Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 30: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Sec. 410. None of the funds made available in this Act may

be used to provide homeownership assistance for applicants

described in 274A(h)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality

Act (8 U.S.C. 1324a(h)(3)).

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 31: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 32: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Sec. 410. None of the funds made available in this Act may

be used for the Association of Community Organizations for

Reform Now (ACORN).

Madam Speaker, unfortunately I was detained due to official Congressional business. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on the following rollcall votes: ``yea'' on H.R. 404--Federal Customer Service Enhancement Act; ``yea'' on H. Res. 553--Mourning the passing of former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, and celebrating her life and contributions to the people of the United States; ``yea'' on H. Res. 519--Honoring the life and accomplishments of renowned artist Tom Lea on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Additionally, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on the following rollcall votes: ``nay'' on the Previous Question--H. Res. 558 for H.R. 3074; ``nay'' on H. Res. 558, the Rule for H.R. 3074-- Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008.

personal explanation

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I'm very amenable to that process of doing business about every time I come to the floor. I would be happy to thank you for that.

And I would drop my remarks, except to say that this closes the issue with government working and hiring illegals. That's a State issue.

I yield back.

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

I will be happy to yield.

I'll close the same deal with the chairman, and I will not describe this. The Record will show what this amendment does. And I'd be happy to urge adoption.

I yield back.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 37: At the end of the bill (before the short

title) insert the following new section:

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 38: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 39: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following new section:

Mr. Speaker, I would start out with the title of this, the Responsible Redeployment from Iraq Act. Positively Orwellian to name a resolution the Redeployment From Iraq Act. I have gone back and revisited George Orwell, and I can tell you this says, the Cut and Run From Iraq Act. And however you want to cut it, that's part of it.

Then it says, be moved in a safe and orderly manner. And I'd like to know from the other side, was the helicopter lifting people off of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, was that safe and orderly? Would that comply with your definition?

Another point, we have in this Congress constitutional responsibilities and authorities with regard to war. The first thing we can do in this Congress is declare war. The second thing we can do is to raise an army and a navy, and the third thing is to fund it, not to micromanage it. This is another piece of micromanagement. This is another piece of moving us down the path towards what history will record as a defeat on the floor of Congress, not a defeat in the field of battle.

Von Clausewitz said the object of war is to destroy the enemy's will and ability to conduct war. And we understand that if you don't have the will, it doesn't matter what your ability is. We're the only unchallenged super power in the world, and you're breaking down the will of the American people.

Sun Tzu said it more simply. ``Supreme excellence in warfare lies in destruction of your enemy's will to resist an advance of perceptible hostilities.'' And yet the American people's will has been systematically undermined by the debate here on this floor, by the debate in the national news media. And I question, in the face of the opposition that we have to our will here in this country, if we ever can manage the effort to rise up and defend freedom with this kind of support that we lack.

And then, when Mr. Price of Georgia lays out that the Defeatocrats in Congress are invested in defeat, the former gentleman from California rose up and squealed. And being the leading number one pork-producing district in America, I can tell you, when you throw a rock into the pigpen, the ones that squeal are the ones you hit.

I thank the gentleman from Kansas for yielding.

I have listened to the opening of this debate, and I think sometimes we get a little bit confused about what it is about. But there is plenty of evidence out here and plenty of support out here that the polar bear population is not threatened. There is a healthy population of 25,000 worldwide, I think. And contrary to the gentleman's remarks

about it being in America, it's globally, that population; and that it has been carefully studied, and that the permits that are issued generate funds for Native North Americans as well as funds to help sustain the polar bear population.

I think what this debate is about, and I can't question, certainly, anybody motives, but I can tell you what I got here. I got an announcement that said: ``This recorded vote will be scored on the 2007 Humane Society scorecard.''

So I look at the information that I see, and much of it is source from that Web page, which I happened to have printed as well.

But I think the debate is a broader debate than the debate of the welfare of the polar bear. I think this debate is about, and I am going to broaden this, ``the incremental implementation of global vegetarianism.'' That's the big picture. And the second picture is, ban sport hunting. And the third picture is, ban livestock production and feeding. And the fourth picture is, ban the consumption of meat. All that stuff fits within this big umbrella. This is one component of the much broader picture.

But if you take it back down to the issue that was raised, and another one is using the canard of global warming being the issue, well, it actually works against you, gentlemen. If you're worried about global warming and if you're worried about the habitat for polar bears being diminished by global warming, then humane hunting would be the thing to do as the habitat diminishes to make sure they had a healthy habitat for them to roam on. That's not the case. It's a canard, not a reason. And it's not an environmental reason. It's a broader agenda, through which the environmental and global warming agenda fits.

So this is sound science that holds this up on this side. And sports hunting is a good way to manage population.

I would urge the defeat of this amendment.

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 44: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 45: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Offered By: Mr. King of Iowa

Amendment No. 46: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Madam Chair, the amendment that I offer here today is an amendment that reaches out and directs $100 million to the National Parks Service for the purpose of putting up barriers on our border. This comes from one of my multiple trips down to the region where I sat and talked with a number of the park officers and visited the border parks that we have. And I can take you down through the pieces of this argument, but I think the centerpiece of it was addressed by Mr. Bishop of Utah, when he talked about one-third of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument being set aside off limits to American citizens, to American tourists because it has been so inundated by illegals and by drug smugglers and drug traffickers and litter that when I asked to go to that area, they said it's not safe, we don't have the personnel to take you. So it's essential that we protect these national treasures that we have, these national parks and national monuments.

I want to reflect upon an example here, Madam Chair, and that is this poster that I have. This shows the entrance to the lesser long-nosed bat cave. It's one of four maternal bat caves in the United States. And this is an endangered species. This is a location where illegals used to go in and hole up. And their constant presence there drove the bats out. The 4,000 bats that lived here were driven to other places. They found $75,000 in their budget and volunteer labor and went to build and construct this barrier around the bat cave to keep the illegals out. The bats returned, thankfully. But we have other species, and we have this precious area.

And if I can reflect back, Madam Chair, just upon my notes with a meeting with the director of one of our national parks on the border. First, he said we were concerned about disease, hoof and mouth disease, for example, as I am. But from 1978 to 1984, there wasn't much of a problem with illegal traffic. By 1989, activity had picked up. By 1999, 13 miles of fence were stolen. By the year 2002, ``everything went haywire.'' The numbers increased dramatically, 20 to 25 cars at any one time abandoned, litter all over the parks, 20,000 pounds of drugs recovered just on that refuge alone. And his question is not, what are you going to give me? But what can I cut in order to save these national parks?

So I've made a recommendation on what to cut, Madam Chair, and it reaches out into three different areas to come up with $100 million so that we can protect these national parks along our border from this traffic. When it gets so bad that the litter is so bad that we won't let Americans drive by on the road and look, when it gets so bad that a Member of Congress can't get an escort with enough armed personnel to go down into one-third of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the location where Park Officer Chris Eggle was killed in the line of duty in order to intercept a drug smuggler across the border, I call upon this Congress, Madam Chair, to do something. And the director of this park said to me, a year or two or five ago, I would have said don't build a fence, don't build a wall, I don't want that mark across my monument. Today I say, that's what will preserve the rest of it.

So I think that makes my strongest argument. We need to find the funds to protect our precious national resources. There should be not one square foot of a national park that an American citizen is off limits to because we can't protect it from infiltrators that come from across the border to smuggle drugs and commit crimes.

So I would urge adoption of this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word for the purpose of a colloquy.

I raise the issue today of Storm Lake, Iowa. It happens to be one of the southerly most glacial lakes in the country, and it's the shallowest one that we have. It has been under a process of removal of that silt for water quality and for environmental reasons. We've done a great job of protecting the siltation in the entire watershed area. There's always ongoing work there, and it's never perfect. But this is a project that has been engaged in with local money, and that means private money, city money, county money, State money and Federal. It's a five-way partnership that has been working here, and we have 700,000 yards of silt to go.

I direct my inquiry to Chairman Dicks. I requested funds to address this challenge through the EPA's EPM account. It is my understanding, Mr. Chairman, that these projects have not been earmarked at this time for that particular account.

Would that be a correct assumption?

I thank the gentleman. Is it the chairman's expectation that these types of projects will be added in conference with the Senate?

I thank the gentleman for his attention to this matter and Ranking Member Tiahrt as well and look forward to those discussions as we move forward to conference.

Reclaiming my time, I very much appreciate the chairman's recommendation and will happily follow through on that recommendation. I thank your staff as well.

Amendment Offered by Mr. Price of Georgia