Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I am placing an article from the July 25, 2005, Seattle Times newspaper into the Congressional Record because I think it is important that all of my colleagues understand the real world impact underfunding the VA is having on veterans suffering from mental disabilities.

To those who say that VA is adequately funded, I say read this article. Spending on VA mental health care services, adjusted for inflation, is $630 million below the level in 1996, despite an 11 percent increase in veterans seeking services. During that same 1996- 2003 period, overall mental health staffing for the seriously mentally ill declined by 31 percent, and funding for drug and alcohol treatment dropped by 54 percent.

VA mental health professionals have been asked to cut back on the number of sessions offered to veterans on a monthly basis, to cut back on the time allotted for each session, lengthen the time between visits, and drop some patients altogether.

It is unacceptable to treat those who have served our country with such disdain. The President and Congress have found trillions of dollars to provide tax cuts to wealthy individuals and profitable corporations. And Congress and the President will send tens of billions of dollars to foreign governments this year. Clearly there is enough money to adequately provide for our veterans. The President and Congress have simply chosen not to make caring for veterans a priority. That has to change, immediately.

[From the Seattle Times, July 25, 2005]

VA Straining To Treat Post-Traumatic Stress

(By Hal Bernton)

ABERDEEN--During counseling, Vietnam veteran Rod Chenoweth

always sits in the same place--a blue fabric couch carefully

positioned in a corner to give his body the protective cover

of a side and rear wall as he talks about his life.

He recounts an argument that left him seething in anger. He

talks about an evening flashback to the grenade that wounded

him in the leg and killed his 19-year-old buddy.

Chenoweth says the therapy, paid for by the Department of

Veterans Affairs VA), has helped pull him back from thoughts

of suicide and other self-destructive acts in a life scarred

by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--a war injury that

ranks among the most common and the most difficult to heal.

Starting in July, Chenoweth's sessions with Aberdeen

therapist Jack Dutro have been reduced from twice to once a

month, a cut that comes as thousands of Iraq war veterans

join those of previous wars in seeking treatment from the

strained VA.

``I can understand that the new veterans need to be dealt

with,'' said Chenoweth, 56. ``But it's going to be tough.

Jack has been a lifesaver.''

The agency is required by law to take care of the war

wounds of all combat veterans.

But the agency's PTSD experts, in a report delivered last

fall to Congress, warned that the VA ``does not have

sufficient capacity to meet the needs of new combat veterans

while still providing for the veterans of past wars.''

Internal reports show the VA's mental-health network has

been frayed by years of staffing cuts and budgets that failed

to keep pace with the growth in patients.

According to an internal review of the agency's budget,

delivered to Congress in September, problems have been years

in the making:

Between 1996 and 2003, annual spending for treatment of the

serious mentally ill increased from $2.16 billion to $2.4

billion. But when those budgets were adjusted for inflation

in medical costs--the increased costs of salaries and

services--spending in 2003 was actually $630 million below

the 1996 level. Meanwhile, the number of veterans seeking

those services climbed by 11 percent.

During the same period, overall mental-health staffing for

the seriously ill declined by 31 percent.

Drug and alcohol treatment for the seriously mentally ill,

often a critical part of the program for those seeking PTSD

therapy, has been the hardest hit. Annual funding, adjusted

for inflation, dropped by 54 percent nationwide between 1996

and 2003.

``It's been a perfect storm of rising needs and tight

resources,'' said Tom Schumacher, who directs a Washington

state effort to assist PTSD veterans.

The Northwest VA network has fared better than most of the

nation, avoiding many of the staff cuts that hit other

regions.

But the four-state region that includes Washington, Oregon,

Idaho and Alaska also is one of the busiest hubs of

treatment. The PTSD patient load alone has increased from

3,194 in 1996 to 4,671 in 2004.

To help manage the crunch, the VA Puget Sound Health Care

System earlier this year imposed new restrictions on PTSD

therapy for veterans who already have undergone at least six

months of treatment.

The VA guidelines now call for no more than once-a-month

individual therapy, or twice-a-month group therapy. Those

apply to Puget Sound-area clinics and a network of VA-funded

private therapists who work around the state.

Dr. Miles McFall, director of PTSD programs at the VA Puget

Sound, said that more frequent therapy does not necessarily

help, and those in trouble are welcome to check into an

inpatient VA hospital clinic.

``Even if money was not an issue, this is what we should be

doing,'' he said. ``We care about our Vietnam vets. We're not

going to turn our backs on them.''

Other therapists say while some veterans can handle less

treatment, the more unstable ones may suffer setbacks.

``Some of them are devastated and feel like they have been

abandoned one more time,'' said Jim Shoop, a Mount Vernon

counselor. He said his office is reducing service to more

than 50 vets with PTSD.

a lifetime of trouble

Soldiers have always suffered from the mental wounds of

war.

But the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder only

emerged in 1979 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War as tens

of thousands of distraught veterans, suffering from

flashbacks, sleeplessness, anger and other symptoms, poured

into VA hospitals.

By 1988, the VA estimated that 479,000 vets suffered PTSD

symptoms.

For many of these vets, PTSD has meant a lifetime of

trouble.

Chenoweth served with the Marines in Vietnam from 1968 to

1969, when the U.S. sustained some of its heaviest

casualties. He turned 18 just before boarding the plane to

Asia and soon found himself fighting in villages where

anybody could be the enemy.

Chenoweth ended his tour of duty in a psychiatric hospital

in Oakland. But it wasn't until the late '80s--after more

than a dozen failed jobs, several more hospital stays and two

broken marriages--that he was diagnosed with PTSD.

``The killing doesn't stop,'' Chenoweth said. ``You taste

it. You smell it. And you feel it. It uses all your senses.''

The numbers of older veterans seeking mental-health

treatment surged again in recent years, as new wars unfolding

on television in Iraq and Afghanistan added to their stress.

That, coupled with the influx of soldiers returning from

Iraq, has ratcheted up pressure on the VA system.

more become eligible

In the '90s, the VA went through a dramatic overhaul,

moving away from a centralized hospital system as hundreds of

new clinics opened up around the country. Congress also

loosened eligibility requirements, so that more vets

qualified for services, and increased the agency's overall

health-care budget from $17 billion to more than $28 billion.

The transformation was lauded as a great success in an

Annals of Internal Medicine article last year.

But mental-health services often lost out as regional

administrators juggled budgets to pay for soaring caseloads,

new services and pricey new drugs.

Managers also sometimes balked at pouring money into

treatment for illnesses of the mind when compared with

physical illnesses that are often easier to measure and cure.

``I regret to report that there are stigmas in the VA about

the mentally ill,'' Thomas Horvath, a psychiatrist who serves

as chief of staff at the agency's Houston medical center,

told Congress in 2004.

``In this, we may be no worse than the rest of health care.

VA needs to do better.''

Sen. Patty Murray, who worked as a college intern in the

Seattle VA psychiatric ward, has helped lead the

congressional effort to boost funding for VA programs,

including mental health.

``I have talked to soldiers who are returning, and a number

of them say `my marriage is much more difficult . . . I am

having trouble getting my head back in to work,' '' said

Murray, ``It's the beginning of trouble. And the fallout from

this 10, 15, 20 years from now is tremendous.''

The issue of VA funding has been rife with partisan

politics recently.

Murray, a Democrat, initially was rebuffed by the

Republican majority in an effort to gain emergency funding

for VA medical services.

VA administrators in June acknowledged a roughly $1 billion

budget shortfall, prompting Senate Republicans to do an

about-face and work with Murray to boost funding.

Congress is expected to approve an additional $975 million

to $1.5 billion to help dig the agency out of the hole for

this fiscal year.

If this money is equally divided within the agency, mental

health would receive less than $300 million.

This emergency cash would fall short of shoring up the

system.

To fully meet the needs of the seriously mentally ill, the

VA would require an infusion of as much as $1.6 billion,

according to a draft of the agency's strategic plan.

That estimate didn't assess the added costs of treating new

Iraq veterans.

just good-enough care

There is no fixed formula for treating PTSD.

Instead, the VA offers general guidelines for addressing

the illness. This treatment may involve drugs that aid sleep

and reduce anxiety or help fight depression. It may include

classes in anger management and other coping skills.

Finally, there is therapy, which often enables the vet to

recount and come to terms with combat experiences.

Some patients may benefit from just a few classes and

counseling sessions. Others with chronic PTSD attend sessions

for months or years. Some patients do fine in group; others

do much better with individual therapy. But as budgets have

shrunk, some VA mental-health workers say, they have been

pressured to treat more people in less time.

In Portland, the VA mental-health clinic staff by January

had shrunk by 25 percent due to budget freezes, according to

an internal staff newsletter. The newsletter described the

Portland program as ``unquestionably underfunded.''

Therapists in Portland earlier this year were asked to

consider cutting individual sessions from 50 minutes to 30

minutes, and lengthen the time between visits, according to

an internal VA memorandum.

They say they were also asked to consider dropping some

patients altogether, after refilling their prescriptions and

referring them back to primary-care physicians.

Megan Streight, a VA spokeswoman, said the Portland VA does

not expect staff to cut back services for patients who need

therapy. She also said that some jobs have been filled. ``We

are confident that veterans continue to receive high-quality

mental-health care,'' Streight said.

But several Portland VA therapists expressed worries that

expanding caseloads combined with a smaller staff threaten

the quality of some care. All requested anonymity, concerned

that speaking publicly could cost them their jobs.

These therapists say they have been asked to try to

complete treatment of new patients in 10 or fewer counseling

sessions, even those recently returned from Iraq. Some of

these vets arrive at the VA with marriages already in turmoil

or broken. Others have isolated themselves at home, and

balked at returning to work. One, who came in after beating

his wife, had penned a suicide note.

One therapist said she has been reluctant to stick several

troubled Iraq vets in first-step classes of 20 or more that

teach coping skills. But her own caseload already runs to

several hundred patients, so she has no openings for more

one-on-one counseling. To make room for the Iraq veterans,

she asks some of her older veterans to come less often.

``But what kind of message is that--that you're not as

important as the new guys coming in,'' she said.

The therapist says she needed to get used to the short-

staffed conditions.

``I was told that there needed to be some changes made at

the hospital due to the lack of resources, and I was going to

have to adjust my thinking,'' said the therapist. ``You need

to give Just good-enough care.' ''

The Puget Sound VA's mental-health programs also have been

caught in the regionwide budget crunch, which included a

partial hiring freeze that replaces only one worker for every

five who leave their jobs.

``We have to make the best use of resources that we can,''

said John Park, Puget Sound VA's director of health-care

planning, at an April 30 community meeting on mental health

sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle. ``You can

only cut so much of the budget before things get dicey.''

sharing hopes and fears

Most PTSD patients in Puget Sound are seen in a specialized

program that includes clinics and in-patient care. The

program has a national reputation for research and treatment.

McFall, who heads that program, says he was able to snag a

special grant that allows him to add several more positions

to the 21-person clinic staff in the months ahead.

``I want to say that the sky isn't falling. We can get

every Iraq veteran an appointment within a week,'' he said.

But the local VA policy to limit treatment for patients who

have had six months of therapy has caused a backlash. The

loudest protests have come from the state network of private-

practice therapists who are paid by the VA to treat vets with

chronic PTSD.

``I believe that in order to do long-term recovery, I have

to do a lot of work,'' said Steve Akers, a Vietnam vet who is

an Everett therapist. Akers offers weekly group sessions, as

well as individual counseling.

At the group sessions, the vets spend 90 minutes sharing

hopes, fears and a few laughs before ending with a healing

circle where they all grasp hands on a wooden staff known as

a ``talking stick.''

One veteran of both the Vietnam and Gulf wars still lives

on a razor's edge. At his house, he has installed a perimeter

trip wire that sounds an alarm to warn of intruders, and

outside lights that can turn midnight into day along a 400-

foot driveway. The house is full of loaded guns, weapons his

wife fears might be inadvertently used in a combat flashback.

``She doesn't want the one under the bed, and in every

room,'' the vet said during the session. ``But I've got to

live with myself. I don't feel secure.''

Akers opted to take things one step at a time, focusing on

a pistol in a bedroom drawer.

``So, at one point, would you be willing to put the pistol

in one drawer, and the ammo in another? You'll still have

your safety factor but have to think to react.''

``I could do that,'' the vet responded. ``But it will be

really hard for me. When they break in that door, they're

only going to do it once. ``

Under the new VA policy, the group's weekly meetings will

be reduced from twice a month to once a month.

Among the vets, that's the subject of much bitter debate.

``I try not to take it personally,'' said the veteran with

the loaded gun. ``There is an intimacy here that is

incredible. I want to save it. And the fear, you know, is

that it's not going to last.''

I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, this is a perfect bill. It must be perfect because not one amendment will be allowed, including my amendment. Now, the Republicans say free markets. We want free markets. How come we do not have a free market in insurance, I ask them? The insurance industry is exempt from the antitrust law. They can and do get together legally and collude to drive up the price of insurance for every American in every line of insurance. Not just medical malpractice. That is legal for the insurance industry. It is not legal for the two corner gas stations. They would go to Federal prison. It is not legal for any other industry in America. But they would not allow a vote on my amendment just to say, let us have a market in insurance. Let us take away their antitrust exemption. Let us have competition. Maybe that will lower prices. They seem to believe in competition until their pockets are being filled at election time by an industry that is exempt from competition. But they say they are going to solve the problem here tonight with this bill.

Now, the other thing the gentleman from Georgia is not talking much about is why we should exempt the pharmaceutical industry for deadly and dangerous drugs, people who have died and been seriously injured, from any liability. What other industry in America has that exemption? So this is sort of a perfect bill; is it not? The two largest contributors to the Republicans are the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The insurance industry is exempt from competition and antitrust law, and now they want to exempt the pharmaceutical industry from having to pay people for having killed their spouse, their children, or having perhaps caused so-called brain damage or a so- called heart attack or something else with a defective product. That is unbelievable.

I wish the gentleman would spend the rest of his time talking about why the pharmaceutical industry needs an exemption when they have actually maimed or killed people. If we are going to extend it to the pharmaceutical industry, how about the automobile industry? We have got a lot of industries in America that could use an exemption from liability that have to pay and go to court now. But, no, they are saying the pharmaceutical industry should not have to do that, because, as we know, they have the best interests of Americans at heart. That is why they do not want to allow us to import cheaper drugs from Canada, and they are threatening the Canadian Government. That is why they are the most consistently profitable industry in America when our seniors are cutting their drugs in half. No, they need protection from this horrible scourge of being sued when they have sold a defective product like Vioxx and actually concealed the tests from the American people and perhaps from the FDA.

I wish the gentleman would spend the rest of his time defending the antitrust exemption for the insurance industry, because if he believes in free markets, he should support my amendment. It should be part of this bill. We should get to vote on that. We should say, let us have competition in insurance. That will help the doctors. It is not the total solution, there are other things that need to be done, but that certainly would help the doctors.

It would help every other American with every other line of insurance, too. Your car insurance might come down. Your homeowner insurance might come down. But they do not want to allow that vote, and now they want to have a huge new exemption for the pharmaceutical industry. I guess we know who is lining up behind their next campaign with very generous contributions.

Mr. Speaker, if one was to look at this chart, and the black bars represent the extraordinary growth in the United States trade deficit over the last 14 years, and you see you are digging yourself a hole for the American people, for the future of the American economy, of over $600 billion in 1 year. This year we are going to eclipse that. We are headed toward $2 billion a day of foreign borrowing.

Now, most people say, well, Alan Greenspan says that is great. They are willing to lend us money. Shows how strong our economy is. But what Alan Greenspan and the other pointy-headed

hack economists around here forget is that those are real dollars which can come back to bite us, and they are coming back to bite us when you have a Chinese Communist-controlled oil company trying to buy a major American oil company with substantial reserves around the world. For a country that is importing 20 million barrels a day of energy, we want to be selling off our oil assets, our reserves around the world to the Chinese Communist Government? I do not think so. But they think this is just working great.

The point is we have a failed and failing trade policy here in the United States of America. We lost 3 million manufacturing jobs, good high-wage, high-benefit jobs, through NAFTA, and the WTO and permanent most favored nation status for China. Those have cost the American people dearly. Millions of Americans have lost good jobs.

And the trend is accelerating. We are losing our manufacturing base. And the question becomes with CAFTA before the United States House of Representatives, do we think that these big black lines, these huge deficits, this borrowing, this putting America up for sale and in hock is a good trend? Yeah, it is a good trend for a few people, a lot of friends of the President. They are making a bunch of money. They own the stock. They run the multinational corporations. They are getting tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars sometimes, in stock options because of selling off our country.

Yeah, it is good for a few people, but it is bad for the majority of the American people. It is bad for the workers. It is bad for our future. It is bad for our economic security, our military security, if you look at some of the recent trends dealing with China.

So the question becomes should the United States House of Representatives, should those who are undecided now, particularly on the other side of the aisle, get pressured by the President to do something that they know is wrong and is against the interests of the people they represent?

This is not a partisan issue. You know, Bill Clinton was a disaster on trade policy. The problem is you cannot find much difference between Ronald Reagan, Bush the first, Bill Clinton and Bush the second on trade policy. They are a bipartisan disaster, selling out the American people, selling out our industrial infrastructure.

And people say, well, CAFTA is really not that big, so why are you so concerned about it? Well, you are right. It is not very big. If you combine the buying power of all of the people of the CAFTA nations and say somehow this is going to create jobs in America, well, whew, you need to have your head examined, because if all of those people living in those countries applied every cent they earned, whatever currency it is, to purchasing American goods, it would not be a tiny blip on the radar screen of the American economy.

This is the same people who sold us NAFTA, and they said it was going to produce 400,000 jobs. Instead it lost 800,000 jobs. They were only off by 1.2 million jobs in their estimates.

Now the President goes on television this week and says, oh, this will be good for the American people. This is going to create exports. What he forgot to tell them was his own experts say it will create more imports from Central America than exports. It is going to be yet another loser for the American people. They will see their jobs go south.

American workers should not be asked to compete with people earning 80 cents an hour, and guess what, people who earn 80 cents an hour are not going to be buying a lot of manufactured American goods.

So now CAFTA is the same disaster that was NAFTA, that is the WTO, and MFN for China. It is just saying, we have dug ourselves a deep hole. Here is a shovel; keep digging. Pretty soon you may come out in the other end in China, but by then they will own us.

So it is time for this Congress to stand up to this President, the same way they should have stood up to Bill Clinton or to Bush the First or to Reagan. We want a trade policy that benefits the American people, our national security, our economic security and brings and keeps jobs that pay decent wages and benefits home here.

Vote ``no'' on CAFTA.

Mr. Speaker, I was just actually watching a speech by the President. It was sort of the Grimm's Fairy Tales version of why Members of this House should vote for CAFTA, why Members of this House should vote to extend a failing trade policy to another five nations in Central America as a template for an even larger expansion of failed U.S. NAFTA free trade policies throughout the western hemisphere.

He talked about their subsistence farmers and how, if only the tariffs on very expensive U.S. agricultural machinery were removed, that additional 10 or 15 percent on the cost, how the subsistence farmers who average less than $1,000 a year will be buying $100,000, $500,000 pieces of farm equipment. They will just trot right down to the local bank, and I guess the bank will extend them a loan for a $500,000 piece of equipment they will never be able to pay for, and they will not be able to afford fuel to put this.

Now, that is the same kind of falsehood we heard about NAFTA, that this was going to be a boon for U.S. workers and manufactured goods because all the people of Mexico would take all their pesos, put them together, and they could afford to buy almost as much stuff as the people of New Jersey. In the case of CAFTA it is an even smaller economy, less capability.

He talked about how the factory workers there are just waiting in line to buy American goods. Of course $0.40 an hour, you are not going to be buying a lot of American goods or probably not any. But they are working for a lot less than American production workers.

So what is going to happen with CAFTA? The same thing that happened with NAFTA. You are going to see U.S. capital flood south into Central America so that they can produce things that were once made here, textiles and other things in the case of Central America and in all probability. In the case of NAFTA, it was automobiles, auto parts, it was a whole flood of things, washing machines, driers, other appliances. It all went to Mexico. They predicted that NAFTA, just like with CAFTA, they said, oh, CAFTA is going to be great for the American economy. It will put people to work, create jobs. They said the same thing about NAFTA. It was going to create a million jobs. Instead it lost a million jobs.

Now, what they do is really tricky when they talk about CAFTA. They talk about how they have studied it and studied it, and they see an increase in exports to Central America.

What they do not say is the President's own trade commission sees a much bigger increase in imports from Central America. That means a net deficit. That means we are selling less there than we are buying back. It means we are going to lose more jobs. It is the same condition we are in with the rest of the world.

The United States of America is borrowing $2 billion a day to finance the purchase of overseas goods, goods that were once made here by people who earned a decent living.

This is not a sustainable model. And to extend it to Central America is not going to begin to put America on a better path to bringing jobs home to the United States, bringing wages back up for our production workers, seeing that they continue to have benefits.

American workers should not be asked to compete with workers who earn less than a $1 an hour in Central America. But that is what will happen if this is passed.

Time and time again, the experts, the administrations, including the Democratic administration, the Clinton administration, which was a total disaster on trade, as bad as Bush and maybe worse, they come to this Congress and they say if only, if only you will open up our borders, it will bring great wealth to the American people, prosperity and jobs. And what it has brought is the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs, a deficit of $2 billion a day in trade, and driven down wages in countless industries across this country where all the boss has to say is, you will not take a pay cut? Not far to the Mexican border. That is where your plant is going. And they have done that again and again and again. So we should not extend this disaster one more time. And when all the apologists stand up and talk about all the wealth it is going to create, all the jobs and all the exports, remember, they said exactly the same thing about the NAFTA. They said exactly the same thing about China MFN and the WTO, and they were wrong, and there is no reason why they are not going to be wrong again, because they know that what they are saying is not true. It is just the way they have got to sell the package here to benefit a few industries to the disadvantage of the rest of the people in this country.

It is time for a trade policy that makes sense for all the people of America, not just a treasured few who own the stock and the factories of the multinational corporations that have been profiting from our failures.

Mr. Chairman, as we learned here on 9/11 and in London today and on 7/7, we must crack down on terrorism, and we must ensure that law enforcement officials have the tools they need to assess, detect and prevent future terrorist attacks. However, I don't believe we have to shred the Constitution and Bill of Rights in order to fight terrorism. We must be vigilant that the rights and liberties we are fighting to protect are not jeopardized in the name of the war against terrorism. Regrettably, H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT Act and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act, does not provide adequate protections for the civil liberties of law abiding citizens and I must rise in opposition to the bill.

When the House considered the original USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, I expressed concerns with the bill both for substantive and procedural reasons. And, unfortunately, I have both substantive and procedural concerns with this reauthorization bill, as well.

With that said, I support a number of provisions in H.R. 3199. Law enforcement officials need tools to find and track domestic criminals and international terrorists. Federal law has not kept pace with emerging technological and communications systems, so I support judicially approved wire-taps to obtain email communications and internet records related to potential terrorist offenses.

I also support provisions which authorize law enforcement officials to share information with foreign intelligence officials. Allow judicially approved wire-taps on cell phones and disposable cell phones, permit judicially approved seizure of voice mail and not make permanent the provision making it a federal crime to provide material support to terrorists, among other meritorious provisions.

However, as I mentioned earlier, I also have very serious concerns with a number of other provisions in the bill. Many of the provisions in the bill that expand law enforcement authority to conduct domestic intelligence gathering, either do not require judicial review, or require that law enforcement only assert relevance to an investigation, rather than show probable cause that the information is relevant to a terrorist investigation. These expanded powers go a long way toward tearing down protections that were put in place in the post-Watergate era when we learned of presidential abuses of domestic intelligence- gathering against individuals because of political affiliation or citizen activism.

I am particularly concerned with a provision authorizing national security letters, NSL's, which allow law enforcement officials unlimited access to business and personal records without any sort of judicial oversight. This provision is extraordinarily broad and intrusive and could apply to any tangible records on any and all Americans whether or not they are suspected of a terrorist act. Prior to the Patriot Act, NSL's could be used to get records only when there was ``reason to believe'' someone was an agent of a foreign power. Now they are issued simply when an agent asserts that it could be relevant to an investigation. According to the Department of Justice, this new power has been used hundreds of times since the USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law in 2001. A Federal court has found this authority to be in violation of the 1st and 4th amendments of the Constitution, but the administration continues to use it, and this bill would sanction this extraordinary expansion of unchecked governmental authority.

I am also concerned that the bill extends the government's so-called ``sneak and peek'' authority which allows the government to conduct secret searches and seizure of property without notice, in violation of the 4th amendment. This authority has also been used hundreds of times since enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act, including against Brandon Mayfield in Portland who was suspected of being involved in the Madrid bombings. Mr. Mayfield was later exonerated of all charges related to the bombings because it was shown that the FBI based its investigation on incomplete and faulty information. But his life was changed forever as a result of the investigation and intrusive searches, and under this bill, it could happen to other law abiding citizens.

I am disturbed that the bill extends many of these controversial provisions either permanently or up to 10 years, even though Congress has not been properly provided information on the sue of many provisions of the Act to date. Without that information, it is difficult to know how this new law enforcement authority is being used, whether it's necessary at all, or whether it needs to be modified to protect the civil rights and liberties of law abiding citizens. We know of some abuses that have occurred under the act, like the Mayfield case. However, the Administration has refused to provide information on some of the most broad and intrusive powers under the Act, and the bill should provide for adequate disclosure and proper oversight of these provisions, but it doesn't.

Finally, I am concerned that the bill is being brought up with limited debate and amendments. I am particularly concerned that the Republican leadership refused to allow a vote on an amendment to remove library and bookstore records from Sec. 215 of the Act, which grants law enforcement officials the authority to seize business records without notification. A similar amendment was approved by the House of Representatives earlier this summer by an overwhelming vote of 238-187.

I would like to be able to support this bill, and as I said earlier, I support a number of provisions in the bill. I also believe we could have reached an agreement on protections to address most of my concerns with the bill by providing for judicial review and shorter-sunset provisions. Unfortunately, the leadership chose to bring a bill to the floor which simply gives too much broad, intrusive and unchecked authority to the federal government, and does not provide for adequate legislative oversight of how these powers are being used, therefore, I cannot support the bill. I hope the Senate and conference committee will address these concerns.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of both the Kennedy/Hooley/Osbourne/Souder and the Hooley/Souder/Kennedy/Baird amendments. The methamphetamine scourge that has suddenly gained national attention has unfortunately been going on far too long in countless rural communities, including in southwest Oregon, which I represent.

Almost 12.5 million Americans have tried meth at least once during their lifetime. White House Deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns recently was quoted as saying, ``I think we would all agree methamphetamine is the most destructive, dangerous, terrible drug that's come along in a long time.'' That is very true, especially in Oregon. Unfortunately, law enforcement is struggling to stem the spread of meth.

The Kennedy/Hooley/Osbourne/Souder amendment would require that the State Department annually certify the five biggest exporters and the five biggest importers of the meth precursor pseudoephedrine are cooperating with the U.S. We can quickly help law enforcement organizations ensure that precursor chemicals are not suddenly ``lost,'' and then used in the production of meth at international super-labs. These labs account for 80 percent of the meth used in the

Mr. Speaker, we can always use a good laugh around here, but not when it is at the expense of the American people or the future of the Social Security. This is from Congressional Quarterly. It is so bizarre I couldn't make it up. The House version of the Republican Social Security surplus bill uses the Social Security surplus twice. First the government would borrow the surplus from Social Security's trust funds in exchange for special Treasury bonds, as it does now. And it would then direct the surplus back into individual accounts, but then borrow it back again in exchange for bonds that were put into people's private accounts.

The debt on the individual's accounts would appear in the government's budget. The debt to Social Security trust funds would remain off budget, as it is now. The surplus itself would be spent as part of the regular budget.

This is progress in the integrity of Social Security? This is some totally bizarre joke that is so confusing that they are hoping that they can snooker people into voting for it at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning like they did the Medicare bill, which is now $800 million over budget and providing precious little

help to our seniors who need prescription drugs. Do not be fooled twice.

Mr. Speaker, as we approach the prospect of a vote on yet another free trade agreement, putting a stamp of approval potentially on the failures of U.S. trade policy and the $2 billion-a- day deficit that we are running, Members should approach this vote with caution.

First, they should be concerned about this bait-and-switch, the idea that we will before that vote have a vote to get tough with China, to begin to actually use our existing laws and authority to deal with the counterfeiting and the theft and the unfair trade practices of China.

We do not need to pass a bill to do that. The administration should just do it. Use the laws. Use the trade agreements. They told us that is why they wanted China in the WTO, that they were going to enforce sanctions against China. They are not filing complaints against China under the existing laws.

They do not need new authority; they just need to use their existing powers. So that is an attempt to give some cover to some of the weak- kneed around here who want to stick with the President who is saying it is his highest priority to extend the failed trade policies of the United States to another five nations in Latin America.

The President was, unfortunately, sadly in error last weekend when he went down to the south and said to the textile workers who have been devastated by these free trade policies that this would be good for them and the American economy.

All the President has to do, and he probably has not had a chance to read it yet, but the United States International Trade Commission issued a report a year ago, 11 months ago, on CAFTA; and they said that in fact it is likely to have minimal impact on production, employment or prices in the United States. They went on to say that, yes, it would cause a tiny bump up in exports, but guess what? Like every other trade agreement the U.S. has ever entered into, it would be a much bigger bump up in imports.

More lost jobs here at home will result from CAFTA. Do not be fooled. Think back to the predictions about the wonderful results that we were going to see from NAFTA and the fact that it was going to create 400,000 jobs in the United States. It actually logs 800,000. They were off by 1.2 million jobs. CAFTA will have the same net result.

We need a new trade policy, a trade policy that brings and keeps jobs that pay decent wages and provides benefits home here to the United States of America. We do not need to accelerate the race to the bottom. We do not need to ask the few remaining textile workers we have in this country to compete with people down in Central America who earn 50 cents an hour. And then to say that those people who earn 50 cents an hour are going to provide a tremendous boon to the U.S. economy because they will be buying luxury SUVs made in America and all sorts of other products manufactured here on that 50 cent an hour salary is so absurd that it is hard to believe that any thinking Member will swallow that argument.

If you just want to rubber-stamp, if you just want to follow the President and support the continued bipartisan failures of trade, Bill Clinton was a disaster on these issues, too, if you want to march down that path, then you can vote for CAFTA. But if you want to benefit the American people, manufacturing in the United States of America, our standard of living, our national security, if you want to see a turnaround in the $2 billion a day we are borrowing from the rest of the world to finance our overseas manufacturing, then you will vote ``no'' on CAFTA, and a new day will dawn where we bring and keep jobs home to America.

Mr. Speaker, talk is cheap, but health care is very expensive; and for the last 5 years, the Bush administration has offered our veterans empty rhetoric while denying them access to needed health care.

As veterans groups and Democrats fought to increase the veterans budget for the last 3 years, the Republican majority and the White House have been in deep denial. But I get weekly reports, and I bet you do too, from my veterans rep who tells me that people's treatment has been delayed, denied, people who cannot even get in the door for 6 months.

Now, 2 weeks ago, the administration admitted, well, I guess we need another $1 billion for health care for veterans this year. Today they said it is $3 billion more; but they say, oh, you know, we just could not have known, we could not have anticipated there would be veterans coming home from Iraq or Afghanistan who are wounded and injured and need services. They did not know there was a war going on. And they also said they could not anticipate the aging of the World War II and Korean veterans. They did not build that into the budget. They just did not know.

But they had a chairman on that side for a couple of years who told us he did know. He told us we needed more money, and they fired him from that job. At least a few Republicans are standing up for what is right.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to talk on a subject which is not often addressed on the floor of the House, which is public health, particularly public health as relates to threats of bioterrorism or naturally occurring events.

Today, and I am a member of the Committee on Homeland Security, we had some rather disturbing revelations of the lack of progress with Operation BioShield, which seems to have done more to enhance the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, to engage in some exotic forms of research, to ignore some off-the-shelf remedies which could deal with very real and horrible threats, such as the potential for a nuclear device that could deal with the radiological aftermath and things of that nature.

Now, the Committee on Homeland Security will continue to investigate those areas and deliberate in those areas, and that is good, because we need to improve how we target those funds, how they are spent, and how we assess the threats to the people of the United States. More than $12 billion was spent on smallpox and anthrax, the anthrax attack apparently perpetuated by somebody who perhaps stole that from Ft. Detrick, Maryland; and smallpox, of course, is not yet known to be a threat.

The administration, however, has ignored a very real threat to the American people. Many of us experienced the fact that last year there was not enough flu vaccine, because we have left it to the private sector, free markets, and competition to provide flu vaccine; and it is not working real well. This is not the first shortage in recent years, not the first series of price gouging for vulnerable people. It has become recurrent year after year.

Last year, I did not get a flu shot, as many other Americans did not, in order to give up our doses for those who might be more at risk.

The system is broken. We can only hope that the Bush administration will begin to take more definitive action and introduce legislation along those lines.

But even more threatening than the annual flu occurrence is the prospect of H5N1, the avian flu virus, mutating and becoming the next pandemic attacking people around the world. It is estimated that 30 to 70 million people could die, many here in the United States, similar to the 1917, I believe, epidemic.

The Bush administration has been charged, granted we have known about H5N1 for quite some time, and the Clinton administration did very little in this area, so there is blame to go around. But it has become more persistently reported. It has reached more epidemic proportions. There have been more human infections, more reports of possible human infections being concealed by the Chinese communist government, as they often do in these matters. And the Bush administration in the last year spent a total of $110.3 million, $70.5 million for vaccines, and $15.6 million for antiviral drugs. Despite the fact that the World Health Organization tells us we should be stockpiling these drugs, the Bush administration is not stockpiling these drugs.

Mr. Speaker, $15.6 million for antiviral drugs. That is less than half of what they spent on adolescent family life prevention projects. They spent nearly twice as much money on abstinence-only education money in America as on all flu vaccine spending.

A looming pandemic, and the Bush administration and Health and Human Services are off worried about abstinence-only education, as opposed to an extraordinary threat to millions of Americans.

This could become an incredible problem as early as this year, but this administration seems determined to just bumble along until the time when the pandemic begins, and then it will be too late. There is only one producer overseas. Other nations have lined up to buy their production. The United States of America has not. The pharmacies will run out quickly. We do not have adequate hospital surge capacity. We are vulnerable in so many ways, but the Bush administration thinks it is more important to spend money on abstinence-only education than preserving the health of the American people in the face of these deadly threats.

Hopefully they will begin to do better, and, if they cannot, perhaps the Republican leadership in Congress will allow us to move legislation that will force them to do better in the future to protect the American people.

Mr. Speaker, for 2 years, the Democrats in the House have been saying that the veterans budget is underfunded. It has been denied by the Bush administration. Last year we were joined by the Republican chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) who knew that the veterans budget was underfunded. For supporting us in the effort to increase veterans spending to help meet the promises and the obligations of our government and the American people to those who have served our country in its time of need, he was removed from the committee chairmanship. He was torn out of that position because he had the temerity to say there was not enough money to meet the obligations to America's veterans.

As recently as yesterday, the Republican leadership resisted a Democratic amendment on a party-line vote to increase funding for veterans benefits because they said there was no problem.

Now, today they are scrambling to find $2.6 billion that they admit the budget is underfunded, and they say, well, no, we blame the actuaries. The political hack that Bush appointed to be head of the Veterans Administration, the former Republican National Committee chair, said they did not realize there was a war in Iraq or Afghanistan. The estimates were made in 2002, and he had not read the paper since. So he did not know there were any veterans coming home who had lost their limbs, who were grievously injured. So they did not revise those things until just yesterday, when they realized they are $1 billion short for this year and $2.6 billion short for next year.

Come on. Do you think the American people believe that the Bush administration does not read the papers, does not realize we are at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, when there are tens of thousands of Americans coming home who are only asking one thing: you made me a promise when I signed up and put my life on the line. You promised you would take care of me if I was wounded, and you promised you would take care of my family if I died. That is a pretty simple promise. We have made that to every person who signed up in an all-volunteer military, and this administration has broken that promise.

I have veterans who have been waiting 6 months for an initial appointment, veterans in pain who cannot get operations, and they say, come back in 2 years, 2 years. This has been going on for years now. Two years this has been going on with this administration as they slash the veterans budget, and they deny there is a problem and suddenly they say, it was their actuaries who were wrong because they made a prediction in 2002 and the Bush administration did not notice that we were at war since then and that we had a whole lot more veterans.

This is extraordinary. An administration that wants to wrap itself in the flag and talk about supporting the troops who is not willing to put up the money to deliver on the solemn promises that we have made to these veterans and to their dependents and to their families. This is outrageous. And just yesterday, they defeated, on a party-line vote, an amendment just to put $1 billion back in and take that money from the millionaires and billionaires in America, to reduce their tax cuts from $141,000 to $129,000 a year. Most Americans do not even earn that, but the Republicans could not even vote to reduce the millionaires' tax cuts that much to fully fund for this year, not next year, veterans benefits. We are going to need a lot more money next year for veterans who are going to need services. It is going to be very expensive to meet our promises and our obligations.

It is time that this administration and this Republican-led Congress acted in good faith to fully fund those benefits. No more denial of medical services and benefits to veterans because we say we do not have enough money. We have the money if we can restrict the permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires to give to our Nation's veterans, those who have given so much in service to our country.

Madam Speaker, every working day, every salary and wage- earning American will pay 6.2 percent, or 12.4 if they are self- employed, of their salary to Social Security, that is, up to the first $90,000. That is creating a $168 billion surplus, which is being borrowed and spent by this administration, some of it to give tax breaks to the wealthiest among us.

Now the Republicans have a new plan. Here is what Congressional Quarterly says: ``The House version essentially counts the Social Security surplus twice. First, the government would borrow the surplus from Social Security's trust funds in exchange for special Treasury bonds, as it does now. It would then direct the surplus into individual accounts, but then borrow it back again in exchange for more bonds. But only the debt to the individual accounts would appear in the government's budget; the debt to Social Security's trust funds would remain `off budget,' as is now. The surplus itself would be spent as part of the regular budget.''

Huh? That is the solution to the problems of Social Security? That is making the future retirement of Americans more secure? That is dealing with the fact that you are stealing money from working people and giving it to people who invest for a living? Give me a break.

Mr. Speaker, on the 16th day of August, 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Fitzgerald Act, now known as the National Apprenticeship Act. In the Congressional Record of August 7, 1937, Representative Fitzgerald (CT) said, ``this bill sets up standards by Federal cooperation with the States and through the formation of voluntary committees in the states, throwing a cloak of protection around boys and girls and setting up standards and protecting them and guaranteeing that when their time of service in a trade has expired, they will come out full-fledged mechanics''.

In 1992 the United States Apprenticeship Association initiated the U.S.A.A. Donald Grabowski Hall of Fame, honoring individuals who have served at least 25 years helping the growth and development of apprenticeship and must be at least 65 years of age.

The following names represent well over 900 years of participation in various apprenticeship trades, ranging from Bricklaying, Carpentry, Sheet Metal, Electrical, Plumbers, Ironworkers, Operating Engineers, Painters, Auto Mechanic to Machinists. The inductees are: 1992--Richard Zorabedian, Rhode Island; John Hinkson, Missouri; William Denevi, California; and Howard Kerr, New York. 1993--Louise Albrecht, Wisconsin; Charles Nye, Wisconsin; Joseph D'Aires, New Jersey; Daniel Faddis, Oregon; and John Hunt, Pennsylvania. 1994--James Garde, New York; John O'Neil, Maine; and Thomas Crosby, Oregon. 1995--Lois Gray, New York; Gerald Olejniczack, Virginia; and Jack Reihl, Wisconsin. 1996--Lawrence Carr, Jr., Maine; John Hansen, Minnesota; and Peter Marzec, New York. 1997--Robert Baumgarden, Virginia; Richard Swain, Illinois; Kenneth Pittman, Florida; and Marion Winters, Washington, DC. 1998--Joseph Calci, Massachusetts. 1999--Albert Rowbottom, Maine; and Carl Horstrup, Oregon. 2000--Edward Marks, Massachusetts; Duane Meyer, Wisconsin; and Thomas Stanek, Wisconsin. 2001--Stephen P. Yorich, Michigan; and Kenneth ``Skip'' Hardt, Maine. 2002--Richard Karas, Michigan. 2003--Robert Roberts, Washington. 2004--William ``Bill'' Fura, Montana; Neil Heisey, Montana; and Keith Ricketts, Montana. 2005--Jim Reardon, Massachusetts; and James Kubinski, Massachusetts.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to read a bit, which I do not usually do on the floor, from yesterday's New York Times front page, because I think it is so extraordinary and it goes so much to the incompetence and the indifference of Donald Rumsfeld and others in this administration regarding what is going on in Iraq and the lack of protection for our troops.

``When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq last year to tour the Abu Ghraib Prison camp, military officials did not rely on a government-issued Humvee to transport him safely on the ground,'' not even an armored Humvee, that is my own little addition. ``Instead, they turned to Halliburton, the oil services contractor, which lent the Pentagon a rolling fortress of steel called the Rhino Runner.''

Now, no wonder Secretary Rumsfeld goes to Iraq and says everything is going great. He is rolling around in an armored fortress of steel provided by his former employer. Well, I am sorry, the former employer of Vice President Cheney, Halliburton, riding around in something called a Rhino Runner, which is supposed to be able to withstand a thousand-pound bomb.

Now, our troops are out there, some of them in unarmored Humvees that cannot resist any bomb, bullets, or shrapnel; some of them are in armored Humvees which can resist between 4- and 8-pound bombs, but then there are other options out there.

Back to the New York Times: ``State Department officials traveling in Iraq use armored vehicles that are built with V-shaped hulls to better deflect bullets and bombs. Members of Congress favor another model called the M1117, which can endure 12-pound explosives and 50-caliber, armor-piercing rounds.

``Unlike the Humvee, the Pentagon's vehicle of choice for American troops, the others were designed from scratch to withstand attacks in battlefields like Iraq with no safe zones. Last fall, for instance, a Rhino traveling the treacherous airport road in Baghdad endured a bomb that left a 6-foot-wide crater. The passengers walked away unscathed. `I have no doubt should I have been in any other vehicle,' wrote an Army captain, `the lone military passenger, `the results would have been catastrophically different.'

``Yet more than 2 years into the war, efforts by United States military units to obtain large numbers of these stronger vehicles for soldiers have faltered, even as the Pentagon's program to armor Humvees continues to be plagued by delays, an examination by The New York Times has found.''

And then, the end of last week, we had the revelation about the extraordinary shortages for the Marines.

Mr. Speaker, I guess I should not be surprised when we have a Secretary of Defense who predicted that our troops would be greeted with flowers and candies and sweets; and that the occupation would last, that we would be down to 30,000 troops within 2 months and would not be there longer than 5; that he has been two, four, six, or a hundred steps all the way along the way. But to still deny the reality, because he is riding around in an armored Rhino provided by Halliburton, of our troops, the bitter reality of them in unarmored Humvees, as many Marines still are, and we still hear from time to time of Army units that are out there in unarmored Humvees, although they claim they never go off base anymore; and then to hear that State Department people and Members of Congress get superior vehicles that are not available to the regular troops, this is extraordinary.

More than 2 years into this war, and now this insurgency, and the Pentagon is focused on Star Wars and other fantasies; and the troops still lack basics, things for which we need no technological development. The technology exists, the manufacturers exist, but the will to purchase those vehicles to protect our troops does not exist in Secretary Rumsfeld's higher echelons of the organization.

But, again, he is riding around, he cannot even hear or see the explosions in the Rhino Runner. They probably have the music turned up loud and the AC is blasting away, and he does not have the slightest idea where he is. But the troops sure know where they are; they sure do.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for this embarrassment to end. He should have gone long ago, he should go now, and it is time to start providing the troops the basics they need to come home safe.

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

I have been in the highway conference, and I am sorry I was not here earlier, but I understand the chairman may have represented that AARP is opposed. They had bad information yesterday, provided perhaps by majority staff. They are now neutral on this amendment. I have had a conversation with them today. They now understand the amendment goes to the issues of privacy. It does not undermine the outreach program. All it says is we will not give out personal private information. We will not waive the ``Do Not Call'' list for America's seniors and have them solicited by telemarketers at dinner after they have indicated they do not want any telemarketers calling them. That is all we are talking about here. We are saying one small section buried in this huge bill, that no Member here wants to take credit for, that says we are taking away the privacy of seniors to profit private insurance companies and make it easier for them.

Private insurance companies have vast resources. They can find these seniors in other ways. The outreach can be done without violating their privacy. That is what we are talking about here, plain and simple: the privacy of America's most vulnerable. Many seniors are aged. They are not well. They are at risk in this whole process, and they do not want those telemarketing phone calls.

So if we continue with this program, the administration is going to waive those rights, those protections for our seniors, plain and simple. This amendment only restricts the waivers of privacy and an incredible extension of waiving all privacy laws relating to people on Medicare or Medicaid and giving discretion to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to turn over that data as he sees fit, no matter what the will of the seniors is.

Let the seniors make the choice, not the Secretary of Health and Human Services, not the private insurance companies. They should not be telemarketed. This is plain and simple, something that I do not believe a majority of this House knew was in that bill when it was passed.