Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak about International Education Week this week sponsored by the Departments of State and Education.

International Education Week marks the importance of teaching our children and the people of our country foreign languages, traditions, cultures. This is not simply a feel-good effort of cultural enrichment. Whether it is a matter of competitiveness, economics, national security, in this era we must understand other cultures, their languages, their traditions, as quite literally now anyone on this planet could be our collaborators, our colleagues, our competitors, our customers.

Certainly this event should reaffirm our value of a strong foreign language education in which culture and traditions are taught alongside the structure and vocabulary. The acquisition of foreign languages beginning in the elementary years is found to create neuroconnections and boost various thinking processes. Those who study foreign language can pursue careers that benefit all of us here in America.

These students are gaining experiences which will serve them well in a variety of careers and serve the Nation through a better understanding of the world in which we live and compete.

Mr. Speaker, while I agree with the position in this resolution that parents do have responsibility for their children's upbringing and a school district cannot supplant those rights, I must oppose this resolution.

I oppose this resolution because it declares that the court should rehear the case in order to reverse its decision. It should not be the role of the legislative branch to dictate to the court system how it should rule. The founding fathers created three coequal branches of government for good reason. It is for this constitutional principle that I must oppose H. Res. 547.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 288, recognizing the 30th anniversary of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. I am pleased to be an original cosponsor of this resolution.

First introduced in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act and later as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, this legislation has continued to be a vital part of providing equal support for children with disabilities. Before its passage, children with disabilities were either segregated from other students or had little opportunity for education. Today, about 6.1 million children with disabilities are receiving special education and related services.

As a former educator and a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, I recognize the importance of continued Federal support of special education. Research shows that when we invest in the education of children with disabilities from birth throughout their school years, our entire society benefits. Giving these children the opportunities they deserve directly impacts their ability to live independently as contributing members of society.

Congress reauthorized IDEA almost a year ago, and it has continued to provide enormous support to children in dire need. However, as this resolution states, we have not yet met our commitment to fund 40 percent of the additional average pupil expenditure. Until we fulfill our responsibility, we are failing our Nation's children. This funding is needed by school districts that must make up the difference of what the Federal Government is not funding.

IDEA is a powerful civil rights law that was intended to provide education to more than one million children who were marginalized because of their disabilities. Today, it does much more. IDEA is based on the premise that children in our society are capable of success, and this law has raised the standards in education for all children. In doing so, it has also produced much improved results, proving that when we dedicate resources and attention to our children they can succeed.

IDEA requires teachers to be qualified and fair in their classrooms. IDEA also protects and supports the parents of children with disabilities. These parents have challenging, full-time jobs in raising their children. However, when given the support that they need, their children succeed. There cannot be a greater reward for a parent than this.

This law focuses on results. It strives to direct funding to where it makes a difference, to give teachers and schools the resources they need to help students. I believe that more funding will produce greater results. While we have, as a society, made great strides, we can not let these children fall behind. I urge my fellow Representatives to work towards full funding of this act.

We should be proud that we are now providing free and appropriate public education to every child with a disability. This law adds to the basic right of education the rights to fairness, support, and respect. I join my fellow Representatives in celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the House considered the so-called Secure Access to Justice and Court Protection Act, H.R.1751.

We have all heard of the tragic and deeply troubling violence directed at judges or other court employees. In just March of this year, U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow came home from a day at work to discover her husband and mother shot dead in the basement. We clearly need to act to help protect the lives and security of all federal court employees, including judges.

H.R. 1751 would authorize the appropriation of additional funds over the next five years to increase court security, and to provide grants to States do the same and to help protect witnesses. The bill would also toughen the penalties on the books for threatening or committing acts of violence against federal judges or court employees.

While I support and believe we need to protect federal court employees, there are too many troubling and fundamental problems with this bill for me to support it.

This bill creates 22 new mandatory minimum penalties. Mandatory minimum penalties do not work. They discount mitigating factors in crimes, prevent judges from meting out punishments that are tailored to the criminal, and mandatory minimum have proven discriminatory to people of color. They may make legislators feel good but they have been shown not to reduce crime rates. Even the Judicial Conference, the group that represents Federal judges, has said that mandatory minimums violate common sense.

Also troubling is the fact that this legislation creates seven additional death penalties. Yet, research has shown that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime. Let me repeat, the death penalty simply does not reduce crime. The death penalty is also flawed because it is applied unevenly and unjustly along racial lines, and far too often is applied to someone who is only later exonerated, often too late.

Given these two deeply troubling problems with this bill, I cannot support it.

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

I rise to urge support of H. Con. Res. 260. I want to thank first my colleagues and friends, Chairman Hyde and Representative Lantos. Both have been tremendously helpful in bringing this resolution forward. This resolution has the support of 65 bipartisan cosponsors here in the House. As my friend pointed out, it commemorates the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, a hallmark declaration by the Roman Catholic Church on religious respect and interfaith relations, and it celebrates the historic relationship between Jews and Catholics and among other religions worldwide.

My resolution also calls for this country and this Congress to continue to condemn and combat anti-Semitism and all forms of religious hatred and bigotry around the world.

First a little bit of history, Mr. Speaker. This was initiated by Pope John XXIII through the Second Vatican Council, and Nostra Aetate then was issued by, Pope Paul VI, in October, 1965, 40 years ago, after a vote of 2,221 to 88 by the Catholic bishops.

It is a historic declaration, and we should remember its essential message: the need for interreligious dialogue and religious respect, and that is a message that is still vitally important today.

Seen from this perspective, today, the affirmations of this document may not seem so impressive. But those of us who remember back to that time, on a bit of reflection, will understand how monumental this statement was, how far it reached throughout the world, beyond the Catholic Church, beyond Christians. It was a paradigm shift in how religious people think about each other.

As my friend, the gentleman from Oregon said, in this day we certainly need a refresher course in how religious people can think about each other in a positive way.

Over the past 40 years, there has been noticeable progress. Nostra Aetate was written by Catholics for Catholics, but its impact has been felt by almost all people of faith in the world. Less than three pages in length, this document, that goes by the Latin words that mean ``in our time,'' was a rare moment of self-check for Catholics. We all know how hard it is to look inside ourselves and find things that need to be improved, things that are wrong and need to be changed.

Nostra Aetate was a controversial document at the time. I am not sure that anyone knows all the internal politics that went into writing it, but even in the press at the time, it was known to be controversial.

Why should we be talking about it here in the House of Representatives? Why should we be talking about religion? Why should we be talking about a Roman Catholic document? Is it even appropriate here? Well, certainly not in a worshipful or a theological or an ecclesiastical way, but this is an important document in world history that says a lot to us as Americans.

Remember, there is much that we honor in our country's history. There is much genius that we see in our founding documents, in our Constitution. One of the greatest accomplishments of this country was to establish freedom of religion, freedom for religious belief and religious practice, and freedom from religion. That is rare, even today. It truly was a stroke of genius by our Founders. And, as so much, in our constitutional heritage it is still a work in progress.

Freedom of religion, freedom for religion, freedom from religion are concepts that are hard to incorporate into our lives. We are not talking about simple tolerance, but a recognition that if we are a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are created equal, then it is not enough just to recognize the right of each other to exist, but as a nation we achieve positive social and political good that comes from learning from and drawing on and building up each other. So it is indeed appropriate that

we in this body, as we wrestle with the modern-day embodiment of the ideas of our Founders, that we recognize this historic document. It was a bold and courageous document.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to face some obvious and unattractive blemishes that one might have. It is bold and courageous to say that another's fundamental faith and belief has validity, because that can only raise questions about the meaning of one's own belief. This was a courageous document.

Now, I speak as one who by affirmation, heritage, upbringing, and religious practice is neither Roman Catholic nor Jewish, but the change that this made in America certainly has improved my life and the life of every American. Anti-Semitism has been a poison that has from time to time surfaced in our country. Certainly, we see it on the rise in too many places around the world today. But this document put a check on the official sanction of religious intolerance, and it has led to a number of improvements.

Father John Pawlikowski, pointed out that this year Nosta Aetate has led to a cleansing of educational materials, and the removal of hateful and bigoted language that previously appeared. It has led to mutual recognition of the spiritual value of others' religious sacred writings of others; it has led to a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between the church and other religions, a process that is still under way.

It led to Pope John Paul's visit to the Auschwitz death camp when he spoke about the memory of the people whose sons and daughters were intended for total extermination. He said that it is not permissible for anyone to pass by the inscriptions there with indifference.

It led to his unprecedented visit to a synagogue in Rome in 1986, and to Pope John Paul's visit to the Holy Land, including Israel and Palestine. It led to a pivotal moment when he shook hands with Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It led to the moment when he walked across the plaza at the western wall and inserted his handwritten prayer expressing Christian regret for the wrongs done to the Jewish people.

This had reverberations all around the world and certainly here in the United States, the country built on the concept of liberty and religious freedom.

This morning on public radio, a young man presented his essay called ``This I Believe.'' Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Corps, a Chicago-based organization fostering the international interfaith youth movement. He pointed out that when he attended high school in the western suburbs of Chicago not many years ago, he, as a Hindu, ate lunch with a Jew, a Mormon, a Catholic, and a Lutheran. They were all devout to a degree, he said, but they never really talked about religion. They all knew that they had some differences in their permitted diets and certain times that they could not eat certain things. He was comfortable in his tolerance for the others.

But then he went on to talk about the most painful recollection of his life, which occurred when he allowed anti-Semitic comments about his friend to go unchallenged. He quoted the great American poet Gwendolyn Brooks: ``We are each other's business; we are each other's harvest; we are each other's magnitude and bond.''

He said, ``I cannot go back in time and take away the suffering of my Jewish friend, but through action, I can prevent it from happening to others.''

Martin Luther King in a different, but related, matter said, ``Through the laws that we pass,'' such as we pass in this body, ``we cannot change a person's heart. But,'' he said, ``we can restrain the heartless.''

Like Mr. Patel, none of us can go back, but we can look back and we can see the progress that has been made in the last 40 years to fulfill the spirit of Nostra Aetate; and we can continue every day to take action to ensure that it does not happen in our schools, in our communities, in our cities and towns.

Nostra Aetate was not empty sentimentality; it was historic, important, and effective. It made a difference in the history of the world. As Rabbi David Rosen, the Director of the American Jewish Committee's Interreligious Department, wrote, ``Even if the effect of this transformation has not fully reached the rank and file around the world, its ramifications cannot be overestimated, and there is much to give thanks for on this anniversary. The anniversary 40 years ago at the end of October is well worth recognizing.''

Nostra Aetate was the first statement on interreligious respect that had been issued in the 2,000-year history of the church. Rabbi Gary Bretton Granatoor, Director of Interfaith Affairs at the Anti- Defamation League, reminded the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and me that the pilgrimage out of the wilderness took 40 years from Egypt to Sinai to Canaan. He said that it is not surprising that in 40 years, we have not fully achieved the vision of Pope John XXIII around the world or here in this country, but we have made enormous progress. Nostra Aetate demanded that the church and all people of faith examine themselves anew in relation to other peoples of faith.

We need to ensure we carry this message of religious respect to all that we do here. We can learn the spirit of Nostra Aetate and take action to check religious bigotry, religious hatred and advance the American experiment--the American Dream--of a more perfect union, built not just on respect, but on an understanding that we are indeed a nation conceived in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all are equal, and all have something to contribute to America's success.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of The Private Property Rights Protection Act, H.R. 4128. I have heard from a number of my constituents in New Jersey. They have come to my town hall meetings, sent me emails and called me on the phone, to express their concern about the potential for abuse of the power of eminent domain. I have heard their concerns and I share their concerns. That is why I support this legislation to make clear that local authorities may not use the power of eminent domain solely to increase the tax revenue for the town.

H.R. 4128 is a bipartisan bill that responds to the Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. City of New London. Most troubling about the decision was that the Court upheld the right of New London to take private property and transfer it to another private individual for the purpose of increasing the tax revenue of the city. I am glad we are acting today to prevent this from becoming a regular practice.

The rights of property owners were so important to our nation's founders that they enshrined property rights in our Constitution. They knew that towns and municipalities would need to look after the greater public good and occasionally acquire property with just compensation to the owners in order to use that property for public good. The power of eminent domain has enabled us to make many advances over the years. It was used to create the national railroad system, the interstate highway system, and make telephone, electric, sewer, and water lines available to all our communities. Eminent domain, when used property, is a critical power of government that has benefited people in New Jersey and across America.

When used improperly, however, eminent domain is a fearsome power. Transfer of a person's property--particularly their home--to another private interest solely on the basis of tax revenue is an unwise and dangerous authority. With this bill, Congress is rightly acting to protect private property rights and ensure that property owners will not have their house taken from them by an over zealous town council seeking to increase its tax coffers.

Mr. Chairman, while eminent domain is used across America for beneficial and important reasons that support the public good, we need to ensure that towns do not overstep their powers. H.R. 4128 helps define the boundary lines.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support my colleague from Wisconsin in his effort to shed some light on a large array of questions that are before us.

This cover-up theme of the cover-up Congress is so pervasive, and it is not just in this body, it seems to be in the other body. The other body in fact recently took some rather extreme parliamentary measures to force the issue, and some called it a gimmick. But it seemed to be the only way to break

through this cover-up, to get answers to questions that we have in our oversight role in the U.S. Congress, to provide a balance of power, to be able to serve the American people as we need to do.

I, for example, have introduced resolutions requesting information about the disclosure of identities of covert agents; and eight times in eight votes here in the House of Representatives those resolutions have been turned down in various committees. Eight times in eight separate votes in various committees, these efforts to get the information that we need in order to exert the oversight, to protect the men and women that we have asked to do dangerous jobs around the world.

Of course, some things clearly have to be kept quiet for the sake of the safety and effectiveness of our troops overseas and so forth. But Congress has a very important oversight role under the Constitution; and in order to exert that role, we need information.

I applaud the gentleman for doing all that he does to try to break through this cover-up theme.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 1606 and ask us to come back with a procedure that will permit the Shays-Meehan alternative.

This bill opens a huge loophole in the campaign finance laws. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) and others have been bulldogs in moving us toward a more perfect democratic union by keeping government of and by the people, not of and by some of the people and by special interests; and this act would not add protections of freedom of speech on the blogosphere as it is purported to do. Rather, it would bring large amounts of money back into deciding who can buy the largest microphone in a Federal campaign.

It will smother, not enhance, the voices of true grassroots movements.

This would compromise not only the blogs it purports to help, it runs a great risk of harming the political procedure. There are too many questions raised by this. The procedure circumvents open debate.

All of us believe that bloggers should not be subjected to censorship. I myself am an occasional guest blogger on political Web sites. Bloggers, like traditional journalists, should be able to communicate with their audience without any fear of violating FEC regulations. However, this legislation is not ready for prime time.

I urge my colleagues to oppose it and come back with a procedure that will permit the Shays-Meehan alternative.

Mrs. Miller of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the new president of lran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told 4,000 hardline students in Tehran that ``Israel must be wiped off the map.'' Mr. Ahmadinejad's address was the highlight, if you want to call it that, of a forum called ``The World Without Zionism,'' that also saw chants of ``Death to America'' and ``Death to Israel.'' The Iranian President also attacked other Muslim nations for making peace with Israel and claimed that terrorist attacks by Palestinians could destroy the Jewish state.

I completely and utterly condemn the comments by Iran's president. Peace will only come to the Middle East when all parties recognize Israel's right to exist and completely renounce support for terrorism. Unfortunately, Iran's new government is turning its back on peaceful coexistence and appears bent on confrontation with Israel, the United States, and the world community. Iran also continues to bankroll terrorists, like those who killed five innocent Israelis on Wednesday. Mr. Speaker, the world must unite to denounce the hate speech of Iran's president in the strongest terms possible.

Tomorrow, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and people of other faiths will come together to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Catholic Church's landmark document that called from respect for other faiths, particularly Islam and Judaism. And four months ago, the three great Abrahamic religions came together to mourn the death of the great spiritual leader, Pope John Paul II. Because of their nations' alphabetical proximity, the then-presidents of Israel and Iran sat next to each other and even shook hands. But it seems the spirit of interfaith harmony, sadly, lasted little longer than the services for the Pope.

Mr. Speaker, as long as Iran's president continues to rage hatefully against Israel and the West, there will be no peace in the Middle East. The world community will not tolerate these comments by Iran's president, and I condemn them as strongly as I can.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois both for introducing this resolution and for yielding me some time to speak in support of the resolution.

The stakes could not be higher. Of course, we should take steps, even if politically difficult, to cut waste and improve efficiency in the military. Let us look where we are.

The Pentagon has recommended closures through the BRAC Commission. The BRAC Commission has approved them. Now the House is going to stamp them approved before the Department of Defense has completed its force structure review. This is exactly the opposite of what was supposed to happen. The BRAC commissioners themselves pointed out when they began their hearings this summer that the entire process has the cart before the horse.

Also, the Overseas Basing Commission noted that the Pentagon had not factored in the impact of the return of tens of thousands of personnel from Europe to the United States in its BRAC recommendations; and even now, we are proceeding with the BRAC process before the Pentagon has even completed its periodic force review, which is supposed to be the blueprint for what we need for the 21st century.

So we will be closing bases, losing key personnel, diminishing critical capabilities, even before we have determined which of those capabilities we need in order to meet current and future threats. The process, Mr. Chairman, has been backwards.

I certainly can find fault with some of the specifics in here. I am very familiar with the excellent work done by the people at Fort Monmouth in central New Jersey where they do electronics, command, control, communications, computers. They have taken the lead in developing countermeasures to detect and disarm roadside bombs in Iraq. It is hard to think of anything that could be more important.

We know that a large number of these scientists, probably 70, 80 percent of these scientists and engineers and procurement experts will not make the move if Fort Monmouth is closed. That capability would be lost at a time that we cannot afford it.

The harm to the military, to the Army, and to the joint services effort, I can assure my colleagues, is much greater than the harm to New Jersey. That is why I am highlighting this example of the problems.

Let me be clear, I have nothing but great respect for each of the commissioners and their staffs. They worked for months a grueling schedule, reams of data, listening attentively, openly. In the end, however, the commission produced a series of recommendations that could not be right because the whole thing was flawed from the beginning. They got the cart before the horse.

In the resolution before us today, we have the means to stop this flawed and dangerous process, and it is apparent that the commissioners knew that they were not getting it right.

In the case of Fort Monmouth, for example, in their recommendations, they charged Congress, not that they are able to charge Congress, but nevertheless they did, to review their results with respect to Fort Monmouth to say do not go ahead with them if it might hurt the capabilities that we need to fight terrorism around the world, to support our troops in the field and Iraq and Afghanistan. They actually said that in their recommendations. They were acknowledging that they were not getting it right, or at least they thought they might not be getting it right.

They have got the cart before the horse. It is a flawed process. To give us a chance, I will urge my colleagues to vote for this resolution so that we can get it right. Our country's security depends on it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose an outrageous provision attached to previously strong legislation. I am shocked and disappointed that the majority has chosen to destroy what was an effective, responsible, and bipartisan bill by including an indefensible provision to restrict nonpartisan civic activity of nonprofit organizations.

This legislation started out as an example of how the legislative process should work. The Financial Services Committee reported a bill to reform Government Sponsored Enterprises, GSEs, and establish an Affordable Housing Fund, AHF. The bill would increase home ownership among low-income families, increase investment in housing in low income and economically distressed areas, and in general increase the Nation's supply of affordable housing. The bill received broad bipartisan support, reported by a vote of 65-5.

It is unfortunate that the majority has chosen to mandate consideration of a bill that includes a provision restricting nonpartisan civic activities of nonprofit organizations, even if they use their own funds to conduct such activities. Nonprofit organizations (and any affiliate of the nonprofit) would be prohibited from engaging in nonpartisan voter registration or get-out-the-vote activities. These restrictions would force low-income housing groups and faith-based groups to choose between obtaining funding for low-income housing and using other funds to engage in nonpartisan voter registration and get- out-the-vote activities.

In my home State of New Jersey, organizations like Catholic Charities provide vital social services to vulnerable people in need, such as food, clothing, counseling, and health services. They also routinely hold voter registration drives before elections and provide elderly and

disabled voters with transportation to the polls. Their activities are nonpartisan and play a vital role in ensuring that people are able to vote if they so desire. Under this legislation, they would no longer be able to fulfill this function. This body should not prohibit social service organizations from conducting nonpartisan civic activities.

The majority protests loudly when its actions are judged to be motivated by a desire to suppress voter turnout and civic participation in urban or low-income areas. From the inclusion of this discriminatory provision, it is difficult to reach any other conclusion. Today this rule blocks an amendment by Representative Barney Frank that would remove this provision.

It is disheartening to see that, at a time when the majority and the administration claims to support removing barriers for faith-based organizations, this provision has been included to restrict the activities they are permitted to conduct. Inclusion of the provision has sunk the prospects of passing strong and bipartisan legislation that will help the most vulnerable obtain affordable housing. I urge my colleagues to reject this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1409, the Assistance for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children in Developing Countries Act of 2005. This bipartisan bill will provide assistance to the neediest children in the world's poorest countries, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

AIDS has been so devastating to the developing world, especially sub- Saharan Africa, partly because so many of those killed by AIDS are adults of child-bearing age. These men and women are often the pillars of their communities and families. Most diseases spare at least one parent, but AIDS often kills both mothers and fathers. Sixteen million children in the developing world are ``double orphans''--both of their parents are dead--mostly because of AIDS. Unfortunately, their numbers are increasing as AIDS continues to ravage the world. Indeed, in four African countries, one in five children will have lost at least one parent to AIDS by 2010. It is vital that we help these children.

Extended families care for more than 90 percent of orphans in the developing world. Unfortunately, these families often lack the resources to meet the most basic needs of the orphans. These children are less likely than their peers to be enrolled in school. Many orphaned girls in particular are forced into the workforce at an early age. They are more likely than others to go hungry. Because of the stress of losing their parents and coping with the ensuing problems, they are much more likely to suffer from psychological problems.

Many face discrimination both as the children of AIDS victims and as orphans. Orphans and their mothers often have difficulty inheriting the land or other property due to them.

This bill authorizes the President to assist programs in developing nations that benefit orphans and other vulnerable children. USAID will work with an array of groups, including international and non- governmental organizations, to provide needed services to orphans. These services include education, school food, protection of inheritance rights and psychosocial care. When possible, community- based groups will directly provide this care.

H.R. 1409 includes provisions that monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the programs funded, so resources will be channeled to the groups that do the best work and need the most assistance. It also creates the office of the Special Advisor for Assistance to Vulnerable Populations, appointed by the Secretary of State, who will oversee the implementation of this bill in USAID programs and coordinate U.S. assistance to orphans and other vulnerable children.

Mr. Speaker, this bipartisan bill will ease the suffering of the millions of children who have been orphaned in the developing world, and it is worthy of this House's support.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my strong opposition to the Gasoline for America's Security Act.

We are all too aware of this government's failed response to Hurricane Katrina and the problems that are continuing in the aftermath. Despite all the issues that we must address to assist the victims of this disaster, some of my colleagues are attempting to use this tragedy as a means to push through their flawed initiatives that were left out of the Energy Policy Act. Fortunately, a degree of rationality prevailed late last night and a few of the most egregious provisions were removed.

However, this bill still contains many misguided measures and continues the Majority's irrational economic policy of subsidizing one of the most successful industries--the oil and gas industry. Yet this direct handout of taxpayer dollars is not enough and at every opportunity this Congress finds ways to gut environmental regulations that protect the health of our citizens in order to preserve this unsustainable form of energy production.

Specifically, this bill will allow cities and States to delay meeting Clean Air Act requirements and undermines States that are seeking to meet these deadlines by limiting the number of fuel blends that can be used. Furthermore, this bill provides an open-ended taxpayer subsidy to cover all the costs that an oil company may incur due to a delay in the initial operation of a new or upgraded oil refinery, including delays due to compliance with State or Federal laws or regulations.

Time and again, we come to this floor to commemorate the lives of remarkable Americans that have changed the course of history. We recognize the importance of their contributions and the ways that they improved our lives. We disgrace this American legacy of ingenuity every time that this Congress passes these shortsighted, deeply flawed bills.

This Nation is facing an energy crisis and a planet that is suffering from our mismanagement. We have the ability to become independent from fossil fuels and to revitalize the health of our environment. Scientists, researchers and business leaders across this Nation are standing ready to develop and make innovative technologies a reality. Even my constituents in New Jersey that have no connection to the energy industry write me with ideas and their desire to contribute to solving our energy problem. But instead of investing in this ingenuity and our Nation's future, this government keeps spending billions to keep America stuck in the quicksand of nonrenewable energy sources.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this flawed bill that will do nothing to alleviate the energy crisis facing this Nation and removes important environmental regulations.

Mr. Speaker I would like to thank the leadership for bringing this bill to the floor, recognizing the importance of chemistry in our everyday lives, and supporting National Chemistry Week. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Ehlers, has been a strong supporter as an original cosponsor of this bill and helped to move it forward. Mr. Ehlers and I do this again as the two physicists in Congress, with no irony that again we physicists would be sponsoring National Chemistry Week.

I stand here before you happy to state that in 2003, the last time this body recognized the importance of chemistry in our daily lives, and the importance of National Chemistry Week, I had 3 cosponsors, and this year I have 21 cosponsors. With the world unfolding as it is, and with great rapidity, the increase of cosponsors is an indication of the growing understanding of the importance of chemistry, and science, in our daily lives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce legislation that calls on the Secretary of Energy to examine the potential of intelligent transportation systems to conserve fuel and help consumers plan their travel and avoid delays.

Imagine driving to work and having real-time information tell you the best route to save 10 minutes off your commute. Or imagine accessing information on your cell phone that tells you not only when the bus is scheduled to arrive, but also where the bus actually is at any given moment.

In recent years Intelligent Transportation Systems have made significant advancements towards making these ideas a reality. This innovative technology is beginning to alter the transportation sector and has the potential to reduce congestion, increase safety, improve the efficiency of transit and commercial vehicles, and reduce the environmental impact of our growing transportation needs.

However, the potential fuel savings from intelligent transportation systems and the various ways these systems could help consumers plan their travel and avoid delays is not fully known. That is why I have introduced legislation calling on the Secretaries of Energy and Transportation to report on the potential benefits associated with using intelligent transportation systems. My legislation will provide current and future users of these systems with detailed information regarding potential fuel savings, system costs, universal applicability and evaluation of case studies, best practices, and emerging technologies from the private and public sector.

I believe that we need to further examine this exciting new technology and its possible applications. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.