Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, we have no objection to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise tonight to make a clarifying amendment on this bill. One of the things that this bill does is it clarifies the amendment to ensure that the portfolio standard be based solely on the safety and soundness to the enterprises and not any of the broader systemic concerns.

We have the financial housing industry financing model of the world. Because of the model we have in place today, America enjoys one of the highest home ownership rates in the history of this country. More people own a home today than at any time in the history of this country. Primarily a lot of that housing affordability and the ability for Americans has been because of our tremendous secondary market, the ability to provide home mortgages for Americans all over this country.

This legislation clarifies that when the regulator looks at regulating this entity, that he looks at the safety and soundness of that entity and not external factors. Just like when we regulate banks, we set certain standards for their capital, for their loan ratios and all of those other factors, and we should not look at this entity any different than we look at other entities. So really this is a clarifying amendment. It just says we are going to look at the safety and soundness of how this company is running their business.

We shouldn't put things out there that the regulator is not able to, quite honestly, articulate, because what is a systemic risk? That becomes a point of order that sometimes the regulator cannot explain what exactly the systemic risk is they believe it is. It is a way to limit their portfolios.

I want to thank Ms. Bean of Illinois and Mr. Moore of Kansas and Mr. Miller of California for joining me in clarifying the importance of making sure that as we put together a first class world regulator for these very important entities to the American home ownership, that we do not put in place things that would inhibit the ability of these entities to be able to deliver the quality mortgage products that they have delivered to the country over these years.

So I think this is a very clear amendment. It clarifies the language and makes sure we don't have any question about what the intent of the regulator is and what the duty of the regulator is. I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman).

Mr. Chairman, it's my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. McCaul).

Mr. Speaker, we have no other people to speak on this en bloc, and so I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time and yielding back to Mr. McHenry.

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

Certainly the distinguished chairman would want to make sure that anybody that got any of the funds from this housing fund would want to make sure that they are United States citizens. We would never want to deprive a United States citizen the ability to get homeownership at the expense of someone who is here in this country illegally.

And someone was talking about this as being an immigration bill. Immigration is about a legal process. We are talking about someone who has committed an illegal process.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price).

I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Reclaiming my time, I yield to my good friend from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

I will yield to the gentleman.

Reclaiming my time, I yield again to the gentleman from New Mexico.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Brady).

Mr. Chairman, I reclaim my time and I ask the gentleman so I make sure I understand your amendment here, but currently the allocation is 75 percent for Louisiana and 25 percent for Mississippi. And all the gentleman is asking here is that Texas get 10 percent of this housing fund, 5 percent taken from Louisiana and 5 percent from Mississippi. So you're requesting 10 percent for the people of Texas that suffered the same devastation and loss as the people in Louisiana and Mississippi; is that correct?

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman, and I, like the gentleman, encourage this is a fair amendment. We have passed out a tremendous amount of resources for Mississippi and Louisiana.

I've been to the gentleman from Louisiana's and to the gentleman from Mississippi's district. I have seen the recovery efforts down there, obviously a lot of devastation in those States, and a rebuilding program is going on. Quite honestly, I have to compliment the gentleman from Mississippi. They are doing a much better job of moving forward with their rebuilding program.

But one of the things that we need to understand is these natural disasters affect all Americans, and that when we begin to ask this Congress to pass out resources to help people in America rebuild their lives, that we don't do it along State lines.

And I agree with the gentleman, and I encourage everyone to support the gentleman's amendment. I think it is a very fair amendment.

Announcement by the Acting Chairman

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to my good friend from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is a pretty simple amendment. We have had a lot of debate this evening about whether to have a housing fund or not to have a housing fund, and the votes are in and we are going to have a housing fund.

One of the things that I feel very strongly about is this is a substantial amount of money to any entity. While these are large entities, $520 million, over $3 billion over a 5-year period, is a lot of money. If we are going to ask these entities to make this kind of commitment, I think we owe them some certainty here.

Now, the current formula is that we will take 1.2 basis points times the portfolio. But what I believe is fair is to set a ceiling on what that amount can be. Now, the current scoring by is that at 1.2 on the total portfolio that we would have about $520 million. What I am saying is let's cap it at $520 million.

When you start looking at an entity, you don't want them making a decision on whether to make additional loans available for people in America that need loans, affordable loans, of saying if we increase our portfolio, we are going to have to pay more money into the housing fund. So what I believe is a fair balance is saying that as they bring their portfolio up and down to meet the market demands and adjust to the market conditions that we just give them a number that they know that is not going to exceed so what when they are budgeting, making sure that they are going to have a safe and sound entity, that they know what the number is.

I am a small businessman, Mr. Chairman, and when I was sitting down every year, I made a budget for my business. And one of the things that we tried to do was to fix a lot of our costs so that we would know what our costs would be because variable costs many times are causing you not to be able to control those or they are counter to being profitable in many cases. These are entities that have provided housing opportunities for Americans for many, many years. And I was in the real estate business and the home building business in the 1980s, and I will tell you if it was not for Fannie Mae and Mae and the Federal Home Loan Bank board buying mortgages in America, many people would not have been able to buy a house during that time because a lot of the players got out of the market.

So, number one, the original purpose of this legislation was safety and soundness. That is how this debate got started. So if we are really concerned about the safety and soundness of it we have come up with a number here, and it is a big number. This is a lot of money. When I came to Washington, I was a little surprised. People use a billion around here like it is not a lot of money. But everybody in this room should understand what $1 billion is. If you and I started a business the day that Jesus Christ was born and that business lost $1 million not every week, not every year, but that business lost $1 million every day since the birth of Christ, we wouldn't have yet lost $1 billion. So we are talking about a large sum of money. That may not be large to people in Washington, but let me tell you to people in West Texas it is a lot of money.

So if we are going to ask a company to make that kind of contribution to a housing fund, I think we owe them some certainty. And I believe that $520 million a year is a certain number. It is a big number. It a accomplishes a lot of the things that the other side, I think, wants to do with this fund. So whether you agree with the fund or not agree with the fund, I don't see how you can disagree with the opportunity to come up with a fair compromise for these entities to say that we are going to cap this contribution requirement at this level.

As I mentioned, and it was somewhat turned around in our committee meeting when I offered this, when I sit down and make a commitment to a charity, they say to me sometimes we want you to make a multi-year commitment. Now, I don't always make that multi-year commitment based on whether I am going to make money that year or lose money that year. I make a commitment and I stick to it. But I always make a commitment that I think I can live up to.

So it is important for several reasons: That, number one, that we give some certainty; and, number two, that we make sure that when these contributions are asked for that the regulator is given some ability to be able to say we think in this particular year, because of the market conditions, because of the profitability of this company, that that may be less.

So I encourage Members on both sides let's give some certainty.

I thank the gentleman, and I thank the distinguished chairwoman of the Housing Committee. I enjoy serving with her.

You know, I think one of the points I would make here is my bill does not try to kill the Housing Fund. My bill tries to say that, you know what? We're asking these entities to step up and make a big contribution, and we want to make sure that they do it in a safe and sound manner.

You know, I will tell you, the problem here is that if these entities, if we do something that jeopardizes the health of these entities by taking money out of their capital structure, these entities will not be able to perform the functions that they have been performing in the marketplace. And so what this is, I believe, is a realistic approach at looking at how we begin to go down this road.

Now, even the majority has put a sunset in this bill, a 5-year sunset I believe, if I am correct. What that allows us to do is we are going to see, you know, $520 million roughly over a 5-year period, we are going to see what happens to how does that Housing Fund perform, how does that impact the entity that is paying these monies? If we want to come back at the end of 5 years and you want to raise the cap, let's look at the cap. But let's also let the regulator look at the cap during that process and make sure that we're not doing something that is causing harm.

The worst thing we can do for the housing market in this country is to disrupt one of the envies of the world, and that is our financial structure, how we finance housing in this country.

When I was in the home building industry, I was on the National Board of Directors of Home Builders, people from all over the world wanted to come and say how is it that America has such a high ownership rate and such a robust financial market for housing. They wanted to know how to copy ours. So we need to preserve that and not sit around and figure out ways to necessarily harm it.

So I encourage Members to support this. This is a fair proposition. This is not killing anything. This is a fair proposition. It's saying that we believe that how we got to the ownership rate that we have in America today is by protecting the companies and the entities and the financial structure that allowed us to get here, and not by trying to somehow cause it harm.

In closing, I want to say this to Chairman Frank and to the ranking member, this has been a very deliberative process. And Mr. Frank, in our full committee, allowed us the opportunity to offer as many amendments as we would like to. We had a lot of dialogue there. We've had a lot of dialogue here tonight, and maybe some of it has been duplicative. But I think the good thing about it is that we have aired all of the concerns that people have about this. Because this is a very important piece of legislation. It has a tremendous amount of impact on the future of the financial markets in America. And so if it takes 1 day or it takes 2 days, and if it takes 20 amendments or 100 amendments to get to the right place, then I think that is a good process. But I want to thank the chairman for allowing us to get to this point.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Neugebauer

Amendment No. 1: Page 128, strike lines 18 through 20 and

insert the following: ``amount equal to the lesser of (A) 1.2

basis points for each dollar of the average total mortgage

portfolio of the enterprise during the preceding year, (B)

the number of basis points for each dollar of the average

total mortgage portfolio of the enterprise during the

preceding year, which when applied to such average portfolios

of both enterprises, results in an aggregate allocation under

this paragraph by the enterprises for the year of

$520,000,000, or (C) a lesser amount, as determined by the

Director, if the Director determines for such year that

allocation of the lesser of the amounts under subparagraphs

(A) and (B) poses a safety or soundness concern to the

enterprise.''.

Madam Speaker, I congratulate The Institute of Environmental and

Human Health on reaching its tenth anniversary. TIEHH was established in 1997 with a mission to stimulate and develop environmental and health sciences research and education at Texas Tech University and the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. TIEHH focuses on the integration of environmental impact assessment of toxic chemicals with human health consequences, framed in the context of science-based risk assessment to support sound environmental policy and law. Work at TIEHH has resulted in applications for homeland security and defense, including a new fabric that can protect our military and civilians from effects of chemical and biological weapons.

TIEHH first opened as the ``anchor tenant'' at the then-closing Reese Air Force Base, now known as Reese Technology Center, and helped make the redevelopment of Reese the most successful BRAC closure of any military base in the United States. TIEHH started with a staff of 45, comprised of faculty, staff and graduate students. TIEHH now has 200 on its daily payroll and has generated close to $50 million in revenue, while the Institute's ripple effect on the local economy is nearly $200 million.

Through the past 10 years, TIEHH has developed a program of national and international stature for Texas Tech and Lubbock, being described by external peer-reviews as `world-class' and with its academic program being called ``the best in the country.'' TIEHH draws not only students from Texas but also undergraduate and graduate students from all over the United States and many foreign countries to Texas Tech. In its 10 short years, TIEHH has become one of the top doctoral producing programs at Tech.

I have worked hand-in-hand with TIEHH to secure federal funding that supports research to improve the resources available to protect our troops abroad and citizens at home from chemical and biological threats. When it comes to federally funded research, results matter, and TIEHH is quickly establishing a track record of proven results that strengthen our national security. In the next 10 years and beyond, TIEHH will continue to be a research leader in the environmental and human health field. I am proud to join the citizens of Lubbock in extending my appreciation for all the hard work and accomplishments of those at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health.

Madam Speaker, this week the House will once again take up an Iraq emergency funding bill which is seriously flawed and should be rejected.

Having 535 politicians attempt to micromanage the war on terror from atop Capitol Hill is a recipe for disaster. This Congress should not be telegraphing our war strategy to the enemy and setting arbitrary timetables for withdrawal, nor should we be tying the hands of our Commander in Chief and military leaders on the ground.

Iraq has become a central battlefield on the war on terror, not because we say so, but because the terrorists themselves have declared Iraq to be the central front for their global jihad. Therefore, it is vital that we win the war and achieve success in Iraq. To do so, this Congress must reject efforts to micromanage the war and give the Iraqi new strategy opportunity to succeed.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1675, the Preservation Approval Process Improvement Act of 2007, introduced by Representative Melissa Bean, Financial Institution Subcommittee Ranking Member Paul Gillmor, and Full Committee Chairman Barney Frank.

1675 addresses problems with HUD's processing of previous participation certificate or HUD's form 2530 under HUD's automated partners performances system.

Specifically, this legislation suspends the electronic filing requirement for the previous participation certificates and the filing requirements of these certificates for certain low-income housing investors. Form 2530 has been used for many years to ascertain the prior record of participants in certain HUD programs. This enabled HUD to refuse to do business with participants who have not previously carried out their obligations. However, passive investor disclosure requirements have created problems for private individuals and groups who wish to participate in the construction and preservation of affordable housing through the low-income housing tax credit program.

The 2530 process is designed to review principals, including any limited partner, with a 25 percent or greater interest in property. These rules were developed long before low-income housing tax credit programs were actually created. Low-income housing tax credit deals with the typical investors or institutions, that is, publicly traded and regulated national and multi-national financial institutions, including government sponsored enterprises whose reputation is well established.

Under the 2530 process, officers, directors, and stockholders with 10 percent or greater holdings are required to submit their names, Social Security numbers, as well as their individual and prior record with HUD. Industry groups have objected to these disclosure requirements as they are passive investor partners and are not involved in the construction, maintenance, and operation of the property. They claim that these reporting requirements are costly, time intensive, and deter investment in affordable housing. Investors developers, syndicators, and others have contacted HUD to ask that passive investors be exempted from filing with HUD.

In December 2005, former Chairman Oxley requested that HUD extend the opportunity for paper filing, and asked HUD to explain why passive investors should be required to file. HUD allowed the paper filing until June 30, 2006. In December 2006, after repeated inquiries from the Financial Services Committee and requests from interested parties to provide relief, HUD sent the committee a proposal that, according to the industry, made filing more burdensome in many respects.

On December 21, 2006, noting that HUD's applications for 2530 filing requirements have become broad and overreaching and, in some cases, unnecessarily delayed or even prevented HUD transactions that were beneficial to people in need of housing, Chairman Frank, Ranking Member Bachus, Chairman Waters, and Chairman Oxley asked HUD to discuss the matter further with interested parties before taking any action on the proposed rule. Since then, however, HUD has not taken any overt action to amend the proposal.

H.R. 1675, the Preservation Approval Process Improvement Act of 2007, requires that HUD take action to alleviate the concerns mentioned above in order to encourage private sector participation in affordable housing programs.

HUD's current 2530 previous participation review process is intended as a risk assessment tool, but in many ways has been a barrier with housing preservation because the current regulations in the accompanying electronic system that process 2530 submissions do not reflect the complexity of today's real estate transactions. The reporting requirements are unduly burdensome and offer no additional benefit to HUD.

To this end, H.R. 1675 requires that HUD suspend mandatory previous participation filings through the APPS computer program, and that it allow paper filing until HUD submits to Congress a revised draft that would eliminate unnecessary filing burdens.

In addition, this legislation eliminates the requirement to file a 2530 form for passive investors who expect to own entities that are allowed or expected to be allowed in low-income housing tax credits.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 1676, the Native American Home Ownership Opportunity Act of 2007, introduced by Congressman Boren and Congressman Renzi.

This important legislation authorizes section 184 of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, which established a loan guarantee program for Native American families, Indian Housing Authorities and federally recognized Native American tribes.

Under current law this program is authorized through 2007. This bill will reauthorize the program through 2012.

Congress established this program to provide access to private mortgage financing for Native American families, Indian Housing Authorities and federally recognized Native American tribes that could not otherwise acquire housing financing because of the unique legal status of Native American lands.

This loan guarantee under this program is used to construct, acquire, refinance or rehabilitate single-family housing located on trust land or land located in an Indian or an Alaska native area.

Section 184 of the program guarantees single family, one- to four- family units, residential loans for homes located in these Indian and Alaska native areas where land may be tribal trust, allotted individual trust or fee simple. HUD offers 100 percent guarantee on the outstanding principal and interest and payment of necessary and allowable expenses.

The flexible underwriting, low down payment, higher loan limits, low guarantee fee and the absence of income limits make this the most affordable loan program available in tribal areas.

In 2007, about $6 million was appropriated for the loan guarantee program. Consequently, CBO has estimated that H.R. 1675 will cost about $30 million over the 2008-2012 period if appropriators continue the funding at the level similar to previous years. Enacting this bill does not affect direct spending or revenues.

Madam Speaker, this legislation was approved by the Committee on Financial Services by voice vote, and I urge the passage of this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, it is my honor at this time to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Renzi), who is one of the authors of this legislation and someone who has worked tirelessly for Native American issues all across the country and particularly in his home State of Arizona.

Madam Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate Plainview, Texas' centennial birthday. For it was in 1907 that the city's founders took the pivotal step from frontier community to an incorporated city.

One hundred years ago, the Santa Fe Railroad decided to put down tracks through Plainview. This helped spur economic growth and attract new residents to the budding community.

Today, Plainview's location along the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor is having the same effect as its population grows and new businesses come to the area.

During the past century, Plainview's citizens have witnessed the mode of transportation change from rail to road, and local agriculture evolve from being merely a source of food and fiber to also a source of energy.

However, despite these changes, the core values present at Plainview's founding are still alive and well 100 years later. A strong sense of community and a vibrant civic pride continue to make Plainview, Texas a welcome place for businesses and families.

It is indeed an honor and a privilege to represent the great people of Plainview in the United States Congress, and I wish the city well as it embarks on its second hundred years.

Mr. Speaker, I hope today, as we take this vote, that people will understand really what is at stake here.

I have heard a lot of discussion today, and some Members are going to go back home and say, well, I voted for this bill and against the troops because I brought home some things for the people in my district.

But today this vote is not about bringing home bacon for the people in your district. It is about American security.

My family was in New York on 9/11, and my daughter-in-law and her mother were supposed to be at the World Trade Center on 9/11. So when I take this vote this afternoon or at noon, whenever we have this, let me tell you the reason why Randy Neugebauer is going to be voting ``no.'' Because I am looking forward, not at what we are doing today and what is going to, who is going to be able to take what projects home, but I am looking forward to the security of America. I am looking into the eyes of my grandsons Nathan and Noah and saying, Nathan and Noah, I didn't leave America safe and secure for you.

This is about security. 9/11 is a real event. America was attacked. We have been attacked before. We know this enemy is going to come back and attack us again.

This bill, this vote, is about keeping America safe. So when Members go home and brag about their vote on this, I hope that they go home and brag about the fact that they cast a vote that will ensure a safe and secure America because, you see, if you take all of these projects home, and there is no security in America, there is no America.

I urge my colleagues not to vote for this bill.

I rise today in strong support of our troops and their mission in Iraq.

Ten days ago, I returned from my third trip to Iraq. From the generals to the privates, the message I heard from our troops in Iraq was ``let us do our job so we can win.'' And that is precisely what we should be doing here today.

Today, we should be working to provide our military with the tools and resources needed to attain victory . . .

Today, we should be showing our troops that we are behind them 100 percent . . . And today, we should be showing the world that America has the resolve to stand up to terrorist threats even when the going gets tough.

Instead, this ill-advised legislation does just the opposite. By putting restrictions on our military commanders and the President . . . and setting a firm timeline and final date for withdrawal, this bill undermines the war effort, sends the wrong message to our troops, and telegraphs our war strategy to the enemy.

Our Constitution is clear in that it places the responsibility for conducting the war in the hands of a single Commander-in-Chief, not Congress. Our Founding Fathers wisely understood that having 535 politicians in Washington attempt to micromanage a war is a recipe for disaster.

I am further disappointed that the majority has jeopardized the success of the drought relief package for farmers and ranchers.

I strongly support drought relief and have been calling for federal assistance since last summer. However, as much as I know producers in my district support disaster assistance, I cannot in good conscience support this supplemental because of the flawed military strategy that the majority is pursuing in this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is a pretty simple and straightforward amendment. It just simply just strikes section 306 from this bill.

What we do in this legislation already is we extend many of the vouchers for the disaster voucher program. But what we are trying to do in this bill is not only just say we want to extend them, but that we want to make them permanent.

Actually, this is not the place to debate whether we need to add additional vouchers to the voucher section 8 program. One of the concerns I have about this is that the scoring on this is an additional authorization of $735 million, nearly three-quarters of $1 billion. We are not opposed to debating whether we need to add additional vouchers or change the formula in the future, but this is not the place to do that.

What I said yesterday and continue to say is we are using these disaster programs to push forward things that other people have been working on in other agendas and trying to do this on the backs of the people that have suffered a great disaster.

One of the things I want to go back to is the fact that we stated yesterday that it's not like this Congress has not responded to the people in Louisiana and Mississippi; $110 billion has been authorized by this Congress for the disaster relief, and $116.7 billion in CDBG money has been provided to give flexibility for the housing needs of the people in this area.

When we go back to the city of New Orleans itself prior to the hurricane, we had 7,000 public housing units in New Orleans, and 2,000 of those were already scheduled to be torn down, and 5,100 were online, and not all of those occupied. Now approximately 2,000 units already have been repaired, 1,200 have been returned.

Ten billion dollars has been allocated to the Road Home Program in Louisiana. Let me repeat that, $10.5 billion authorized, $300 million spent, a full 3 months after the hurricane.

The problem making these vouchers permanent is we are giving preference to folks that are living in communities where other people have been in line. One of the things that I think there is a misconception on is we have talked the last few days about what is going on in New Orleans and what the future is. In 2019 or thereabouts, New Orleans will celebrate its 300th anniversary. For 300 years, that community has been building to what it was pre-Katrina.

There is some misconception in the next 6 months by extending some of these programs and moving forward that all of a sudden everything is going to be back to normal in New Orleans. That is not going to be the truth.

What we need to do is begin to build the housing back, letting that go forward. I know that yesterday, the distinguished chairman said, well, the reason we have to go back and get the units back in order is so that is not keeping them from building new units. In fact, it is. The fact is, we can't tear down some of those units. That is the very land that we are talking about going back and reusing. It doesn't make sense to me to go back and rebuild all of these units or remodel them, only to come back eventually and have to tear them down so that we can do the new planned communities.

We should go back to the basic tenets of this bill. The basic tenets of this bill was to hopefully get off high center those few glitches that, quote, the leadership in New Orleans and Louisiana say is keeping them from moving their reconstruction forward. It hasn't stopped the people in Mississippi, but for whatever reason, it has stopped the people in Louisiana and moved forward.

Mr. Chairman, we should not extend permanently these vouchers. This is not the form for that. It's not appropriate, it's not fiscally responsible for us to do that. We have extended those vouchers to meet the current needs of some of the folks. We really don't even know how much people will think about returning. But one of the things about making these vouchers permanent, I believe you will ensure that some of these people don't return because many of them have moved on to other places.

Now, we are saying we are going to make your vouchers permanent. We are going to put you in front of people that have been in those communities for a number of years and have been waiting in line to be eligible for this very assistance.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, just to clarify a couple of things. What I think the question is here is not the fact that this Congress has reached out. We have reached out. I think we have all acknowledged that these families and folks in this area have suffered a tremendous disaster.

The problem is, the question today, is how long is the disaster relief going to be extended to these people. I mean, when is the disaster over? And the problem I have with this bill is it says we are going to do it permanently.

Now, the gentleman from Massachusetts stated that they disappear. Well, the scoring that the CBO did on this did an 8 percent attrition rate, saying that 8 percent of these are going to begin to roll off over a 10-year period, and that is how they came up with the scoring of $735 million. So that attrition has taken place in there.

What I would submit to you is we temporarily extended these. We may need to extend a piece or a portion of them in the future. But what we are saying with this bill is we are going to make disaster assistance permanent by making these vouchers permanent.

At this time I would like to yield to the distinguished ranking member of the Housing Subcommittee on Financial Services, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert).

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from Missouri for his eloquent comments about the poor and the elderly. First of all, I want to make a couple of points. One, I understand when he speaks about that, he shared his family's story with me, it is a great story. It is an American success story, and I know that he knows a lot about public housing.

One of the things I want to say about my amendment, my amendment does not show a lack of support for 202 housing or any other housing. I believe in and have supported housing proposals that this Congress has put forward. We have a number of wonderful, affordable housing programs that are administered through HUD, and we need to continue those. In fact, we are trying to get those programs off high center down in New Orleans in the hurricane area, because that is, long term, a better housing solution for many of the victims of the hurricane.

The other thing that I think needs to be clarified, and I know the gentleman didn't intend to misrepresent this, this bill does not take away any benefits from any poor or elderly people. This bill extends that. My amendment does not take that away. What my amendment says is it is probably not good policy just to permanently extend this disaster program.

What we do in the bill is already extend this program to many of our senior citizens. In fact, prior to the hurricane, there were 8,500 people on section 8 vouchers. Today there are about 12,000 people using these emergency vouchers.

So what we are really trying to do with this bill, if we go back again, sometimes we get off track, what is the purpose of this bill? The purpose of this bill is to get permanent housing back in New Orleans and Mississippi for all income groups; poor, elderly, the families that were residing there. We have allocated a substantial amount of resources to do this. But what we are saying with this amendment is we should not make disaster assistance permanent. We were extending it in this bill, and that makes sense, because, unfortunately, the folks in New Orleans are way behind schedule. They need to get off high center and get back on schedule.

This amendment does not, and people listening to this debate today need to be clear, this amendment does not take away vouchers from anybody. What it doesn't do is just write a continuing blank check.

In many of the cities and places where people that were displaced from this disaster are living, there are housing units available to them. It may be that they decide to make a permanent decision to reside in those communities that they have gone to. Many of them have gone back to cities closer to maybe their children or their families. We need to give them the opportunity. But what we don't need to do is create a whole new voucher program with this disaster.

As the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Housing said, we are setting precedent every time we get up with one of these disasters and we try to outdo the last disaster. I think the American people have said, why don't you all come up with a plan and stick with it? We came up with a plan. We executed that plan. We sent the resources down to those areas. From a Federal perspective, I don't know how much more money we can throw at that initiative to get it off high center.

One of the things we need to be clear on about this amendment, it doesn't take anything away from elderly people, it doesn't take anything away from poor people, it doesn't make a statement that we shouldn't have a permanent housing solution. A permanent housing solution is a better solution. But when you extend and make permanent some of these other side programs, you keep taking away resources that could go to the permanent housing.

As I made the statement yesterday when we talked about going back and building maybe some housing for elderly and other folks down there, we don't need to go back and do it where they were before, because I have seen those units, and I know why a lot of people haven't gone back, because the thought of having to go back to those units, and I don't care how much money you spend on them, it wasn't a good situation before, it won't be a good situation today.

You need to support this amendment because it is fiscally responsible. It meets the needs of the people. But it does say before we begin to create a whole new level of voucher programs, we need to have that debate in another forum, not on the backs of the resources needed for the people to rebuild after Katrina.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the distinguished ranking member of the full committee.

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

I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado's remarks. I think what you hear from both of us is frustration that things haven't moved along faster.

What I would point out to the gentleman and to the folks on the other side of the aisle is the point that we have been making that we believe that this keeps people in limbo, causes them not to begin to make some kind of a permanent housing decision. I use the example that in New Orleans today there are about 2,000 units of public housing that are available today, but they have about 400 or 500 vacancies that people are not applying for.

Secondly, they have had to go back on a number of occasions because those units have been vacant so long, they had to go back and make them ready again. In that climate, when a unit sits vacant for a short period of time or an extended period of time, the unit gets stale and they have to go back and do some mold mitigation and some other things because there is not someone occupying it.

The point here is we have extended the benefits. The benefits are in this bill for all of the people that have been talked about here this morning. But what we are saying is two things: One, we are trying to permanently increase the amount of section 8 vouchers available in a bill that is about disaster. Secondly, we are talking about extending things where people do not have to come to some kind of a decision about what they want to do.

We want them to go back to New Orleans. I think the people of New Orleans want the people to come back, they want to have the community and the sense of community that they had prior to the storm. But I will tell you that I think we are being the enemy here by not bringing some deadlines and definition to this disaster program. At some point in time the disaster piece is over and the recovery piece has to begin.

We have made an allowance for the transition to do that, but when you make something permanent, even when you say, well, it disappears, what we know about Federal programs is they don't have a history of disappearing. Once we put them on the books, they generally stay with us.

We have the ability down the road, this Congress will, if in fact there needs to be another extension, and in fact the administration has some flexibility. But when you put the word ``permanent'' on anything, it is permanent.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I appreciate the gentleman from Massachusetts' point. One, I don't see anywhere in here where there is any expression on my part or have I made the point that I am against section 8 vouchers. What I am for, and as the gentleman mentioned, if we have an opportunity and a place and a forum to debate the section 8 program, many of us believe that there can be some things done to the section 8 program to actually make it a more effective program.

The other piece of the deal is that we are not taking away any section 8 vouchers with my amendment. In fact, as I mentioned a while ago, there were 8,500 section 8 vouchers in New Orleans prior to the storm. Anybody that is living in Houston or Oklahoma, anywhere else right now, that wants to come back to New Orleans, there is a section 8 voucher, if they qualify, available for them today.

I don't understand this. I think the other side is trying to somehow argue against my amendment because they know what making something permanent means. It means permanent. They want to try to say that we are somehow depriving people of the ability to have vouchers. If people qualify for vouchers in Houston, they can qualify for them in Houston. If they want to come back to New Orleans, they can come back to New Orleans. There are vouchers available for them there. We made sure, and I thought it was the right policy, and the gentlewoman from California made this point, I believe, in the hearing, that we need to make sure that we keep New Orleans' hold on the programs that they had available. I believe this bill takes steps to do this.

Really what we are talking about, we need to get back to what this amendment does. It just says, you know what, it doesn't make sense in this bill to make this disaster relief permanent when it goes to section 8 vouchers. It doesn't take vouchers away from anybody. It doesn't say anything about 202 housing. It doesn't say anything about rebuilding the affordable housing projects in New Orleans. It just says it is not appropriate policy to start using disaster bills to make other programs permanent.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, can I inquire as to the time both sides have left here?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).

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

Well, I just want to reiterate what this bill does and what it does not. We have heard a lot of things about what people think it does, but I think we need to go back and review what the bill does. Reviewing what the bill does, it strictly strikes section 306. What the bill doesn't do is it doesn't take away benefits to elderly and benefits to the poor. In fact, we have a number of people who are on these emergency vouchers who actually don't qualify for section 8.

It doesn't say to people that we don't care. But what it does say is that this is not the appropriate form. As the gentleman from Louisiana stated, there is a waiting list. For all kinds of housing in many cities all across the country today, there are waiting lists for section 8 vouchers and there are waiting lists for housing for the elderly. All across this country there are those opportunities.

Our job here is not to fix preexisting conditions. Our job here is to help with disaster relief, bringing that community back to some semblance of what it was prior to the hurricane and not to try to fix problems that were existing in that community before.

There are opportunities within this relief to fix some of the issues that were going on. We had housing projects that were massive, that had a huge accumulation of poor people and a lot crime and a lot of things going on in those that we don't find acceptable in our country.

With this disaster recovery money we have appropriated, we have an opportunity to go back and make those communities better. But we should not be trying to fix preexisting conditions with this legislation. And by making these vouchers permanent, we are trying to say we had a problem before and we want to fix that.

What we want to do, and I think what I heard from the testimony from the mayor and from the Governor and from the community leaders down there, we are trying to rebuild our community.

But when you make these disaster vouchers permanent, people can stay in Houston and they can stay other places, and they don't have to come back to this community. As we stated, there are housing units available here. There are vouchers available here. To the point we can, we need to focus our money and our resources on bringing people back and giving them the ability to come back.

I urge Members to support a fiscally responsible bill that is compassionate in that it doesn't take away anything, but it just says this is not the appropriate forum to be adding vouchers to the section 8 program. It is not appropriate to use a disaster bill to have the dialogue about whether we should increase the amount of section 8 vouchers.

I know that the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Financial Services is going to have a hearing on that, and I welcome that discussion as we talk about it, and it shouldn't be just about section 8. When we sit down and talk about housing for our poor and our elderly, we ought to talk about a comprehensive look at it. Is section 8 the best way to do that, or are more permanent housing projects better?

But that is not the debate here on this bill, nor should we be trying to have that debate and to make that policy within this bill.

I urge Members to vote for my amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I was listening to my friend from Texas's analogy about the sporting events, since that is on everybody's mind right now. I was thinking about two things. One, the proposal that is being put before this Congress, possibly this week, is to say, you know what, let's let the fans do the coaching. We hired us a head coach, but you know what, we have decided the fans know more about how to win this basketball championship, and so we are going to let the fans do that.

But the most compelling thing that I heard, and I want to talk a little bit about this trip, and the gentlemen both know, I just returned 10 days ago from being in Iraq for the third time. I was in Fallujah, was in Ramadi, and talked to General Petraeus, a four-star general who we have tasked to finish and win the war in Iraq, all of the way down to the privates. And one of the privates said to me, Congressman, it is like this. In sporting events, we have home games and we have away games. We lost one of our home games; let's win this away game.

He was referring to the attack on 9/11. That wasn't the first attack on home soil. So we have lost a couple of home games, we want to win the away games.

Also, the gentleman from Texas is exactly right. What we saw in Fallujah and Ramadi is that the sheiks are not only telling us where the bad guys are, but in one case, one of the sheiks from his particular tribe sent 400 or 500 of his young people from his tribe to enlist in the police force in the Iraqi Army, saying not only do we want to tell you where they are, but we want to help you take these people out of our neighborhoods.

I believe one of the turning points that is going on in Iraq today is the fact that the Iraqi people are tired of what these terrorists are doing to their own country. They are tired of the killing. And I notice the gentleman has a picture of a street scene. I know what that father and mother are thinking: Will my children ever be safe to walk the streets of the neighborhood they were raised in?

The good news is the answer to that is going to be yes.

Now, is it still dangerous over there? Absolutely. But we are at war. I think some people are under the misconception that one day we are going to wake up and we are going to have some utopic situation in Iraq. The Israeli people have been waiting for that utopic situation for many, many years. There is still going to be violence.

We have violence in our own country. We have violence in our own cities. But one of the things I felt was most compelling when I was over there, and I was visiting with all of the way from General Petraeus down to privates to boots on the ground, and each one of our stops in Fallujah, in Ramadi, in Baghdad, we had lunch or dinner with the troops. Those are the people that really will tell you how things are going.

What they said is what the gentlemen both have been saying: Things are getting better. We are able to go into these neighborhoods, and we have a different tactic. We used to have a post and we would go in with a convoy and we would tour that area, and at the end of the day we would go back out. Now we are putting security posts inside the communities. I call it kind of like community policing. Now we have a presence there.

And one of the things that people don't realize, for example, in Baghdad, that presence looks like this. There are three Iraqi security force officers, whether they be police or army, to every one American. So what is happening, those people are coming up to those people that are in their neighborhood and saying, Down the block two ways is a bad person. And you know what? On a number of occasions we have gone down to where the people say they were, and not only did we find some high- value targets, we also found huge caches of weapons and IED-making things.

So now I think the hearts of the Iraqi people are in this. I know that the hearts of our troops were because, as I shared with the conference, I believe, 2 weeks ago, those soldiers looked me right in the eye, and they said, Congressman, nobody has more invested in this war than we do.

One young man, this is his third tour. He said, sir, I have been in harm's way

three times for this country and for my country, and he said, nobody has more invested than I do. He said, Congressman, please go back and tell your colleagues, let us finish this job. This is a fight we can win.

And anybody that voted to send those troops over there just to go over there and play Army for a while and then come home with defeat made the wrong vote. When we send our young men and women in harm's way, we need to be sending them to win, not to place. We need to win those away games so that we do not have to fight any more home games.

I also shared with the conference, I believe, this week the story about a gentleman that joined me in the State of the Union for this year. His name is Roy Vallez, and Roy was sitting right back over here in this corner in a seat that my wife gave her ticket to Roy, and why Roy is so special is Roy has the distinction, unfortunately, of being the only father in America that has lost two sons in Iraq.

While Roy was here, he was going around telling everybody about how important it is for us to finish this war so that his sacrifice, his extreme sacrifice, that he made and his sons made was not all for naught. He had an opportunity to talk to the President of the United States who called him on his cell phone, and he and the President had a wonderful conversation. That is the message he said to the President. Now, if there is anybody that has a right to question whether we ought to pull out right now or quit or come home, I believe Roy Vallez probably gets a place at the top of the list.

I think it is a very good point. Unfortunately, the rest of the world does not get to hear the good stories.

I want to make the point, but I think that is one of the things that concerns me most is that this global war on terrorism is a real war. So when we talk about bleeding out or getting out or whatever you want to call it of Iraq, the thing that the other side has not brought to us is what they are going to do next, what is next on the agenda, what are they going to do if they pull out of Iraq, then how are we going to continue to keep these bad people from following us back to the U.S.?

I think that is a real concern, and I think that the fact that the gentleman, I did the see the copy of the press conference, and it is disconcerting that those folks that are the folks that have the next plan.

That and the Visitor Center are somehow tied together. I think they are having a race as to who can finish that project last.

Doesn't the gentleman find it ironic, both of you, that in order to get support for this flawed plan where we are basically saying to our troops, we don't think you can get the job done, we are going to cut and run, we are going to slow-bleed this, that they have got to go out and start buying votes from their Members by offering up these projects, some of these pet projects from some of these Members in order to get support. Something as important as our national security is being bartered in the halls of the United States Congress.

I don't believe the American people think that's the way we ought to be doing business here. I don't think they think when we are making policy about keeping America safe, keeping America secure, making sure that when we send our troops somewhere, we support them 100 percent so that we can bring home the victory we send them to.

Now we are bartering for that progress with these projects. As the gentleman said, many of these things are worthwhile initiatives, but this is not the time nor the place nor the forum for those to be talked about.

We are talking about this civil war. One of the interesting things in Fallujah is we sat down, and at the table, across the table, was the police chief of Fallujah. Sitting next to him was a colonel in the Iraqi Army. The interesting thing about that meeting, one is Sunni, the other is Shiite. Yet they are working side by side to make sure that Fallujah, the streets of Fallujah, are again a place where families can walk and commerce can take place.

One of the interesting things that I saw on this trip, each trip I have seen progress. On this particular trip, I saw a lot more people out in the farmlands. What a lot of people don't know about Iraq is that at one time they were an exporter of agricultural products. This is a region of the world that is rich in a lot of natural resources. One of those is water.

But more people were engaged in the streets. We flew at night. We flew from Ramadi into Baghdad, flying over the city, a lot more lights, a lot more electricity on, not just in the city but out in the countryside. These are the kinds of things that are going to build that Nation.

To pull the plug after we have invested all of the lives and the resources into this initiative at this particular point in time is really unconscionable for our country even to consider that. I am concerned that a lot of people don't realize, as you said, what is really at stake here.

There is.

The gentleman is exactly right. I think the point was made, this is a young government. This is a young government that is basically about 8 months old. Basically they are learning how to govern because they have been an oppressed people for so long.

I think about our Nation, we are going to celebrate over 230 years of history of this country, this Republic. We are still learning how to govern in many ways. I think talking about drop-dead dates, wouldn't it be nice if we had a drop-dead date to go to a balanced budget in this Congress?

The gentleman talked about the splitting of oil reserves, and I think some of the positive things are there has been a tentative agreement reached within some of the Iraqi leadership, and they are going to hopefully bring that to a vote here fairly quickly. Prime Minister Maliki is making it very clear that there is no one that is a sacred cow in this war. If there are bad people out there, no matter what their affiliation is, that they have permission to go and do that.

And the list goes on and on of the positives. Yes, we still have fatalities; yes, we still have people being killed in that country. But we have never, I don't know of a war we have fought that there weren't those costs.

And I appreciate the gentleman's comments. And I also want to thank the gentleman from Georgia for allowing us this time tonight.

I think I would leave you and leave the American people not with my words and not with Members of Congress or even General Petraeus or some of the other military leaders, but I will leave you with the words I started off the evening with in my time here is the words of the young men and women that are boots on the ground, that have served not one tour, but two tours, and many of them three tours, when they looked me in my eye and they said, ``Congressman, we want to go home. We want to spend time with our families. We want to go back to our communities. But, Congressman, we have a lot invested in this war, probably more than anyone else, and let us finish this job.''

And so I urge my colleagues to listen to these young brave men and women that are doing phenomenal things for our country and for the people in Iraq. Listen to the soldiers: Let's finish this job.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Ranking Member Biggert of the subcommittee for yielding.

And I also want to rise and thank Chairwoman Waters, the subcommittee chairman of Housing, for having the hearings down in New Orleans and over in Mississippi. I see a number of Members in the Chamber that went on that trip. That was a very positive trip. But I think what we learned while we were down there is we share some common feelings about the recovery. And I think that was the frustration that we shared while we were down there where we saw very little progress in one area and a lot of progress in the other. In fact, I have said to my colleagues back home that this is a tale of two recoveries: the recovery or lack of recovery in New Orleans in Louisiana and the recovery that is going on in Mississippi.

I want to associate myself with some of the words the ranking member just made on the floor awhile ago about the model that needs to take place in New Orleans when we are talking about going back and building new housing. Some of the proposals that some of the people put forward while we were in New Orleans would not meet criteria

for a new federally subsidized housing project today. We don't do that anymore. We don't create these huge pockets where we have impoverished people where we see high crime, and we now go to mixed projects that provide communities that give diversity to those.

New Orleans faced a great devastation from the fact that they had a catastrophic hurricane. But now they have a great opportunity to rebuild, really starting in many places with a clean piece of paper. Can this be done without some disruption? No, it cannot, because the disruption has already taken place. And there are people who do want to return to New Orleans and to Louisiana, and there are people who may not return.

But what we do owe the American people, and I appreciate the fact that Ranking Member Biggert laid out a very clear outline of what this Congress has done to step up to meet the needs of the people that were affected by this hurricane, and the list is long, and the money is great, what we owe the American people is to make sure that we take that money now that we have put in place for Katrina and make sure it gets spent appropriately and that it benefits the people for which it is intended.

One of the things that concerns me about this bill is that every time we stand up and get into a discussion about Katrina, we have to authorize more money. In fact, this bill authorizes $1.3 billion in new money. But money is really not the issue in Louisiana and New Orleans.

Now, I will admit and agree with the chairman, Chairman Frank, that there are some things in this bill that clean up some administrative issues that probably need to take place. But let me tell you, the reason there is not recovery in New Orleans today is not because the United States Congress hasn't passed this bill. What they need in New Orleans and in Louisiana is probably leadership more than they need more money. But this bill does address some of that.

There are some amendments that were offered in our committee, in our markup, and I want to say this to Chairman Frank, that we had a very good markup. He ran that meeting well and allowed a lot of amendments, and we had good debate and conversations about that, and I appreciate that. But there are amendments that are in this bill that make it more fiscally responsible and make it less micromanaging.

One of the things I get concerned about is we have got a Congress right now that wants to run the war in Iraq, and now we have a Congress that wants to run the recovery in New Orleans. What we do know is that we have to set out some parameters for that.

What the people need in New Orleans is to get started. Hopefully they will begin to do that. We saw some signs they were moving in that direction. But what I would say to my colleagues is that what we have to do is at some point in time say, you know, this is all of the money and resources that we are going to give to this cause until we see some tangible results. Unfortunately, when you look at what is going on in Louisiana right now, there are not tangible results. It would not be something that you would want to put more money into until you see some better stewardship of the dollars that have already been authorized. In fact, many of the dollars that we have already authorized have not been spent.

So what I want our colleagues to do today as they listen to this debate is make sure that we accomplish the goal of what was the original intent of H.R. 1227, and that was to fix some slight glitches in the process, but not to become more fiscally irresponsible.

In closing, I would just say there is an opportunity in New Orleans. But I will tell you, the American people that are watching this debate today, and I hear it when I go back home, they are saying, Congressman, how much more money are we going to have to put into this process until we begin to see some results?

As I was riding in with a cabdriver going to the hearing that the chairwoman had in New Orleans, I asked the cabdriver, what is going on in New Orleans? He said, nothing. I said, what is the problem? He said, we have no plan, we have no leadership.

I thank the gentlewoman very much.

Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we saw down there was we saw some housing units and some of the public housing that had been refurbished and was ready to rent. But what we did see in those housing projects was a lot of vacant units. So one of the things that is going on right now, the dynamics as we are talking about earlier about getting something going there, is a couple of organizations have come in, and they have some master--planned communities to go back and replace some of this housing.

You almost cannot describe on this House floor, we really need pictures to be able to articulate the condition of some of this housing. It is throwing good money after bad to go back and bring very many of these units back because, one, they have been sitting for 18 months just the way they were the night that the folks that left those units left them. They have been under water. They have been vandalized.

So one of the things that we need to do is we need to provide a certain amount of housing that meets the current demand, see how many people actually want to come back to New Orleans, come back to those neighborhoods. I would submit to you that if you want folks to come back, and I think that is the goal of the people of New Orleans, they want people to come back to the community, if you want them to come back, don't ask them to come back to those units that were in terrible condition before the hurricane and would cost a lot of money to restore. We should take those new dollars and provide a new opportunity for the people in New Orleans, and not mandate things that would cause the resources to be diverted to spending a lot of money.

And I would tell you, in some cases, as the gentlewoman Ms. Waters mentioned, I have been a home builder and a land developer, I know what the cost of restoration is, and many times the cost of restoration of units exceeds the cost of creating those new units.

But putting those arguments aside, just going back and recreating what was already a bad thing, as Ranking Member Bachus said before, in some of these where we had a high concentration of poor people is not good policy.

So the Biggert amendment makes sense. Let's let the demand drive it. As there is demand to fix up these units. If the new units are not ready, there are ways to meet those market demands.

But if you go back and ask them to come up with a number, and let's say that is two or 3,000 units or whatever that number is, and those units sit vacant because people don't want to go back to those neighborhoods, we have defeated the purpose and, unfortunately, not been good stewards of the American taxpayers' money. So I would urge Members to support the Biggert amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

I just want to clarify about using the multi-stories. Most of the housing that we saw, and I am not going to say all of it, we didn't see all of the housing, but most of the housing is one- and two-story. There may have been some three-story. And some of those are walkups; in other words, the second story is a part of the first part of the unit; in other words, it is a two-story unit. So the argument that you are dealing with a high rise where there is floor 3 up to 10 is usable, in these particular housing units that we saw there was not multistory housing.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I just want to be clear that the reason the units haven't been replaced there is because, as the gentleman knows, there has been some historical preservation issues.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman.

Mr. Chairman, I think we are all working in the same direction here. We are all trying to figure out what is the best avenue to restore life for the people that were affected by this hurricane, and I think what we are bringing to this floor today in a meaningful debate is what is the best way to do that.

Some have talked about different methodologies about being able to restore these communities in the best way. But one of the things we have to have in our country in almost every life is structure.

April 15 is upon us, and that is the day our income tax is due. It is a deadline. What we have to say to the people that were affected by this is that the temporary disaster piece of this program is coming to an end. It is time now to make some permanent decisions, and we have been talking about what some of those permanent options are.

There is housing available in New Orleans, but there is housing available in some of the communities that these people are residing in. What we do is we keep pushing forward, keep pushing forward, families finally having to decide where do we go from here? It is time for many of those families to move on, and, unfortunately, we keep using Katrina as a way to increase programs that ought to be debated in other committees and at other times. More vouchers, more vouchers. What we need to do is set a date certain.

Now, as the ranking member of the Housing Subcommittee mentioned, the President of the United States has, in fact, extended these benefits. But what we also heard is in those circumstances where we didn't extend some of the programs, that there was life after that.

Sometimes the toughest love that you can do for someone to get them moving on, to help them to move on from a traumatic situation is actually force them to move on and go to the next step. What I think the gentleman's amendment does is it does not cause the process to have a stopping point for the temporary disaster and where we begin to talk about it more permanent.

I agree with the gentleman that FEMA is not the agency to do housing. HUD is set up to do housing. We have been talking about there are things in this bill that will help HUD, help the housing authority to get the permanent housing piece moving forward. But the longer we prolong this disaster and call it a temporary relief, I believe the longer we do the families that we are really trying to help a disservice.

Madam Speaker, on Friday, March 9, 2007, I was absent from Rollcall votes 132, 133, 134 and 135 due to official business.

Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on Rollcall vote 132, the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 720, the Water Quality Financing Act of 2007.

On Rollcall 133 for the Baker Amendment to H.R. 720, I would have voted ``aye.'' I strongly oppose extending Davis-Bacon requirements for construction under H.R. 720.

On Rollcall vote 134, the motion to recommit H.R. 720, I would have voted ``aye.''

Finally, on Rollcall vote 135, final passage of H.R. 720, I would have voted ``nay.''

I ask that my statement appear in the Congressional Record.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

In its current form, yes.

Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit I offer today is straightforward and simple.

If adopted, it would require the President's annual report to the Congress on CFIUS operations to analyze the factors that promote the healthy investment climate and scrutinize the aspects of our regulatory environment that discourages such investment. I hope that all Members can agree that supporting foreign investment in the United States, with appropriate exceptions to protect our national security, benefits all Americans.

I also hope that all Members recognize that just as important to welcome direct investment in the United States, it is also important to identify and address the barriers that have been erected in this country that chill such investment. Open markets and national security support one another.

The U.S. regulatory climate is driving investment away. It is time to consider broad overhaul of our Nation's rules, enforcement policies and litigation system. The annual report required by this bill, the ``Report Related to Barriers to Investment into the United States,'' is an important venue for Congress to seek information that can lay a foundation for such examination.

National security cannot become a pretext for protectionism. As well, it must be understood that artificial barriers to foreign investment will only induce international retaliation against U.S. investments overseas.

If the United States trends towards restricted markets, others will follow. Should such scenario play out, our country has the most to lose. I urge the House to adopt this motion to recommit with instructions so that we can better understand the impediments to legitimate foreign investment and to our country, promote our interests abroad and to ensure that the United States economy remains the envy of the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, I rise tonight in strong opposition to this resolution and in strong support of our troops in the mission as they fight the global war on terror.

I am really disappointed in the hollow resolution that does not match the seriousness of this issue that we are debating. It appears politics, not the safety of our Nation, is leading the way.

Not long ago, several of my Democratic colleagues were arguing we need additional troops in Iraq. But now the President and the Iraqi Study Group say, send more troops, and now the Democrats are against it.

So when they say, now that they have the ability to and the responsibility to govern, the majority has no plan for success. In fact, the only plan is to cut funding for our troops on the ground in Iraq.

Statement after statement from Members on the other side of the aisle paint a very clear picture. This week's debate is merely paving the way for future cuts in funding for Iraq. The realities of the current global conflict demand a more responsible approach from this body.

We know that terrorist enemies are patient. They are calculating, and they intend on attacking us again. They have stated that Iraq is the central front for the global jihad, yet expelling America from Iraq is merely the first step in their strategy.

We also know that leaders of the terrorist organizations have ordered their followers to extend their jihad throughout the region and the world. So it is clear that the attacks on our country and the citizens will not stop if the troops pack up their bags and return from Iraq. The terrorists will follow us back to our America.

A long list of terror attacks took place long before 9/11 and long before we entered Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein.

I, like everyone else, want our troops to come home as soon as possible. However, with shortsighted political calculations made in this body that may cause us to lose that war, terrorist groups will only be encouraged to expand their efforts.

In addition to the terrorist groups who are watching this debate and our actions in Iraq, we also know that Iran will see that America is buckling to our political reactions to this issue. Not only does Iran stand to benefit from increased instability in the region, but seeing America retreat in the face of military obstacles will only embolden that rogue regime to question America's resolve.

While we can disagree on whether to send reinforcements, we must all agree that the consequences of losing the battle on the global war on terrorism is catastrophic and far-reaching.

America must not be a Nation where our school buses, our malls, our neighborhoods, become the battlefields for the war on terrorism. Therefore, we should be saying we will not retreat, we will not back down from this fight. We should stand 100 percent behind our troops and give them the tools and support necessary to get the job done. Our security depends on it.

Unfortunately, this resolution fails on each front. This resolution does not put forth a successful strategy for victory, and the resolution does not show our troops that they have our full support.

In fact, for the last 2 or 3 days, you have not heard one solution offered by the other side. You have not heard one solution offered of what happens if the President is right. This is too important of an issue for us to be backing down from and to be having silly political debates.

To the contrary, this resolution only serves to score political points and embarrass the Commander in Chief during a time of war. It does so while, at the same time, weakening the morale of our troops. Fighting and winning the war is serious business. It requires our President, our military leaders, our elected officials to make important decisions, tough decisions. Yet making tough decisions is what the American people expect their Representatives to do.

Therefore, I call on my colleagues to reject this resolution, end the political stunts, take seriously our responsibility to govern and to ensure the safety and the security of the American people.

This has been a rock fight. This is not a place for a rock fight. This is a place for serious deliberation to make sure that we keep America safe, both today and in the future.

I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution.