGBU-28, three very good conventional approaches to go after deeper targets, we should keep working and spending our money on those options.

My concern is his concern. We will not use this weapon. Even if we build it, we will not use it, because nuclear weapons are the weapon of last resort for deterence.

We have improved our military capability by having developed our conventional capability with the B-2, with the B-1s, the B-52s, with JDAMs, with the small diameter bomb, because they are usable; and that is more of a deterrent. When the enemy knows we can use that weapon and it will be effective, it is more of a deterrent than a nuclear weapon. We just will not use it. That is the problem, and it is a waste of money.

Mr. Chairman, I want to compliment the gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) and their outstanding staffs on both sides for working with us on this tanker amendment.

One of the things that I am convinced of, and I am even more convinced today, is we need to start a program of tanker replacement. Every single airplane that bombed in Afghanistan and in Iraq had to be refueled multiple times.

One of the reasons we are a superpower is because we have got these tankers. All of the original planes were built between 1957 and 1963. I have been to Tinker Air Force Base, I have seen the condition of these planes. The corrosion is significant and the cost of maintenance is going right through the roof. It is time to move out on this program.

The people who made mistakes in the contracting are being disciplined in the process, in the criminal process, and we should look at this on the merits. The chairman's amendment lays out a process whereby we can go forward.

If the chairman wants to explain it, I would be glad to yield to him. But basically we are going to have an analysis of alternatives, then we are going to have a negotiation session on the contract, then we are going to have a panel review with the Secretary of Defense; and we hope that by March 1, we will be able to finalize this and enter into an agreement to go forward with the 767 tanker.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, the key thing here is, we are buying an off-the-shelf aircraft. That means no development costs whatsoever.

I asked the chairman of the Boeing Company today what it would cost if we had to develop a new airplane, just in development before we got into production. He said $15 billion to $18 billion, and it would take a number of years to do that. So that option is not good.

I do not believe this House wants to buy this airplane from AirBus, so therefore before the 767 line goes down next year, we have got to enter into this agreement, militarize that line, and use it for tankers, which are so critical to our national security.

Mr. Chairman, this is a point we want to make. If we can get this done, we can do this for a lot less money than any of the other options, and we can do it with an American airplane; and we have blocked obsolescence before in the C-141s. If we had that problem, we will undermine our military capabilities. So this amendment in this en bloc is very important for us to move forward. And I commend the chairman and ranking member for their leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the passing of Phil Lelli, a good friend of mine and a great leader of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union from Tacoma, Washington.

Philip M. Lelli was a born longshoreman; he began his career on the Tacoma, Washington waterfront in 1949 and retired in 1993. He was President of the Tacoma Longshore Union Local 23 from 1966 to 1993, and I recall quite well the advice and counsel he freely gave to me and to other political leaders throughout his tenure of Union leadership. Afterward, he remained deeply engaged in community affairs in the Puget Sound area, serving as a Port of Tacoma Commissioner and the Harry Bridges History Chair Trustee at the University of Washington.

Today in the House of Representatives, I would like to express my sincere wishes of sympathy to the Lelli Family, Mr. Speaker, and to extend my thanks and the appreciation of a grateful community for the many contributions that Phil has made. I would also like to include in the Record the notice that was printed in today's News Tribune newspaper from Tacoma, Washington.

[From the News Tribune, Apr. 28, 2004]

(By Philip Lelli)

Hangs His Hook

Longshore leader Philip Martin Lelli was born December 4,

1929, in Edgewood and passed away April 25, 2004, in

Puyallup. He was the son of Martin and Mary (Baller) Lelli

and attended Fife schools and Pacific Lutheran University. He

married Joanne Williams April 18, 1953, in Fife. Phil and

Joanne were the proud parents of five sons: Jay (Judith E.

Peterson), Marty, Dean (Susan), Vance (Kimberlie) and Ross,

and grandparents of Janelle, Jayson A. (Jennifer), Paula,

Rori, Scott, Mathew, and Marina. There are three great-

grandchildren, MacKenzie, Kailee and Ryan. Also surviving is

his brother Tom (Phyllis) Lelli. One son, Ross, and a sister,

Jeanne Retallick, preceded him.

Phil Lelli was a dominant figure on the Tacoma waterfront

from the moment he lifted his first 180-pound sack of wheat

in 1949 until he retired as a gearman in 1993. He was a born

longshoreman: a practical physicist who could come up with

the most effective method of moving any size or weight of

cargo; a leader of men in times of great technological

change; and a stalwart ally who won hundreds of friends in

ports all over the world.

His mentor was T. A. ``Tiny'' Thronson, a veteran of the

Great Strike of 1934. Thronson's advice, ``Do a hard day's

work and you'll get rewarded with more opportunity,'' was

Phil's guiding principle as President of Tacoma Longshore

Union 23 from 1966 until 1983. He never abandoned his belief

that port-union cooperation would result in a Golden Age. He

teamed with Port Executive Director E. L. Roy Perry, Union

Business Agent George Ginnis, and Port Commissioner Robert

Earley to raise Tacoma from a backwater log port to become

the fifth largest container port in North America.

During his 55 years on the waterfront, Phil served as Port

of Tacoma commissioner, Propeller Club president, Tacoma

Longshore pension club president, and University of

Washington Harry Bridges History Chair trustee. The Propeller

Club awarded Philip its highest honor, Master Mariner, in

1982. The Harry Bridges Chair designated him its

Distinguished Supporter in 2003.

After Phil and Joanne's youngest son died in a waterfront

accident in 1989, the Propeller Club created the Ross E.

Lelli Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Phil Lelli learned the meaning of community service from

his father, Martin, who taught his son to care for other

people, especially the poor. In the 1980s Phil and Father

William Bischel S.J. organized the Hospitality Kitchen to

serve hot lunches to the Tacoma homeless. Phil rescued a

stove from the old Knights of Pythias Temple. Longshore

workers trucked the stove to the Kitchen, took out a wall,

installed the stove, and rebuilt the wall. The longshore

union continues its support of the Kitchen, which serves 450

meals a day.

Visitation will be from 8 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. Saturday, May 1

(International Workers Day), followed by the Funeral Mass at

10:00 a.m. at St. Andrews Catholic Church, 1401 Valley Ave.,

Sumner. Rosary services will be at 7 p.m. Friday at St.

Martin of Tours Church 2303-54th Avenue East, Fife. Graveside

services will be at Gethsemane Cemetery, 37600 Pacific

Highway, at noon May 1. The Longshore Union will honor

brother Phil with an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. There is an

online guest book at www.mountainviewtacoma.com

Arrangements are by Mountain View Funeral Home, 253-564-

0252. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in the name

of Philip Lelli to the Ross E. Lelli Memorial Scholarship, PO

Box 453, Tacoma, WA 98401, or the Hospitality Kitchen, 1323

S. Yakima Ave., Tacoma, WA 98405.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute one of the many brave men and women who serve all of us in our great military. I would especially like to pay tribute today and offer my personal thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Don ``BoBo'' Schilpp, of the United States Air Force, for a job well done.

Many of us in Congress know Lieutenant Colonel Schilpp because of his dedicated service during the past four years as the Appropriations/ Budget Liaison for the Air Force. This is an important role, at a time when many significant national security decisions were being made in the Congress, affecting the Air Force as well as our nation's ability to fulfill our constitutional role of ``provid(ing) for the national defense.'' The Air Force, through Colonel Schilpp's leadership during the past four years, has given us timely and thorough responses to our requests for information, and I want to take this opportunity as he retires from active duty to express our appreciation to him for all of his efforts. I have also had the pleasure of traveling with BoBo on several occasions, and each time his professionalism and personal attention to detail were the keys to a smooth and successful congressional delegation mission.

Before this assignment, Lieutenant Colonel Schilpp was an accomplished leader and combat pilot with more than 3,400 hours in the F-15 and T-37 aircraft. He served overseas during Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm and Southern Watch accruing more than 260 combat hours.

While I have relied upon Lieutenant Colonel Schilpp's military advice, I have valued his friendship even more, and I know many of my colleagues on defense related committees in the House share in that sentiment. In this regard, I wanted Colonel Schilpp to know that all of us in Congress who have known him and worked with him wish him the very best of luck in all his future endeavors.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to make a comment. I served with Joe Skeen on the Interior Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations. He was our chairman, did an outstanding job. We worked together on a very bipartisan basis. And even though he was struggling somewhat, he was there every day, worked hard, did a great job on the Interior bill. Every member of the committee on both sides of the aisle, all the staff, loved Joe Skeen because he was such a decent warm human being, and he will be missed. But his work will be remembered, and he did a lot of great things for our country as chairman of the Interior Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations. We will miss Joe Skeen.