Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, due to unforseen circumstances, I was unavoidably delayed and unable to vote on final passage of H.R. 4973, the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act. I fully support this bill, which makes significant reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program, further updating flood maps and increasing the phase-in of actuarial rates on vacation homes, second homes, and nonresidential properties that have been subsidized by the program since its inception. This bill also includes an amendment that I offered that would require purchasers of primary residential homes to pay actuarially-based flood insurance prices through the same phase-in structure used in the bill for nonresidential properties and non- primary homes. I look forward to seeing this act signed into law and seeing the many improvements contained in this bill enacted. Had I been able, I would have voted ``yes'' for this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Yes.

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

Mr. Chairman, before I begin, let me commend Chairman Wolf and the ranking member as well for all of the hard work and energy that goes into this and the battle as well to bring this bill to the floor and to conclusion.

I come to the floor this morning to offer an amendment that, in essence, is very similar to one that I offered last year; and at that time the chairman gracefully accepted the amendment. My amendment simply seeks to take a small portion of the U.S. assessed contributions to the United Nations and give those funds to local law enforcement agencies, and it does that through the Byrne Memorial State Law Enforcement Assistance Grants Program, a program that has been talked about on this floor just last night.

Mr. Chairman, this is a program that is basically a partnership between the Federal Government, the State government and local communities, working together to create stronger and safer communities. It awards grants to States and local government entities so they can work together to create a strong criminal justice system, with emphasis on violent crime and serious offenders.

Mr. Chairman, since September 11, this grant program has also been utilized by local officials to boost their preparedness in case of terrorist attack. Living as I do in the Fifth District overlooking Ground Zero, the people in our area know about terrorism and the need to fight violent crime.

The total sum of this transfer is very small, only $2 million, and the United Nations' annual budget is almost $2 billion. This amounts to a fraction of 1 percent of the overall U.N. budget. It is my hope that this money will come directly from the United States contributions to the U.N.'s Information Center, which is based right here in Washington,

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

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding the time; and I commend your efforts in this regard to limit the funding to this council and limit the funding, in essence, to the U.N. as well.

This council and even the process by which members are selected to it are basically symptomatic of the problems that we see within the U.N. not just today but over its entire 60-year history.

When we step back for a moment and say this is good and the next forward step because these members are selected to it by the entire body, we must remember what the entire body is made up of. This is the same body that is made up of the G-77 that is basically thwarting all efforts to reform the U.N., efforts that this House and this gentleman has also worked for to make sure we would have going forward in the

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

I come to the floor this evening with an amendment that, quite frankly, I have offered and has been accepted on various other appropriation bills throughout this process, and I think it is time to, once again, thank the various chairmen of those respective committees for accepting some of those similar amendments.

We may differ on each side of the aisle as to how we exactly got to the point that we are today, but one thing that we do agree on, as I have said on this floor in the past, one thing we do agree on is that we spend too much and our deficit is way too high.

So my amendment that I come to the floor with tonight is basically a commonsense approach to see, how do we rein in that spending? How do we deal with the angst of our constituents at home that say we are spending too much of their hard earned dollars?

What does that amendment do? It places a limit, a number, a ceiling, if you will, on the number of staffers that can travel on international conferences. The number that we place on here, the limit that we place, is 50 staff members. I am not saying that staff are not important. All we have to do is look around us and recognize the significance that staff plays in the role of the House of Representatives and right here on the floor as well, but we are just saying that, when it comes to going over to other international conferences, there should be some reasonable limit to numbers that go there.

In the other House, the Senate has held hearings on this, and Senator Coburn from Oklahoma has actually pointed out egregious examples of over 100 or more staffers attending various conferences and literally close to millions of dollars for those respective conferences. If I wanted to take the time, I could go through a litany of such egregious examples.

But I will be brief and just simply say that, to rein in the spending, to put some appropriate, reasonable standards on this, we are going to try to do the same on this legislation as we have in the past and say that all agencies of the Federal Government should be responsible in the number of staff they send.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

I come to the floor tonight to address the issue of funding for the U.N. We have heard some discussion about it already, whether we are spending too little, not enough; whether we should not be making cutbacks in the various funding for the U.N.

The real question is, how can we make any of those decisions if we do not know the total amount of money that we are spending for the U.N. and its programs and its services?

Each year, the United States spends literally billions of dollars to fund the United Nations and its work. We fund the U.N.'s work year after year, regardless of how it is used or misused, and certainly, with the countless instances of waste, fraud and abuse, scandals and corruption over the last several years that we have talked about on this floor in the past, we can at the very least question the body's ability to police itself, at the very most call for that money as being misused.

At this time, the United States Government does not have a method for knowing the total amount of money we send to the U.N. While we can tally what is paid in dues, what we can contribute to various peacekeeping operations, additional funding is spent on voluntary programs and other support; there is no collective number for it. There is no comprehensive and public report of all the different ways that we fund U.N. operations with U.S. tax dollars.

So the amendment that I bring to the floor today calls for such a comprehensive accounting of all those dollars. Not for a cutting, not for increasing, just an accounting so we know what is being spent.

A similar amendment was made on various legislation on the Senate side.

Reform at the United Nations, that is that this Congress has encouraged in the past, has been complicated, as I have indicated earlier this evening, by the fact that the majority of the nations in the U.N. General Assembly oppose even the most modest forms of reform put forth by this House or even by the General Secretary. For instance, almost 5 years after the events of September 11, the U.N. has not yet even today agreed on a definition of terrorism. As I spoke earlier, they have also not agreed on a definition of genocide, even though that continues to go on to this day.

How can the U.N. expect to contribute to the fight against genocide or continue to fight against terrorism, one of the greatest threats to peace in the world today, if it can't even decide how to define it? Yet while the majority of the nations at the U.N. stand in the way of progress, they only fund 10 percent of the U.N.'s budget.

So it is up to the United States to lead for the U.N. That has worked in the past. In 1979, the Camp-Moynihan amendment successfully limited the U.N.'s support of terrorist organizations simply by the threat of withholding funds. And when the U.N. budget was ballooning in the 1980s, our use of financial leverage helped to bring about a compromise in 1986. And in 1992, Congress again had to withhold funds in order to see that an inspector general would be appointed to expose and fix mismanagement.

You see, Mr. Chairman, reform is possible at the U.N., but only if the United States is willing to lead. And for us to be able to lead, we must be fully aware of just how big a stick we carry; that is, how much we are funding. We must be fully aware of how much U.S. tax dollars goes from this House to the U.N.

So on behalf of the citizens that we represent at home who demand that we call for accountability in the U.S. Government, we should be doing the same from the U.N. We must have an accounting for those dollars spent.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the chairman's citing the point of order; and I am in agreement that the point of order appropriately falls within this amendment that I bring before the House tonight.

It is, of course, a frustration for us when we are dealing with spending of dollars that we do not know exactly how much of the total dollars we are spending for a particular purpose, especially when that purpose is the U.N. and especially with their dismal record of the past.

With that said, Mr. Chairman, at this point I seek unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, back in 1968, Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program, the NFIP, with the intent of providing homeowners that live in floodplains the opportunity to purchase flood insurance from the Federal Government. At the time, there were little to no opportunities to purchase flood insurance from the private insurance market.

Over the years, some problems have developed in that program, and so I come to the floor of this House today to thank Chairman Oxley, Chairman Baker and Ranking Member Frank for all their hard work in putting together the important piece of legislation that is before this House today to try to address some of those problems that have been experienced in the past and to make sure that we have a national flood program worthy of the constituents at home and the problems that they face.

There were several different solutions to address one of the issues that came up, and that is dealing with homeowners who were in existing pre-FIRM homes and the insurance that they could afford to buy and coming forward with those homes maybe right across the street from them that did not qualify.

In an effort to reach a compromise between the two sides, I am offering today an amendment that is a compromise, a commonsense one, I think, a middle ground, if you will, that would provide additional resources to the flood insurance program in a fair way and not subject current homeowners of pre-FIRM houses to an unanticipated or unplanned increase in their flood insurance premiums.

My amendment would simply require any purchaser of a pre-FIRM residential home to pay a phased-in actuarially correct flood insurance price using the same phase-in structure that nonresidential and nonprimary homes are currently subject to in this system.

In essence, it comes down to this. If someone has a pre-FIRM home and had that home for a period of time and someone across the street came in and purchased that home, that current purchaser would look across the street and say that they are subsidizing the gentleman across the street. We are saying that should not occur indefinitely. That when that pre-FIRM homeowner eventually, whenever that date occurs, sells that home, that property then would phase into the current system, there would no more subsidization of those homes any further, and everyone would be on the same level playing field.

Again, I thank the members of the committee, I thank the chairman as well, for working with us on this program as we brought it up in the committee at that time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

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

Mr. Chairman, I will just conclude by saying to the ranking member the same thing the ranking member said to me in the committee, and that is when we first proposed it, I will be glad to work with you to try to make this amendment an even better amendment.

I appreciate your consideration that there were two ends of the spectrum, one that said we should eliminate this subsidy, if you will, today, and other people have said we should never eliminate it, it should just continue on; and we were just trying to find that proverbial middle ground. Hopefully, we have gotten one step closer to that with this amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin this evening with a quote that I think pretty well sums up very neatly the theme for this week's Congressional Constitution Caucus time here on the floor as we are here each week at this time. That quote is: ``For most Americans, the Constitution has become a hazy document cited on ceremonial occasions, but forgotten on the daily transactions of life.'' Arthur Schlesinger.

As we have come to this floor in the past and pointed out, we will continue into the future, until this Congress and future Congresses reverse the course of straying from the Constitution, straying and drifting away from the original intent of this constitution, that very finally crafted document with its sections and verses, its guidelines, its limitations on powers of the government that it is written to impose. We do this because we realize that this Congress has turned from what the Founding Fathers had originally intended from the times of the original debates with the anti-Federalists of the day.

We may wonder why we have turned from this original course of this Nation. We wonder is it because of times and age, is it different today than in the past? Is it because we have lost the fact that at one time we were under tyrannical rule and we no longer are? Maybe.

But perhaps, Mr. Speaker, it is because we simply don't cherish this document, the U.S. Constitution, like the Founders once did.

So through these weekly constitutional hours, we are here to help educate, help illuminate, help to inform this body and the American public on the intricacies, the nuances, the rule of law, the circumstances and the times that inspired the Founding Fathers, all those things that make up the United States Constitution. It is the single most ingenious political document ever devised. And while we will continue to come to the floor to give these orations on the deeper meanings of this document and what this body can do to better live by them, tonight let me come

here to stress a far simpler way to understand the Constitution.

Let me simply say that we should each take the time to simply sit down and read it. Those who are in a position to make our Nation's laws should do so being fully versed in the laws that guide us here as well, and those are written right here in the Constitution. And that is why I am so proud to come and support my good friend from Texas, Mr. Conaway, who just spoke a little bit ago, on his bill, H.R. 883. It is a piece of legislation that every Member of this House should sign up in support of and support hopefully in September. It is the AMERICA Act of 2006, A Modest Effort to Read and Instill the Constitution Again and take the commonsense approach by stating that Members of Congress take the oath of office to uphold the Constitution and using the powers delegated to them under the Constitution, so Members and staff should take the time periodically to sit down with that Constitution.

And I might just say on an aside when I mention staff, there is member of staff of the U.S. House of Representatives who has not only taken time to read the Constitution, but this woman has also taken the time to put together a book on the Constitution. It is called ``The Constitution Translated For Kids.'' So if a Member of the staff can take the time to write a book on it and can write a book for kids to be able to read the Constitution, then I think it becomes the obligation of each Member of Congress to sit down with this Constitution as well.

Mr. Speaker, as the Constitution is very clear on the rights that it protects and the protections of the guidelines for this Nation provided for a limited in scope and nature of Federal Government, it is vitally important that we write our laws and perform all of our other official duties with this in mind. We owe it all to our constituents as well as in the past and into the future. For how can we uphold the Constitution if we are simply unclear as to what it says?

Our collective efforts in this Constitutional Caucus is in large part because we feel that the Congress has drifted beyond its constitutional limits. Enacting and living by recommendations of the AMERICA Act of 2006 will be helpful to set that ship aright again.

It will be helpful to make sure that we abide by the Constitution.

So I simply suggest that Members need not wait also until this legislation is passed by this House. They actually can do it right today. They can sit down and read the Constitution.

And I make this final suggestion that if anyone is in need of a Constitution, feel free to contact my office and we will humbly provide them with one.

Offered By: Mr. Garrett of New Jersey

Amendment No. 5: Page 110, after line 8, insert the

following:

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Joseph Valenzano's tremendous commitment to public service and his outstanding contributions on behalf of the disability community. Later this week, Joe, who is a constituent of New Jersey's Fifth District, will be honored for his work in Chester, NJ, by the International Brain Research Foundation.

Joe Valenzano has spent more than 30 years in publishing and communications, most recently as president, CEO, publisher, and editor in chief of EP Global Communications, Inc., which publishes Exceptional Parent Magazine. This publication provides both practical advice and emotional support to the parents of children and adults with disabilities and special health needs. The magazine provides a forum for parents, health care professionals, and education specialists to work together as a community for the betterment of the disability community.

Under Joe's direction and vision, Exceptional Parent magazine has been a pivotal player in important discussions, such as use of restraints and aversive punishments, expanded universal newborn screening, the use of people first language among journalists, end of life issues, and more. Exceptional Parent has led the fight to support the frontline workforce of professionals who provide care and assistance to those with special needs and to promote the use of tandem mass spectrometry to screen for over 60 inborn metabolism errors in newborns. And Exceptional Parent has worked with the Department of Defense to deliver reliable, accurate information to more than 150,000 military families around the globe to help them care for their children with special needs and disabilities.

It is the dedication of individuals like Joe Valenzano that gives hope to so many parents when they first embark upon the path of raising a child with special needs and provides sustenance to those parents who have already spent years in loving care of children with special needs. I applaud Joe for his efforts and join the International Brain Research Foundation for honoring this lifetime of work.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to come to the floor today and that we can honor a group of Americans who have gone literally out of their way to see that our heroes in this country are given the respect that they are due. Our fallen soldiers are to be the most honored of all Americans, since they have given their very lives to protect all of our freedoms.

It really is a great shame that any American would seek to disrupt the funeral of one who died to protect the liberty of all. While the actions of a few have been disheartening to us, there are so many who are willing to stand up to show their love and support for the families of the fallen. The Patriot Guard Riders, they show their love of our country, and they do that by drowning out the protests of a few with the rumblings of their motorcycles of the many.

So, today we come to the floor to honor our fallen soldiers, and we do that always here on both sides of the aisle by providing for their families, by mourning for their loss, by remembering their high goals for which they all stood. So it is fitting and proper that we come here today to hold up the Patriot Guard Riders as examples of devotion to the country and encourage them to continue their ride across this Nation to protect the loved ones of our fallen servicemen.

Mr. Speaker, this Friday is the 1-year anniversary of the United States Supreme Court's decision of Kelo v. City of New London. And this decision has wide-ranging constitutional ramifications, most notably the grasping at rights guaranteed by our guiding document, the Constitution. That is the reason that we dedicate this week's Congressional Constitution Caucus to discuss this case.

The fifth amendment clause, the so-called ``taking clause,'' the one cited by the Court here and cited by the city as well to allow them to take homes from various families away from them and give them to other private individuals, that clause, the power of eminent domain, that is not a positive grant of power to the government. Rather, that is an express limitation on the powers of the government. In other words, our Constitution expressly limits the powers the government has to take away your property or mine.

James Madison once said: ``As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have property in his rights.''

Our Founding Fathers understood that private ownership of property is vital. It is vital to our freedom and to our prosperity as well. Yet our own, very own U.S. Supreme Court issued a very narrow 5-4 decision in the Kelo v. City of New London case, giving local governments broad powers to seize private property from one private party and to give it to another private party, citing nothing more than a subjective claim of sorts, a claim of economic development and something called public benefit.

But once again, the highest court in the land has shown its inability to interpret the Constitution and defend the liberties and freedoms that our forefathers so desperately envisioned when they established this great Nation. Instead, this unelected body just across the street seeks now to make its own law for the land.

For over a generation, our judicial branch in this country has headed down what we call the old proverbial slippery slope of overstepping their bounds, and this decision is judicial activism at its worst.

I bring with me tonight a book that is called ``Constitutional Chaos.'' It was written by actually a constituent of mine, a former judge in the Fifth Congressional District. This is Judge Andrew Napolitano. Members may know that name from seeing it on TV. And I want to cite something he that he says in his book talking about this taking by the courts. He says, we have seen in the past the proper function of eminent domain, the government's

taking of lands for use by the public. And the radical transformation of the taking clause to mean public benefit rather than the public use. And this began, this change, this radical change began in the early 20th century, back from 1936 on in a New York City case.

There the court determined that slum clearance would be a public use, that was a good use, taking away people's homes from one set of circumstances and giving it someplace else. And he says, ``This is a quintessential private use. The government took the land from private individuals so that other private individuals could use that land to live on.''

Then he goes on to say, the Court blatantly ignored the fact that the Constitution uses the phrase ``public use'' rather than ``public benefit.'' And the Court concluded ``the law of each age is ultimately what the age thinks the law should be.''

What a scary thought that is, if the courts really take that view that the law can simply change from age to age to age, and that there are no firm foundations from one generation to the next.

Our government, both on the State and the Federal level, were intended to be limited with only certain specific powers being delegated by the people to the various branches. And the ability of the government to seize private property from its citizens far exceeds the authority the people have bestowed upon it. And that authority may not be changed from generation to generation to generation.

The Justices in the majority, while they may have been well intentioned and trying to provide what they cited as economic development, had absolutely no constitutional authority to make those decisions. Certainly, not in the liberty-grasping fashion that they did.

So tonight I come here and, again, I call for limitations on the courts' jurisdiction before every one of our liberties and freedoms are clutched from our very possessions as our homes now apparently may be. And in light of this anniversary, I recently introduced a resolution, again emphasizing this body, this House's disapproval of the majority opinion of the Supreme Court and highlighting other positive actions we have taken, such as my amendment recently to, in fact, a year ago to say the Federal Government would not use our dollars to help facilitate these actions.

You see, Mr. Speaker, the United States, the greatest Nation in the world, must always remain a Nation where rights and liberties are celebrated, not a Nation where people live in fear of those rights and liberties being instantaneously taken away by unelected judges covetous of policymaking powers.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, many times Members come with their amendments to the floor and say I have a commonsense amendment to present. Sometimes they are common sense and simple, and sometimes they are not. I would hazard the statement that this one is simple and a commonsense amendment that I make today. And it is one that I have made on the floor over the last several weeks with regard to some of the other appropriations bills as well.

It is simply to try to rein in some of the spending that we do here in Washington, to put some sort of a reasonable limit on some of the spending that we do because, you know, when you listen to all of the debates back and forth when we discuss the budget and other such matters, we differ on how we get here on some of these issues, but one thing that we do not seem to differ on is that we are spending too much and our debt is too high in this country.

If we can try to rein that in and bring down some of that debt, it is a good thing. And that is what this amendment does. This amendment puts a reasonable limit on the number of Federal employees that can attend out-of-this-country international conferences.

I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

I appreciate that, and I will just briefly conclude by saying that I appreciate the acceptance of the amendment to make sure that as we go forward, the Federal Government limits the number of employees who go overseas. We do not say that there should be no one traveling. We recognize the importance of staff, both here on the floor, and we recognize the importance of staff as far as Federal agencies are concerned, but if we put a reasonable number, as the chairman just accepted, I think we are doing a good thing for the American taxpayer.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I recognize the point of order.

Mr. Chairman, it was just yesterday we were on this floor honoring the work of former President Dwight Eisenhower and also celebrating the 50th anniversary of the national interstate highway system.

That system that he was the champion of for a number of years beforehand and finally got done, that system that we today bear the fruit, enjoy the fruit of. That system that was, in essence, put in place to connect border to border, east to west, north to south, the major urban areas and the city areas of this country, primarily for a national defense purposes was what the President had in mind. That system, as I say, was started 50 years ago. That system, of course, was also completed 20 years ago. And as I mentioned on the floor just yesterday, I believe that the former President and great general that he was, would want us, as we go into the second half of that century to be able to stand on his shoulders of the work that he was able to accomplish and now move on to a more progressive and appropriate system for this century.

Under the current system, it is sort of a top-down approach as far as transportation dollars are concerned. Even though States spend twice as much money on our transportation system in the country than the Federal Government does, we are all aware of the fact that there is an 18-cent gasoline tax in every State. That money comes from your respective State to Washington, D.C., through the hands of the bureaucrats down here where the decisions are made and then reallocated with the things that we read about in the paper as well as far as some of the programs and dollars where they are spent. Things that our taxpayers probably just scratch their head and wonder what is Washington doing with those dollars. I would gather the local officials, county, municipal and State officials also wonder just what Washington is doing with those transportation dollars as well.

To that end, I have introduced legislation called the Surface Transportation and Taxation Equity Act, the STATE Act for short. And that is a piece of legislation that simply says this: That States should be allowed, if they so desire, to opt out of the Federal gasoline and transportation system and make those decisions right at home instead.

See, right now, States are either donor States or donee States. States like the State of New Jersey, which is my own, is a donor State. We send more to Washington as far as gasoline taxes than we ever get back in return, so we are, in effect, subsidizing the other States. But even donee States, even those States that think that they are doing well by this system, may not be. And the reason I say that is this. Even though they are getting a little bit more, a few pennies back on the dollar more than they send to Washington, the problem is there are strings attached to those dollars. Washington just doesn't turn those dollars back to those donee States nor in to the donor States without any restrictions. They don't turn them back carte blanche. Washington, the bureaucrats, put restrictions on them. But what exactly do those restrictions cost the States? What do they cost through the micro- management that Washington does to those States? What does it cost those respective States inasmuch as they are not able to spend the dollars as the citizens of those States feel are most appropriate? What does it cost at the end of the day in wasted Federal and local taxes?

So what this amendment does, to get to the bottom of it, is simply do a study. Let's get the facts. Let's find out what it is, in fact, costing the States to comply with this top-down, inefficient, outdated system of funding and building our roads and bridges across this country.

This amendment simply asks the U.S. Department of Transportation to conduct a study to determine the amount each State spends to comply with the regulations of the USDOT and whether or not there are programs that they are spending on that the sovereign States do not intend for them to spend it on. So in the end this is simply an amendment asking for a study to ask for full disclosure so that we both in Washington and at the local level and the taxpayers as well know exactly where their dollars are going to, where they are coming from and whether they are being put to the best use.

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

Point of Order

Mr. Chairman, at this point, recognizing the point of order raised and setting it out, I at this point seek unanimous consent for withdrawing the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for the work on this legislation today and for making note of the anniversary of the interstate highway system, and as we also honor the work of our past President Eisenhower for his work to make sure that we bear the fruits of the system 50 years later.

The 50th anniversary, we come here today on, but perhaps at this time it is appropriate also that standing on his shoulders we could do what he would like to see at this point in time as we move forward to the second half of that century to build upon what he has already done, to create a new system as we honor his work of the past.

You know, this new system would be one in which we return some of the authority that we have now assumed on the Federal level back to the States to give them more discretion, basically to maximize the resources that are out there to create that great transportation system that we have in this country today. We could do that by returning primary transportation authority and responsibility and taxing authority back to the States.

What would this do? This would free State transportation dollars from the Federal micromanagement that we have seen in the past and other budgetary pressures as well. It would let people back at the States, people who actually use these roads and bridges and tunnels and what have you, to help make the decisions to decide when, how and where and how they are going to finance them. They would make the decisions in the future how they would finance it, they would make the decisions how they would be regulated.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I say in conclusion on this that we can honor this President who was indeed a great President for what he did for this country, but you know he was a greater general for all that he did for this country as well. And as a general he knew that sometimes the best decisions were made by those field commanders who were in the field. And I would just suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that now is the time to allow the States to assume command.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim my time out of order.

I do thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Tonight, I come here as we do each week as members of the Constitutional Caucus come here on a regular basis to present a series of 5-minutes following the day's activities and the day's votes. We do so tonight to focus on really one of the most important and significant issues dealing with our Constitution and threats to our constitutional rights as well.

Before I do that, let me just say this, that I wish to show my utmost appreciation earlier this evening for the majority whip coming out and joining us to discuss a piece of his legislation that goes to this very fundamental issue and also for his efforts to work to protect those basic liberties of every American.

The threats that I am referring to is our Founding Fathers' principles of self-government and the jeopardy that comes in the form of consent decrees. For those of you who are not familiar with exactly what consent decrees are, in essence, they are simply this. They are judicial actions that are entered into between opposing parties, in this case by the party bringing the action, private individuals, usually, and State or local entities. State or local governments are basically compelled at the end of a court case to enter into these agreements. They are then, therefore, called consent decrees. In their name and on their face, they sound innocent enough. In reality, they simply can be because they are protecting rights of some sort or the other. But they can also have in the long-term a cumulative effect, a threat to the legislative process and also to the hardworking American taxpayer who supports it as well.

These decrees have resulted in judges engaging themselves in affairs outside of their constitutional job description, outside of the very framework of the protections that we have established in our documents of checks and balances. I say that their intents are noble and good in many cases, and that is to protect our rights, but by engaging in such blatant activism, they are actually threatening self-government itself, rights outside what our Founding Fathers intended.

I agree with what the majority whip had indicated before. This is not simply a case of dealing with judicial activism because it really goes beyond that and does not engage in that at all times. It is an understanding that our Founding Fathers had, and we have reminded those who have listened to these programs, listened to us coming to the floor each week to discuss constitutional issues, that we must be very mindful always of protecting those rights set forth by the Fathers, especially the rights of States as established in the 10th amendment. All rights not specifically delegated to the Federal Government are retained by the people and the States, respectively.

Consent decrees, therefore, can place an undue burden on the States and local officials. They can last literally for decades, long after the local officials or State officials who may have been involved with those cases in the first instance have long since left office. Newly elected officials may have come into place to find they are bound by those previously entered into decrees. They are now unable to place in policies that could rectify the situation, unable to put in policies that could solve the situation for future generations, and unable to put in policies that basically could save the taxpayers money at the end.

Judges have already tried to engage in other ways in activism, obviously of taking away our rights as we have discussed before, taking away our property rights and the democratic right to construct our marriage institutions.

But consent decrees go one step further. They chip away at the authority of our local officials, allowing judges and not the people who were democratically elected to represent them. This is not just a decision and opinions of Members of Congress. The Supreme Court has also spoken on this. In fact, in a unanimous decision back in 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court called for limiting these types of decrees in the case of Frew v. Hawkins. The court proclaimed there that Federal consent decrees could encroach on State and local power. They continued that these decrees may ``improperly deprive future officials of their designated and executive powers.'' They may also lead ``to Federal court oversight of State programs for long periods of time even absent an ongoing violation of the law.''

Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, I am more than proud to support my good friend from Missouri and his legislation, H.R. 1229, the Federal Consent Decree Fairness Act. This is legislation that would provide relief to newly elected mayors and other State officials who inherit these overly broad and outdated decrees. It would limit their ability to govern. And it would be able to respond to priorities of their constituents for the future.

This legislation will put term limits on existing decrees while setting out guidelines for the future. We must ensure that they are limited in nature, not opening the doors for future violations. Again, I commend the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on Hamas' refusal to even come to the table to answer Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' recent ultimatum.

Eleven days ago, President Abbas demanded that Hamas government recognize the 1967 borders with Israel threatening to take the plan to a public referendum. President Abbas' plan would establish a Palestinian State and allow for all Palestinian refuges to return to their homes within Israel. Hamas' refusal to even consider this plan shows just how extreme Hamas is.

Hamas is responsible for the tragic deaths of thousands of innocent Israelis and Americans, including women and children. It has refused to take part in any peace talks, including the Oslo Accords. It has refused to participate in previous, formal governmental operations that have worked with Israel. And it has actively recruited children to accomplish their malevolent and homicidal agenda.

I commend President Abbas for attempting to bridge the gap between the Hamas government and Middle East peace. I stand steadfast in support of our ally, Israel. And I urge the world to recognize Hamas for what it truly is--an organization bent on extremism and hate and a roadblock on the path to peace in the Middle East.

I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment, and also I am thankful to hear from the other side of the aisle that they believe we should go forward and that this doesn't add anything to it other than what existing law is the case.

I hope that is the case, because it was last month I sent a letter to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and I did that in response to an article in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and reports on various media outlets that stated the U.S. Border Patrol had in fact been informing the Mexican government of the location of the Minute Men and other similar U.S. patrols throughout the border. I sent that letter specifically to say what is our policy, or how are they conducting themselves.

It was also reported that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman told the media outlets that the policy is meant to ensure the Mexican government that the migrant rights are being observed.

I applaud the gentleman for doing the amendment because we know at the end of the day we here in this House are most concerned about the rights of the American citizens and the safety and protection of the American citizens, and I think his amendment goes a long way to making sure that our rights, our citizens' rights and their safety will be protected so that this information is protected and kept here.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do recognize the point of order, and I will address that at the very end.

Mr. Chairman, I drafted an amendment here to highlight in essence the mismanagement of money in two specific agencies or programs funded by this bill, FEMA and the Homeland Security Grants program.

There is no one in this body that knows our threat to this Nation better than I. The district that I have the honor and privilege of representing borders the Hudson River and downtown New York City is basically within eyesight of our district. There were tragically far too many people from the Fifth District of New Jersey who lost their lives on September 11. So my top priority since coming to this body has been and will remain homeland security.

The threat to our Nation and the residents of northern New Jersey is still very real. Law enforcement agencies are stretching every penny to purchase equipment, vehicles, medical supplies, and radios, but they do not have enough resources. On too many occasions in this body, I have fought for more resources to be brought to New Jersey and other high- risk areas.

With that being said, it pains me that as my neighbors and friends, living in my region of such high risk, the Department of Homeland Security is still using a portion of our limited resources for things that will keep no one safer and make no taxpayer happier.

It has come to my attention that the DHS has provided grants for example to fire departments to pay for things such as fitness equipment, nutritional counseling, clown and puppet shows, no less. Now, Mr. Chairman, I think clowns are as funny as the next guy, but I don't think the ability to be funny is what it is about when we are trying to help people during the next terrorist attack.

Looking next to FEMA, similar examples illustrate the need for additional oversight of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Since Hurricane Katrina tragically hit the gulf coast, we have heard of numerous examples of mismanagement, neglect, wasteful spending, and even fraud that has prevented hundreds of millions of dollars from helping any of the victims of the storm.

Now, my time is limited here, so I will highlight just some of the most egregious examples. There have been five, five separate government reports by the GAO and other bodies that detail these problems. They have provoked the universal outrage in mismanagement, and here in this amendment we try to address it.

Specifically, my amendment calls attention to the utter mismanagement of the debit card program. As you may recall, FEMA gave out $2,000 debit cards with no verification process for eligibility. People took advantage of it.

Among the many ``necessary'' items that people did for survival were adult entertainment, bail bond services, jewelry, and of course what every victim of a hurricane has to worry about, traffic tickets.

Another example of waste, FEMA spent almost $900 million to store nearly 25,000 manufactured homes around the country mainly because they prohibited themselves from putting them in flood plains, such as New Orleans. In addition, FEMA let almost 11,000 unused manufactured homes sit in open fields in Arkansas, while at the same time paying people's hotel bills of $438 per night to stay in a hotel in New York City.

Further, a GAO report said 2.5 million Hurricane Katrina evacuee registrations were done, and 60 percent were done over the telephone, meaning there was no verification process at all as to who these people were who were getting these dollars.

A study found that as many as 900,000 applicants used bogus Social Security numbers, duplicate Social Security numbers or false addresses and still received funding. There are other examples more numerous.

As we pass this bill today and provide billions of taxpayer dollars to an agency that has practiced questionable responsibility for the funds that we appropriate, I strongly urge this body to work on methods to hold FEMA even more accountable, to a higher standard of level of accountability. There has been too much waste, fraud and abuse in these very important areas of homeland security and dealing with natural disasters.

We can and must do a better job with our security dollars. I look forward to working with the chairman as we move forward to work for better oversight in these areas in this Congress and in the future.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to have my amendment withdrawn because I acknowledge that it is not in order.

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

Mr. Chairman, I join proudly with my colleagues, Mr. Fossella and Mr. Crowley from just across the river, on introducing this very important amendment.

The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, has stated that the administration will continue to champion funding based on risk and needs in order to ``ensure that our finite resources are allocated and prioritized successfully.''

UASI recipients are determined through a robust risk formula that considers three primary variables: consequences, vulnerability, and threats. Factors such as the presence of international borders, population and population density, the location of critical infrastructures, formal mutual aid cooperation, law enforcement investigations, and enforcement activities are also considered in correlation with the risk formula developed under this.

These risk factors are precisely the kind of factors that should be the ones that govern more of our homeland security spending. Simply put, money needs to go where the threat is. Places like New York City and northern New Jersey are those risk areas. Our police departments, our fire departments, our emergency management officials, all these men and women are doing their best to prevent terrorist attacks and prepare for worst-case scenarios. So we here in Congress should do our best to see that those in the most risky areas get the tools they need to keep America safe.

I yield to the gentleman from New York.

I would be glad to yield.