Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the commitment of the Republic of Cyprus to democracy, human rights, free markets, and equal justice under law.

Regrettably, this July 20th marked the thirtieth anniversary of the invasion of Cyprus by Turkish military forces. This illegal military occupation of more than one-third of Cyprus' territory is a violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.

To this day, Turkey maintains a force of 30,000 heavily armed troops in Cyprus. 1,500 Greek Cypriots and 4 Americans of Cypriot descent remain missing since 1974, when the Turkish military forces commenced a policy of ethnic cleansing, forcibly evicting 200,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes.

In 1983, displaying blatant disregard for international law and the sovereign independence of the Republic of Cyprus, Turkey encouraged the secession and declaration of independence of the occupied areas.

The ``Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus'' has been recognized by no nation except for Turkey, and the U.N. General Assembly has made numerous calls for the immediate withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Cyprus.

Cyprus' accession to the European Union in May of 2004 has given Cypriots new resolve to overcome the division of their nation and citizens. It will be a difficult path towards a united Cyprus that is founded on respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. But it is a path paved with the hope of a determined people.

Currently, the Republic of Cyprus is seeking a bizonal and bicommunal federation, reunifying society and economy, while granting each community the right to retain its own identity and culture, without military occupation.

Although a reunification plan was set forth by the United Nations, in April of this year 76 percent of Greek Cypriot voters stood in opposition to the plan due to issues of vital concern, such as security, property restitution,

and dissatisfaction with the structure of the proposed central government.

Despite the rejection of the plan, 90 percent of the Greek Cypriot community turned out to vote on the UN plan, displaying a deep interest and concern in the future of the reunification of their nation and the changes this would bring.

We must learn from the message sent by those who could not support the proposed Plan. The lesson is Cyprus' reunification is too important an issue to rush into a Plan that does not address the serious concerns of all Cypriots.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today for Josie King. Josie was a vibrant eighteen-month-old who suffered a terrible accident and, thanks to the incredible advances in medicine, was saved and preparing to go home from the hospital.

Before she could, though, the same health system that saved her then took her life. That sweet little girl was lost to a series of entirely preventable mistakes in one of the finest hospitals in the nation, if not the world.

Politicians like to say that the United States has the best healthcare system in the world. But we don't. What we have is the best medical talent in the world, the best medical technology in the world, the best facilities in the world.

But the system itself is a mess.

The best healthcare system in the world would not allow nearly 100,000 people like Josie King to die in hospitals of preventable medical errors.

The best system in the world would not leave the United States ranked 28th in the world for infant mortality, in the company of Cuba, Hungary, and Slovakia.

The best system would not leave almost 75 million people--nearly one in three people under 65--without health insurance at some point over a 2 year period, especially when the National Academy of Sciences has documented that people without insurance have worse health and die sooner.

The best system wouldn't waste 30 cents on the dollar, or 1,400 dollars per employee per year, on care that does nothing to improve clinical outcomes. That's a 2 billion dollar tax on employers and taxpayers in my home state of Rhode Island in 2004, and an estimated 77.44 trillion dollars for the nation over the next decade.

And, one thing I know for certain, Mr. Speaker, the best healthcare system would

not give patients barely a coin-flip's chance whether they receive evidence-based, scientifically accepted care in appropriate situations.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce legislation because our health care system is not the best in the world. Our health care system produces great medicine but it produces great medicine unevenly and with massive inefficiencies and frequent mistakes. We can do better.

There's a saying: ``Every system is perfectly designed to produce the results it gets.'' We need to redesign the health care system to produce better outcomes at a better value. We need nothing short of a transformation so that delivering the highest quality health care becomes not only the overriding goal of the professionals within the system, but of the system itself.

How do we get there? Today, I am introducing a bill called the Josie King Act to put in place three pillars of a transformed system: A fully electronic, integrated, paperless healthcare system; a new emphasis on improving the science of better care, from the evidence base underlying medical treatments to the creation of a new cadre of health quality experts; and new methods of measuring the quality of care and new payment practices so that providers are compensated for the quality of care they provide, not just the quantity.

We're in the information age, and nowhere is information more important than in health care. Yet we ask doctors to practice medicine in the dark.

Our healthcare system is made up of thousands upon thousands of independent providers, each with its own records and no way to communicate with each other. Patients see multiple doctors, very rarely with anybody other than the patient as the traffic cop.

Since the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, it's no wonder that 54 percent of serious chronic disease patients say they have been sent for duplicate tests or procedures within the last year.

In fact, it is estimated that 20 percent of labs and x-rays are ordered because the previous results can't be found. One in seven hospitalizations occurs as a precaution because patient information is unavailable.

Handwriting errors and other human mistakes cause deaths and injuries. The chances of being administered the wrong drug or the wrong dose in the hospital is around seven percent. Adherence to evidence- based medicine is shockingly low--barely 50 percent.

Why? It's not because the doctors and nurses and other health care personnel aren't skilled or committed or careful. It's because we practice 21st century medicine on a 20th century platform. Right now, less than five percent of doctors' offices use electronic medical records there's no way for even those doctors to easily share information.

The information revolution has transformed financial services, manufacturing, retail. Even hide-bound politicians are adapting campaigns and elections to the new tools. We need I.T. to transform medicine as well.

Making our health care system fully electronic, with networks to share all information that patients choose to share, will create new tools for doctors and nurses to let them use their skills more effectively.

Each provider would have a complete record for the patient, so there would be no more duplication of tests and procedures.

Computerized decision support systems would catch possible errors and help remind health professionals of new advances in evidence-based practice guidelines.

Patients would have access to important health information in a way that can allow them to be active participants in their own care.

A national health information infrastructure will also be a critical public health tool, helping the CDC and other public health agencies quickly pick up on and respond to outbreaks and acts of bioterrorism.

As we build these health information networks, security and privacy must be paramount. In fact, we can and should make a new information infrastructure safer than the status quo, with paper records that can be read by anybody and are easily accessible.

Not only could creation of this health information infrastructure dramatically improve patient care, it could save us billions of dollars--dollars our health care system can scarcely afford to waste. The independent Center for Information Technology Leadership prepared a report for the Department of Health and Human Services estimating the savings at $87 billion per year as we eliminate duplicate tests, unnecessary hospitalizations, and the many errors that plague our system today.

If electronic health systems are so terrific, you would think we'd have them by now. But here's the trouble. Most providers, especially physicians in small practices, have little financial incentive or wherewithal to make substantial I.T. investments.

In order to fix that, we need to recognize that putting in the information technology we need is a community-wide, infrastructure challenge. The benefits of achieving a widespread health information network for the community as a whole are tremendous, easily providing enough return on investment for all to gain.

But to get there, all of the health care stakeholders will have to work together to figure out how they're going to divide up the costs and the savings of putting electronic systems in every provider's office and of establishing the network. It needs to be a community-wide approach.

The model is being built in Rhode Island. Work is underway to pilot the development of a comprehensive health information network, and when it is in place, Rhode Island will be showing the future to the rest of the nation.

Building on this model, the Josie King Act lays out a phased process that will provide seed money and leadership to get the process rolling across the country and help every state and region build its infrastructure. With this proposal, we can get virtually the entire healthcare system networked in a decade.

When we have an electronic health information system, all kinds of other possibilities for transformation become possible. The Josie King Act not only would put I.T. in place, but would help establish new systems to take advantage of it.

Information systems create new opportunities for developing and using the evidence base. The Josie King Act would promote research into the comparative effectiveness and value of drugs, treatments, and technologies so doctors will have more and better information.

But as we expand our understanding about what constitutes good medicine in a given situation, we need to improve how that knowledge is used. How would we react, Mr. Speaker, if the airline lost half of our bags? Or if every other computer in our offices had to be returned to the manufacturer due to defects?

Well that's what we have in medicine--a defect rate approaching 50 percent in many cases, according to research from the RAND Corporation. We need to challenge the culture and systems that we have, because they are simply not good enough.

Information technologies can be powerful tools to drive out errors and improve efficiencies, as we have seen throughout our economy. But they are the tools, the means not the end. We also need leaders committed to redesigning health care delivery. The Josie King Act would begin training this new cadre of health care leaders with scholarships for graduate study in health care quality and efficiency.

To improve quality and efficiency, we also must be able to accurately measure quality and efficiency. The Josie King Act will help standardize performance measurement and use the new electronic clinical data so that, for the first time, consumers and payers can have a single source for an apples-to-apples comparison of all providers' quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction.

Over time, these performance measurements can help us redesign payment practices so that doctors and hospitals are rewarded, not penalized, for improving patient outcomes.

The status quo is just not a sustainable option. We deserve a health care system that is as good as the quality of the medicine it can provide. That means thinking critically and creatively about what kind of health care system we want and how we build it.

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to acknowledge the great leadership and commitment on this issue of the former Speaker of this House, Newt Gingrich. There is nobody thinking more critically and more creatively about health care delivery than he is. Speaker Gingrich has been a terrific teacher and partner tome in this effort, and it is the great fortune of this nation that he has turned his prodigious talents to fixing what ails our health care system.

We can transform the health care system. It's an ambitious goal, but our reimbursement rates are too low, our premiums are too high, and our health outcomes are too uneven for us not to meet this challenge. We owe it to Josie King and her family to make sure that our health care system follows the Hippocratic Oath: first do no harm.

I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle on the Josie King Act, and I hope that we can do the hard work to build a health care system that's every bit as good as the extraordinary medicine it can produce.

Mr. Speaker, on July 19, 2004 I missed rollcall votes No. 391, the Viet Nam Human Rights Act of 2003, No. 392 concerning the importance of the distribution of food in schools to hungry or malnourished children around the world, and No. 393 Northern Uganda Crisis Response Act.

Had I been here I would have voted: Yes on rollcall No. 391; Yes on rollcall No. 392; Yes on rollcall No. 393.

At this time I would ask for unanimous consent that my positions be entered into the Record following those votes or in the appropriate portion of the Record.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) and the chairman for their work on this legislation.

I too want to join any colleagues in saying how important a bill like this is, and I only hope this Congress recognizes how critical the kind of aid that is provided through legislation like this is in a time where we are trying to combat international terrorism.

Terrorism feeds on instability. Terrorism feeds on poverty. Terrorism feeds on the loss of hope. And unless we build these economies, unless we provide stability to these countries, such as Sudan, which is obviously such a great tragedy, and I am pleased to see this committee work to try to address the needs of the Sudanese who are starving and dying every day. But in addition to that, Liberia; and I wanted to make a special note. Liberia has been racked with a civil war for over 10 years or more. A third of their population has been driven from their country.

We need to continue to support the effort to connect and build Liberia so that the refugees that have been scattered all around the world can come home and help make that country a country that can move into the future.

The United States has a very close relationship with Liberia. Liberia was founded for former American slaves, hence the name Liberia. Its capital city was named after the President who did that, President Monroe, Monrovia. And I know that within the bill also there are funds for the John F. Kennedy Hospital which is the primary health care facility in Monrovia. And I am pleased to see that the committee has acknowledged that in the efforts to help rebuild Liberia and make it so that those people can move forward in their country.

I thank the gentlewoman for the time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hard work and leadership of the Chairman and Ranking Member in producing this Australian Free Trade Agreement.

It is a credit to the diligence and dedication of the Australian government that this complex Free Trade Agreement was completed in under a year.

That is why I'm hopeful that the Australian government will employ that same diligence and dedication in resolving a dispute over maritime boundaries with its neighbor, East Timor.

Fifty-three of my colleagues have already joined in supporting East Timor's call for a fair and expeditious resolution to this dispute.

These disputed boundaries are a reminder of the invalid agreements made between Indonesia and Australia during the Indonesian military occupation of East Timor.

The East Timorese struggle for independence will not be complete until East Timor, a fully sovereign country, no longer has to bear that lingering reminder of subjugation.

To be sure, there is tremendous enormous financial benefit dependent upon how these maritime boundaries are drawn.

Rich with oil and natural gas reserves, these critical areas are an economic resource for a struggling country of very little economic activity.

A country struggling with high maternal mortality, widespread malaria and tuberculosis, rampant poverty, and desperately needed education.

The Australian government was a leader in assisting East Timor's transition to democracy. It provided peacekeepers and foreign aid. But since 1999, Australia has acquired an average of $1 million a day in petroleum from the disputed areas, exceeding the amount of assistance it provided to East Timor.

The Free Trade Agreement today between our two countries are a mark of respect we have for each other. A fair and equitable resolution of this boundary dispute with East Timor honors Australia's leadership and commitment to fostering a strong and enduring democracy.

As a friend of Australia, I respectfully urge its government to rejoin the international dispute resolution mechanisms and expeditiously negotiate a permanent maritime boundary in the Timor Sea in good faith, according to the established principles of international law.

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

Mr. Chairman, I will just take a minute. I want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for working with me and with other of my colleagues, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), certainly the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Baird). We have been working throughout the last several months on addressing the issue of our veterans from our war, both in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places where they are fighting around the world, and like every other conflict, we have had to learn this lesson over and over again, that in the course of battle, our men and women in uniform are not only injured, their legs are not only injured, their arms are not only injured, their other body parts are not only injured, but their psyche is injured as well.

And one of the things that we are very concerned about is any time you put a human being in the conditions that our young men and women are being called on to serve in, that you really jeopardize their psychological well-being. They come back, and many people would say, well, they do not look like they are injured. We do not see any injury. Then they must not be injured.

Quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, we have seen in the Vietnam War, in World War II, in World War I, it was called shell shock. It has been called post-traumatic stress disorder, and we are worried that in this war we do not learn from the lessons of the past and not put together the best ability in order to address this issue when our veterans are returning home to this country, particularly our Gulf War veterans, who are in the Guard and Reserve, because many of them when they come back, they go right back to civilian life with very little transition between the time they were in active combat and the time that they are back in their regular lives.

And what concerns me, Mr. Chairman, is that we need to do more to make sure that they are reviewed properly before they are released from the military to ensure that any potential wounds that they may have suffered in the course of the battle that they have fought on behalf of this country, that those wounds be tended to just as much as the other wounds they may have suffered throughout the Gulf War.

I thank the Chairman for the time. I look forward to continuing to work with the chairman and ranking member to make sure we address this issue in the coming months.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote Nos. 276 and 277 on 6/21/04 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Chairman, I rise to thank Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Sabo for their hard work on this legislation. It is an immense challenge to be in charge of the funding of this Nation's homeland security . . . and they have done the best that they can with this bill.

In particular, I want to raise an issue that is of concern to me: The need to address and integrate psychological resiliency into our national readiness plans. Building psychological resilience is one of the most effective counter-terrorism strategies we could have, because it fights terrorism on the real battleground--the psyches of the American people.

The Israelis have learned this and see resilience development as a key component of counter-terrorism. Referring to terrorism, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: ``This is all a question of human psychology. It is all a question of understanding how to manage fear. The most important thing to explain to people about managing fear is that courage is not the absence of fear, it is the management of it.''

In Full Committee I offered an amendment to call for a report between the Institutes of Medicine and the Department of Homeland Security on resilience development and how this resiliency can be harmed by the ways in which the media report on terrorism, or can be harmed by the way terrorist threat information is communicated to the public.

Although the Department is funding some University-based grants in this area, only one is specifically geared toward the ``behavioral'' aspects associated with terrorism. It is my hope that I can work with the Chairman and Ranking Member to address this issue further and to build on the work that they are doing and to expand outside the arena of individual Universities.

Mr. Speaker, this year, the American Lung Association proudly celebrates their 100th Anniversary. On this momentous occasion, I would like to recognize this organization for their invaluable

contributions to our Nation. The American Lung Association was founded in 1904 for the purpose of eliminating tuberculosis. As they neared that goal in the middle of the century, they also turned their attention to research, education, and advocacy against other lung ailments, including lung disease and asthma, and their environmental triggers. Each year, more than 360,000 Americans die of lung disease. Responsible for one in every seven deaths, lung disease is the third highest cause of death in America. While the death rates for diseases such as heart disease and cancer are beginning to decrease, the lung disease death rate is climbing. The American Lung Association is needed now more than ever, and I am confident that they will continue to fight to end asthma and other respiratory ailments. I would like to thank their excellent staff and countless volunteers who work around the clock to bring attention to these diseases and educate our communities. I am honored to have worked with this association during the past ten years in Congress, and I would like to once again congratulate the American Lung Association on 100 years of advocacy.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to commend the leadership and hard work of Chairman Hunter and Ranking Member Skelton in producing this Defense Authorization.

I'd also like to thank my distinguished colleague from Washington, Congressman Baird, for offering this amendment with me.

In March, we heard about a higher suicide rate for our troops in Iraq than elsewhere. We've heard about problems with morale.

We're all committed to maximizing our troops' effectiveness. To keep them in fighting shape, we've got to safeguard their psychological resiliency.

We know from past experience, articles in the press, and meeting personally with our returning troops the difficulties of readjusting to civilian life after duty in a combat area.

They're troubled by anxiety and sleeplessness bred by the hyper- vigilance required in combat. At its utmost worst, the ravages of war on a person's psyche may change them completely from those who knew them before, manifesting itself in depression, drug abuse, domestic violence, or suicide--we need to protect our troops from that.

The intensity and nature of ground combat and urban warfare our troops face may produce some of the most lingering scars of war, those that lie beneath the skin: The emotional and the psychological.

And the stress and emotional hardship our military families cope with may not necessarily end with the return of their loved ones.

Our Nation and our Department of Defense need to address these needs and with this amendment, we make sure that they will.

Mr. Speaker, almost 60 years ago, the nation's first senior center opened in New York, marking the beginning of the senior center movement. Today, almost 10 million older Americans participate in senior centers across the country. In my district alone, the First District of Rhode Island, we are fortunate to have 24 senior centers. I visit these centers often, and when I do,

I am continually impressed by the dedicated directors and staff who work to make these facilities welcoming to all members of the community.

This week is National Senior Center Week, and the theme is ``Senior Centers on the Move!'' I cannot think of a better phrase to describe the seniors in Rhode Island. Senior centers give them the opportunity to get out of the house to attend exercise classes, computer seminars, dances, Feng Shui demonstrations, and hundreds of other activities. Some senior centers even sponsor overnight trips to neighboring cities. Many centers promote health and wellness beyond exercise classes, by bringing physicians and nurses to the centers for office hours. By hosting seminars on healthy living and the management of chronic illnesses, like diabetes, these centers are enhancing the lives of seniors and their families.

Rhode Island's seniors centers, and the centers around the Nation, are one stop centers for seniors and their families to get the care they need, both physically and emotionally. Whether you go to get your blood pressure checked, take an exercise class, or meet a neighbor for lunch, the senior center's staff welcomes you like family. I would like to congratulate Rhode Island's senior centers, and all senior centers, on National Senior Centers Week, and their directors and staff who work to bring the most up-to-date activities to the seniors community. The commitment of the directors and staff is commendable and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their dedication and for working to sustain the heart of our communities.

I would like to recognize the following Senior Center Directors in the First District of Rhode Island:

Debra Diniz, Barrington Senior Center;

Rita Ayers-Gaulin, Bristol Senior Center; Mary Luz, YMCA Community Center; Lori Gagnon, Cumberland Senior Center; Bob Rock, East Providence Senior Center; Charlotte Richardson, Jamestown Senior Center; Lois Durkin, Lincoln Senior Center; Marjory O'Toole, Little Compton Community Center; Arlene Kaull, Middletown Senior Center; David Dean, Edward King House.

Pauline Moye', Florence Cray Center; Amanda Leinhos, Martin Luther King, Jr. Center; Karen Testa, Salvatore Mancini Center; Joan Crawley, Leon Mathieu Center; Cynthia Koniecki, Portsmouth Senior Center; John Deluca, Davinci Center; Jessica Haley, Hamilton House; Sue Robbio, Jewish Senior Agency; Everret Cavalho, Mt. Hope Center; Lori Silvia, Fox Point Senior Center; Marilyn Heller, Smithfield Senior Center; Janice Gomes, Tiverton Senior Center; Elizabeth Hogue, Warren Senior Center; and Jill Anderson, Woonsocket Senior Center.

Mr. Speaker, so much is in the news these days, it is hard for us to keep sight of any one thing; but as a great Nation, we ought to be able to do more than one thing at one time. One of the things we ought to be doing is taking care of our people in this country when it comes to delivering to them health care insurance.

We talk every day about how there are 44 million Americans who are uninsured, but what are we actually doing about it?

I often hear from my constituents who say to me, Congressman, if you had to worry about your health insurance the way we have to worry about our health insurance every single day of the week, if you had to worry about your child the way we have to worry about our children, you would have health insurance for all Americans tomorrow.

Yet, we have Members of Congress who are coming here on the floor and saying that they are for health insurance. They say they are not for government insurance, no, no, they are against that, and yet name me one Member of Congress that does not sign up for the government-paid program in this Congress.

That is the hypocrisy we see in this Congress, not a Congress that is actually interested in the people's health care, but only their own.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague from Illinois (Mr. Davis) for allowing me this time. I also want to thank my colleague, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon), for also acknowledging me and recognizing this piece of legislation, and also my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy) from the other side of the aisle for being here as well.

As the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) mentioned, there are over 100,000 veterans living in my State of Rhode Island; and we are proud to support a few veterans from World War I and almost 40,000 from World War II. Rhode Island has close to 30,000 from Vietnam and roughly 20,000 from the Korean War. And more recently, Rhode Island is home to 4,000 veterans from the Persian Gulf War. Just a few weeks ago, 300 soldiers from Rhode Island's Military Police returned from Iraq.

These men and women come from different backgrounds and they live in different cities and towns and many of them are still working and also many of them are retired. But the one thing that they have in common is they have fought for this country to preserve the freedom of our Nation. They have all put their lives on the line in the name of democracy, and if they were not standing post in the front lines, they signed up and they could well have been put on the front lines. So all veterans, whether serving stateside or overseas, deserve our recognition.

Our Nation's veterans have answered the call to duty and have served our country in times of greatest need.

During my time in Congress I have had the honor to meet with several of Rhode Island's veterans, and I discovered that every time I sit down with one of them, I hear another fascinating story. Like Ray's story, a World War II veteran living in Lincoln, Rhode Island. He was the only man from an 11-member crew to survive. He remembers falling from the plane and landing in his parachute in a group of trees on a snowy mountainside, but he does not remember anything after that. Next

thing he knew he was in a German prisoner of war camp.

Sixty years later he comes back to Czechoslovakia to return to the place in Europe where he had been shot down. When he arrived not only was he welcomed by the mayor but he was given a key to the city, and all the local townsfolk held a big parade on his behalf, in addition to all wanting his autograph and wanting his picture.

It was during this trip, 60 years later, that he learned how he survived. He learned from the villagers how they had found and taken him to a nearby facility for treatment. They discussed how they were going to hide him. At that point, the German authorities were already on their way and they were able to apprehend him.

After 60 years someone from the town handed Ray the gloves that were on his hands 60 years before when he had parachuted to safety and then later on put in the prisoner of war camp.

As we can imagine, there are many stories like this that are all too frequent for those who occupy the VFW posts and American Legions and all of those places where our veterans congregate.

One of those places that all people congregate are the post offices, and that is why for millions of Americans who are not familiar in their daily lives with the sacrifices of our Nation's veterans, when they go into the post office, they are going to have to see once again that they owe everything in their lives to our Nation's veterans, and that is why I believe that our local post office back at home in Rhode Island is a perfect memorial to celebrate our veterans in Middletown and in Newport. Newport is one of the great homes of our Nation's Navy, and I know it will be appreciated by all of those who have served our country in uniform to be able to see that their post office is named for their fellow veterans.

We have wonderful memorials here in Washington, D.C. and, thanks to this legislation, we are going to have a wonderful memorial in our own backyard.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 39, passage of H.R. 3752, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join my colleagues in support of H. Con. Res. 299, a resolution honoring Mr. Sargent Shriver for his dedication and service to the United States of America, for his service in the United States Navy, and for his lifetime of work as an ambassador for the poor and powerless citizens of the United States of America. Growing up with a role model like my uncle, Sargent Shriver, doesn't allow much room for failure. He has served our nation in countless ways and on multiple fronts. When he retired from the Navy as a Lieutenant Commander, he could have ended his public service career then, and been proud of his accomplishments. But he chose to continue to serve our nation when President Kennedy appointed him the first Director of the Peace Corps. Sargent Shriver exceeded expectations for the initiative by developing volunteer programs in more than 50 countries around the world.

Sargent Shriver and his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, went on to establish the Special Olympics during the 1960's, when those with mental retardation were often institutionalized because of a lack of understanding of their needs and abilities. The Shrivers recognized the importance of challenging these individuals with physical activities, when others simply cast them aside. The Special Olympics brought courage to their lives and taught them the value of teamwork, and proved that people with mental retardation were strong and caring individuals who could be successful and independent. The Special Olympics has grown exponentially under the Shrivers direction. When given the position of president of the Board of Directors of the Special Olympics, Sargent Shriver, again, reached out to other nations to bring together people of all nationalities to compete in the games. In 1985, athletes from 14 countries were represented at the Special Olympics Winter Games in Utah, and today, more than 1 million athletes participate in the Special Olympics in over 150 countries.

I hesitate to end my remarks with this short list of what Sargent Shriver has accomplished in his life. Unfortunately, I am not sure if there is anyway to accurately reflect the number of lives he has touched as our nation's ambassador, through Head Start and the Special Olympics, to name a few. But I am sure that even at the age of 88, he will continue to add accomplishments to this list of public service, and he will continue to touch the lives of people around the world.