Floor Statements

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

Madam Speaker, House Resolution 1266 congratulates the countries of Albania and Croatia on their recent invitation to join the NATO Alliance. Both countries have struggled to implement significant democratic and economic reforms over the past two decades. The invitations for these countries to join NATO are recognition of the progress that they have both made in spite of such obstacles.

This resolution also recognizes the importance of continued expansion of the NATO Alliance to include other European countries that may meet NATO's membership standards. The expansion of the alliance and the finalization of Membership Action Plans with countries that have not yet been invited to join NATO is a necessary next step for countries like Georgia and Ukraine, for example, that have not yet been invited to join NATO.

As this resolution notes, NATO's continued enlargement will strengthen security in the Euro-Atlantic region.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly), the author of this resolution and also the ranking member and former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Europe.

(Mr. GALLEGLY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich), who is also the cochairman of the House Croatian Caucus.

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

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

I would first like to also commend the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) for his leadership and his offering this particular resolution, and I also rise to support this resolution, H. Res. 1279, which recognizes the Special Olympics on its 40th anniversary.

On July 20, 1968, as was mentioned, Eunice Kennedy Shriver organized the first Special Olympic Summer Games, which took place at Soldier Field in Chicago. Since then, the Special Olympics has become one of the most prominent and celebrated sporting programs in the entire world. The Special Olympics today serves more than 2\1/2\ million people with intellectual disabilities.

These inspirational athletes work with more than 1 million volunteers and coaches worldwide, training year round for competition in both Summer and Winter Games. In more than 200 countries, the Special Olympics has shown that intellectual disabilities are no impediment to fun and healthy athletic competition. These athletes are supported by more than 18,000 dedicated volunteers.

In my own State, Special Olympics Ohio has approximately 200 local member organizations and over 18,000 athletes who are in training and competition. These organizations originate from county boards of MR/DD, public schools, developmental centers, parks and recreation departments, churches, and parent and community groups.

For the past 40 years, these games have empowered individuals with intellectual disabilities to become physically fit and have fun while engaging in sports training and competition.

As was indicated by the gentleman from California, and I think the quote again warrants stating, that like the gladiators of ancient Rome, Special Olympics athletes pledge, ``Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.''

On this 40th anniversary, we congratulate these courageous athletes and wish the program many more years of continued success.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry), who is the author of this particular resolution. As I indicated before, he is also a member of the powerful Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Madam Speaker, we have no further speakers and we yield back our time.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution which underscores Beijing's broken promise to the International Olympic Committee and the international community. When Beijing was awarded the 2008 Summer Olympics, China's leaders committed themselves to using this historic event as a catalyst to improve human rights for the citizens of the world's most populous nation. By all credible accounts, however, the human rights situation in China has not improved on the eve of the games. The Olympics has led China's draconian security forces to further crack down on dissidents and increase repression of minority groups. The glimmer of gold from Olympic medals in Beijing cannot conceal a tarnished record of Chinese official sponsorship of dictatorial regimes in Sudan, Burma and North Korea. The shine of silver cannot blind us to the fact that the Beijing regime continues its bloody suppression of minority groups, including the Tibetans. The brilliance of bronze cannot block out the repression of Falun Gong practitioners, Internet journalists, underground church believers and other political prisoners left to languish in the laogai forced labor camps and the vast prison system.

In a report issued just yesterday, Amnesty International affirmed that in the last year alone, thousands of dissidents, reformers and other independent voices were arrested as part of a campaign by Chinese authorities to ``clean up'' Beijing before the start of the Olympic games. According to the report, human rights activists have been targeted in other parts of the country as well, with many of those arrested and sentenced to manual labor without trial. Amnesty's report cites the case of one activist who was arrested earlier this month on charges of possessing state secrets, although it is believed that the arrest was prompted by his efforts to help the families of children killed in May's earthquake bring a legal case against local authorities.

Amnesty's deputy director in Asia said: ``By continuing to persecute and punish those who speak out for human rights, the Chinese authorities have lost sight of the promises they made when they were granted the games 7 years ago. The Chinese authorities are tarnishing the legacy of the games.'' I agree with what he said.

When it comes to the pursuit of democratic values and human rights, we remain a world divided with a dream unfulfilled for many in China and elsewhere. I urge my colleagues to join in sending the Chinese leadership a strong message.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health and a long-standing champion of human rights in China and around the world.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Indiana (Mr. Pence) who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, a former judge, Mr. Poe, an esteemed member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the author of China-related resolutions, part of which were incorporated into this measure.

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

I appreciate the Speaker's words relative to China. The Speaker has a very tough job, and with that job goes praise and criticism. I know many of us, including myself, have been critical of the Speaker for not allowing, for example, a vote on ANWR on the floor of this House and we certainly think that we ought to have that vote.

But I want to praise the Speaker on her speaking out when she was on a trip in India on a codel and she spoke out when the crackdown on Tibet was occurring, the scandalous, outrageous crackdown on Tibet was occurring. The Speaker spoke out, and I issued a press release and also a personal letter thanking her for speaking out on behalf of our country. I think it was the right thing for her to do, and I think it took a lot of courage for the Speaker of the House to actually speak out on behalf of Tibetans who are undergoing considerable civil rights, human rights abuses.

The fact is, there are still, according to a recent article, at least 1,000 Tibetans that are unaccounted for because of this crackdown by the PRC, by Communist China. This is a very serious issue, and I'm glad that we're taking up this resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) who is the cochair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and who recently traveled to China.

I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

I rise in strong support of this resolution, H. Res. 1351. I would like to also thank the distinguished gentleman from California, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for his support and his leadership on this, as well as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Capuano) for his leadership and their hard work in making this resolution possible. I also want to thank Ranking Member Ileana Ros- Lehtinen from Florida for her support.

Each day that passes without the full support of the international community for the U.N.'s peacekeeping mission in Darfur is another day that these innocent people, and now the peacekeepers assigned to protect them, have to live in fear.

Last year I had the opportunity to travel to Darfur with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas and Congressman Adrian Smith of Nebraska to witness firsthand the devastation of this region. The refugees with whom we met, mostly women and children in the refugee camps, described harrowing experiences of escape from the Janjaweed and the Sudanese Government. They're descriptions that I will never forget. Many of these women had been raped. Many of their husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers had been brutally murdered.

We met with them in refugee camps in Darfur just weeks following the unanimous decision by the United Nations Security Council to deploy 26,000 peacekeepers to the region. Yet progress in Darfur has been jeopardized, as H. Res. 1351 points out. Almost a year since Security Resolution 1769 passed, the mission lacks more than 16,000 troops and police officers as well as essential communications equipment and helicopters. That's one of the things that they need the most, all of which are critical to the mission's success.

The skeleton mission has been met with continued roadblocks from the Sudanese government which has thwarted it at every step, refusing to cooperate on the composition of the hybrid force, refusing to authorize night flights, refusing to issue visas for necessary staff, or to provide access to certain areas.

The lack of international support for the mission and the opposition that it faces in the region has and continues to compromise the ability of UNAMID peacekeepers to secure the region--not only leaving the Darfuri people vulnerable to continued attacks but now the peacekeepers assigned to protect them.

As the chairman indicated, back on July 8 of this year, this month, a couple of weeks ago, the world witnessed

the deadliest attacks yet on our peacekeeping mission which resulted in seven deaths and 22 wounded. On July 16, another peacekeeper from Nigeria was attacked and killed. These attacks come on the heels of pleas from the U.N. that shortages of resources could ``jeopardize its efforts to stabilize the region.'' U.N. member nations and the rest of the international community must not sit idly by and watch the mission in Darfur fail at the expense of the millions of innocent people who have already survived one genocide.

I think it is important to note that while the United States is often criticized for not doing enough, $4 billion or 72 percent--let me repeat that, 72 percent--of the cost of peacekeeping, development, reconstruction, and humanitarian efforts in Darfur have been paid for by the United States. So 72 percent is being funded by the American taxpayers. It is past time for our European allies, and especially the wealthy Arab countries, to assist in this effort.

If we're paying 72 percent, I think you have to consider that we're sending literally hundreds of billions of dollars now to the Middle East, the wealthy oil countries there. And most of the people that have suffered in the Darfur region are Muslims, and the Arab countries have done little or nothing, many of them, despite the fact that we have hundreds of millions of dollars going over there for their oil revenues.

And so, rather than building another expensive hotel or buying another yacht or some other luxury item, some of these dollars ought to be diverted to the poor people in Darfur, perhaps to buy some helicopters so that we can get the U.N. troops in to help these people that have, as I indicated, already survived one genocide and are essentially in the middle of another if the world doesn't act.

So, for those who criticize the United States for doing enough--and yes, we always should do more--remember, we're supporting 72 percent of the effort there. The rest of the world is providing the other 28 percent. And let's urge, to the extent that we're able, those wealthy Arab oil countries to foot a fair portion of the bill to help out in this effort.

And I urge my colleagues to support this critical mission by supporting H. Res. 1351.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who's the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. He's been a long-time, strong advocate for the people of Darfur and somebody that I consulted with, along with Mr. Wolf, before I went over there to get advice from people that had been there and knew the best way to spend our time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) who's been a long-time leader in world human rights issues over his career.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to wrap up. I will be brief.

One of the previous resolutions that we had talked about China and the human rights abuses that have occurred, and they're just having the Olympics coming up. And the fact is, it hasn't been mentioned yet in this particular debate, but China has played a particularly unhelpful role, quite frankly, in Darfur and Sudan. They have been very much involved behind the scenes, particularly with respect to oil interests in Darfur and have made it possible for the government in Darfur to continue to flaunt world opinion, who basically has been indicating to the Sudanese Government you need to cooperate here. This is an embarrassment to the whole world, how people in Darfur are being treated. It makes you, the Sudanese Government, look bad; why don't you get with the program, reform, cooperate, and help these people.

Unfortunately, again, China who has considerable influence that it could act upon if it chose to do so, has, in some minor instances, been somewhat helpful but for the most part has failed to step up to the plate and actually put pressure on the Sudanese Government to do something finally about Darfur.

So I would strongly urge, once again, that China, in this particular instance, do the right thing, put pressure on the Sudanese Government to do something to relieve the terrible conditions that the people of Darfur have suffered under, whether it's genocide, whether it's literally starvation in some instances. China, do what's right and help the people of Darfur.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 1008, which condemns the Iranian Government's continuing persecution of members of the Baha'i faith, calls on Iran's Parliament to reject a proposed Islamic penal code, and calls on the Iranian regime to immediately release 10 imprisoned Baha'is.

Mr. Speaker, Tehran's notoriously cruel regime, which denies religious freedoms to its citizens, has made a special example of the Iranian Baha'is. In addition to seizing Baha'i communal property, the Iranian Government prohibits the community from officially assembling, bans them from practicing or teaching their religion, excludes them from the national pension system and from public universities, prevents them from inheriting property, and jails them on account of their faith or on trumped-up charges of espionage.

Recently, Iranian Baha'is have also reported a string of arson attacks against their homes and vehicles. Disturbingly, this persecution continues to the grave. In 2007, two Baha'i cemeteries in Iran were destroyed or bulldozed, wiping away the memory of these innocent Iranians.

Mr. Speaker, oppression of Baha'is comes from the very top of the Iranian regime. The U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief has revealed that in 2005, the chairman of the command headquarters of Iran's Armed Forces wrote a letter stating that Iran's so-called ``supreme leader'' had ordered the headquarters to identify and monitor Iranian members of the Baha'i faith.

This was no idle request. In March and May of 2008, the Government of Iran arrested and imprisoned seven senior leaders of the Baha'i community in Iran. And today, those leaders, along with three other Baha'is, remain imprisoned without charge.

Now Iran's Parliament may aggravate repression of religious freedom by enacting a draft Islamic penal code that would punish so-called ``apostates,'' including all Baha'is and converts from Islam, with death. Iran's regime continues to demonstrate that it is ready and willing to execute innocent people.

Mr. Speaker, totalitarian regimes everywhere, hiding behind the false excuse of state sovereignty, are eager to combat any progress in human rights and freedoms and to expand their hegemony and repression as far as others allow them to do. Therefore, the United States must continue to make

clear, in both word and deed, that the spread of religious freedom and human rights worldwide is not merely an ideal, but an imperative.

I thank my distinguished colleague and friend from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) for introducing this resolution.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), who is the author of this resolution. He is also a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee.

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

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 381, a resolution recognizing the dedication and achievements of Thurgood Marshall on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Justice Marshall's life was full of distinction and firsts, including successfully arguing to overturn the separate but equal doctrine before the U.S. Supreme Court and the seminal case of Brown v. Board of Education, serving as the Nation's first African American solicitor general and later serving as the first African American U.S. Supreme Court justice, a position that he held for 24 years.

Still, at an early age with the premise that all men are created equal, Justice Marshall dedicated his life to bringing meaning to the protections enshrined in our Constitution. His work transformed this Nation. First, at the NAACP and later in the public sector, Justice Thurgood Marshall put civil rights at the forefront of this Nation's conscience, ensuring that the Constitution and rule of law applied fairly to all citizens.

I commend the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, Congressman Payne, for ensuring that Thurgood Marshall's legacy lives on. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

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

I am pleased to join the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) in support of H.R. 5057, the Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act.

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney introduced this legislation to reauthorize the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Elimination Grant Program through fiscal year 2014 at $151 million per year.

DNA has become an invaluable tool in identifying and convicting criminal suspects. At the same time, the increased use of DNA evidence in criminal prosecutions has also increased DNA collection and processing requests. The result is a substantial backlog in processing DNA evidence across the country.

The Debbie Smith program provides grants to State and local governments to reduce the DNA backlog of samples collected and entered into the national DNA database. The program, originally authorized in 2000, expires at the end of fiscal year 2009.

Since 2000, DNA backlog grants have assisted State and local governments with the collection of 2.5 million DNA samples from convicted offenders and

arrestees for inclusion in the national DNA database. The backlog grants have also funded the testing of approximately 104,000 DNA cases between 2004 and 2007.

While the Debbie Smith Program has indeed been successful in reducing the backlog, there is still work to do. A 2003 Department of Justice report indicated a backlog of 48,000 DNA samples. The current backlog is expected to be just as high.

Mr. Speaker, every 2.7 minutes a person becomes a victim of sexual assault in this country. That's 22 Americans every hour, 528 every day, and over 3,600 every week who are the victims of rape or sexual assault. Debbie Smith was one of these victims, and it took 6 years before her assailant was identified through DNA evidence.

I also would like to commend Debbie Smith and her family for their courage and determination to help others who may become victims and also to prevent others from becoming victims in the future. It's very commendable for her and very brave of her and her family to step forward and go through what they have gone through.

There is another aspect of this bill that I would also like to highlight, and that is the expansion of the grant program to locate and identify missing persons and human remains. There are estimated to be more than 40,000 sets of unidentified human remains just, oftentimes, literally sitting on the shelves in medical examiner offices or in law enforcement offices or in coroner offices around the country. These cases have been put at the bottom of the list far too often, while most recent cases are investigated and solved using DNA technology. Yet, many of the 40,000 are also victims of heinous crimes.

For example in 1996, a woman who became a very good friend of myself and the staff people in my office, Debbie Culberson, her daughter Carrie died a gruesome death. While the murderer was convicted and will serve the rest of his life in jail, Carrie has never been found. Evidence has led investigators to the Ohio River, which divides the States of Ohio and Kentucky, but we don't know for sure.

Grants such as those made available by H.R. 5057 will ensure that law enforcement nationwide have the resources to make identifying these human remains a priority as well.

Congress has a responsibility to assist States with investigating, prosecuting, and severely punishing those who commit rapes and other sexual offenses and provide justice for victims. The Debbie Smith Reauthorization Act protects victims by providing Federal funding to process the DNA evidence needed to take violent criminals off the streets.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this important legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 3218, the Criminal History Background Checks Pilot Extension Act of 2008, which extends the Child Safety Pilot Program for volunteer organizations for an additional 6 months.

Originally created in 2003 under the PROTECT Act, the Child Safety Pilot Program has proven to be an effective resource for groups such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the National Mentoring Partnership, and the National Council of Youth Sports.

Through the pilot program, any nonprofit organization that provides youth-focused care, as defined in the National Child Protection Act of 1993, may request criminal history background checks from the FBI on applicants for volunteer or employee positions that entail working with children.

Currently, over 10,000 background checks have been administered through the Child Safety Pilot Program. Of those checks, 7.5 percent of all workers screened had an arrest or conviction on their record. Crimes uncovered included rape, child sexual abuse, murder, and domestic battery. Over 25 percent of applicants with a criminal record committed crimes in States other than where they were applying to work. If it weren't for the Child Safety Pilot Program, employers may not have known that the applicants had criminal records.

Volunteer organizations across the country are working hard to provide safe learning and growing environments for our children. That means hiring professional and responsible employees. S. 3218 extends a program that has successfully helped these groups do just that.

I urge my colleagues to join in supporting this important legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5464, a bill that would authorize the A Child is Missing Program for the next 5 years.

I would like to thank the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Klein) for his work on this important bill.

The A Child is Missing Program is an unsung tool that our law enforcement and communities have been using since 1997 to locate missing children and also elderly that are missing due to Alzheimer's or other difficulties.

I would also like to recognize the founder of this program that was founded back in January 1997. I had the opportunity to meet with her in Cincinnati, the Greater Cincinnati area, Norwood, in particular, Sherry Friedlander, who is in the gallery today. And if she could stand, I would like to acknowledge her.

Statistics released by the Center for Missing and Exploited Children reveal that more than 2,000 children go missing each day in this country. Let me repeat that, 2,000 children go missing every day in this country.

We know that the first couple of hours a child is missing are critical to the successful recovery of that child. While the AMBER Alert is a critical tool, it takes hours to initiate. The A Child is Missing program fills that void, alerting and mobilizing the community almost immediately. The A Child is Missing program has been credited with over 300 safe-assisted recoveries and is supported by law enforcement organizations all over the country. In my own district, the First District of Ohio, local law enforcement agencies have directly benefited from

the program. In fact, just this past May, we highlighted the program's success in the city of Norwood, as I mentioned before, Norwood, Ohio.

H.R. 5464 will ensure that the program has the resources it needs over the next 5 years to continue serving communities like Norwood, Ohio, and communities all over the country. I urge my colleagues to support this critical program by passing H.R. 5464.

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

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise in support of S. 231, a bill to reauthorize the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program through fiscal year 2012.

This bill continues to fund the Department of Justice Byrne/JAG Grant Program at the fiscal year 2006 level. The House passed companion legislation, H.R. 3546, just a few weeks ago.

The Byrne/JAG Program provides assistance to State and local law enforcement officials. These grants support a wide range of law enforcement activities to prevent and control crime and improve the criminal justice system. Byrne/JAG grants may be used to help pay for personnel, overtime, or equipment. Funds are also used for statewide initiatives, technical assistance, and training.

In June the FBI released its 2007 Unified Crime Report detailing the statistics for violent crime nationwide. The rate for violent crimes, including robbery, sexual assault, and murder, decreased nationally. However, the report also showed that the rate of violent crime increased in some communities across the country.

Our Nation's law enforcement officials are dedicated to preventing crime and keeping our communities safe, and their efforts should be applauded. Congress plays an important role in supporting State and local law enforcement officials by continuing to reauthorize programs like this at appropriate levels.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentlelady for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I'll be brief. Let me just start by saying that I appreciate both the chairman's and the ranking member's work on this critical issue. Drugs and cartels and the violence and terror that they bring not only undermine public safety but threaten our security as a Nation. We need to work cooperatively with those nations that are on the front lines of this drug war that we've been involved in for such a long time.

However, I want to mention one fact that I think is very important. Last summer, news reports highlighted the unwillingness of the Mexican Government to work with the U.S. to resolve a mile and a half boundary dispute near Columbus, New Mexico. Because

of a mapping error, the fence that we're building was constructed on Mexican land. Although the U.S. government promptly notified the Mexican Government of the error, the Mexican Government demands that the mistake be corrected at a cost of $3 million to the United States; this, despite the fact that the previously existing boundary had never been in dispute prior to notification by the U.S., and the fact that the U.S. has provided more than $270 million in aid to Mexico between 2004 and 2007, including more than $140 million for counter-narcotics and law enforcement.

Today, we are authorizing funding for an additional $1.6 billion over 3 years. Last July, I introduced House Resolution 545, which states that it is the sense of this Congress that if Mexico doesn't work together to resolve this boundary dispute, U.S. assistance to Mexico should be reduced in a corresponding amount; in other words, $3 million. If it is costing the taxpayers of this country $3 million to do this, which was previously an undisputed border area, it seems like it ought to come out of their money and not ours, since we were the ones that brought it to their attention to begin with.

Now, some people up here in Washington may think that $3 million isn't a lot of money. Well I can tell you it is a lot of money to the folks back in my district and districts all over this country, particularly when you figure that we are spending approximately $4 a gallon for gas nowadays. So it is a lot of money and ought to be taken seriously.

If the U.S. and Mexico are truly partners, and we claim to be, and they claim to be, we should be working together in all areas, including the construction of this fence. We ought to be working cooperatively in this matter. And it plays a key role in our international interdiction efforts, not to mention the border security.

So this $3 million, if we are going to have to go back and rebuild this because of this good faith error, I believe that ought to be taken out of the U.S. aid which is going in their direction, and not from the U.S. taxpayer.

I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding.

I think it is wonderful that we are talking about the Soap Box Derby. It is a good thing that it doesn't require any energy or any gasoline, because the gas prices in this country are higher than I think anybody would have expected in our lifetimes. It is about $4 a gallon now, and people are asking me in my district, what are we going to do about this? What can we do about it?

Well, we should have done something about this a long time ago. The principal reason we are seeing these high gas prices is because we are far too dependent on foreign sources of energy. Why is that? Well, I know that as this one Member from Ohio can tell you, I voted 11 times in the last 14 years to open ANWR in Alaska for exploration and drilling. We think we have somewhere between 10 and 16 billion barrels of oil there. Unfortunately, we have handcuffed ourselves and put that off limits.

We also have the Outer Continental Shelf, where we have upwards of 86 billion barrels of oil and huge amounts of natural gas. If we had access to that natural gas, we wouldn't see the high heating prices for heating one's home in the wintertime.

But this is essentially the policy that this new majority here in Congress has put into effect. In reality, over the last decade, decade- and-a-half, even though they were in the minority in the time, they were able to block it over in the other body, in the Senate. So we had the votes here in the House to do it, but they didn't have the votes over there.

When you put huge amounts of energy like that off limits, it means we have to get that oil somewhere, so that means, unfortunately, we have to import it from OPEC nations, for example, who literally just keep the spigot turned down so that there isn't enough supply out there. Then when you have economies in India and China expanding and growing, it is a supply and demand issue. So the price goes up and continues to go up, because we are far too dependent on buying that oil from somewhere else. About two-thirds of our oil we buy elsewhere.

I know when the new Speaker of the House, Ms. Pelosi, took over here, a few months before the election she made the statement that the gas prices were outrageous. They made a big campaign issue about that. At that time they were $2.30 a gallon. She said that was outrageous, and they had a plan to do something about that. Well, the plan that we have seen from this new majority here in the House of Representatives has resulted in it going from $2.30 a gallon to about $4.00 a gallon in less than 2 years.

So the problem is this new majority that talks about an energy policy, and they actually passed an energy bill recently, it was a no- energy bill, because it didn't open up ANWR, it didn't open up the Outer Continental Shelf. It did nothing about making it possible for us to build oil refineries in this county.

We haven't built an oil refinery since 1976, over 30 years, making it virtually impossible to build an oil refinery. Therefore, even if we had enough crude in this country, we couldn't refine it quickly enough to be able to put it in our cars.

They have also been instrumental in pushing for these boutique fuels, where different States have different blends so the supply is very difficult to get around. That has driven the price up.

Also the liberals here in the House of Representatives over the years, and in this country, for that matter, their policy has been no new nuclear power plants. Now, France has 80 percent of their electricity produced by nuclear power plants. About 20 years ago, the liberals in this country were able to effectively shut down new nuclear power plants being built in this country. We have over 100 of them right now, but that means we haven't built any newer ones. China and India and other countries around the world are building them and relying more and more upon nuclear, but not the United States.

Many of us said what we are seeing now was where we were heading if we didn't change these policies. Unfortunately, this new majority here in the House of Representatives has gone just in the opposite direction from where they need to go. They have restricted us. They continue to restrict us from getting access to new energy which we have under our control in this country. They keep saying, let's just buy it from someplace else. Let's buy it from the OPEC countries. They will be nice to us. Well, they are not being nice to us. It is in their economic interests to continue to have this price continue to go up.

It is an absolute shame. It is a disgrace. It is unconscionable that this Congress consistently votes to make it harder and harder to be energy self-sufficient. That is where we need to go, not being more and more dependent upon foreign sources of energy. If we don't change it, the prices that we see right now, which are extremely high and are hurting an awful lot of people, will continue to go up.

Diesel is another problem. If you talk to any truckers right now, the price now is driving a lot of these people out of business. I was visiting with a fellow who is a farmer in my district last Friday who also has a side business. He had a truck. He pointed out it was behind one of his barns. He said, ``I just park it now.'' It costs $1,500 to fill up his tanks in that truck now. He just can't afford to do it.

And that is affecting every American, because everything that we buy, whether it is furniture, whether it is food goods, almost anything that we purchase in this country is transported at some point or another over truck. That means those prices are going to continue to go up again. So I challenge this majority to change their policies, to take a good look at what they have been doing and the direction that we are heading and reverse that and allow us to become less dependent on foreign sources of energy. Let's bring these gas prices down before it cripples this country and cripples our economy.

Madam Speaker, I submit the following:

Requesting Member: Congressman Steve Chabot.

Bill Number: H.R. 5658, The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.

Account: Aircraft Procurement, Army.

Legal Name of Requesting Entity: The National Guard Association of the United States.

Address of Requesting Entity: One Massachusetts Avenue, NW., Washington, DC. 20001, (202) 789-0031.

Description of Request: The National Guard and the active Army have developed a two-pronged program to support the continued modernization of the National Guard Black Hawk fleet, however, it is not fully funded. The National Guard wants to accelerate the fielding of ``M'' series Black Hawks by 10 aircraft per year. In addition, the Army is recapitalizing Army National Guard UH-60A helicopters with a UH-60A recapitalization program funded in the Operations and Maintenance accounts. This program includes an airframe life extension, fleet-wide product improvements and the replacements of components with the latest configurations, however the portion of the program to upgrade the recapitalized UH-60A to the UH-60L configuration is not funded. Upgrading to the UH-60L provides a Black Hawk that is cheaper to operate and one that has 1,000 pounds greater lift than the UH-60A model. A rate of 38 upgrades per year is required to enable Army National Guard units to upgrade or replace all the UH-60As at pace with the active Army.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 1142, a resolution recognizing May 25, 2008, as National Missing Children's Day.

As a parent, I know first hand the fears that we all experience as they relate to the safety of our children. These fears are compounded with the growing use of the Internet by our kids. Now, predators aren't limited by physical barriers, but can enter our homes, schools, and communities without us ever knowing.

With more than 800,000 children reported missing each year and 2,000 each day, we can't afford to let any tool go unused. We must recommit ourselves to ensuring that families, schools, neighborhoods, and law enforcement have the resources necessary to ensure the safety and well- being of our Nation's children. Recognizing May 25, 2008, as National Missing Children's Day provides the Nation with this opportunity.

I urge my colleagues to support our kids and families by passing this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this particular legislation, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The bill is very simple, Madam Speaker. It extends the authorization of all programs authorized by the Small Business Act, the Small Business Investment Act, and any program operated by the Small Business Administration for which Congress has already appropriated funds. This extension will last until March 20, 2009.

The extension is necessary because authorization for various programs operated by the Small Business Administration ceases on May 23, 2008, so in just a couple of days.

Working in a bipartisan effort with Chairwoman Velazquez, as she always does, she's reached out many occasions to work in a bipartisan fashion in the committee. The committee has ordered 15 bills to be reported out of the committee, all of which have passed this body, the House of Representatives.

The most recent action taken by the House was the recent passage of legislation to extend the Small Business Innovation Research Program. With the passage of this bill, the House has finished all the necessary work to reauthorize all of the programs overseen by the Small Business Administration.

Even though the House finished its deliberations, we operate in a bicameral legislative system, of course, and time is needed for the legislative process to run its course and enable the two bodies to resolve any disagreements on the best way to move the Small Business Administration forward and helping America's entrepreneurs. That work simply cannot be completed by this Friday, and given the upcoming legislative work on appropriations matters, it remains unclear when the two bodies will be able to commence deliberations to iron out their differences.

As a result of the need for following regular order and ensuring due deliberation of important issues to the American economy, I would urge my colleagues to suspend the rules and pass S. 3029.

However, there are additional items that I believe this House should address when it comes to small business. We're looking at access to capital in the Small Business Administration, and that is one of the areas that small businesses all around the country struggle it, with, access to capital.

Taxes is another big issue, and that's why I believe that the tax cuts that we pass should be made permanent because many of the people who would benefit from those, that tax relief are small business owners, and they hire about 70 percent of the new workers in this country. So I believe we should make those tax cuts permanent.

Regulatory reform needs to happen. Small businesses continue to be overregulated, as many parts of our economy are. Health care is important. That's why we believe that Association Health Plans should pass. We ought to make sure that businesses are able to provide health care for their employees.

But there's one area that this Congress, I believe, has been woefully remiss in not addressing, and that's the area of energy, the fact that whether it's natural gas to heat our homes in the wintertime, or whether it's filling up one's gas tank at all-time record highs of almost $4 a gallon, it's absolutely unconscionable that Congress has not acted in a responsible manner and a bipartisan manner to actually do something to bring those gas prices down. Why are we seeing these gas prices at all time highs?

Well, we are far too reliant upon foreign sources of energy. Is there anything we can do about this? Absolutely.

I've been in Congress for 14 years, and I've voted 11 times to allow us to explore and drill and go after energy up in Alaska, in ANWR, where we believe we have up to 16 billion barrels of oil which is being kept off-limits.

So we're essentially handcuffing ourselves and saying, you can't go up there at all, even though most Alaskans are all for it. They believe that we should be able to go up there, as do most of their representatives, as do an awful lot of Members of this House. And we had the votes in previous Congresses to pass that here in the House. As I say, I voted for it 11 times. But we didn't have the votes over in the Senate.

But I just think it's absolutely outrageous that we've kept 16 billion barrels of oil off-limits. And that's only the start. We've also kept the entire Outer Continental Shelf off-limits. We think we have 86 billion barrels of oil there, and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to heat our homes in the wintertime, which we've kept off- limits.

Now, we're not going to go after it, but Cuba has entered into an agreement with China to go after this oil out there that we ought to be getting. And so they're going to take advantage of it and we're not. And that's one of the main reasons that we see these high gas prices out there, because we have to buy the oil from somewhere, so we continue to buy it from some of the most unstable parts of the world, like the OPEC countries especially in the Middle East.

We're also buying oil from Venezuela. Hugo Chavez is down there, really a bitter enemy of the United States, yet we're forced to buy his oil. We buy oil from Mexico and Canada, Nigeria and other countries around the world as well. But we ought not to allow ourselves to be so dependent on foreign sources of energy.

We ought to go after those areas that we have control over, that we don't have to ask anybody's permission. But this Congress has kept that oil off-limits, and that's one of the main reasons we see prices as high as they are right now.

In addition, if we had the crude oil here, which we don't, but if we had it, we can't refine it quickly enough to be able to put it into our cars. Why? Because we don't have enough oil refineries in this country.

Back 30 years ago, which is the last time, more than 30 years, 32 years ago is the last time we built an oil refinery in this country. The regulations now make it virtually impossible to build an oil refinery. So we ought to change those regulations. We ought to make sure that we do it, you still build these refineries in an environmentally safe manner, just as we go after the oil in ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf in an environmentally safe and friendly manner. But those are the types of things that we need to do. But because we take no action in those areas, we haven't built an oil refinery in this country in over 30 years.

We've put nuclear off-limits, no more nuclear power plants about 20 years ago. France can produce 75 percent of their electricity, completely, safely. But we can't do that in the United States? I don't think so. I think that's just a very bad policy that we enacted about 20 years ago, making it impossible to build nuclear power plants. We need to change that.

Finally, we need as well to make sure that we have sufficient dollars going into research so that we can go after the cutting edge types of energies that are going to power us in the future, solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen fuel cells that we may be able to power our cars by in the future.

But most of these things, for the most part, are in the future. Yes, we do have wind now. But we're talking about less than 1 percent of the power in this country. So we have to have energy going in; we have to have sufficient dollars going into those technologies of the future.

But the bottom line is that at this time oil is one of the principal ways that we power our automobiles and other important things in this country. And when we put that stuff off-limits and we continue to buy it from foreign sources, we're going to continue to see these high prices. And that's just wrong.

The American people are suffering right now. We should have taken this action a long time ago. But since we didn't, we need to do it immediately. And that's what really bugs me when I hear people talk about, well, even if we opened up ANWR now, we're not going to have that oil for years. Well, that's why we should have opened up ANWR a long time ago. But we can't go back and undo what was, we can't go back and do what we didn't do back then, but if we passed it now, a lot of the price at the gas pump is reflected in speculators, what they think oil is going to be like in the future. If we opened up ANWR, I think you'd see an immediate effect on the prices at the pump that we would pay.

People are sick and tired of the high prices we're paying. It's time that Congress act, and we ought to act sooner rather than later.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

(Mr. SHIMKUS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)