Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, political careers tend to end in one of three ways: defeat, death, or retirement. And despite the fervent and mostly noble exertions of my adversaries over the years, I rise today to bid farewell to this House under the happiest of the available options.

I wish to begin the end of my congressional career by publicly thanking for the last time as their Representative the people of the 22nd District of Texas. Everything I have ever been able to accomplish here I owe and dedicate to them. It has been an honor and a privilege to serve them here.

Mr. Speaker, the real Speaker, he is on his way, I want to tell the real Speaker it has been a real honor to serve with Denny Hastert, who is my good friend, my most trusted partner and colleague. I want to take just a moment to congratulate him myself on becoming the longest serving Republican Speaker in history.

What a blessing this place is, Mr. Speaker. What a castle of hope this building is, this institution is for the people of the world. It is one of those things in political life that you always know, but seldom notice. The schedules we are forced to keep during our days in Washington are not always hospitable to sitting back and reflecting on the historical significance of our surroundings.

In the weeks since I announced my retirement, however, I have found myself doing just that. I notice things like I have not in years. I notice the monuments on the Mall. I notice that in Washington's obelisk, the Father of Our Country is represented not as an object of glory, but as a dutiful sentry at attention, minding his post for eternity.

I notice that under Jefferson's dome, the statue of the man is relatively understated, while his etched words still thunder from the marble with the power to drive history.

I notice that Lincoln's chair, the man who sought above all peace and reconciliation, keeps one of his hands in a perpetual fist. I walk these halls with a keener perspective. I notice now the statues of old and great, and in some cases almost forgotten, heroes that line the halls of this building, that stand in Statuary Hall.

In these halls I have also noticed in recent weeks the number of tourists in the Capitol who speak no English. They are not from America, most of these visitors, and yet, in a certain sense, of course they are. They may speak Italian or Polish or Japanese, but the freedoms they enjoy, both here and in their own country, have been inspired, won and secured by the ideals and the courage and the compassion of the American people.

These pilgrims come from all over the world to the House of Representatives to sit up in these galleries, photograph the statues, and stare up at the rotunda, to bear witness to the awesome feat of human liberty we have achieved right here.

The dome above us, Mr. Speaker, is a light house, a star even, by which all of the people in the world, no matter how oppressed, how impoverished, how seemingly without hope can chart a course towards security, prosperity, and freedom.

It is worth considering, though I will admit it is considerably easier to consider after you have announced your retirement, whether the days we lead here, the debates we wage, the work we do is always worthy of the elevated ideals embodied in that dome.

I submit that we could do better, as could all people in all things at all times, but perhaps not in the way some might think. In preparing for today, I found that it is customary in speeches such as these to reminisce about the good old days of political harmony, and across-the- aisle camaraderie, and to lament the bitter divisive partisan rancor that supposedly now weakens our democracy.

Well, I cannot do that, because partisanship, Mr. Speaker, properly understood, is not a symptom of democracy's

weakness, but of its health and its strength, especially from the perspective of a political conservative.

Liberalism, after all, whatever you may think of its merits, is a political philosophy and a proud one, with a great tradition in this country with a voracious appetite for growth. In any place, or any time, on any issue, what does liberalism ever seek, Mr. Speaker? More. More government. More taxation. More control over people's lives and decisions and wallets.

If conservatives do not stand up to liberalism, no one will. And for a long time around here, almost no one did. Indeed, the common lament over the recent rise in political partisanship is often nothing more than a veiled complaint instead about the recent rise of political conservatism.

I should add here that I do not begrudge liberals their nostalgia for the days of a timid, docile, and permanent Republican minority. If we Republicans had ever enjoyed that same luxury over the last 12 years, heck, I would be nostalgic too.

Had liberals not fought us tooth and nail over tax cuts and budget cuts and energy and Iraq and partial birth abortion, those of us on this side of the aisle can only imagine all of the additional things we could have accomplished.

But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, they did not agree with us. So to their credit, they stood up to us. They argued with us. And they did so honorably on behalf of more than 100 million people, just like we did against President Clinton and they did against President Reagan.

Now, it goes without saying, Mr. Speaker, that by my count, our friends on the other side of the aisle lost every one of those arguments over the last 22 years, but that is besides the point. The point is, we disagree. On first principles, Mr. Speaker, we disagree. And so we debate, often loudly and often in vain, to convince our opponents and the American people of our point of view.

We debate here on the House floor. We debate in committees. We debate on television, and on radio and on the Internet and in the newspapers; and then every 2 years we have a huge debate, and then in November, we see who won.

That is not rancor; that is democracy. You show me a Nation without partisanship, and I will show you a tyranny. For all its faults, it is partisanship based on core principles that clarifies our debates, that prevents one party from straying too far from the mainstream, and that constantly refreshes our politics with new ideas and new leaders.

Indeed, whatever role partisanship may have played in my own retirement today, or in the unfriendliness heaped upon other leaders in other times, Republican or Democrat, however unjust, all we can say is that partisanship is the worst means of settling fundamental political differences, except for all of the others.

Now, politics demands compromise, and, Mr. Speaker, even the most partisan among us have to understand that. But we must never forget that compromise and bipartisanship are means, not ends, and are properly employed only in the service of higher principles. It is not the principled partisan, however obnoxious he may seem to his opponents who degrade our public debate, but the preening self-styled statesman who elevates compromise to a first principle.

For the true statesman, Mr. Speaker, we are not defined by what they compromise, but what they do not. Conservatives, especially less enamored of government's lust for growth, must remember that our principles must always drive our agenda and not the other way around.

For us conservatives, there are two such principles that can never be honorably compromised: human freedom and human dignity. Now, our agenda over the last 12 years has been an outgrowth of these first principles.

We lowered taxes to increase freedom. We reformed welfare programs that however well intentioned undermined the dignity of work and personal responsibility and perpetuated poverty.

We have opposed abortion, cloning and euthanasia because such procedures fundamentally deny the unique dignity of the human person. And we have supported the spread of democracy and the ongoing war against terror, because those policies protect and affirm the inalienable human right of all men and women and children to live in freedom.

Conservatism is often unfairly accused of being insensitive and mean- spirited, sometimes unfortunately, even by other conservatives. As a result, conservatives often attempt to soften that stereotype by overfunding broken programs or glossing over ruinous policies. But conservatism is not about feeling people's pain; it is about curing it.

And the results since the first great conservative victory in the 1980s speak for themselves. Millions of new jobs, new homes, and new businesses created, thanks to conservative economic reforms. Millions of families intact and enriched by the move from welfare to work. Hundreds of millions of people around the world liberated by a conservative foreign policy victory over Soviet Communism, and more than 50 million Iraqis and Afghanis liberated from tyranny since September 11, 2001.

To all of the critics of the supposedly mean-spirited conservative policies that brought about these results, I say only this: compassionate is as compassionate does.

Now, when I say that word, Mr. Speaker, compassionate, my thoughts turn to one person, my wife, Christine. Twelve years ago, Christine became what is called a court-appointed special advocate for abused and neglected children. And soon thereafter we became foster parents ourselves to three such children.

Over the last 10 years, I have spent more time and energy on the plight and needs of abused, neglected children than on any other single issue. It is an issue that transcends politics, let alone partisanship, and one that will continue to command a disproportionate amount of my time as a private citizen.

I am concerned, however, about whether it will receive the attention it deserves here in Washington, D.C. And because this is the last time I may ever command the attention of the House and of the national media, I will make one more plea before I go.

The catastrophe of America's child welfare and foster care systems is a national outrage, a government failure, and a bipartisan embarrassment. Congresses, administrations, Governors and State legislatures of every party and ideological bent for almost 100 years have thrown abused and neglected children into a vicious cycle of violence, fear, and instability.

Children who have already been beaten and betrayed by the people that are supposed to love them the most are routinely tossed from one temporary placement to another, often 10 to 20 times during their most formative, vulnerable years.

The system we have created still includes perverse economic incentives that deny children permanent homes, and in some States still lacks meaningful child monitoring or even background checks for perspective foster parents. The courts charged with overseeing each case are overrun with unrelated duties. So the thankless, unexciting work of looking after foster kids is just set aside in favor of more glamorous cases on the docket.

Bureaucracies layered one on top of another consign these children to the perdition of government and foster care for years at a time and with little or no effort made to finding them permanent loving forever families.

Instead, every few months these children throw their despair and distrust into a black plastic trash bag along with their few belongings and head off to the next place, the next letdown. They are abused and neglected long before they ever reach our abusive and neglectful foster care system and once in, things often only get worse.

Children are dying, Mr. Speaker, inside and out, and it is our fault. There is legislation now waiting in the Senate to help expedite interstate placement of foster children, and within its narrow focus this bill will do some good on the margins of some cases. I am proud of what little I have been able to accomplish for these children over the years, but in truth, I have only moved molehills, not mountains.

So I leave you today not by asking that one take up this cause, but by asking that all of you do. That you listen to the stories of these children and

the stories that they tell and study the broken system we have created for them and help them, for God's sake, help them.

I ask this of Republicans and Democrats alike, not in the name of bipartisanship but in the name of principle, which brings me back, Mr. Speaker, to those memorials and those statues.

The great Americans honored here in bronze and marble, the heroes of our history and the ghosts of these halls were not made great because of what they were but because of what they did. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln have almost nothing in common with Junipero Serra and Jack Swigert, except the choice they each made, to live, to fight and even to die in the service of freedom. We honor men with monuments not because of their greatness or even simply because of their service, but because of their refusal even in the face of danger or death to ever compromise the principles they served.

Washington's obelisk still stands watch because democracy will always need a sentry. Jefferson's words will still ring because liberty will always need a voice. And Lincoln's left hand still stays clenched because tyranny will always need an enemy. And we are still here, Mr. Speaker, as a House and as a Nation because the torch of freedom cannot carry itself.

Here on this floor, I have caught and thrown spears of every sort. Over the course of 22 years, I have probably worked with and against almost everyone in this Chamber at least once. I have scraped and clawed for every vote, every amendment for every word of every bill that I believed in my heart would protect human freedom and defend human dignity. I have done so at all times honorably and honestly, Mr. Speaker, with God as my witness and history as my judge. And if given the chance to do it all again, there is only one thing I would change. I would fight even harder.

This place has given me so many memories, so much life. For 22 years, I have served the best I knew how. In this House, I have found my life's calling and my soul's savior. Eight years ago, I witnessed evil in the murder of two Capitol Hill police officers, one just outside my office and another, a very dear friend on my protection detail, inside my office itself. And 5 years ago, I witnessed unparalleled courage as their surviving comrades stood at their posts inside this building during the frantic evacuation on 9/11. They are around us every day, the Capitol Police force.

I tell you, those police officers are Members' and staffs' own personal army of guardian angels. They are the bravest men and women serving under this dome, and I offer them now, one more time, my great respect and admiration because believe it or not, Mr. Speaker, this is a happy day for me, though admittedly perhaps not as happy as it is for some of our old friends on the other side of the aisle. But nothing, not this retirement, not tough losses or old wounds, can detract from the joy that I feel and the blessings I offer to this House and its Members.

I say good-bye today, Mr. Speaker, with few regrets, no doubt. And so with love and gratitude for friends and foe alike, patriots all, I yield back the floor of our beloved House. And I exit as always, stage right.

Mr. Speaker, this is the last piece of legislation that I will ever introduce in the United States House of Representatives. I am incredibly honored to do this piece of legislation, particularly at this time. It shows that there is a strong feeling in this House, as exemplified by Mr. Stark; and thank you, sir, for your words and thank you for your work on this.

Mr. Herger, Mr. Chairman, I greatly appreciate your work on not just this piece of legislation, but for foster kids and abused and neglected children around the United States.

Mr. Cardoza, thank you for those words; and your words show your deep feelings and understanding for the plight of foster children in this country and how we are trying to make their life just a little bit better. I appreciate Mr. McDermott's support for this legislation, too, and everybody's work on it.

I particularly appreciate Dr. Cassie Bevan, who has been on my staff for a long time, who has been the leading force in a lot of the work that we have been able to do, the good work that we have been able to do in this House of Representatives.

I pay particular tribute to my wife, who has a deep, deep abiding love for these children and what their future holds.

This bill, the Safe and Timely Interstate Placement of Foster Children Act, will bring urgently needed reform to America's broken system, a broken system of placing abused and neglected children in permanent homes across State lines.

The current system is an insult to any notion of compassion or justice that animates our national commitment to child welfare. Children are moved from home to home to home. They are looking for strong and safe and permanent homes.

We have one child in Rio Bend, that was mentioned by Mr. Stark, that is 17 years old, got into the system at age 6 or 7, in 10 years has been moved over 150 times, 150 times. Thousands of children are being shuttled in and out of our broken, debasing foster care system. They have foster or adoptive families out of State that are more than willing to provide them a permanent, safe and loving home.

Yet this system, as inefficient and backward as any government program, typically holds abused and neglected children in the perdition of government foster care for a full year longer than a child placed in-State, an extra year.

Do you realize what a year means to a child? It is forever. Just because a second government bureaucracy that operates without deadlines or incentives has its chance to let a child down. This is a year lost, Mr. Speaker, a year in the life of an innocent child, a year lost to abuse and neglect and violence and uncertainty and fear.

There is no justification or excuse for such monstrous inequality. The child welfare system exists for these children and must be organized around their needs, not the other way around.

So under this bill, once a child is deemed in need of an out-of-state

placement, the State has 60 days to find a child a foster or adoptive home and 14 days to approve that home. It also creates a financial incentive of $1,500 for States that complete their home studies in 30 days or less.

Our society has a moral obligation to provide for children who are abused and neglected by their parents or others; and, despite the best intentions, our society is too often failing to do so. This bill will not instantly make life good for abused and neglected children in our society, but it can help make it better.

That, Mr. Speaker, is worth the vote of every Member of this body. So I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and just take one small step toward alleviating the burden of our abused and neglected sons and daughters.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for bringing this resolution to the floor and to the gentleman from California for his support for this resolution. It is incredibly important that we bring this resolution to the floor today, and I rise in strong support

of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act which reaffirms America's support for our allies in Israel and protects American interests.

It also brings an end to the dangerously infantilization of the Palestinian people, who through this legislation will finally be held responsible for their political decisions.

In and of itself, January's Palestinian election was a victory for the civilized world in the war on terror. The elections were fair, nonviolent, and added further evidence in support of democracy's fundamental compatibility with Middle Eastern culture.

The outcome of that election, the ascendancy of the unrepentant terrorist organization Hamas, was another story all together. The Palestinian people have made their choice; and while we must respect their God-given right to self-determination, the choice they made has consequences, chief among them the immediate end of foreign assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

American aid to the Palestinian people must be predicated on their rejection of terrorism. And as long as Hamas seeks the destruction of Israel and the murder of innocent Israelis, the United States cannot financially support the Palestinian Authority.

When the day comes that Palestinian leaders reject violence, break apart their terrorist infrastructure, embrace freedom, and seek membership in the civilized world, we will welcome them. Until that day, not a dime.

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

Mr. Speaker, 25 years ago, America and the world were introduced to a new generation of heroes and a new era of human imagination. The moment the Space Shuttle Columbia first launched into low-Earth orbit, every other mode of space transportation was rendered obsolete.

The shuttle was then, and remains today, the most dependable and most technologically advanced spacecraft in the world.

In the last quarter century, the shuttle has become a global icon of American ingenuity and American courage. Since Commander John Young and Pilot Robert Crippen took the shuttle's maiden voyage, dozens of men and women, scientists, soldiers and school teachers have followed them in NASA's mission to conquer the unknown. And in that time, 14 shuttle astronauts have been lost in the pursuit of that noble mission, men and women whose names we remember and whose valor we can never forget.

Where I come from, the space shuttle is more than a symbol. It is part of our community. The shuttle's managers, engineers, astronauts, contractors and designers have long called the Houston region their home. They are the people who have made our Johnson Space Center America's ``laboratory of the impossible,'' and for 25 years have stretched both the technological capacity and the collective imagination of the American people.

It is an honor to represent such heroes in this House and it is an honor to cast my vote in favor of this resolution congratulating NASA and America's space community for 25 years of making history and fulfilling dreams. I urge my colleagues to support NASA's heroes and support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, gas prices are rising and someone is to blame.

The root cause of the rising gasoline prices, as an editorial in this week's Wall Street Journal rightly states, is the incredible shrinking of supply of a gasoline additive called MTBE. The production of MTBE has been for 15 years the direct result of a Federal mandate that such oxygenates be included in the Nation's gas supply. It was mandated by a Democrat Congress seeking to help clean the environment.

Now, that mandate is expiring in May, in large part owed to the discovery of MTBE in some water supplies, a discovery that has trial lawyers salivating as they count down the days. And the main culprit for its seeping into water supplies is faulty, unrepaired, leaking underground storage tanks.

But the producers of those do not have the deep pockets of MTBE producers. Thus, when MTBE producers' liability protection expires in May, as the editorial states: ``Producers and refiners will face far greater liability, which has set off a race to exit the market'' because, as history has shown, the vultures in the lawsuit-happy trial bar will pounce on those with the deepest pockets.

In other words, the Federal Government mandated the production and addition of MTBE as a clean air additive to the Nation's fuel. But now the government says that mandate, while good for clean air, turns out actually to have been bad for groundwater. Now the government wants to let trial lawyers hold the industry accountable for environmental problems the government itself created with its original mandate. Meanwhile, the Nation's ethanol producers, who must now fill the additive void created by the widespread and predictable MTBE pullout, have already admitted they cannot meet the new market demand.

No MTBE and not enough ethanol will mean less gasoline on the market, less gasoline that can be prepared for the market, creating a shortage of supply and thus higher prices. In other words, come Memorial Day, gas prices, which are already higher than they have been since the early days after Hurricane Katrina, stand to spike even higher.

All of this economic analysis in the Journal's editorial, regrettably, is true. What is not true is the editorial's insinuation that congressional Republicans are to blame for it.

On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, House Republicans fought for years to include MTBE-liability protection in the energy bill. The bill was shelved in 2003 when a Democrat-led filibuster, joined by liberal Republicans, succeeded in killing it, an outcome brought about, the then-Democrat leader said, by ``the House Republican leadership's insistence on inclusion of retroactive liability protections for

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise for the purpose of a colloquy with Chairman Wolf.

I understood that the Justice Department is working on a plan to distribute $125 million in emergency funds that were provided in the last hurricane supplemental bill for State and local law enforcement.

Yesterday, in our Appropriations subcommittee hearing, I asked the Attorney General what portion of the funds Texas would receive. The Attorney General told me, ``The law requires us to consult with both House and Senate appropriations, and that is ongoing. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is to victimize the victims again, victimize the States who stepped in and bore the brunt of these terrible tragedies.''

Texans did exactly that. Our citizens stepped in and bore the brunt of these terrible tragedies directly with the fallout from Hurricane Rita and indirectly by taking in hundreds of thousands of evacuees.

The Attorney General should deliver to the committee a plan that includes the needs of law enforcement agencies in Texas. Do you agree, Chairman Wolf?

I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.

I appreciate the chairman's attention on this matter.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and could not be present for rollcall vote No. 18. Had I been present I would have cast the following vote: ``yea'' on rollcall vote No. 18.

(By unanimous consent, Mr. Buyer was allowed to speak out of order.)

Moment of Silence in Memory of Sergeant Rickey E. Jones

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to remember 14 heroes of our Nation's space program.

Three years ago today, on a clear blue morning, the space shuttle Columbia exploded in the skies above Texas, killing all seven members of her crew.

The tragedy reminded us of a similar cloudless morning almost 17 years to the day earlier, when the space shuttle Challenger was lost moments after liftoff.

The 14 men and women who died on these missions were extraordinary individuals, but they were typical of the men and women NASA employs.

Courageous.

Dauntless.

Driven by a spirit of exploration and a desire to understand the unknown.

The Columbia and Challenger crew members knew the risks of spaceflight, but they chose to serve anyway--not in spite of the risks, but in part because of them.

They gave their lives in the hard and noble work of discovery, in service to their country and for all mankind.

Though these 14 heroes have slipped the ``surly bonds of earth,'' their legacy remains, grounded in the hearts and memories of those who strive every day to finish their life's work.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Boehlert, Subcommittee Chairman Calvert, Mr. Udall, and Mr. Gordon. I just want to thank everyone in both Houses who worked on this conference report, especially the staff who has done such a fabulous job. And it is good that this is a strong bipartisan effort. Space is not Republican or Democrat, and I am very proud of the work that you did.

This conference report meets NASA's immediate and long-term needs and puts into place the policies needed for NASA to take its next giant step for mankind over the next 3 years, and that of course will not only make good on President Bush's Vision for Space Exploration; it will make good on the brave and brilliant capabilities of the men and women of our space program.

Specifically, the conference has wisely chosen to fully fund the space shuttle program and its 19 remaining missions; to fully fund the buildout and assembly of the international space station; and to fully fund the crew exploration vehicle.

To meet those vision-related challenges, the conference has also combined the space shuttle and its exploration activities accounts to provide NASA greater flexibility in deploying those resources; it calls for the elimination in any gap between the retirement of the shuttle and the deployment of the CEV, so that America is never voluntarily shut out of space.

It encourages NASA to tap the valuable knowledge of its highly experienced shuttle workforce in the development of the CEV, and it includes new authority for NASA to increase its visibility with a national public awareness campaign to articulate its exciting missions and publicize its tremendous accomplishments.

Mr. Speaker, in this conference report, the first reauthorization in 5 years and the first since the President announced his vision, we have set NASA's course, relying on the courage and ingenuity of the NASA family to accomplish their mission by returning mankind to the Moon and sending us on to Mars.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time, and I greatly appreciate her leadership in bringing this resolution to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, blessed be the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Peacemakers, Mr. Speaker, not simply peaceful. You need not be a soldier or a sailor to know the difference. To know that peace, like all virtues, demands vigilance, courage and unrelenting moral exertion. Every man and woman today making peace in Iraq, whether so signified by a flag on their uniform or an ink stain on their finger, understands those responsibilities.

The Iraqi people have hoped and prayed for a generation simply for the chance to take up peace's burden for themselves. Yesterday, they did, thanks to the bravery and the brilliance of the United States military. Because of their service and sacrifice, a war is being won and a peace is being made in Iraq, across the Middle East, here at home and around the world.

Now, many in this room sought to avoid this war rather than to fight it; to ignore a gathering threat rather than confront it; and now seek to end this war rather than win it. They point to the war's cost, its difficulties and our setbacks, and, despite the catastrophic consequences of failure, call for an immediate retreat and surrender.

Well, not us, Mr. Speaker. This resolution reaffirms our commitment to victory, our commitment to the freedom and security of the Iraqi people, and our commitment to victory in Iraq and the broader war on terror. Every terrorist captured, every vote counted is another step the Iraqi people take towards freedom, victory, and peace. And another step our troops take toward home. Help win the war and help make the peace by supporting this resolution.

Madam Speaker, the Science-State-Justice-Commerce conference report is a fiscally responsible, disciplined package that meets our Nation's needs while staying within our Nation's means.

And we should be particularly happy that conference negotiators have once again wisely chosen to fully fund NASA's efforts to implement President Bush's vision for space exploration.

The history of our space program has shown that money spent by our taxpayers on NASA is an investment in the technologies that drive not only our exploration of the unknown, but our economy here on Earth.

Since its earliest days, NASA has blazed the trails of rocketry, satellite technology, aerospace engineering, telecommunications, and even produced health care miracles from the MRI to the portable x-ray machine.

The earthbound application of these spacebased innovations has transformed the way we live our lives, do our jobs, and communicate with each other and the rest of the world.

President Bush's vision, already being implemented by new NASA Administrator Mike Griffin and his excellent staff, will rededicate our space program to its original, exploratory mission.

Today's bill provides more than $16 billion for our space program.

It fully funds the ongoing work of the still vital and necessary space shuttle program and the other first-stage components of the president's vision for space at more than $3.1 billion.

And with this funding--a mere 1.5 percent increase from last year--we have also provided the NASA Administrator the flexibility he needs to manage his agency's ever-shifting needs and challenges.

Fully funding NASA means fully trusting the courage and brilliance of NASA's people, from astronauts to engineers to support staff, all who are focused on completing the first stage of work in the president's vision: returning the shuttle to flight, completing the International Space Station, developing the next generation space vehicle, and advancing the other aspects of NASA's critical mission.

I have that trust, and this conference report shows that the American people do, too.

I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and I thank the ranking member for bringing this very important resolution to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, the words this week from the President of Iran were shocking but, unfortunately, not surprising. ``Israel must be wiped off the map . . . and God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism.''

These are words of hate, the words not of a legitimate world leader but of an enemy to peace, to freedom, and to the United States.

That Iran's corrupt ruling elite have their boot heel on the neck of moderate reform is not a secret. Nor is Iran's obsession with the development of nuclear weapons with which to destroy Israel any hope for freedom in the Middle East; nor is Iran's membership in and sponsorship of a psychopathic cult of violence and murder that is right now a clear and present danger to the safety of every citizen of the United States, Israel, Iraq, and every other democracy on Earth.

This week's rhetorical outburst, repugnant as it is, Mr. Speaker, is simply a verbal expression of the ayatollah regime's most basic political aspiration, the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Israeli people. That regime, clinging both to power and the past, will one day fall to a new generation of Iranians, devout in their faith, tolerant in their politics, and free in their hearts.

The democratic opposition to the ayatollahs is the future, and a bright one at that. They deserve our support as much as the Tehran regime deserves our scorn and suspicion.

This week's outburst, a direct threat to our ally and our interests, must be condemned in the fiercest terms and backed up by a renewed commitment by this House and this Nation to develop substantive policies to bring about desperately needed political reform in Iran.

Mr. Chairman, there is no shortage of valid complaints to be made of this round of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission's work. I generally support the BRAC process. But what is important about the BRAC process is the process and how it is handled by the Commission itself. I feel that insufficient attention was paid to the role each individual base played in the United States national security, and, more importantly, the homeland security.

The recommendations seem to be based much more on bean counting than strategic value, nowhere more so than in the case of Ellington Field in Houston, Texas. Ellington Field is currently home to the Texas Air National Guard's 147th Fighter Wing, who just got back from Iraq and showed themselves to be exemplary not just in their efforts before going to Iraq, but in Iraq itself. They were absolutely exemplary in their efforts and in their service. We appreciate them in everything that they do.

But Ellington is also home to several other branches and resources of our armed services, all of whom are responsible for the protection of the entire gulf coast. Its national and homeland security facilities should be plain to anyone as in need of more personnel, greater maintenance and better military assets.

Yet the BRAC Commission has chosen to realign Ellington, removing its F-16 Fighter Wing and leaving the gulf coast, to my mind, in many ways more vulnerable than it is now. The Houston-Galveston region has all nine of the FBI targets. It is the only region in the entire United States that has all nine of those targets.

The Commission's Ellington decision was a bad one. I join with the proponents of this resolution and, for that matter, the two BRAC Commissions, including Chairman Principi who voted to save Ellington, in their frustration. The flawed methodology and dangerous implications of the Commission's work, particularly with regard to the Ellington Field decision, leave me no choice but to oppose the BRAC recommendations and support the resolution before us.

We should all support the work of the BRAC Commission to consolidate and improve the alignment of our military assets to strengthen our national security. This round of recommendations, in my view, does not accomplish that goal. I will continue to work on behalf of Ellington Field and to ensure national and homeland security interests of the gulf coast region.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California, and I appreciate the work that you all have done. I rise in strong support of this legislation and also to commend everyone on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol who helped develop this legislation in the recent months.

The legislation before us will correct an unintended consequence of the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000. Under that 2000 act passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by President Clinton, the United States will soon find itself unable to manage many of its investments in space and unable to continue to develop and conduct vital scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station.

Under that 2000 act, by next April, NASA would be severely limited in its ability to maintain an American scientific crew on the ISS, let alone monitor the billions of dollars in investments that the American people have made in the program.

The bill before us will carve out an exemption in the 2000 act for NASA's relationships with Russian companies that build and maintain the vehicles and machinery that provide the services that help us in our partnership with them on the International Space Station. Among the most critical of these relationships are those that allow American astronauts access to the Russian Soyuz, a crew rescue vehicle, docking components for our own spacecraft, and other critical equipment and services.

The United States' permanent presence in space today depends on our ongoing partnership with the Russian Federal Space Agency and other international partners. The President's new vision for space exploration depends on America's investment and involvement in the ISS so that we can develop the science necessary to prepare our astronauts for long-term exposure to microgravity and radiation.

The experiments planned in coming years aboard the ISS can only be conducted in space, and NASA's future missions to the Moon and Mars depend on those experiments. Meanwhile, the potential gap between the retirement of the space shuttle and the deployment of NASA's new crew exploration vehicle would, without this legislation, leave the United States without continual access to space at a time at the end of this decade when we need it the most.

This bill ensures NASA has the flexibility it needs to meet America's challenges in space. I urge all Members to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.