Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I thank our leader Mr. Lantos for his leadership on this issue, and so many others in this Congress. I rise, as did Ms. Jackson-Lee and others, in support of the resolution.

I would like to cite an article by Charles Krauthammer, who gives some history that I think is useful as this debate draws nearer to a close, from the Washington Post this last Friday.

I quote. ``Israel withdrew from Lebanon completely in 2000. It was so scrupulous in making sure that not 1 square inch of Lebanon was left inadvertently occupied that it asked the United Nations to verify the exact frontier defining Lebanon's southern border and retreated behind it. This `blue line' was approved by the Security Council, which declared that Israel had fully complied with resolutions demanding its withdrawal from Lebanon.

``Grievance satisfied. Yet what happens?'' Krauthammer writes, ``Hezbollah has done to South Lebanon exactly what Hamas has done to Gaza, turned it into a military base and terrorist operations center from which to continue the war against Israel.

``South Lebanon bristles with Hezbollah's 10,000 Katyusha rockets that put northern Israel under the gun. Fired in the first hours of fighting, just 85 of these killed 2 Israelis and wounded 120 in Israel's northern towns.''

Mr. Speaker, we should stand with Israel, we should vote for the resolution.

Recently, the United States Senate voted 68-32 to adopt an amendment that would stop the government from seizing safe, effective, affordable medicine imported from Canada. The House passed a responsible bipartisan prescription drug importation bill 3 years ago this month. I was pleased to lead the House Democrats in support of that bill.

We were not able to get it sent to the President's desk for only one reason: Senate Majority Leader Frist never brought it to the Senate floor. His own Republican Caucus never demanded a vote. They never stood up. They never demanded action to break the drug industry stranglehold on the American market. They never demanded an end to the multibillion-dollar annual tax of skyrocketing drug prices it imposed on American business, and it imposed on American families.

At long last, the other body has begun to act. That vote should be the start, not the end, of this effort. I challenge the Republican leadership in both Chambers to give us an open debate, an honest vote on comprehensive drug importation legislation, before the anniversary of the House bill's passage 3 years ago. Three years is long enough to wait for independence from the drug industry.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to go out of place and replace Congressman Miller.

Only a couple of weeks ago, during the same week when the Senate rejected an increase in the minimum wage, meaning that for 10 years there has not been a minimum wage increase in this country, but there have been six congressional pay raises, that same week the United States Senate voted to approve a free trade agreement with Oman.

This agreement compromises port security, just what the Bush administration had been prepared to do earlier this year, with the Dubai Ports World case. You see, the Oman FTA, Free Trade Agreement, includes provisions allowing companies from Oman to take over land, so- called land-side port operations, operating the piers, loading and unloading cargo, exactly the sorts of things Dubai Ports World had sought to do.

In the case of Dubai Ports World, concerned legislators on both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, demanded that the Bush administration back down, demanded that the administration block the deal, and ultimately the foreign company gave up. But the Oman Free Trade Agreement would weaken our ability to protect port security and actually allow it to back-door its way into this country.

If we tried to block an Omani company's control over critical port infrastructure, the Omani Government could sue us, could sue the United States for violating this trade agreement, and that case would not be heard by a U.S. court with judges confirmed by U.S.-elected officials and charged with balancing the needs of trade and the imperative security under U.S. law. It would instead be heard by an unelected, unaccountable, international tribunal whose mission is trade promotion, not security enhancement.

If we lost, the foreign ports takeover would go ahead, despite our security

concerns, or we would face retaliatory sanctions. Even if we won, we would have spent, as a country, as taxpayers, millions and millions of taxpayer dollars, fighting in a foreign court for the right to protect our most basic security.

Worse yet, the agreement opens U.S. security decisions to suits not only from the Omani Government, but also from companies located in Oman. That means not only actually companies actually headquartered in Oman, but any companies with a branch in Oman.

For example, an Iranian company, we heard a lot about Iran tonight, an Iranian company with a branch in Oman might be able to sue us if we continue to block its efforts in a U.S. port. There is reason to be concerned about the Irani-Oman connection. Iran recently spent $45 million to expand a port with the objective of increasing trade with Iran.

We need to reject not only the Oman FTA, but the whole fundamentally flawed trade model, a model that puts the economic interests of multinational corporations ahead of the security interests of the American people. Imagine again what can happen. Dubai Ports World locates an office in Oman. We pass this trade agreement.

Oman then allows, and under the free trade agreement, Dubai Ports World could actually run a port in Baltimore, a port in New York. That company then, running the Baltimore port, allows cargo into the Baltimore port.

That cargo comes across I-70 to Bellaire and Zanesville and Columbus and Springfield and Dayton, or it comes down the Saint Lawrence Seaway through Ashtabula and Cleveland and Toledo, or it comes down the Ohio River to Steubenville and Marietta and Gallipolis and Cincinnati.

I have introduced legislation, H.R. 4812, to ensure that trade agreements do not undermine homeland security. My bill requires security reviews of trade agreements as soon as negotiations begin, then another round of reviews when the agreement's concluded.

Unlike the Dubai Ports World and the Oman Free Trade Agreement, this bill keeps Congress in the loop all the way. It creates a special security watchdog commission to make sure Congress has an independent voice on security issues. It is absurd that the Federal Government makes American citizens take off our shoes at the airport but refuses to conduct security reviews of multibillion-dollar trade deals.

We need to take our heads out of the sand. We need to reject the Oman Free Trade Agreement and its dangerous ports language. We need to insist on a responsible policy to ensure that trade agreements strengthen, not weaken, our national security.

Mr. Speaker, regarding the Federal marriage amendment, I was detained coming in from the airport, missed the vote by 4 minutes, and would have voted ``nay'' on the Federal marriage amendment, rollcall 378.

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

Mr. Chairman, when I was first elected to Congress in 1992, the United States trade deficit with the People's Republic of China for the whole year was $18 billion. This year, our trade deficit with China approached $18 billion by the end of January. By April, our year-to-date trade deficit with China topped $64 billion. At that pace, our trade deficit with China is growing 10 percent faster this year than last year, and last year's China trade deficit shattered all kinds of records by exceeding $201 billion.

It is not because China's companies are better than ours. It is not because people of China are smarter or more dedicated or more hardworking than American workers. We all know how China is able to do so well in the game of international trade: they cheat.

China's track record includes oppressive labor policies, currency manipulation, wholesale disregard for and theft of intellectual property, and dumping and counterfeiting of manufactured goods. These and other unfair China trade practices are a real source of concern for Members of Congress on this side of the aisle and some on that side of the aisle, and these practices are a real economic threat to the U.S. economy.

Believe me, I see the consequences all over Ohio in signs from Marietta to Toledo, from Youngstown to Hamilton; signs that read ``going out of business,'' ``everything must go,'' or just simply ``closed.'' Manufacturers in Ohio and all over the United States have closed their doors, have shipped jobs overseas because China refuses to compete fairly and because we haven't done enough to force China to play by the rules.

Chairman Wolf and Ranking Member Mollohan understand the problem. I commend them for their work on this critical issue. Because of their leadership, the bill before us today specifically sets aside $3 million in International Trade Administration funding for the ITA's Office of China Compliance, which is responsible for monitoring imports from China and, importantly, initiating enforcement when it detects illegal dumping of Chinese goods.

My amendment builds on the foundation the committee has laid by increasing the set-aside for the Office of China Compliance from $3 million to $6 million.

American workers, American companies, especially small manufacturers, a machine shop in Akron or a tool and die maker in Dayton, these companies deserve a level playing field with China. Only with vigorous and well-funded trade monitoring and enforcement can we begin to provide that level playing field and allow U.S. manufacturers to compete.

My amendment improves funding for this critical work, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, former State Department intelligence officials testified yesterday that they warned the administration 3 years ago that the occupation of Iraq would provoke insurgency ethnic strife and the targeting of U.S. forces. But their words then, 3 years ago, went unheeded.

The Post reported today that the hearing ``marked the first time intelligence assessments on postwar Iraq had been specifically discussed in a congressional session.'' No Republicans participated.

Three years after the war in Iraq began, Republicans are still refusing to investigate what went wrong. Ohio families are paying the price.

Many of us have repeatedly asked the President to present a plan for success in Iraq, a winning exit strategy to complete the mission and start to redeploy and bring our troops home. Republicans responded with theatrics and sound bites. More of the same is not a plan. More of the same doesn't bring us any closer to winning the global war on terror.

The troops and the American people deserve better. They deserve a Congress that doesn't look the other way when mistakes are made. They deserve a realistic and forward-thinking plan that brings our troops home.

Mr. Speaker, I see them all over Ohio, Toledo, Hamilton, Lima, Youngstown, Mansfield and Dayton. In every community, there are signs that the Federal Government's trade policies are undermining American manufacturers, especially small machine shops, tool and die makers, other manufacturers, and encouraging the spread internationally of abusive sweatshop practices.

China is the sweatshop of the world, with oppressive labor policies resulting in wage suppression of as much as 85 percent. We all know that American workers can compete with workers anywhere in the world on a level playing field, but no one can stand, no one can compete with child labor, with sweatshop labor, with prison labor.

The year I first ran for Congress in 1992, the United States had a trade deficit of $38 billion. Today, just last year, in 2005, that trade deficit had jumped from $38 billion in only 13 years to a $720 billion trade deficit.

The result of the sweatshop labor of this trade policy with China alone is trade deficit records being broken year after year and ever- increasing losses of manufacturing jobs to China. In my State alone, 200,000 manufacturing jobs had been lost since the year 2000, yet America's trade agreements are actually encouraging the development of new sweatshops. All of us in this body supported the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement because Jordan's labor protections were seen as meeting international standards.

The New York Times, though, recently reported that in the few years since the Jordan Free Trade Agreement took effect, lax enforcement and an abusive guest worker system have made Jordan the new haven for some of the world's most brutal sweatshops.

Senator Byron Dorgan and I have introduced the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act to end sweatshop profiteering.

The bill is simple. It bars the importation or the sale of goods made with sweatshop labor. In other words, if a product is made in a Chinese sweatshop, if a product is made by child labor or slave labor or prison labor, you can't import it into the United States, you can't sell it into the United States.

The Federal Trade Commission would enforce it, but the bill also gives retailers and shareholders the right to hold violators accountable, and it prohibits Federal government agencies from buying sweatshop goods. We can't afford to continue to tolerate these abuses. We certainly cannot afford, cannot continue to encourage them.

We don't have a $200 billion trade deficit with China because China's companies are better than ours and certainly not because their people are smarter or more dedicated or hard working. We know how China is able to do so well in the game of international trade. They break the rules.

When China breaks the rules, and we lose in places like Marion and Cleveland, when we lose in places like Chillicothe and Zanesville and Toledo, when they lose thousands of manufacturing jobs, it not only hurts those people that lose those jobs, it hurts those families. It causes police and fire to be laid off in those abandoned communities. It means fewer schoolteachers teaching our young people.

It devastates people's families. It devastates people's communities. It is our job here in Congress to provide a level playing field for U.S. workers, to help those small manufacturers, to help those workers, to help those families, to help those communities and provide decent working conditions for workers here and abroad.

I ask my fellow Members of the House to support the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act.

Mr. Speaker, this week again, Mr. Speaker, the House and the Senate failed to increase

the minimum wage in our country. For 10 years the minimum wage has been stuck at $5.15 an hour. In my State of Ohio, if we would raise the minimum wage to $6.85 an hour, as many people want to through a ballot initiative, 500,000 individual Ohioans with 200,000 children in those households would get a raise. It would help their standard of living. It would put more money into our economy. It would be good for our State and good for all of us.

This Congress, instead of passing a minimum wage increase, continues to give tax breaks to people who make more than $1 million a year. They get hundreds of millions of dollars. The CEO of Exxon makes $18,000 an hour. A woman in Girard, Ohio, who fills her tank with gasoline from ExxonMobil that lives on the minimum wage makes $11,000 a year.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to replace Mr. Pallone.

Mr. Speaker, if you live in Toledo or Dayton or Youngstown, or if you live in Mansfield, Ohio, or Hamilton, Ohio, or Lima, Ohio, you know that the Federal Government's trade policies are undermining American manufacturers. And if you live in Marion or Portsmouth or Springfield, Ohio, you know that our trade policies are encouraging the spread of abusive sweatshop practices.

China is the world's sweatshop leader, with repressive labor policies resulting in wage suppression of as much as 85 percent. We all know that American workers can compete in a global economy on a level playing field, but no one can compete with prison labor, child labor or sweatshop labor. The result, a U.S. trade deficit with China that breaks records year after year, an increasing loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China. In my State alone, in Ohio, 42,000 jobs have been lost to China since the year 2001. Much of that job loss has been as a result of China's unfair trade practices. Yet America's trade agreements are actually encouraging the development of new sweatshops.

All of us in this body supported the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement because Jordan's labor protections were seen as meeting international standards. But the New York Times reported just last month that in the few years since the Jordan Free Trade Agreement took effect, lax enforcement and an abusive guest worker system have made Jordan the new haven for some of the world's most brutal sweatshops.

Senator Byron Dorgan and I have introduced the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act to end sweatshop profiteering. The bill bars the importation, the exportation or the sale of goods made with prisoner sweatshop labor. In other words, if a product is made by child labor or by forced prison camp labor, you can't import it into the United States, you can't sell it in the United States.

The bill charges the Federal Trade Commission with enforcement, and

gives manufacturers, competitors, retailers and shareholders a right to hold violators accountable. The bill prohibits Federal Government agencies from buying goods made with prison or sweatshop labor.

We cannot afford to continue to turn a blind eye to these abuses. Sweatshop imports are a moral crime. They violate the values of our families, of our faith and of the history of this country. They are a moral crime against the working men and women, and, I am afraid, working children of the developing nations.

Sweatshop imports are economic suicide for our country. As we import sweatshop goods, we export American jobs, we weaken the bargaining position of U.S. workers fighting for wages with which they can actually support their families.

The heart of America's economy has always been a vigorous middle- income consumer class. Henry Ford knew that. That is why he paid his workers a wage that would allow them to buy the cars that they made, to share the wealth they create, to buy the cars that they made.

By driving U.S. wages down, we weaken the American consumer market, we undercut our greatest economic power, and we lose jobs in so many of our communities. And when we lose jobs in places like Marion, Ohio, and Zanesville, Ohio, we hurt our communities, we hurt our families, we lay off police officers, we cut back on the fire department, our classrooms get larger as teachers get laid off. It hurts our communities, and it is wrong for our country.

I ask my fellow Members of the House to please support the legislation that I mentioned tonight, the Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas, Mr. Green, who is doing yeoman's work in bringing community health centers to Houston and to his whole State. I thank him for that and thank Chairman Deal for his good work on this issue.

Every year, a quarter million Ohioans, more than that, 280,000 Ohioans, from Lisbon to Piketon, from Fremont to Chillicothe, from Hough to Lincoln Heights, visit facilities associated with the 27 community health care centers in my State. Many of them are uninsured. Many of them, most of them, have incomes below the Federal poverty level. These centers give these thousands of Ohioans access to a medical home where they can receive a comprehensive range of health care services. Without these centers, many of these Ohioans might opt to delay care. Some of them are likely to end up in the emergency room. Many of them will suffer permanent illness as a result. All of that strains the system, creates unnecessary cost for our health care system, and causes undue bad health and undue human suffering. Investing in community health centers in Mansfield and Youngstown and Barnesville, Ohio, is a far better alternative.

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

It has been a pleasure working with Chairman Deal from Georgia to introduce and move this legislation through the House. I appreciate his strong support and concern about funding, of creating an ongoing, more predictable funding treatment for graduate medical education.

Children's Hospitals, as we know, care for our Nation's youngest members, helping them grow and thrive. When a child develops a serious illness, these hospitals fight back with every weapon at their disposal, focused expertise, cutting-edge technology, a mission that embraces all children regardless of their family's income, regardless of their insurance status, regardless of their family's ability to pay.

Like other teaching hospitals, freestanding Children's Hospitals, we have many of them in Ohio, in Akron, in Toledo, Columbus and in Youngstown, freestanding Children's Hospitals make it a priority to pass on their expertise. They train the next generation of children's health care providers, ensuring a steady stream of physicians fluent and conversant in the unique challenges of pediatric care.

Most of our Nation's teaching hospitals rely on the Medicare GME program, Graduate Medical Education program, to help cover the costs associated with training new physicians.

However, Children's Hospitals, as I discovered in Akron Children's some years ago, which obviously serve few Medicare patients, the program for the elderly, are largely excluded from this funding. Before the enactment of Children's Hospital GME, this anomaly forced Children's Hospitals to divert funding from their medical mission to their teaching mission. Two crucial missions, teaching and health care, serving children, one source of funding with no cushion in it, and who is caught in the middle of this funding squeeze? Sick children. It makes no sense to finance Graduate Medical Education for professionals who treat adults but not for professionals who treat children.

In 1999, Chairman Bilirakis and I introduced legislation to address this investment gap. Since its enactment, the Children's Hospital GME program has met and surpassed expectations. Our

Nation's investment in Children's Hospitals enables these providers to simultaneously train tomorrow's pediatric workforce and treat today's young patients, many of whom are battling for their lives. Serious illness is always heartrending, but when serious illness takes a child, it is an unfathomable loss. Children's Hospitals save young lives, and there is no mission more important than that.

Earlier this year, the administration proposed cutting the funding for Children's GME by 66 percent. Such a drastic cut would have devastating effects on the Nation's 60 freestanding Children's Hospitals, including the six that serve my home State of Ohio, and including Ms. Pryce's Columbus Children's Hospital and have an impact on those like Rainbow in Cleveland that are not freestanding but still need the revenue to train their pediatric specialists. Columbus Children's Hospital alone would have faced a 76 percent cut in GME funding.

My child was at that hospital after an accident once. I know how serious and important they take their work and what a terrific job they do at that hospital in Columbus.

The Bush administration never justified the 66 percent cut. That is not all that surprising since it simply cannot be justified. This program works.

It is true that reckless fiscal decisions, tax cuts during wartime comes to mind, this body and the other body have continued to cut taxes for the wealthiest of our citizens and then logically the President proposes a 66 percent cut in Children's Hospital funding. Those reckless decisions by the Republican majority have plunged the Federal budget into the red. But the President is not doing any of us favors, and both parties recommend that, people sitting on the floor, Mr. Murphy and Chairman Deal and Ms. Pryce. The President is not doing us any favors when he tries to compensate for his fiscal mistakes by making more of them. You would not take pennies from your child's piggy bank to pay off your million dollar yacht. You should not take dollars from our Children's Hospitals to pay off your trillion dollar tax cut. That would be a mistake.

Republicans and Democrats alike reaffirmed our support in committee for full GME funding when we passed this legislation out of the Commerce Committee, which Chairman Deal and Chairman Barton led. There is no 60 percent cut in the authorization. There should be no 66 percent cut in the appropriation.

This legislation, Mr. Speaker, helps safeguard our Nation's greatest asset: our children. I hope all Members of this body join Chairman Deal and me in supporting it.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join Ms. Pryce and Mr. Murphy and Chairman Deal in passing this legislation unanimously.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I also would like to thank my Ohio colleague, Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, for introducing this legislation. Ms. Pryce has been instrumental in raising awareness of childhood cancers and promoting the research needed to overcome them.

Every year, more than 12,000 children in our country are diagnosed with cancer. More than 2,000 of them lose their lives. Although survival rates are increasing and great progress has been made to develop new diagnostics and treatments and cures, cancer remains the number one disease killer of children. There is, of course, no tragedy comparable to the loss of a child. If we can prevent cancer from taking the life of a child, then we must prevent cancer from taking the life of a child.

This resolution calls for Congress to support public and private sector efforts to promote awareness about the

incidence of childhood cancer, its signs and symptoms, its treatment options and its long-term follow-up care. The resolution also calls for increased public and private investment in childhood cancer research, incentives to encourage health care providers to enter pediatric oncology, and incentives to spur development of better pediatric drugs and remedies. There is no more important fight than the fight against childhood cancer.

I think the legislation we just passed on the reauthorization of GME for Children's Hospitals, coupled with Ms. Pryce's legislation here, will really matter to children in this country. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this resolution. I urge my colleagues to support it.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and ask this Congress to pass the Pryce legislation.

Thank you, Mr. Lantos and Mr. Murtha.

Prior to the 2003 invasion, I introduced legislation that would have required the President to report to Congress on the possible consequences. It would have required the administration to provide a full accounting of the implications for homeland security, the war on terrorism, and regional stability in the Middle East. It would have required the administration to tell us the steps that our country and our allies would take to protect United States soldiers, including providing them adequate body armor. It would have required the President to estimate the full cost associated with military action against Iraq. And it would have required the President to provide an exit strategy, a plan for achieving long-term social, economic, and political stabilization of a postwar Iraq so that we and the troops could tell when we had crossed the finish line.

The administration has still not provided answers to the questions many of us asked before the war. Three years later, the Iraq war has cost more than 2,500 American lives and nearly $300 billion, with no end and no plan in sight. Secretary Condoleezza Rice said this war could last for 10 more years.

Today's resolution presents a false choice: Support the administration's flawed war policies or concede defeat on the war on terror. We are asked to support Iraq's new Prime Minister in the amnesty, the amnesty he will offer to the insurgents who have attacked and killed U.S. troops.

Our troops have done everything, everything we have asked them to do in Iraq and more. They have acted heroically. They have done their job and we should honor them today and every day. But this is the second time that a congressional debate on the handling of the war has been replaced with a political stunt. The troops and the American people deserve much better.

Our troops deserve more than a round of applause. They deserve a realistic and forward-thinking plan. They deserve a plan that will bring a successful end to this mission so that they can come home. They deserve what many of us asked the President to give us 3 years ago: An exit strategy for Iraq. An exit strategy in Iraq is a crucial step toward declaring victory on the global war on terror.

Mr. Speaker, the People's Republic of China, Communist China, announced today that they have a $13 billion trade surplus for the month of May only. China last year with the U.S. had a $203 billion trade surplus, which, according to the U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission, a government agency, said that accounts in my State alone for a loss potentially of 42,000 manufacturing jobs.

Too many of our Senators, too many of our House Members voted for these trade agreements that outsourced jobs, these job-killing trade agreements that devastate our communities. When places like Mansfield and Chillicothe and Portsmouth and Zanesville and Lima lose these kinds of industrial manufacturing jobs, they hurt our schools, they mean fewer police on the street, they mean weaker fire protection, they mean hardship for our families.

Mr. Speaker, it is time that Members of Congress stood up and quit passing these job-killing trade agreements.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will use significantly less than 5 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Kolbe and Ranking Member Lowey. They deserve tremendous credit for recognizing long ago for many years the domestic and global benefits of tuberculosis control. They have been leaders in this body, and I thank them for that.

There are three compelling reasons to do this amendment: additional dollars will save lives; additional dollars will serve the purpose of fighting not just TB, but contributing to a public health infrastructure and preparedness for a potential bird flu pandemic; and additional TB control dollars now will result in a net reduction of outlays later because of better preparation.

This past March, the CDC reported a 13 percent increase in multidrug- resistant TB in our country, the largest single increase since the early 90s when in Mrs. Lowey's State of New York there was a serious outbreak. When worldwide travel is an everyday affair, we can't afford to ignore this airborne infectious killer that can be spread by a cough or sneeze.

Research published in last September's New England Journal of Medicine showed that U.S. investment in TB control abroad saves U.S. tax dollars and protects health here at home. For example, $35 million invested in TB efforts abroad could save the U.S. over $100 million and prevent nearly 2,600 cases of TB here and over 300 related TB deaths. Even one outbreak of MDR, drug resistant TB, can result in a very costly and deadly resurgence.

Again, what this does is help us with an infrastructure that will help us stop bird flu or any other epidemic. It is essential that we fortify our public health infrastructure.

I again thank Chairman Kolbe and Ranking Member Lowey for their outstanding leadership in helping this Congress fight tuberculosis here and abroad.

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

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