Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take the time of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Mr. Speaker, I join my colleague and friend, Representative Marcy Kaptur, in talking about the trip to Ohio this week of Michael Leavitt, who oversees Medicare and Medicaid and our Nation's various health agencies as America's Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Michael Leavitt is a decent man, but he is manning a ship weighed down by wrongheaded laws and misplaced priorities. Take the so-called Medicare Modernization Act, the legislation written by the drug industry, written by the HMOs in this Congress, pushed through Congress in the middle of the night by literally one vote. The Federal Government, through that bill, the Federal Government is hand-feeding the prescription drug and HMO industries literally hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax dollars to manufacture or to make up and to build a new private insurance market for seniors' drug coverage, and not to provide the coverage directly through Medicare the way people choose their doctor in Medicare, the way people choose their hospital. This is done through 30, 40, or 50 different private insurance companies instead of being done the way that history shows works best.

Why? Because the drug and insurance industry want it that way. This new drug law, this new Medicare law, as I said, written by the drug industry and written by the HMOs, with seniors barely given a second thought, prohibits the Medicare program from negotiating bulk discounts on prescription drugs. And according to the Congressional Budget Office, it overpays insurers, the HMOs, by tens of billions of dollars. So much for fiscal responsibility.

The new drug law also undercuts the core Medicare program. If you want Medicare to wither on the vine, as former Speaker Gingrich said, wall it off and force seniors into the private market, force them out of Medicare, put them into the private market to give them additional benefits. It is ingenious. It is also underhanded and it is fiscal suicide.

Do my Republican colleagues really believe that when the private insurance market controls Medicare that they will give the government and they will give seniors a good deal on coverage? Do they really believe the drug industry will voluntarily charge lower prices for prescription drugs?

The new Medicare drug law isn't about seniors, it isn't about modernization, it isn't about fiscal responsibility. It is about a Republican-run Congress that is a little too cozy with the drug industry and the HMOs.

I am a cosponsor of legislation that would begin to fix this bill. It would enable seniors and disabled Medicare enrollees to bypass the private insurance market, to say, no, I don't want to compare 30 or 40 different insurance plans and 30 or 40 different insurance company brochures, and talk to 30 or 40 different insurance agents. I want to bypass the private insurance market, check a box, and simply add a prescription drug benefit to my Medicare. I get to choose my doctor as a Medicare beneficiary, I get to choose the hospital, I ought to be able to choose my drug formulary.

It would also authorize Medicare to negotiate bulk discounts on prescription drugs. That is the way the Veterans' Administration does it. That is the way most countries in the world do it. That is why drug prices are a third or a fourth or a fifth in every other country in the world, much, much lower prices than there are in the United States.

In other words, this legislation, this new law as we propose the changes, would give seniors and taxpayers a break. Perhaps Secretary Leavitt will make use of his Ohio trip to announce the administration's support for these bills. Perhaps.

May 15 is the cutoff for Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in the new prescription drug program. If they enroll after that date, believe it or not, they have to pay a penalty for late enrollment. Let's think about that. My Republican colleagues in Congress and the Bush administration have finally acknowledged that the drug program got off to a rocky start and is very confusing to seniors. Seniors have sat on the phone for up to 2 hours waiting for someone from the Medicare hotline to help with enrollment questions.

I talked to seniors in Vandalia, Ohio, in Cincinnati, in Norton, and in London, Ohio. All of them say this Medicare drug benefit is way too confusing. Not just prospective enrollees are confused, but State agencies, local service agencies, Federal bureaucrats, even the insurers who offer the new coverage. Finding the right answer to an enrollment question is almost as difficult as choosing which of the 30 or 40 plans to enroll in.

And when seniors did enroll in a plan, there were paperwork problems, there were systems problems, there were transition problems, there were formulary problems, and there were problems in the drugstores where one pharmacist at least, one pharmacy in London, Ohio, had to close because of the additional cost imposed on these small businesses by this bureaucracy created by a Congress that listened to the drug industry and the HMOs more than it listened to drugstores, to pharmacists or to seniors.

The various failings of this drug program made the news virtually every day for 4 months. Maybe Secretary Leavitt will make use of his trip to Ohio to announce the Republican leadership is listening, they have changed their minds, and they want to see a better law. Maybe.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Dana Reeve, who lost her battle to cancer yesterday at the age of 44.

Like her husband, Christopher, Dana will be remembered for her resilience and courage in the face of adversity.

Dana stood by her husband as he fought for his life, working as a tireless advocate for increased funding to find the key to reversing paralysis.

Through the Christopher Reeve Foundation they created together, Chris and Dana moved the science forward and brought hope to 2 million paralyzed Americans and their families.

After Christopher's death in 2004, Dana skillfully led the foundation where she established Quality of Life initiatives to improve the day- to-day lives of paralyzed people. She founded the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center.

Though her life was much too short, Dana left an indelible mark on this world. Her grace and personal strength are an inspiration to us all.

Madam Speaker, today, the House considers S. 2271, The USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act.

I opposed the original 2001 PATRIOT Act because it failed to strike an appropriate balance between giving law enforcement agencies the tools necessary to protect Americans from terrorism and maintaining the freedoms that protect America from tyranny. Like the 2001 bill, the PATRIOT Act reauthorization conference report is unacceptable, and the amendments proposed by S. 2771 again fall short of the mark.

Last year, the Senate unanimously agreed to legislation striking an appropriate balance between security and liberty. That bill offered an opportunity to fight terrorism effectively without giving up our rights and freedoms. By contrast, S. 2271 would make minor changes to the PATRIOT Act, and the final result falls well short of the standard set by the Senate legislation.

We should insist on real PATRIOT Act reform that protects both our safety and our freedom. Until then, I cannot support fig leaf legislation intended to cover up the basic problems of the PATRIOT Act.

You not only have to do the right thing, you have to do it in the right way. This act and these amendments do neither.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud the House Republican leadership for finally standing up to the President and saying no on this agreement, this $6.8 billion contract with the company from the United Arab Emirates.

The problem, however, is more fundamental than just stopping this one. It is what happens with national security in our trade agreements. We are in the middle of negotiating a trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates. If this trade agreement had already been signed, we could not back out of this deal with this United Arab Emirates country. It would be an unfair trade practice.

The administration and the Congress have it exactly backwards. Before signing trade agreements, before negotiating a new trade agreement, we need a provision to address national security concerns first. That means a review about all the implications of national security before we sign these trade agreements. That is why I am introducing legislation tonight to do just that.

Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration recently approved a deal, as we all know, that allowed the operation of six U.S. ports to be taken over by Dubai Ports World, a state-owned company controlled by the Government of the United Arab Emirates, a $6.8 billion contract.

The administration's handling of this deal has drawn criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike, and rightly so.

The 9/11 Commission's final report warns of the United Arab Emirates' record of support for terrorism and its links to September 11, both strategic and financial.

The Congressional Research Service noted the UAE was named as a point of shipment for illegal nuclear components sold by Pakistan.

The U.S. Coast Guard told the administration, referring to the United Arab Emirates-controlled ports, that, ``There are many intelligence gaps, concerning the potential for DPW or PNO assets to support terrorist operations.''

These and other more serious concerns may have been overlooked, as the administration rushed its review of this deal, but what this instance really highlights is a much broader and longer-term concern, the lack of a systematic process for the review of homeland security issues associated with America's international trade policy.

In a post-9/11 world, trade agreements are no longer just vehicles for economic development. Trade agreements, to be sure, lower tariffs in open markets, but they also can lower our defenses as they open our ports and open our infrastructure and open our transportation and supply lines.

In the post-9/11 world, America's trade policies and America's homeland security policies cannot exist separate from each other and in isolation. The risk is simply too great.

For example, the United States Trade Representative right now is currently negotiating a trade deal with the United Arab Emirates. That trade deal would already have been in effect if it had been negotiated, passed by the Senate, passed by the House and signed by the President. It would likely have been declared illegal and unfair trade practice for us to cancel that $6.8 billion deal.

The administration has it exactly backwards. Security needs to go in these trade agreements before they are signed, not pass a trade agreement and then hope for the best to protect the homeland.

Other trade pacts negotiated by the Bush administration have given foreign governments, and even foreign companies, the right to sue the U.S. for government actions that cost the company money. There is no reason to believe that such suits could not be filed in some cases to block homeland security policies. Those suits would be heard by an international tribunal meaning that the U.S. would no longer have independent control over our own national security decisions.

Before we implement the UAE agreement, the one that the U.S.T.R. is negotiating today or any other free trade agreement, we should have a full understanding of homeland security consequences.

That is why I introduced today the Trade-Related America National Security Enhancement and Accountability Act, the TRANSEA bill. My bill would do several things: require a systematic homeland security review of trade agreements, with sign-off from the U.S. Trade Representative, the Homeland Security Department and other responsible agencies, and with reporting to Congress.

Second, it would require that all future agreements include a national security waiver, allowing the President to suspend an agreement or any provision of an agreement if the President determines that the agreement creates a homeland security vulnerability.

Third, it would create an independent trade security commission to watchdog trade policy from a homeland security perspective and report to Congress on potential threats.

Last, it would to allow Congress to force action if the administration fails to respond to a homeland security warning from the commission.

It is absurd to require that our constituents remove their shoes at the airport, but not require that multibillion dollar trade agreements undergo systematic homeland security review.

The TRANSEA Act is an important step toward a policy that reflects the realities of a post-9/11 world. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. Con. Res. 79, a resolution urging that no U.S. assistance should be provided directly to the Palestinian Authority if any representative political party holding a majority of parliamentary seats within the Palestinian Authority maintains a position calling for the destruction of Israel.

With Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections and the continued nuclear aggression of Iran, it is now more important than ever for the U.S. to reaffirm its support for Israel.

With Hamas's new power comes new responsibility. It is time for Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist. It is time for Hamas to lay down its arms and realize the road to peace lies through direct negotiations with Israel.

We must call on Hamas to put an end to violence and terror. They must cease their rhetoric of hate. The U.S. and the international community must strongly urge Hamas to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Mr. Speaker, Congress is about to go home in a few days either today, tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday, sometime in the next few days, and this House, again, has failed to increase the minimum wage.

There are large numbers of people in this country, people with children, often single mothers, sometimes, not usually, adults in their 20s and 30s and 40s who make $5.15 an hour. The Senate finally increased the minimum wage. The House is going to go home sometime in the next few days having failed to even bring up to a vote an increase in the minimum wage.

Since this House floor session began about 16 minutes ago, in that time, a minimum wage worker would have earned about $1.10 or $1.15. A CEO of a Fortune 500 company in this same 16 minutes would have earned about $1,500. Mr. Speaker, we can do a lot better in this body than we have done this year.

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

Joining my friend from Georgia, Mr. Deal, I rise in support of H.R. 4568, the Proficiency Testing Improvement Act.

It makes perfect sense to take steps to ensure that women are receiving accurate results after they have had a Pap test. But it makes no sense to take false steps in that direction. Proficiency testing can be extremely useful, or it can make a bad situation worse. If the proficiency test itself is inaccurate, then both competence and incompetence get lost in the shuffle. It is almost worse than not knowing.

H.R. 4568 gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services authority to revise a 13-year-old regulation that CMS has only recently acted on. The regulation calls for a Federal program to test the proficiency of individual laboratory individuals who read Pap tests.

Since this rule was first proposed in 1992, significant advances, such as computer-assisted screening, location-guided screening, digital imaging, have made a positive impact on screening for cervical cancer.

The proficiency testing system embedded in the agency's rule has not been modified to reflect these significant advances. As a result, the system is rooted in outdated and obsolete medical standards and practices. In fact, the testing scheme adopted 13 years ago but just implemented by the Federal Government this year is based upon standards that go back to the late 1960s.

H.R. 4568 delays implementation of this testing program for 1 year so the agency can review and revise the program to reflect current medical practice. One can look at it from a quality perspective, a safety perspective, an access perspective or a fiscal perspective. From any of those angles, it is in no one's best interest to use the wrong test to evaluate proficiency. All they end up with are more questions.

I want to make clear the bill does not repeal this testing program. It simply puts the program on pause while the agency makes changes to reflect valid and up-to-date medicine and laboratory working conditions.

In September, I joined over 100 Members of the House, from both parties, in sending a letter to Secretary Leavitt, urging him to update the testing program before implementing it. The Secretary of HHS, for whatever reason, has not responded.

In February, the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee, which advises the Department of Health and Human Services, unanimously recommended that the agency revise and update this 13-year-old regulation; yet the agency continues to move forward with a January 1, 2006, implementation date.

If we are serious in this body about promoting quality health care, we should ensure that the Federal Government's regulations are keeping pace with 21st Century medicine. This bill will help do that. I urge my colleagues to support it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from South Dakota (Ms. Herseth), who has been a terrific advocate for women's health in our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I was just looking through the CMS informational supplement on this whole issue, and I just wanted to read the reason that CMS could not get its act together through Secretary Thompson and now Secretary Leavitt, that they have delayed this so much longer than it needed to, and this is their sort of double speak, if you will:

``Implementation of cytology proficiency testing has taken an extended period of time due to the absence of qualified national proficiency testing organizations and insufficient number of reference cytology testing materials and significant technical difficulties. Currently, there are two CMS-approved cytology proficiency testing programs in the country for 2005, and we anticipate the approval of additional programs in 2006.''

So the last 5 years both Secretary Thompson and Secretary Leavitt have not been able to get this whole program up and running. Now we have this same cast of characters telling the country that we have got to implement the Medicare bill right now when plenty of people in this body, led by Ms. Schakowsky of Illinois and Mr. Stark from California, it said on the Medicare bill that we should push back the deadline for people who want to benefit from the Medicare prescription drug benefit program, who want to benefit but cannot yet make their minds up because of the complexity of it. And they will be actually financially penalized if they do not make that decision more quickly than many seniors feel that they are capable of making.

At the same time, we are also doing nothing to allow the Secretary of CMS to bring down the price of prescription drugs. In fact, this institution, this body, prohibited the government from negotiating lower prices. So while Secretary Thompson and now Secretary Leavitt could not get their act together on this, they seem to want to move forward too quickly on Medicare, forcing seniors to make a choice prematurely in the minds of many seniors or pay an economic financial penalty for every month they delay, and at the same time doing nothing to bring the price of prescription drugs down.

It all fits together in a peculiar way, Mr. Speaker. That does not mean this bill is not important. I join my colleague, Mr. Deal, in support of it. As always, there is a little bigger picture here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H.R. 3204, which authorizes funding for State high risk insurance pools. I commend my colleagues Mr. Shadegg and Mr. Towns for their hard work on this legislation.

In many States, high risk insurance pools are the only options for individuals who have been denied access to coverage in the commercial insurance system. This legislation before us is intended not only to strengthen existing high risk pools but to help States without such pools, my State of Ohio is one of them, to establish them. But as we reauthorize this legislation, it is important to place high risk insurance pools in context. These pools are a symptom of a troubled insurance system, not a cure for it.

The fact is, health insurance itself is supposed to serve as a high risk pool. It used to be that health insurance was offered to everyone at the same premium because any one of us could be the unlucky one to need health care that we simply could not afford. By spreading the risk broadly, good health insurance could be affordable for everyone regardless of their health needs. But commercial insurers did what businesses do: They figured out, of course, how to maximize profits. You cannot blame them for that. You can, however, blame us, blame this Congress, blame State legislators, blame policymakers for letting them get away with it.

The best way to earn profits in the health insurance industry is simple: It is to avoid insuring people who might actually use their coverage. Health insurers use every trick in the book, as we know, that they can come up with to avoid those people. To the extent that they can get away with it, commercial insurers underwrite and price people who need coverage right out of the insurance market. Private health insurance used to be a community; now it is a country club. So we are left with stop-gap mechanisms like high risk insurance pools. They are far from ideal, but our most vulnerable citizens would be worse off without them. We should make sure high risk insurance pools are available. But we should also keep

working until we render them unnecessary.

I appreciate the author's willingness to accept an amendment I offered during committee to ensure that States use at least 50 percent of the bill's funding to expand to the pool or to improve the high risk coverage. As it stands today, States can and States have used Federal risk pool funding to replace dollars collected for the pool from private health insurers, leaving the risk pools themselves no better off. That is a subversion of the bill's purpose. That is a questionable use of Federal funding.

My amendment reminds the States the Federal high risk pool funding is intended to expand the quality and the reach of high risk pools, not to let commercial insurers again off the hook for making these pools necessary. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation on behalf of individuals disenfranchised from private health insurance.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, December 6, 2005, I was unable to cast votes on two measures on the suspension calendar. I ask that my absence be excused, and that the Congressional Record show that had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on H. Res. 535, honoring the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin, and ``yea'' on H. Res. 479, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from California (Mr. Stark) for his leadership on the Ways and Means Committee on trade issues and especially on health care issues.

I today rise to announce that I will reluctantly vote against the Bahrain Free Trade Agreement. Unfortunately, despite the tough battle in this institution over the Central American Free Trade agreement, very little has changed. It is too bad because this agreement could have been a step forward, but it is the same rubber-stamp trade template this administration refuses to alter. People praise U.S. Trade Representative Portman for being a nice guy, which he is. They praise him for his good manners and intelligence and straightforwardness, all of which he deserves. He comes to the Hill and talks to Democrats occasionally and says he wants to work with us.

But then when you look at the text of the Bahrain Trade Agreement, labor and environmental provisions are again given short shrift. Meanwhile, intellectual property protections, financial protections are as strong as ever. We continue to protect corporate interests without protecting workers. We continue to protect drug company interests without protecting the environment. We continue to protect financial institutions without protecting food safety laws.

When I first ran for Congress in 1992, our country had a trade deficit of $38 billion. A dozen years later, last year in 2004, our trade deficit was $618 billion. In this year, by the end of the year, it will probably exceed $700 billion. From $38 billion to $618 billion to $700-plus billion in less than a decade and a half. The deficit with China alone will approach $200 billion this year.

Many of our trading partners succeed because they use forced labor, child labor, sweatshop labor. They do not have the environmental protections and health regulations we enjoy in the United States. Other countries like China and Japan manipulate currency to their advantage. They do not play fair. The United States again loses.

I would like to caution my colleagues, just because USTR is giving us major face time on Capitol Hill does not mean they are actually listening to what we are saying. The overwhelming majority of Members of this Congress support strong labor and environmental standards for trade agreement. We know that because they were in the core text of the Jordan Trade Agreement which passed by a voice vote. I was sitting on the House floor at the time. No one, no one voiced opposition to the Jordan Free Trade Agreement which included those core labor and environmental standards.

But today the template is always the same. The Bush administration changes nothing. Every trade agreement, every trade agreement we voted on since Jordan has been a step back and there is no indication that the administration even cares about that. So do not be fooled by smiling faces and hollow pledges. Until the text of these agreements contain the same protections for labor and the environment, the same protections for labor and the environment as these agreements always include for multi-national corporations and the drug industry, the pharmaceutical industry, we should stand against them.

We all remember in July, in the middle of the night, we remember passing the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Same old story. The debate took place late. The votes were cast in the middle of the night. The roll call was kept open for over an hour. Republican Members had their arms twisted. Some, perhaps, were bribed. Perhaps, we do not really know that. Some may have been bribed. Some were certainly offered little goodies or at least given threats if they did not change their vote. We know all that. To pass CAFTA they had to do that in the middle of the night.

It passed by two votes. If one Member had not switched a vote, it would have been tied. It would have been defeated.

We heard the same promises on CAFTA as we hear today. More jobs, better everything for the developing world.

After hearing all of that for CAFTA, let me just quote from the Boston Globe. The headline was: ``CAFTA Blamed For Layoffs At Edenton Textile Plant.'' Edenton, North Carolina. More than 200 employees will lose their jobs at an Edenton manufacturing plant when the company moves most of its operations to Central America in the coming year. Edenton Town Manager Anne-Marie Knighton said the decision by the Moore Company is the result of the recently adopted Central American Free Trade Agreement.

It did not take long for CAFTA to begin to cost us jobs. We hear the same promises in Bahrain as we heard on CAFTA, the same promises on CAFTA that we heard about China, the same promises on China as we heard about NAFTA.

If the administration continues on its current course, we can count on a few things for certain. Our trade deficit will skyrocket and more U.S. jobs will be outsourced.

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

Hurricane Katrina exposed poverty for what it is. It reminded us that poverty ensnares Americans who work hard, who pay their taxes, who play by the rules. Yet on the wages they earn, millions of Americans are falling further behind. They often cannot afford health care. They cannot afford child care. They cannot afford transportation, and they cannot afford our indifference.

I cannot understand how less than 3 months after Katrina, Republicans can take Medicaid away from people who need it. Medicaid is not a luxury. It is a lifeline. It does not pay for luxuries. It pays for health care and nursing homes. Medicaid does not protect some of us; it protects all of us. Disability, job loss, disappearing pensions, natural disasters, aging parents. If one is an elderly American living in Ohio, they must be living at or below 64 percent of poverty to qualify for Medicaid. What is an elderly American who earns $5,800 a year going to do while she waits for Medicaid to help her?

Time and again, Republicans feed on programs for the poor to finance tax cuts for the rich. It does not matter if the Nation is paying for a war, rebuilding after a hurricane, running up record deficits, or bleeding jobs right and left. Their policy is always the same: cut programs for the poor, give tax breaks to the rich.

When this bill was considered in the Commerce Committee, I offered an amendment to leave Medicaid funding alone and, instead, eliminate $20 billion in overpayments to insurance company HMOs. Republican leadership said no. They want to take care away from people who desperately need our help, but they do not want to eliminate bonus payments to insurance company HMOs. And the President agrees. He said he would veto the bill if we touch those HMO payments. But he is fine with our cutting Medicaid. I guess the elderly in nursing homes do not make political contributions to the President.

Mr. Speaker, it was the American people, not the insurance company/ HMO industry, who hired us. Vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, earlier today the House International Relations Committee convened to consider an important resolution of inquiry, H. Res. 505.

The resolution would have required the President and Secretary of State to turn over to the House of Representatives all white papers, minutes, notes, e-mails or other communications relating to the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).

Unfortunately, the committee voted to report the resolution unfavorably, so we won't be getting those important documents.

It was also unfortunate that the committee called for a vote before all Democrats wishing to speak could be heard. Because the chairman acted in this manner, further debate was closed.

Due to this, I feel it necessary to have my statement from the International Relations Committee included in the Congressional Record.

I hope that in the future, when our committee meets on important legislation with serious international and national security implications, all members will be allowed to address their concerns vocally and publicly.

My statement for the committee record appears below.

Here we are again, asking for the answers to the same

questions we've been asking for over two and a half years.

I commend my colleagues for introducing H. Res. 505, a

resolution that would require the President and Secretary of

State to turn over to the House of Representatives all white

papers, minutes, notes, e-mails or other communications

relating to the White House Iraq Group (WHIG).

It seems many of my colleagues on the other side of the

aisle have forgotten that Congress has an obligation to the

American people to oversee the activities of the Executive

Branch.

Because of that duty, we owe it to the American public to

investigate the actions of the WHIG if we are to determine

what the Bush Administration was peddling less than the

actual truth of the Iraqi threat prior to going to war.

Over the past several years, Congress has continually

failed to investigate the Administration's faulty

intelligence claims with regard to Iraq.

Now we know that Andrew Card formed the WHIG in 2002, with

the goal of marketing an

invasion of Iraq. The group included numerous senior

administration officials, including Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby,

Karl Rove and Condoleezza Rice.

It appears much of the administrations support for the Iraq

invasion came from the WHIG, and it helped create materials

for use by administration officials.

The materials were then used to make claims which it

appears the members of the WHIG knew or had reason to know

were questionable or false.

In the buildup to the war, these materials included but

were not limited to possible erroneous claims that Iraq

sought uranium from Niger; that Iraq's aluminum tubes could

be used only for nuclear weapons purposes; and that Iraq was

a training ground for Al Qaeda operatives.

Following these and similar claims, an aggressive media

assault continued. In mid-September 2002, Condoleeza Rice

stated that action on Iraq was necessary because, ``We don't

want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.''

Vice President Cheney also appeared that month on ``Meet

the Press'' stating that Saddam Hussein was ``actively and

aggressively'' working towards a nuclear bomb.

President Bush himself claimed during a 2002 major speech

in Cincinnati: ``We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda

members in bomb- making and deadly gases.''

The American people deserve answers regarding the truth

about information peddled by WHIG.

I urge my colleagues to do no more than their Congressional

service demands--we must investigate possible wrongdoing by

the Executive Branch.

If you do not fear the truth, you will vote to report this

resolution favorably.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, November 7, 2005, I was unable to cast votes on 3 measures on the suspension calendar. I ask that my absence be excused, and

that the Congressional Record show that had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on H. Con. Res. 260 (Recognizing the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, and the continuing need for mutual inter-religious respect and dialogue), ``yea'' on H.R. 1973 (Water for the Poor Act of 2005), and ``yea'' on H. Res. 444 (Gynecological Resolution for Advancement of Ovarian Cancer Education).

Mr. Speaker, every time you look, the rationale for the Iraq war has shifted. It went from being about weapons of mass destruction to removing Saddam Hussein to trying to build a democratic Iraq.

We were told this war would be over in a matter of weeks, and that the Iraqis would be able to finance it with oil sales. We were promised it was not a mission of nation building.

But the reality is we're two years in and we've spent more than $200 billion dollars on this venture. And who is paying for all of this? The American taxpayer.

The outstanding public debt as of October 3 is almost $8,000,000,000,000 (eight trillion). With a population approaching 300 million, each U.S. citizen's share of this debt is about $27,000.

Big government conservatives are spending trillions and wasting billions. Republicans are no longer the party of fiscal conservancy, but the party of runaway spending and corruption.

The majority's oversight of the spending in Iraq has been simply disgraceful. The time for accountability is long overdue. It is time to stop handing the president blank checks.

Each week in Iraq, the deadly attacks continue, and more of our troops are lost. Our death toll now is past 2,000 Americans.

These attacks remind us again of the urgent need to develop a more effective strategy in Iraq--one I and my colleagues on this side of the aisle suggested before we went to war, and one that was disregarded.

The reality in Iraq is that we are creating new terrorists and severely damaging the public impression of the United States in the Muslim world.

We should not be advocating an immediate withdrawal. But we need an exit strategy addressing our goals in Iraq and proposing the announcement of a timetable to draw down the majority of U.S. forces during 2006.

Yet the president still refuses to level with Congress and the American people about when such withdrawals may actually come to pass.

Our military leaders have repeatedly told us that there is no purely military solution in Iraq, and that a political settlement is a necessary element for success.

Meanwhile, the Administration continues urging the American people to ``stay the course.'' That's a bumper sticker slogan, not a strategy.

The dishonesty needs to stop. The American people deserve better.

Our troops have done everything we've asked of them in Iraq. They have acted heroically. They have done their job.

We must have a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. forces--or at the very least a plan for it--something the administration has incredulously failed to do for over two years.

This means conveying that our troops will not be there forever. It means the Iraqis must come together. Only Iraqi unity can stop the insurgency, not a permanent U.S. military presence.

The administration has been sending the wrong message with repeated statements that we will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed.

We should not mislead the Iraqis into thinking they have unlimited time to reach a settlement. The longer they think that, the less likely they will be to act.

The administration needs to speak honestly with the American people. Exaggerating our progress in defeating the insurgency or in creating an Iraqi army paints a dangerous picture. Repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained our forces and have hurt recruitment.

The American people are losing patience with the mounting casualties and costs.

Democrats are asking the administration to do its job and to develop a strategy for successful completion of the mission.

It's past time for a plan to ensure that our mission in Iraq is a success and that our brave men and women in uniform can begin to come home soon.

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

From increased gas prices to corruption in Ohio and Washington; from record spending and record debt to jobs shipped overseas; and from failing to supply body armor to our troops in Iraq to skyrocketing healthcare costs, the Republican agenda has proved a failure.

And they've done nothing to remedy it.

The Republicans are running wild with our tax dollars and it's been a mistake to let this administration continue a policy of incompetence when it comes to Iraq.

It is past time for Republican leadership to answer for record deficits and reckless spending, both in Iraq and in the U.S. It's time for a plan to bring our troops home.

It's a message the American people understand, but Republicans aren't willing to accept.