Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I will support this bill, albeit very reluctantly.

This supplemental appropriations bill contains a number of provisions I'm pleased to support. This bill provides long-overdue retroactive ``stop loss'' compensation payments to more than 170,000 servicemembers who had their enlistments involuntarily extended. It also provides nearly $5 billion for additional Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles for U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. The bill renews our commitment to meaningful engagement in the Middle East by providing Israel with $555 million of the $2.8 billion of the 2010 request for security assistance, as well as $665 million in bilateral economic, humanitarian, and security assistance for the West Bank and Gaza. I am also pleased that the bill provides $2 billion for pandemic flu response, as well as $500 million for global

emergency food assistance. These are all worthy and necessary expenditures.

As the chairman of the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel (SIOP), I want to briefly discuss our work on this bill. The SIOP reviewed the intelligence activities contained in this request. While the dollar amounts are classified, I can tell my colleagues that this bill contains many of the same justifiable activities we have seen in previous years with two exceptions. The first exception is the administration's request, which this bill includes, for additional funding for the operations in Afghanistan. Intelligence has been a vital component of our overseas military activities, and this bill ensures that proper intelligence will be available to those on the front lines in Afghanistan. The second exception is that this administration has begun the process of shifting continuing activities from emergency supplemental bills to the base appropriations bill.

Overall, however, I have grave concerns about the direction of our spending and policy focus in Afghanistan. I recognize that this conflict was neglected for far too long because of our misadventure in Iraq and that we are now paying the price for that neglect. I am concerned that in our haste to try to recover lost ground--literally as well as figuratively--we may commit some of the same errors that bedeviled our efforts in Iraq.

I have heard many people in this body and elsewhere in our government say that ``the United States cannot afford to lose in Afghanistan.'' That statement presumes that it is a war that is solely ours to win or lose--that the outcome will be decided by our willingness to commit still more blood and treasure to this conflict. That is a fallacy, the same fallacy that caused us to misdirect our efforts in Iraq for so long with such disastrous consequences. We would do well to remember what U.S. counterinsurgency specialist William Polk said in his 2007 book Violent Politics:

We should begin by noting what is common to all

insurgencies. No matter how they differ in form, duration,

and intensity, a single thread runs through them all:

opposition to foreigners.

As in Iraq, we cannot solve the Afghan's problems for them; we are foreign occupiers of their country and will forever be seen that way by the population. We can support them in their effort to build a stable and just society, but they must be the leaders in that effort.

To that end, we should also bear in mind the words of the authors of the current U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual:

Long-term success in [counterinsurgency] depends on the

people taking charge of their own affairs and consenting to

the government's rule . . . Political and military leaders

and planners should never underestimate its scale and

complexity; moreover, they should recognize that the Armed

Forces cannot succeed in [counterinsurgency] alone.

The supplemental appropriations bill before us spends $47.7 billion on the ongoing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq compared to $4.3 billion for international affairs and stabilization activities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Perhaps the ratio should not be reversed, but it should certainly be far more balanced than it is--and there should be some type of timeline for the transition of security responsibilities from our forces to the government of Afghanistan.

My recent visit to Iraq with Speaker Pelosi convinced me that the certainty of our withdrawal from that country has focused the minds of Iraq's leaders on the need to deal with their many unresolved domestic problems. We need to create that same sense of urgency among Afghanistan's leaders, but I fear that this bill will not have that effect. I intend to join like-minded House colleagues in seeking ways to create that sense of urgency in this body, and ultimately on leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As a first step, I have co-sponsored a bill by my friend from Massachusetts, Representative Jim McGovern, that would require the Secretary of Defense to present to Congress an exit strategy for Afghanistan. The conflict in Afghanistan, and the emerging conflict in Pakistan itself, cannot be solved by us through military means--it can only be solved politically through a joint effort by us and our allies. I hope we will be able to begin making that transition in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget later this year, and by passing Representative McGovern's bill as soon as possible.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act, H.R. 1728, and to commend my colleagues Brad Miller, Mel Watt and Chairman Frank for their leadership and hard work on this measure. I note that Rep. Miller has worked on this matter for years, long before it became such a consuming issue. I urge my colleagues to support it.

A host of factors contributed to the economic crisis we have been suffering from over the past year, and it is fitting that the term ``perfect storm'' has so often been used to describe it. But the abusive and predatory practices of certain mortgage lenders certainly are among the factors that top the list. Somewhere along the way, prudent business judgment and careful long-term risk assessment were muscled out of the way by short-term profit seeking, with no thought of the impact that would have on the broader economy in the long run. The end result: the highest rate of home foreclosures in a quarter of a century.

Today, we take another important step in guiding our economy back towards its once stable footing, by prohibiting predatory lending and abusive lending practices, holding banks responsible for the home mortgages they issue, and protecting tenants whose residences go into foreclosure despite their own timely payment of rent.

One of the most prevalent abuses by subprime loan originators has been the practice in which they steer prospective borrowers towards loans that will provide originators with the highest near-term payoff, sometimes through fees the broker or loan officer collects by directing borrowers towards those loans. The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act would prohibit mortgage brokers and bank officers from directing borrowers towards loans that will ultimately become more expensive than they can afford, and would mandate that lenders only issue loans that the borrowers can repay. In addition, it will require loan originators to disclose to borrowers any compensation they receive in connection with the mortgage transaction.

One of the reasons loan originators have been unconcerned about issuing loans that they know borrowers might not be able to pay off is because loan originators in recent years have tended immediately to resell, or securitize, the mortgage loans they originate. Therefore, they only retained the risk associated with issuing an unstable loan for a brief period, and then the risk was transferred elsewhere. The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act calls for new regulations to require loan originators to retain at least a five percent interest in every loan they issue. Once they are required to retain some of the long-term risk of a borrower defaulting on the loan, the issuers should be expected to reinstate more prudent loan origination practices. In addition, the bill would hold the secondary mortgage market--the institutions that have been purchasing and securitizing mortgages--responsible for complying with the same standard when they purchase and package mortgages for resale.

And the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act also includes important protections for some of the most innocent and vulnerable victims of the foreclosure crisis--namely, tenants who reliably pay their rent on time, but wind up homeless when their landlords fail to do the same with their mortgage payments, and their properties go into foreclosure. The bill would require that tenants in such circumstances receive adequate advance notice and are provided with an opportunity to relocate before the foreclosure is completed.

The Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act includes many important reforms and protections. I am pleased to support it and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the committee for his leadership on this issue.

As we all know, schools are hampered in carrying out the mission that they have because of constrained operating budgets and aging infrastructure and ever-increasing energy bills.

In 2005, I introduced the School Building Enhancement Act after learning that energy bills were the second highest expenditure of schools after personnel costs, and I am pleased to say that that legislation has been incorporated in this bill before us today.

The bill will provide $6.4 billion for school construction. For New Jersey that means an estimated $125 million to build and modernize local schools. Most importantly, of course, it will allow States to provide the technical assistance to local educational agencies, local schools, to develop energy-efficiency plans and look at their carbon footprint.

So I want to thank Chairman Miller and Representative Loebsack for carrying this bill forward. There is no question that the economic downturn has put added pressure on our schools from a year ago when we considered similar legislation.

I am also pleased that the chairman has included my language to allow veteran-owned businesses to have contracting preference, along with small, minority and women-owned businesses.

This is a good bill. I encourage my colleagues to support the bill.

Madam Speaker, on Thursday May 7, 2009, I was traveling on official business outside of the country and missed six votes.

Had I been present I would have voted ``yes'' on H. Res. 406 (Rollcall 237) providing for further consideration of H.R. 1728, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act; ``yes'' on the Frank Amendment No. 2 to H.R. 1728 (Rollcall 238); ``no'' on the Hensarling Amendment to H.R. 1728 (Rollcall 239); ``no'' on the Price Amendment to H.R. 1728 (Rollcall 240); ``no'' on the McHenry Amendment to H.R. 1728 (Rollcall 241); and ``yes'' on final passage of H.R. 1728, the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act (Rollcall 242).

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 413, which recognizes the goals and ideals of IEEE Engineering the Future Day. IEEE traces its roots to the founding of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) on May 13, 1884, at a time when

the ability to harness electricity for useful purposes was in its infancy. Since then, electrical power has become central to our way of life, and technologies based on electronics have become ubiquitous. The AIEE evolved to reflect these changes, first by joining with the Institute of Radio Engineers to become the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and later by shortening the organization's official name to IEEE in recognition of the fact that technical fields were transcending traditional definitions and boundaries. Still, the overarching goal of the organization--to apply technology and innovation for the benefit of humanity--has remained constant from the beginning. IEEE has become a global professional organization with 375,000 members in 160 countries. It sponsors hundreds of conferences and professional meetings annually, maintains an electronic library of technical publications, develops international technical standards, hosts educational and professional development programs, and provides a forum for professional interactions and collaborations. As we look to the future, we will rely increasingly on science, engineering, and technology to help us meet our energy challenges, safeguard our environment, grow our economy, and improve our quality of life. I hope that IEEE's Engineering the Future Day will raise awareness about how science and technology affects our daily lives and about the many opportunities available to technical professionals. I congratulate IEEE and its members on the organization's 125th anniversary and past achievements, and I look forward to all of its future contributions.

Madam Speaker, I rise to express my strong support for the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights Act of 2009 (H.R. 627), which the House approved last week, and to commend my colleague Ms. Maloney for her leadership in crafting and championing this measure.

As I am certain is true of all of my colleagues, I am inundated with calls and letters from constituents who are outraged by sudden and arbitrary increases in their credit card interest rates. Their hard- earned taxpayer dollars were used to shore up financial institutions to prevent an economic collapse, and in return, some of the very same financial institutions turned right around and doubled the interest rate they charged their customers.

A letter I received from one constituent, whose interest rate was doubled from 15 to 30 percent, said: ``[i]nterest rates such as these are confiscatory. . . . This starts to look like indentured servitude at best, and financial slavery at worst.'' A letter from another said: ``given how much of my taxes are going to bail out these companies, these rates are beyond outrageous and smack of greed.'' And a letter from another, which was entirely in capital letters, said: ``[t]he American people gave billions [in] bail out money because . . . the banks got themselves into trouble. Instead of helping the same taxpayers that helped them by lowering interest rates on credit cards they chose to raise the rates for no reason. . . . When people do the responsible thing it seems they get punished for it. There have to be more controls on what the banks can do to people who honor their commitments.''

I share the outrage of my constituents, and I am pleased to support the Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights. It will tackle not only usurious interest rates, but a host of other abuses. In 2008 alone, credit-card issuers imposed $19 billion in penalty fees on families with credit cards according to an industry consultant for Consumer Reports. In 2009 it is estimated that credit card companies will break all records for late fees, over-limit charges, and other penalties, charging more than $20.5 billion for such fees and penalties.

The Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights would prevent credit card companies from unfairly increasing interest rates on existing card balances. Credit card holders would be allowed to set their own lower credit card limits, at levels they consider appropriate for their financial circumstances.

The bill would end ``double cycle'' billing, prohibiting credit card companies from charging interest on balances cardholders have already paid on time. If a cardholder pays on time and in full, the bill prevents card companies from charging additional fees on balances consisting solely of left-over interest.

The bill would also require card companies to provide 45 days advance notice of all interest rate increases or significant contract changes such as the addition of new fees or penalties, and would enact into law recently proposed Federal Reserve Board regulations protecting consumers from abusive credit practices.

This bill establishes many long-overdue protections for consumers and credit card holders, and I am pleased to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman and rise in support of this rule and the underlying legislation.

Hate crimes are real. They spread fear and intimidation among entire communities. This bill would strengthen local law enforcement's ability to prosecute hate crimes based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability to the victim.

It is patently false to say that we're criminalizing thought. We are criminalizing the brutality that results when these thoughts lead to death and serious injury of an innocent victim. This is no more about criminalizing thought than the antilynching laws were about criminalizing knot tying.

And to say that pedophilia somehow belongs in here represents such uninformed, illogical and irrelevant thinking as to say kleptomania, drug abuse, school truancy, parking violation and road rage belongs here.

This bill is about hate crimes. This bill has strong support from over 300 civil rights, religious, LGBT, law enforcement and civic organizations, and I'm particularly pleased to identify the support of the Garden State Equality, a group that has fought tirelessly to fight discrimination against all Americans, including discrimination based on gender identity.

I urge support of the rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this important public safety legislation.

The Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, program is one of the most successful law enforcement support programs ever initiated by the federal government. As the National Association of Police Organizations noted in their April 21 letter to me on this bill, ``With the support of the COPS Program, community policing has been a dominant force behind the dramatic reduction in crime this nation has witnessed over the past 13 years.'' It's also clear that our communities are desperate to see this program properly funded, after eight years of neglect.

NAPO noted in their letter to me that in the last month, the COPS Program office received over 7,200 applications for the COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP) grant funding contained in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the ``stimulus bill.'' Those 7,200 applications amounted to a request for funds to hire 40,000 more officers nationwide. Yet the $1 billion CHRP contained in the stimulus bill would allow local communities to hire only 5,000 to 6,000 new police. For New Jersey, previous COPS funding has meant an additional 628 police officers and/or sheriff deputies were walking the beat in the local communities of my Congressional district. Further, 33 school resource officers were hired to ensure that our children's schools are safe. H.R. 1139 would raise the CHRP authorization level to $1.25 billion, allowing state and local law enforcement to hire more officers. Based on historical funding data, this bill would allow New Jersey alone to hire more than 2,000 additional police, and those would be welcome reinforcements for our current law enforcement officers who are working to improve the quality of life in communities across New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, this is a good and much needed bill, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady. I rise as the sponsor of the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act, which I introduced with others.

If this looks familiar, it is because this House--you, my colleagues--passed this legislation by an overwhelming majority, this exact legislation, a little over a month ago. So here we are for take two.

I would like to thank Chairman Rahall, Chairman Grijalva, and Majority Leader Hoyer for helping to bring this legislation back to the floor after a peculiarity, a quirk in parliamentary procedure, had left the previously passed legislation lying on the roadside.

Mr. Speaker, the preservation of tangible history of the United States, especially history of those formative years of our country, is essential for us to see our way forward. Mr. Speaker, history is something we need now more than ever. I urge the passage of this legislation.

I rise as the sponsor of H.R. 1694, the Revolutionary War and War of 1812 Battlefield Protection Act, which I introduced for myself and 12 of my colleagues. This bill may look familiar to many members, a carbon copy passed the House a little over a month ago. However, due to some procedural motions by the other body it is necessary to bring this legislation back to the floor today. I would like to thank Chairman Rahall, Chairman Grijalva, and Majority Leader Hoyer for their help in bringing this legislation back to the floor today.

This month marks the 234th anniversary of two defining and symbolic moments in our nation's early struggle for independence. On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere began his legendary ride to Lexington, Massachusetts to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that British troops were marching to arrest them. Along the way, he and his fellow riders alerted countryside residents to the British troops' approach. The next day, dozens of Colonial troops gathered at Lexington to meet the British troops head on officially starting the Revolutionary War. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem ``The Concord Hymn,'' commemorated this moment as the ``shot heard `round the world.'' Paul Revere's Ride and the shot heard round the world are just a few of the stories of the American Revolution that help bring to life the ideals of liberty and Democracy fostered by our Nation's founders.

One can read about the American Revolution and the values that were fought for and established at that time, or read about the War of 1812 when the fledgling country fought to maintain its independence. However, history is best experienced not by reading but by feeling, touching and living what was experienced in those trying times. There is no better way to experience the history of the founding of our great Nation than on the hallowed ground where the epic struggle for our independence took place.

Preserving these American historic treasures is essential to remembering the sacrifices that our forefathers made to secure our freedom and our independence, and it is vital for educating the current generations and future generations about our rich cultural heritage. Unfortunately, urbanization, suburban sprawl and unplanned development continually encroach on many of the significant battlefields of that period posing a severe and growing risk to the preservation of these sites.

Last spring, the National Park Service published its report to Congress on the status of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 sites. This report demonstrates that there is a great need to act and to act quickly to preserve many of these sites. Out of the 677 naturally significant battlefields and associated sites of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, 99 are lost forever already; 234 are fragmented or in poor condition; an additional 170 are in danger of being destroyed within the next decade.

This bill would help State and local governments and non-profits protect and preserve these battlefields and historic sites by authorizing the use of money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to provide up to 50 percent of the costs of purchasing battlefield land threatened by sprawl and commercial development. This legislation is patterned after the successful Civil War Battlefield Protection Program that has been in effect for quite some time now.

I might add, it was an oversight, I would say, that decades ago, these battlefields and sites of the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War were not included under the same umbrella. Now is the time to do it. Now is past the time to do it.

In 1861, Abraham Lincoln visited Trenton on his historic journey to his inauguration in Washington. There, he told the New Jersey State Assembly ``In the early Revolutionary struggle, few of the States among the old Thirteen had more of the battle-fields of the country within their limits than old New-Jersey.'' A couple years ago, I was pleased when Congress took action to protect the battlefields in historic sites in New Jersey where this conflict took place. We passed legislation that created the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area, linking hundreds of Revolutionary War sites across 14 counties in New Jersey. New Jersey was truly the crossroads of the American Revolution for a number of reasons, and I'm pleased we are taking steps to preserve the record of those engagements.

There's a fundamental misconception that the American Revolution and War of 1812 took place only in the Northeast. In truth, the story of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 crisscrosses 33 States, from New York to Louisiana, from Georgia to Oregon. Enacting this legislation would allow each of these States to preserve better their history and their role in the War of 1812 and the American Revolution.

Today, I will be introducing legislation that will provide additional funding for the battlefield protection program created by this bill. My legislation, the American Revolution and War of 1812 Commemorative Coin Act, is modeled after the Civil War Battlefield Commemorative Coin Act of 1992, which has raised over $6 million for battlefield preservation.

Enacting that bill will allow many more historic battlefields to be preserved. Enacting this bill will make it possible for our children and their children and other generations to enjoy and learn. We want to give Americans the opportunity to learn history, to feel history, to experience history so that they understand the principles on which this country was founded. People who know history can be better citizens, more engaged in current civic affairs and more cognizant of their place in history.

I urge my colleagues to support and vote for this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H. Res. 320, which honors the life and achievements of Dr. John Hope Franklin.

Dr. Franklin was a monumental figure in the field of African-American history. In 1947, he published From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. This groundbreaking work is considered the definitive history of the African-American experience in the United States. He continually updated the book over the next half-century, selling over 3 million copies. In 1979, he again made history by becoming the first African-American to serve as President of the American Historical Association. Dr. Franklin is the recipient of numerous awards including the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, the Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Dr. Franklin's work forced millions of Americans to re-examine the history of the United States and illuminated the African-American experience for people of all races and creeds. Perhaps more than any other figure, Dr. Franklin has crafted a true narrative of African- American history that speaks to the core of America's past and present.

On March 25, 2009, Dr. Franklin passed away in Durham, North Carolina. As great as his presence was, it is likely that his absence will loom even larger. However, his work will forever serve as a testament to his intellectual rigor and original scholarship. He will continue educating generations of American to come on the issues of race and our complex history. Today, we honor a life of service and achievement that will not be forgotten and I am proud to join with my colleagues in supporting this important resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to voice my support of H.R. 1256, the ``Family Smoking Prevention And Tobacco Control Act.''

I feel strongly about the dangers of cigarettes and the need for regulation by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The dangers of smoking are well known--about one in five deaths in the United States can be attributed to tobacco products, which adds up to 440,000 Americans killed every year. Another 50,000 people die every year from secondhand smoke. Many of these deaths are linked to the thousands of harmful chemical compounds in every cigarette, including benzene, arsenic, formaldehyde, and ammonia.

I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of the H.R. 1256. This legislation would require the regulation of tobacco products by the FDA. This legislation would also require cigarette manufacturers to print warning labels with text warnings detailing the smoking related diseases such as lung, heart, or mouth cancer. The warning labels are required to occupy 30 percent of the front and rear panels of a cigarette package, carton, or advertisement.

Unfortunately, the lack of sufficient regulatory authority means that while the FDA works to keep harmful chemicals out of everyday food products, they have no ability to do the same with cigarettes. This bill, which enjoys the support of almost 700 public health groups, faith associations, and other organizations from around the country, would ensure that consumers are adequately informed about the real risks of tobacco use and protected from misleading advertising.

I have long supported giving the FDA clear authority to regulate cigarettes and other tobacco products and I urge my colleagues to pass this legislation granting them such authority.

Madam Chair, a budget is a moral document that demonstrates our values and priorities. I want to congratulate Chairman Spratt for again bringing forth a budget that represents values of which we can be proud. This budget would make real investments in education, hometown security, veterans' programs, healthcare, and research and development while halving the budget deficit in four years.

I am pleased that this Fiscal Year 2010 budget continues to follow the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) principle that the House restored at the start of the 110th Congress in January 2007. This ensures that every new dollar of spending is offset and will not worsen the deficit. Although the budget resolution does not set tax or spending levels, it does lay out the plan for the coming years to spend money and to raise revenues.

This budget validates the President's Inaugural declaration that we will ``restore science to its rightful place.'' This resolution restores science to its rightful place in terms of our national innovation investment by providing $31 billion for the science and research programs. In these troubled economic times, it is important to understand that while research lays the foundation for our long-term prosperity, research also creates jobs now. A report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation estimated that each additional $1 billion investment in research would create approximately 20,000 American jobs a year. This investment would provide jobs not just to scientists but also to research students, electricians who wire the labs, lab technicians who run the instrumentation, construction workers who will renovate the buildings, and many more. This job creation is comparable to or better than job creation for other spending, even in the short term, and over the long term, nothing produces jobs tomorrow like research today.

This budget would make a significant investment in our nation's energy future by building on the significant funding and tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency that were contained in the recovery bill. The budget increases investments in energy programs by 18.4 percent to create new sources of renewable energy, to improve energy efficiency, and to expand research and technological development. The budget is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensures that Congress has the flexibility to consider legislation for increasing our nation's energy independence.

Madam Chair, this budget honors our commitment to our nation's children by investing in education. The budget follows on the bold investments made by the economic recovery bill and provides further support for early childhood education. The budget supports education at a young age through a range of approaches, including strengthening and expanding early childhood education programs, home visiting programs, and child nutrition programs such as school meals. I am pleased that the budget also would help make college more affordable and accessible for students in New Jersey and throughout the country by increasing funding for Pell grants and providing additional assistance for low- income high school graduates. The budget further would expand our scientific workforce by tripling the number of graduate fellowships in science.

I am pleased that the budget addresses the fact that 46 million Americans are uninsured, with more than 8 out of 10 of those uninsured living in working families. Specifically, data from The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation show that 16 percent of New Jersey's residents were uninsured in 2007. This is despite the fact that health care spending has grown to about $7,026 per person as of 2007. According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care too late and to receive poorer medical treatment throughout their lives. As a result, they are sick more often and die at a younger age. This budget resolution supports the President's goal for health care reform and provides opportunities for the relevant committees to work this year to draft reform legislation that will help more Americans get health insurance, reduce health care costs, and improve patient safety.

I strongly support the provisions in the budget that would invest $53.3 billion for veterans' programs, an increase of 11.5 percent over the 2009 level. I am pleased that the budget reverses the policies of the previous administration and restores health care eligibility for non-disabled veterans with modest incomes. This funding is more important than ever to treat the 908,690 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, many of whom suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries, or blast-related injuries.

I also am voting for the two alternatives offered by Mr. Scott and Ms. Lee because, although each is imperfect, each in different ways, they would advance the principles of equality and justice in our society and the peaceful resolution of international problems. I expect that neither of those alternatives will prevail over the well-crafted compromise of Mr. Spratt, yet they are worthy of support.

Madam Chair, the budget produced by the Budget Committee, under the leadership of Representative Spratt, reflects values of which we can be proud. It supports healthcare, science and engineering research, education, veterans, and national security programs while maintaining our commitment to fiscal responsibility. By adopting this budget and supporting the designated funding levels throughout the appropriations process, we would be investing in priorities important to our future.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the House has passed the Nuclear Forensics bill.

This bill seeks to deter terrorists' use of nuclear weapons or radiological material by creating international mechanisms for identifying and tracking such materials back to their source, ideally before they are used.

We have talked for decades now about the need to secure ``loose nukes'' and radiological material, and we have taken some concrete if underfunded steps to do so, such as the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. We have not expended a similar effort to widely deploy technologies and implement international agreements to make the tracking of such material so easy and reliable as to make such measures a deterrent themselves.

As the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science noted in a 2008 report on this topic:

A believable attribution capability may help to discourage

behavior that could lead to a nuclear event. The chain of

participants in a nuclear terrorist event most likely

includes a national government or its agents, since nearly

all nuclear weapons usable material is at least notionally

the responsibility of governments. A forensics capability

that can trace material to the originating reactor or

enrichment facility could discourage state cooperation with

terrorist elements and encourage better security for nuclear

weapon usable materials. In addition, most terrorist

organizations will not have members skilled in all aspects of

handling nuclear weapons or building an improvised nuclear

device. That expertise is found in a small pool of people and

a credible attribution capability may deter some who are

principally motivated by financial, rather than ideological,

concerns.

This bill would, among other things, establish within the Department of Homeland Security a National Technical Nuclear Forensics Center to provide centralized stewardship, planning, assessment, gap analysis, exercises, improvement, and integration for all federal nuclear forensics activities. There is a clear need to centralize this activity within the federal government, and this provision is a first step in that direction.

At the international level, the bill encourages the President to pursue bilateral and multilateral international agreements to establish an international framework for determining the source of any confiscated nuclear or radiological material or weapon, as well as the source of any detonated weapon and the nuclear or radiological material used in such a weapon. U.S. leadership will be essential to the success of this program, and I will certainly be looking at the President's detailed

Fiscal Year 2010 budget submission to see whether this effort will receive the kind of funding it needs to be successful.

Mr. Speaker, I support this bill and I encourage my colleagues to do likewise.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Chair of the Committee on Natural Resources.

This bill is the kind of bill that I love. I am especially pleased that we could preserve New Jersey's heritage as one of the leaders of the industrial revolution by giving the American public the Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park and the Edison National Historic Park. And I thank Chairman Rahall for bringing the bill along.

When I introduced this H.R. 146, little did I suspect that my bill to protect the battlefields of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 would grow to 1,300 pages and attract so much attention. But I am pleased that my bill to protect the battlefields of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 has been used as a vehicle to bring this important lands bill through the legislative process. However, I regret that my language to protect the battlefields of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 has vanished.

And so, I am here to ask the chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources if I may have his assurances that he will assist me in moving this noncontroversial legislation to protect the battlefields of the War of 1812 and the American Revolution expeditiously.

I will yield.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman, and I commend him for his good work on this legislation, which would preserve important pieces of America's natural, cultural, and historical resources for future generations. Others have spoken today about valuable parts of this bill. I'd like to address that. In New Jersey, this bill would preserve our heritage as one of the leaders of the Industrial Revolution by creating the Paterson Great Falls National Historic Park and the Edison National Historic Park.

Paterson Great Falls will protect and preserve a striking natural resource, the Great Falls, along with cultural and historical sites that tell the stories of our Founders, America's economic rise, and the African American experience. Edison National Historic Park will ensure that future generations have an opportunity to visit the home and laboratory of one of New Jersey's most celebrated and influential citizens and one of America's most prominent inventors, Thomas Edison.

I'd like to commend my colleagues from New Jersey, Representatives Pascrell and Payne, for their hard work on these issues, and I'd also like to commend Representative Hinchey for his work on the Washington Rochambeau Trail in this bill. The trail will help link many of the sites in New Jersey's Crossroads of the American Revolution. These sites are of great importance to the residents of central New Jersey, and I urge my colleagues to support it.