Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this is a mission of joy for me. On the floor of this Congress, I am pleased to recognize the city of Spencer, Iowa, as the number one place to live in America.

This is not surprising to the folks in western Iowa. America is now aware of what we have known for a long time. Spencer is not just a great town to raise a family; it is an excellent place to live. Tucked away in fields as far as the eye can see, Spencer is a town full of services, recreation, culture, entertainment and wonderful people.

I just celebrated with the people of Spencer the opening of my office on Grand Avenue.

Large enough to offer many of the services of a larger city and still small enough that people know and trust their neighbors, it is the kind of trusting place where people leave their doors open and the keys in their cars when parked outside the coffee shop.

In this town, if you were to walk into the Sisters Cafe or Carroll's Bakery on any given morning, you would see the citizens of Spencer making time for each other. It is the kind of place where you know your neighbors and strangers are just friends you have not met yet.

Congratulations, Spencer, Iowa. You are number one.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for organizing this special hour that we have here in the United States Congress to commemorate the life of a man so well lived, I am hard pressed to even suggest another individual contemporary of mine who can compete in that category, a life extraordinarily well lived, a life that began in Poland in 1920, May 18, a month after my mother was born.

And as he lived through that life in Poland, and he saw the Nazi pressure come on the border, and as that border pressure became the invasion of Poland in September of 1939, he was a young man, a young man the son of a poor soldier, a young man who was at that time already a theologian, a student, a philosopher, an actor, and a writer of plays.

And as the Nazis occupied Poland through that period of time, during the Second World War, some of that work needed to go underground. It needed to stay underground when the Soviets took over.

But he lived a life where he saw the Nazi Holocaust, he saw the totalitarianism that came with the Nazis, and he saw the oppression that came with the communists and the Soviet Union. It gave him a perspective that could not be gained perhaps anywhere else on the planet but there.

And those of us who believe in providence know very well that God put him there. And he put him there for us, for so many things that we have benefited from over those ensuing years, those 65 years from 1920 until 1985, as he lived underneath the Nazis and the Soviet Union, and underneath the totalitarianism that came with that.

Yet he emerged as Pope, unheard of, unheard of and unnamed. In fact, I have an interesting personal anecdote to this, that Pope John Paul now referred to as the first, lived only 32 days

after he was named Pope, and ascended to the Papacy and died, another period of time, we were in that unknown period of time when we did not know who the next Pope would be. That went on for days and several weeks.

Early in that process I had no idea who the next Pope would be. I had not even looked at names or studied that or tried to handicap that decision that would come out of the conclave. But I remember that I had a dream one night, and I woke up in the morning and I said to my wife, Marilyn, I said, I had a funny dream last night. I dreamed that our new Pope would be Polish, and he named himself John Paul II.

And we laughed. It sounded so ridiculous that there would be a Pope who wasn't named, and especially from Poland that would ascend to the Papacy. And that joke was a joke amongst us. And then when he was named Pope, a Polish Pope, John Paul II, and that little insight came true, I had no idea what kind of a man he would be; but one of the first things he did in his first foreign trip was go back to Poland. There he was seen by one-third of the population of Poland, and the stops that he made people coming out of the mountains by the millions.

They wore their best holiday clothing. They played musical instruments, a great celebration and honor for this Pope. The son of Poland had returned as his first foreign trip from the Vatican.

And his message was, Be not afraid. Today we hear that message in the countries around the world. If you can lift that veil of fear, if you can lift it in East Germany, or if you can lift it in Iraq or Iran or Lebanon today when people are no longer afraid, they can do great things.

And that ``be not afraid'' message is the message that we hear every time from the mainstream news media today when they say the veil of fear has been lifted off of Lebanon today, that is the people's message. That is Pope John Paul II's message from 1978 that still echoes and still inspires for freedom. Be not afraid. If you would listen to Lech Walesa today, all the times that they tried to organize Solidarity in Poland and were unable to do so until Pope John Paul came and carried that message.

And people stood up and his message also was, be peaceful. We do not need a violent revolution. We need a peaceful revolution of people who are not afraid. That message of be not afraid brought Poland into freedom for the first of the Eastern Bloc countries. And that message of, be not afraid when the Wall came down on November 9 of 1989, and the people crawled over the Wall and climbed on it and celebrated and chiseled pieces out of it, and I have a piece of the Berlin Wall in my office here in Congress, and that piece symbolizes the single most significant historical event in my lifetime, the end of the Cold War.

When that Wall came down, the Iron Curtain came crashing down. It could not have come down without Pope John Paul and his message. And it was a historical miracle the way that freedom echoed across the Eastern European nations, the square in Prague, people rattling their keys. They held their keys in the air, and shook their keys. They shook their keys for freedom the way that they held up the color orange in the Ukraine, which we heard from today; and the way they waved the Lebanese flag in the square in Beruit today, that was a peaceful assembly of freedom in Prague growing from and being from that inspiration of be not afraid, be courageous.

He was consistent; he believed in the principles of the Bible and the Church as being immortal and faced with the modern religion that says that the Bible needs to be read in light of contemporary values. He rejected that kind of philosophy because the Church has to stand for timeless values, not changing and fluctuating values.

His courage in the face of life, on the issue of marriage, the issue of peace, all of those things together, the sanctity of human life has been an inspiration for many of us on marriage and the family.

This was an issue that floated across this country throughout the last elections. And 11 States went to the polls and said they stood for marriage; many of those people went to the polls inspired by John Paul II and his consistency in values, his consistency in faith, his consistency in the value of human life and how important the family is as the unit, the unit through which all of our values, our religious values, our work ethic, our culture as a people, flows through that unit of a man and a women joined together in holy matrimony and children, and passing those values along to the next generation. That human unit of the nuclear family is the key to civilization.

And if we fail in his message to hold our families together in this country and on this planet, we have failed humanity. That is part of the legacy as well as the inspiration to stand with those principles. There was no compromise with evil with John Paul II. He knew evil. He faced evil daily, and he stood for peaceful and high godly purposes. There was no compromise with wrong. If you compromise with wrong, it becomes part wrong. If it is part wrong, it is all wrong.

He stood with those principles that consist in ethic of the Catholic Church. It is the sanctity of human life, and no one could have stood for that any greater than John Paul II. We stand here today, yes, in mourning, but in great celebration, great celebration for a life so well lived that we can give thanks to his legacy for time immemorial, and I pray that we will also refer to him as John Paul, the Great.

I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from South Dakota especially for asking for this floor time tonight and bringing us together to talk about this important issue of ethanol.

And while I have the opportunity to say a few words here, while my esteemed colleague from Nebraska is in the Chamber this evening, I wanted to take the opportunity to point out that one of the byproducts in biodiesel is a glycerin product, and the closest thing I can identify on the market is Cornhusker's hand lotion. We will have millions of gallons of that as we produce our biodiesel, and we will be looking for some more markets, because I am not sure that there are enough hands to consume all of that Cornhusker's lotion.

But I think that expresses some of the bipartisan nature that we have in this. It is a regional issue very much as well. Us in the Corn Belt have led on renewable fuels, and the ethanol industry had to go through a lot of growing pains to establish an industry.

I happen to have yesterday shaken the hand of the individual, and he is in the Iowa Senate, his name is State Senator Thurman Gaskill. It was his birthday yesterday; he turned 70 years

old. He is the man that actually pumped the first gallon of ethanol in this country. And it was a unique circumstance to be there to eat a treat, to celebrate his birthday, and shake the hand that pumped that first gallon of ethanol in the United States of America. It has been a long, hard slog to get here, where with the industry in ethanol. They have blazed the trail for biodiesel.

As I have watched this come together, and I have watched the leaders in the industry have this vision that said we can take this corn product, and we can turn it into a fuel product that is clean, and it is safe, and it is kind to our air and our water, and it is kind to our engines. And as I listened to many of the stories that come out when people were concerned about the impact on their motors, and there was some old motors that had rubber products in there that did break down with ethanol, that is essentially a thing of the past. And those objections and complaints pretty much drifted past the wayside.

But I have some things that I would like to go through to address some of this, and as the coach said, most has been said; I will probably say a few over again. But it does pay to repeat some of them.

In the past 20 years, Iowa has led the biofuels industry to become one of the most important players in the search for renewable, home- grown energy resources. And if I described the district that I represent, it is roughly the western third of Iowa. And if you would draw a line there from, say, go to the South Dakota-Iowa border, and then go through counties over to the east, and from there on that Minnesota border draw a line straight down to Missouri, that roughly western third of Iowa would get most of the district that I represent.

In that district there are 32 counties, and those 32 counties, among them are six operating, functional ethanol plants, most of them with 40-million-gallon-a-year annual capacity or above. Some have grown up more than that.

And in addition to that, we have at least one other ethanol plant that is under construction in Denison, Iowa, which is right within about 2 miles of where I grew up. That product will be up--that plant will be up and on line fairly soon. We have three others that are on the drawing board.

And while I have this opportunity to say so, I think that the plant in Denison is unique in its character. It sits just down the river a little ways from the original Iowa Beef Packer's plant that is still up and running, and that was built in 1961. And there they will be producing ethanol. They will be able to ship it by rail or by truck. There is already a grain facility there that the producers are used to bringing grain to with large storage capacity. And the unique nature of this plant is it has gas, it has water, it has rail. It has an airport there within just a little over a mile of the ethanol plant.

I pointed out on the day that we did the ground-breaking ceremony to the amazing energy plant there in Denison, as I looked at the board of directors all sitting there under the tent, and I explained to them that they had made a good business decision, and I was not sure that they realized how good that business decision actually was, because you have the corn there, and you have all of the things that I have described, it is all of the components that you would want for an ideal location as well as plenty of corn around the region, but additionally they are going to be producing a dry distiller's grain that some used to think was a byproduct, but certainly it is a very, very valuable animal feed product. And I advised them that they didn't need to load that dry distiller's grain out on trucks and haul it off and market it somewhere to some of the other feeders. I suggested that they just set up an auger and put in a row of feed bunks, and line those bunks up on up river, and within about a half a mile they could bring those calves in, and they could start feeding those preconditioned calves right there at the ethanol plant, and they could just kind of walk sideways a little ways, and the more they gained, the further away they would get from the plant. And eventually they would fatten out at about 1,200 pounds, and they could walk across the road right into the beef plant. The best place in the world that you can put an ethanol plant.

And I would add, though, that when you go into those plants that are up and running, and the efficiency is there, the cleanliness, the state-of-the-art technology, that art technology that used to belong, that technology that used to belong in the hands of ADM and Cargill, and they certainly have that technology as well, But it is being developed by good engineering companies in the Midwest, companies that are working with farmers and producers and keeping that capital and invest it back into the hands of the people that have to make a living off of the land.

But the efficiency that is there, as the energy efficiency, and it used to be the argument made that we would burn more energy producing ethanol than we actually produced, and that equation went the other way a long time ago. And we are up to about 2\3/4\ gallons of ethanol out of every bushel of corn, and then take the dry distiller's grain, and then ship that out and feed that to livestock without really a net loss in that feed value.

It is really something to see when you see a line-up of trucks coming into an up-and-running ethanol plant, and they are coming in dumping grain, and they dump that grain in the pit, it goes up, and it goes on up to be produced into ethanol. And there are other trucks lined up in the other lane loading out dry distiller's grain, corn coming in, turned into ethanol, ethanol out on the rail, dried distiller's grain going out sitting right beside it, some coming in with corn, others hauling dried distiller's grain out. It is efficient. It is almost the perfect symbiotic relationship for a corn producer to see that kind of production go on.

And so there in the district, the day that I went up to do the ground-breaking ceremony in Sioux County at the Little Sioux Corn Processors, it was a chilly day, and we went up there and turned over a spade of dirt and celebrated the beginning of a new value-added operation up there.

And when I left I drove south, down through Buffalo Ridge. And there, in Buena Vista County, there were, at that time, there were 259 wind chargers standing there on the ridge. Today there are at least 359 in that same region. And then just a little further south, there is the ethanol plant at Galva. And as the crow flies, I believe it is 18 miles, two ethanol plants, 359 wind chargers.

We have become, in western Iowa and in much of the Corn Belt, an energy export center, something that was not conceived of 10 years ago, not visualized 6 or 7 years ago, but today is a reality. And, in fact, in the district that I represent, these 32 counties, those six up-and- running plants, the one more under construction, and it looks like three more likely can go, we will be, within 2 years, to that position where we can say we have built all of the ethanol production that we have the corn to supply, another astonishing accomplishment.

And as I watch the biodiesel come behind this, the biodiesel that has looked at the trail that is blazed by the ethanol producers, those people like Thurman Gaskill that pumped that first gallon of ethanol, and they see that pattern, that path that has been set by ethanol, and because of that, biodiesel is stepping in that path and they are following it.

And, in fact, here just a few weeks ago, I had the privilege to be at the kick-off ceremony for the fund-raising drive to build the biodiesel plant at Wall Lake, Iowa, and that happens to be about 8 or 9 miles from where I live as the crow flies. And there were maybe 100 to 150 people, and I thought they all came to have a little lunch and hear a presentation. And I was asked to give a speech, and I gave one. Had I known how much investors were sitting in the room ready to invest in the capital fund drive, I would have shortened my speech up and gotten out of the way.

They began their capital fund drive that day with a significant response, and in 9 days raised the capital necessary to get the biodiesel plant off the ground and get it rolling. And it will be producing biodiesel out of soybeans and off of animal fat. And that is a byproduct that can be put to better use.

So the biodiesel, remember, has a lot of versatility in it as well. We all know

that America can no longer afford to depend on oil that flows from unstable sources and unreliable partners. Oil has reached almost $60 a barrel, and with world demand for oil increasing at an explosive rate, it is likely we may never see low oil prices again.

Clearly, this Nation is too dependent on foreign sources of oil, and even a brief rundown of the facts is a sobering exercise.

Two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves are located in the volatile and increasingly violent Middle East, while America's domestic oil reserves have declined 20 percent over the past 15 years.

American taxpayers today spend more than $50 billion a year just to protect Middle Eastern oil supplies. This is the cost of our energy, too.

Today, the U.S. is importing more than 62 percent of its oil, and that number is expected to hit 77 percent in the next 20 years.

Yet there has not been a major new refinery built in the U.S. since the Bicentennial.

So, recently, the Renewable Fuels Association announced that January's ethanol production set an all-time record high in production. U.S. fuel ethanol reached 320 million gallons in the month of January. The previous high was 312 million, just the month before in December.

U.S. ethanol industry set an all-time monthly production record this last January now of 241,000 barrels a day, and that is an astonishing amount of production. We have a long ways to go before we get our production up to the point where we can meet the demand in this country, not just at the 10 percent rate or the 30 percent rate.

As the gentlewoman from South Dakota pointed out, we have a market out there for E-85, and E-85 uses a lot more renewable fuel; and it takes a lot more pressure off our imported oils from overseas. It is a lot better for our environment, for our air and our water; and it is something that has been my life's work in soil conservation work, water quality and air quality in preserving our resources. This is something that is good for all of us. It is good for all Americans.

It is one of those issues that when you first pick it up and look at it, it looks good, and you hear some criticism, you find the answers to that and it looks better. Each time you turn this ethanol and biodiesel, the renewable fuels package around, you can see it does more and more for us.

By the way, the balance of trade, we watched our balance of trade, that deficit number get larger in the red over the last several years. A year ago, we were looking at a minus $503 billion of balance of trade, red ink. That is how much product we purchased overseas greater than the amount we exported.

Last February 10, we got our new numbers for the balance of trade. It is now a minus $617.7 billion of more goods that we imported than we exported.

But the ethanol industry, the renewable fuels industry, but ethanol itself will change that balance of trade to the tune of $5.1 billion that will reduce the amount of foreign oil that we will have to purchase.

So this fits in very well with our economics. It fits in very well with our taxes. It fits in very well with our air and our water and our environment. It is something that is good for rural America, good for the Corn Belt, and good for the cities, especially for their air quality. It is a replacement for MTBEs.

That is something I wish we had done a long time ago. It would save this Congress a lot of grief that we will be facing in how to deal with the MTBE issues.

It is time to move forward and solve this problem. I ask for support on this bill. We will be rolling it out here next week, and I am glad to be a part of it. It is something I have a lot of energy and passion for.

I thank the gentlewoman from South Dakota for her efforts.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. I especially thank the chairman for his leadership on bringing this legislation to the floor in the condition that it is in, and I would like to compliment all the leadership in the House and on the Senate on both sides of the aisle that have worked so hard and so diligently throughout this weekend and given up their Palm Sunday weekend to serve a very important citizen of this country and someone whom we have an obligation to protect the constitutional rights of Terri Schiavo.

She has a right to due process under the 14th amendment, and she has a right to equal protection. She has a right to her day in court. We look at the circumstances that took place in the Florida courts and the continual appeals that we went back through and the relentless efforts to end her life by her guardian, her estranged husband, who may have a conflict of interest. And I look back into that to see what that might amount to because it is always important to understand the potential for the motives.

And as I added up these dollars, the settlement for medical malpractice, $250,000 preliminarily and the court then ruled another $1.4 million to Terri Schiavo and $600,000 awarded to Michael Schiavo, that is $2,225,000 awarded in her behalf. Of that one can assume approximately $800,000 went to attorneys fees and costs.

Now, additionally the court ordered $750,000 to go into the Terri Schiavo trust account. Now, that was pledged to go for her rehabilitation, her care, her medical treatment, and her tests. And that was a pledge made by her guardian, Michael Schiavo. But of that $750,000, these are the most conservative numbers that I can produce, there was $486,941 that went to attorneys' fees to promote her death, not her care; another $10,929 to Michael Schiavo for expenses; another $55,000 to the bank for, assumedly, administrative fees.

When you do the math on this and shake this down, it breaks down to this: approximately $2 million out of that $2.25 million against her interests

into the pockets of attorneys and into the pockets of Michael Schiavo and into the pockets of the bank for administrative fees. Less than $200,000 was committed to her care over all of these years, 13 or 14 years.

And I think this illustrates a potential for a conflict of interest. She is not on life support, Mr. Speaker. She needs only a feeding tube and the court ordered to remove the tube. And if it were determined that her food and fluid were to be stopped, all they had to do was stop adding it. It is a horrible way to die. She has been denied therapy, and she has been denied treatment. It has been stated that she does not show any electronic brain waves. She only had a CAT scan back in the early 90s. She has never had an MRI. She has never had a PET scan, and she has been denied treatment even for infection. And when they sent her to the hospice 5 years ago, a place where a person is sent to die, 5 years she has been there, Mr. Speaker, and 5 years she has been denied sunshine, denied even the ability to be rolled out into the sunshine in her wheelchair.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) for yielding me this time.

I wanted the opportunity to address the issue of the funding that has gone in on behalf of Terri Schiavo, and the report that I have put together, I could easily add several hundred thousand dollars to that that have gone towards attorneys and towards the interests of Michael Schiavo as opposed to the interests of Terri Schiavo.

I would have a documented report that I would file with the Congressional Record, except that the trust fund for Terri Schiavo has been sealed at the request of the attorney on behalf of Michael Schiavo. So, therefore, we cannot get those records. We do not know what is going on behind the scenes. What we know is that she has not had tests, she has not had therapy, and she has been denied medical treatment.

The attorney of record for Michael Schiavo happens to also have been a former member of the board of directors of the hospice where Terri Schiavo is now being taken care of. And by the way, I happen to have another piece of information that flowed to me today, a GAO audit looked in on that and that organization paid $14.8 million back in Medicaid fees that were inappropriately collected.

Another question we have is, we do not know whether there is a life insurance policy that would name someone as beneficiary in the event of the death of Terri Schiavo. The question has been asked of the guardian several times, and he has refused to answer every time. So we cannot even evaluate the assets or the intent of the guardian. Those issues will be looked at by the court.

Another issue that should be addressed, and we will hear this continually as this 3-hour debate goes on, is the allegation that 19 judges have reviewed this and 19 judges have concurred. I have put together the full list of the judges that have heard the case of Terri Schiavo in the history of this, and throughout all of that I can identify Judge Greer, and I can identify a three-judge panel that heard her case en banc, and I can identify the Supreme Court of the State of Florida, which we saw perform a number of times in the year 2000, and also the United States Supreme Court, which simply refused or denied cert on the subpoenas last week.

So if we are going to count judges sitting en banc and if we are going to count supreme courts in totals of 7 and

9, that narrows it down pretty much to one judge that has seen and reviewed all this case and that is Judge Greer. And I believe that Terri Schiavo deserves her day in court. She deserves a de novo review. She deserves an opportunity to be heard and an opportunity at life.

Mr. Speaker, I have introduced legislation to make English the official language of the United States Government. The English language is the carrier of liberty and freedom throughout history and the world. For centuries, our common tongue, English, has been the uniting force in this great nation, knocking down ethnic and religious barriers to make us truly one nation. Today, as we rally for unity and patriotism a common means of communication propels us toward our goal.

The English Language Unity Act declares English the language of the United States. Like its predecessors, it does not affect the teaching and study of other languages. It does not deter the use of other languages in the home, community, church, or elsewhere. The Act includes commonsense exceptions to the policy, for international relations, national security, teaching of languages, and preservation of Native Alaskan or Native American languages.

A common language has enabled generations of Americans to realize the dream of American opportunity and freedom. Studies continue to prove those who know English get better jobs, earn more money and receive better health care than those who cannot speak the language. As a result, an emphasis on English decreases reliance on the federal government.

The need for official English appears in our newspapers every day-- injuries in the workplace, mistranslations at hospitals, people who are unable to support themselves and their families--all because they could not speak English.

Recognizing a common language is neither racist nor exclusionary. It is a principle enacted by 177 countries worldwide to allow for the transmission of ideas and customs and to allow people of multiple cultures to come together. This bill does not inhibit people from speaking other languages, nor does it attempt to place any limits on culture, religion or customs.

The Unity Act gives newcomers an opportunity to succeed in the United States. It bonds the newcomer with his fellow Americans, allowing both to reach for the highest rung on the economic ladder and provide for a family.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, those with limited English proficiency are less likely to be employed, less likely to be employed continuously, tend to work in the least desirable sectors and earn less than those who speak English. Annual earnings by limited English proficient adults were approximately half of the earnings of the total population surveyed.

Few doubt this reality. In a 1995 poll by the Luntz Research firm, more than 80 percent of immigrants supported making English the official language of the United States. They are joined by 86 percent of all Americans who agree with English as the official language of the United States.

Similar English legislation in the 104th Congress (H.R. 123) drew 197 bipartisan House cosponsors and won a bipartisan vote on August 1, 1996. That spirited effort, led by our late colleague Bill Emerson, is unfinished business that we must attend to for the benefit of all Americans.

I urge my colleagues to co-sponsor The English Language Unity Act of 2005 in the 109th Congress so that we can ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to attain the American dream.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor tonight to make what might be a shocking announcement, and that is an announcement of something that has not been very available in the United States news media, something that needs to be acknowledged on the floor of this Congress. And that is that one of America's most reliable and possibly historically are the most reliable American ally, an American ally that has been with us in virtually every major conflict throughout the 20th century, and is with us today in Iraq as one of our strong coalition partners, joining together with Great Britain and the other 25 or so coalition partners that are there.

The nation of Australia has doubled their troop deployment to Iraq. They have done so at a time when there are other nations that are looking for opportunities to leave that area. And they have done so at a time with historical moment, when we are seeing people marching in the streets of Lebanon reaching out for freedom, acting upon the Bush Doctrine, standing up for freedom. The Australians are standing with us, as they stood with us in World War I, World War II, Vietnam and Korea and, as I said, virtually every major conflict.

The 900 or so troops that are in there now are there to defend, in an interesting irony, they are there to defend the Japanese, who have also deployed to Iraq to provide engineering and other services there in the country at a time when it is pivotal and significant that we help them continue to grasp the freedom that they did when they reached to go to the polls on January 30.

Now, the reason I make this announcement as an announcement is because I think it is pretty difficult for a regular American citizen who watches television every day and reads the paper every day, and maybe even surfs the Internet every day, to even know this significant piece of international news, a piece of international news that was published throughout a great number of Internet services, as well as mainstream media around the world, but not so well in the United States of America.

So, I looked around and I asked the question, how would a person know this?

I came across it because I picked up the Sunday newspaper in Sydney, Australia, and this is what I found. The countries that refuse to surrender, U.S., Australia and Britain, boost their troop numbers.

Great Britain increased their numbers there, as has the United States, as has now Australia. And the national news media that handled it here in this country were few and far between.

So how would a person go about finding this out?

Well, I will go to Al Jazeera's Web page and see if I can find this little piece of information that I happened to have been coincidentally privy to. And I find on Al Jazeera's Web page dated February 22, Australia to send more troops to Iraq.

I did not find that in major newspaper in America, with the exception of the Los Angeles Times and one other newspaper on the west coast. Not the Washington Post. Not the Washington Times. Not the New York Post, not the New York Times. Not generally available to Americans.

Mainstream media broadcast TV, most of the cable networks had a little story, one blip. But on the mainstream media that was not something that came out on Peter Jennings, Brian Williams and not Dan Rather. But it did come out of Al Jazeera.

These are our tried and true allies. The people that stood with us for over a century have doubled their troop commitments out of Australia, and there is a long list of them standing with us as allies, as has Great Britain, and as has a number of the other coalition partners.

We need to recognize them, Mr. Speaker. We need to acknowledge them. We need to thank them for their service, not just to the support of the coalition troops, but their service to the freedom of humanity. And I challenge the news media to pick this up and try to scoop Al Jazeera next time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me and leading us in this important subject matter. I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words.

Before getting to the economy, I want to add some remarks to those of the gentlewoman from Tennessee's discussion with regard to the Middle East. I would like to paint this image in the mind of the people in the country. And that is that as we see people demonstrating in the streets of Lebanon, when they have made the pledge that they are not leaving the public arena until they are a government governed by themselves and that they are a free people, that magnificent display that is going on in Lebanon today, as I watched that, I looked back through my mind's eye and I asked myself where I have experienced anything like that before; where I have seen anything like that in history.

It takes me back to the square in Prague, back in the early 1990s, after the Berlin Wall came down. That was about November 9 when the wall came down, and it echoed into about 1990, right before the Czechs went to the square and stood there with their keys and rattled their keys in the air. They stood for freedom, until today they are a free people.

That miracle of freedom that echoed across Eastern Europe in that time was not something anyone predicted. Yet our President stood just outside this Capitol building on January 20 and gave his second inaugural address, and even the liberal news media understood there was a Bush doctrine, and that was the doctrine of freedom. He said in that address: ``If you stand for freedom, we stand with you.''

Today, we stand with the Lebanese people, we stand with the Syrians, we stand with the Iranians, and we stand with the Saudis. We stand with all people on this planet that yearn for freedom.

Another thing that has happened there is that the fear factor has disappeared in Lebanon. When the fear factor disappeared, the people could freely stand in the streets. When that fear factor can disappear in Iran, in Syria, in Saudi Arabia, and around the Middle East, they can also come to the streets. Maybe before then.

When that day comes, we will no longer see the habitat that breeds terror, and we will be able to actually stand here today and define a victory in the war on terror, and that is the absence of the habitat that breeds terrorists. And that is freedom.

But to our economy, which is the discussion tonight. I characterize it a couple of ways and add to the gentlewoman's discussion, and that is that our jobs growth in this country has been going on at such a torrid pace that we will soon, within the next 3 months, reach the level of over the last 2 years having had job growth of 1.5 million jobs a year. That is 1\1/2\ million jobs a year.

That is an amazingly fast growth, 3.8 percent growth as the gentlewoman said, but that in the face of the trial lawyers skimming 3 percent off the top. And that study tells us that they take the first money. They are standing there taking the first money off our economy. If we want to grow at 3\1/2\ percent, just to sustain the growth we need in our infrastructure and to meet the needs of a growing population, then we have to make up for that 3 percent that goes off the top because of the litigation in this country that is rampant.

We took steps in this Congress to rein some of that in. We sent it over to the Senate, where this year they heard us and sent it to the President, and he signed the litigation reform legislation, which will make a difference and make it easier to sustain that kind of growth.

Homeownership is at an all-time high. I think it would compete with anywhere in the world, at 69.2 percent. That is 69.2 percent. Seven out of ten people you meet on the street live in a home they own or are making payments on. Not a rented home, but an owned home. What pride in ownership. And what that does for sending the roots down into our economy and society and keeping our children at home, all of those things are a plus that show up in the bottom line.

Inflation is in check. Personal income is up 8.6 percent. That is so much in the last year that it scares me a little bit, being a 28-year employer; thinking that if personal income is up 8.6 percent, then I would have to be giving my employees a raise of 8.6 percent every year, which is a pretty torrid pace as well to keep up with employment.

Earlier we heard on the floor some remarks that we have a lot of problems with the trade imbalance, and I will not deny we have a trade imbalance. In fact, a year ago it was minus $503 billion a year. The last announcement came out, the annual report came out February 10, and that was a minus $617.7 billion in imbalance in trade. So that is about a 20 percent increase in the negative balance of trade that we have.

Some of those things work out good for our consumers. You can afford to buy a winter coat for your little girl cheaper than you could before. But we cannot go on forever letting foreign interests own U.S. assets and holding them for collateral. So we need to work this thing back to correct the balance of trade, but it is not something that will be done with a policy that says, well, we are concerned about sweat shop labor in El Salvador or those kinds of issues that are essentially out of control.

What is in our control in this Congress are our tax policy, regulatory policy, and that is what we need to focus on. That is why I, years ago, in fact 25 years ago, came to the position and the conclusion that we needed to do some real tax reform.

Now, we have done good things with the Jobs and Growth Act, and they were the right decisions to bring us back from the bursting of the dot- com bubble that happened about 7 or 8 months before the President was inaugurated the first time; and then, of course, the September 11 attacks. I will argue that those two blows to our economy, coupled together, were the greatest blows, the most severe blows ever to the economy of this country; yet we have recovered. The stock market is back and all these statistics are up. But we can do more, and we can do better.

Mr. Speaker, we can do better because there is another level, another destiny for the United States of America. We are reaching for that destiny to inspire all people in the world to reach for freedom and liberty and being able to make their own investments and control their own destiny economically, but we can also set a tax policy that ceases to punish the productivity in America.

Today, today every day when people go to work and punch the time clock or make the sales calls or throw that bale of hay, Uncle Sam stands there with his hand out with the first lien on everyone's labor, on the productivity of America, on your investment interest and on your labor.

Ronald Reagan once said what you tax you get less of. So us, in our wisdom, we tax productivity in America instead of consumption. I suggest we eliminate the IRS, the Tax Code that goes with it, and transfer all of this over to a national sales tax, a consumption tax, a fair tax, H.R. 5 and tax consumption, take all tax off of production and get Uncle Sam out of the way, standing there at the time clock getting his first and the worker getting his later, and change this whole attitude. Productivity will go up in America.

The IRS right now is a trillion dollar drag on an $11 trillion economy when we add the cost of funding them, enforcing them, and the disincentives that are in place that people decide I am not going to make that sales call, I am not going to do that extra overtime, I am not going to make that investment in that farm or industrial factory because the tax burden is too high.

If we take the tax off all productivity, everybody gets the money they

earned in their paycheck. Take-home pay goes up 56 percent under a national sales tax, and items on the shelf, their price goes down by an average of 22 percent because there is an imputed cost in everything that is sold. Businesses that provide goods for sales have to impute the cost of the Federal tax in that item. That is an average of 22 percent.

So, for example, if there is a Japanese-made Mazda that is imported from Japan sitting on the dealer's lot at $30,000, and pick your American brand sitting on the other side of the street with a $30,000 sticker price, we remove the Federal tax that is imputed into the American made because it is imputed in the Japanese made overseas. We will see that $30,000 American-made car go down to $23,600, and the Japanese car is still at $30,000. By the time we add the sales tax back in, the American car is at $30,400 or so, but the Japanese car is around $39,000. We have approximately a $9,000 advantage on those two vehicles of equivalent value that were selling competitively at $30,000 each. We change the tax policy, and competition drives the price out of the American made and now we have an advantage to market American goods.

Mr. Speaker, that is one of the ways that we can address this imbalance of trade because we will build more products here. If we sell more of our products here, that means the jobs that produce them are here. If we import less from foreign countries, that means the jobs that produce those imports are going to have to be producing exports to go to other countries.

We can repair this balance of trade with a national sales tax, a fair tax. We can change this $617.7 billion of red ink to a plus number, and while we are doing that, we remove the penalty for savings and investment. So the capital investment the gentlewoman talked about that really is a great indicator of where our economy is going, capital investment will not be punished. Form the capital, and we will see capital go into technology, research and development, higher ed, all of the things that improve the productivity of the American worker.

By the way, we must improve the productivity of the American worker. We are seeing industrial equipment go overseas as well. And as we see that punch press or lathe going to a developing country and they train their workers how to use that equipment, we will never get those jobs back again. We do not want to compete for the wages that are being paid there either, but we can move our people to the top side with education, research and development and technology capital investment. They have got to produce more. We can do that with technology and a national sales tax, and fix this balance of trade.

We are on the right track, but we can do more. If we go to a national sales tax, we will take America to another destiny yet with our economy.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the President's commission and this Congress to take a good look at real tax reform, not tweak it around the edges. We have done that. We have positioned ourselves well to take America to its next level of destiny, and I am looking forward to the 109th Congress for being a part of that.

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address a number of numbers here. This is a little bit about numbers, and one of them is that 121 organizations that we heard about, as if they were the ones that should obstruct the safety of 282 million Americans whose lives are at risk.

Another number, 19 terrorist hijackers, 19. Nineteen of them with 63, another number, 63 valid driver's licenses in their possession. Any one of those driver's licenses got them anything they needed to do in America, full rights of citizenship for that matter, and get on board any airplane.

And another number, 3,000 dead Americans. And what have we done to close the door? Anything?

Have we even said ``no'' to the 121 organizations that say, Leave the door wide open, keep us at risk because somehow or another there is some kind of tone here that we object to?

We think something is in your heart. We need to close this door.

And what have we done? We have made it harder for terrorists to get on

airplanes with razor blades. We spent millions of dollars on metal detectors and millions of dollars expanding TSA and putting Federal employees in place, and we put millions of people in long lines waiting to get through.

So it is a little harder for them; they have to stand in line with the rest of us. Stand in line with the rest of us where I stand, where I see a 75-year-old lady going through a spread-eagle search while the young Middle Eastern male waltzes through with a smirk on his face, and we cannot close that door.

This bill does some of that, not all of that, but it will be the first thing that will keep the 19-type terrorist hijackers off our airplanes, keep them out of our airplanes, out of our automobiles and provide a measure of safety and security for the American people.

It is not enough, but it is the barest of common sense, and it must move through this Congress, and it must move through this Congress right now, today.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time. I thank the chairman for leading on this most important issue.

On September 11, our Nation suffered the most horrible attack ever on American soil at the hands of those with a deep-seated, enduring hatred for freedom. Since that day, we have made

great strides in improving our Nation's security, but several gaps leave our Nation vulnerable to attacks, just like those we suffered that day.

The REAL ID bill would close loopholes and make Americans more secure. The situation in California where a State environmental commission is blocking a national security barrier from being finished must be remedied. A 3-mile gap remains in a fence which would prevent people from crossing over our southern border in an area that is home to a military base. Half a million people are caught there each year trying to get across, and that does not include those who get on through. They are their own environmental problem as well.

The REAL ID bill would give the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority he needs to ensure that our national security is not compromised for dubious environmental concerns.

Our asylum system presently welcomes fraud by those who seek to do our Nation harm. The REAL ID bill would allow our immigration judges to use common sense to protect Americans while still providing a safe harbor for those who truly need refuge in our country.

It is outrageous that we can keep people out of this country based upon terrorist links, but the minute they are in this country, we cannot deport them. The REAL ID bill would fix this problem, which poses a great danger to our citizens.

Perhaps most importantly, our Nation's security will remain at risk so long as we give validity to those who are in our Nation illegally in the form of State driver's licenses and other ID's. Driver's licenses in our country are de facto ID cards. They allow people to blend in, move freely, rent apartments, go to work, board airplanes. If States do not require some valid form of U.S. Government-issued ID to get a driver's license, any person could walk in off the street and claim to be a legal alien in search of a license, and be granted one.

To say that this is not an issue of national security is beyond the limits of reasonability. The REAL ID bill would ensure those to whom we issue government IDs and driver's licenses are in the U.S. legally and make it more likely that those to whom we issue ID's do not intend to harm Americans. We must close these loopholes.

I thank the chairman and I ask the Congress to act.

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

And without deference to the origins of the Speaker or to the other gentleman from Nebraska, I rise today to reclaim Johnny Carson as a loyal Iowan and a favorite son of the great State of Iowa, who migrated to the West across the Missouri River and made his home over on the Nebraska side. Iowa has much to be proud about, and Johnny Carson is one of those rare gems that will certainly be missed.

Johnny was born as John William Carson on October 23, 1925, in Corning, Iowa, down in mighty Adams County to a Homer, ``Kit,'' and his mother Ruth Carson. A few years later he attended kindergarten in Red Oak, Iowa. He has not forgotten his roots at Red Oak either.

No comic has been able to duplicate the comfortable format that Carson emitted to his audiences nightly. As Harold Meyerson puts it, he was the ``country boy who had become the urban hipster.'' In Corning, Iowa, everyone knows everyone, and Johnny brought that same small town feeling to Americans who watched him every evening.

And although he moved to Nebraska, Carson never forgot his Iowa roots. His generosity through the John W. Carson Foundation will be long remembered in Iowa. One such example is his support for providing classroom and rehearsal space at the Performing Arts and Education Association of Southwest Iowa, which is located at Red Oak. He understood what it was like to grow up in rural Iowa, and he understood rural America. And those people down in that region had not had access to performance amenities until Johnny made his contribution.

So in keeping with the spirit of the person whom everyone in America loved, he really did not just belong to Iowa or just belong to Nebraska, but Johnny Carson belonged to America. And he would be quite pleased if I took this opportunity to also reclaim Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns as an Iowan and also reclaim Roger Craig, great running back from Davenport, Iowa, who slid his way through Lincoln and went on to win three Super Bowl rings in San Francisco. There are others. And I appreciate the life of Johnny Carson and the spirit that he brought to this great country.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I think a lot of Members will thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman) for introducing the legislation that actually identified the National Intelligence Director well before the 9/11 Commission met to deliberate on this particular subject matter.

I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from Illinois ticked down through the issues which have been successful in our addressing terrorists and the fact it has been 3 years since a successful terrorist attack in the United States, due in large part to the changes illustrated by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood).

One thing he did not go into in real depth is the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC. That really is in its functionality, the function of the National Intelligence Director and the organization that puts all 15 agencies under one roof, requires them to work together, and there has been no discussion about their effectiveness, but there has certainly been a record of that effectiveness. I think we have taken steps down that road.

I would point out when we establish a National Intelligence Director, we are creating a formula for groupthink. It is not the opposite. If you put someone at the top of an organization and give them hiring and firing control, pretty soon they start to carve those square pegs into round holes, and they will toe the mark, or they will find some folks that will. The people in my office think like I do. The people in other Members' offices think like they do because it is top-down management. It produces groupthink, it does not avoid groupthink. Doing something different and expecting it to be better just because it is different is not a high standard of logic. It takes more to defend this issue and to give this National Intelligence Director this control.

The history of success in intelligence in America and throughout all of history has been nonlinear thinking, creative out-of-the-box people who broke the mold and got into the minds of the people who they were up against. They were outside-of-the-box thinkers who flew those planes into us on September 11, and they are out there scheming today. We need a creative system to be able to address that.

With regard to border control, I associate myself with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), and particularly his relentless attitude to bring these issues before this country over and over until we do get it right.

Mr. Speaker, 85 percent of the methamphetamine in the State of Iowa comes across the Mexican border. How much anthrax does it take to mix into some methamphetamine to cause a disease all across America and cause that kind of catastrophe?

To strike out the fence down between San Diego and Tijuana, something this Congress has addressed several times, why has the Senate and why has the resistant Members of the conference committee not gone back to the Senate and said, accept the House changes? These are reasonable changes that are good for intelligence and good for immigration and border security. Instead, go back and look at the 19 terrorists that did attack this country, and I challenge Members to name one of them that would not be here today if

we were able to pass this bill that is before us.

Mr. Speaker, I do rise in opposition.

Mr. Speaker, on September 11, 2001, our Nation suffered the most horrible attack ever on American soil at the hands of those with a deep-seated, enduring hatred for freedom.

Since that day, every one of us has been anxious to do whatever we can to protect our Nation's security. We have made great strides in this direction over the past 3 years, and much of the bill currently being considered seeks to capitalize on the success of the policies of the Bush administration.

When 9/11 Commission Vice Chair Lee Hamilton and Commission member Slade Gorton testified before the Committee on the Judiciary, I promised that I would carefully analyze any proposal that would come before this Congress to ensure that independence and ingenuity are preserved and that any intelligence-gathering entity or entities are not susceptible to groupthink.

The creation of the National Intelligence Director in this bill is precisely the formula for groupthink.

I absolutely believe the sharing of information is essential, but a National Intelligence Director with budget control and hiring and firing authority will create the climate for top-down groupthink. This groupthink will eliminate the competition of ideas and hinder innovation and creativity. Next time, it will not matter how faulty the information sharing, but a matter of the information not being generated or discovered to begin with. Instead of seeking to create out-of-the-box, non-linear thinking, creative, effective intelligence organizations, this legislation is carving square pegs to fit into round holes. It is impossible not to reach the conclusion that groupthink is the inevitable result of the 9/11 Commission NID proposal.

We need to establish open channels of information-sharing between agencies, but not cripple them with top-down control. The testimony both before and by the 9/11 Commission established that there was not a single model of an intelligence culture that got it right. We must find the models we can use to create the types of agencies that can think outside the box.

Just as importantly, our national security begins at our borders. H.R. 10 included many immigration reforms that would have greatly improved the security of the United States. The conference committee either completely

removed most of those provisions or mutilated them beyond recognition.

They removed a requirement that all people entering the U.S. must provide secure verification of their identities and citizenship; a requirement that people present secure identification to establish their identity to Federal employees. They took out provisions which would have expedited the removal of illegal aliens and prevented terrorists from obtaining asylum.

They stripped a provision that would have cut down on excessive judicial review of the deportations of criminal aliens. They cut a provision which would have mandated that dangerous aliens who cannot be deported be detained. They chopped a section that would have imposed criminal penalties for false claims of citizenship.

Finally, the issue that has received the most attention lately, they cut a provision that would have barred illegal aliens from obtaining driver's licenses.

After all of this, they told the people who lost their loved ones on September 11 that those who are truly seeking to improve their safety are the ones holding this bill up in conference.

This is not a time for partisan politics or turf wars. If the goal here is truly to improve the security of our Nation as best we can, we cannot stifle intelligence activities nor ignore the mammoth threat pouring through our borders and living among us.

I urge my colleagues to join me in refusing to settle for a bill that does not do all it can to improve the safety of those who sent us here to represent them.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola) for yielding to me. I appreciate the time and opportunity to say a few words to this House and to Americans.

One thing I would point out, for the first time in 20 years since the Reagan landslide in 1984, the great State of Iowa finally voted state- wide for a Republican President. It has been a long

time coming. It took a lot of work to do that, and it took a lot of energy. What turned out that energy was the strongest ag economy since at least 1979. In fact, a lot of folks say the strongest ever. 2003 was a very good year; 2004 is an even better year yet. Our economy is strong. Our people care about families. They care about marriage. They care about the quality of life we have. Who in the world would vote against that is the question they were asking, especially in western Iowa where we had a tremendous turn out, and a much larger collection of votes than we had seen ever before.

I am thrilled to be here in this growing majority of conservative Republicans who will manage this budget with strict responsibility and move this Nation towards its national destiny. And people will be taking part in that in this upcoming 109th Congress. I have the privilege of introducing two of them to this Chamber. The first is Congressman-elect Joe Schwarz from Michigan's 7th district. Joe has served the people of Michigan in many capacities. He is a former State senator. He was considered to be a key senator on higher education and health care issues. He was elected president pro tem by his colleagues in the Michigan senate. He was chairman of the subcommittees on higher education and general government.

When I get through with his resume, you will wonder how he had time to do all these things. Congressman-elect Schwarz has also served as mayor and city commissioner of Battle Creek, Michigan, a sister city to Battle Creek, Iowa, I am sure. He built a medical practice around his reputation as a skilled surgeon. Prior to his political career, Schwarz served as a Naval officer in Vietnam and as a CIA operative. He serves on the boards of the Kellogg Community College Foundation; the Wayne State University Foundation; the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, Artrain which is in Ann Arbor; Olivet College; and Detroit Receiving Hospital.

He was born and raised in Michigan. Schwarz received his bachelor's degree in history from the University of Michigan and his medical degree from Wayne State University. Quite a resume. He brings a lot to this Chamber.

I look forward to this freshman class going to work. They bring new ideas and new energy and help energize all of us.

I will tell you that I built a personal bond and a great respect and appreciation for another Member-elect, Jeff Fortenberry from Nebraska. I represent the 5th district of Iowa, which is the western third of Iowa, and I at one time declared it to be the eastern Nebraska district because it is isolated alone out there along western Iowa, and I found out that South Dakota wanted to be included in that. But Jeff Fortenberry represents the real eastern Nebraska district. He will be stepping into the very big shoes of Doug Bereuter who served here for 26 years and did so honorably.

After Congressman Bereuter's retirement, Jeff Fortenberry stepped into a 3-way primary and demonstrated his ability. As I watched him make decisions and take stands on positions, I watched him around his colleagues and the campaign staff and in the communities, and I watched him with his wife, Celeste, and his family, it built more and more respect for the man who is Jeff Fortenberry. He served on the Lincoln City Council, and he has been involved in a number of things. Economic development issues, urban revitalization projects, transition of a major public hospital, and a new baseball stadium. Maybe his skills here in Washington, D.C. could be utilized as we figure out how we are going to place a professional team here in this city.

Prior to his congressional campaign, Jeff Fortenberry had worked in the publishing industry for Sandhills Publishing; he has worked for the United States Senate with the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations. He is currently a member of the Nebraska National Guard Civilian Leadership Council, and a member of Lincoln Independent Business Association. He has a bachelor's degree in economics, which will come in useful, from Louisiana State, a masters in public policy from Georgetown, and also a masters of theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville.

So both of these gentlemen's credentials are tremendous. They have proven in their life before they arrive here in Congress their ability. It is a tremendous venue for them to continue to develop their skills and develop those skills here and contribute to all of the people in this country. I look forward to working with them and the other Members of this class. I welcome both of these men to the 109th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for yielding me this time.

A lot has been said about this Constitution. I will just take my colleagues to article I, section 1. It says ``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.'' That is what the courts have taken over from us, legislative powers.

So I want to say this about families: There is only one institution that is as old as humanity itself. There is only one institution that we know is right for raising children. There is only one institution that we know is best to teach our children our values of faith, our moral values; only one proven institution to transfer our work ethic to the next generation. There is only one institution that transfers all that we are as a people to our children and grandchildren and only one relationship between people that ensures the survival of the human race.

All of human history, all that we were, all that we are and all that we are ever going to be is built upon one institution, the cornerstone of civilization. And that institution, Mr. Speaker, is marriage.

Mr. Speaker, we owe too much to our Creator, too much to posterity and too much to our children to throw away marriage, redefine marriage for no more reason than to demonstrate tolerance.

The active effort on the part of four unelected Massachusetts judges to impose same-sex marriage on all of America without the consent of the people is judicial tyranny. And if we believe in ourselves, and we do, and if we believe the Constitution is a sacred covenant that provides the best hope for all of humanity, then we have no other alternative but to amend the Constitution to protect our posterity from those who would forever alter or abolish our way of life and to do so without thought given to the price that would be paid by all future generations.

We cannot put the Genie or the Gina or the Jimmy or the Joey back in the bottle. If same-sex marriage were something that was an experiment that, if it did not pan out, we could simply change it back, I would not be so emphatic here today. Mr. Speaker, we will not get a ``do- over'' on marriage. We will not get a second chance to get it right again; not in this country, not in this civilization and not in this generation of man.

I support the constitutional amendment.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for be willing to come to the floor so regularly and stand up for the values that are so dear to this country, and I thank him for the opportunity to speak on this issue of marriage tonight.

I would point out that, tomorrow, we will bring the Marriage Protection Amendment to this floor, and we will debate this issue, and it will be debated intensely on both sides. There will be Members on both sides, Democrats and Republicans, who will vote for and against this amendment tomorrow. Those who vote for it will tell us that they do not believe we need to go to this drastic step in order to preserve marriage. What they are really saying when their vote goes up is they do not believe the people should have the opportunity to voice their will, their votes, within their own States in the process that is set up through ratification of our Constitution that is for a constitutional amendment.

The gentleman from Texas pointed out that the courts have overruled the will of the people. And a question I often ask is, how did we get here? What brought us to this point? We, the people of the United States, those of us who see these three different branches of government, those of us who view that they should be balanced branches of government, that it is the job of the people to establish social policy and that it is our job to reflect that here in this Congress and to promote that across this country, it is not the job of unelected, lifetime-appointed judges to direct the society that we live in, and we get into great trouble when we allow that to happen.

We have allowed it to happen for a long time, Madam Speaker, and that long time goes back, by my measure, 42 years, to 1962 when a Supreme Court case, Engel v. Vitale, was brought before the courts. And that is the famous case, Madalyn Murray O'Hair's name comes to mind, where the Supreme Court pulled prayer out of the public schools. I believe they misread our Constitution. The Constitution does not provide that there cannot be prayer in the public schools. It simply provides there cannot be an established religion. And how we got to this point of this separation between church and State being imposed upon pulling prayer out of the public schools is a complicated and convoluted legal argument that cannot be sustained by a reading of the Constitution.

A point was made in the Committee on the Judiciary the last couple of weeks, and I want to credit that to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler), who said, when people on the other side are opposed to our amending the Constitution, saying leave it alone, do not amend it, leave it as it is, what they really mean is leave it alone and do not read it. When we read the Constitution, we have a whole different view of the document, that precious and sacred document, than we do when we read the news articles or listen to the arguments on the other side.

But in 1962, prayer was taken out of the public schools by the United States Supreme Court. Then 3 years later, 1965, came a case that we do not talk about very much. It is a case called Griswold v. Connecticut. And that was a case where the State legislature in Connecticut had passed laws that said that there would not be the selling of contraceptives in the drug stores in the streets of Connecticut. In that case, Griswold took it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court found that there was a right to privacy. The first known sign of a discovered right to privacy supposedly in our Constitution, and that said that married people should have a right to go buy contraceptives and take them back to the privacy of their home and that the general assembly of Connecticut had no business sticking their nose into that privacy between two married people.

How in the world did we get from that right to privacy to where we are today? Incremental steps. The next incremental step was 1973, Roe v. Wade, where the Supreme Court found that this right to privacy was not just a right to go purchase contraceptives if they are married and bring them back to their home, but also a right to determine that that baby that was conceived would not be brought to term because the liberty of the pregnant female and the right to privacy superseded the right to life of that unborn child. An astonishing decision made by a Supreme Court to take that right to privacy and roll it into a right to abortion.

Now, I go to a couple of other cases. Stone v. Graham, 1980. 1962; 1965; 1973, Roe v. Wade; and let us leap to 1980, 7 years later, pulled the Ten Commandments out of our public schools. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) spoke to that issue somewhat. Then, behind that came 1994, the case of Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Incorporated, and it removed the demonstration rights of people who were pro-life from demonstrating outside abortion clinics. Another right pulled away. It is okay to strike, and it is okay to demonstrate. It is just not okay to do it if it is not in a politically correct fashion, according to the courts.

Then there was a case in 1996, Romer v. Evans, where the Supreme Court overturned a constitutional amendment that was voted on with an overwhelming majority by the people of Colorado that said they will not impose special rights for certain classes of people at any level of political subdivision, and the Supreme Court said that the people of the State of Colorado had no business imposing their will on the political subdivisions.

That had to do with special rights for sexual orientation and gender identity. It removed the right of the people of Colorado, suspended the tenth amendment, because they found another value there that I cannot quite discern. That is 1996.

2002, Newdow v. U.S., that was the ninth circuit, the infamous ninth circuit, that pulled ``under God'' out of our Pledge of Allegiance. That case correctly did not make it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that the gentleman who brought the case, Mr. Newdow, did not have standing.

I think there had to be some relief there, because I have stood in the Supreme Court chambers and I think about what that would be like to reference ``under God'' in our Pledge or what it would be like for the Supreme Court to rule on a decision on whether there would be the Ten Commandments in school. I do not know how they do that.

I stand in the Supreme Court chambers and I look up and I see Moses on the wall with the tablets. Maybe it does not seem so imposing to the Supreme Court, because the Ten Commandments on the tablets are in Hebrew, but we know what they mean. That was 2002.

2003, Lawrence v. Texas, where the Supreme Court found there was a right to sodomy, a right to homosexual relations. As I read through that decision, and I read it through four times, five times, maybe six times, and my margin notes are in different colored ink and they get heavier and heavier each time I read through there, and I get more chilled by the breathtaking decision of Lawrence v. Texas, not just the simple description I have given; but in that decision it says that the people elected by the citizens of Texas to represent them in the Texas legislature have no business imposing their moral values on the people that elected them.

The Lawrence decision, a six to three decision written by one of the Justices, really said ``do not impose your moral values in any case whatsoever.'' If the Supreme Court does not approve of the values you bring to the legislative process, they might just throw it out on that basis alone. Breathtaking. It is not a constitutionally founded decision; it is a will-of-the-courts decision; it is a legislative type decision. And in fact that was 2003.

But I recall sitting in also in 2003, the date was April 19, 2003, Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, the affirmative action cases at the University of Michigan. I went in and sat in on those two cases. For 2 hours and 30

minutes, I went to sit in the place where I could hear the most profound constitutional arguments, the United States Supreme Court. As I listened to those arguments, I heard legislative arguments.

I know what a legislative argument is. I have sat in on them for 8 years in my public life. We weigh unintended consequences. We weigh the result of a policy. But the Court's job is to weigh the constitutionality and the letter of the law and the congressional intent, not the result.

So the only constitutional argument I heard that day was from Justice Scalia, who said, ``If we rule against you and it results in one minority in your school, 100 percent minorities in your school or no minorities, what possible constitutional difference can that make?'' Thank God there is at least one Justice that asks a constitutional question. We are here with a constitutional question before this Congress tomorrow.

But the real question brought before us is under Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, Massachusetts Supreme Court, a four-to- three decision that imposed same sex marriage on the State of Massachusetts.

Now, anybody that has read Lawrence v. Texas and read the dissenting opinion that said ``if this says it does not have to do with same sex marriage, do not believe it,'' would be an exact quote from the dissenting opinion, I did not believe it before I got to that point in reading that particular case; and I do not believe today that Lawrence v. Texas does not address same sex marriage.

I believe it set the stage. I believe they knew it was setting the stage. I believe that Goodrich v. Department of Public Health in Massachusetts that imposed same sex marriage in that State was a logical follow of Lawrence v. Texas. And we have 10 or so States or more that are bringing these cases through the courts working their way to the Supreme Court, where I believe the Supreme Court is poised to find a constitutional right to same sex marriage.

If that happens, we cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube. The courts will have taken us from removing prayer from the public school in 1962, right to privacy in 1965, right to abortion in 1973, I will read the rest of these years quickly: 1962, 1965, 1973, 1980, 1994, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2003, 2003, 2003. Do you get the pattern? This is accelerating on us.

This demise of our civilization is going far faster than it did for Rome. It took 200 to 300 years for Rome. I do not think it can take two to three generations in this country.

It is time for us to pass a constitutional amendment and slow down this activism of the courts and then save marriage, the very cornerstone of civilization. And then we can get to work with the hard work of winning back our schools, our educational institutions, and also our media in this country, so that we have good solid people grounded in solid constitutional values growing up in this country and taking over these roles that we are performing here tonight.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. I appreciate the opportunity to speak before this country.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to pick up on some of the things that I did not address in my earlier talk.

I think we need to go back and look a little bit at the argument that there is a civil right or a constitutional right. I believe the courts are poised to either declare full faith and credit from the Massachusetts marriage to all 50 States in the Union; and, if they do not rule on that, I think they have got also

a chance they could rule with the full faith and credit, but also the equal protection clause. Either one of those imposes same sex marriage on all the States, even though a vast majority of the States have passed marriage protection language, either in their constitutions or statutorily; and some of them have done both.

But a different way of thinking about this too is the argument is made that marriage is a civil right; therefore, you could not deny it to consenting adults.

I want to argue that marriage is not a civil right. It is not a civil right for a man and a woman, it is not a civil right for two consenting adults, and, in fact, it is not a right whatsoever. It is a privilege.

The reason I declare marriage to be a privilege is because we grant a marriage license. A license is something that gives you a permit. It is a permit to do that which is otherwise illegal.

So we grant a marriage license, or we grant a license to drive a car or to fish or hunt or whatever it might be, because we want to promote a certain kind of behavior and we want to regulate a certain kind of behavior. And certainly it is discriminatory in favor of those activities that we license.

So for the same reason, we grant a marriage license, a permit to do that which is otherwise illegal. It is not discriminatory, except that it is constructive because this cornerstone of civilization has been proven since the beginning of time to be the very element, that cornerstone of civilization through which we procreate, we pass along our religious values, our moral values, our work ethic, our very culture and civilization, all of the things that come through the marriage.

The children learn from a father and a mother. Say, for example, a little boy falls down and skins his knee, and he runs to his mom and she says, Come here, honey. I will kiss it and make it better. That is a mom's role in a case like that.

And the father says, oh, come on, son, you are going to have to be a man one day. You are going to have to tough this one out. That is the other message. They are not really conflicting messages; they are messages that need to come from the ideal circumstances between a man and a woman in holy matrimony.

Madam Speaker, so much of our history, so much of our culture, and so much of our civilization and our respect for our ancestors flows through marriage, and we know the things we learn there, because we revere our ancestors, we also want to be worthy of that respect from our descendants. Those values are taught through marriage, through the family, through the ideal way of raising children as a man and woman in the home, and that is the point I think is important to make, and I would be happy to conclude and yield back to the gentleman from New Mexico.