Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 27: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 28: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) insert the following:

Mr. Chairman, terrorist events have brought this point to light, dramatically illustrating how the security of the United States is dependent upon its strength in the area of foreign language competency. If the United States is truly committed to continuing as the leader in the global economic community, as well as in the on-going fight against terrorism dictated by the global war on terrorism, some very serious commitments will have to be made in support of language study. Our history, and particularly our recent history, has repeatedly illustrated the consequences of not having adequate foreign language expertise available in times of crisis.

In 1988 the satellite communications language training activities (SCOLA) became the first broad-scale provider of authentic foreign television and today provides this resource from 75 countries. From the beginning the Federal Government has recognized the importance of authentic foreign programming as a tool to help teach foreign languages. By watching and listening, students are able to actually experience the foreign culture and develop their language skills in the native real-life environment. This programming is also a vital intelligence resource since it provides significant insight into the internal happenings of the various countries.

Throughout its long-time relationship with the Defense Language Institute (DLI), National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), State Department, military and other government sectors, SCOLA has been particularly responsive to requests for programming from specific areas of the world, with a major portion of its current programming schedule developed as a direct result of specific requests. In addition SCOLA offered this resource from regions of the world that never really had a significant presence in the United States before.

SCOLA is a unique satellite-based language training activity that provides television programming in a variety of languages from around the world. Language students and seasoned linguists have found this augmentation of their normal language training to be very helpful. SCOLA also has an Internet-based streaming video capability that greatly increases the availability of this training medium to military and civilian linguists, virtually anywhere they can obtain an Internet connection. In addition, SCOLA is developing a digital archive that will allow users anywhere to review and sort language training information on demand. The development of these capabilities will make SCOLA training assistance much more widely available, but requires additional investment. The committee is concerned that even after three years of encouragement from the Congress, and in an operational environment where the value of language training is of great importance to the nation, the Department of Defense has not fully funded the innovative language training concepts that can help sustain and significantly improve the skills of military and civilian linguists in the Department.

Mr. Chairman, the Senate FY 2006 Defense Authorization, S. 1042, recommends an increase of $6.0 million in Operations Maintenance--Army, for the Defense Language Institute, for funding of SCOLA related training activities. In light of current events, the significance of SCOLA's widespread availability to the U.S. military and other government users cannot be overstated.

It is my hope that with the House and Senate appropriators will ensure that vital funding for SCOLA is included in the final H.R. 2863--Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

In initial discussion with regard to this amendment, I would like to associate myself with regard to the remarks made by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson) about the chairman of the Committee on International Relations. It is an outstanding privilege to be on the floor of this Congress with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and to work to improve on a bill that he has courageously stepped forward with to address the issue of United Nations reform.

I have an amendment here before this Congress that addresses one component of our United Nations contribution, and it is the component that goes to UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. This is something that was established for about 650,000 refugees years ago when the nation of Israel was formed, and today there are 2.5 million refugees trapped in a bind between the Arab world that does not want to accept them and pushes them toward Israel.

We have contributed to that significantly over the years. In fact, the United States contribution has grown to approximately one-quarter of the world's contribution to fund the UNRWA budget. We need to put a limit on that. We need to hold the Arab world accountable to fund their neighbors and some of their residents. So with the United States contributing approximately a quarter of that overall budget, the highest contributor from the Arab world is Saudi Arabia, contributing less than one-seventieth that contributed by the United States.

This amendment caps the amount we would contribute to UNRWA at 22 percent of the overall contribution and limits the United States contribution to an amount no greater than the greatest amount contributed by the Arab nations. And included in that list of Arab nations for full disclosure purposes is Iran as well, a neighbor, but not technically an Arab nation.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) for his support of this amendment and the work that he has done on human rights. This is an amendment that is constructive and sends the right message. It encourages resources coming from the right people to support some people who do need some support.

I urge its adoption.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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

I point out that this Moran amendment has been a moving target, Mr. Chairman. This thing has been moving around the last couple of days, and I have been trying to get ahold of the final draft of the final Moran amendment so I can finally look at the language that is finally going to be presented to this Congress that would set final policy on our export policy with regard to one single caliber of firearms, and not even the whole entire caliber of that particular firearm, but just a very small segment of it. And now this final language that I have in this moving target says that it would ban the utilization of Federal dollars for the regulation for ``the export of a nonautomatic or semiautomatic rifle,'' not rifles, ``capable of firing a center-fire cartridge in 50-caliber,'' or the like, ``to any nongovernmental entity,'' which I commend the gentleman from Virginia for removing the broader language and narrowing it down to a nongovernmental entity. This is an improvement in this particular amendment.

But this amendment says ``nonautomatic or semiautomatic rifle.'' It does not address fully automatic 50-caliber machine guns, but it does target rifles, rifles that I call buffalo guns that go back to the 1800s in this country. The Sharp's 50-caliber is one of the original 50-caliber long-range rifles. It was used to implement buffalo hunting back in those years, and its being a 50-caliber is not the reason why it is among the most accurate long-range rifles, but because they chose that caliber back then for long-range accuracy, and they developed the cartridge for that kind of target shooting. And, in fact, there has been an entire organization that has grown up around target shooting that has to do with the 50-caliber, that venerable buffalo gun, and I believe they are called the 50-caliber Target Shooting Club, and I know that they have been organized for over 20 years. So this amendment would target rifles when there is not a record of their being used for crime. There are allegations, but not a record that I can find.

And I look at some of these quotes: ``Could be used to destroy or disable a modern jet aircraft.'' Are we going to outlaw every caliber and every weapon that could be used to destroy or disable a modern jet aircraft? If that is the case, then we take every deer rifle out of the rack and out of every cabinet of every home in America because they can be used the same way. We can name caliber after caliber that could destroy or disable a modern jet aircraft. In fact, sometimes we are a little concerned about that happening.

The fact that the Governor of California advocates an assault on the 50-caliber target rifle, the buffalo gun, does not convince me in the least, but this would not do anything to prevent a 49-caliber or a 51- caliber or going a little bigger or a little smaller. It would encourage that. But what it would do, Mr. Chairman, is it would

make the 50-Caliber Shooting Club exclusively a USA club, and it would continue to develop the 50-caliber shooting in the United States, but our foreign friends that are involved in the same thing that we are here, legitimate hunting, legitimate target shooting and development of a venerable weapon, would be prevented from doing so for an illogical reason, if there is a reason at all.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Gordon).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, I, too, recognize and appreciate the passion that comes from our chairman, and to sustain that level over a couple of days is an impressive thing to see. We have watched this United Nations for a lot longer than that. This amendment was on this floor 2 years ago, and, as I recall, there were 184 votes in support of this, even though we were asked to not bring it.

The issue is in front of Americans. They understand this. They understand the United Nations needs to have a strong, strong message from Congress to reform.

This is simply something that recognizes a flaw. We recognize a flaw in the fundamental structure of the United Nations. The flaw is that the people in this country believe that they are paying for a democratic organization that represents the voice of the people of the world, but the votes that come in the U.N. General Assembly are the votes that come from the mouthpieces of dictators, counteracting and counterbalancing the mouthpieces of a free people.

We need to have fundamental reform in the United Nations, we need to have a structure that represents the voice of the free people in the world, we need to have a Free World Caucus formed within the United Nations, and the United States has got to stop funding the kind of organizations that oppose our interests. That is what we are doing here, in disproportionate share. That is what the Hayworth amendment seeks to correct, and that is why I am supporting of the Hayworth amendment.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Chairman, I serve on the Judiciary Committee where we look at these types of issues. I appreciate the support of the gentleman from Virginia on this cause.

As I listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts make the allegation that no doctor in no State shall prescribe medicinal marijuana, I acknowledge the statement, and the implication at least was that this is new legal ground that we are plowing here. But, in fact, the FDA says no doctor in no State shall prescribe a pharmaceutical or medicine that is not approved by the FDA. That is why we had this major debate in this Congress here a year or so ago with regard to the reimportation of drugs.

So it is not new ground. It is old ground. It is old ground, and we know the cause, and we know what the driving force is behind this. It is seeking to get the camel's nose under the tent, seeking to establish a very small sliver of marijuana so that eventually the people that are behind this, that want to legalize marijuana in their individual States and across this country, can drive that wedge in and eventually be able to legalize this substance that has not been supported by any branch of medicine that I can identify. The American Medical Association, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Glaucoma Society, Academy of Ophthalmology, Cancer Society all have rejected marijuana for medical purposes.

What we have here is an initiative that is designed to advance a social agenda, the social agenda of the people that want to legalize marijuana. And, in fact, if we do that, we are going to see it planted in more places around this country, not less, and more accessible to more people, and this society will be more replete with the abuse of this hallucinogenic drug, a gateway drug that reduces the productivity of the American people and causes more people to get on to serious drugs, such as methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, et cetera.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the time.

In response to the gentleman from Washington, the PATRIOT Act under 215 has been used. It has been used 35 times. There have been 35 specific reports that have been presented to Congress. It has just not been used in libraries.

This amendment is worse than previous law before the PATRIOT Act was passed because this creates a sanctuary and the sanctuary is listed in the Sanders amendment. It says library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, or book customer lists. That will be the place where we cannot investigate an international terrorist investigation.

It establishes a sanctuary when there has not been a single case of abuse, not a single individual that can be named. We have had 12 to 13 hearings. I have asked for those records to be presented to our Committee on the Judiciary. The request has been made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) as well. We have zero records that have been offered, not a single name of an individual that has been abused.

I would ask my colleagues, inform your constituents. Do not be concerned about the fear, about the phobia of this abuse of civil liberties, but send the message to your constituents that this has been properly used. A report comes back to Congress. If there is an abuse, we will deal with it. So we want to know about that abuse.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I first want to say that I appreciate the opportunity to bring this amendment forward. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for his extraordinary work on this entire bill. I want to remark that his persistence here on the floor yesterday, today, and quite likely tomorrow has been a long marathon, and he has maintained his composure, his intellect, and his judgment.

I bring before the Congress, Mr. Chairman, an amendment that seeks to upgrade this good appropriations bill that we have on Justice, and it recognizes that there is a Federal law today that prohibits sanctuary policies. Presently many cities have been enacting sanctuary policies which prohibit local police from asking about a person's immigration status or reporting illegal aliens who commit crimes to immigration authorities for deportation.

The law I am referring to was passed in 1996, and it is called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. It forbids localities from preventing their police officers from asking or reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. The existing Federal law says, and I quote, ``Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.''

Now, Mr. Chairman, despite this ban, some cities continue to prohibit their officers from asking about immigration status or providing information to the Federal Government. Make no mistake, this is a situation of local governments blatantly violating Federal law. As a result, U.S. taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back onto the streets.

Sanctuary policies tie the hands of local law enforcement officers and keep illegal aliens who commit crimes in our country from being deported according to U.S. law. These sanctuary policies have disastrous consequences. A case in point, a tragic case in point, was the issue regarding a Denver police officer, Donnie Young, who was assassinated in cold blood about a month ago. The suspect in the case, Raul Garcia-Gomez, was an illegal alien, who has since fled to Mexico. He has since then actually been arrested in Mexico.

But Denver has an illegal alien sanctuary policy, and it is based upon the mayor's executive order. The current mayor, by the way, is a successor mayor to the executive order, but it is still his executive order, and he could rescind that executive order. The mayor happened to also own at least a part interest in the restaurant where this illegal alien worked. They had gotten a letter from the Social Security Administration saying that this Social Security number you sent on this individual does not match the individual.

But the individual continued working at the restaurant. He had sanctuary there. He was picked up three times on the streets of Denver. He offered no driver's license one time, a Mexican driver's license at least one other time, and no insurance card on another occasion. Each time he was allowed to drive away. There were at least four different opportunities for that community to enforce the laws and take action against this illegal alien, and each time he has been shielded by the sanctuary policy that is a direct violation of Federal law.

Last month we passed an amendment that will provide the necessary resources and training to State and local governments so that they will be more willing and better prepared to work with the Federal Government and to protect our Nation's citizens. Even with the proper training, though, law enforcement officials cannot help in this area if they are forbidden from doing so.

My amendment today would provide funding for the Department of Justice to enforce the law as it presently exists. It does not enact any new law. It does not promote a new policy. I want to repeat, it simply provides funding to see that our current law is enforced.

Our State and local governments serve as the front line of defense against terrorism and criminal aliens. Every murder, every rape, every violent gang crime committed against Americans by illegal aliens is an utterly preventable crime. If we better enforce our immigration laws to keep criminals out, we will save lives. We must use the law enforcement resources that we have to enforce our laws, with the end result of making our Nation a safer place for our children and grandchildren to grow up in.

This amendment simply directs $1 million of the $600-and-several million in this appropriations process to that enforcement of the existing Federal law. It is an issue that we raised last year as well. It is an issue I know the Chairman is very much concerned about.

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for the opportunity to say a few words with regard to the Nadler amendment, an amendment that would prohibit the use of national security letters to get medical reports of all kinds. That would also include insurance company records which qualify as financial institutions.

We have another amendment on the floor of this Congress which qualifies as a sanctuary amendment. It carves out another region that terrorists then would know that they can go ahead and go in and operate on without fear of government intervention or government investigation.

In fact, there is a significant case. Suspects have bought bulk amounts of Cipro, which is the antidote for anthrax. That may be an indicator of a dirty bomb or a series of dirty bombs that could be set up and staged and the perpetrators would want to have the antidote. Could that also be the case for smallpox?

These kinds of indicators need to be available to our investigators. This creation of this fear of Big Brother, this relentless attack on the PATRIOT Act without substance is causing concern amongst the citizens. I have civil libertarian instincts within me, but I have come to the conclusion that we are far safer, the requirement that these reports come back to Congress and we review those reports, we are far safer that way than we are erring on the side of liberty safety without merit on the other side.

I think it is important that we put protections in the PATRIOT Act. The standards that have been there before with criminal investigations are higher for the PATRIOT Act, not lower. We did not expand any access into information to speak of. We made a high standard. That high standard is held and it is maintained, and the records come back before Congress without a single case of abuse; but we want to carve out another sanctuary for another issue here to placate some people who have been caused to have fear of the PATRIOT Act by a propaganda campaign across America.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. This is the right poster this time. This is a poster that illustrates a number of the States that have participated in sending their law enforcement officers to the Regional Training Center in Sioux City, Iowa. In fact, now it is the National Training Center in Sioux City, Iowa, that has trained hundreds and hundreds of police officers.

Drug trafficking and its many associated crimes such as robbery, burglary and murder contribute to the decay of our social fabric. This problem is not only found locally or regionally, but also nationally. Unfortunately, small-town and rural America are no longer shielded from the impact of illegal drugs. Methamphetamine producers and traffickers are some of the most dangerous drug offenders in our communities.

I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for his recognition of the importance of the Regional Training Center in Sioux City and its inclusion as a line in the House report. The Regional Training Center utilizes a regional and national approach to bring communities and criminal justice agencies together to receive training to control the growing national problem of methamphetamine, poly-drugs and their associated crimes. The Regional Training Center seeks a comprehensive approach to control and reduce meth trafficking, production and usage along with other drugs. It provides training that serves small rural communities as well as large metropolitan areas, including the 38 States here in this poster.

As of last March, the center has instructed a total of 19,308 law enforcement professionals from 1,338 different agencies and actually some foreign countries as well. It establishes a central clearinghouse for organization, coordination, curriculum development and resource and intelligence sharing that will benefit everyone impacted by the meth problem. It draws on the input and cooperation of local law enforcement, the business community, educational institutions, health centers and community groups to create a network of cooperation and an atmosphere of mutual support that will exist well into the future. It provides up-to-date information and training on the growing trend of terrorists using the sale of illegal drugs to fund their activities.

Meth can be manufactured a lot of ways. We have talked about that in this appropriations process.

I want to also emphasize that they have opened up a canine training center to train drug dogs here at the Regional Training Center, now just really renamed the National Training Center. They have struggled to put together the funding. This is something that was initiated by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham) some years ago. Today they can hang on for a little while, but they need an appropriation. They need an appropriation that hopefully will either be implemented in the Senate or else come out of the conference report. I would ask him with confidence if the gentleman would be willing to work with me on that particular initiative.

I thank the gentleman very much for his work on this issue and on many others on this appropriations bill.

Sequential Votes Postponed in Committee of the Whole

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska for yielding me time and for bringing this amendment.

There has been a lot of good work done on this bill overall, but I have heard said on this floor that this bill strikes the right balance. If it does, then the bill last year and the year before and the year before did not strike the right balance, because we are seeing a reduction in these funds that go into the JAG grant.

We have an intense amount of methamphetamine abuse across this country, and particularly in the Midwest. That is why you see Midwesterners down here on this floor. I will see 1,119 fewer adults and juveniles be offered up for treatment or be adjudicated due to violations of methamphetamine if we do not get this amendment passed today.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 28: At the end of the bill, insert after the

last section (preceding the short title), the following:

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) for organizing this Special Order tonight. I also thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) for his work on methamphetamines and drug interdiction, and for his work in this battle for our children and save and preserve the human resources that are our young people in this country.

Something that I think brings methamphetamine to the Midwest ahead of many places in the country is because we have a strong work ethnic. We have people who want to put a lot of their energy and their time into working, and they do not feel so guilty about using some drugs to get behind the steering wheel of a truck or do some other things. We have cleaned up a lot of that with the commercial drivers' licenses and the drug testing that is part of it. It is far safer on the road than it used to be. But the culture remains.

As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) said, we also have access to the materials, especially anhydrous ammonia in the corn belt. That access to the materials to make drugs and that kind of culture that encourages people to use it has caused us to be more sensitive.

I watched it come into Iowa 10 years ago. I have spent my life in the construction business running bulldozers and scrapers and excavators and loaders and trucks, and out in the sun, heat, cold and rain. We have some element that comes into that industry that does use drugs. I have hired a lot of people over the last 28 years that I spent in business. We were not without a problem or two in our crew. We were not without a confrontation of me inviting that employee into my office, closing the door, setting my chair in front of the door and taking a stand that no one will leave this room until we come to an agreement that there is going to be some rehab, some therapy, there is going to be some treatment, and you are coming out the other side of this thing a productive human being again.

I have invested in this from a human standpoint, from a financial standpoint, and from a policy and legislative standpoint. In fact, the one single bill that I worked the hardest on in my entire legislative career was 2 years in the Iowa Senate to pass a good workplace drug testing law that we have in Iowa today. It took 2 years to get there, and it took nearly 12 months out of every year of relentless pounding to get that last vote, and we passed it by one vote. It has been in law since St. Patrick's Day of 1998. It allows private sector employers in Iowa to guarantee a drug-free workplace.

We are invested in this Iowa. We are invested in this in an intensive way. We understand the loss of human resources. In fact, if I had a magic wand, if God granted me the power to do a single thing today, and his message was to pick one thing, cure either cancer or eliminate illegal drugs, particularly methamphethamines, in a heartbeat I would say Lord, get rid of the illegal drugs. We will find a cure for cancer eventually. We are coming along cure by cure; but drugs steal human potential. They go into a person's life when they are young and full of potential, and they change the course and direction of that life, sometimes to the morgue, as the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) pointed out. That lady was from Iowa, by the way. And sometimes it ruins their potential. Their children suffer.

I believe that we need to do a lot of things to bring this drug scourge under control. One of them is to step up and do the funding necessary to support our law enforcement in their interdiction efforts.

I brought along this chart, this chart is similar to the chart that the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) pointed out. It fits the same numbers. It is a little different way of presenting it, but it works out like this. The Byrne and the local law enforcement block grants fit in these categories in these previous years. And then we got to 2006, rolled them all together under the JAG grant, the Justice Assistance Grants, cut the funding and rolled them into one grant.

Our President, a man whom I admire, made a proposal that we go to zero on this. I agree with the gentlemen that the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) has done good work to get us where we are today. Going from the President's recommendation of zero on up to $348 million is no small thing. But we have a big, big problem all across this country, and we need to address it with the resources. So this increase in funding is necessary. It is unusual for an individual like me to come down and say we need to increase spending, but if it is invested in anything that provides return on that investment, it is going to be in fighting and interdicting drugs.

The effect on Iowa would be, as near as we can calculate, this: There would be 14 fewer multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement task forces. There would be only 11 left of 25. So there would be 41 fewer counties that had operations in them, 31 where there are 72 counties today. Out of 99 in Iowa, 72 have functioning operations. That would cut that 72 down to 31. We would have 57 fewer drug task force officers. That would be officers, prosecutors, treatment providers and other jurisdictional personnel.

So we would 36 out of 93. And the volume of illegal drugs confiscated in Iowa would be reduced by 1.4 tons due to fewer task force operators and officers, and the law enforcement agencies responses to protect the public from toxic meth labs would be delayed by 709 cases. All in all, 1,919, a calculated estimated number, fewer individuals would be brought forward for assistance for substance abuse treatment and adjudication for their crimes.

We know associated with illegal drugs are a whole series of crimes. These crimes include larceny, armed robbery, burglary, assault, raped, domestic abuse, child abuse and homicide. There will be fewer Iowans, fewer Americans alive a year, 2 years from now if we do not get this funding back up to where we can provide the proper resources for our law enforcement personnel.

In fact, I want to say a few words about the Regional Training Center in Sioux City, Iowa, which has done a magnificent job of training law enforcement officers. They were first put into place with the assistance of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham) from the fourth district, the north central part of Iowa. They have reached out and done some exceptional things. I bring this sheet along to point out far the Regional Training Center has reached. They have trained 19,308 law enforcement officers from 38 different States and several foreign countries. If you step into that Regional Training Center, there are arm patches from police departments from all over the country and foreign countries.

They bring the officers in, teach them the technology, the infrared technology, the sensor technology, the means to apply their law enforcement. They put them through the gymnasium. They are working out in 90 and 95 degrees, working up a sweat, working out the physical part of their job that sometimes is necessary to arrest and bring the drug users to justice.

Also, they have implemented a new course there, a new course in the Regional Training Center that has for years trained law enforcement officers, over 19,000 of them. They have graduated 10 of the canine corps. I met all 10 of the canine corps one day. They were all lined up at attention. The dogs sit at attention, and they speak a foreign language.

They do that so they listen to their officers. Their officers speak a foreign language to them, and they respond to that so no one else can control the dogs. These dogs all graduated with good records and fine grades as far as I could tell and by the reports that they gave me.

By the way, the return on drug dogs is the best return on an investment dollar that I have seen in law enforcement with regard to dealing with drugs. The dogs are there all the time. They are essentially available 24 hours a day. It takes an officer to handle them, an officer to be trained with them. They are not cheap in their purchase and in their training, but once they go out into the field, they bring another element to them. They can sniff out drugs, they can sniff out bombs, they can control violent intruders, and they are trained to do all of that.

Additionally, there is just the intimidation effect. There is the effect of when there is a dog there that is sniffing everything you have, you are not likely to bring drugs through there, and he will find them.

I am looking forward to the next class to graduate. I understand that the next class is a class of 20. That will be the size of the canine corps so we can keep filling up the Midwest and the rest of the country, if all goes well, training drug dogs continually along with training officers. We will soon be over 20,000 officers. But that budget was cut last year from a $2 million previous appropriation and a $2.5 million cut, was cut down to $250,000. Some thought the decimal point just inadvertently fell in the wrong place in middle of the night with a bleary-eyed staffer, but there are not a lot of coincidences. They need their appropriation. I will be speaking with the chairman about that.

I want to thank also the chairman for including that line item for the regional training center at least in the budget, although there are no earmarks for this budget, and each, according to the way it is proposed, will have to compete for those grants. I am hopeful that the Regional Training Center in Sioux City will be able to do that. They certainly have served 38 countries. It qualifies them as a national center. In fact, the name has

just recently been changed to the National Training Center.

Again, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska for bringing this subject before us. I look across at the speakers that have spoken so far and those to speak yet tonight. You can tell that this is a nationwide effort that we have. We care about our young people, our human potential. We want to give the tools to the people that have their lives on the line protecting us.

We will see if we can get those dogs to shake hands with you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on H.J. Res. 27, which seeks to withdraw the approval of the United States from the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization.

During my first term in Congress, I witnessed firsthand the breakdown in affairs at the World Trade Organization's trade negations in Mexico. Negotiations collapsed as delegates from many underdeveloped countries celebrated their perceived success as an increasingly powerful band of poor farming countries, known as G-21, held strong to prevent talks from proceeding.

It is important that each participating country have a voice in negotiations, but by banding together to divert trade talks, underdeveloped countries ultimately hurt themselves. No one in Europe or the United States will starve to death because of their efforts, but the citizens in their own countries will be put at risk.

What occurred puts the viability of the WTO in question, but it also allows the U.S. to go forth with trade promotion authorization on its own. While I believe the WTO needs reform, I do not want us to abandon our place at the table. If America were to pull out of the WTO, we would lose the ability to influence the organization and its negotiations internally.

Our farmers and producers in Iowa and across the country are some of the most efficient in the world and are capable of competing and winning in world markets, so long as they do not face unfair foreign government policies. The enforcement of a rules-based trading system through the World Trade Organization is our best opportunity to gain access to these markets for our Nation's farmers and rural communities.

Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote against H.J. Res. 27 because it is clear that our economic interests continue to benefit from engagement with trading partners.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) for bringing forth this important special order and for his presentation with regard to the United Nations.

I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about how we might better reform the United Nations and how we might better direct the future of this country and the world. There has been a lot said, Mr. Speaker, about the United Nations and what kind of a structure it is. This country has for a long time believed very firmly in the sense that we can bring together an international dialogue, resolve the world's problems and avoid war. That was why the League of Nations was established and certainly why the United Nations was established. The U.N. was established in an endeavor to correct some of the mistakes that were made with the League of Nations and establish an organization that might function essentially in perpetuity in a fashion that is going to be helpful towards peace and security in the world.

Unfortunately, it has not worked out so much that way, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the entire structure of the United Nations is something we do not talk about very often. It has a huge flaw, and the flaw is this, that in the minds of the people in this country and around the world we believe, since we have a forum there, we have a general assembly there that brings in voices from nearly every nation in the world and they sit in a place and they have an open forum and an open debate, that somehow that is a semblance of democracy and so, therefore, the will of the people of the world will be manifested in the policy of the United Nations.

The big flaw is that many of those people that sit there are either dictators themselves or mouthpieces for dictators, people that would cut the tongues out of their own constituents if they were to stand up and speak like a free people as we do here in this country. So, therefore, the voice of the world is not heard in the United Nations. It is often the voice of the rulers, the despots.

In fact, as we listened to the United Nations and the loudest voices in the United Nations prior to our engagement and liberation of Iraq, we heard a loud noise come from France, and they were organizing intensively to oppose the United States' potential operations in Iraq? That same noise came from Germany, and it came from Russia, and it came from China, where we remember those days two-and-a-half, 3 years ago.

I said at the time that the decibels of resistance to a potential liberation of Iraq that came from those countries and others in addition to that can be indexed almost directly in proportion to their oil interests in Iraq and in the Middle East. In fact, at the time I did not know how prophetic that was, because we were not aware at the time of the Oil-for-Food Program. Now when you add that at least $10.1 billion worth of fraud that came with Oil-for-Food, the $5.7 billion in oil smuggling, the $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges, we know now it is bigger than that.

We know the names of some of the players? We know that those players were in places where their voices were echoed in opposition to the liberation of the Iraqi people. One can only suspect their interest was to continue raking the gravy off of the Oil-for-Food Program and pocket the money themselves. So they had what is called a vested interest. In fact, if I remember the words of Barber Conable, it was, Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle. Well, their moral principle was actually an immoral principle, a principle of profit. That is part of the corruption of the United Nations.

There is a sex scandal within the administration that brought actually sometimes more media than the Oil-for-Food scandal did. And then we have those things.

We need to keep encouraging the investigation into the Oil-for-Food Program, and then we have the operations of peacekeeping in Africa where we have peacekeepers perpetuating sexual violence on innocent citizens, innocent people.

An organization like this that does not have a legitimate oversight program truly needs a U.N. Reform Act? I am 100 percent supportive of this U.N. Reform Act. A number of the components in here are essential. I think it is essential that the United States looks at holding back and reserving some of its dues to the United Nations until we get a bright light that shines on the United Nations, until we have a United Nations that functions as truly the voice of the people of the world and has the accountability like we have here in the United States.

So, with that, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time.

I would address it this way, that I am cool towards mandatory COOL, not towards Montana or my colleague from up there. We have a situation here where we have our cart ahead of our horse. We cannot identify our meat until we can identify where it comes from.

We have initiated a trace-back system for an animal ID in this Congress. That needs to be done first. I introduced that amendment in the Committee on Agriculture last year. Identify where the livestock comes from first, then have the discussion about whether it is mandatory or whether it is going to be an option for our producers. And whether it is a benefit to us from an economic standpoint, a retail standpoint, that really needs to be looked at from the marketing perspective and the more voluntary perspective. But I say delay that until we know where these animals come from. We are going to get that done in this Congress in the next couple of years, and then we can take a look at it from the perspective of what is the most legitimate approach. But right now we have our cart in front of our horse.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time, and I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on this issue.

As I listen to this debate and I am listening to the points that are being made by the other side, and, by the way, I rise in opposition to the Sweeney amendment, one of the questions that has not been answered here is what is the distinction between a steer, a hog, and a horse? Why would we elevate the horse to a level beyond that of another animal? Does it have a certain intrinsic value that distinguishes it?

That is something that I would like to hear, but I think it is important for the people who own horses to manage their horses.

Another question is, should horses be eaten? I have not really heard the answer to that. I know they do that in other places of the world. I have never eaten a horse. I had some zebra in Africa last year and, actually, it was the best meat I had on the continent. I never felt the desire to eat a horse, but they do that in other countries.

We have a horse herd that needs to be managed. Whatever that is, whether it is a 1 percent, a 2 percent or a 10 percent of the herd that is slaughtered, all of it does something that allows them to cull out the herd. It saves those horses from disease and starvation. And if you have seen those horses as I have in dry lot that were not taken care of, you do not want to turn these horses over to the people who do not have the means to take care of them.

But the U.S. horse herd should be managed. We should be humane with our animals. We should treat them well and give them veterinarian treatment, and those that do not fit into the plans need to be managed and taken care of and euthanized.

Now there is also the address made that we are doing this for foreign interests, that this is for the interests of foreign markets and foreign palates. We have a balance of trade that is now a minus $617 billion a year. What is wrong with marketing American products that help that, reduce the deficit in the balance of trade? And, by the way, if it is the euros that come from France, that is okay with me. I think that is a great way for us to start to repair the balance of trade.

Another thing we cannot do is set up a species in this country that sets it up as a sacred species. American horses cannot be turned into sacred cows by the Sweeney amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding on this important subject matter. It is an issue that I know the gentleman has done due diligence on and paid attention to.

I rise today to address the issue of an amendment that I had prepared to offer that I will not be offering that would require the Secretary of Agriculture to report to Congress on the National Animal Identification System, including the effectiveness of the pilot programs funded in the FY 2005 budget year. Analysis of the economic impact of the proposed system on the livestock industry and the expected costs of the implementation of the system need to be part of a report.

USDA has been working diligently to establish a National Animal Identification System since December of 2003. That is when they discovered bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, in a Canadian cow in Washington State. On May 5, 2005, USDA announced their Draft Strategic Plan and Draft Program Standards. The Department plans on making this a mandatory system by 2009, which would identify animals for disease surveillance.

It is not a new concept, Mr. Chairman. In fact, in the 90s we had implemented a plan to address and identify cattle vaccinated for brucellosis, which is a bacterial disease that affects cattle, hogs, and other livestock. This program has been successful and is scheduled to be phased out. This is not a new thing for the USDA.

I have been saying since before the discovery of BSE that we need an animal identification system that is up and running. It would be an insurance policy for livestock owners in the case of a disease outbreak. It would also be a system that is beneficial for foreign trade. It would be creative, and it would be invaluable for our marketing opportunities and for our breeding information.

Overall, the need for this system is immediate. The Canadians and the

Australians, whose system I have visited and observed, and others already have electronic systems in place that they continue to refine.

For the sake of disease surveillance in trade, for the future of the livestock industry, I would like to see a system up and running as soon as possible. In fact, I am in the process of finishing my own bill on animal identification that I plan to introduce in the coming weeks.

One of the most important and immediate needs is to know what the USDA has been doing. They have invested approximately $18 million in a pilot program working in cooperative agreements between the States and the tribes, and the accountability of the USDA yet has not been apparent to us. We need to know how these projects are progressing and how they justify their worth to the taxpayer.

Also the USDA has spent another $15 million on development, infrastructure, promotion and staff overhead of the animal identification system that they are seeking to implement. It may only be the tip of the iceberg, but when the USDA issued its Draft Strategic Plan and Draft Program Standards in May, many hoped to see a cost estimate for the system.

Farmers are concerned about the costs that they might have to invest into them out of their profit margins. So I have those similar concerns. I am asking the USDA to produce that report. In fact, last year in the report language of the same appropriations bill, there was a request for a report on BSE itself, and that was to be before this Congress on July 15 of 2004. We have not seen that report yet, and I hope we are able to get one. The CBO score for this proposal, by the way, I did have it scored, scored it at zero; so there is not a cost to our budget.

Again, I hope we would be able to get some report language that could address this important topic of animal identification.

I thank the chairman for his diligence on this issue and for yielding to me.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode) for yielding me this time and for bringing this amendment before this Chamber.

We look at our borders of this Nation. No nation without borders can be a sovereign nation. Without borders, you have no nation. We have borders that are absolutely porous, and we are hearing from the criticizing media that we cannot control the borders between Iraq and Syria, between Iraq and Iran. What about controlling the borders between the United States of America and our neighbors to the south and to the north?

We know we have troops that are training all over this country at bases around America and around the world. We also know it is good for morale to be engaged in something that is meaningful. What better terrain than, particularly, our southern border where coffee-stain camouflage matches that terrain as well as it does the terrain they are in in Iraq today.

We are dealing with this giant haystack of illegal immigration, and we have a policy that says we are going to look for OTMs and terrorists and criminals. And we have 8 or 12 or 14 million illegals that have come across the border and live in this country today, or more; and that number is so great, we stopped 1,139,000 from coming across the border in the past year. That is how many we caught.

Most people will tell you that two out of every three make it through. So out of that number and that huge haystack of 3 million or more pouring across our borders, we are going to reach in and find the needles, the terrorists or criminals or OTMs? I do not think so.

I think this Nation has to mobilize the resources that is has, consistent with the Goode amendment, training the military, put them on the border not as a protection force that is going to draw from our national security at other places in the world, but put them where they can protect our national security while they train to be deployed elsewhere as well.

The Minute Men that stood on the border set that standard, and I think the United States military can follow through.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge funding to redraw the flood plain maps that would assist in addressing flood plan management problems along the Missouri River. The States of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Missouri, as well as all cities and counties bordering the river, have an immediate need for improved flood plain information along the Missouri River. The lack of incomplete data hampers the way that communities plan for their economic future and interact with state and federal agencies. The existing data is approximately 30 years old. Coupled with that, is the fact that the recently completed Upper Mississippi River System Flow Frequency Study, which includes the main-Lower Missouri below Gavins Point Dam, resulted in significant change to the existing hydrology and hydraulics along the river. This indicates that current flood plain management for the Missouri River is inaccurate and does not support the regulatory requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

This need for new information is due to the changes in land use and the pressure from development occurring all along the river. Improving the flood plain mapping, which meets the requirements of the NFIP (authorized by P.L. 86-645), can be developed working from the results of the Upper Mississippi River System Flow Frequency Study. The new flood plain information will allow development of water surface profiles and Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRM) for regulating current and future development of the 100-year and 500-year flood plains as well as the floodway along this 313-mile reach of the river.