Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have five legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the subject of H.R. 4589 and H.R. 4372.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the American Jobs Creation Act. It is critical that we pass this legislation today. Many of our exports to Europe are currently facing an 8 percent tariff, and this tariff will rise to 17 percent if we do not act.

This legislation is also critical because it recognizes that American companies are operating in a global economy, and we need a tax system that allows them to compete and win.

This bill makes necessary reforms, but most importantly, this legislation will be a tremendous benefit to U.S. manufacturers, both large and small.

Some have said this legislation does not do enough for small business; yet this legislation is strongly supported by the largest small business group in America, the National Federation of Independent Business.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for engaging in this colloquy with me about the need to increase water storage in the Klamath Basin and to seek balanced solutions that will allow everyone to get well together, rather than unfairly targeting agriculture as the problem.

Mr. Chairman, first allow me to clarify some inaccuracies in a colloquy that occurred last night involving my good friend and colleague from Oregon.

Allow me to point out that the gentleman from Oregon who engaged in that colloquy with the chairman last evening, through which he professed concern about the Klamath Basin, does not represent that area. In fact, his district is nearly 300 miles away.

I want to clarify that for the record because I think there was a misunderstanding. In fact, the three Members of Congress who actually do represent the citizens of that area, myself, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) do not support the position of my friend, the gentleman from Oregon.

The studies he proposed will not provide solutions for the Klamath Basin. These issues have been studied and restudied. There is no smoking gun. While the proposed ``studies'' and other past efforts to regulate the lease lands are said to be benign, they are far from that. They were an attempt to undermine farming.

I ask that the committee not support anything that attempts to misconstrue the farming situation on the refuges and wrongly imply that it is a problem or poses a conflict with wildlife.

It simply ``is not'' and ``does not.'' In fact, quite the contrary. Agriculture and wildlife are thriving on refuges.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me clear up one other misconception. The Klamath Basin disaster of 2001 was not about too much demand. It was about an unbalanced regulatory regime and scientific failings that caused water to be needlessly taken from agriculture and from refuges from endangered species. After updating the law and the science, the other important step for us to achieve balance is for Congress and the administration to work to increase water storage.

My concern, Mr. Chairman, is that new water supplies are not being pursued with the vigor and the commitment that they require. Congress authorized the Klamath Basin Water Supply Enhancement Act nearly 5 years ago; however, we have yet to see significant measurable progress towards developing new supplies.

Mr. Chairman, we hope to have your support for encouraging the Secretary of the Interior to put more money and more energy into using this authority to aggressively pursue new storage opportunities such as a Long Lake Reservoir which can provide more water for all interests in the Klamath Basin.

One last thing, Mr. Chairman. If any of my colleagues want to work to find solutions for the Klamath Basin, I want to personally invite them to come to the Committee on Resources' field hearing on July 17. Rather than an uninformed debate here on the House floor, we would talk to the people on the ground and engage in a thorough discussion about the real problems and constructive solutions.

We would talk about what farmers are actually doing for the refuges. We would discuss the scientific shortcomings and how to fix them for the long term. We would talk about how to develop more water supplies to create water supply certainty for all interests.

Mr. Chairman, again, I appreciate your support for honest debate and balanced solutions. I hope that we will have your support to implement expeditiously whatever commonsense balanced solutions might arise from our hearing.

I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 249 I inadvertently voted ``no.'' I intended to vote ``yes.''

Stated against:

Mr. Speaker, some of my first impressions of Ronald Reagan were back in the 1950s when I was yet in grammar school, and I observed him as he hosted the ``General Electric Theater.'' And then again I remember him just after graduating from high school in 1964 when he campaigned and he spoke out for Barry Goldwater. Ronald Reagan stood for ideals that simply were not being expressed anyplace else.

The appropriately named Reagan Revolution was precisely that. He was one of the main reasons I ran for political office. In the late 1970s, we heard our leaders talk about lowering expectations and the good times are over and that our Nation is in a, quote, general malaise. This was mirrored in high inflation that reached 10 to 12 percent, unemployment rates that were over 10 percent or more, and a prime interest rate that reached as high as 21.5 percent.

But then in stepped Ronald Reagan saying America could do better and America would do better. When Ronald Reagan said it, you believed it. His vision of the shining city on the hill gave hope to countless millions of Americans. Back then I, as a small business owner who grew up on a ranch, the American dream appeared endangered by high taxes and big government. In California, property taxes were doubling and tripling. With Ronald Reagan, there was someone we could rally around. His hope, his direction, and his moral clarity gave us all renewed energy. Ronald Reagan had the great ability to say what so many of us were thinking, what we were thinking about our national budget, about our national defense, about taxes; and, yes, about a better America.

The first time I ever met Ronald Reagan was in 1980 when I was running for the State Assembly in California and I journeyed to Simi Valley to get my picture taken with him. I can remember growing up hearing my mother talking about President Franklin Roosevelt, how she would listen to President Roosevelt on the radio during the Great Depression and during World War II. President Roosevelt gave hope to her generation. Ronald Reagan was to my generation what FDR was to my parents.

In Congress I had the privilege to meet Ronald Reagan six or seven times. Just being around President Reagan was inspiring. He lit up the room. To those of us who believed strongly in the American dream, in traditional values and the Judeo-Christian faith, Ronald Reagan was indeed a shining light in the city when there seemed to be none. His spirit will live on in the hearts of Americans. He was truly one of our Nation's greatest Presidents.

Ronald Reagan, thank you, thank you, for all you have done for me. Thank you, thank you, for all you have done for our great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this motion to recommit. This Republican Congress provided additional assistance to the unemployed when it was needed. Through laws passed in 2002 and 2003, nearly 8 million laid-off workers received more than $23 billion in special Federal-extended unemployment benefits. Let me repeat that. Nearly 8 million people received $23 billion in additional help. We continued that temporary program twice last year when unemployment was rising and the economy was shedding jobs.

Fortunately, today that situation has dramatically improved. The economy recently has been growing at the fastest rate in 20 years. President Bush's tax relief worked to turn the economy around. That is why unemployment continues to fall. During the past 12 months, unemployment rates have dropped in every region of the country, including in 47 States. Today's unemployment rate is lower than the average of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Last month saw one of the steepest drops ever in the number of long-term unemployed. Nearly 1 million new jobs have been created this year alone, 138 million Americans are working now,

more than ever before in our Nation's history.

This suggests what we always knew, people want to work, not collect more unemployment benefits. Republicans are working hard to keep this tremendous economic and job growth going. This Democrat motion goes in the opposite direction. It will not help provide critical training for those seeking jobs.

Mr. Speaker, let us reject this motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Child Credit Preservation and Expansion Act of 2004. As a member of the tax-writing Committee on Ways and Means, I have been privileged to work on a number of important tax relief measures. However, nothing has done more to reduce the tax burden on middle-class families than the child tax credit. Three years ago, we made a decision to raise the child credit from $500 per child to $1,000 per child. This was good policy 3 years ago, and it is good policy today.

Unless we act, the child credit would drop next year to $700. This will mean an average tax increase of $600 on 30 million Americans with children. Without the congressional action, the child credit would drop again to $500 after 2010. This would result in a tax hike of more than $1,000 on 34 million taxpayers with children.

Many families in my district in northern California, Mr. Speaker, are already having a difficult time making ends meet. Now is not the time to allow for a new tax increase.

The underlying bill also improves the child credit by allowing more families to qualify. Further, the bill makes the credit more valuable to lower-income families and more accessible to military families receiving combat pay.

Mr. Speaker, if we value children and we value families, let us make our Tax Code more family friendly. I urge my colleagues to reject the Democrat substitute and support the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, while I inadvertently missed the final vote on H.R. 3722, Roll Call Vote #182, 1 would have voted in favor of the resolution.

The Medicare and Prescription Drug Reform bill last year appropriated $1 billion over four years to pay state and local health facilities for the costs they incur in treating illegal aliens. Without denying health care to anyone appearing in the emergency room for treatment, H.R. 3722 would have required that local hospitals turn over information to the Department of Homeland Security about the illegal aliens they treat, as a condition of being reimbursed under the new program.

If hospitals chose not to do so, they would still be free to continue treating undocumented aliens. They simply wouldn't receive payment for these services.

Although H.R. 3722 was not approved, as a member of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, I will continue to work with others in Congress toward meaningful solutions to curb the trend of illegal migration to the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Rangel substitute. Under the guise of individual tax relief from the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, the Rangel substitute would raise taxes by $15 billion. This new tax increase would fall squarely on the shoulders of America's small businesses, the same American companies that create jobs and drive our Nation's economic engine.

The tax relief this Congress has passed over the past 3 years has contributed mightily to the economic recovery we are now experiencing. More

than 750,000 jobs have been created in the past 8 months. We have strong economic growth of between 4 and 5 percent, low inflation, and homeownership rates at the highest level ever.

Mr. Speaker, why in the world would we choose to raise taxes on American small businesses just as our economy has turned the corner? Why would we smother the engines of job creation with higher taxes? Yet this is exactly what the Democrat substitute would have us do. Hard- working Americans need relief from the unfair AMT tax, and the majority bill offered by the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons) will give it to them.

Without passage of the majority bill, an additional 8 million middle income taxpayers will see their Federal taxes rise because of the AMT next year.

We cannot allow this to happen. Let us reject the Democrat substitute and pass the underlying bill. Americans deserve relief from the AMT tax, not new taxes.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 2231) to reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant program through June 30, 2004, and for other purposes.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S. 2231, the Welfare Reform Extension Act of 2004. This legislation is a straight 3-month extension of key parts of the Nation's welfare system.

Madam Speaker, the historic welfare reform law we passed in 1996 is working. Since 1996, more than 2 million children have been lifted from poverty, millions of families have left or remain off welfare, cutting welfare dependence in half, child well-being has dramatically improved, and record numbers of low-income parents are working.

But, Madam Speaker, that is not enough. Despite our progress, 2 million American families still remain dependent on welfare today. More than half of welfare recipients do not participate in any work or job training to prepare them for the future. Every year, millions of families break up or never form, risking welfare dependence for years to come. We must do more to assist these families.

Madam Speaker, that is why it is unfortunate that we are here today to approve yet another straight extension instead of an agreement on more long-term improvements. The House passed such comprehensive reform bills in 2002 and a year later in 2003, but the Senate still has not passed a companion bill, although one is being debated now.

Madam Speaker, in an effort to promote at least some reforms in recent weeks I have introduced two alternatives to a straight extension. Both of these alternatives would continue welfare funding at current levels, just like the bill before us today, but these alternatives would also provide more to help low-income families.

My first alternative would expect more welfare recipients to engage in work, a proven path out of poverty, or help more families avoid welfare dependence altogether.

My second alternative also would continue current programs while redirecting a small portion of welfare bonus funds to promote more healthy married families. Both policies are drawn straight from the reforms that passed the House last year as part of our welfare reform bill, H.R. 4.

I introduced these alternatives because, after 18 months of simply maintaining the status quo, we must do more to help low-income families. I wish we were debating either of these extension bills today. The simple fact is that every day that passes without comprehensive agreement means more low-income families depending on welfare. It means less work and job preparation by parents. It means fewer child care and child support resources available to help families. It means more poverty, and it means more families breaking up or never forming.

Madam Speaker, there is real danger in continued delay as well. The House-passed welfare bill proposes $1 billion more in mandatory child care funding during the next 5 years. It proposes billions more in discretionary child care funding. It proposes full funding for TANF programs.

Will those dollars be available in future years? Perhaps. But as time continues to pass and funding becomes tighter, the assurance that increased or even current Federal funding for these programs will remain available becomes more tenuous. For the past several years, Members on this side of the aisle have resisted proposals to reduce welfare funding knowing that these programs are working and recognizing the need for sufficient funds to make further reforms successful. But that case becomes harder to make, for example, if there is no real work requirement for welfare benefits for yet another year as further reforms fall by the wayside.

Madam Speaker, I encourage all Members to support the bill before us today. The bill will continue current funding for key welfare programs through June 30, 2004. It has already passed the other body, and I know the President will sign it immediately. As I have said during prior extension debates, it is my sincere hope that this will be the final extension needed and that the next 3 months will result in a final agreement that will help millions more families achieve independence and a brighter future. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Just in response, the gentleman mentioned that the bill was inadequate in terms of funding. I would like to remind the gentleman to consider that the States have been offered some $2 billion more in child care, that is in our bill, and that is on top of the $170 billion of State and Federal welfare/child care funds currently available over the next 5 years. Also, there is some $4 billion in TANF surplus that is available. I might also mention that another comment was made that there were unfunded mandates. The fact is that in this legislation, there are no unfunded mandates in H.R. 4.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

The comment was made that somehow we are not funding as much or funding is less. Not only is this not accurate, the exact opposite in fact is the truth. In terms of case welfare, child care funds available per person on welfare, there is twice as much funding available today as there was in 1996 because the rolls have been cut in half and yet the funding has remained constant.

For example, in 1996 the average amount of money available per welfare family was about $7,000. Today, the average amount available for each family is $16,000, from $7,000 to $16,000, that is available.

Madam Speaker, again, as I have said during prior extension debates, it is my sincere hope that this will be the final extension needed and that the next 3 months will result in a final agreement that will help millions more families achieve independence and a brighter future. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Hensarling substitute budget. This budget sets priorities by fully funding the President's defense and homeland security requests while calling for a 1 percent reduction in the rest of the discretionary budget.

The budget addresses waste in non-Social Security mandatory spending by reducing it by just 1 cent out of each dollar. This budget protects the recent tax relief from increases for working families, parents and married couples and provides new tax relief that is necessary to strengthen the economic recovery.

Finally, this budget begins fixing the broken Federal budget process by requiring a stand-alone vote to bypass any budget enforcement mechanism and therefore stopping the practice of labeling regular spending as emergencies.

I urge my colleagues to vote for the Hensarling amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Social Security Program Protection Act. This bill contains important provisions to better protect disabled Americans, prevent fraud and abuse in Social Security programs, and help disabled beneficiaries return to work.

Over the years, the Committee on Ways and Means, on which I serve, has taken a number of steps to better protect Social Security recipients and other taxpayers. The bill we are considering today will make an important contribution to those continuing efforts.

I commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Shaw) for his leadership and persistence on this legislation over the course of several Congresses. I particularly want to thank him for including

provisions that will help bring criminals to justice, rather than subsidizing their flight, by preventing convicted fugitive felons and parole or probation violators from getting Social Security checks. These provisions build on my previous legislation that now has successfully blocked prisoners and fugitive felons from getting illegally millions of dollars in supplemental security income checks.

Please join me in supporting this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the Miller amendment. This amendment would authorize an indeterminate amount of extra funds under the Community Service Block Grant program for States to use for more extended unemployment benefits. I stress that these funds would be authorized, but not appropriated. So everyone listening to this debate should know that this bill would have no effect, even if it were signed into law. It would require another bill, a supplemental appropriations bill, to actually make good on this supposed promise. The chances of that happening are about zero, and here is why.

In March of 2002, Congress provided States a record $8 billion in additional funds they may use to help unemployed workers. Never in our history have we provided more flexible Federal funds to the States to help the unemployed. According to the Department of Labor and based on reports from the States, as of December 31, 2003, States still had more than $5 billion of this $8 billion left over to assist the unemployed. Let me repeat that. Almost 2 years later, the States had $5 billion left over, and almost every State still has at least some of this Federal money left. Thirty-one States, including major States like Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Maine, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, and West Virginia have more than 90 percent of their money left. Just for the record, California has 88 percent of our money left, or some $800 million.

Mr. Chairman, this Congress has provided generous assistance for the unemployed. In fact, we have provided extended benefits at unemployment rates well below the unemployment rate when the Democrats ended a similar extended benefits program in the 1990s. We have provided States record flexible funds to help the unemployed. I suppose the fact that States still have billions of that money left is lost on the other side.

Mr. Chairman, let us reject this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to become a cosponsor of the ``Specialty Crop Competitiveness Act of 2003,'' H.R. 3242, legislation designed to maintain a viable and competitive specialty crop industry in the United States.

It is important to first note that an abundant, affordable supply of highly nutritious fruits, vegetables and other specialty crops is vital to the health of all Americans. Increased consumption of fresh produce will provide tremendous health benefits to consumers, as well as economic benefits to American farmers.

It follows that a competitive specialty crop industry is necessary to produce and sustain a safe and nutritious domestic food supply. A competitive specialty crop industry is also necessary to sustain the economic vitality of rural communities in northern California, and indeed throughout the entire nation.

Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult for U.S. producers to compete against heavily subsidized foreign producers in domestic and international markets. For example, the European Union provides subsidies of about $11.7 billion per year to its specialty crop growers, while U.S. specialty crop growers receive no subsidies. In addition, U.S. specialty crop growers continue to face tariff and non-tariff trade barriers in many export markets, thus making it virtually impossible for our growers to improve sales through increased exports. In turn, production costs have escalated due to increased environmental and other regulations, and important crop protection tools have been lost, thus making it increasingly difficult to operate profitably.

Specialty crop growers from California and across the country believe federal agriculture policy must address the myriad of unique challenges facing their industry to assure its long-term viability. As such, they have joined together to craft H.R. 3242, and have requested my support.

The bill is designed to increase exports of U.S. specialty crops, improve efforts to protect agriculture from damaging pests and diseases, and provide funding for research necessary for improving the competitiveness of the industry. The activities authorized by this legislation represent a prudent investment in the future success of our $58.7 billion specialty crop industry.

The cost of the bill is relatively modest when compared with other agriculture programs and most other federal programs. Nevertheless, it continues to be critically important, especially during this period of budget deficits and increased spending for our ongoing War on Terrorism and homeland security, for Congress to restrain federal spending. As such, I want to work with the bill's supporters to find acceptable offsets and/or savings from other federal programs that will ensure that the funding authorized under this legislation fits within the existing budget.

I look forward to working with the sponsors of the bill, Congressman Doug Ose and Congressman Cal Dooley, toward future House consideration of this important bill for California agriculture.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1904, the ``Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003.'' For the Northern California Congressional District I represent, this bill is long overdue. My District comprises 5 national forests, and wildfires are an annual and growing threat. Each day, month and year that good forest management is stymied, communities are placed in greater danger.

Mr. Speaker, in my view, this bill doesn't go far enough to address our monumental and compounding forest health crisis. With 190 million acres of forests at risk, and only 2 million acres being treated annually, we have to do much, much more. But it takes an important first step forward in the face of tremendous resistance from the radical environmentalists. And I want to commend my colleagues-- Chairman Pombo, Chairman Goodlatte, Chairman McInnis and Congressman Walden--for their staunch leadership and dedication in fashioning a collaborative bill that is able to win a majority of the House and Senate. President Bush also deserves a great deal of credit and thanks for his efforts in bringing our growing forest health crisis to the attention of the American public, and to the forefront of our environmental policy debate.

An extraordinarily cumbersome environmental review process, which can delay forest health projects for years, has elevated the review ``process'' over good management and professional judgment. The Forest Service Chief, Dale Bosworth, testified to Congress that his agenda spends 40% of its time on planning and process activities. Litigation and an appeals process that is ripe for abuse have been utilized by radical environmental groups to stop community-supported forest health projects. A General Accounting Office study indicated that 59% of all projects eligible for appeal are appealed, the vast majority from radical environmental groups. The percentage is even higher in California. Meantime, our forests are literally burning up. Lives are being lost. Catastrophic fires are causing billions in property damage and costing the taxpayer billions in suppression and rehabilitation costs. Public health and safety demands that something be done.

For too long radical environmental groups have hijacked our forests to advance their own so-called ``environmental agenda.'' Their handiwork has contributed to an immense forest health crisis where lives and property are threatened, billions of taxpayer dollars are spent to suppress destructive fires--instead of on common sense forest health projects that could prevent them--and millions are wasted on endless environmental reviews and litigation. It's high time for the rest of us to take our forests back.

This bill will not solve this enormous and compounding crisis. But it takes an important step forward by streamlining environmental reviews and preventing abuses of the appeals process, which will allow urgently needed management to move forward in a small portion of our at-risk forests. It will give forest professionals the tools they desperately need, and provide positive momentum for continuing active management throughout all of our forests to restore them to a healthy condition, and address a very serious and growing threat to lives and property. I urge my colleagues to support it.