Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, on Sunday, like millions of other Americans, I was watching the women's soccer team play in Germany. What a wonderful moment it was when they came back at the last second and grabbed victory from defeat. Abby Wambach's tremendous header, the save by Hope Solo, and the five kicks by the American women made us all proud to be Americans. The American soccer team won, and they are going to play again tomorrow, and we need to cheer for them.

Abby Wambach, when asked about her kick, said it was something about being an American. We don't give up. We know we can win, and we don't give up, and we win. I would ask my Republican colleagues to remember Abby Wambach and not give up and win on the deficit, because otherwise we will be losers in the eyes of the world on our economics and our ability to finance our own debt. Go United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Memphis Police Officer Timothy Warren, a courageous and deeply generous man who bettered the Memphis community through his service as a police officer and through his charitable work for the homeless. Lamentably, on Sunday, July 3, Officer Warren laid down his life while responding to a rogue gunman in a Memphis hotel.

Public safety is an inherent power of government and every day across our nation police officers put their lives on the line to protect our citizens. Officer Warren, like his fellow Memphis police officers, responded when the need arose, without hesitation and with great courage. His actions on July 3rd may very well have saved the lives of others.

Born in 1971, Officer Warren grew up in Cleveland, Mississippi and received a bachelor's degree from Delta State University, where he also earned a spot on the Mississippi All State Football Team. Despite his successes during college, he briefly ended up homeless and was forced to sleep in abandoned houses in the dead of winter. The empathy Officer Warren developed for the homeless community would last a lifetime.

After moving to Memphis, Officer Warren served as a Deputy Jailer for the Shelby County Sheriffs office from 2000 until joining the Memphis Police Department in 2003. He served as a Patrolman in the South Main district, choosing to work a night shift in order to see his 8-year-old son, James, off to school in the mornings and to watch his 4-year-old daughter, Jewel, during the day.

Officer Warren and his wife, Betsy Gray, were active in the community helping to feed the homeless. While on patrol, Officer Warren would pass out bottles of cold water to the homeless sweltering in the heat and humidity of Memphis. While off duty with his family, they would take their grill to Overton Park to feed the homeless. At one point, Officer Warren considered leaving law enforcement to start a church. However his good friend and ordained minister, Jeff Gray, remembers him saying ``Well, police work is all I know. I enjoy it. It also gives me the chance to minister to people because I'm right there.''

Officer Timothy Warren was a man of exceptional courage with a big heart. His was a life too short, but today I honor him as a public servant and a hero. The city of Memphis is better because of his calling to serve and protect and because of his love for Memphis and its citizens. Officer Warren is survived by his wife Betsy, two children, James and Jewel, his father Jimmy Warren and his Sister Dondi Warren.

Mr. Speaker, while we were in recess on June 25, Memphis lost one of its great citizens, Bishop J.O. Patterson, Jr.

Bishop Patterson was the grandson of the founder of the Church of God in Christ, Bishop Charles Mason, and the cousin of the revered and late Bishop G. Patterson, who was the sixth bishop of the COGIC.

Bishop J.O. Patterson, Jr., was a public servant as well as a bishop and a revered citizen of Memphis. He was my friend. We served together in the Constitutional Convention of 1977. He served one term in the house, two terms in the State senate, 20 years in the city council, and was the first appointed African American mayor of the City of Memphis.

He was a leader in his church and he cared about his community. He cared about jazz and he cared about his fellow man. He was low key, sincere, down to earth, and a leader whom Memphis will miss.

He did much with the opportunities that he was given through his father and his family and his city in politics and in other areas. He was the jurisdictional bishop for the Tennessee headquarters, the head of the Pentecostal Temple Institutional Church of God in Christ and did much with the COGIC.

I will miss him and so will the City of Memphis and all of the Members and all of the saints.

Mr. Speaker, last weekend while most Americans were celebrating the Fourth of July, Montanans were, unfortunately, immersed in what has become a new American tradition: cleaning up oil spills.

After Exxon's Silvertip pipeline failed and spewed 40,000 gallons of toxic oil into the Yellowstone River, Exxon quickly labeled the incident a ``freak accident''--a phrase commonly used by the oil industry after major spills. But an exhaustive history of Big Oil's spills makes it clear that these incidents are not ``freak accidents'' but evidence of Big Oil's neglect.

Perhaps the most blatant, recent exhibit of empty safety promises belongs to TransCanada, who dubbed the Keystone pipeline ``the safest pipeline ever built.'' A year and 12 spills later, Keystone was shut down and deemed an ``imminent threat to life, property, and the environment.''

Before we permit the Keystone XL pipeline--another deadly TransCanada pipeline--we need to reauthorize our pipeline safety legislation because our pipelines need to be as consistent as Old Faithful.

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

Before I yield to my colleague from California to respond, I would like to mention, and I appreciate Mr. Lewis' history, but I would suggest to you that al Qaeda could have found a base in Yemen, they could have found a base in the Sudan, they could have found a base in other places. There was nothing particularly unique about Afghanistan that allowed them to have that base there. The fact is that we went into a country to fight al Qaeda, which was all in the mountains in Pakistan, and even in the cities in Pakistan, probably with the knowledge of the Pakistani government, and we have wasted a lot of money and lives in an area where we didn't need to be because that war will continue.

There are only 100 al Qaeda, give or take, left in Afghanistan, but there are al Qaeda in other spots in the Middle East, and al Qaeda's people have plotted terrorist activities from Germany and from other places in Europe. They don't need Osama bin Laden's base to have activity. There is nothing unique with Afghanistan.

As far as the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union went down for goodly reasons, because of all of the money they spent in Afghanistan. True, we were there fighting them; but their attempt at gaining empire, which has been the cause of the loss of many empires, stretching too far and going beyond their supply lines, killed them. They spent money there. And they'd like us to stay there. They are being real nice to us. They're helping us with bases to bring in armaments and troops and supplies.

Come on, America, spend your money. Break your government. Come like we are, broken.

It was a mistake.

I believe that we need to get out of Afghanistan because we are losing lives and money, and doing it for a reason that is not going to make our country any better.

Mr. Lewis talked about strife in places in Afghanistan. I will tell you about strife--in the United States of America, in my city, in Detroit, in Philadelphia, in Boston, in Chicago. You go to the inner cities of America, and you will see people without hope and without opportunity. That is where infrastructure needs to be built. That is where education needs to be affirmed, not in projects in Afghanistan, but in the United States of America. And that is what the Conference of Mayors said, that we cannot afford this; while our cities go to decay and our people lose their opportunity and our middle class is destroyed, we fight a war in Afghanistan which was the war of another generation, which we should have learned from history and the Soviets' experience and what happened to them. If you don't learn from history, you are doomed to make the same mistakes. I see that happening.

Admiral Mike Mullen said national debt is our biggest security threat. Admiral Mullen: National debt is our biggest security threat.

He said at a breakfast just last month in a tribute to our troops that that is the biggest problem we have. And when you have a problem like that that is a security interest, you go to your biggest spot where you can save money, which is the defense budget, and this war that is draining and has cost us so much--Afghanistan and Iraq.

I have some amendments coming which I am going to offer that would reduce the amount of money that we spend with the forces, and also the amount of money that we spend with the infrastructure and the development there in Afghanistan.

The fact is, just like in Iraq, we put in equipment and buildings and then we leave, and they don't have the ability to maintain those buildings or maintain that equipment, and it goes to waste. We don't need to be wasting our resources, leaving them there where they will just go to waste. We need to spend those resources in America and create jobs in America, and hope and opportunity for America.

I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, the Defense appropriations bill is one of our primary funding bills to help protect our country against threats. However, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, correctly said that our national debt is our biggest national security threat.

With that said, finding dollars that can be diverted from lower priorities to apply to deficit reduction will indeed make America safer. This amendment will reduce funding for the Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund by $200 million and return those funds to help reduce the deficit. That is $200 million to help reduce the deficit.

The Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund was established to provide funds for infrastructure projects, and some reports also indicate funds could be used for other purposes; but, predominantly, they are for infrastructure purposes. My amendment does not completely eliminate funding. It keeps over $200 million in the infrastructure fund, but it reduces it so we can take a serious look at how we can achieve savings to reduce the deficit in funds spent overseas that are not being used properly and effectively.

With the death of Osama bin Laden, there is not a need for a large U.S. presence in Afghanistan. In fact, the killing of Osama bin Laden was the biggest deficit reduction action this country has known if we take advantage of that action and act on it to make it into a deficit reduction action. We need to rethink our goals and strategy in Afghanistan.

According to the World Bank, 97 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product is derived from military funding and foreign assistance--97 percent. If we build a vast infrastructure in Afghanistan, they will not be able to sustain it after we leave. The American people should not have to fund that infrastructure while sitting in traffic in our own Nation, in gridlock, seeing schools in disrepair, hospitals that can't provide services, and watching our own infrastructure crumble--infrastructure that can create and does create jobs carrying goods to market and providing jobs in America.

If House rules permitted, I would direct some of these funds toward building our own infrastructure. That's what we need to do. But that's not the case. The Afghan Government cannot spend all that we are giving to it, and our funding is only fueling corruption and profiteering.

Mr. Poe mentioned Pakistan being third from the bottom ahead of Nigeria and another nation. Afghanistan is right there with them. They are fighting for the third to last place. Afghanistan is historically a corrupt nation, and what fosters corruption is money and the moneys that we give them; and 97 percent comes from us. It is going into the pockets of people who aren't

using it to build that infrastructure to help their own people. We are fostering corruption. Afghans could build their own infrastructure for far less than we are investing.

We need to pull back some of this funding to focus on our domestic priorities, but we need to be concerned about our deficit. Let's keep America safe and strong on all fronts.

I urge my Republican colleagues to join with me in a bipartisan effort, stretching from Florida to Tennessee, the width of the Southeastern Conference, and Conference U.S.A., I may say as well for central Florida. I urge all of my colleagues to support this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do realize the result of this amendment probably. There is another Latin phrase besides ``nunc pro tunc,'' which is ``morituri te salutant,'' which is basically ``we who are about to die salute you.''

I understand the votes today, and I see them, but I find it hard to fathom, with the American public--and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who are indeed concerned about the deficit, not going at the place where you can really get to the deficit, which is in spending in the defense budget. That's Moby-Dick. You don't throw your harpoons at a minnow; you throw your harpoon at the whale. This is the whale. And Captain Ahab had a good point; you go out there and you see the big one, you go for it.

This would reduce the funds we are giving to the Afghanistan security forces by $4 billion. It wouldn't take all of it. It would keep two- thirds--they would still have two-thirds. It would reduce it by $4 billion and return those funds to help the deficit. The $12.8 billion that is currently allocated to this fund is nearly equivalent to the entire GPD of Afghanistan. Their GPD is $14 billion to $16 billion. Let's understand this, Mr. Chairman: We are giving the Afghanistan people their entire GDP, and we're borrowing it from China and other places. This makes no sense. We need to go after the big whale.

Six times the total annual revenue of the Afghan Government--which is approximately $1.5 billion--is what we're giving them. I understand these funds are to be used to provide assistance to the security forces of Afghanistan, including training and providing equipment, supplies, and services. Well, I have seen soldiers killed over there, my constituents that were killed by Afghanistan soldiers that we trained. We don't know which ones are Taliban and which ones are going to turn on us, and we're training them and giving them weapons.

Roughly $6 billion of the $12.8 billion is for salaries and benefits. In light of the President's announcement of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, we need to make reductions all around, and that includes reduction for these security forces. This country could not, should not fund the structure that the Afghanistan Government cannot fund and at a time when we need to take a look at our deficit.

Now I have heard General Petraeus' name over there. I'm a fan of General Petraeus too, but he's sometimes wrong. He's sometimes wrong. And I think he was for us supporting the President in Libya. And some of the folks over there that are so supportive of General Petraeus weren't so supportive of General Petraeus then. So they understand he's not always right, and he's not right on these funds either. These troops are not going to be trained in a way that they're going to be able to sustain the forces. They're not going to use the weapons, they're not going to be able to supply them. It's going to be a waste.

General Mike Mullen talked about our debt being our biggest security threat, and accordingly we need to readjust our priorities and find realistic ways to reduce our deficit. This is a way we can do it and save $4 billion--still give them $8.8 billion. It's plenty. I'd like to see it all cut, but I realize that's not realistic. But we are pulling out. We're not going to be able to train those troops to where they're going to be able to maintain the funds to pay those troops in the future. Most of it is salaries, and when we're gone they're not going to have the salaries.

I've been to Afghanistan, you've been to Afghanistan. It is beyond Third World--it's Fourth World, and we're giving them the last of our dollars. If you really, really, really, really care about reducing the deficit, you've got to go for the whale, you've got to go for the defense budget. And just giving this money to Afghanistan is I think a dereliction of duty.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

Half of the money we give them is for salaries. When we pull out, we don't pay the salaries. Their budget is only like 15 percent of everything we give them. They can't pay the salaries. They can't borrow from China. So what's going to happen then?

I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Cohen

Amendment No. 98: Page 133, line 6, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $200,000,000)''.

Page 161, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $200,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Cohen

Amendment No. 99: Page 135, line 15, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $4,000,000,000)''.

Page 161, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $4,000,000,000)''.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for the Hastings resolution and against the Rooney resolution for one person in particular--three words: Jane Ann Morgan, a high school friend of mine in Pasadena, California, who was on Pan Am Flight 103. She and 177 other Americans lost their lives 23 years ago, and we should not forget them.

Qadhafi was Osama bin Laden before there was Osama bin Laden, and we cannot stop until he is out of power and the 178 Americans who died and the lives of the soldiers who were injured in the Berlin discos are remembered. I will support the resolution and vote thinking of Jane Ann Morgan today.

Offered By: Mr. Cohen

Amendment No. 41: Page 133, line 6, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $200,000,000)''.

Page 161, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $200,000,000)''.

Offered By: Mr. Cohen

Amendment No. 42: Page 135, line 15, after the dollar

amount, insert ``(reduced by $14,000,000,000)''.

Page 161, line 12, after the dollar amount, insert

``(increased by $14,000,000,000)''.

Mr. Speaker, in June the Global Conference on Drug Policy, a 19-member group that included former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State George Schultz and Paul Volcker said that the drug war was a failure, that it needed to be readdressed with new priorities, and suggested that this country get out of the Federal marijuana possession business.

It is for that reason and others that I will be joining today with Congresspeople Ron Paul, John Conyers, Barney Frank, Jared Polis and others to introduce a bill to get the Federal Government out of possession of marijuana and into interstate and international shipments of marijuana and allowing the States to decide, like they do with alcohol, how they should deal with marijuana. Better they should deal with it as a health policy and not a criminal policy and not stigmatize young people for life with marks on their record that might deny

them employment and taking police officers' work away from violent crimes, where they should be better be used.

Mr. Speaker, up to today, I was concerned that my friends on the Republican side were only trying to defeat great Democratic programs of the 20th century. Medicare, which will be celebrating its 46th birthday next month, is one of the great laws that have been passed in this House, and yet it's in danger. Medicare as we know it is in danger.

Social Security passed in the thirties, one of the great social advances of the 20th century under President Franklin Roosevelt, but also endangered--all Democratic activities and Democratic Congresses. But today I saw there was a bipartisan effort to destroy the work of the 20th century. In the Transportation Committee, a bill coming to this floor is going to try to end the Clean Water Act. So it's bipartisan.

Richard Nixon passed the Clean Water Act. I'm a history buff, and I think Richard Nixon should be known not just for Watergate, but for clean water. I hope they don't repeal Richard Nixon's signature achievement, the Clean Water Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 146th anniversary of Juneteenth and the 18th annual celebration of the Juneteenth Freedom and Heritage Festival in Memphis, Tennessee. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced in the town square that all slaves were free. Although this came nearly 3 years after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, the newly freed men and women rejoiced in the streets with jubilant celebrations, and thus, the Juneteenth holiday was born. The theme of this year's Memphis festival is ``Juneteenth Salutes `The Divine Nine' in 2011.''

Founded out of the necessity to combat racial discrimination and segregation, the Divine Nine is a collective group of nine historically African-American sororities and fraternities that together, create the National Pan-Hellenic Council, Incorporated. The Divine Nine works to promote unity, camaraderie, academic excellence and community service.

The Divine Nine is made up of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Iota Phi Theta Fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, and the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority. They have profoundly impacted the lives of both their members and those they serve. Many of these organizations address issues related to social justice, human rights, poverty and economic security in African-American communities.

Over the years, countless Memphians have become members of these organizations and have made significant contributions to our community. Some include: current city of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr., Alpha Phi Alpha; Shelby County Commissioner Deidre Malone, Alpha Kappa Alpha; 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Bernice Donald, Zeta Phi Beta; and Pastor Kenneth Whalum, Jr., Phi Beta Sigma. Some who have fought for civil rights and equality are: Former president of the Memphis branch of the NAACP Velma Lois Jones, Alpha Kappa Alpha; current NAACP Executive Board member O.C. Pleasant Jr., Kappa Alpha Psi; and the late civil rights leader and former executive director of the NAACP Reverend Dr. Benjamin Hooks, Omega Psi Phi.

As we celebrate sororities and fraternities this Juneteenth, Delta Sigma Theta will host their 43rd Southern Regional Conference in Memphis. Some accomplished Memphian Deltas are cofounder Mary Church Terrell, singer Aretha Franklin, State Reps. Johnnie Turner and Lois DeBerry, Olympian Rochelle Stevens and National Civil Rights Museum Executive Director Beverly Robertson. Delta Sigma Theta has organized many initiatives that have improved African-American communities such as foreclosure prevention workshops, ACT test sessions and raising millions of dollars in college scholarships.

Mr. Speaker, it is in the spirit of these great organizations that I ask my colleagues to join me in observing our nation's 146th anniversary of Juneteenth and the celebrations in Memphis. This is a time to reflect upon the end of slavery in America and to recognize the many contributions of African-American citizens. As the Alpha Phi Alpha, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, the Emancipation Proclamation ``came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.''

This past Friday, the United States would have observed-- ``celebrated'' would be entirely the wrong word--the 40th anniversary of the war on drugs. The war on drugs was initiated by President Richard Nixon. He said we can have a war on drugs 40 years ago.

The fact is, 40 years later, we've spent nearly a trillion dollars on the war on drugs. We have just as much drug use in this country as ever before. We've incarcerated millions and millions of people for victimless crimes. And when we get people who sell drugs, which we need to do, all that happens is like sharks teeth--they're replaced by the next in line; somebody else wanting to make money from a program that the public endorses and supports. So the war on drugs has been a terrible mistake.

Now, don't get the wrong impression. I'm not suggesting that drug abuse and drug addiction is not a great problem that we must deal with. But our approach in treating it as a law enforcement matter and not as a health matter, a health care issue, has led to prison populations increasing, racial disparities of the greatest source in this Nation in the arrest process, and a lost generation of people with no education and no job prospects because those arrests haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Think about how many law enforcement resources have been wasted on drug arrests--nonviolent drug arrests--when policemen could be spending their time working against violent crime and crimes that are dangerous to people--robberies and murders and assaults and other offenses that are truly important to the American public. It has been estimated that the total criminal justice cost of marijuana arrests for State and local governments is as much as $7.6 billion a year. That averages out to about $10,000 per arrest. Think of all the serious criminals that could have been arrested instead.

I was shocked recently to read that the New York City Police Department arrested 50,000 people for low-level marijuana offenses last year. New York City, 50,000 arrests for low-level marijuana offenses. This was more than during a 19-year period between 1978 and 1996 combined. Marijuana use has not skyrocketed in the last year, but arrests have ramped up. They use arrests as a basis to get people, particularly people of color, where it's seven times more likely you'll be arrested if you're African American and four times more likely you'll be arrested if you're Latino, and more likely if you're African American or Latino that you'll spend the night in jail than if you're Caucasian, as a way to take people and arrest them and deprive them of what should be their basic civil rights to go around the city.

Our local budgets are straining like never before. And yet we see more arrests. It's time that we question this policy, this war, knowing that insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This is insane. For 40 years we've had this war on drugs. We've had a war on our own citizens. We've wasted moneys that can be used for better things. And we've treated what is a health problem and a societal problem as a law enforcement problem. It is a mistake. We need to change our approach.

Drug courts have been a successful way to deal with this problem. We have drug courts in my community that have been successful in getting people to see a different approach to life--not a jail, but a different approach. Racial disparities that I mentioned have been tremendous. It is seven times more likely if you're African American, four times more like if you're a Latino, to be arrested. These inequities run throughout our drug policy program and need to directed. We corrected a discrepancy between powder cocaine and crack last year. It was 100-to-1 before we changed the law. It's now 18-to-1 in quantity. Still, it should be equal. And it results in racial disparities once again.

I have introduced legislation, the Justice Integrity Act, which would study those disparities and a Byrne Program Accountability Act which would require States to do studies on their racial disparities. The fact is law enforcement makes arrests for these crimes sometimes to justify getting Byrne funds and getting funds from the Federal Government for the purpose of getting money into their programs and not providing justice.

We need to have expungement laws so that people who have had nonviolent drug offenses can have their records expunged and go on to get employment and have a successful life in America. I have introduced the Fresh Start Act that says if you have a nonviolent Federal offense and you've spent 7 years and had a clean life, you can get your record expunged. This needs to become the law and give people a second chance. Otherwise, they can't get jobs and they resort to crime.

Medical marijuana is an issue that's come up in this country and most States that have had the opportunity to deal with it have passed it, mostly by percentages of over 60 percent. I had a good friend named Oral James Mitchell. Oral James Mitchell was a Navy SEAL and one of the strongest, toughest, best friends I ever had. When O.J. was 54, he got pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer destroys a person, just whittles them away. And a guy who was 210 pounds, who could do all those things the SEALs do, the hand-to-hand and the paratroops, he used medical marijuana, and his mother said, Thank God for the marijuana. It allowed Oral to have a sense of humor and to eat. It worked.

I yield back the balance of my time and urge us to solve the war on drugs by getting out of it. It is a war. It is a crime.

Mr. Speaker, the agenda of this House should be jobs, jobs, jobs. And yet here we are in June, and the Republican leadership has not put forth one single jobs bill, not one single jobs bill, and the American people want that. The Democrats have proposed the

Make It in America program, a Make It in America agenda that will close tax loopholes that encourage U.S. jobs to go overseas. It will provide hometown tax credits to small businesses to hire new employees and help sell their products and innovations overseas; to boost incentives to create clean energy jobs so we don't have to spend so much money with our military and lives protecting oil imports from the Middle East; set requirements for the government and its contractors to buy American products and services; and demand that China and other countries honor fair trade principles. Jobs is the agenda. The Democrats are offering a jobs agenda. I support it and ask the other side to come forth and try to help us create jobs.