Floor Statements

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

The Congressional Black Caucus is offering an alternative budget proposal that differs from both the President's budget and the House majority's budget by putting America and Americans

first. Its focus is to reduce disparities that exist in America's communities by investing in the priorities and challenges that Americans face today. It also provides significant support for our troops in Iraq. At the same time, the CBC budget alternative accomplishes these goals in a manner that is much more fiscally responsible than the Republican budget, so much so, as this chart shows, the budget deficit each year is much less, a total of a $167 billion deficit reduction over 5 years, so much so that it saves just in interest cost alone $27.5 billion over 5 years.

The Congressional Black Caucus alternative builds for America's future and addresses the domestic challenges our country faces. The bulk of the CBC budget has been applied to a comprehensive approach to education and training. With the intention of closing achievement and opportunity gaps in education, the CBC budget dramatically increases funding for education and training programs by $23.9 billion over the proposed Republican budget next year alone.

The CBC budget supports public education by fully funding No Child Left Behind, provides critical funding for Head Start, TRIO, IDEA, and elementary and secondary school counseling. To address the education needs of our military families, the CBC budget allocates more funding for Impact Aid. Millions of at-risk students are hoping to succeed in high school and enroll in college, and to make that dream a reality the CBC alternative allocates funding for the GEAR-UP program, raises the maximum amount for Pell Grants, increases funding for historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions. In addition, the CBC budget funds for the Perkins student loan program, as well as job training, adult education, and vocational education programs that are critical in today's global economy.

In order to close the existing economic disparities in the United States and to help entrepreneurs realize the American dream, the CBC alternative funds job creation programs under the Small Business Administration. It supports community development programs, including community development block grants, child nutrition programs, and health programs such as Community Health Centers.

The budget also addresses disparities in housing, and believes that everyone in the United States is entitled to a safe and comfortable home. It supports HOPE VI, section 8 housing programs, housing for the disabled and elderly, and low income energy assistance. The budget also provides funding for Amtrak and public transportation.

The CBC recognizes that advancements in technology and science are necessary to maintain America's competitiveness in today's global economy. The budget supports funding for research and development, particularly in aeronautics and NASA, and increases funding for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy, as well as measures for space shuttle safety.

The Congressional Black Caucus budget alternative also recognizes the importance of adding to the safety of our communities by funding initiatives such as juvenile crime prevention programs and prisoner reentry programs.

The funding for these important domestic needs comes from rolling back tax cuts for an individual's adjusted gross income that is over $200,000, and eliminating several abusive tax loopholes, including corporate incentives to move jobs overseas. Moreover, the Congressional Black Caucus budget does not adopt the new tax cuts included in the Republican budget. The CBC revenues are used for the domestic and deficit reduction portions of the alternative budget.

The CBC budget is also committed to making America more secure. The funding for urgent homeland security needs, veterans programs and benefits, and additional support for defense and our troops in Iraq comes from a $7.8 billion reduction in ballistic missile defense, leaving $1 billion in the program for continued research.

It is a priority of the CBC to provide American soldiers with the equipment necessary to return home from Iraq in a safe, quick and successful manner. To that end, a portion of these funds have been reallocated to protect our troops in Iraq by providing them with body armor, vehicle armor, and other personal support equipment, as well as for the construction and maintenance of our Navy vessels, which will preserve jobs.

The CBC understands that providing homeland security requires appropriate funding to meet the many pressing needs in homeland security; and, therefore, we have substantial funding for port security grants and rail security grants as well as funding for first responders, Federal air marshals and border patrol agents.

The remainder of these funds are used to restore cuts in veterans' programs and benefits. The CBC understands that today's soldiers are tomorrow's veterans who deserve our respect and sacrifices, not just in word but in deed and in budget. Thus, the alternative budget makes critical increases in veterans' programs and benefits, a substantial portion of which is health care.

It also supports funding for long-term care initiatives, medical and prosthetic research, and mental health care, among others. We believe that the sum of these initiatives will make us more secure as a Nation.

The CBC is committed to reducing disparities in all of America's communities. At the same time, our budget recognizes that we cannot place the burden on our children and grandchildren. A top priority of the CBC is to address the exploding deficit problem, and that is why our budget reduces the deficit by $167 billion and saves $27 billion in interest payments compared to the House majority's budget.

Members of the CBC have worked tirelessly to create a budget that is fiscally responsible, supports our troops and recognizes the need of American individuals and American communities around the country. We believe this is a sound budget that will reduce disparities in America's communities and promote and protect the best that America and Americans have to offer.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for yielding me this time. I want to make a couple of comments as we wrap up. One is the massive tax increase. What we did was started with the base budget, the Republican budget. On income we changed the revenue by rolling back the tax cuts to the level they were at in 2001 for income over 200,000. If someone makes more than $200,000, they get all the income tax cuts up to the 200,000, but no tax cuts after 200,000. Again, we spend $167 billion less deficit than the Republican budget, creating $27 billion less in interest payments.

Now, we have heard all of this about massive cuts in defense. Let us be very clear. All of the numbers on defense are exactly the same numbers as the Republican budget, with one exception. We fund missile defense at $1 billion rather than $8.8 billion.

If you look at defense, homeland security, and veterans, that total is the same because we use that money to fund defense, homeland security and veterans.

Now, on defense, I hope the gentleman from Florida is working with the Virginia delegation in maintaining a 12-aircraft carrier fleet. This budget, the Congressional Black Caucus budget, has a billion dollars more in shipbuilding than the underlying budget. We have $75 million more in shipbuilding than the underlying budget. We have $75 million more in body armor. We have in homeland security, $500 million for port security; $100 million for rail security, veterans benefits.

Those charts did not show what the present level of services would cost. It also did not show the fact that the Republican budget has co- pays and deductibles that our budget does not have. We say we have $4 billion more for veterans, over $1 billion more for shipbuilding, over $2 billion more for homeland security. So if you look at that as a group, we are more secure with the Congressional Black Caucus budget than the Republican budget.

I would hope that we would adopt the budget. It saves money and makes us more secure.

I include for the Record the fiscal year 2006 CBC alternative budget breakdown:

Fiscal Year 2006 CBC Alternative Budget Breakdown

Working off the Chairman's Mark, As Amended, all

calculations are for changes above/below proposed Fiscal Year

2006 levels.

On behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, this Amendment

in the Nature of a Substitute seeks to offer to Congress and

the American people an alternative budget that is fiscally

responsible and aimed at reducing disparities in our

communities. The CBC alternative budget raises revenue by

reducing the tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 for an individual's

adjusted gross income that exceeds $200,000 and not adopting

the new Republican tax cuts, eliminating corporate tax

incentives for off-shoring jobs, closing tax loopholes,

abusive shelters, and methods of tax avoidance, and

eliminating the repeal of the limitation on itemized

deductions (Pease) and the phase-out of personal exemptions

(PEP) scheduled to take place between 2006 and 2010. These

funds total an estimated $36.3 billion in FY 2006. The CBC

budget uses nearly $4 billion of these additional revenues

for deficit reduction. The remaining funds are used to

restore cuts and fund increases in specific budget function

areas. These include full funding for No Child Left Behind

and providing funds for school construction and increases for

other education and job training programs. The CBC

alternative budget allocates additional funding for job

creation programs under SBA, community and regional

development programs including community development block

grants, and law enforcement initiatives such as juvenile

justice and prisoner reentry programs. It provides funding

for child nutrition programs, community health centers, NASA

research and development, Amtrak, Hope VI and Section 8

housing programs, and housing for the disabled and the

elderly.

In addition, the CBC alternative budget reduces funding for

the Ballistic Missile Defense program by $7.8 billion. The

CBC alternative budget reallocates all of this money for

additional support for the troops in Iraq and other defense

items necessary to maintain our military strength and jobs,

homeland security needs, and veterans programs and benefits.

I. Revenue Raisers and Defense Reallocation [in billions]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Chairman, I submit the following information regarding H.R. 27 for the Record.

March 2, 2005.

The Real Democratic Record on Charitable Choice,

Dear Colleague: I wanted to be sure you had a copy of the

Real Democratic Record on Charitable Choice. I hope this is

helpful as we debate H.R. 27, containing a vast expansion of

Charitable Choice to federally-funded job training programs

for the first time since 1965.

the 2004 democratic platform

``We honor the central place of faith in the lives of our

people. Like our Founders, we believe that our nation, our

communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and

richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy

it inspires. We will strengthen the role of faith-based

organizations in meeting challenges like homelessness, youth

violence, and other social problems. At the same time, we

will honor First Amendment protections and not allow public

funds to be used to proselytize or discriminate. Throughout

history, communities of faith have brought comfort to the

afflicted and shaped great movements for justice. We know

they will continue to do so, and we will always protect all

Americans' freedom to worship.''

The Clinton Administration Record on Charitable Choice

1996--The Clinton Administration submitted amendments as

part of its technical corrections package to Congress

regarding concerns over the constitutionality of Charitable

Choice provisions contained in welfare reform. They filed the

following comments with the amendment: ``[P]rovisions of sec.

104 and its legislative history could be read to be

inconsistent with the constitutional limits. . . . We

recommend amending sec. 104 to clarify that it does not

compel or allow States to provide TANF benefits through

pervasively sectarian organizations, either directly or

through vouchers redeemable with these organizations.''

Congress did not act on those amendments.

1998--The Clinton Administration issued a signing statement

placing limitations on the Charitable Choice provisions

contained in the Community Services Block Grant: ``The

Department of Justice advises, however, that the provision

that allows religiously affiliated organizations to be

providers under CSBG would be unconstitutional if and to the

extent it were construed to permit governmental funding of

``pervasively sectarian'' organizations, as that term has

been defined by the courts. Accordingly, I construe the Act

as forbidding the funding of pervasively sectarian

organizations and as permitting Federal, State, and local

governments involved in disbursing CSBG funds to take into

account the structure and operations of a religious

organization in determining whether such an organization is

pervasively sectarian.''

2000--The Clinton Administration issued a signing statement

placing limitations on the Charitable Choice provisions

contained in the reauthorization of the Substance Abuse

Mental Health Services Act (SAMHSA): ``The Department of

Justice advises, however, that this provision would be

unconstitutional to the extent that it were construed to

permit governmental funding of organizations that do not or

cannot separate their religious activities from their

substance abuse treatment and prevention activities that are

supported by SAMHSA aid. Accordingly, I construe the Act as

forbidding the funding of such organizations and as

permitting Federal, State, and local governments involved in

disbursing SAMHSA funds to take into account the structure

and operations of a religious organization in determining

whether such an organization is constitutionally and

statutorily eligible to receive funding.''

Very truly yours,

Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott,

Member of Congress.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about the amendment I will be offering. I will be offering it in conjunction with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) in order to preserve and maintain civil rights protections as they currently appear in the job training laws. Current law prohibits sponsors of job training programs from discriminating based on race or religion, and that policy goes back decades. For decades, our country has prohibited discrimination in hiring with Federal funds.

In 1941, President Roosevelt ordered a prohibition against discrimination in all defense contracts. In other words, since 1941, our national policy has been that even if you can build better and cheaper rifles, the Army will not buy them from you if you discriminate in employment. The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, and it prohibited discrimination; but it included an exception for religious organizations, but that exception was limited to the context of the religious organizations using their own money. In 1965, President Johnson banned discrimination in all government contracts without exception.

In job training programs specifically, this Congress passed in 1982 the Job Training Partnership Act with bipartisan support. In that Act, Congress included a nondiscrimination clause without exception, and that remains the statutory requirement in job training requirement programs today. That policy will change and discrimination will be allowed if my amendment is not adopted.

So let us be clear. This is not a debate about religious organizations having the right to participate in job training programs. They already do. As the current law stands, and my amendment would keep that law intact, Catholic, Jewish, Lutheran, Baptist, and other religious organizations already get hundreds of millions dollars today to run job training and other federally funded programs. Religious organizations do not need Section 129 in the

bill to sponsor federally funded job training programs. They need that section in order to discriminate in hiring with Federal dollars. My amendment would delete Section 129 and maintain the law against discrimination.

Moreover, Mr. Speaker, when the government refuses to prohibit discrimination based on religion, it cannot effectively enforce laws against discrimination based on race or national origin. Many churches are all virtually white; others virtually all black. So if they restrict hiring based on their religious organization, they can effectively discriminate based on race. And if we do not enforce discrimination laws in Federal contracts with secular programs, where is our moral authority to tell private employers who may be devoutly religious that they cannot discriminate with their private money?

Mr. Speaker, for 40 years, if an employer had a problem hiring the best qualified applicant because of discrimination based on race or religion, that employer had a problem because the weight of the Federal Government was behind the victim of discrimination. The underlying, without my amendment, proposes to shift the weight of the Federal Government from supporting the victim of discrimination to supporting some so-called right to discriminate with Federal funds. That is a profound change in civil rights protection.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard the majority try to defend the discrimination with misleading and poll-tested rhetoric. For example, I read in a Dear Colleague that the bill is one that would ``restore hiring protections for faith-based organizations participating in federal job training programs.'' Mr. Speaker, Section 129 does not restore anything. People have not been able to discriminate in Federal contracts since 1965 and specifically not in any job training program since 1982. If anything is being restored, it is the ugly practice of discrimination that existed before the 1960s.

The Dear Colleague went on to say that Congress needs to ``continue to uphold the basic civil right of America's religious organizations to hire the staff they judge to be best qualified to carry out their programs and missions when they provide job training assistance.'' Mr. Speaker, the language fails to say that they can hire whoever they want to promote their religious missions with the church money. But with the Federal money, they have got to hire the best qualified for the Federal mission the tax dollars were appropriated to promote without discrimination. Funds appropriated under this bill are not gifts or grants to churches. They are contracts for government services, and we should honor the tradition begun in 1941, which prohibits discrimination.

And, finally, Mr. Speaker, Dear Colleague talks about barriers that exist to prevent faith-based organizations from fully participating in government-sponsored programs, but it does not say what the barrier is. In fact, the only barrier is one cannot discriminate. Any program that can get funded under the underlying bill could be funded without Section 129 if the sponsoring organization would agree not to discriminate in employment. As a representative said during the debate on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he said, ``Stop the discrimination, get the money; continue the discrimination, do not get the money.''

Employment discrimination is ugly. We can put lipstick on a pick, but we cannot pass it off as a beauty queen, and we cannot dress up ``we do not hire Catholics and Jews'' with poll-tested semantics and euphemisms and pass it off as anything other than ugly discrimination.

Mr. Speaker, religious organizations actively supported the Civil Rights Act 40 years ago. Today they support the nondiscrimination provision in the Workforce Investment Act the way it is and they oppose Section 129.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill unless traditional civil rights protections are included.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman I yield myself 1 minute and 15 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, I made a previous statement on this amendment during the consideration of the rule, so let me just say that this amendment is offered along with my colleagues, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) in order to preserve and maintain civil rights protections as they currently appear in job training law.

Current law prohibits sponsors of job training programs from discriminating in hiring based on race or religion. This amendment will keep the law the way it has been since 1965. We have heard some comments about title VII. Title VII gives the religious organization an exemption to discriminate with its own money. It was never intended to apply to Federal money.

In any event, there has been no discrimination in job training programs with Federal money, whether it is faith-based sponsored or otherwise since 1965.

Speakers have suggested that religious organizations have barriers to participation. They do not say what the barrier is. The barrier is that you cannot discriminate in employment with the Federal money. Any program that can get funded under this new language in the bill could be funded anyway under the traditional funding, no discrimination, if the sponsor would agree not to discriminate in employment. That has been the rule since 1965.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we are revisiting the civil rights laws. There has been no discrimination since 1965, and that is exactly what we are revisiting.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), a cosponsor of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, we keep hearing that we are discriminating against religious organizations in terms of participation in government contracts. That is not true. The fact is that they can participate. When you talk about a barrier, say what the barrier is. The barrier is, there is a level playing field; you cannot discriminate.

We have also heard a lot about the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What has not been said is since 1965 there has been a specific prohibition against discrimination in Federal contracts. You have not been able to discriminate in a job training program since 1965. In fact, for defense contracts, you have not been able to discriminate since 1941.

We also heard, Mr. Chairman, about the hiring for Planned Parenthood, I believe, and what your position is on abortion or gun control or something. In the 1960s, Mr. Chairman, we passed civil rights laws to respond to our sorry history of bigotry, and we designated specific protected classes where you could not discriminate in employment, race, color, creed, national origin and sex; and you cannot discriminate against those protected classes.

There is a difference between telling somebody they cannot get a job because I do not like your position on gun control and we do not hire blacks or Jews. Race and religion are protected classes; positions on gun control and abortion are not, and there is a difference.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards).

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment does not propose any new initiative. The adoption of this amendment will simply keep the law the way it has been in job training programs since 1965.

Much has been said about court cases. None of those court cases involved Federal money. They involve church money and what the church can do with its church money; and whether it is religious or secular activities, it is still the church's money, not Federal money.

Since 1965 there has been no discrimination with Federal money, at least until these faith-based initiatives came along. In fact, since 1941 there has been no discrimination in defense contracts, without exception. So if you want to sell the Army some rifles, if you discriminate in employment, the Army will not buy those rifles from you.

Mr. Chairman, a lot has been said about the Clinton administration. Let me say I will be introducing into the Record statements made at the signing of those bills outlining the interpretation of the Clinton administration, outlining why there would be no discrimination in employment under the Clinton administration, notwithstanding the language in those various bills.

There has been no discrimination against faith-based organizations. Speakers have suggested that they cannot get contracts. The fact of the matter is that they can get contracts. In fact, anybody that can get funded under the underlying bill could be funded if the organization would simply agree not to discriminate in employment.

In 1964, a gentleman during the debate on the floor said in terms of whether or not you can get the money,

``Stop the discrimination, get the money; continue the discrimination, do not get the money.''

That is what we are talking about here. Telling somebody that they are not qualified for a federally paid-for job because of religion is wrong. Adopt my amendment and we will keep the law the way it has been since 1965.

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

Mr. Chairman, I have a point of order.

If it is true that they cannot discriminate with the Federal money, but can discriminate with the church money, is the statement that the gentleman mentioned, true or not?

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, we hear all this hoopla about these coupon settlements, but we do not hear any suggestion as to what to do about them. There are a lot of situations where corporations are ripping people off for small amounts of money.

For example, if a person at a checkout counter calibrates the machine to just cheat one out of a few cents, what is one's recovery in that case? Just a few cents. And the only way one can stop that is with a class action. But they would suggest there is no point in bringing the class action; as long as they did not rip them off for too much, they ought to get away with it.

Furthermore, a lot of these coupon settlements are in Federal courts anyway, so there is not going to be much change. But some of these coupon cases are the only way that we can rein in corporate abuse.

But this bill just increases complications in a gratuitous way. It took a half an hour for the proponents to explain when it is a class action and when it is not a class action. In normal cases they file it in State court. Either they certify it or not, and then one goes forward. There is not much complication. But this invites mischief. Whether it is really a class action or not, remove it anyway, and let the Federal courts mess around with it and mess around with it and mess around with it. They may never get their day in court. And if they do not certify it, what happens to one's case? They may not be able to get back to State court. So the fact that they did not certify a class action will deny one the right to even have their day in court.

This complicates venue. They do not know where the case is going to be heard. It could be that an injury happens in one State, they have corporations in that State involved, they have State plaintiffs, and here one has to go chasing around, trying to figure out where they are going to be.

The Attorneys General across the States, 47 Attorneys General in States and territories, have come out against the bill because it puts the Attorneys General in the same crack. They do not know where the case is going to be heard. If they bring a State action in State court, they may get removed. Some of the States have better wage laws, civil rights laws, sometimes consumer protections, and if the Attorneys General want to come in to protect their own citizens in their own States, they ought to have that right and not get jerked around to Federal court.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, some Federal courts are more clogged up than State courts. Some in the same area, the State courts are more clogged up than the Federal courts. Why do we have to always go into Federal court on these cases rather than have some kind of choice? Every time we have a criminal case, it will take preference over the civil cases. And in some cases where we have some terrorist cases or a backlog of Federal cases, one may never get to hear their case in Federal court.

If we want consumers to get timely justice, we need to defeat this bill, and I hope that is what we do.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the substitute. One of the problems with the substitute is you have to debate all of the different

issues all at once. If we had the opportunity to introduce individual amendments, we could have discussed them one at a time and had a much more coherent discussion.

As it has been said, the underlying bill does not extinguish the right to get to court but it does gratuitously complicate the litigation. It does not fix coupons, it just moves them from State court to Federal courts. It adds procedural hurdles, and this substitute removes many of those hurdles.

The main thing it does is it carves out many of the different cases that belong in State court or at least ought to have the opportunity in the State court. It also fixes the yo-yo effect where you start off in State court, get removed to Federal court, Federal court does not certify the class, and then what happens? I guess you come back to State court or, I do not know, you might not be able to get back to State court. You may end up in a procedural trap where you have lost your case just in the time it takes to get over there and try to get back.

This amendment fixes that quagmire. It also carves out, as has been said, the State civil rights cases where some States have civil rights laws that are stronger and cover different people, different classes than the Federal laws. Wage and hour laws, some States have better laws than the Federal court. Mass torts where you have not class actions per se, but a lot of different litigants all in the same State. It fixes the problem with Attorneys General in bringing a case in State court on behalf of not only members of their State, but if the injury has occurred to a lot of other people, the Attorney General might want to bring that case.

I have a letter, Mr. Speaker, signed on this specific issue by 47 Attorneys General.

It also denies benefits under the bill for tax traitors, those who move their corporate headquarters off shore to avoid corporate taxes; and it also provides a limitation on sealed settlements that the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) has been very active in making sure that cases that are settled cannot be sealed beyond public view, unless if such a sealing would violate public health or other important considerations.

This is a well-reasoned substitute. It eliminates many but not all of the problems in the underlying bill, and I would hope that the House would adopt the substitute.

National Association

of Attorneys General,

Washington, DC, February 7, 2005.

Hon. Bill Frist,

Senate Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Dirksen Building, Washington, DC.

Hon. Harry Reid,

Senate Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Hart Building, Washington, DC.

Dear Senate Majority Leader Frist and Senate Minority

Leader Reid: We, the undersigned State Attorneys General,

write to express our concern regarding one limited aspect of

pending Senate Bill 5, the ``Class Action Fairness Act,'' or

any similar legislation. We take no position on the Act as a

general matter and, indeed, there are differing views among

us on the policy judgments reflected in the Act. We join

together, however, in a bipartisan request for support of

Senator Mark Pryor's potential amendment to S. 5, or any

similar legislation, clarifying that the Act does not apply

to, and would have no effect on, actions brought by any State

Attorney General on behalf of his or her respective state or

its citizens.

As Attorneys General, we frequently investigate and bring

actions against defendants who have caused harm to our

citizens. These cases are usually brought pursuant to the

Attorney General's parens patriae authority under our

respective consumer protection and antitrust statutes. In

some instances, such actions have been brought with the

Attorney General acting as the class representative for the

consumers of the state. It is our concern that certain

provisions of S. 5 might be misinterpreted to hamper the

ability of the Attorneys General to bring such actions,

thereby impeding one means of protecting our citizens from

unlawful activity and its resulting harm.

The Attorneys General have been very successful in

litigation initiated to protect the rights of our consumers.

For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, the States have

recently brought enforcement actions on behalf of consumers

against large, often foreign-owned, drug companies for

overcharges and market manipulations that illegally raised

the costs of certain prescription drugs. Such cases have

resulted in recoveries of approximately 235 million dollars,

the majority of which is earmarked for consumer restitution.

In several instances, the States' recoveries provided one

hundred percent reimbursement directly to individual

consumers of the overcharges they suffered as a result of the

illegal activities of the defendants. This often meant

several hundred dollars going back into the pockets of those

consumers who can least afford to be victimized by illegal

trade practices, senior citizens living on fixed incomes and

the working poor who cannot afford insurance.

We encourage you to support the aforementioned amendment

exempting all actions brought by State Attorneys General from

the provisions of S. 5, or any similar legislation. It is

important to all of our constituents, but especially to the

poor, elderly and disabled, that the provisions of the Act

not be misconstrued and that we maintain the enforcement

authority needed to protect them from illegal practices. We

respectfully submit that the overall purposes of the

legislation would not be impaired by such an amendment that

merely clarifies the existing authority of our respective

States.

Thank you for your consideration of this very important

matter. Please contact any of us if you have questions or

comments.

Sincerely,

Mike Beebee, Attorney General, Arkansas.

Gregg Renkes, Attorney General, Alaska.

Mark Shurtleff, Attorney General, Utah.

Fiti Sunia, Attorney General, American Samoa.

Terry Goddard, Attorney General, Arizona.

John Suthers, Attorney General, Colorado.

Jane Brady, Attorney General, Delaware.

Charlie Crist, Attorney General, Florida.

Mark Bennett, Attorney General, Hawaii.

Stephen Carter, Attorney General, Indiana.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, California.

Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General, Connecticut.

Robert Spagnoletti, Attorney General, District of Columbia.

Thurbert Baker, Attorney General, Georgia.

Lawrence Wasden, Attorney General, Idaho.

Tom Miller, Attorney General, Iowa.

Greg Stumbo, Attorney General, Kentucky.

Steven Rowe, Attorney General, Maine.

Tom Reilly, Attorney General, Massachusetts.

Mike Hatch, Attorney General, Minnesota.

Jay Nixon, Attorney General, Missouri.

Jon Bruning, Attorney General, Nebraska.

Kelly Ayotte, Attorney General, New Hampshire.

Charles Foti, Attorney General, Louisiana.

Joseph Curran, Attorney General, Maryland.

Mike Cox, Attorney General, Michigan.

Jim Hood, Attorney General, Mississippi.

Mike McGrath, Attorney General, Montana.

Brian Sandoval, Attorney General, Nevada.

Peter Harvey, Attorney General, New Jersey.

Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, New York.

Wayne Stenehjem, Attorney General, North Dakota.

Jim Petro, Attorney General, Ohio.

Hardy Myers, Attorney General, Oregon.

Roberto Sanchez Ramos, Attorney General, Puerto Rico.

Henry McMaster, Attorney General, South Carolina.

Roy Cooper, Attorney General, North Carolina.

Pamela Brown, Attorney General, N. Mariana Islands.

W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General, Oklahoma.

Tom Corbett, Attorney General, Pennsylvania.

Patrick Lynch, Attorney General, Rhode Island.

Lawrence Long, Attorney General, South Dakota.

Paul Summers, Attorney General, Tennessee.

Darrell McGraw, Attorney General, West Virginia.

Patrick Crank, Attorney General, Wyoming.

Rob McKenna, Attorney General, Washington.

Peg Lautenschlager, Attorney General, Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on this chart the gentleman shows the blue line as to the President's promise to cut the deficit in half within 5 years. Cutting the deficit in half within 5 years is certainly a modest goal.

Is it not true that the projected surpluses that we started off this administration with would have created $5 trillion in surplus? Yet according to the first chart you had, we are very much in debt, and we come up with a promise to cut the deficit in half in 5 years. What kind of goal is that? Why are we not talking about returning to surplus, where we were, and not having all of these deficits? Is cutting the deficit in half not somewhat of a bizarre goal?

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that one of the things when you run up all this deficit, you have to pay interest on the national debt every year. The interest on the national debt, you have a chart that shows what we spent in 2004, what we are going to have to spend.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, interestingly enough, I remember when President Clinton left office that we expected to pay off the national debt held by the public by 2008, in which case we would be paying zero interest on the national debt. Here you show in 2010 a $300 billion interest expense.

Is it not true that with $300 billion at $30,000 each, you could hire 10 million Americans? That is even more than the number of people unemployed today.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, when we have all that interest on the national debt, that means that NASA will not have any money. NASA-Langley in my district is suffering cutbacks, laying off people. Shipbuilding, we would not be able to build the number of Navy ships, we are particularly trying to cut back on aircraft carriers. Pell grants are not going up with inflation. We are cutting back veterans health care. We are not keeping up with inflation to maintain present services and veterans health care in the middle of the war.

Is that not the kind of thing that happens?

Mr. Speaker, I had just one other question. On the first chart that the gentleman had up there, on the other side, the first chart the gentleman had, I remember we had something called pay- go during the Clinton years.

Can the gentleman explain how that helped us keep the trend up, and then what happened?

So during those years, we had fiscal responsibility. We could not spend money unless we paid for it; we could not cut taxes unless we cut spending; and maintaining that fiscal responsibility kept that line going up. And, at the top of that line, we stopped pay-go and we passed tax cuts without spending cuts, and we passed spending increases without paying for them; is that right?

And that graph shows what happens.

Mr. Speaker, I think we need to put the budget into perspective to see where we are with the budget as we discuss the priorities.

This chart just shows where we are starting with the first Bush administration ending with a $290 billion deficit. The 8 years of the Clinton administration, each year better than the previous year, up to a $236 billion surplus, with surpluses increasing as far as the eye could see.

The first year of the Bush administration we used up all of the surplus and ended up just with the Social Security and Medicare surplus, and each year worse than the year before. This year we expect a $427 billion deficit. Last year we ended up with a $412 billion deficit. When President Clinton left office, we had expected a surplus of $400 billion, a swing of over $800 billion.

That is significant, Mr. Speaker, because if you look at what we get from the individual income tax, everybody's individual income tax, it is less than $800 billion. That was the swing just in 1 year.

When President Clinton left office it looked as though we could pay off the national debt by 2008 or 2009, which meant we would be paying out zero interest on the national debt. We would be able to replace all the money in the trust funds by about 2012, 2014, somewhere in there so there would be zero interest on the national debt paid to the trust funds.

Right now, about 2009, interest national debt is projected, instead around zero, about $300 billion a year. At $30,000 apiece that is enough to hire 10 million Americans, more than the total number unemployed today.

Where are we going? This chart shows, this red line is President Bush's projection of cutting the deficit in half in 5 years. First of all, we just showed that we started off with a surplus. We ought to be replacing the surplus, not just cleaning up half the mess. So the discussion about whether or not you can cut the deficit in half in 5 years really is out of place.

This chart up here shows in 2002, after 2001 President Bush projected surpluses in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and now he is talking about cutting the deficit in half. This chart down here shows a more realistic projection because it includes actually the war in Iraq and Social Security privatization, interest on all of that debt, extending the tax cuts and all of these policies would put us down on this line below.

The budget deficit.

We should have a surplus. And you will notice if we adopt these policies we will not even come close.

I mentioned Social Security. It is hard to take the Social Security plan seriously because this green line shows that we will be able to pay full benefits until 2042. If we adopt the President's plan to solve the problem, because after 2042 we will have a deficit, the President's plan goes bankrupt 11 years earlier. So if that is the solution to the problem, it is just very difficult to take that very seriously. Furthermore, there was not that much of a problem. In fact, the Social Security shortfall was about $3.7 trillion. If we do not make the tax cuts permanent for the top 1 percent, that is enough to just about cover the entire shortfall. Making the tax cuts permanent, $11.6 trillion, is much more than the Social Security shortfalls.

So when you talk about your priorities, there is a priority, tax cuts for the top 1 percent first. Worry about Social Security second. I think we should worry about Social Security first and then tax cuts second.

If you look at the other kinds of priorities, look at the criminal justice priorities. I serve on the Committee on the Judiciary, and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt) mentioned some of the disparities in the criminal justice system.

There is a good part of the budget. There is more money in residential drug treatment and drug courts, but unfortunately it appears to be at the expense of other good programs in the substance abuse area. There is more money for offender reentry, $5.6 million for a total of $15 million; but we have hundreds of thousands of prisoners coming out of prison, so that is woefully inadequate. But, unfortunately, they are severe cuts, not only in education but in prevention programs, like Safe and Drug Free Schools, Weed and Seed and other prevention programs, the COPS program which will actually reduce crime.

There is more money for prisons, building two new prisons. Unfortunately, that only exacerbates the disparities there are now. For every 100,000 whites in America, 366 are in jail today. But for every 100,000 blacks, 2,209 are in jail today. We need to be putting more money into prevention and less money into prisons. And if we put it into prevention, we will not need the additional prisons.

African generally.

If we put more money into prevention, we would not have to build those two new prisons as we have to today.

Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Speaker, functional democracy requires that the citizens have confidence in an election process and of course confidence that all legitimate votes will be counted. Clearly the State of Ohio is not able to provide such confidence.

First, there is a significant unexplained, uninvestigated difference in exit polling results and the reported election results. There are specific unresolved allegations of other election problems, particularly the long lines in some precincts that were caused not because of an unanticipated voter turnout but because of insufficient voting machines in the precinct. Other allegations were widespread and none of these allegations was investigated.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that this objection is somewhat awkward because it does not have the apparent support for the candidate involved, but I believe it is our responsibility to ensure that election results meet the spirit and letter of our Constitution and that we have confidence in the process by demonstrating that voting schemes and irregularities are not ignored.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that we would take this in consideration as we review this election return so that this does not happen again.

Mr. Speaker, a functioning democracy requires that the citizens have confidence in its election process, and of course confidence that all legitimate votes will be properly counted. We saw the importance of this principle in the recent Ukraine national election and in the Washington State Governor's election.

Clearly, the State of Ohio is not able to provide such confidence. First there is a significant, unexplained and un-investigated difference in exit polling results and the reported election results. Then, there are many specific, serious, unresolved allegations of voting irregularities in Ohio. For example, strong evidence exists to indicate that in some predominately Black precincts, voters had to stand in line to vote for as much as 10 hours due, not to an unanticipated voter turn out, but to a clearly insufficient number of voting machines at the precinct.

Other allegations include evidence that numerous requests for provisional ballots were improperly denied, that the counting of provisional ballots violated the Help America Vote Act and that there were over 90,000 ballots cast which were set aside as spoiled ballots without justification. Not one of these allegations was officially investigated.

Now I know that this objection is somewhat awkward because it does not have the apparent support of the candidate involved, but I believe it is our duty and responsibility to assure that election results meet the spirit and the letter of our Constitution and that we instill confidence in the process by demonstrating that voting schemes and irregularities are not ignored.

Mr. Speaker, I support this provision to fix the misguided insertion in the Omnibus Appropriations bill allowing Congressional staff to view individual tax returns. However, I protest the process through which that insertion, and others, were inserted into a 3,000-plus page spending bill without the knowledge of most members and without an opportunity to correct all of them.

One such additional insertion is a provision which effectively eliminates one of our most effective tools to fight crime--the Federal Prison Industries program. Study after study--some of them covering as much as 16 years of follow-up data--have shown that inmates who participate in the Federal Prison Industries program are more likely to be employed and less likely to commit crimes than those who do not take part. And corrections officials tell us that Federal Prison Industries are critical to their maintaining safety and security in the prisons by giving inmates something productive to do with their time. Crime victims and the inmates' dependents benefit, as well. Last year alone, inmate workers paid more than $3 million from their wages in the form of restitution to victims and support payments to dependents.

Inserting provisions in a 3,000-plus page bill with no opportunity to know about them or review them prior to voting on them, not only violates House rules against legislating on an appropriations measure, but violates principles of transparency and regular order in legislating, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time.

California's 21 missions, which run along a 600-mile stretch of highway from San Diego to Sonoma, are indeed historically significant and contribute tremendously to the rich historical, cultural, and architectural heritage of California and this country's westward growth. At the same time we strive to preserve these historical landmarks, we must also be careful to preserve religious liberty and honor the establishment clause of the first amendment of the Constitution.

Nineteen of the 21 missions that comprise California's historic mission trail are currently owned by the Roman Catholic Church; they operate as active parishes and hold regularly scheduled religious services. There is a clear line of Supreme Court cases that address government funding of improvement of real property for the direct benefit of buildings used for religious purposes including worship, sectarian service, or instruction.

Three Supreme Court decisions, Tilton v. Richardson in 1971, Hunt v. McNair in 1973, and Committee For Public Education v. Nyquist in 1973, make it clear that no government funds may be used to construct, maintain, restore, or make capital improvements to physical structures that are used as houses of worship, even if religious services are infrequent.

H.R. 1446 contains a provision which requires that the purpose of any grant under this act is secular, does not promote religion, and seeks to protect qualities that are historically significant. It is therefore clear that any grant or assistance provided under this act must also be consistent with the Supreme Court decisions in this area of the law.

Mr. Speaker, I am submitting for inclusion in the Record at this point a letter from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which raises questions about the issue I have just raised.

Preserve Religious Liberty: Oppose the California Missions Preservation

Act (H.R. 1446)

November 17, 2004.

Dear Representative: Americans United for Separation of

Church and State urges you to oppose the California Missions

Preservation Act, H.R. 1446, which we understand will be on

the floor of the House of Representatives today. Americans

United represents more than 70,000 individual members

throughout the fifty states and in the District of Columbia,

as well as cooperating houses of worship and other religious

bodies committed to preservation of religious liberty. This

bill is unconstitutional and would significantly erode key

church-state separation protections.

H.R. 1446 would authorize the Secretary of the Interior to

enter into agreements and make grants to the California

Missions Foundation to ``restore and repair'' the California

missions and the religious artwork and artifacts associated

with the missions. The bill would authorize a $10,000,000

appropriation for the 2004-2009 period to fund these goals.

The 21 missions comprising California's historic mission

trail were founded between 1769 and 1823. 19 of the 21

missions are owned by the Roman Catholic Church, operate as

active parishes, and have regularly scheduled religious

services. There is no doubt that California's 21 missions are

historically significant, and contribute greatly to the rich

historical, cultural and architectural heritage of California

and the American West. Although we recognize that

preservation of these historic buildings is important, we

strongly believe that the preservation of Americans'

constitutional rights is vital. In short, the California

Missions Preservation Act would violate the First Amendment

by forcing taxpayers nationwide to pay for church repairs,

even repairs and restoration of facilities with active

congregations.

Under the bill, government funding will flow to houses of

worship for capital improvements in violation of the

Constitution. Time after time, the United states Supreme

Court has required that no government funds be used to

maintain, restore, or make capital improvements to physical

structures that are used as houses of worship, even if

religious services are infrequent. Three Supreme Court

decisions (Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672 (1971), Hunt v.

McNair, 413 U.S. 734 (1973), Committee for Public Education

v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756 (1973)) make clear that it is

unconstitutional to allow federal grants for capital

improvements of structures devoted to worship or religious

instruction, and all three of these decisions remain binding

law on all government entities.

The illegality of the proposal to fund the California

missions is exacerbated when one considers the issue of

government directly funding religious icons. Because one of

the objectives of the California Missions Foundation is to

preserve the Spanish colonial and mission-era artworks and

artifacts of the California missions, and because the bill

specifically authorizes federal funds to be used to preserve

the artworks and artifacts associated with the California

missions, the Secretary of the Interior would be empowered to

provide government money specifically to maintain or restore

religious artifacts and icons associated with devotional and

worship activities at the missions, a result that would be

clearly unconstitutional.

We are fully aware of the historical and cultural

significance of the California missions. However, it is

essential for Congress to maintain our nation's commitment to

safeguarding religious liberty for all Americans. Nineteen of

the 21 California missions are churches, not just museums,

and are still used for religious services. The repair and

upkeep of the missions, therefore, must be paid for by those

who worship there or by other interested individuals or

private organizations through voluntary contributions. The

House of Representatives should refrain from passing this

blatantly unconstitutional bill.

If you have any questions regarding this legislation or

would like further information on any other issue of

importance to Americans United, please contact Aaron D.

Schuham, Legislative Director, at (202) 466-3234, extension

240.

Sincerely,

Rev. Barry W. Lynn,

Executive Director.

I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership.

We have heard that we have had to increase the debt limit. This chart shows why the debt ceiling had to be increased. It shows the deficit from the Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations, the Reagan and Bush administrations, the deficit changing into a surplus, and then the massive red ink in this administration. It shows that it may get a little better for a couple of years, but unless there is a profound change in direction, it just keeps getting worse.

When you run up this kind of deficit, we talk about increasing the debt limit, but one thing you have to do is pay interest on all of that debt. We have heard that the surplus projected

at the end of the Clinton administration would have virtually paid off the debt held by the public by 2008. Instead, by 2008 we will have almost a $300 billion additional interest on the debt that has been run up. $300 billion increased interest to be paid.

We talk about No Child Left Behind underfunded by $9 billion, veterans' health care underfunded by a couple of billion dollars. We have got other things, a couple of billion dollars here and there. We are squeezing here and there. By 2008, interest on the national debt, money just down the drain, $300 billion additional because of the fiscal irresponsibility.

We hear that they want to privatize Social Security. This is the Social Security cash flow which my colleagues will notice, in 2017, instead of a surplus, we are going to be starting to run a deficit, huge deficits approaching, by 2037, $1 trillion. One wonders how could we ever have paid this surplus and why we should be running up as much of a surplus as possible now to be able to accommodate this.

This chart shows that if you look at the tax cuts that this administration has enacted and has in store, the present value of all of those tax cuts is $14.2 trillion. We could have paid all of the Social Security benefits without increasing the age of retirement, without reducing benefits, for $3.7 trillion in present value.

Medicare's deficit, the same kind of chart, $8.2 trillion. $11.9 trillion is what it would have cost to make Social Security and Medicare both financially solvent for the next 75 years. $14.2 trillion in tax cuts. We had a choice: Tax cuts or make Social Security and Medicare solvent for 75 years. We made the wrong choice.

This chart responds to the adage, if you don't change directions, you might end up where you are headed. This chart shows where we are headed at our present rate and present policies. This shows that right now we are borrowing money to pay for some of the green which is Federal spending. Unfortunately, by 2040, unless there is a profound change in direction, we will be able to pay interest on the national debt and a little bit of Social Security and have to borrow the rest of the money for Social Security. We will have no money for Medicare and Medicaid and no money for government spending like defense, education, transportation.

Obviously, there has to be a profound change in direction. Otherwise, interest on the national debt will start eating up virtually every penny that we have.

We are going in the wrong direction. We have to change directions back to the period of time when we made the tough choices, eliminated the deficit and created the surplus. We can go back to that era if we make the tough choices, make the right choices, but we are not doing that now. When we start talking about increasing the debt ceiling, this is one of the symptoms and one of the consequences of all of this red ink.

I thank the gentleman from South Carolina for yielding, and I thank him for his leadership on fiscal responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, along with my colleagues, Representative JoAnn Davis and Representative Ed Schrock, I rise with great pride to call attention to a group of young students who have distinguished themselves, their school, their community, and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The Hampton High School Crabbers football team won their 700th game last night. By doing so, the Crabbers became one of only 11 high school football programs in the Nation to reach 700 victories. This is a remarkable feat and I believe they deserve formal recognition for their accomplishment.

Hampton High School began playing football in 1899, so the legacy of this milestone extends to the hundreds of players who have worn the Crabber uniform and to coaches such as Mike Smith, Dick Esleeck, James ``Suey'' Eason, and Johnny Palmer. Coach Smith has been head coach for more than half of the Crabbers' 700 wins, and has been a part of more than 400 victories.

My colleagues JoAnn Davis, Ed Schrock, and I would like to extend our enthusiastic congratulations to the Hampton High School players and their families, Coach Smith and the rest of his coaching staff, Hampton High alumni, and the entire Hampton High community for their remarkable accomplishment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this did not go through the Committee on the Judiciary and it is somewhat complicated and it appears to be overlapping and recreates and reauthorizations present law. For example under title XVIII, chapter 10 already criminalizes the use of biological weapons; chapter 11(b) criminalizes chemical weapons; chapter 39 criminalizes nuclear weapons; chapter 4 criminalizes the use of explosives, and on and on.

In addition, many of those, all of those offenses are predicates to 18 U.S.C. (a) 2332(b) which provides for the death penalty if death results from any violation of those statutes.

The only change appears to be a mandatory 30 years for attempts and conspiracies. There is no differentiation for a role in a conspiracy, relative knowledge of the crime, or even if death were an accident that had not been intended. What we have is new mandatory minimums.

We have, in the Committee on the Judiciary, often cited many findings and recommendations from researchers, sentencing professionals, even the judicial branch, justices on the Supreme Court, including the chief justice, citing problems created by mandatory sentences. They have been found to be a waste of money compared to alternatives such as treatment or traditional sentencing. They disrupt the ability of the Sentencing Commission and the courts to apply an orderly, proportional, nondisparate sentencing system. They discriminate against minorities and they transfer an inordinate amount of discretion to prosecutors in an adversarial system.

Mandatory minimum sentences increase disparities in sentencing because they do not allow distinctions between major players and bit players in a crime. In a recent letter to the subcommittee, the U.S. Judicial Conference, headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, noted and I quote: In addition to resulting in unwarranted sentencing disparities, mandatory minimums often lead to treatment of dissimilar offenders in a similar manner by requiring courts to impose the same sentence on offenders, when sound policy and common sense call for reasonable differences in punishment to reflect differences in the seriousness of the conduct or danger to society.

In other words, mandatory minimums violate common sense. That is the chief justice and the U.S. Judicial Conference.

Mr. Chairman, this bill, the underlying bill, is a reorganization bill. We should not include controversial criminal penalties, especially when the Judicial Conference headed by the chief justice tells us that these things violate common sense. We also need to study the international implications of this, because when we add in the death penalty, we add in complications of international cooperation. Most countries around the world do not have the death penalty and we have had problems where they would not even extradite criminals to the United States because we have all of these death penalties.

We need to study this, and having a floor amendment is not the appropriate way to legislate. Mr. Chairman, I would hope that we would defeat this amendment.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would just point out that we already have in the Code serious penalties for all of these crimes. The appropriate way to legislate would be to go through the committee so that we could see exactly how these fit into the present sentencing scheme. I would hope that we defeat the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this is a 10-page amendment with mandatory minimum sentences, mandatory sentences of life imprisonment, and a death penalty provision. It has not been considered by any subcommittee or the full Committee on the Judiciary, and I am not sure it has even been considered by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. We have information that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure has not considered it and, in fact, may not support it.

It appears to make, but it is not clear whether conspiracies, attempts and threats are subject to the same penalties as the underlying offense. Not only have these provisions not been considered by the appropriate committees of jurisdiction, but because of the mandatory minimum sentences, neither sentencing experts nor judges on the U.S. Sentencing Commission who have the responsibility to assure a rational and proportional sentencing system, nor any Federal judge who would review all the facts and circumstances of the case, will get to assess whether or not these sentences make any sense.

Mr. Chairman, I remind my colleagues that the Judicial Conference has written a letter saying that these mandatory minimums violate common sense, and yet here we are asked to decide in a 5-minute debate whether or not they are appropriate in this case.

Mr. Chairman, the author of the amendment indicates that we are trying to conform one code section to another. I would ask that we do that when we consider the code sections. We are going to consider the PATRIOT Act. That is one of the code sections involved. And the time to consider the PATRIOT Act and amending the PATRIOT Act is when we have the PATRIOT Act before us; not when we are doing a reorganization bill without any serious committee of jurisdiction considering the underlying amendment.

I say again, Mr. Chairman, when we have death penalty, that makes life complicated from an international point of view. We may have terrorists who are caught in another country. We cannot get them extradited because of all of these death penalties and we need to consider that.

We have heard that the Shoe Bomber was complicated as to which code section he was under. We have an easy case for attempted murder, plain and simple. It gives life imprisonment. Certainly the death penalty, if he had completed the act, would not have made any sense. The death penalty for a suicide bomber is obviously not going to be much of a deterrent.

Mr. Chairman, I would hope that we would consider all the implications and not adopt this amendment at this time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, in 2001, we considered this provision when we put it in the PATRIOT Act. It was inconsistent with an older version. We need to consider whether we want to conform the law to the newer version or to the older version. That is why we have committees, so we can assess what the appropriate punishment is.

Mr. Chairman, 5-minute debates on the floor without committee consideration does not give us that opportunity. I would hope that we would delay consideration of this by defeating the amendment and consider the issue when we do the PATRIOT Act.

Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentlewoman from West Virginia whether or not conspiracies, attempts, and threats are subject to the same penalties as the underlying offense.

I yield to the gentlewoman from West Virginia.

Reclaiming my time, I would say again, you have mandatory minimums in the bill which would not give anybody any flexibility, and if a conspiracy attempt and threat are subject to the same mandatory minimums as actually completing the crime, that would be something that we would want to consider. It is just not clear.

If the gentlewoman wants time to respond, I will give her time.

Reclaiming my time, I would hope we would defeat the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, this bill creates 23 new death penalties, making all Federal crimes of terrorism punishable by death. We would remind people that a 23-year study of over 4,500 death penalty cases found reversible error in 68 percent of the cases. We suspect that approximately 100 people in the last 10 years have been wrongfully executed. This burden falls disproportionately on minorities.

So when you talk about a strong signal, the signal, I guess, is you put people to death because, well, they might have been guilty. We know in the end the death penalty will not deter suicide bombers from completing their crimes. Furthermore, we have the problem of international law, the fact that most countries in the world, particularly our allies, do not have the death penalty and will not extradite criminals to the United States if they will be subject to the death penalty.

One of the problems with the Federal crimes of terrorism is that it is somewhat vague. It could include some kind of a political protest. The death could occur by accident. It was not even intended. Somebody got trampled in the protest, for example, and here you are talking about the death penalty. But because it includes not only completing the crime and killing somebody, it includes support for someone. You might want to rename this the ``Put Mama to Death Bill.'' If a mother harbors her son, lets him stay at home, she would then become and everybody in the family becomes subject to the death penalty.

Mr. Chairman, this has nothing to do with reorganization of the intelligence community. I would hope that we would reserve judgment on this and consider this bill and others when we consider the Patriot Act.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I would point out that we will be considering the Patriot Act. I would hope that we would consider this legislation as part of that.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition to the amendments.

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

There is one bill, the firefighters bill, that is in here, we considered that, and we had a debate on it. I just want to incorporate by reference the problems with that legislation. It is not necessary because firefighters can receive gifts, and if they want to immunize the donor, they can do that under present law.

Furthermore, the answer to giving firefighters more equipment is in funding first responders equipment, rather than tort reform. So I would hope that we would consider that as we consider the en bloc amendments.

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

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, as the gentleman from Delaware has indicated, we have had this debate before, and I would just point out that my concerns with parts of the amendment are outweighed by the support of the other provisions in the other bills in the bloc. So I will not be opposing the bloc.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition for the minority, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment adds to the list of crimes for which the presumption of detention occurs. It is an extraneous PATRIOT Act II provision not sought by the 9/11 Commission. This puts the defendant in a position where he has to prove the unprovable.

The Department of Justice has a bad record of detaining people who should not be detained. Brendon Mayfield, a lawyer in Seattle, was detained as a material witness in the Madrid train bombing. The Department of Justice was subsequently forced to admit that they had the wrong person, in that Mr. Mayfield had nothing to do with the crime, notwithstanding the fact that he had been held on one of these presumptions of detention.

I would hope we would consider this when we consider PATRIOT Act II.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), the ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of the 60th Anniversary of the United Negro College Fund. The United Negro College Fund is the nation's oldest, most successful and most comprehensive minority higher education assistance organization.

Over the past 60 years, UNCF has raised more than $2 billion to help a total of more than 300,000 students attend college. Today, of the approximately 65,000 students UNCF supports, 60 percent are the first in their families to attend college and 62 percent have annual family incomes of less than $25,000. UNCF doesn't just give students an opportunity to get a college education, but more of an opportunity to make a lasting contribution to our communities and nation by building successful careers.

We all know how important a college education is today. It is virtually impossible to compete in today's global economy without a college degree. Studies have shown that workers with a college degree earn 75 percent more than those with only a high school diploma. While there are many obstacles that deter students from going to college, finances by no means should be the deciding factor.

No one should be denied the opportunity to get an education and increase their earning potential based solely on their inability to pay for a college education. UNCF's founder, Dr. Frederick D. Patterson, president of what is now Tuskegee University, recognized that for many African-American students, lack of finances was the only thing standing in the way of their goal of getting a college education. In 1944, he issued a call to other black college presidents to raise money to help educate these qualified students. Now for the past 60 years UNCF has made sure that minority students at over 1,000 colleges and universities have the financial support they need.

Not only does UNCF support students, but also higher education institutions throughout the country. UNCF provides operating support to 38 member historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), which help the member schools keep tuition down at a rate 54 percent lower than tuition at other comparable schools. UNCF also administers millions of dollars to help provide computers, technology integration training for faculty members and technological infrastructure support for HBCUs.

The fact that UNCF plays such a significant role in supporting our nation's HBCUs is important. HBCUs graduate far more than their share of African American professionals. While HBCUs represent just 3 percent of the nation's institutions of higher learning, they graduate nearly one-quarter of African Americans who earn undergraduate degrees. Nine of the top ten colleges that graduate the most African Americans who go on to earn Ph.Ds are HBCUs.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to have two of UNCF's member institutions in my state--Virginia Union University and Saint Paul's College. And two other HBCUs in my district that benefit from UNCF funding and programs--Hampton University and Norfolk State University.

Graduates of UNCF institutions have indeed made lasting contributions in the fields of business, health care, the arts and even politics. In fact, several of my distinguished colleagues are UNCF alumni.

In 1972, UNCF introduced its now famous slogan: ``A mind is a terrible thing to waste''. And through the diligent efforts of all who work with UNCF, by donating financial resources, time and in the case of many celebrities--their good name, they have made sure that the meaning of that slogan resonates across America. Most importantly, they have made sure that every student who has the desire can attend college. I commend those involved with the United Negro College Fund for their hard work and congratulate them on 60 years of service.