Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, recently, in the border ghost town of Fort Quitman, Texas, a county road crew came under automatic weapon fire. The four Hudspeth County workers reported at least eight shots were fired at them from across the border in Mexico.

The Rio Grande is very narrow in this isolated region and is used by armed drug smugglers to bring drugs into the United States. Speculation by the Texas Rangers is the shooter was trying to protect the drug route from the workers. This newest attack on the road crew is yet another example of the brazen, violent determination of outlaws to invade the United States.

The United States protects the borders of other nations. Why doesn't the Federal Government do its constitutional duty and really protect our border from foreign invaders? Are border States going to have to not only give road crews shovels but rifles to protect them from the drug cartels?

It's time to be serious and protect Americans and put more National Guard troops on the border. Meanwhile, Washington seems to be whistling by the graveyard of indifference.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, it is the shooter, not the gun. Not the bullets; not rejection by the Army; not the Internet; not radio talk shows; not the political climate; not people assembling to protest; not the press; and not bold speech that is to blame for the crimes by the terror from Tucson. Hold the assassin accountable. He and he alone should be judged. In this frenzied furor to make excuses and to find other causes for the crime, Congress itself would do well not to do violence against our Constitution.

Those elites, even those in Congress, who think that they and they alone are now authorized to regulate speech, press, assembly, and the right to bear arms should understand they cannot use this assault and murder as an excuse to steal away the rights of citizens, all under the false illusion of making us safe from killers.

The Constitution should not be imprisoned, for it is the terror of Tucson who should be locked in chains.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, never before in the history of our great country has a tax been levied on individual Americans by the Federal Government with the purpose of forcing citizens to do something the government wants them to do. And never before has the government self-righteously ordered Americans to buy a product or pay a punitive fine.

In my opinion, the Constitution does not give the Federal Government, even well-intentioned government, the authority to make citizens buy any product, whether it's a car, whether it's health insurance, or even whether it's a box of chocolates.

The individual mandate provision of the health care bill is unconstitutional. The author of the Constitution, James Madison, said: ``The powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined. Those that remain to State governments are numerous and indefinite.'' The health care bill is a theft of the individual freedom to control one's health to have it now controlled by omnipotent government.

Big government doesn't mean better solutions. In fact, as someone has said, ``If you think the problems government creates are bad, just wait until you see government solutions.'' Government is partially to blame for the health care crisis, and the nationalized health care bill's government solution is unworkable and unconstitutional.

And if you like the efficiency of the post office, the competence of FEMA, and the compassion of the IRS, we will love the nationalized health care bill. Certainly, what we do here in Congress should be constitutional. And we should repeal the health care bill and come up with constitutional solutions for health problems.

And that's just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, I want to tell you about a good work that's going on in Houston, Texas. It's a program that is not sponsored by the government. In fact, the government is not involved in this project at all. It all started 15 months ago when Amanda Gayle and her mother, Linda Gayle Lee, decided they would start going from Humble, Texas, my hometown, to downtown Houston, about 30 miles away, and start feeding the homeless. And so they fix hot meals for the homeless. They go out to downtown Houston in a remote area of that city, and they feed those people every night a hot meal. And they've done it for 15 months.

I call this Amanda Gayle's Kitchen. And they are feeding the homeless--not just the homeless, but I believe these are the rejected homeless. These are the homeless that can't get into shelters. They don't live in shelters. They have all kinds of physical, emotional, and mental issues, and they live on the streets of Houston, Texas. And every night for 15 months, they've fed about 100 of these homeless individuals with a hot meal.

A couple of months ago, the Houston Police Department came to where they were feeding and told them they needed to move to another location, the police department suggested the location, and they moved down the street; and every night they feed the homeless. In fact, now they bring them blankets and sleeping bags because of the winter.

Amanda Gayle is now married to a preacher, Trey Herring, and he has continued this network of feeding the homeless and clothing them every night. They have networks all over the Houston area, some in a different county, where this hot food is brought in, cooked in kitchens, and they feed the inner city. It's an organized effort, they enjoy doing it, and it's something that's important.

But on December 30, even winter for Houston, the health department came in of the City of Houston and said, you can't do this anymore, because you don't have a permit to distribute food. And, you also cooked this food in a kitchen that is not certified by the City of Houston. The health department said the poor is susceptible to disease, so we're going to shut you down.

Like Amanda Gayle said, the health department would rather they go hungry, eat out of dumpsters, than to get a hot cooked meal from somebody that doesn't have a certified kitchen and doesn't have a permit to distribute food. In fact, the City of Houston cleanup crews have gone through this area and taken the sleeping bags and the blankets away from these individuals. Of course Amanda Gayle and her kitchen folks continue to supply them with whatever they need.

Amanda Gayle and Trey Herring have both tried to contact the health department. They have received no answer about why they were shut down and how they can reopen. Because, see, they want to follow the law, they want to do the right thing, but they want to help these people that they feed every night a hot meal that they don't have access to from some government program.

This is a perfect example of the phrase that no good deed goes unpunished and they are punishing this good couple for what they're trying to do. I believe if the City of Houston had been around when the good Lord fed the 5,000, they would have tried to prohibit that good work since he had no permit to distribute food or hadn't cooked those two fish and five loaves from a certified kitchen. They would have closed him down, I'm sure.

Government is the problem here and government should help these people help people. All they want to do is feed the hungry every night. I'm not sure there's anybody in the House that would do this. But they do it because they want to help people that are in need. So I hope the City of Houston will figure out a way to let Trey and Amanda Gayle and those other people in Amanda Gayle's kitchen feed the hungry, clothe those that need to be clothed, and take care of those out there on the street that are there not by choice but because of circumstances. And the City of Houston needs to figure out a way that the government is not the problem but help this good couple do this good work and let them continue, together with the city, to make sure that certain people in our city, Houston, Texas, are taken care of every night.

And that's just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, it was a Saturday morning, clear skies, and a wonderful day, and Gabby Giffords was doing what really she liked to do best, what many of us like to do best--talking to people that we represent and listening to those people back home.

Friday, before she left for Tucson and I left for southeast Texas, we were talking here on the House floor. Gabby and I are friends. I have been to Iraq with her. And we were talking about border security. In fact, she had invited me to Tucson to see what takes place there and go to the border. I, likewise, have already invited her to Texas to see our border. And we work quite well together. She works with everybody quite well. And then she was off to the airport, going home.

Many people don't realize that most Members of Congress go home every weekend. We don't live in Washington. We work in Washington, and we commute. And she was headed to the airport, excited to go back and see the people that she represents.

And then Saturday morning, an evildoer came to a public gathering, attacked Gabby, He really attacked our Nation, because there was a crowd of citizens, old and young, that were peaceably assembling to learn more about America--to participate in the American process in dealing with their representative, Gabby Giffords.

We should remember the victims that were shot and killed that day. The evildoer, his name is not important. He should be held personally accountable for his actions. His trial should be swift. If convicted, his punishment should be severe. But it is the victims that we honor, that we remember in this cruel episode of evil.

You know, Christina Taylor Green, a 9-year-old girl, just elected to the student council in her third grade class. She liked politics. She wanted to be more involved, and that's why she was there Saturday morning with Gabby Giffords. She was born on 9/11, a 9-year-old girl, her life stolen in her youth.

All of us who are parents, grandparents, we never want to see our child or someone else's child taken before their time. But that's what happened to Christina Taylor Green, apparently a wonderful, wonderful young person.

You know, Gabby Giffords is a fighter, and she fights for her beliefs, make no question about it. Everybody who knows her, knows where she stands on issues. My grandmother described her years ago without even knowing it. My grandmother was probably the most influential person in my life. My friends on that side of the aisle would appreciate the fact that she was a Yellow Dog Democrat and never forgave me for being a Republican. But she made a comment about people like Gabby. She said, ``there is nothing more powerful than a woman that has made up her mind.'' Gabby Giffords is that woman.

She's made up her mind about her beliefs. She's made up her mind about the will to represent the people in Arizona. And I believe she's made up her mind to survive, because only 5 percent of gunshot wounds to the head, those people, survive. And she will be one of them.

So we recognize her; we honor her, and we look forward to seeing her on this House floor again being that strong-willed woman, that feisty woman from Arizona.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, in just a few days, on January 9, Iraqi authorities will deport the Abbasi family to Iran where they face certain persecution.

The Abbasis are political refugees. Their father got in trouble in Iran because he dared to write that Iranians actually deserve freedom. He wrote that every man should be able to have a say in who governs them. This simple idea is the very foundation on which our great Nation was built and the fundamental, universal human right of all mankind. But the tiny tyrant of Iran did not like that. He saw Mr. Abbasi as a threat to his power.

The regime, having tasted power, is doing whatever it can to keep it. That includes imprisoning, torturing, and murdering anyone who so dares speak against it. But these are desperate actions from a desperate regime.

When a regime loses respect for its own people, its days are numbered.

As he has done with thousands of other Iranian freedom fighters, Ahmadinejad came after Mr. Abbasi. So Mr. Abassi fled to Sweden. But when he did, Iranian authorities started going after his family still in Iran. So they fled too, but could only get to Iraq before being imprisoned by Iraqi authorities for not having their immigration papers. Now the Iraqi government wants to deport his daughter, Iman Abbasi, back to Iran, which is all but a death sentence for her. I talked to the State Department about Iman today and they are working on making sure that Iman is allowed to remain in Iraq until they can sort out her refugee status.

We have seen enough of Iraqi authorities doing favors for its neighbor to the East. At Camp Ashraf, a camp in the middle of the Iraqi desert full of freedom fighters from Iran, Iraqis and their Iranian buddies psychologically torture the residents. They put up dozens of loudspeakers surrounding the camp and shout at residents around the clock, telling them to go home to their motherland and stop being traitors.

We must send a clear message to Iraq: as long as it is ruled by the tiny tyrant and his henchmen, Iran is not a friend you can trust. If you side with them, then you side with oppression and tyranny. So stop imprisoning political refugees and stand up for the freedom that so many of our countrymen and yours have given their lives for.

Madam Speaker, more Border Patrol agents are being sent to the southern border. The border is violent, desolate, and dangerous. Drugs and people are going north. Money and weapons are going south. And the border is a war zone.

Madam Speaker, I'm not talking about the southern border of the United States with Mexico. No. I'm talking about the Afghanistan- Pakistan border. That's correct. Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano has said, ``We are going to contribute Border Patrol agents to protect the border of Afghanistan.''

Now, why is Homeland Security making this uninformed decision? Our southern border is a war zone and our Border Patrol agents are needed there. In fact, they need more help. We should send more National Guard troops there to help them stop the invasion of the violent drug cartels.

Homeland Security should protect our homeland, not somebody else's. This ill-advised move by the Department of Homeland Security shows how blissfully ignorant Washington is about reality and the battle on the third front, the southern border of the United States.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, history, heritage and symbols of the United States are constantly under criticism in this country. Even yesterday when we read the Constitution of the United States on the House floor, the first time it has ever been done in 200 years, there were some who complained that it is irrelevant. It is kind of like folks in church that cover their ears when certain sections of the Bible are read. They don't want to hear it because it may apply to them.

People go to court nowadays to try to remove our national motto, In God We Trust. It is above the flag, Mr. Speaker, although television very seldom shows our national motto.

Then there are those who are offended by the American flag, Old Glory. It is not even displayed in parts of the United States because it offends some people. Some people that are included in the group are foreigners who are offended by the American flag.

Now we get to today, a report by the Houston Chronicle about Marine Michael Merola, a 60-year-old vet from the United States Marine Corps, and he flies, here he is, he still looks like a Marine, this is a photograph from the Chronicle that shows Old Glory and, of course, the Marine flag, flying in his backyard on a 20-foot flagpole.

No one has complained. His neighbors like it. Kids walk by and actually compliment him on flying Old Glory and the Marine flag. But the neighborhood association has complained and sued.

Now, who is this guy? Well, he served in the United States Marines from 1969 to 1977. He trained with the United States Navy SEALs. After he left the Marine Corps, he was responsible as sergeant of the guard for raising the flag at NSA right down the road. He is from New York, but he got to Texas as fast as he could, and he has no intention of taking down this flag or flagpole. He is a passionate American. He is a marine.

But the association doesn't like it, and here is what they have said in their lawsuit: the flagpole is a detriment to the association. It causes imminent harm and irreparable injury to the association. The problem with the flagpole of that height and that significance is it flaps in the wind and causes noise to other homeowners. That is their problem. So they sued him.

Now, first of all, we have an issue of freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has said it is a right to fly the flag. Speech includes the flying of the American flag. It is the symbol of everything that is good and right about America. That is why it is behind you, Mr. Speaker, when we go into session every day.

Marines and sailors and soldiers and members of the Coast Guard have fought under that flag all over the world and have died for that flag so the association can exist down there in northwest Houston. Right now we are engaged in two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and members of our military are fighting under that flag. But it is flying in the breeze and offends the association because the flapping causes irreparable injury.

Well, flapping in the breeze has brought safety to the United States. The flag flying throughout the world and the noise, if we can use that word, the sound of freedom, is the sound of that flag flying in the United States and throughout the world. It is freedom of speech, and it trumps the elitist concept that the flag and the flagpole are offensive to the association.

You know, Mr. Merola is a marine. Once a marine, always a marine. And we are proud of our marines in the United States. They are a unique bunch. That was best said by an Army general about the Marines, ``There are only two groups that understand the marines--the marines, and the enemy.'' And that is correct.

So good for you, Mike Merola. Keep your flagpole up. Fly Old Glory. Fly the marine flag. We are proud of you. Keep fighting for the flag, because freedom of flying the flag trumps the concept that it is offensive to some people.

God bless our marines, God bless you, Mike Merola, and semper fi.

And that's just the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, this new Congress must be committed to listening to the will of the people and following the Constitution. Immediately we must right a wrong that has been forcibly placed like chains on the American people.

The unhealthy national health care bill bruises the doctrine of the Constitution. The people don't want the government stealing their individual liberty to make health decisions. Congress must repeal this totalitarian act.

In a few moments, Congress this day, on this new day, will read the Constitution on the House floor, the sacred rule of law for this Nation. Nowhere in this document of wisdom does the Federal Government have the omnipotent authority to force any American to buy any product or face criminal penalties, whether it is a car, health insurance, or a box of donuts.

The nationalized health care bill is an unconstitutional oppression of the American citizen. We will repeal this injustice. On this new day, we stewards of the Constitution must right this wrong, this illegal law that has been coerced upon the people without their consent.

And that's just the way it is.

Section 4: ``The times, places and manner of the holding of elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations except as to the place of choosing Senators.''

Madam Speaker, more border agents are being sent to the border. The border, as we all know, is violent, dangerous, and it is not safe. Drugs and guns and people and money cross back and forth across the border because two nations do not have operational control of that border. The border is desolate. It is hard. It is a war zone-- but Madam Speaker, I am not talking about the border of the United States with Mexico. I am talking about the southern border, or the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

That's right. Border Patrol agents from the United States are going to Afghanistan to protect the Afghan border

from the Taliban coming in from Pakistan. It is a war zone over there, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, has said we are going to contribute Border Patrol agents to protect the border of Afghanistan. There are already 25 there, and more are on the way.

Now, Madam Speaker, why are Border Patrol agents from the United States going to Afghanistan?

The marines and our soldiers and our troops over there can do the job. More importantly, we need the Border Patrol agents over here. ``Homeland security'' means that the Secretary of Homeland Security protects the American homeland, not the homeland of some other nation.

We need the help.

In fact, we need the military on our southern border. Our border is a war zone. Drugs and people and money crisscross our border with Mexico. It is a violent place. It is the third front. More recently, we have had several people murdered on the battlefront on our border. Let me relate three of those.

One of those was a 27-year-old female police chief in Mexico--right on the border with the United States. Chief Hermila Garcia was on the job for 51 days, and she was shot down, shot seven times by the drug cartels. A recent homicide on the border.

Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot in the back while he was protecting our border. Ironically, he had been to Iraq and Afghanistan as a soldier, as a marine, and now he was back here, killed on our border.

Then David Hartley, a citizen, was murdered on Falcon Lake, in Texas, when he was with his wife, Tiffany, as they were viewing an old mission. Shot and killed by the drug cartels.

Our homeland is not protected adequately, and it is time that we put Border Patrol agents on our border but also that we put the National Guard on our southern border. It is the third front. Homeland Security should protect it.

And that's just the way it is.

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

Today the House considers this important bill, S. 2925, the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act of 2010. The bill was introduced by Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and was recently amended and passed in the Senate by unanimous consent. We had a similar bill introduced in the House this year by my friends Mr. Smith from New Jersey and Mrs. Maloney from New York. I would like to thank them both for their leadership on this important issue.

Domestic minor sex trafficking is modern-day slavery and a scourge on our society. According to Shared Hope International, at least 100,000 minor children are used in prostitution every year in just the United States. Some sources estimate the number of minors may be as high as 300,000, though the actual number is difficult to really track. Girls as young as 11 years of age are sold on Internet Web sites, exploited by men for their youth and by gangs for their quote, ``reusable qualities.'' These traffickers and the customers who buy them are the filth of humanity.

In my other life, I was a judge in Texas, and a former Texas Ranger told me, ``Judge, when you find one of these traffickers in court, just get a rope.'' Not that we'd do that, but this is how bad this crime is affecting our communities.

In my hometown of Houston, Texas, we have a Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance. It's one of 42 in the Nation. Texas is a tier 1 trafficking State, and Houston, unfortunately, is a hub for human trafficking. This means that the Rescue Alliance is on the front lines of the war against trafficking. They are doing all they can to combat trafficking in Texas and other States. But I hear from them over and over again they just need more resources to care for the victims of domestic minor sex trafficking.

Too often in our system, crime victims, those women, those young girls who are sold into slavery, are treated like criminals. They are not criminals. They are victims of crime. And it's time we, as a community, treat them as victims, not criminals.

Senator Wyden's bill, S. 2925, addresses the problem by authorizing the Department of Justice, in working with the Department of Health and Human Services, to award grants to organizations in six regionally diverse locations that provide services for child sex trafficking victims. Such services may include temporary and long-term placement of victims, as well as 24-hour emergency services. The funding may also be used to provide mental health counseling. Most importantly, funding may be used for specialized training for law enforcement officials and social service providers to properly identify and care for minor trafficking victims.

When this legislation passed the Senate, important amendments were added to strengthen the ability of law enforcement officials to further prevent the sexual exploitation of children. Unfortunately, a number of these amendments were stripped before the bill was brought to the House floor. I disagree with that approach. We need tougher laws, not weaker laws, to apprehend, convict, and incarcerate traffickers and those who buy young girls for sex.

This bill is a good first start toward building our capacity to care for the victims of domestic minor sex trafficking. Not one more American child, not one more kid should be allowed to wander our streets with their innocence for sale.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who has been instrumental in this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren), the former Attorney General of California.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I do want to thank the gentlelady from New York (Mrs. Maloney) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who are both sitting here together to show their support for this bipartisan legislation.

I believe that important, good legislation passes this House when it is bipartisan, and nothing could be more important than trying to protect the greatest resource we have in our community, which is those young children who live among us. This legislation is important for a whole lot of reasons.

It is ironic, Madam Speaker, that in international sex trafficking, if we have that situation in the United States where, say, a young girl is trafficked into the United States from Honduras, and she is rescued by law enforcement, she is treated like a victim of crime because she is an international individual. If the same situation occurs where an American citizen, a young girl, is trafficked from Sacramento to Houston and she is rescued in Houston, she is not treated as a victim of crime; she is generally treated as a criminal. That especially is true in places like Texas, where domestic trafficking victims are treated as criminals.

Not to blame law enforcement, but they don't know what to do with these young girls. There is no place to put them. There is no place to take them. So they file charges on them for prostitution, minors committing prostitution, so they can protect them by locking them up. That is why many times they file charges. However, though, they are not criminals. They are victims of criminal conduct. Once she has that label of prostitute, even though she is a minor, we all know because of public records nowadays that that sticks with that young girl forever no matter how it turns out in that criminal case.

So we have to change the mindset in this country to make sure that we understand when a victim--a young girl--is put in that situation because of her environment or whatever and is forced into modern day slavery, that we treat her as a victim of crime, and when she is rescued by law enforcement, that she is rescued and not put into the criminal justice system. This bill moves us in that direction, and it is important that we continue to understand that.

This is a hard situation. For the young girls who find themselves in that position--who go into prostitution because of being forced to do so--once they are rescued, they are difficult to deal with. They have a hard time coming back into a normal society because they are beat down emotionally and they are beat down physically. So it is difficult to deal with them, and it is not easy to bring them back. But just because it is hard, it is no reason we shouldn't be involved in helping the youth of our community and in making sure that we rescue them one at a

time. It is no reason we shouldn't take whatever funds are necessary to make sure that we treat them with the dignity that they deserve.

Then, on the other end, when we capture that trafficker, that individual who makes money--that filthy lucre--from transporting a child from one part of the United States to another, we treat him as he deserves, and he gets justice at the courthouse.

Then the customers who buy those children for sexual favors, we treat those people with justice. They get justice whether they want it or not, and we hold them accountable for the ways they have treated the youth of this Nation.

So we have a long way to go; but this is a start, recognizing that those young girls, mainly young girls, are victims of crime.

I want to thank the sponsors of this legislation. I, too, want to compliment those in the Houston area and the Rescue Alliance, the Children At Risk, a nongovernment agency that's doing everything they can to rescue those children; Sheriff Adrian Garcia, Constable Ron Hickman, all working together to stop this epidemic that is consistently growing in this country.

And I can agree that there's no more important legislation that we could pass than legislation this time of year to take care of our greatest natural resource: young children.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, when a young girl is kidnapped in a foreign country and brought into the United States and used as a sex slave and law enforcement gets involved, she is treated as a victim of crime.

If a young girl who is an American citizen is forced into sex slavery as an 11- or 12-year-old and she is trafficked across the United States and law enforcement gets involved, unfortunately that girl is not treated as a victim, but a criminal, and criminal charges are filed on her for prostitution and she goes through the system. Many times, law enforcement does that just to protect that young child.

We need to change that, and today this House of Representatives passed legislation, the Domestic Trafficking Victims Act, which will treat those victims as victims and give resources to put them in places throughout the United States where we can protect them, rescue them, prosecute the trafficker, and prosecute the customer who buys that sex from that poor girl for money.

We need to treat these victims with the dignity that they deserve. This legislation is important. I am glad it passed the House.

And that's just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, Brazil is at it again. We thought they learned their lesson in the case of Sean Goldman, but they have not--as of 2009, there were still over 50 kidnapped children in Brazil, including Nicole Pate, the daughter of my constituent, Marty Pate.

I have come to this floor before to talk about the case of my constituent, Marty Pate. Marty lives in Crosby, Texas, and has not seen his daughter, Nicole, in 4 years. Her mother, Monica, is a native of Brazil. In 2006, she took Nicole on a trip to Brazil and never came back.

Legal documents from Texas give Marty joint custody, and the Hague Convention requires Brazil to work out visitation for Marty. Marty is not asking for his daughter to be returned--though it is well within his rights to ask for this. He is just asking to see his daughter and have her visit family in the United States.

Marty has gone above and beyond in trying to work with the government of Brazil. He has even offered to drop the charges pending against his ex-wife if it would make a visit with Nicole easier. He has spent over $10,000 of his own money flying to and from Brazil countless times to see Nicole.

But Brazilian officials have continued to stonewall and ignore their obligations under the Hague Convention. They have allowed Nicole's mother to make a mockery of the Hague process, to file meaningless allegations and attempt to delay the process. So far, it's working. The Government of Brazil has let this case linger for over a year without resolution.

A child's welfare hangs in the balance. Nicole Pate is caught between two worlds--living with her mother in Brazil and not allowed to see her father or her siblings back in the United States. But officials in Brazil don't seem to care. They are taking their sweet time in dealing with this case. In August, it was decided that the case would go before a Federal judge. It is now December and we still don't have a court date.

Madam Speaker, there is a reason that the State Department has labeled Brazil a non-compliant country when it comes to honoring the Hague Convention. It seems that Brazil would rather sign onto treaties and gain all the benefits that come with that--but they don't care about holding up their end of the bargain. The State Department needs to take aggressive action to pressure Brazil into acting with haste when determining the fates of American children. There is no excuse for Brazil to drag their feet while little Nicole Pate sits and wonders why she can't see her daddy.

Even worse is that the behavior of Brazil and other non-compliant Hague countries seems to have no impact on our foreign policy in relation to these countries. We still trade with them, we still send them millions in foreign aid each year, and these countries still violate their treaty obligations. Or in the case of Brazil, become a haven for kidnapped American children.

That is why in the 112th Congress I intend to introduce a bill that will require Congress to vote on foreign aid by country--instead of in one, giant package. The American people should be able to see where we send foreign aid money, and for what purpose. And furthermore, it will allow Congress to hold countries accountable to receiving that money.

It's time for the Government of Brazil to begin honoring their obligations under the Hague Convention. It's time for the State Department to be more aggressive in fighting for kidnapped American children around the world.

And it's time for Marty Pate to be reunited with his kidnapped daughter, Nicole.

And that's just the way it is.

Madam Speaker, the Interior Department said there will be a new ban on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. That will cost us thousands of good-paying jobs in the gulf region, especially around Texas and Louisiana. The administration promised us that domestic oil production

was an important part of our energy future; but for the last 6 months, the Federal Government has blocked drilling at every turn, leaking a permit out here and there only just lately. But now they say it's safe to drill again, and what do they do? They ban drilling.

The Cubans are going to drill offshore next year, and from what they're saying, they will partner with the Russians and the Chinese. Madam Speaker, since when is it okay for China, Russia, and Cuba to drill off our shores and not America? Not only that, the American taxpayer is sending money by the administration to Brazil and Mexico to let those countries drill off their shores. Is the administration at war with the American energy companies? Maybe so.

And that's just the way it is.