Roscoe Bartlett

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, the Bible says it is more blessed to give than to receive, and the government has largely usurped the role of philanthropist. Several years ago in our church, our kids did not go trick or treat. They would go out before and they would leave a bag; then they would go pick it up and the ladies would help them make food baskets to give to poor families on Thanksgiving. So one of our ladies called the local welfare people and said, We would like the names of some poor families that need food so that we can give them some food. And the welfare worker was indignant. What do you mean poor families that need food? What do you think we are here for? There are not any poor families that need food. Of course that is not true. There are some who fall through the cracks. But this was just evidence of how broad the role of the Federal Government has gotten. When I look back at those Eisenhower years, $100 billion budget, 62 percent of that budget, 16 percent of GDP, went for defense. Today it is 15 percent of our Federal budget and less than 3 percent of GDP that goes for defense. Now relatively we are spending only one-fifth as much on defense today, but we are spending 20 times as much as that Eisenhower budget in our total government. And the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith) is right. Here in this Congress we vote on only about one-third of all the money that is spent. The rest is called entitlements. It runs on auto pilot and every year it goes up and up, and we need to address both the entitlements and the discretionary spending, and America will not be solvent and our children will not look forward to a bright future until we have done that.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, my colleague's suggestion that if we stopped withholding, that the citizens, when they sat down at the end of the month to make their mortgage payment and the payment on their car, they would also have to write a check to the tax collector, that they would be a whole lot more aware of the size of the tax bite, we are probably not going to get that through Congress. Let me tell my colleague something that might get through that might have a beneficial effect. What I would like to do is to move tax day to the day before election. Pay taxes on the first Monday in November and vote on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Does my colleague think that if we paid our taxes on Monday and voted on Tuesday that more people might vote and they might vote differently?

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. That is an interesting thing that happened as a result of the fiscal responsibility that we had, not enough to really balance the budget, but enough so that we could make do largely with monies from the trust fund surpluses. What happened was we were not going to the marketplace for dollars, as we were before, so interest rates went down. That is a positive for borrowing from the trust funds to pay down the public debt. But the negative of that is that the reality is that we cannot run this government on current revenues, so what we are doing is borrowing from our children and our grandchildren's futures. When it comes their turn to run the government, they are not only going to have to run it on current revenues, they are going to have to pay back all the money that we borrowed from their generation. When I ran for Congress, and I started running 11 years ago, I said I was going to conduct myself in Congress so my kids and my grandkids were not going to come and spit on my grave because of what I have done to their country. Mr. Speaker, I am still trying to do that.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Milton Friedman made the observation that the government spends all the money we give it, plus as much more as it can get away with. What the American people need to do is to make it very difficult for Congress to spend more money. When we are told what deficits are going to be and when we will turn the corner and finally have a surplus, this is all on the basis of the unified budget. So add roughly $200 billion a year to all of the deficit figures, and push into the future, and I do not know how far into the future, push into the future the date that we will in fact balance the budget. I think that the American people want us to have a balanced budget. I do not think they want us to balance the budget by raising taxes; I think they want us to balance the budget by cutting spending. That is what we do in our family: We look at where the money is going and where we can cut expenses so we can live within our budget.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. The trust funds are money that are taken from the American people for such things as Social Security, and we now do not need all the money we collect. In the future, we will need a whole lot more than we will be collecting then. In fact, the second biggest trust fund is the Civil Service Retirement trust fund, and then there is the Medicare trust fund. There is the Transportation trust fund, and there are about fifty of these trust funds, and collectively, the current surpluses in those trust funds are about $200 billion a year; and as I mentioned previously, the only thing that can be done under law by those moneys is to invest them in nonnegotiable U.S. securities, and we are not going to bury that out in the back forty or put it under our mattress. We are going to spend it. The present law really needs to be changed, and we have got to have something else to do with trust fund surpluses or we will always be running deficits because that law prescribed that the only thing we can do with a surplus is to invest it in nonnegotiable U.S. securities which assures that the debt will increase. I would just like to note that the interest on the debt now is nearly as large as our budget for the military.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge and thank my constituent, Pastor Jeff Hudson of the Fredericktowne Baptist Church in Walkersville, Maryland, for offering today's opening prayer. A graduate of the Washington Bible College and Capital Bible Seminary, Reverend Hudson is the senior pastor at Fredericktowne Baptist Church. He has served for more than 20 years. He and his wife Brenda have 2 teenage sons, Joshua and Nathan. Pastor Hudson's invocation of God's presence in our lives continues an unbroken tradition of an Opening Prayer for the Congress. At age 81, and at a moment of deadlock during the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, ``I have lived, sir, a long time. And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that a new Nation can rise without his aid? I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to any business.'' Thanks to Mr. Franklin, Congress still does this.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy of the House Science Committee, and as a conferee for the National Energy Strategy bill, I would like to thank the Subcommittee Chairman and floor manager of the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. First, I want to compliment the gentleman for providing the needed funding for the ongoing efforts of the Architect of the Capitol to improve the energy efficiency of the buildings of the Capitol complex. It is important that we in the Congress practice what we preach, both as an example to others and to make the best use of taxpayer dollars by getting the most out of our energy related expenditures. In this regard, it has come to my attention that the Capitol Power Plant provides heat for buildings in the Capitol complex but is not currently used to generate electric power. It occurs to me that there is an opportunity here to not only capture the efficiency benefits of Combined Heat and Power but also to provide emergency backup power for the Capitol complex in the event of disruption of the local grid. It is my understanding that funding provided in the bill will allow the Architect of the Capitol to undertake the needed studies to determine the feasibility of such a generation demonstration project. The Legislative Branch Appropriations bill includes $267.7 million in funding for various operational and maintenance activities under the jurisdiction of the Architect of the Capitol, $40.6 million below the amount requested by the President and $17.7 million below the amount provided last year. These funds specifically include support for continued efforts to seek energy and operations savings such as this feasibility study.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, increasing our energy independence is absolutely vital to ensuring America's national security. Americans are 5 percent of the world's population. We use 25 percent of the world's oil production, and yet we produce 30 percent of the world's output of goods and services. We are the most energy-efficient and productive Nation on earth, but America has only 2 percent of the world's known oil reserves. In pumping that 2 percent, we meet only 44 percent of America's needs. America must import nearly 60 percent of our oil, up from 32 percent in 1992 and 34 percent during the last Arab oil embargo. Americans must pay billions of dollars to unstable or hostile regimes, such as Saddam Hussein's Iraq, for the oil we need to run our economy and our military. Every year since 1970, with only a tiny blip from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, oil production in the United States has gone down, and experts agree it will continue to go down. That is why conservation, efficiency, and alternative and renewable forms of energy are critically important parts of a balanced, comprehensive national energy strategy.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I want to spend a few minutes this evening talking about two events that have happened in our country recently. One of them is national and the other is very local. The national event was the decision of two of three members of the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco that the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, including the words ``under God,'' can no longer be used in our schools with those two words; that if we are going to say the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools, we have to take ``under God'' out. The second event is a very local event. It is in the town of Frederick. I live just 5 miles from there on a farm. We have a little memorial park in Frederick across from the armory. We have there memorials to our soldiers in all of the wars with their individual names on these memorials. There is also in that park a replica of the Ten Commandments on the two stones. A senior student in one of our schools; interestingly, a student in one of our schools wrote asking, is it really appropriate to have the Ten Commandments in this memorial park because the park is owned by the city and the city is a part of what we call the State, and certainly, there is this big wall of separation between church and State? Now, this has caused quite a dither in Frederick. The ACLU came out and they said, yes, that is right, the Ten Commandments should not be there. Why do we not just sell the park for $1 to the American Legion and then the problem will go away? But if you do not do that, then we are going to sue. Most of our institutions are, I guess all of them, are creatures of our culture. We remember from history that the Supreme Court pre-Civil War handed down the Dred Scott decision. Now, I suspect there are very few people today who believe that that was a correct decision handed down by that Court. So our courts today are creatures, at least to some extent, of our culture. These two events would have been absolutely unheard of in my childhood, that a court would say that one could not say under God in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and that one could not have the Ten Commandments in a memorial park for our service people who fought and bled and died for this country. Now, how did we get here? What has happened to this Nation? I can clearly remember 60 years ago. I can remember writing 1933 on my school papers, so I can easily remember 60 years. There are three great lies about in our Nation today, and they are the result of, well, of two things. They are the result of an educational system that has, in large measure, tried to rewrite our history. These three lies are also the result of a media which has joined with our educational institutions in educating the American people to a history which really is not true. These three great lies are that our Founding Fathers were atheists and deists. Now, everybody knows what an atheist is. It is a person who does not believe there is a God. A deist believes there is a God. He believes that God created the Earth, but then God stood back and he placed in effect a number of physical laws and health laws, and there is no use praying to him, because these laws are going to determine what happens to us. So the first great lie is that our Founding Fathers were atheists and deists. The second great lie is that they sought to establish a non- Christian Nation. They did not want God associated with this country. As a corollary to this, they sought to erect a wall of separation between church and State. They wanted to make sure that there was never, ever any discussion of religion in the State. To understand how we got here, I think we need to put this in some context. It all started, of course, in 1776. We read that Declaration of Independence which, by the way clearly, three times, perhaps four, refers to God. I wonder if the courts will declare our Declaration of Independence unconstitutional because it has very clear references to God and our creator. This was a very radical document. We read it without really concentrating on what it is and what it says. It said that all men are created equal. Now, we take that for granted, but that was not the society from which our forefathers came. Now, of course, unless you are a descendant of an American Indian, you are the child of an immigrant and today, our citizens come from forefathers have come from all parts of the world. But in 1776, essentially all of our Founding Fathers had come from England and the European continent. And in England and on the continent, essentially every country was ruled by a king or an emperor who incredibly claimed and was granted divine rights. What that says is that the rights came from God, divine rights, rights came from God to the king and he would then give what rights he wished to his people. Our Declaration of Independence made a radical departure from that, because it said that all men are created equal. Then they set about the task of writing a Constitution that embodied the promise of the Declaration of Independence. It took them 11 years to do this. It was not until 1787 that the Constitution was ratified. And in that Constitution they sought to embody all of those promises made in the Declaration of Independence. The story is told of Ben Franklin coming out at the constitutional convention and being asked by a lady, Mr. Franklin, what have you given us? And his reply was, A Republic, madam, if you can keep it. Now, I hear my colleagues and most everybody in this country talking about this great democracy that we have. Yet, when Ben Franklin was asked, What have you given us, he says, A Republic, Madam, if you can keep it, if we think back through that Pledge of Allegiance to the flag, we will note that it refers to a Republic. Why is this important? It is important to the subject that we are discussing this evening. I heard an interesting definition of a democracy. It was two wolves and a lamb voting on what they were going to have for lunch. And someone noted that an example of a democracy was a lynch mob, because clearly, in a lynch mob, the will of the majority is being expressed. Are we not glad, Mr. Speaker, that we live in a Republic where one respects the rule of law, regardless of what the majority would like at that moment? Now, clearly, we can change the law against which all other laws are measured, which is the Ten Commandments, and we have done that 27 times; but this is a considered event. It takes two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate; it bypasses the President and goes directly to the State legislatures and three-fourths of them must ratify it. Our Founding Fathers were not certain that the promise of the Declaration of Independence was, in fact, made crystal-clear in the Constitution, so before the ink was hardly dry on the Constitution, they started 12 amendments through the process of two-thirds of the House, two-thirds of the Senate, and three-fourths of the State legislatures. Ten of them made it through that process, and we know them as the Bill of Rights. If we read down through the Constitution, it is a little book that has had a big, big effect. If we read down through that, we will see that their primary aim in this Bill of Rights was to make sure that everybody understood what was implicit in the Constitution was explicit in these 10 amendments. That is that they really wanted most of the rights to reside with the people. Remember, they had come from monarchies, from empires where the king or the emperor said that all the rights came to him. In the Declaration of Independence, they said that all men are created equal, and they wanted to make sure that it was very clear that essentially all of the rights remained with the people. Now, our Founding Fathers came to this country not to get wealthy; as a matter of fact, many of them left wealth to come here. They came here for freedom. They came here to achieve freedom from two tyrannies. One was the tyranny of the church. In England, it was the Episcopal church; and on the continent, it was the Roman church. For both of those churches, power had been given to them by the state, so they wanted to make sure that never, ever in this new country would the state ever give power to a religion so that it could oppress the people. I guess our Founding Fathers could be excused for some shortsightedness before they wrote the Constitution, because in old Virginia, Roman Catholics could not vote. In colonial Maryland, I understand that both Roman Catholics and Jews could not vote. But to their great credit, when it came time to write the First Amendment, they recognized that that is really not what they came here to achieve; that they really wanted freedom of religion, which is very different, as Ronald Reagan pointed out, from freedom from religion, which is what the courts now want to achieve. It was a Roman Catholic, Charles Carroll, for whom Carroll County is named, one of the counties in the district I represent; Carroll Creek runs through Frederick City, not far from the Ten Commandments in that little memorial park. So it was a Roman Catholic who was a major architect of the establishment clause in the First Amendment. In the Second Amendment, they addressed their concerns of the tyranny of the state. This is a subject for another day, but let me just read it in that context: ``A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'' Abraham Lincoln understood that this was a new experiment and that it might not succeed. In his Gettysburg Address, we remember, Four score and seven years ago, and if we go back 87 years, we will come to 1776; ``Four score and 7 years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new Nation, conceived in liberty and,'' and note, ``dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.'' He recognized what a radical departure this was from the norms of the time, and he knew that this experiment might not succeed. He said, we are now engaged in a war ``testing whether this Nation or any Nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.'' Then he ended that Gettysburg Address with almost a prayer: ``that this government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth.'' I am going to use four sources to refute these three lies. Again, the three lies are that our Founding Fathers were atheists and deists; that they wanted to establish a nonChristian Nation; that they wanted a wall of separation between the church and the state. To do that, I am going to let our Founding Fathers speak for themselves. I am going to quote from some court decisions. I am going to note some actions of Congress. Then we will take a brief look at our schools. I will use a number of quotes this evening, and I would like to make two comments regarding those quotes. The first is that not everyone will agree to the specific wording of these quotes. No one argues that these are the kinds of things that these men, these courts, that the Congress would have said or would have done; but Members may find some dispute as to the exact wording. I will tell the Members my references, and Members can talk to those on whom I depended for these quotes. One is David Barton, who probably is the most knowledgeable person in America today on the Christian nature of our Founding Fathers. He has thousands of original documents. He conducts a fascinating tour through the Capitol building here, stopping at statue after statue and reading from original documents their quotes. The second source for my quotes this evening is Dr. Richard Fredericks, who is the pastor of the Road to Damascus Church in Montgomery County. The second observation I want to make about the quotes this evening is that there will be a lot of references to Christianity and Jesus Christ. I would submit that when these quotes were made, that these words were more synonymous with the words that we would use today which would probably be ``God-fearing.'' They meant no affront to other religious persuasions who worshipped the same God. I just want to note that there will be lots of references to Christianity and Jesus Christ, if Members would simply hear ``Judeo- Christian'' and ``God-fearing'' when these quotes are read. Freedom is not free. It is said that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That is just as true today as it was then. Certainly, our national freedom was very costly. Five of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were captured and executed by the British; nine of them died in battlefields of the war; another dozen lost their homes, possessions, and fortunes to British occupation. Our birth as a Nation was not cheap for these men. Let us first look at this wall of separation which our courts today talk so much about. That does not appear anywhere in our Constitution. It does not appear in the First Amendment. As a matter of fact, those three words, ``separation,'' ``church,'' and ``state,'' do not appear, but they do appear in one constitution. It is the Constitution of the United Soviet Socialist Republic, the USSR. Let me read from that Constitution. It is Article 124: ``In order to ensure to citizens freedom of conscience, the church in the USSR is separated from the state and the schools from the church.'' Let me let the Founding Fathers speak for themselves now, and then Members decide whether they think they are atheist or deist. Patrick Henry, often called the ``firebrand of the American Revolution,'' I want to quote his words spoken in St. John's Church in Richmond on March 23 in 1775. Those words are very well known: ``Give me liberty or give me death,'' and they are still memorized by most students. But I will challenge the Members to go to their child's school and look in their history books and see if these words are put in context. Here is what he said, in context: ``An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us, but we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.'' Now, those words have a whole lot different meaning when we place them in that context, and I will wager that Members will have great difficulty finding any textbook in our current schools that puts them in that context. Benjamin Franklin is widely noted by our history books today as being a deist. Was he a deist? Let us let him speak for himself. The time was June 28, 1787. We will recognize that that is during the Constitutional Convention. Benjamin Franklin was 81 years old. He was the Governor of Pennsylvania, and perhaps the most honored member of the Constitutional Convention. The convention was deadlocked over several issues, and one of the key issues was the balance of State and Federal rights. When Franklin rose and reminded them of the Continental Congress in 1776, just 11 years prior, this is what he said: ``In the days of our contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had our daily prayer in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity to establish our Nation. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance?'' And then I love these words: ``I have lived, sir, a long time. And the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that a new nation can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writing that except the Lord build a house, they labor in vain that built it. I therefore beg leave to move,'' and this began a precedent that we follow today; we begin every day in the House with prayer, and every day in the Senate. This is what he asked: ``I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessings on our deliberations be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to any business.'' Thanks to Mr. Franklin, we still do this. The following year, in a letter to the French minister of state, Franklin, speaking of our Nation, said ``Whoever shall introduce into public office the principles of Christianity will change the face of the world.'' And now to that second person who is very often noted as being a deist, and by the way, did Members think these are the words of a deist, these words of Benjamin Franklin; that God created a world and then let it run on its own, with just the physical laws and the biological laws that he developed guiding it? Thomas Jefferson was a great student of Scriptures who honored Christ as his greatest teacher and mentor, but doubted his divinity. On the front of his well-worn Bible Jefferson wrote, ``I am a real Christian; that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our country will soon be rallied to the unity of our creator, and I hope to the pure doctrine of Jesus, also.'' And note his words relative to slavery. See if this sounds like a deist. ``Almighty God has created men's minds free. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and his justice cannot sleep forever.'' These are certainly not the words of a deist. George Washington, called the Father of our Nation, listen to his heart on the Christian faith in his farewell speech September, 1796; the only President, by the way, unanimously elected by the Electoral College not once but twice, and perhaps the first ruler in 2000 years to voluntarily step down from power. ``It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible. Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that is the idea that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.'' What did Washington mean by religion? Was he a true Christian? Let me excerpt several lines from his personal prayer book: ``Oh, eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words, and work. Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb, and purge my heart by thy holy spirit. Daily frame me more and more in the likeness of thy son, Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear and dying in thy favor, I may, in thy appointed time, obtain the restoration justified onto eternal life.'' In Mount Vernon, and we can go there today, just down the river, we can see on the little crypt the benediction that George Washington asked to be put there over his grave and his wife's grave. It is John 11:25: ``I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me shall live, even if he dies.'' And you may wonder why as you tour through Washington and go to our monuments that you see so many references to scripture. It is because that is the milieu in which these men lived. John Adams, our second President, also served as chairman of the American Bible Society started by our Congress, by the way. In an address to military leaders he said, ``We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.'' John Jay, our first Supreme Court Justice, stated that when we select our national leaders and preserve our Nation, we must select Christians. This is what he said, ``Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers. It is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.'' In fact, 11 of the 13 new State constitutions were also ratified in 1776. All required leaders to take an oath similar to this oath in Delaware. This is the oath in Delaware: ``Everyone appointed to public office must say, I do profess faith to God, the Father, and in the Lord, Jesus Christ, his only son, and in the holy ghost and in God who is blessed forevermore. I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, which are given by devine inspiration.'' The time of our Nation's bicentennial in 1976, political science professors at the University of Houston began to ask some questions. Why is it that the American Constitution has been able to stand the test of time? We have the longest enduring republic in the history of the world. Why has it not gone through massive revisions? Why is it looked on as a model by dozens of nations? What wisdom possessed these men to produce such an incredible document? Who did they turn to for inspiration? So they looked at the writings of our Founding Fathers and they catalogued 15,000 documents. They found the Founding Fathers quoted most often three men, Baron Charles Montesquieu, Sir William Blackstone, and John Locke. Yet, most importantly they found that the Bible itself was directly quoted four times more than Montesquieu, six times more than Blackstone and 12 times more than John Locke. In fact, 34 percent of all the quotes and the writings of the Founding Fathers were direct word-for-word quotes from the Bible. Further, another 60 percent of their quotes were quoting from men who were quoting the Bible. So that an incredible 94 percent of all of the quotes in these 15,000 documents were direct quotes or references to the Bible. So how did they produce a document that has withstood the test of an evolving government and growing Nation for 226 years now? The answer, they were steeped in the word of God. They understood their need of its constant direction, and they established a Nation based on its underlying principles. John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, was the sixth President of the United States. He was a Congressman, the U.S. minister to Russia, France and Great Britain, Secretary of the State under James Monroe. He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, as was his father. As a matter of fact, he felt that chairmanship of that society was a more important function and a higher honor than being President of the United States. I might note that the Continental Congress bought 20,000 copies of the Bible to distribute to its new citizens. And for 100 years at the beginning of our country, taxpayers' money was used to send missionaries to the Indians. Mr. Speaker, 104 years later, the 30th President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge reaffirmed this truth on March 4, 1925. ``America seeks no empires built on blood and forces. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.'' He later wrote, ``The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith and these teachings would cease to be practically universal to our country.'' Let us turn now to the Supreme Court. We have let our Founding Fathers speak for themselves. I think it is very clear they were not atheists or deists. It is very clear that they did not attempt to establish a nonChristian nation. Let us look now at the Supreme Court. For 160 years the court consistently and categorically ruled in favor of church and State united hand in hand, but never the State empowering the church, a single church, so that it could oppress the people. The first ruling came in 1796, Runkle v. Winemiller. The Supreme Court ruled, ``By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion of all sects.'' The Supreme Court consistently ruled for Christian principle as the foundation of our American laws. In 1811 in the Peoples v. Ruggles', Mr. Ruggles' crime was that he publicly slandered the Bible. What would happen today if somebody publicly slandered the Bible? Let me read the decision the court made then. In 1811 he was arrested and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court. This was their verdict. ``You have attacked the Bible. In attacking the Bible, you have attacked Jesus Christ. And in attacking Jesus Christ, you have attacked the roots of our Nation. Whatever strikes at the root of Christianity manifests itself in the dissolving of our civil government.'' The Justices sentenced him to three months in prison and a $500 fine. That is one year's wage in those days. You might contrast that today with convicted rapists who on average serve 85 days in jail. In 1844, Vida v. Gerrard, a public school teacher decided she would teach morality without using the Bible. Incredibly she was sued and it went to the Supreme Court and this is what they said. ``Why not use the Bible, especially the New Testament? It should be read and taught as the divine revelation in the schools. Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly and so perfectly as from the New Testament?'' And then the Justices went on to cite 87 different legal precedents to affirm that America was formed as a Christian Nation by believing Christians. This was in a court case in February 29, 1892, against the claims of the cult called the Church of the Holy Spirit that Christianity was not the faith of the people. The Supreme Court made a decision saying that it clearly was and they marshalled 87 different legal precedents to affirm that America was formed as a Christian Nation by believing Christians. They even spent the first 100 years' tax dollars for Christian missionaries, which I mentioned previously. Regardless of how we feel about it today, the historical fact is there was no separation of church and state. There was a clear denial of the right of the state to empower any one religion so that it could oppress the people. But never, ever could our Founding Fathers ever imagine that we would interpret that establishment clause of the First Amendment as requiring freedom from religion. They certainly meant it to assure freedom of religion. Let us move across the street from this House to the Supreme Court. As humanism and Darwinism began to rise in the 19th century, some made challenges to the idea that America was a Christian Nation. Both houses of Congress spent one year, from 1853 to 1854, studying the connection of America and the Christian faith. In March 27 of 1854, Senator Badger, from the Senate, issued the final report. Let me quote very briefly from that final report. ``The First Amendment religion clause speaks against an establishment of religion. What is meant by that expression? The Founding Fathers intended by this amendment to prohibit an establishment of religion such as the Church of England presented or anything like it. But they had no fear or jealousy of religion itself. Nor did they wish to see us an irreligious people.'' I really like these next words. They are so picturesque. ``They did not intend to spread all over the public authorities and the whole public action of the Nation the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistic apathy.'' And I continue the quote, ``In this age there can be no substitute for Christianity. By its general principles, the Christian faith is the great conserving element on which we must rely for the purity and permanence for our free institutions.'' And it goes on and on to quote more and more in this vein. Based on his report in May of 1854, in joint session of Congress, this resolution was passed by our Congress. ``The great, vital and conserving element in our system of government is the belief of our people in the pure doctrines and divine truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.'' This was a resolution of the Congress in May of 1854. Let us move from Congress to our public schools. For over 140 years after the First Amendment was passed, we spent tax dollars to educate students in public schools that were distinctly Christian. In 1782 the United States Congress voted this resolution: ``The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in our schools.'' That was this Congress. All of our institutions, even our Congress, is at least to some extent the product of a culture, creatures of a culture. In grammar schools from 1690 until after World War II, two books were the dominant teaching schools. The first and oldest was the New England Primer, used for 200 years. The basics of alphabet were taught as follows: ``A, A wise son makes a glad father but a foolish son is heaviness to his mother. ``B, Better is little with the fear of the Lord than abundance apart from him. ``C, Come unto Christ all you who are weary and heavily laden. ``D, Do not the abominable thing, which I hate, sayeth the Lord. ``E, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.'' The second great teaching tool for 100 years was the McGuffey Reader, and not too many years ago it was called back to some of our schools because when students used that reader, they learned to read. Now we have graduated about a million from our high schools who literally cannot read their diploma. William Holmes McGuffey was the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Jefferson's University of Virginia and the first president of Ohio University. President Lincoln called him the School Master of the Nation. In the introduction to teachers in the beginning of his textbook, McGuffey laid out his rationale. ``The Christian religion is the religion of our country. From it are derived our notions on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe. On its doctrines are funded the peculiarities of our free institutions.'' ``From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures. For all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology.'' Of the first 108 universities founded in this country, 106 were distinctly religious. The first of those was Harvard, named for a very popular New England teacher, Pastor John Harvard. In the original student Harvard handbook, it said that the students should come knowing Greek and Latin so they could study the scriptures. Now a direct quote. ``Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.'' For over 100 years, more than 50 percent of all of Harvard's graduates were pastors. In 1747, the Supreme Court in Emerson v. The Board of Education deviated from every precedent for the first time and in a limited way affirmed a wall of separation between church and state and the public classroom. Now they did this ignoring 160 years of precedence. And I have read several decisions during 106 years and there are many, many others. There is no decision of the Supreme Court today relative to this issue that will go back to precedents before 1947 because there are none. For 160 years, clearly the Supreme Court ruled 180 degrees different than the way it is ruling today. In 1962, less than 40 years ago, in Engle v. Vitale, the Supreme Court removed prayer from the public schools. Since the founding of the Nation, public school classrooms have begun their day with prayer. Now that was declared unconstitutional and an arbitrary use of the word. I have mentioned God is three or perhaps four times in our Declaration of Independence. Will our courts now declare that unconstitutional? Then things happened fast. On June 17, 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Abington v. Schemp that Bible reading was outlawed as unconstitutional in our public school system. Remember that our Congress had recommended it for use in schools before that. What has happened in America in these past 40 years? When we were true to our roots, we were the greatest Nation in the world, the dream destination of millions in every country. But starting in 1963, the Bible was banned as psychologically harmful to children. That year, 1963, was the first year an entry about the separation of church and State ever appeared in the World Book Encyclopedia under the United States. What have we reaped? America 100 years ago had the highest literacy rate of any nation on Earth. Today we spend more on education than any other nation in the world; and yet since 1987, as I mentioned before, we have graduated more than 1 million high school students who cannot even read their diploma. We spend more than any other nation in the industrialized world to educate our children; and yet SAT scores fell for 24 straight years before finally leveling off in the 1990s. Has this protection from religion produced better students? Morally have they changed? Are things better in this new climate of protection from the dangers of religion? In 1960, a survey found 53 percent of America's teenagers had never kissed and 57 percent had never necked. Necking is hugging and kissing, if my colleagues wonder what that meant then; and 92 percent of teenagers in America said they were virgins. Just 30 years later, in 1990, 75 percent of American high school students were sexually active by 18. In the next 5 years, we spent $4 billion to educate them how to have safe sex and it worked. One in five teenagers in America today lose their virginity before their 13th birthday, and 19 percent of America's teenagers say they have had more than four sexual partners before graduation. The result? Every day 2,700 students get pregnant, 1,100 hundred get abortions and 1,200 give birth. Every day, another 900 contract a sexually transmitted disease, many incurable. AIDS infection among high school students climbed 700 percent between 1990 and 1995. We have 3.3 million problem drinkers on our high school campuses, over half a million are alcoholics and any given weekend in America, 30 percent of the student population spends some time drunk. A young woman in a high school in Oklahoma wrote this poem as a new school prayer. Let me read it for you: Now I sit me down in school where praying is against the rule For this great Nation under God finds mention of Him very odd. If scripture now the class recites violates, it violates the Bill of Rights. And any time my head I bow becomes a Federal matter now. Our hair can be purple, orange, or green, that's no offense, it's a freedom scene. The law is specific, the law is precise! Only prayers spoken out loud are a serious vice. For praying in a public hall might offend someone with no faith at all. In silence alone we must meditate, God's name is prohibited by the State. We are allowed to cuss and dress like freaks, and pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks. They've outlawed guns but first the Bible. To quote the Good Book makes me liable. We can elect a pregnant senior queen and the unwed daddy our senior king. It's inappropriate to teach right from wrong; we're taught that such judgments do not belong. We can get our condoms and birth controls, study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles. But the Ten Commandants are not allowed, no word of God must reach this crowd. It is scary here I must confess; when chaos reigns the school's a mess. So Lord, this silent plea I make: Should I be shot, my soul please take! Our Nation, which wishes to lead the world in every arena, now leads the world in these areas: We are number one in violent crime. We are number one in divorce. We are number one in teenage pregnancies. We are number one in volunteer abortion. We are number one in illegal drug abuse. We are number one in the industrialized world for illiteracy. What happened? First of all, Christianity went to sleep. Forty years ago, the church gave up the public arena to an increasingly secular government and said we would focus on the souls of men. Actually, the first leader to call for that division was not one of our Founding Fathers. His name was Adolph Hitler, who told the preachers of Germany, ``You take care of their souls and I will take care of the rest of their lives.'' Here is a million dollar question. Are we better off today? Since we banished God from all our public life and systems and allowed a vocal group of humanist activists to tell us our faith is dangerous to the liberties of this Nation, are we better off? Are we satisfied with what is happening in America? Alexis de Tocqueville was a famous French statesman and scholar. Beginning in 1831, he toured America for years to find the secret of her genius and strength which was marveled at throughout the world. He published a two-part book entitled ``Democracy in America,'' which is still hailed as the most penetrating analysis of the relationship of character to democracy ever written. Here is how de Tocqueville summed up his experience: ``In the United States, the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but shapes the intelligence of the people. Christianity therefore reigns without obstacle, by universal consequence. The consequence is, as I have before observed, that every principle in a moral world is fixed and in force. ``I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her great harbors; her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her universal public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. ``But not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!'' Let me close by suggesting the answer offered by President Abraham Lincoln in the address he gave calling for April 30, 1860, seeking a national day of humiliation, fasting and prayer. ``We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and powers as no other Nation has ever grown. ``But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. ``Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self- sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving Grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.'' That was Abraham Lincoln. Today, we have an entire population that has no clue as to its true American heritage. They have not forgotten. They never knew. Our textbooks have been bled dry of all of this aspect of the founding of our Nation. Abraham Lincoln said this to our Nation. We need to hear it again, and this also comes from his Gettysburg address. ``It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.'' The three great lies are our Founding Fathers were atheists and deists. We let them speak for themselves. They clearly were not. The second is that they sought to establish a non-Christian Nation. We let them speak. We let the courts speak. We let the Congress speak. We listened to what was said in our schools. Clearly, this was not the case. That wall of separation never intended that religion should not be in government. It was intended that government should not empower any religion so that it could oppress the people. What do we do now that our textbooks have been bled dry, that so few, even those in leadership positions, understand the true beginnings of our Nation? What we need to do is to make sure that all of our people, especially our leaders, become familiar with the milieu in which our Nation was born. We need to symbolically shout it from the housetop so that none can refuse to hear it. The two events that I started this little discussion with, the Ninth Court ruling in San Francisco and the question of whether the Ten Commandments should be taken down from Memorial Park in Frederick, these two things would have been unthinkable in the Nation that I grew up in. I can remember very well 60 years ago, and they should be unthinkable today, and since all of the institutions of our country are at least to some extent creatures of our culture, before we change our institutions, we need to change our culture. Mr. Speaker, every one of us has a responsibility and an obligation and the privilege to do that.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, oil is a critical energy source for both the United States and the world, and for us it is a very uncertain energy future because there are only about 1,000 gigabarrels of known reserves of oil in the world. Certainly we will find more oil, and maybe the additional oil we find will be enough to take care of the additional demands for oil. If we take this 1,000 gigabarrels of oil and divide it by the 80 million barrels of oil that the world burns, uses each day, this comes out to roughly 40 years. This is certainly not forever. Of this 80 million barrels that are used each day, the United States uses 20. That is about 25 percent of the total oil used in the world is used in the United States. We have some reserves. They are off the Florida coast. They are under Lake Michigan, and they are in ANWR. Should we drill those? There are two arguments. One is that we need it. The other is we may need it more in the future. We have to determine when it would serve our interests best, to use it now or to wait for a rainier day, which will surely come.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, when one is going to make a decision and embark on a course of action, it is always nice to have the facts straight. This is especially important in our debate on energy. Let us look at some of those facts. The United States uses about one- fourth of all the world's oil use, about 20 million barrels a day. Now, we have only about 2 percent of the known reserves of oil in the world, but we are pumping that 2 percent pretty fast, because out of that, we are getting about 44 percent of all of our oil needs. That means we are importing about 56 percent of our oil, up from 34 percent at the Arab oil embargo, much of that from countries like Iraq. Every year since 1970, with only a tiny blip from Prudhoe Bay, oil production in this country has gone down. How much oil remains in the world? About 1,000 gigabarrels remain in the world. Pretty simple arithmetic will show that at present use rates, that is about 40 years of oil in the world. We will find more, but we will also use more. What these facts mean is that those portions of our bill that deal with conservation, that deal with efficiency, that deal with alternatives and renewables are very important portions of the bill.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I rise to ask unanimous support of H. Con. Res. 364. This Thursday, June 20, will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army Special Forces under the leadership of Aaron Bank. The Special Forces are the best of the best. Through their storied history, they have achieved popular recognition and acclaim as the Green Berets in honor of their distinctive headgear. As a Marylander, I am proud to say that the Maryland Army National Guard Second Battalion 20th Special Forces Bravo Company makes its home at the Gunpowder Military Reservation in Baltimore County. At age 99, Aaron Bank is still alive and vigorous. It is without reservation that we acclaim him as a living legend. He is indeed the father of the Special Forces, and it is right and proper that he is recognized as such in H. Con. Res. 364. I urge my colleagues to join me in congratulating Colonel Aaron Bank and all of the current and former generations of Green Berets for 50 years of outstanding service to our country.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would like to spend a few moments considering how we got here and where we go from here. To do that we have to talk for a bit about the debt and what the debt really is. To understand that, we really have to take a step back and look at our trust funds. There are about 50 or so trust funds, the biggest of which, of course, is Social Security, and then the next biggest one is civil service retirement, and then the Medicare trust fund, the transportation trust fund, and it goes on down. Those trust funds, most of them, are running surpluses and, over the years, those surpluses have accumulated until we now have, order of magnitude, about $2 trillion in surpluses. Now, by law, the only place that those surpluses can be invested are in nonnegotiable U.S. securities. So what that means, even if we limited our spending to current revenues, we would still be increasing our debt by the amount of the trust fund surpluses, because the only place they can be invested is in nonnegotiable U.S. securities. So until we change that and find something else to do with our trust funds, we will always have an increasing debt. Now, I mentioned that the trust funds represent about a $2 trillion debt, order of magnitude. The rest of the debt that we owe is what we call the public debt, or the Wall Street debt. That is the amount of money that we have borrowed from stocks and bonds and securities and so forth. That is a total debt then of roughly $6 trillion. Now, we have told the American people for the last couple of years or so that we were paying down the debt. That was truthful, and that was not truthful. What was truthful was that we were using monies from the Social Security lockbox and the Medicare lockbox, those are surpluses in those two accounts, to pay down the publicly held debt. But I just checked this morning with CBO, and there never was a year in which, in fact, the national debt, which is the sum of these two, $2 trillion in the trust fund debt, $4 trillion in the public debt, there never was a year in which the total of those two debts went down. I asked them, was there a moment in time when that debt went down, the national debt, which is the debt we should have been talking about. Well, he said, probably so, because you see, our outlays are reasonably consistent month by month. But we have a big surge of money that comes in in April when Americans pay their taxes. So for April, there may have been, and he was not sure, he was going to check and call me back, for in April, May 2000, 2001, maybe 1999, there might have been a month when we, in fact, did reduce the debt. But if we use an accrual method of accounting, and the government requires everybody with more than I think $1 million revenue to use it, and we certainly have more than that in the government, to use accrual methods of accounting, so if we use accrual methods of accounting, there never was a moment in time during these past several years when, in fact, the national debt did not go up. Now, the national debt is going up a bit faster now than it would have gone up, because we are in a war; and I hope there is nobody who is saying that we ought to spend less money on our military, because we are now not spending enough. I am not sure we have given our military enough money to fight this war. They went into this war with a spear that was very sharp at the tip, but very little in back of that. Readiness was down. I am concerned that we cannot give them enough money, and this in a time when there is an enormous wave of patriotism, enormous support for the military, that we are not going to get it done. So I hope there is no one who would suggest that we are not giving them enough money. I do not think we are giving them enough money. I just wanted to make it clear, Mr. Chairman, where we are, that we never in fact have paid down the national debt. The debt that we were paying down was the public debt. Now, that is very good for us, because paying down that public debt means that interest rates drop and we are paying roughly 2 percent less for everything we borrow now. But think of what we have done to do that. We are telling our children and our grandchildren we cannot operate our government on current revenues, so we are borrowing from your future. What you are going to have to do is not only run the government in your day on current revenues, you are going to have to pay back the money that we borrowed from your future, these trust fund dollars. When I ran for Congress 10 years ago, I promised that I would conduct myself so that my children and grandchildren would not spit on my grave. I still intend to do that.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, before our tax cut, the top 50 percent of taxpayers paid 96 percent of all the taxes paid in the country. After this tax cut, the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay 97 percent of all the taxes paid in this country. Let us say it another way, Mr. Speaker. Before the tax cut, the lower 50 percent of taxpayers paid 4 percent of all the taxes in the country. After the tax cut, they pay only 3 percent of all the taxes in the country. Help me understand, Mr. Speaker, how this tax cut was a tax break for the rich. It seems to me it was a tax break for the poor, because the lower 50 percent of taxpayers now pay only 3 percent of the total taxes, rather than 4 percent. Mr. Speaker, that is a 25 percent decrease in the taxes paid by the lower 50 percent.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, first of all, I would like to note that terminating the life of a fetus is not properly defined as a reproductive service. For many years we had no law respecting whether abortions could or could not be performed in medical facilities. We simply did not need one because military medical personnel would not perform abortions. Abortions for life of the mother, rape or incest are currently permitted in military facilities. And what this amendment asks for are abortions that fully 80 percent of Americans oppose; that is, abortion for birth control. When you remove life of the mother, rape and incest, that is all that is left. Approving this amendment would be a major affront to our brave military medical people who do not want abortions performed in their facilities. Please vote against this motion. Motion to Rise Offered by Mr. Taylor of Mississippi

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, our President has stated that this is a war like none other we have ever fought. Before September 11 no one ever dreamed that we would have our Armed Services guarding our airports. Certainly we should permit the disposition of our troops anywhere they might be needed in the future to protect our national security and our vital interests, and this certainly includes the border. This is not obligatory legislation. This is only permissive legislation. How could we not vote to prevent the disposition of our troops on the border if in the view of our Commander in Chief, and it will not be done without his knowledge and therefore his presumed ascent, how could we preclude him from using the our troops that he feels is necessary on the border? There is no valid reason that this legislation should not be passed. I urge its acceptance.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4546, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003. While I support the bill in its entirety and commend it to this body as must-pass legislation, I want to especially emphasize the provisions in the bill relating to morale, welfare and recreation activities of the Department of Defense and the military services. I have the honor to chair the Special Oversight Panel of Morale, Welfare and Recreation which keeps a careful eye on some very important quality-of-life benefits for our military families, such as commissaries and child care centers. The MWR portion of H.R. 4546 is truly nonpartisan and was approved unanimously by both the panel and the full committee without any amendments. I have found the defense programs that are not nourished by the Congress or the Pentagon quickly die away. MWR programs are no different. While I agree with most of what this administration is doing, I believe the continued pressure to privatize commissaries is misguided. The budget for the Defense Commissary Agency contained in this bill is about as low as I am prepared to support without persuasive evidence that customer savings and service will not suffer. That said, I believe the budget before my colleagues is adequate. To ensure the quality of customer service and continued savings, H.R. 4546 requires a GAO study of DECA's budget proposals as well as other measures to protect the commissary benefit. In addition, the package before the House will allow our deserving National Guard soldiers called to State duty in time of national emergency, like the present, to use commissary stores. We had provided this privilege some years ago to guardsmen called to duty for natural disasters and found that we should have added national emergencies as well. Of course, I thank our ranking Democrat, the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood), for his wise counsel and support in our shared responsibilities to manage MWR matters for the committee, and I join him in urging all Members to vote for H.R. 4546.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, the Cold War is over, and the United States and Russia are recognizing that our two countries have far more that unites us than divides us. This amendment is one area that we recognize that when we join forces, when we focus on those things that unite us, that both countries and the world are better off for that. We have spent far too much time focusing on what divides us from Russia and not near enough time focusing on our common interests. This amendment does just that. It should have been done last year, or 10 years ago. Let us not be next year saying we should have done this last year. This is the right thing to do. I urge Members to vote for this amendment.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the University of Maryland men's basketball team for winning the 2002 NCAA national championship. On the 50th anniversary of my doctorate from the University of Maryland, I would like to express my appreciation for the job Coach Gary Williams has done in resurrecting the team's proud heritage to make the team a national champion. I would especially like to mention senior guard, first team All American, Juan Dixon. Juan Dixon overcame his parents' death at an early age, as well as many other obstacles, to become the great player he is now. Dixon and many of his teammates were continually discounted as not having the mettle to win the title and not having much of a chance to succeed individually. They proved every critic wrong by bonding together to win as a team. It was an amazing run by the Terps this year, and all Maryland is proud of them. The story of the Maryland basketball team this year has been one of great perseverance, and we salute their achievement and pursuit of excellence on and off the court.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to pay tribute to one of my constituents, Melvin Smith of Ellicott City, Maryland, who is retiring after more than 33 years of distinguished service with the United Parcel Service, the UPS. Mel was born on September 30, 1946, in Los Angeles, California. He attended Fremont High School and Los Angeles City College, and served in the Vietnam War. He began his 33-year UPS career in 1968 as a package car driver in southern California. In 1976, Mel began his management career when he was promoted to full-time supervisor in the feeder transportation department. In 1981, Mel was promoted to hub division manager, and in 1993 he was promoted to district manager. Before Mr. Smith's retirement, he served as the chief operating officer of the UPS Atlanta district serving Maryland, Delaware, and parts of West Virginia. Mel has always been active in numerous charities. In Maryland, Mr. Smith has served in a leadership capacity for the United Way, the Baltimore Urban League, and the Baltimore Chapter of the NAACP. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Mel Smith, his wife Debra Ann, and his entire family. Mel, enjoy your retirement. (Ms. PELOSI asked and was given permission to speak out of order for 5 minutes and to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Americans are waiting for desperately needed economic stimulus and energy bills. Mr. Speaker, the other body has put Americans on hold; on hold for a comprehensive energy bill, on hold for an economic stimulus bill. Both are long past due as evidenced by our growing energy dependence and our deepening recession. The President wisely asked Congress to pass both months ago. The House passed a comprehensive energy bill in August. The House passed a tax relief bill to spur the economy more than 6 weeks ago. Meanwhile, America is still waiting for the other body to act on both of these high priorities. How much longer will the other body leadership keep Americans on hold, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I have one more question for the distinguished chairman. Under section 16(b), H.R. 2983 limits civil penalties to be paid by such contractors to no more than the amount of the discretionary fee. Would the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) agree that the appropriate definition for ``discretionary fee'' is contained in the committee report on H.R. 2983, which specifies that the discretionary fee refers to that portion of the contract fee which is paid based on the contractor's performance?

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. I look forward to working with him on this matter and on other important issues in the future.

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Madam Speaker, I wish to engage the gentleman from Texas in a colloquy. Madam Speaker, section 16 contains two provisions of concern to the Committee on Science regarding the management of Department of Energy labs by certain contractors. Madam Speaker, the Battelle Memorial Institute manages several DOE facilities and was explicitly named in the 1988 Price-Anderson legislation as an entity exempt from civil penalties. In section 16(b) of H.R. 983, the Committee on Science notes that the exemption for such-named entities is eliminated. However, the current amendments limit civil penalties to be paid by nonprofit institutions to the discretionary fee. Would the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) provide assurances that the legislative intent of section 16(b) is to include institutions such as Battelle Memorial Institute and that he expects the Secretary of Energy to include Battelle in the Secretary's rulemaking under section 16(b)?

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.