Michael Castle

Mr. CASTLE

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Boustany).

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Before discussing the amendment, I, too, would like to thank all the staff who worked on this. We sit here and we say nice things about these bills, and I think that the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) and I and others in the room who have worked on these bills know that without our staffs they simply would not be done in the same detail, the same execution. But all those on the committee who the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) referred to I particularly thank. They do a great job on our Committee on Education and the Workforce. I am very grateful to them and to my staff who helped with this as well. It is the reason we get legislation, I think, that we can all pretty much agree to on the floor of the House of Representatives. My amendment before us, Mr. Chairman, is very simple. It would make an important clarification to the underlying bill. As we have heard, H.R. 366 consolidates the funding streams of Tech-Prep and the basic State grant, but still requires States to fund Tech-Prep activities. I have worked with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to draft this amendment that will clarify our intent. This amendment simply explains that Tech-Prep activities are held harmless to the amount that was appropriated to the Tech-Prep program in fiscal year 2005. Evidence suggests that under current law, the Tech-Prep program has not worked as anticipated and designed. The intent of the program is for high schools and postsecondary institutions to draft agreements that allow for a nonduplicative, seamless transition for students. The rationale behind consolidating the programs was to streamline the funding stream. We can all agree that Tech-Prep is an important component of technical and vocational education, which is what this amendment is intended to clarify by ensuring Tech-Prep activities are still funded. In order to prohibit the inadequacies of the past, H.R. 366 incorporates program improvements to ensure that Tech-Prep activities will include credit transfer agreements, ensuring that secondary vocational and technical education students can move easily into postsecondary education, a necessary exercise for those students who decide to go on to some form of postsecondary education or training. I urge my colleagues to support my simple and technical amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jindal).

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I urge the support of the amendment by everybody. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to pay tribute to the Laurel Middle School located in Laurel, Delaware. Founded in 1683, Laurel is a small town in southwestern Delaware that is home to over 800 buildings listed on the National Historic Record. Named for the trees that run along the town's Broad Creek, Laurel is now home to over 3,800 Delawareans. In addition to many historic buildings and beautiful recreation areas, the town is also home to a public school that has proven itself as one of the best in the United States: Laurel Middle School. I would like to personally thank Dawn Williams, a 7th grade science teacher at Laurel Middle School. Ms. Williams has made me aware of the strides taken by the school. As a benchmark for public education in Delaware, Laurel Middle School has been recognized with a Delaware State Testing Program rating of ``superior.'' This recognition was made possible through the hard work of students, teachers and school officials. While it was the students who scored exceptionally on the test, it is the support system, led by Principal Julie Bradley along with parents, teachers, and administrators, who make it possible to achieve a superior rating. Most notably, this achievement occurred in a poverty area school, showing that hard work and strong community support can yield outstanding results, regardless of income level. I am grateful for the work of everyone involved and am excited to see the youth of Laurel grow up to become the leaders of tomorrow. Once again Mr. Speaker, I commend the efforts of Laurel Middle School and look forward to following their future achievements.

Mr. CASTLE

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to pay tribute to the La Red Health Center, located in Georgetown, Delaware. La Red is an important and effective health care provider for the residents of Sussex County. The center provides bilingual high- quality and cost-effective primary and preventive medical care to over 5,000 Sussex County residents who are uninsured, underinsured or face other barriers to medical care. La Red's importance is highlighted by the fact that the United States Census Bureau finds Sussex County to possess the fastest growing Latino and African American populations in Delaware. With such growth, there are limited medical resources to meet the unique needs of these populations. For this reason, La Red's recent attainment of federally qualified health center status by the U.S Department of Health and Human Services is so important and exciting. The center will receive $650,000 in federal funding each year for the next three years. La Red will also receive $200,000 a year for the next three years through the Rural Health Outreach Program, to support La Red's Prenatal Program. La Red has faced many hurdles on the path to receiving this distinction, facing challenges to secure funding and reach out to underserved populations. In addition to the Congressional Delegation of Delaware, the staff at La Red deserve our highest praise. Over the past few years, they have managed to improve and expand services, while simultaneously reaching out to the Sussex community. By qualifying for health center status, La Red will continue to improve its services with such federal privileges as: the 340 B Federal Discount Drug program, which allows La Red to get discount rates on prescription drugs; applying for federal tort claims, which provides insurance to the center; and receiving federally funded technical assistance. This is a very exciting time for La Red, but even more so for the growing number of patients in Sussex County--they have a reliable and quality health center they can turn to in times of need.

Mr. CASTLE

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First, as a comment to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), he is tenacious, to say the least. We have been going through this with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for a year, or something of that nature, addressing a variety of issues. Obviously, none of us wanted to see the Sacagawea coin not come back or fail or whatever. It will be continued, and I think it is our mutual hope that this program will accelerate the usage of these coins, and therefore it is going to be a coin when it does come back in full-blown issuance after all the Presidential coins are gone that will be used a heck of a lot more than it is now. So hopefully it is a win-win situation that we ended up with. I thank the gentleman. It was all amiable, maybe a little frustrating at times, but all amiable. Mr. Speaker, I cannot thank my cosponsor enough. She has also been tenacious in this, dealing with her side of the aisle when there were complications, smoothing those things over, plotting with me to get this done, which we had to do from time to time. It has been a great pleasure to work with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) on this as well. I would like to thank all the staff who worked on this legislation. It does seem like a relatively simple bill, but it is a little more complicated than one might think; and there was a lot of staff involvement. Obviously, Emily Pfeiffer on my staff I thank particularly, and Joe Pinder is truly an expert on coinage. I think he dreams about these coins and constantly he would come up with things I had not thought of, usually which we had to overcome in some way or another. But his institutional knowledge of coinage in the United States, which may not be exceeded in this country, is of extraordinary value to all of us as we deal with legislation such as that. So we are pleased to be here. We think this is obviously very good legislation for a whole variety of reasons, every bit, hopefully, as good as the quarter legislation turned out to be.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to include extraneous material thereon.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am pleased that the House will consider today the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005 I authored with the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney). This legislation honors each U.S. President by placing him on the obverse side of the $1 coin on a rotating basis. By doing so it aims to improve circulation of the $1 coin, which will lower costs to businesses and thus restrain price increases. I believe this program is a great opportunity for educating both children and adults about the history of our country. In addition, although it is not the goal of the program, these new coins will likely generate as much as $5 billion for the government. Concurrently with this program, the current Sacagawea coin will also be minted. I am pleased that we were able to work with the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) to address his concerns and continue the Sacagawea program, which will now hopefully be stronger than ever. In many ways this legislation is modeled after the successful ``50 State Quarter Program.'' The 50 State Quarter Program, which I was also proud to have authored, issues five quarters a year bearing images connected with one of the States, so that over a decade each State will have been honored. Before the State quarter program started, the U.S. Mint was making about 400 million quarters a year, but in the first year of the 50 State Quarter Program it minted approximately 1.2 billion quarters. The Mint estimates that one person in each household is collecting the quarters and they are collecting a full set, not just their own State. According to the most recent numbers from the Mint, nearly $5 billion worth of savings have been created for the Federal Government. It is important to note that this program is likely to be more accepted by the public than previous dollar coin programs. In a 2002 General Accounting Office report to Congress, 25 percent of respondents stated that they would use the dollar coin for more purchases if there was a rotating design similar to the 50 State Quarter Program. Additionally, nearly 50 percent of respondents stated they would collect the new coin if it featured a changing design. And 69 percent of respondents favored U.S. Presidents as the choice for the new rotating design on the dollar coin. Under the program, the images on the front and back of the coin temporarily would be replaced beginning in 2007 with images of the United States Presidents. Four Presidents a year would be honored, in the order of their service, with a likeness of the President, his name and dates of service, and a number signifying the order in which he served, on the front of the coin. The image on the reverse would be that of the Statue of Liberty, large enough to be dramatic but not so large as to create a so-called ``two-headed'' coin. The date, Mint mark, and other important mottos on the coin would be on the edge of the coin, leaving room on the faces for more dramatic artwork. Working through concerns, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Kelly) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) raised last year, there is language that was drafted in consultation with the National Federation of the Blind to ensure seeing-impaired individuals would be able to distinguish the dollar coin from a quarter. The educational aspects of this program are obvious. We all know George Washington was the first President, but how many can tell the exact dates of his service to the country? How about the dates of service of the famous Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant, who later became President? And how many in this Chamber can name the only President who would end up with two coins in the series because he served twice, in terms separated by another President's term? This legislation also seeks to honor the First Spouses by creating a nearly pure-gold investment-grade bullion coin, the same diameter as the dollar coin, and half an ounce in weight, honoring the First Spouses who have done so much for our country. The U.S. Mint will also be able to make bronze medal replicas of the First Spouse gold bullion coin. This will enable school children and ordinary citizens an affordable option for collecting the First Spouse series. These bronze medal replicas will cost just a few dollars. For the First Spouse coin, the obverse, as for the Presidential coins, would be the likeness of the spouse, terms of service, and the order in which they served. On the reverse would be images emblematic of the spouse's works. In the five instances to date in which Presidents had no spouses while in office, the educational part again, the bill calls for the image on the front of the coin to be that of an image, that of ``Liberty,'' as used on a U.S. coin circulating that President's term, and the reverse of the coin to carry images related to the President's term. During President Chester Arthur's term, the image of Liberty would be represented by Alice Paul, a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement, who was born during Arthur's term. Other Presidents, such as President Wilson, have had more than one spouse while in office due to the death of a spouse and subsequent remarriage while still in office. Finally, this legislation includes H.R. 767 as a second title. This legislation, introduced by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson) and cosponsored by the entire Illinois delegation, will redesign the Lincoln penny in 2009 in celebration of the 200th anniversary of President Lincoln's birth. The redesign will feature four designs, each representing a different aspect of his life: first, his birth and early childhood in Kentucky; second, his formative years in Indiana; third, his professional life in Illinois; and, finally, his Presidency in Washington, DC. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) for her work on this legislation, indeed there was a great deal of work, as well as the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Oxley) and the ranking member, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), for their support. I urge my colleagues to support this fun and educational program. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 902) to improve circulation of the $1 coin, create a new bullion coin, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. CASTLE

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 749) to amend the Federal Credit Union Act to provide expanded access for persons in the field of membership of a Federal credit union to money order, check cashing, and money transfer services, as amended.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach).

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 749, the Expanded Access to Financial Services Act of 2005, introduced by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) and favorably reported to the House by the Committee on Financial Services. This bill makes a simple change to the Federal Credit Union Act to allow Federal credit unions to offer check cashing and money transfer services to anyone within their field of membership. H.R. 749 will serve the dual purpose of lowering the cost to consumers of both check cashing and wire transfer products, while providing credit unions the opportunity to establish relationships with individuals who are currently unbanked. Money transfers by individuals living and working in the U.S. to Latin America are currently estimated at $10 billion annually, and should more than double by 2010. As the remittance market continues to grow, there becomes a significant danger in depriving customers of low-cost remittance products, thereby driving them to underground service providers that evade regulatory oversight. H.R. 749 will allow credit unions to offer remittance products to individuals who qualify for membership while promoting greater transparency within the remittance market. This improved transparency will enhance the ability for regulators and law enforcement agencies to track wire transfers used for illegal activity. Increasing the ease with which regulators and law enforcement agencies can follow the money trail is consistent with the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission on Terrorist Financing. Allowing Federal credit unions to offer products and services to all consumers within their field of membership would provide further benefits to our economy by allowing credit unions to establish relationships with individuals who are currently ``unbanked.'' Many users of remittance services are recent immigrants and should be empowered with the knowledge and resources necessary to open personal accounts at mainstream financial institutions. Studies indicate that as many as 10 million American households do not have a bank account. Establishing and successfully managing a personal account with an insured depository institution can lead to greater economic self-sufficiency and long-term financial security. Particularly for low- and moderate-income Americans, opening a checking or savings account can be an important first step in establishing a credit history, which can unlock doors to other financial opportunities. I believe that this bill is a positive step toward ensuring that millions of unbanked Americans have access to secure, low-cost remittance products, while drawing these same customers into the regulated financial mainstream. I therefore encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 749. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 749, as amended.

Mr. CASTLE

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding that the chairman of the committee has the right to close? He is the only speaker they have. I am the final speaker. I yield myself the balance, which I believe is 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, actually the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) and I were just discussing this. It is a shame we do not have more time for this amendment. It is a pretty significant amendment. It is complicated, and I have spent a lot of time trying to educate myself as to what the procedures were before and what they are now. It could be a little bit difficult, and there is a court suit pending in California, and obviously we need this. I will be the first to tell my colleagues that. On the other hand, for the States and the local areas to give up their jurisdiction and their ability to influence this decision, I think would be absolutely wrong. I have read this statute very carefully. For instance, it says on page 13: ``The term `Federal authorization' means any authorization required under Federal law in order to construct, expand, or operate a liquefaction or gasification natural gas terminal, including such permits, special use authorizations, certifications, opinions, or other approvals as may be required, whether issued by a Federal or State agency.'' You are basically taking what has been partially codified and developed by procedure, and you are trying to codify it here in what is a much tighter measure, giving to the energy commission the ability to make the decision and overrule what happens at the State and local levels. That is the problem that I have. And certainly the chairman may get up and say, Well, that is not quite what it is. It certainly can be interpreted that way. If we look at this language, it certainly appears to be that way, as far as I am concerned. They talk about safety inspections. That is after it has already been built. So that does not do us any good as far as the original preparation is concerned. I think we need to do more than just consult. That is what the State role now becomes; it becomes consulting. And let me tell my colleagues something. This may be more than just the terminals for LNG. This could end up being other things, not in this legislation necessarily, but this commission could reach out and start to deal with energy lines, could start to deal with pipelines and a variety of other things, taking away the local jurisdiction over land. If we want to protect what happens at our homes, we need to have a process by which we involve the local community, and by involving the local community, we make the right decisions. Yes, we have to make them, but let us not forget the States and the local communities; and that is what, in my judgment, this legislation would do if we do not amend it. Support the Castle amendment.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am very concerned about the process by which terminals for LNG will be selected in this country. Let me say, I support natural gas. I support the use of liquefied natural gas. I understand we need ports. I also understand the nearer they are to the pipeline the better off we are. But the bottom line is that the process that is in this legislation which supplants the existing process, in my judgment, tramples on the rights of the States and the individual communities, as they have indicated in their letters to us, to be able to influence these decisions that are made. If you read this carefully, you will see that H.R. 6 requires FERC to consult with the State, but it clearly removes the directive that FERC base its decision on community support or opposition, which it does now. States do a heck of a lot more than consult. At times they can object entirely. There may be problems. In the case of one being located in the Delaware River, New Jersey has some problems with it, in terms of boats being able to turn and environmental issues, whatever it may be. There are a lot of problems across the United States of America. My judgment is that we are taking absolutely the wrong step by this rather strong measure that turns over to this Federal commission the right to make local decisions. That is something that none of us in the Congress of the United States should endorse. So for that reason I hope the amendment reverting to where it was before would be accepted. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays).

Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.