John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I come reluctantly before you to re- express my desire to protect all our children from predators, and I am confident that I speak for all Members when we say that each new abduction brings a concern, an outrage that we all feel. Child molesters prey on those that are most vulnerable in our society, and we must stop them. But how can we stop them if we are primarily creating 36 new mandatory minimum criminal penalties that are completely arbitrary, that have been shown to be ineffective at reducing crime, and a consummate waste of taxpayer money? But that is not the only reason. Thanks to mandatory minimum sentences, almost 10 percent of all inmates in the Federal and State prisons are serving life sentences, an 83 percent increase since 1992. In two States, New York and California, 20 percent of the people in prison are serving life sentences. And what do we have to show for these statistics? Well, a system that currently houses more than 2 million Americans, almost four times the number of individuals incarcerated in 1985, at a cost of $40 billion to run and operate. We create additional new death penalty eligibility offenses. This spring, 120 death row inmates were exonerated due to proof of their innocence. So, in the end, if we are truly serious about protecting our children from acts of sexual exploitation and violence, we have got to turn to prevention. We have got to use preventative solutions that really try to get to the root of the problem instead of after-the-fact criminal penalties that do not address the issue. Do these sick people check the statutes to find out what the newest penalties are or whether they are mandatory or not or whether they can carry additional incarceration terms? I doubt it. Finally, we have people that have written, professionals, scientific researchers treatment professionals, child advocates, who have serious reservations about this measure, H.R. 3132. From the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the Editor-in-Chief on Child Maltreatment, the Journal of American Professional Society of the Abuse of Children, the Director of Crimes Against Children Research Center, the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, Dr. Friedrich of the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School, from the Board of Directors Association of the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, all these letters have poured in urging that we put more prevention into this measure rather than less. Please let us turn this measure back.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as the designee of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this question of the well-being of our Nation's children is a result of the fact that children have increasingly become targets for identity theft. There have been sharp rises in incidents of fraud involving children's Social Security numbers which have been documented. Crimes using the stolen data are typically credit card frauds or the issuance of fraudulent driver's licenses. However, it is not too farfetched to think that the misappropriations of the personally identifiable information of a person who has not attained the age of 18 could be used in a way that could bring about many of the offenses set forth in this Act. So the objective of the amendment crafted by the gentlewoman from Texas is to protect our children at all costs, and this amendment would do this by making it a crime to knowingly misappropriate the personal identification information of a minor in interstate or foreign commerce. The offense would be punishable by fines or imprisonment not to exceed 10 years. Identity thieves often target children for these type of crimes because they are much less likely to notice that someone else is using their identity.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment to the bill to address a blight on our society, the scourge of hate violence. Because, currently, we lack sufficient data to assist in determining how to address bias crime directed toward children. This amendment would correct that oversight. For the year 2003, for example, the most recent available data, the FBI compiled reports from law enforcement agencies across the country identifying 7,489 criminal incidents that were motivated by an offender's irrational antagonism towards some personal attribute associated with the victim.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to offer amendment No. 23 at this time.

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

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to commend the minority leader on the legislative history she has recounted for the benefit of us who have dealt with this across the years and add that this is a bipartisan measure. I only wish that all of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who support this measure would also join with their voices and their votes with us on this very important day. We can track back a record that goes back to reconstruction where we have been trying to attempt to successfully pass this measure. So I congratulate the gentlewoman on her explanation of why we are here.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, this is a very important consideration; and I offer this amendment to address a problem, the scourge of hate violence, and hope that my colleagues will carefully consider the merits of the proposal. The larger measure before us, H.R. 3132, finally gives us an opportunity to pass a hate crimes legislation that has been supported by a majority of the House and the Senate for three Congresses. Regularly, on motions to instruct, this House voted 232 to 192 in support of hate crimes legislation. Clearly, after a series of procedural votes in favor of the bill, the time has come for us to act on the substance; and this is what brings me to the well today. In 2003, for the most available data, the FBI compiled reports from law enforcement agencies across the country identifying 7,489 criminal incidents that were motivated by an offender's irrational antagonism towards some personal attribute associated with the victim. Law enforcement agencies have identified 9,100 victims arising from 8,715 separate criminal offenses. While every State reported at least a small number of incidents, it is important to note that the reporting by law enforcement is voluntary, and it is widely believed that hate crimes are seriously underreported. Children are not immune from this violence. The FBI data has revealed that a disproportionately high percentage of both victims and perpetrators of hate violence were children, young people under 18 years of age. A Department of Justice report, a special one on the subject, in 2001 carefully analyzed nearly 3,000 of the 24,000 hate crimes reported and revealed 30 percent of all victims of bias- motivated aggravated assaults, and 34 percent of the victims of simple assault were under 18. So that is the problem. Despite the pervasiveness of the problem, current law limits Federal jurisdiction over hate crimes to incidents against protected classes that occur only during the exercise of federally protected activities such as voting. Further, the statutes do not permit Federal involvement in a range of cases where crimes are motivated by bias against the victims' perceived sexual orientation, gender disability, or gender identity. This loophole is particularly significant given the fact that four States have no hate crime laws on the books and 21 others have weak hate crime laws. So the amendment will make it easier for the Federal authorities to prosecute bias crimes, in the same way that the Church Arson Prevention Act helped Federal prosecutors combat church arsonists, that is, by loosening the unduly rigid jurisdictional requirements under Federal law. State and local authorities currently prosecute the overwhelming majority of hate crimes and will continue to do so under this legislation with the enhanced support of the Federal Government. Through an intergovernmental assistance program created by this legislation, the Department of Justice will provide technical, forensic, or prosecutorial assistance to State and local law officials in cases of bias crime. The proposal also authorizes the Attorney General to make grants to State and local law enforcement agencies that have incurred extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes. I hope in supporting H.R. 3132 we can also move forward in this important area of hate crimes with reference to protecting children. Behind each of the statistics cited above lies an individual or community targeted for violence for no other reason than race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity. Let us be clear that a significant number of children lie within these statistics. These discrete communities have learned the hard way that a failure to address the problem of bias crime can cause a seemingly isolated incident to fester into wide spread tension that can damage the social fabric of the wider community. This amendment is a constructive and measured response to a problem that continues to plague our nation. These are crimes that shock and shame our national conscience and they should be subject to comprehensive federal law enforcement assistance and prosecution. I hope that in supporting H.R. 3132 we can also move forward in this area, hate crimes, that is equally important to protecting children.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), our subcommittee ranking member.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Virginia's example tells us the whole thing. This is over the edge. It is not that we do not want to give protection, but this goes way, way too far. Now, I remind my colleagues that the problem that we have here is that there have never been any hearings. There have never been any markups. There have never been any witnesses. There has never been a full committee hearing. Nobody has ever seen this measure before today when it is now on the floor. It sounds great, volunteer liability legislation. But that is what we did with the Volunteer Protection Act in 1997. That was carefully crafted, bipartisan in nature, and covers all of this activity. We go way beyond volunteer protection to immunize what could be misconduct of a deliberate and blatant nature, that can immunize negligence of the grossest sort, and never in the history have we ever imagined, thought of immunizing such actions. So there is no reason to protect such blatant wrongdoing from responsibility. And it is a fatal flaw of this legislation. I urge that it be sent back to the Judiciary Committee for appropriate action. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. It is with reluctance that I rise in opposition to this legislation. I cannot support it, and I am reluctant about that because it has been my intention to work with everyone on the committee to eliminate the problems of this bill, the excesses and flaws that are in it now; and my suggestions have not been received, and the bill has been put together in an extremely hasty manner that I believe will insulate negligent and dangerous behavior that we would otherwise have no inclination to do. I begin by pointing out that we already have a Volunteer Protection Act in the law, passed in the year 1997, which protects volunteers. This bill had hearings. It was carefully crafted and bipartisan in nature. It protects volunteers from their good deeds, but not from their misconduct. This bill, unfortunately, goes much further. And the problems that I have referred to and will continue to refer to are the result of the fact that this bill has never had a hearing: in no subcommittee, not in the full Committee on the Judiciary. There have never been witnesses to testify for or against it. There has never been a markup. Nothing. We come today with a measure that has been pulled out of the air. We have not heard from a single interested party as to why the bill is necessary. We have not received so much as a shred of evidence that there is any shortage of volunteers to assist in Hurricane Katrina as a result of our civil justice system. So I point out to the Members that in the first instance the bill is not limited to protection of volunteers. It would protect many organizations, public and private, that might be involved in Hurricane Katrina, which could be government organizations. It could even protect the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It could protect cities and counties and States. It could protect business entities. This bill is off the charts. And in the past, when we were more carefully considering the matter, we decided not to cover these entities because we did not want to protect firms that retain people who were criminals. We did not want to give comfort to drug addicts who may be working there or even sex offenders from liability that they might be involved with. This bill creates a green light for all kinds of behavior, that it will now receive a protection. For the life of me, I cannot suggest one reason why we ought to pass this measure. I am not aware of any business or even a nonprofit entity that has asked this committee for relief from liability in order to help out in Katrina. Nobody knows about it. This is a phantom measure that has come out of nowhere, and if it is just to pass the time of day and keep us busy, it is probably doing a great harm to our civil justice system. The bill goes beyond the Volunteer Protection Act to, if the Members can grasp this, immunize gross negligence and intentional conduct. We would immunize negligent and purposeful misconduct. Never in the history of Congress have we ever considered immunizing such actions. Why should we do it today? There is no reason to protect such blatant wrongdoing from such important responsibility. The drafting that I have talked about is so broad, it would protect unlicensed volunteers who are attempting to operate as professionals. This would include individuals who provide medical treatment without training if something like that were to come along. It could protect people flying airplanes without licenses. Under this measure, an individual could travel to Louisiana without a license to conduct surgery and claim in a civil action that he has a liability waiver coming from this bill. This measure would even go further. It would insulate simple traffic accidents from liability. A person working around the Katrina disaster could negligently have an accident and injure a child on the way to New Orleans, and the family would be left with no recourse whatsoever. I can imagine that this bill will be brought up in civil cases in ways that we have never had an opportunity to contemplate. So I make a simple proposition. Why do we not just move this bill off the floor, set up the subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary that is anxiously waiting to schedule witnesses for the bill, and have them do their work and bring it to the full committee where it may receive even further amendments and inquiry? It makes no sense to exempt irresponsible people from their own negligence. It would even insulate nursing homes, hello, from civil liability who use volunteers and their failure to evacuate resulted in death. One could lose their loved one as a result of negligence by a nursing home; and if they raise these protections that are involved in this legislation, the person bringing the action could be left without compensation. We are setting up, whether we admit it or not, a two-tier system of civil justice. One for the people that were able and could afford to escape Katrina who will have their full right in the civil justice system, just as all people always have, but a lesser system for indigent individuals, many of whom, if not most, are, in fact, minorities, who may have, and I hope this is very few, but some who may have suffered abuse as a result of additional negligence and misconduct. So what we have here is a horrible attempt to insulate volunteer liability, but it has been put together in such a way that we have a piece of legislation that I do not think can withstand the reasonable scrutiny of the Members of this body. If we adopt this unthinking bill without bothering to figure out what we are doing and who we are further exposing to harm, we may, in all likelihood, be compounding the tragedy that exists to which we are trying to bring some closure to. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a response to my friend, the previous speaker, to let him know that the examples that he made are quite logical and quite rational. We think that they should be given protection. But we do not want what is in this bill that goes way beyond that kind of protection, because we would give protection for gross negligence, and it is in that respect that I am opposed to the bill. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, this is a proud moment in our history, and I begin by commending the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, for the work he has done in helping me bring this concurrent resolution to the floor today. Why is this historic? Because the impetus to reconnect with this struggle for racial justice in America began with this humble lady, a seamstress in Alabama, who on December 1, 1955, chose to no longer obey the ordinance that blacks sit in the back of the bus and if it was full, then they give up the bus to white passengers. It is hard to conceive of the total segregation that this Nation was immersed in. On that day, she refused to obey a bus driver's order; and it began the chain of actions and organizations and commitments that led to a resurgence of the civil rights movement as we know it. Her arrest sparked a boycott of the Montgomery city bus lines. It went on for over a year as more and more people of all backgrounds and colors and economic classes joined in. Finally this matter reached, in November of 1956, the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that desegregation codes deny under the 14th amendment the equal protection of laws to African Americans. This is a great moment because the present is tied to the past. The other body is in the process of determining who the next Chief Justice of that Supreme Court will be. Hurricane Katrina has made us remember how deeply poverty and race have brought most of the hardship upon people of color in New Orleans and in Mississippi where the havoc is still being counted, 400 deaths now known; but the number is sure to go far, far beyond that. Now a word about Rosa Parks herself because I happen to be connected with this, meeting her through my work with Dr. Martin Luther King as an attorney and then getting to know her when she left Montgomery and came to Detroit. She was so modest. They said she got fired from her job a month after the boycott. Here is what she said in the book she wrote: ``A month after the boycott began, I lost my $25-a-week job when the Montgomery Fair department store closed its tailor shop. I was given no indication from the store that my boycott activities were the reason I lost my job. People always wanted to say it was because of my involvement in the boycott. I cannot say this is true. I do not like to form in my mind something I do not have any proof of.'' That exemplifies this incredible humbleness that marked everything that she did. I said the first person I am going to bring into my congressional office staff is Rosa Parks, and she accepted. Never once have I ever heard her raise her voice in anger. Never once have I heard her speak negative or unkind remarks about anybody, this persona, this modest woman of incredible determination who, by the way, brought Martin Luther King into Montgomery to help lead the Montgomery bus boycott, which was the start of his career as a civil rights leader. Yet this humble woman, quiet, dignified, always pleasantly composed, was able to bring forward this and other countless acts of civil disobedience which resulted in us changing the way that America operates. It was Rosa Parks that did all of this; and what I wanted to do was let Members know that she, by bringing Martin King into this matter, was able to begin a civil rights movement much, much larger than the boycott itself. She then started the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self- Development, a nonprofit organization that sought to motivate youth. On this recognition of the 50th anniversary of that refusal to give up her seat, I am very proud that the Congress has chosen to join in with us by way of this concurrent resolution and remember this incredible point in American history. I lift up the name of Ms. Elaine Steele, who has been with Rosa Parks for years and years as her assistant, as her counselor, as her dearest friend, and attorney Gregory J. Reed who has given her the legal background and support that she has needed from time to time. This is a great day in the history of America that we remember. It is a great day in the Congress that we can remember that Martin King challenged his own country which he loved very much. But when he felt it was wrong, dissent was the highest form of patriotism that he could exemplify what this country stood for. And civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks, by displaying her defiant act of courage 50 years ago, has made this country more of what it ought to be than anyone else that I can think of. So I join with my colleagues in celebrating the ideals of Ms. Parks and the civil rights movement. Today we honor Rosa Parks and her decision to stand up to injustice 50 years ago. On December 1, 1955, Ms. Parks refused to obey a bus driver's order that she give up her bus seat in the black section to a white man because the white section was full. It is the courage, dignity, and determination that Ms. Parks exemplified on this day that allows most historians to credit her with beginning the modern day civil rights movement. Ms. Parks' actions on December 1, 1955 led to the desegregation of American society and enabled all of this Nation's citizens to realize freedom and equality. The arrest of Ms. Parks led African-Americans and sympathizers of other races to boycott the Montgomery city bus line until the buses in Montgomery were desegregated. The 381-day Montgomery bus boycott encouraged other courageous people across the United States to organize in protest and demand equal rights for all. The fearless acts of civil disobedience displayed by Rosa Parks and others resulted in the United States Supreme Court, on November 13, 1956, affirming a district court decision that held that Montgomery segregation codes deny and deprive African-Americans of the equal protection of the laws. This decision would lead to other landmark Supreme Court decisions in which the Court would rule in the interest of justice and equality. In the years following the Montgomery bus boycott, Ms. Parks moved to Detroit, MI in 1957 and continued her civil rights work by working in my district office. Ms. Parks was with the office from 1965 until 1988. In the more than 20 years that Ms. Parks was in the office, she worked with a tireless spirit for the people of Detroit and other Americans. In 1987, she started the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit, a nonprofit organization which motivates youth to reach their highest potential. So it is with great pleasure and honor that I stand today to recognize not only a civil rights pioneer, but a member of my staff, a constituent, and a friend. It is in this recognition of the 50th anniversary of Ms. Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus, that I ask the Congress and the great people of this Nation to work with the same courage, dignity, and determination exemplified by her to address modern day inequalities and injustices. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, these inequalities and injustices are at the forefront of public consciousness and it is our job to do something about it. Ms. Parks has said, ``Until everyone can enjoy the same opportunities, people cannot be equal. I am glad that segregation is no longer considered acceptable, but the fight for equal rights must go on until we have the same privileges and opportunities as those who are in power.'' Civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks displayed a defiant act of courage 50 years ago to better this country for all of its citizens. I know that this Congress and the people of this Nation can work to further the ideals of Ms. Parks and the civil rights movement.

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

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to do is draw the parameters of where we are today. Today, we are not dealing with the people on the ground that can be of the most help. We have business people, construction people, who actually could be helping, and they cannot get in the door because they do not have the answers to the gentlewoman's questions of where do they go. I have been trying to call the Mayor of New Orleans, and he does not have a phone. Only cell phones, and everybody in America is probably calling him on those one or two phones. I commend the leader of this Special Order.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, because these are no-bid, multimillion dollars contracts for which they are not even eligible to bid; and then when they subcontract them out, they subcontract them out to other large corporations and not to the small business people who can best contribute and bring the economy back together.

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and also thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), who has been working on this issue. First of all, I want to continue the discussion that the gentlewoman has been a leader on since she arrived in Congress. There are a few things that I want to add to this discussion because we have to speak truth to this great tragedy. The first understanding that we have to arrive at is that many people in New Orleans were in dire straits before the hurricane and the mishandling of the hurricane and floods ever occurred. We are talking about a poverty that is so devastating that many of us, including myself, come in and out of New Orleans and never see what is really going on. Mr. Speaker, 84 percent of the folks there are African American and poor. We have a tragedy that was waiting to happen. Ever since President Lyndon Johnson made the first efforts against a war on poverty, which was aborted shortly after that, we have neglected, generation after generation, to address this problem. So the second thing that I would make clear to everybody is that New Orleans is not just the only place that there is such devastating poverty that it shocks one to know what it is. When we go to many other parts of this country, there are huge places of depressed areas, of deprived people, of great suffering, of high unemployment, of tragic failings, and hope is missing in a lot of these places. So what we are doing is speaking not only about Katrina and New Orleans, but we are really talking about this condition of poverty that spreads across this entire country. And we are now forced, with the classic tragic mishandling of the flood, and this is the first time in the President's public career that he has ever admitted that, because of this Federal bungling, that the responsibility is at his level. Now I can suggest to the Members that one of the reasons that he is doing this is that his ratings are now lower, that in seven previous administrations no second-term President has ever been in the situation that he has. Whether that will change what we do remains to be seen. It may be another Rove tactic to get him to go up, but this discussion precedes what the President is going to say almost at the same time tomorrow. What he says will tell us where we are going and what they do. At the same time that we are getting ready for the President's mea culpa, let us remember that there has been nobody here talking about rolling back the Medicaid cuts and the food stamp cuts and other restrictions. Those are quietly going forward at the same time that we are saying we have got to do more. And this is not just about volunteer help, which we are grateful for, and corporate contributions. We are talking about the government dealing with this problem. The last point is that we now have a plan in progress in which the Halliburtons are now coming not only from Iraq but all over to begin to take over the reconstruction efforts. From our members in Mississippi and Louisiana, we find that there are no plans for the small businessmen to participate in the rebuilding. So this is a major issue which requires us not just to get the President straightened out. We have got a budget that will take us into an absolute no-way-out trap if we do not really change the terms of what we are doing. Poverty is now being challenged. We might not be here were it not for the revelations that have been made by most of the press. And for us to be unaware that the black and the poor in this country are now the victims of one of the most federally bungled cleanups in America, we have gotten rid of the FEMA Director, but that is only the tip of the iceberg.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, today Rep. Mel Watt, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee and twenty four additional original co-sponsors have joined me in introducing the ``Hurricane Katrina Bankruptcy Relief and Community Protection Act of 2005'', to protect the thousands of families and small businesses financially devastated by Hurricane Katrina from being penalized by anti-debtor provisions contained in a new bankruptcy law scheduled to take effect on October 17, 2005. We are concerned that, just as survivors of Hurricane Katrina are beginning to rebuild their lives, the new bankruptcy law, effective October 17, 2005, will result in a further and unintended financial whammy. Unfortunately, the new bankruptcy law will have the consequence of preventing thousands of devastated families from being able to obtain relief from the massive and unexpected financial obligations they are incurring. The inflexible bankruptcy law will force victims of Hurricane Katrina to repay debt with income they no longer have, file paper work with documents that no longer exist, and travel to courts that are possibly hundreds of miles away. It is simply absurd to place these obstacles between survivors and financial security. When the Judiciary Committee considered the Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act earlier this year, Ms. Jackson-Lee offered an amendment to protect the victims of natural disaster like those now devastated by Hurricane Katrina. While the amendment was defeated on a party line vote without any debate, we hope that in light of recent events our colleagues will recognize the importance of protecting our most financially vulnerable Americans. This bill will prevent new bankruptcy provisions from having adverse and unintended consequences for the hundreds of thousands now facing financial catastrophe by providing needed flexibility for victims of natural disasters in bankruptcy proceedings. This common sense bill will insure that we do not compound a natural disaster with a man made financial disaster. I hope there will be bipartisan support for expedited consideration of this critical legislation.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I, too, Mr. Speaker, join the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in rising in support of this legislation. One of the many effects of the terrible tragedy resulting from Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst in our history, is the problem that the Federal courthouses in the region are flooded, preventing countless civil and criminal cases from proceeding. This legislation would permit the circuit courts, the district courts, magistrates, and the bankruptcy courts to all conduct proceedings outside their normal jurisdictions in times of emergency. These courts are, in many instances, closed as we meet today in Washington. Terrorist attacks and natural disasters can render unusable the Federal courthouses. Along with the tragic humanitarian results of such events, the administration of justice would come to a halt, preventing citizens from exercising their rights in court. In such circumstances, the chief judge of the court or judicial council of the circuit court could order the court proceedings to be conducted at any other place within the United States. Upon such an order, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts would notify Congress of the reasons. Also, within 180 days of the termination of the special session, the Administrative Office would notify us of the order's duration, its impact on litigants, and the cost to the judiciary. This bill, H.R. 3650, further provides that jurors for civil cases may come from either the original or the temporary jurisdiction of the court. With respect to criminal cases, the legislation preserves the sixth amendment rights of defendants by limiting the jury pool to the district where the crime is committed, unless the defendant consents otherwise. There is an issue not addressed in the bill, and that is who would pay for the parties, including criminal defendants, to travel to the new location. Presumably, because a public function is at issue, the government should pay such expenses. It would be untenable for the courts and prosecutors to travel at government expense while defendants are left to fend for themselves in times of disaster. I am hoping that this can be corrected. There may be due process and sixth amendment violations if we force defendants to pay their own way to a distant courthouse. I hope to work with my colleagues in the House and Senate and the chairman of our committee in the House in the coming weeks to ensure that this oversight is properly resolved. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I strongly believe that we in the Congress must do more, much more, to alleviate the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of people may be forced to seek bankruptcy protection, but now will be subjected to the onerous and creditor friendly provisions of the newly enacted bankruptcy law, including its means test, which goes into effect on October 17. Victims of disasters and other tragedies, I think, ought be exempt from such rigid requirements. We have also heard countless reports of price gouging at gas stations. Big oil says the pipelines and refineries are down, thus limiting supply and increasing prices, but somehow they still continue to reap record profits. Along with a number of my colleagues, I have called upon the Federal Trade Commission to investigate this profiteering. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3650, the Federal Judiciary Emergency Special Sessions Act of 2005, deserves the support of every Member in this body. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the Anti-Price Gouging Act of 2005, legislation that makes price gouging during a time of a national disaster a Federal crime. I am joined by Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Linda Sanchez, Jerrold Nadler, Martin Meehan, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Bennie Thompson, William Jefferson, Adam Schiff, Joe Crowley, William Delahunt, Zoe Lofgren, Gene Taylor, Chris Van Hollen, Diane Watson, Bobby Scott, Ed Case, Bernie Sanders, Mike Capuano, Dennis Kucinich, Bob Filner, Dan Boren, Jim McDermott, George Miller, John Larson, Al Green, Julia Carson, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Carolyn Maloney, Emanuel Cleaver, Anthony Weiner, Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Jay Inslee, and Jose Serrano. Every time a major disaster occurs, we are confronted with scarcity of resources that often results in exorbitant prices for necessary resources such as gas, food and water. While some adjustment to prices may be necessary, unconscionable increases in price are unfair and harmful to consumers, who, at a time of national disaster, are already dealing with significant personal losses. It is unconscionable for the same gasoline that sold for $2.50 per gallon on one day, to be marked up to $3.50 on the next day. Similarly, a hotel room that was promised at $80 per night on the phone; should not be raised $200 per night upon arrival. These instances of price gouging have been occurring throughout the country, even in areas far removed from the direct damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. Currently, at least 13 States--Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia--have laws that specifically address price gouging in the event of a declared emergency. Unfortunately, there is no Federal statute addressing the issue. When we have unprecedented natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, and price gouging that harms consumers across the Nation, we need Federal law enforcement available to support the States. As a result, the Anti-Price Gouging Act of 2005 would make it a violation of the Antitrust Laws for a supplier to charge unconscionable prices for necessary goods or services once a state of emergency has been declared by the President. This legislation is not only extremely important now, at a time of national disaster, but it is also mindful that we cannot sit around and wait for disaster to strike before putting in place mechanisms that will help consumers in their times of need. I hope the Congress moves quickly to enact the Anti-Price Gouging Act of 2005.