Duke Cunningham

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I would correct the gentleman that we are the party that is against liberal lawyers. We are the party against the socialists that want to take our property. We are against the people that deny our rights to fight for our private property. I would tell the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske) that he has got people in Iowa, he is a doctor, maybe he works out of a little brick house, but he wants to give his farmers the right to take it to a Federal Government if some rat at a local government overrides their rights. That is all we are asking for is to take it to the Federal level. I would say to the gentleman who offered the amendment, they got milk, they got religion, the California Desert Plan, the California Central Valley Water Project. All of these were Federal intervention, not local control. We had eight farmhouses that burned to the ground because they could not disk around their property. We wanted local control. This gives the private property owner the right and the ability to take it to the Federal Government when local overrides their civil rights. I oppose this amendment and support the bill strongly. This is California. Look at what is controlled.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 33, I was on a delayed flight out of Chicago and missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 32, I was on a delayed flight out of Chicago and missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would particularly recommend that the gentleman in the other body get the briefings on potential threats posed by forces by Iran, Iraq and Libya, in North Korea and China. Specifically, Mr. Speaker, I would recommend that the Speaker look at the Russian SU-37 with the AA-10, the AA-11 and AA-12 missile, because in today's fleet, if our pilots in the F-14, the F-15, the F-16 or current F-18 meet this SU-27, with the Russian missiles and their jammer and their radar, our pilots will die 95 percent of the time. That is not spin, Mr. Speaker. That is fact. I would recommend these briefings on the capabilities of carrier battle groups to meet and defeat these particular threats and the tactics involved in them, which I deal with on a daily basis. The capabilities of carrier aviation today center on two tactical aircraft, both of which I have flown, the F-14 and the F-18 Hornet. The Navy has upgraded them throughout the years. As they buy an airplane, new equipment, new electronics, new stealth capabilities, are placed on those aircraft. The F-14 airframe was designed in the 1960s, and the F-18 in the 1970s. We have added many things to those aircraft, trying to keep them with the capability to meet those threats that I have previously talked about. When the F-14 was designed, the Navy desperately needed a high speed interceptor. Right after the Vietnam War, Mr. Speaker, there were many that thought that our only threat was going to be Backfire bombers coming in from the former Soviet Union. We trained many of our pilots as interceptor pilots, although the Navy Fighter Weapons School, which we know as Top Gun, continued to learn how to fight the F-14 and F-18 in what we commonly call a dog fight. Counterfleets of projected cruise missiles were also a threat coming in not only at the carriers but our battleships and our troops embarked, and our aircraft were designed to meet that particular threat. That performance dominated the design at the expense of reliability, maintainability, survivability, and versatility. The F-14 today is very expensive to maintain, and each cost per flight hour is an extreme mode. In early mid-1970, Congress, in its wisdom, directed both the Navy and the Air Force to develop their next generation of tactical aircraft. The F-18, and for the Air Force the F-16; and if we want to look I do not have a model, Mr. Speaker, of the F-16 but if we want to look at the Russian-built MiG 29, it is very similar. As a matter of fact, the Soviets stole the plans of our F-18 and our F-16 and devised this particular airplane called the MiG 29. They also stole the plans for our older F-111 and created a MiG that is very poor performing. They stole the wrong plans, because in my opinion the F-111 could not shoot down the Goodyear Blimp, but they stole the plans and thought it would be a good airplane because it had variable swept wing like the F-14. All of these aircraft have served our Nation well and they have been equally successful by our forces, by both our men and women in Desert Storm and other areas. But they are limited. The aging fleet of the F-14 Tomcats, many of which are over 20 years old, Mr. Speaker, are difficult and expensive to maintain because they were designed before modern survivability. We call it VSEVO. Mr. Speaker, we know it as stealth capability, and those techniques have been developed over the years since the F-14 and the F-18 models were developed. Like the F-14, the early models of the F-18 were growing long in the tooth; and even the most recently built F-18C/D model are no longer able to keep up with the evolving threat, i.e., the SU-27, which is a Russian variant, the SU-35 and SU-37, which are projected Russian threats in the next few years, along with their AA- 10, AA-11, and AA-12 missiles, which are superior to our best missiles in a dog fight. The limitations of the F/A-18C/D Hornet and the ability to handle that threat is a serious threat today, Mr. Speaker. They performed well in Desert Storm and Allied Force and Desert Fox. All I can say is we are very, very fortunate, Mr. Speaker, that the SU-27, with the Russian add-ons were not available in Kosovo, because our long-range stand-off weapons, our aircraft would not have known, both in the intercepted and the dog fight, that they were coming, and our pilots would have suffered at the hands of those pilots. That brings me to my major premise, Mr. Speaker, the necessity of acquiring a larger, longer range, more survivable, and more capable F- 18E/F Super Hornet. Many people fought off the B-2 and its production. The B-2 was one of our most successful aircraft in Kosovo. It had no losses. It launched out of the United States on missions, and if we look at the target damage in Kosovo impacted most of the target damage itself. The F-22 is a future airplane by the Air Force. It will be able to meet the threat of the SU-35 and SU-37 in the future, but at the same time we are debating in Congress the additional cost of that particular airplane. If anything, we need to double the numbers, reduce the unit cost and proceed with the test and evaluation so we can take a look at introducing that particular airplane capability against the future threat of Russian and Chinese airplanes. Let me give another example, Mr. Speaker. I went to Patuxent River, Maryland, and as a test pilot I am able to fly aircraft. A few weeks ago, General O'Ryan was flying the F-16. I was able to be in the F-15 and doing the test results on the new F-22. We did high angle attack work, which means a very slow high angle, high claim rate speed, and also the VSEVO test, which is the performance and acceleration test of different aircraft. In this particular airplane, the F-18E/F where I flew at Patuxent River, Maryland, let me give you the difference in capability. In Vietnam, I was shot down on my 300th mission in combat, after engaging some 22 MiGs on the 10th of May 1972 and shooting down three of those MiGs. On other occasions, I had to ingress a target at very low level, 50 feet to 100 feet. I would pitch the plane that I was flying, at that time was an F-4 Phantom, and I would go over the ground looking at my map and hitting certain positions on that map within seconds. At a given time, I would pop the airplane up, roll to take a look at that target and quite often it took a long time to find that particular target, Mr. Speaker. At that time, I was very vulnerable to those gunners while I am looking for that target climbing. With this particular airplane, when I flew at low level, some 600 knots at 50 to 100 feet above the ground, it handles very capably and that is another reason that the airplane is good because one can take a young Jonathan Livingston Seagull that has never set foot in a jet before and they feel very, very comfortable with the handling qualities of this aircraft. I flew it in at 600 knots, popped up; and before I got there, miles away from the target, I was able to lock that target up with two different systems, which I cannot discuss because it is classified. I not only locked up the bridge with two systems, I knew exactly where it was so when I pulled up, all I had to do is roll, put the airplane on the target, drop the ordnance and then break out, which limited the amount of vulnerability that I was vulnerable to enemy aircraft fire and/or other aircraft. So that in itself, Mr. Speaker, is a big advantage over the F-18C/D, or even the F-14. Early F-18s, the A, the B, the C and then later the D models, have been strengthened over the years to withstand stress of recovering back aboard a carrier, with more and larger weapons. We have added sensors to these older F-18s, countermeasures, advance systems, black boxes, electronics; and the Hornets have become even more densely packed and heavy. What does this mean, Mr. Speaker? It basically means that this older model of the F-18, because we have added so much weight, there is no more capacity to add weight to this airplane and, secondly, that when we add the weight on there, we cannot grow anymore. All the new systems to combat these aircraft that I previously mentioned, SU-27, SU-35, SU- 37, all their missiles, all of their capabilities, I have no more room to put it in this airplane. It is full. The F-18E/F has room to grow over the next 20 years, which is a big advantage. I would ask the Speaker to put himself in the Sea of Japan, or put his son or his daughter in an aircraft, coming aboard in the Sea of Japan in the dead of winter, a pitching deck, bad weather, and you can only land on that carrier one time because the increased weight of this aircraft as it has grown throughout the years, you are limited in the amount of fuel that can be brought back aboard. If you do not land that airplane on the flight deck, you have to go back up through the bad weather, you have to find a tanker and be able to tank. If you drop the weapons that you are carrying, you could drop half a million dollar or million dollar weapons off of that airplane so you can back aboard the carrier, and that is a waste in itself and cost millions of dollars, especially if you are early on in a war when it has not started but yet you carry ordnance just in case the battle begins. The worst part of this, Mr. Speaker, is that our young men and young women, if they miss that carrier deck in those kind of conditions, in the Sea of Japan or areas where the weather is bad and cold, if they have to eject, the pilots wear today a survival suit, but they have less than 10 minute survivability time; and chances are our helicopters and our search-and-rescue efforts will not find them before they die. The aircraft that we are talking about that the gentleman in the other body talks so badly about that says it was not better, I can bring four of these heavy duty weapons back aboard and I can carry enough fuel for 15 passes at that carrier deck in case there are problems with the deck, if there are problems with the weather or even the tailhook itself on this particular airplane. So it means survivability to those men and women in those circumstances. Mr. Speaker, when I was in Vietnam, we had problems bringing Rockeye, which is a bomblet, back aboard the carrier and quite often we did not have time to stick around on the target to develop that particular weapon because we ran low on fuel. F-18E/F extends the range of the current F-18 by drastic amounts, not only giving the pilot time on target but survivability in an area which could be very hostile to enemy threats. Another advantage of the new F-18E/F because the defense budget has been so low and because many of the deployments to Somalia, to Haiti, to Iraq four times, to Bosnia, to Kosovo, to bombing aspirin factories have cut off the defense budget; and we have not had the advantage of the particular airplane to allow it the capabilities that we need in this particular airplane. What this aircraft offers is it can itself, if we take off these weapons off this pylon, the airplane is built as an air-to-air tanker. It can give us an additional thousand pounds of fuel, which will allow us to go over a thousand miles, where the F-18/CD has as little as 370 miles of range. So the gentleman in the other body that spoke about the capabilities of this older CD being worse than the current F-18E/F that we have coming up is just not the case. I would tell the gentleman that he is incorrect, and I would tell him to get not only, I do not know if I can do that, if I can advise him to take briefs, Mr. Speaker, but if he does not, he should. I do not know if I can advise him or not under the rules. But if he is overly concerned that the Super Hornet will cost 13 percent more than the older airplane, I would ask him to think about the capability of this aircraft not only in cold weather in saving our pilots, the ability of this airplane to be a tanker so that this one will not run out of fuel, but the Hornet in studies has been shown that this airplane will die in combat four to one to this airplane. Why? First of all, you have the endurance and the range to go to the target not direct but in a route that avoids enemy threats. Secondly, if you are engaged by enemy threats, you have the fuel to get back to the carrier, where, with this airplane, just to use an afterburner will cause you to run out of fuel or could cause you to run out of fuel. This additional 13 percent in cost will save four aircraft to one in combat with different studies. And I think that is very critical. Mr. Speaker, I took this airplane up at Pax River and also flew it. Because the aircraft itself, when it was being initially tested, had a condition that they call wing drop. When you take this aircraft, generally at speeds in which you are trying to close in very close to the enemy, and we will not shoot another F-18, let us at least use a Russian airplane, if we are trying to close in on another airplane close aboard, what was happening, something that they did not look at in a test bed was a condition called wing drop. If you would pull under certain PSF, different G-loadings, different altitudes, then what happened is the air flow over the wing of this aircraft would cause one wing to depart other and then the wing would drop, which is a tactical disadvantage and could even cost you that fight. Engineers went in. I flew the airplane at 40,000 feet; and I then flew it at 35,000 feet, and I then flew it at 30,000 feet trying to duplicate the wing drop after the engineers had fixed it. We could not duplicate it. But during this time, the point that I would make, my chase pilot flew at 25,000 feet just saving their fuel while I did all of these other tests using in and out of afterburner, under high-G loading not only in military power but maximum power, burning fuel at a very high rate, this aircraft was sitting at 25,000 feet at maximum endurance just saving its fuel. Even with all of that, I ended up with 3,000 pounds more fuel, Mr. Speaker. What does that mean? It means that our pilots, if they are engaged, will have a much higher capability not only of survivability but the ability to engage the enemy. On May 10, 1972, I was engaged by 22 MiG-17s, 19s and 21s over North Vietnam, Mr. Speaker. I cannot tell you about the ensuing dogfight. I was fortunate enough to shoot down three of those 22 MiGs. But, in that, you use a tremendous amount of fuel; and if you have got 100 or 200 or 300 miles to return to your carrier or to your airfield, the Air Force, then you have a good chance of losing that aircraft. The F-18/C model has done well in the past, but yet its stealth capabilities that we have added today to that particular airplane were not developed until later on. The new aircraft, the F-18E/F, gives us a much higher chance of survivability in the intercept. The Russian radars are very large. They had jammers that are very difficult to actually see where this particular airplane is, Mr. Speaker. What the F-18 does is that his missiles, the bad guy's missile, is better than our missile today, not in the future but today. We cannot only see where he is not, we cannot see where he is. And what happens is that he fires a missile at me if I do not have stealth capability and our pilots die. Now, that is a pretty serious thing, Mr. Speaker, whether you are sitting in that cockpit or you have a family member that is sitting in that cockpit. What this stealth capability in this new F-18E/F does is that enemy, with his powerful radar, cannot see our aircraft, or, at least, by the time he sees it, it gives us time to lock up his airplane and to fire our AMRAM or other type missiles, which gives us the capability to shoot him down and to have him come back in a ball of fire instead of us. Now, that might be not significant to many people, Mr. Speaker, but it is for the men and women that we ask to fight our battles. I would say to the gentleman in the other body, when he says that the older F-18C/D is better than this airplane, he is wrong. When he says it has longer range than the newer airplane, he is absolutely wrong. When he says it has better stealth capability, he is wrong. And when he says it is an airplane that we should not buy, Mr. Speaker, in my humble opinion, the gentleman is wrong. We need to look very carefully at the future, Mr. Speaker, and to see what technologies we have to put into those aircraft. I have a real concern. If the gentleman in the other body wants to take a look at a system that could have problems in the future, this country, the United States of America, has never built, Mr. Speaker, an airplane that is inferior to what the enemy threat is. We are not going to put our men and women up in the air with an airplane that we think that they cannot survive in. We just have not done that in this country. Even during World War II, when the Japanese Zero was superior to many of our aircraft, industry came about and developed superior aircraft, like a P-51, like a P-38, like other aircraft that turned the tide of that war. And we cannot do that today. But I would tell my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, that I have a real concern with an upcoming aircraft, not the F-18E/F, but with an aircraft called the Joint Strike Fighter. The Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. Air Force is going to replace its F-16, which is an attack aircraft. The U.S. Marine Corps is going to use it as a vertical takeoff, what we call a jump jet, to replace the ailing Harrier. The United States Navy is selected to take a low-end or a low-cost variant of that Joint Strike Fighter. And we must take a look before we buy or develop that aircraft first, is its design going to allow our pilots in all the services to win in combat? Can they meet that future air-to-air threat and air-to-ground threat? Can they fight those future threats? I do not want a fair fight, Mr. Speaker. There is no such thing as a fair fight when you are a fighter pilot, and there are no points for second place because second place means you are captured or you are dead. And I do not want to build an airplane that I cannot defeat an enemy or that my children or your children cannot defeat that enemy. I hope the Joint Strike Fighter program succeeds. Battle group commanders will surely welcome it in year 2012 to begin sharing on its flight deck with the F-18E/F. But I will continue to argue to the best of my ability from now until that speculated time that we need to be equipping our airwings with the F-18E/F and ensure that the other systems that we put our pilots in can meet that threat. This year, in Congress, we debated the F-22. The F-22 will meet the threat of the SU-35 and the SU-37, which is the future aircraft. Right now, in my opinion, it is one of the few airplanes that will meet that threat. Unfortunately, the airplane today is $187 million a copy. The research and development is over $20 billion dollars. And the cost of the electronics, hopefully, will not go up. If we do anything, Mr. Speaker, we should double the buy of the F-22. Because what they did is, with Lockheed and the Air Force, they cut the buy of the F-22 in half. When you take all this research and development money and you put it on a lesser number of airplanes, each of those airplanes, when you pile those additional costs, it is more than if you had a whole bunch of them. So, in the future, I think we need to double the buy of the F-22, not only for the cost but the fact that when you get into an engagement, it is like a food fight, you may have some airplanes over here and some other here and some behind you that are in the threat, and if you only have two air superiority fighters, you may not be able to cover everybody that is in trouble. And it is another issue that is coming up before this Congress. I hope we can resolve this, as well. It is not just because of the superior ability to bring expensive smart weapons back to the ship or because spectacular improvements in survivability. It has a wealth of additional enhancements, the F-18E/F. I will confine myself to three, Mr. Speaker. First of all, the increased range. Secondly, the airborne tanking capability. And C, I mentioned briefly, the capability for growth. The combat radius of the Super Hornet carrying 4,000-pound weapons, that is a lot of bombs on an airplane; and the drag, like when you stick your hand out of a car, that is called drag, but the drag on those aircraft is tremendous. That airplane can go 500 nautical miles, compared to only 370 miles of this aircraft. Every battle group commander since the F-18 deployment in 1983 has recommended this extra range. The GAO reported highly critical initially of the F-18 at the time and it emphasized the limited range of the F-18C/D. I criticized it myself. And they asked us to continue buying the A-7, which was a much older airplane with less capability, and I disagreed with that. At least one of these same GAO analysts that was responsible for the recommendation now states that the extra range of the Super Hornet is unnecessary and that the previously unsatisfactory range of the original Hornet is adequate. Mr. Speaker, this absurd and contradictory analysis is all the more unsettling when combined with the fact that in the days of the original Hornet, the Navy had A-6 tankers to enhance the range of our aircraft for in-flight refueling. These vulnerable aircraft have since been retired, leaving the aging S-3, which has very limited tanking capability, as the only tanker for the fleet today. Fortunately, the F-18E/F unlike the F-18C/D was designed to carry fuel tanks. You see all of these stations underneath can be loaded with fuel tanks. What is the advantage of that? It can fly at speeds and altitudes most suitable for the combat mission unlike slower, less maneuverable ones. Let me give an example. In Vietnam, we used to go up and try to tank behind a C-130. It was so slow that I used as much burner getting the two or 3,000 pounds of fuel out of that airplane than I got. I burned more fuel than I actually received, but at least I was heading toward the target. This aircraft can act as a tanker and tank at the same speed as the other F- 18s and be just as maneuverable. This gives the battle group commander the capability to launch one or two Super Hornets, each carrying two smart missiles, accompanied by an additional Super Hornet configured as a tanker, and after a single refueling outbound leg, the missile-armed aircraft will strike the enemy targets a thousand miles away and return, a thousand miles and return. Remember, this airplane was 370 miles only. So again the gentleman in the other body was wrong and misinformed. The big part of this airplane is the maintainability. I have spoken about the F-14 and its capability. If you have an aircraft that is a tanker and also can act as a fighter, it gives you another fighter airborne. Plus you do not have to have all the other maintenance people to maintain a totally different airplane, to have different parts on the carrier because this aircraft is the same as the airplane you are going out to fight with as a tanker. The parts are common, they are easier to keep, and that way you also keep more aircraft up on that carrier deck making your readiness much, much higher. With two-thirds of each launch serving as strike aircraft and the third serving first as the tankers and then as combat air patrol between the battle group and the enemy, tremendous new capabilities and flexibility and alternatives accrue to the battle group commander. My final attribute of the F-18E/F is its capability for growth. The reason the F-18 A, B, C and D models have remained effective is that we have built up those systems since the early 1980s and they have been upgraded every 2 years, incorporating new radars, mission computers, forward-looking infrared sensors, and weapons employment capabilities as I noted earlier. This capacity for further modernization has been exhausted, and there is no more room. Not only is the current F-18C/D already too heavy to incorporate any additional systems, without considerable redesign there is no space to locate such systems or black boxes, as we refer to them in the military. Likewise, there is no additional electrical power or cooling capacity to accommodate the new equipment. So in short, Mr. Speaker, the old aircraft cannot keep up not only with the threat but the modernization necessary for our men and women to win in combat and to complete their mission. The F-18E/F has, like its predecessor the F-18A/B did in the day, the access of electrical power, cooling capacity, and cubic space to accommodate 20 years of growth and therefore will be able to incorporate new sensors, countermeasures and weapons still on the drawing board. One of the advantages is that the high technology of the new F-22, the Joint Strike Fighter as it develops, will be able to use those same weapons systems, those same radars in this aircraft and exchange them because there is plenty of room for growth, up to 20 years, which should be just about the service life of the F-18E/F before we go to the Joint Strike Fighter and whatever comes next. I began these remarks with the opinion that they are the most important of my career. I believe this because I feel that the F-18 is essential to the preparedness and success of carrier aviation and naval air power projection for the next 20 years, Mr. Speaker. As events in both the Arabian Gulf and in the Adriatic Sea have borne out recently, our land-based tactical assets are not always welcome on otherwise friendly real estate. Quite often, we will have to engage it with a battle group or a carrier air battle group. That, combined with the Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Navy, in joint exercises and joint combat, our troops should be able to withstand those enemy threats. But I do not think there is anyone on either side of the aisle or the gentleman in the other body that would have our men and women engage an enemy in a system where they knew that they could not win and they would either die or be shot down. The engineer and manufacturing development phase is complete. The operational evaluation is complete. The airplane is ready. It is ready to put to the fleet. Back in 1992, the Navy presented its $4.8 billion estimate for this phase in FY 1990 dollars. The Navy and the contractors have come in below those costs. Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, Northrup Gramine, Raytheon, General Electric aircraft engines have brought the program in well below the cost estimates, and it is a superior aircraft, Mr. Speaker. Congress also specified that the F-18 production costs not exceed that of most F-18C/Ds by more than 25 percent. This aircraft came in at 13 percent the cost. Frankly, I have been a little skeptical of some years ago to whether the F-18E/F could live up to its billing and I was wrong. It has. I was skeptical that the radars would not meet the threat but it has. For the preceding 2 years an annoying, relatively minor anomaly has shown up in certain combinations of speed and altitude, and I addressed that. It is called wing drop. That has been completed and finished by our engineers, not only not at the expense of our stealth capability nor our range as you would think that you have to hang something else on the airplane. At the end of an exhaustive process, the fixes were finished, the wind tunnel tests are done; and we are ready to buy this airplane for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps if they so choose. I would be comfortable in this airplane, Mr. Speaker, fighting against the threats that we have today. And the threats that we have tomorrow we will have to upgrade this aircraft as well. The Navy's most successful initial sea trials on board the U.S.S. Stennis CVN-74 in January 1977, the dual F-18E/F is virtually identical to the front and rear cockpits and can be flown in training with our student pilots. This airplane is one of the easiest aircraft I have ever flown to bring aboard or take off on an aircraft carrier, making it user friendly for our young pilots as they enter the fleet. That is important as well, Mr. Speaker. Eight production Super Hornets have been delivered to Fleet Readiness Squadron 122 at Naval Air Station Lemoore, California, where the cadre of instructor pilots is unanimous in its approval of how well the Super Hornet performs day and night and under most grueling conditions. It can be conducted aboard a ship within a test range of shore or in simulated combat fights. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record a Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force, COMOPTEVFOR, released the results of the OPEVAL, specifically that the aircraft was found to be operationally suitable and operationally effective. The highest grade attainable in a test of this type or ever from an aircraft from the United States. They also recommended the aircraft for fleet introduction. I would say to the gentleman in the other body once again, he is wrong. Boeing Super Hornet awarded the NAA Collier Trophy, Washington, D.C., the National Aeronautic Association announced today, Mr. Speaker, that the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has been selected to receive the NAA Collier Trophy recognizing the top aeronautical achievement in the United States for FY 1999. That in succinct order, Mr. Speaker, is why that I say the gentleman in the other body, if he wants to man up in one of the older airplanes, I will man up in the new one, and he will die in a fireball all tensed up. 2-11-00--Boeing's Super Hornet Awarded NAA's Collier Trophy Washington, DC.--The National Aeronautic Association announced today that the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet has been selected to receive the NAA Collier Trophy recognizing the top aeronautical achievement in the United States for 1999. The Boeing Company, the Hornet Industry Team, and the United States Navy were recognized for, ``designing, manufacturing, testing, and introducing into service the F/A- 18E/F multi-mission strike fighter aircraft, the most capable and survivable carrier-based combat aircraft.'' In announcing the selection of the winner, NAA President Don Koranda commented, ``The selection of the Super Hornet as the 1999 Collier winner is an excellent example of the technical achievement and teamwork of America's aerospace industry.'' The NAA's Robert J. Collier Trophy, established in 1911, is awarded annually, ``For the greatest achievement in aeronautics and astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year.'' The trophy, on permanent display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, is considered the greatest and most prized of aeronautical honors in America. The Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is a flexible, multi- mission aircraft capable of performing a variety of tactical missions including air superiority, fighter escort, close air support, day/night precision strike, and all-weather attack. It was designed to replace three Navy aircraft, the A-6 Intruder, the F-14 Tomcat, and the earlier model Hornets. In addition, the aircraft will significantly increase an aircraft carrier battle group's capability to independently carry out sustained perations in support of national interests. The F/A-18E/F has greatly increased performance, efficiency, and safety over the Hornet and has also reduced the maintenance requirements with 42 percent fewer parts than its predecessor. The aircraft has 25 percent greater payload, three times the ``bring-back'' to the aircraft carrier, five times more survivability, a 40 percent increase in range, and 17.3 cubic feet of growth volume for future systems. In 1999, the Super Hornet completed the most thorough and challenging operational evaluation in the history of naval aviation. Its test program was a unique partnership between the Hornet Industry Team and the Navy that used a fully integrated team to conduct developmental flight and ground testing concurrently from a single location. During its ``Test and Evaluation'' phase, the F/A-18E/F has flown 6,876 mishap-free hours, including 2,917 hours in 1999. As it entered service in November, 1999, the Super Hornet exceeded all Navy and Department of Defense operational requirements. In addition, Congress approved a multi-year procurement demonstrating confidence in the program. Additional evidence of the success of the program is illustrated by a number of technical ``firsts.'' The Super Hornet has an unlimited angle of attack that provides exceptional maneuverability in combat, fly-by-wire controls and Full Authority Digital Electronic Engine Control (FADEC), and a flight control system that automatically compensates for damage or failure. Its documented performance makes the Super Hornet the most versatile, capable, and survivable strike fighter aircraft in the world. Formal presentation of the trophy will take place at the annual Robert J. Collier Presentation Banquet, which will be held on Wednesday, May 3, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, VA. For further information, please visit NAA's web site at www.naa-usa.org, send an e-mail to awards@naa-usa.org, or call 703-527-0226. The National Aeronautic Association is the National Aero Club of the United States and the nation's oldest aviation organization, founded in 1905. Its primary mission is the advancement of the art, sport, and science of aviation and space flight. NAA is also the United States representative to the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, the 88-country organization that oversees all aviation and space records established worldwide. NAA consists of more than 100 member organizations. NAA oversees many of aviation's most prestigious awards and trophies and is a member funded, not- for-profit association. The Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force (COMOPTEVFOR) released the results of OPEVAL, specifically that the aircraft was found to be Operationally Suitable and Operationally Effective (the highest grade attainable from the test). They also recommended the aircraft for fleet introduction. Press release follows: ``Super Hornet'' Operational Evaluation Results Announced The Navy announced today the results of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet operational evaluation (OPEVAL). The OPEVAL report awarded the best possible grade to the Super Hornet, calling it ``operationally effective and operationally suitable.'' In addition, the report recommended the aircraft's introduction into the fleet. Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jay Johnson, stated ``The F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is the cornerstone of the future of naval aviation. The superb performance demonstrated throughout its comprehensive operational evaluation was just what we expected and confirms why we can't wait to get it to the fleet!'' Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Nine (VX-9) at China Lake, Calif., flew 1,233 hours in over 850 sorties and expended more than 400,000 pounds of ordnance in the Super Hornet during nearly six months of flights. The 23-member aircrew tested the aircraft in a complex variety of tactical missions representing the operational arena. The Navy's Program Executive Officer for Tactical Aircraft Programs, Rear Adm. Jeffrey A. Cook commented, ``This is the best news the Navy's carrier forces have received in a long time. It will ensure that throughout the next twenty years the fleet will be capable of countering the evolving threat. My congratulations to the Navy's Operational Test and Evaluation Command, the men and women of VX-9, and the entire naval aviation systems team.'' The purpose of the OPEVAL was to test the aircraft in a realistic fleet setting to determine its operational effectiveness as a weapon system, and its suitability to be maintained and operated by the Navy. No new deficiencies were found and the report validated the aircraft's superior capabilities. ``I'm really excited about the results,'' said Capt. James B. Godwin III, F/A-18 program manager, ``and we got the best grade possible from OPEVAL--operationally effective and operationally suitable. This report confirmed that the Super Hornet is a very mature product. We have been recommended for full fleet introduction.'' The OPEVAL report specifically cited the aircraft's key enhancing features--growth, bringback, survivability, range and payload--as qualities relative to current fleet operational capabilities. The successful completion of OPEVAL continues the Super Hornet along the road to a milestone III decision, and then approval to start full-rate production and multi-year procurement.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, the gentleman from Florida, for the presentation that he just gave. I would add a couple of things to it; first of all, that in Kosovo the KLA Albanians have been described by the CIA and FBI as some of the most ruthless and dangerous cocaine and heroin dealers in the world. In Europe they are the major threat, and we are starting to see the function of that now. They operate out of Kosovo. They have a clear hand. Secondly, in Afghanistan, another area in which the terrorists are selling drugs to support the mujaheddin, the Hamas, and recently in Israel, that Israel is having trouble with right now in Lebanon. So I would thank the gentleman for his presentation. The lives of our children and our grandchildren are at stake, and the information that he brings I have read not only in several articles, but have been briefed by our classified sources. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk on something a little different tonight. On February 7, a member of the other body delivered on the Senate floor what has become an annual tirade of false and misleading statements concerning the Navy's number one weapons system procurement, the F-18E/ F Hornet. He concluded at best that the aircraft is not better than the current airplane, and probably is worse, and it is enormously more expensive than continuing with the present FA-18C and D models. Mr. Speaker, I have two models here. The first is the F-18 C/D. The second is the F-18 E/F. What I will show in this next hour is the extreme advantage of the latter over the C/D model, and why it is necessary that the Navy has its number one aircraft for the future. Secondly, the gentleman from the other body has never served in the military who was talking about these two aircraft. He has a zero rating from all defense groups and agencies. He stated his own opinion as fact, and I would say that the gentleman in the other body is extremely factually challenged. The gentleman has never served in the armed service. The only credential that he has is that he is liberal. I say this based on my knowledge and experience in carrier aviation, and on intelligence briefs presented to me recently by the Department of Defense and by the Central Intelligence Agency. It concerns, first, the current, and more importantly, the projected military threat that will face our defense forces over the next decade. We need to take seriously a look at not only what the current threat is that we could face, our men and women in all services, and secondly, it concerns the weapons we are planning to acquire to defeat that threat. When we look at the threat, we look at the future threat 10 years, 20 years, even 30 years from now, it should be determined on what direction we go with the planning and the aircraft and equipment that we buy presently, and the training of the men and women in our Armed Forces. I would say that many of the Members have received this intelligence briefing. I would encourage the gentleman from the other body to do so. The classified briefings can bring insight into what those actual threats are and the direction that we need to go. I would ask, Mr. Speaker, what brings Duke Cunningham, a Republican from California, why should I be such another expert, other than the gentleman in the other body? First of all, I served 20 years in the United States Navy. I was a Top Gun student. I was a Top Gun instructor. I was commanding officer of the adversary squadron. I was on the Defense Authorization Committee, and I am now on the Defense Committee on Appropriations and sat in on many of the Intel briefings. I would tell the gentleman that I have flown the F-14. I have flown the Air Force F-15. I have flown the F-16, the F-18C/D and the F-18E/F that we are talking about. I have flown in the Middle East, and I flew in Israel in 1973 and 1974. I have flown against enemy aircraft in combat, and I have shot down many of those aircraft. I have also flown against them in peacetime to judge their capabilities, and I helped develop the tactics against those particular aircraft. The gentleman in the other body has none of these capabilities or none of this knowledge. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the late Col. James G. Hart, who in his too-short life brought great honor to his country through distinguished service in the U.S. Marine Corps. A native of Minnesota and Montana, Colonel Hart graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1964, and chose to join the Marines. After the basic school, he served three tours in Vietnam; as a rifle platoon commander with 1st Recon and later with 5th Recon. In February 1968, Colonel Hart entered flight school and graduated with distinction in March 1969. He was assigned to VMFA-314 at Chu Lai, Vietnam, where he flew the F-4B. Colonel Hart's many tours in the corps included assignments as a flight instructor, an aide to the commanding general 1st MAW, a test pilot at China Lake, CA, and designation as a USMC space shuttle pilot. He also served as F/A-18 Hornet project officer at Headquarters Marine Corps, with MAG-11 at 3rd MAW, commanding officer of Headquarters and Maintenance Squadron 13, and commander of the Marine Aviation Detachment at Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, MD. For a time, I was honored to serve with Colonel Hart at Naval Air Station Miramar, CA. Colonel Hart retired from the Marine Corps in 1991 and began a very successful career in international business. His awards include the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Stars with Combat V, the Purple Heart, Single Air Mission Air Medal, Air Medal with numeral nine, Combat Action Ribbon, and Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Bronze Star. Born March 3, 1942, this great man and great American died May 23, 1999. He is survived by his wife, Martha Monagan-Hart, and sons Matt, Andy, and John. Let the permanent Record of the Congress of the United States show that Colonel James G. Hart demonstrated throughout his life the greatest attributes of the United States of America, through honorable and distinguished service in the Marine Corps, in aviation, in private business, as a leader of men and women, and as a devoted husband and father. While he is departed from us on Earth, Colonel Hart is most certainly not forgotten. We remember him best by emulating the best of his character--in honor, loyalty, service, dedication, and the practice of excellence. Semper Fidelis, Colonel.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about securing the future of Social Security. Today, nearly 44.4 million Americans receive Social Security benefits. More than 4 million of these live in my home State of California. Seniors all over America rely on it as a major source of retirement income. However, Social Security is not just a retirement program. It also provides badly needed survivor and disability benefits to America's working men and women. Unfortunately, the future of Social Security is not secure. Today, more young people believe in UFOs than believe Social Security will be there for them. We must work to strengthen Social Security and protect our nation's retirement system. A simple first step is for politicians to stop raiding the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for more government spending. Every senior-- and every future senior--that I talk with agrees with me on this. In 1969, the Democrats were in control of Congress. They looked far and wide for money to pay for their new social welfare programs. That was the year they broke the people's trust. Every year since then, a portion of the Social Security Trust Fund surplus has been spent on other government spending. Americans have endured 30 years of this, turning our Social Security Trust Fund into a ``slush fund.'' For the seventh consecutive year, President Clinton proposed spending billions of the Social Security surplus on government programs. We Republicans in Congress would have none of it. For the first time in over a generation, we are not spending Social Security funds on anything other than Social Security benefits. In addition, this spring, the House passed the Social Security and Medicare Safe Deposit Act of 1999 (H.R. 1259) and moved one step closer to protecting the future of Social Security. This bipartisan measure won a vote of 416-12, with all but one of the ``nay'' votes coming from members of the President's party--the same party that raided Social Security for thirty long years. Our Social Security lockbox legislation will change the way the budget is prepared so Social Security funds cannot be used for other purposes. It helps every American guard against politicians' attempts to raid the Social Security surpluses for more government spending. I call on my colleagues in the Senate to pass this bill and help us keep 100 percent of Social Security funds for Social Security. Mr. Speaker, the American people are tired of politicians who say nice things about Social Security one day, then raid it for new government spending the next. The Republican Congress can and will protect 100 percent of the Social Security Trust Fund and stop the raid on Social Security this year. We will restore trust to the Social Security Trust Fund. And we will not go back. That is my plan, and I hope that my colleagues will join me in this important effort.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Monday next.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we were told that we would have votes on Friday, which is tomorrow; and for those of us that live in California, this is 21 hours back and forth to California and then to return the following day. So I decided to stay here and send messages to my veterans organizations and also to do a special order. Since that time, we found out that there will not be votes tomorrow, that they will not happen until Tuesday. The men and the women behind me and before me, Mr. Speaker, have come today to pay homage to our veterans. I apologize for keeping them here on Veterans' Day, but I will be brief. Today is very difficult for many of us, both Memorial Day and Veterans' Day, that, as a retired Navy person, I was shot down on my 300th mission over North Vietnam. I understand and appreciate what this day means to veterans and what it means for their families, for the active duty, the Reserve, and the Guard, and for our prisoners of war, wherever they may be. This is our last meeting for Veterans' Day of this century, for we enter the 21st century in this next year. Like the human search for freedom this century, our peace has come at a very high price throughout this century. For those of us that have seen combat and its horrors resist as a last means engaging into another war. Many have fought for different reasons in different conflicts, but I can think of no other reason other than freedom that should rise to the top of reasons for conflict. I would like to think, as we enter this next century, that the world would be free, not only free for individuals, but free of conflict. But, unfortunately, it is still a very serious and dangerous place. I feel, serving on the Defense Committee on Appropriations, that it is even more dangerous than it was 25 years or even 50 years ago. I would like to go through a couple of stories I think in honor of some veterans. I heard this first story from Ronald Reagan as he accepted his inauguration on the Capitol steps a few years back. I would ask my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, if they have ever heard of a private named Martin Trepto, a very famous individual. I would say that no one listening to this speech or, yourself, Mr. Speaker would know who he is. But let me tell my colleagues his story. Martin Trepto was a baker that made bread and rolls in France. And during World War I, he closed his shop and he volunteered to go to war because he thought it was his duty. As Martin Trepto entered the battlefield, he was assigned a position as a messenger. They did not have the fancy electronics that they have today, and many of those messages were carried in a courier's pouch. When Martin Trepto got to the battlefield, the three messengers ahead of him had been killed trying to deliver a message. Martin Trepto volunteered to take that message forward to the front lines. And like the other three messengers, Martin Trepto was killed. They found his diary, and in his diary it read: ``This has been a very difficult war. I do not know if I will survive it. But I must treat every action of mine as if that individual action would shorten this war and cause freedom for my friends.'' How profound is that. How many of us, Mr. Speaker, honor those veterans that gave their lives in some cases, that served this country so that if every one of their actions would give us the right to stand here? The day that I was shot down over Vietnam, the executive officer of the F-92, Commander Blackburn, was also shot down. He did not come back. His backseater, Steve Hoodloff, came back with the rest of the POWs in 1994. Commander Blackburn's son lived in Poway, California, in my congressional district. And from time to time his son would call and say, ``Duke, can I come over and talk about my father?'' It was the same questions and mostly the same answers. Well, a few years later, about 8 years, they brought Commander Blackburn's remains back. Now, it is not like his son wanted to see his father come back. But it was like a 5,000-pound weight had been lifted off that child's back, knowing the reserve and the resolve of what happened to his father. That is why, Mr. Speaker, that if there is any hope of any POW or MIA coming back, that we must turn over every stone and do everything that we can possible. Recently I visited North Vietnam. It was very difficult. Pete Peterson, who is a Democrat, now the ambassador to Vietnam, asked me to come and raise the American flag over Ho Chi Minh City for the first time. That was also very difficult to do. But I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the men and the women of our active duty military and some of our veterans are doing everything that they can, at least in Vietnam, to make sure that our loved ones know the resolve of their family members that did not come back from that war. Let me tell you about another individual. On 19 January, 1972, I was fortunate enough to survive and shoot down a MiG-21 over North Vietnam, one of five that I shot down. When I got back aboard the U.S.S. Constellation, all 5,000 guys, Mr. Speaker, were up on the flight deck. We were trying to get the wings folded, my backseater Willie Driscoll and I, get the arm switches safe. I looked over at the side of the aircraft, and there were the 5,000 guys with Captain James D. Ward, who was skipper of the U.S.S. Connie. Admiral Hutch Cooper was Commander of Task Force 77. And there was my plane captain, Willie Lincoln White, with a big smile on his face. He broke through the crowd, Mr. Speaker. He knocked over Admiral Cooper. And you do not do that in the Navy. As he broke through the crowd, he ran back under the tail feathers of the airplane and jumped up on the port wing, and he came down the turtle back as I am trying to get the ejection seat pinned into the airplane, and he grabbed me by the arm and he said, ``Lieutenant Cunningham, Lieutenant Cunningham, we got our MiG today, didn't we?'' What was Willie White telling me, Mr. Speaker? That he was a very important member of a team, that he was a United States serviceman, that I only deserved about one-five-thousandth of the credit. From Ramirez, the Filipino cook that used to fix our double egg, double cheese, double fry burger every night, to the guys that put the hydraulic pumps in the airplane to the fuel, if you can imagine an ordnance man forgetting to put an umbilical cord on a missile or a gun so that it did not work, they all deserve credit. That is who we honor today, those veterans who served this country. I saw plane captains cry when their pilots did not come back. That is how intense and how dedicated they were. Let me talk of another hero, a veteran, he has asked me not to tell his name, and he is alive today, if I can get through this. I have a good friend that was a prisoner in Vietnam, and it took him almost 5 years to knit an American flag on the inside of his shirt as a prisoner of war in Hanoi. And on occasion he would take off his shirt whenever they got together with one or two prisoners, and they would hang the shirt with the flag above them to symbolize freedom. And that was fine, until the Vietnamese guards broke in one day; and, Mr. Speaker, they ripped his shirt to shreds. They took out this prisoner, and they brutally beat him all day long. When they brought him back, he was unconscious. He had broken bones so bad that his fellow prisoners did not think he would survive. And so they took him and put him on a bale of straw and comforted him as much as they could and went back and huddled in a corner. A few minutes later, they heard a stirring from the POW. He had dragged himself to the center of the floor and started gathering those bits of thread to knit another American flag. That is what Veterans' Day is. It stands for freedom. It stands for the Constitution of this great country. I would look at the conflicts that we have had over the last 5 years, and I think foreign policy with military policy in many cases has been wrong in my opinion. Our military today is at the lowest that I have ever seen it in 30 years of military service. We are keeping only about 23 percent of our military, our enlisted, in. We are retaining only about 30 percent of our pilots. Many will say, well, it is just the economy, because they are going out for the jobs and away from the military. That is partially true. But the primary reason is when I talk to these young men and women that are serving on active duty, Mr. Speaker, they are away from their families, from their wives and from their children, in some cases husband and children for 8 months out of the year and in some cases this has been 4 years in a row. This is during peacetime. That is hard for anybody to be away from their family at 8 months at a time each year. In Somalia, we lost 22 Rangers, Mr. Speaker, because the White House refused to give them armor. It took us 17 hours to get into Mogadishu. By the time we got there we had lost 22 Rangers. This was the third time that our military leaders had asked for armor. Yet, in Somalia, the warlords are still there. General Aideed has died but his son is still there. And it cost us billions of dollars. In Haiti, we are still spending $20 million a year in Haiti. The warlords are still there. Aristide is still there. And that cost us billions of dollars. Iraq, we went in four times over the last 2 years. Each time that Mr. Ritter and them were rejected from inspection, we went to war. It has cost us billions of dollars. And today we are spending a billion dollars, not a million dollars, Mr. Speaker, but a billion dollars a year still in Iraq. Bosnia has cost this country $16 billion. That does not account for next year, or the following years. We bombed an aspirin factory in Sudan. The White House just settled for $50 million because of a mistake. In Kosovo, the total number of people killed in Kosovo before us, the United States and NATO, going into Kosovo was 1,012. One-third of those were Serbs that were killed by the KLA. We destroyed an infrastructure of an entire country. We lost thousands of people. Thousands of people were thrust out of their homes. And today look at the results. Ninety percent of the Serbs have been ethnically cleansed out of Kosovo by the KLA. One hundred eighty orthodox Catholic churches have been destroyed by the KLA. And we are building two $350 million bases in Kosovo, the United States. Are we going to be there like we are in South Korea, or other places in the world? And whether you agree with Kosovo or not, we flew 86 percent of all the missions in Kosovo, the United States, 86 percent. Ninety percent of all the weapons dropped were from the United States. And if we are to ask our active duty, our reserve and our guard to fly in these conflicts and other nations not pay their fair share, then at least NATO needs to upgrade its equipment so that they can use the standoff weapons, or they need to pay for it, because before this Congress today, the great debate on are we spending Social Security and Medicare money or not, $150 billion in these conflicts. In my opinion, there are very few that the United States should have entered in. I think, Mr. Speaker, it is time, as J.C. Watts said in the Republican Convention in San Diego, we ask God to come back into our country. I think it is time to secure peace through strength. I would ask, Mr. President, not through weakness, not through BRACs, not through decreasing our defense budget but increasing it. Recently, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, every one of our four-star generals said we need $150 billion to bring us up to where we can fight just two wars. I do not want our men and women going to war and having to celebrate or recognize them during Memorial Day because we did not give them the assets. It is time to honor our veterans, our active duty, our reserves, and give them the resources that we promised, and to our veterans as well, Mr. Speaker, because as we honor our veterans today, many of the fellows that I served with, the men and women, are telling their children not to enter active duty service because their benefits have been eroded. Well, this Congress in a very bipartisan way, with the veterans bill and with the defense bill, came to that call. We provided $1.7 billion increase for veterans' medical health care, the largest increase since the 1980s. The total funding is $19 billion for our veterans. It provides a $5 million increase for veterans' medical and prosthetic research. It provides $51 million for the veterans benefit administration to expedite claims processing. Many of my veterans and the veterans of every Member in this body, Mr. Speaker, have got veterans saying that those claims take too long. We more than doubled the President's request for veterans' State extended care. My veterans in San Diego County wrote a bill called subvention. It enables our veterans to use Medicare at military hospitals. It actually saves money. But yet we are still limited to a pilot project. Our veterans are saying they are tired of Band-Aids for their promised health care. We need to pass, Mr. Speaker, the FEHBP for veterans. If you have an active duty military and you have a civilian that sits next to them, when they retire, the civilian gets FEHBP, which is a supplemental to Medicare. The military does not. That is wrong. We could help our veterans by passing that as a full substitute and to help them do that as well. Mr. Speaker, let me close with what I think this day represents. On the 10th of May, 1972, I was shot down over Vietnam. In coming down in a parachute, I thought I was going to be a prisoner of war, or even killed, since the enemy was down below. Air Force, Marine and Navy pilots risked their lives to get my back-seater and I out. In coming down in that parachute, they told us there were two things that would keep you alive. One was having a good family back home, and the other was faith in God. I would tell my veterans, there is going to be a time in each and every one of your lives, maybe you lose a loved one, maybe you lose your job, but if you get on your knees and you say a little prayer, I guarantee somebody is going to listen to you. It is time, Mr. Speaker, to invite God back into this country. I think as we look forward into the 21st century, how exciting it is, not just communications but health care research and the things that we can do to take care of our veterans. I would close, Mr. Speaker, by saying God bless the veterans, God bless the active, the Guard and the Reserves, and to our MIAs and our families, do not give up hope. God bless America.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize the industry, finance and media participants in the 1999 American Electronics Association (AEA) ``Classic,'' an annual meeting linking high-tech industry leaders, entrepreneurs and financial partners that is being held this week in San Diego, California. It is my great honor to represent one of the nation's most ``wired'' congressional districts. Within an hour's drive of the AEA Classic gathering lies the entire 51st Congressional District that I represent. It is also home to the global capital of wireless telecommunications, exemplified by firms such as Qualcomm, Ericsson, Motorola and, very soon, Nokia. We are also home to leading participants in the PC and electronics industries, including Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Sony and others. Major software firms like Peregrine Systems, Intuit and Stac, integrated solutions providers like SAIC, and technologically advanced national security industry employers like TRW, Titan, Cubic, Orincon, CSC, Jaycor, General Atomics and many others, all have either headquarters or major presences in San Diego County. I have seen the future, and it is made in San Diego in more ways than one. Our leading technology employers have two things in common: leading- edge ideas, backed with sufficient financing to get them to market and to prepare them for the markets of the future. This principle, bringing great ideas together with the business know-how and the financing necessary to make them succeed, is the motivating purpose for the annual AEA Classic. The jobs and economic opportunities of the future are being made today at meetings like the AEA Classic, in San Diego today. They are not being created by the government or by regulators or by bureaucrats, but by entrepreneurs with dreams, and by people with resources to make these dreams real. To ensure that these innovations keep coming, I believe that we need to work together to improve education in every community for every person. And we need to keep the long, taxing arm of the federal government out of the way. The AEA Classic meeting in San Diego deserves Members' attention, because their next purchase, their constituents' next job, or the technology for their next phone call may well depend on its success. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for permitting me to take note of a major force in the development of America's dynamic high-tech industry.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, those two words, Cold War, are chilling to the millions of people that never knew freedom before the Wall fell. Many U.S. citizens have never known a socialist or Communist regime, although many Americans gave their lives and efforts to remove just a small symbol and a barrier to that freedom. I would like to thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox). I want to thank them deeply for the men and the women that they spoke about that fought for this challenge. But I would say to my friends that these same men and women would challenge us to continue the fight for an invisible, but a real wall to freedom of a socialist and Communist ideology that enslaves freedom itself. The former Soviet Union and China, in my opinion, are bitter enemies of the United States. Does that mean we need not engage them? No. Firm diplomacy, fair trade, not just trade, and even a big stick at times. But peace through strength is a hollow cry for many of those that brought down the Wall. For those that are aware of our military today know that that Wall would not fall under peace through strength with our military. It is a challenge that all of us in this House, both Republicans and Democrats and Independents, should fight for on a very bipartisan basis.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Al Graff and Dick Wheelock for their humanitarian contributions to our local community. The article below from the June 17, 1999, Coast News highlights their tremendous accomplishments in providing health care to the uninsured in San Diego County. Mr. Graff and Dr. Wheelock deserve our sincere congratulations for their efforts. They should be proud of their work, and I am proud to have such fine individuals as constituents. [From the Coast News, June 17, 1999] Retired Friends Tending To The People's Needs By Jack Broward EDEN GARDENS--There is no more appropriate term in describing Al Graff, 80, and his partner Dick Wheelock, 73, than synergism: working together as a team, they exceed what could otherwise be achieved individually. Yet, judged individually, Graff stood at the very pinnacle of his engineering profession as an executive with General Atomics before retirement in 1983 as director of International Operations. Dr. G. Richard Wheelock, founding Medical Director in 1955 of the Del Mar Medical Clinic, was for the seaside community of Del Mar, only the area's second medical doctor to practice there at that time. It was not long before Wheelock's medical colleague retired, leaving him as the only physician in town. Like all areas of North San Diego County's coastal region, the climate, lifestyles and informality attracted tens of thousands of new residents. In time, new doctors, joined the clinic as patient load increased. In retrospect, Wheelock thinks now that he might have never retired without the retirement party that his wife threw for him without advance notice! For as many years as he can remember, Rancho Santa Fe resident Al Griff has been an advocate for social justice, a calling he refers to as ``the needs of the people'' The Berkeley graduate forged over the years, a dedication to social justice that eventually manifested itself in his ordination as a deacon at Solna Beach's St. James Catholic church. His new role in life began the day after his retirement in 1983. The plot thickens with Wheelock's retirement from practice in Del Mar after 44 years as ``the village doctor.'' Graff's good health, agile mind and aggressive spirit were the elements key to the ultimate establishment of a medical clinic here in Eden Gardens. His lengthy friendship with Wheelock included participation in community efforts to aid the poor and needy residents of Tijuana, ``We were returning from Tijuana one Saturday afternoon after delivering medical supplied donations from area hospitals in the region,'' recalls Graff, ``Dick asked me what I thought about opening a small clinic adjoining St. Leo's Mission.'' Through arrangements made by St. James Pastor, the Reverend John Howard (St. Leo's Mission is a subsidiary of St. James), it was agreed that a clinic was needed. The Mission, located on some four acres of property, is a focal point of community life in Eden Gardens. Social as well as religious events draw parishioners to the facility for wide ranging activities throughout the week. ``We situated the clinic in a single room in the back of the church, using the kitchen facilities as a patient waiting room.'' Dick Wheelock recalls, telling how, in 1992, the clinic's presence was a ``word-of-mouth'' operation. Sunday Mass announcements included (and still do) a run- down about clinic hours, special education awareness programs, vaccinations for babies, a yearly mammogram program for women over 40 years of age as well as numerous other special programs offered by the clinic. In a short time, the clinic patient load outgrew its single-room operation. The addition of two more small rooms plus an indoor patient waiting room that also serves as the filing-administration section was eventually provided. Thursday evenings from 6-9 p.m. and Saturday mornings from 9 until noon are the current scheduled hours of operation. But I noticed in visits for this story, that the medical staff, comprised of Wheelock and an all-volunteer team of area physicians, medical students from UCSD, nurses, technicians and administrative personnel remained at the clinic as long as patients were waiting to be seen. ``From the beginning, we realized the need for dispensing dignity and integrity along with medical treatments,'' notes Graff, explaining that the $5 per-patient ``donation'' may only be a token exchange for services and payment. ``But, this helps preserve the patient's dignity. Those unable to pay are treated with equal respect and medical care. All examinations, medications and related services are free. But the $5 fee creates a fund used for the purchase of logistical needs not donated by outside sources,'' Graff explains, noting that the clinic's overall operations are supported by grants that he applies for and receives from a variety of institutions and non-profit organizations. With diabetes within Hispanic communities a major concern for the medics, the clinic conducts weekly diabetic health education programs for Eden Garden families. There is an estimated population of 12,500 residents in the area, according to Graff. Ninety-five percent of those who come to the clinic are from working poor families, the majority of whom are without health coverage, he said, emphasizing that ``Everyone who comes through that door is accepted.'' Patients on MediCare are referred to medical facilities elsewhere, it was noted. On a Saturday morning during one of my visits to the clinic, a multitude of patients, mothers with their infant children, husbands and wives, school-age youngsters, all were waiting in a patio shaded by trees. Patient loads currently are running at about 60 patients on each of the twice per-week days of operation. One of the most redeeming qualities associated with the clinic is first, that an efficient, highly professional medical facility is maintained in close proximity to community residents. Next, that those patients seen by the clinic relieves the burden that otherwise would necessarily be cared for by public health agencies, explained Victor Tostada, another of the staff volunteers who serves as administrative director. In an annual report issued last February, it is emphasized that ``All patients, especially infants and children, are accepted regardless of race, color, origin or creed.'' In its mission statement accompanying the report, it is also noted that the clinic presents ``no competition with medical, dental or hospital professions, but a relief of a burden of caring for the working poor.'' States Deacon Graff, ``We estimate about $600,000 yearly in services and medicines as well as specialized requirements (provided at no cost by other medical institutions) are provided for our patients free from any impact on local, state or federal government resources. Because St. Leo's Mission is the sponsoring agency, our patients accept our services as they do in all other church-sponsored benefits.'' Among the clinic volunteers on duty during my visits was Dr. Marsha Blount, a resident family practice physician at Sharp's. Rounding out a full year of service, the North Carolina native and graduate of Duke University and Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, commented to me, ``You learn to think on your feet here. It is hands-on experience that would otherwise be hard to gain.'' Another resident physician at Sharp's, Jill Panitch, agreed with her colleague and told how second and third-year resident physicians volunteer one year of service to the clinic. Michael Tilton, an undergraduate medical student at UCSD has been volunteering his services for the past 18 months. And fifty-year, now-retired nurse Martha Moyer, a Del Mar resident, explained between treating patients that the clinic tries to serve the working poor from Del Mar to Encinitas. She recalls in 1992 reading about the clinic that was intended to open at St. Leo's in Eden Garden. ``That's how I wound up as a volunteer.'' It is reflection of my limited abilities to not include in this story all of the names of clinic volunteers. The redeeming quality about their service, though, is that they serve--at no cost--because they are needed. Fulfillment, professional and personal, is their reward. Already on the drawing board at the clinic is a 600 square- foot dental facility to be constructed by volunteer labor and funds supplied by the parish of St. James and St. Leo's Mission as well as from the Del Mar and Sunrise Rotary Club members. Three dental chairs, x-ray equipment and ancillary requirements are identified in the construction plans, according to Graff. His programs, current as well as those on the horizon, are extensive and infinite in measures of contributions to be made to community life in Eden Gardens. He manages dedication, consistent with his and Wheelock's accomplishments of the past. I waited until now to introduce more fully Dr. Wheelock, a type-cast-physician who may've posed a half-century ago for one of artist Norman Rockwell's cover paintings for Saturday Evening Post. He reflects in his conversation and mannerisms a sense of genuine modesty, characteristic of remote regions of Arizona and the southwest where he was born and raised. Recalling his closing years as head of the old Del Mar Clinic, Wheelock told of young doctors at the clinic approaching him on the subject of expanding the facility that he founded, keeping pace with the population growth and adding to a facility that was dedicated to serving the medical needs of families in the community. I felt the pressures but I just didn't feel comfortable with the prospects of expanding. So I retired. But not for long. Today, after six years of building-back growth in his and Al Graff's new clinic, there has likely been restored in the career of Dick Wheelock, a sense of picking up where he left off so many years ago, during the infancy of his Del Mar Clinic. Says his partner. ``Dick Wheelock is deeply devoted to his profession and those who look to him for relief from pain. He has great empathy for his fellow human being.'' Which makes this story all the more remarkable is that two individuals in totally different professions would become friends in later life, then partners in an endeavor whose function is enriched with feelings of warmth, compassion and love for those less fortunate than themselves.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 571, I voted with my card. I voted ``yea.'' I noticed my name was not on the list. I voted ``yea,'' but I am not recorded for some reason. If I had been recorded, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman Saxton) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento). I would also like to thank them for their support, both Republicans and Democrats alike. This is an issue on which we can come together. Mr. Speaker, I introduced H. Con. Res. 189 to send a clear message that shark finning is wasteful and unsportsmanlike. The destructive practice of shark finning in the American waters off the central and western Pacific must stop. Mr. Speaker, years ago this country destroyed buffalo herds only for the hides of those buffalo and left the meat to rot in the sun. What a waste of a resource. They nearly decimated the herds for the Native Americans. The same thing is done today with elephant tusks. To just shoot an elephant and take the tusk and leave the meat rotting is wrong. Or whether it is a seal pup for its hide, to take the hide and let the carcass sit there in the snow is wrong. Shark finning is a practice of removing shark fins and discarding the carcass into the sea. Mr. Speaker, I am a sportsman. I love to hunt and fish, but it is under a managed system to make sure that our resources are here for our children and their children and our grandchildren down the line. I am also a diver, and I am not necessarily fond of sharks. I have had a couple of occasions where I wished they had not have been so close around. But they have been part of our ecosystem for millions of years, and I think we need to manage that resource so that they are not depleted. They went from taking 2,300 to nearly 61,000 sharks in very short order. I think we ought to stop and take a look. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) covered much of this material, so I will submit a lot of it for the Record. But the action that WestPac took was merely to cut from 60,000 to 50,000 the number of sharks from finning. Yet, Mr. Speaker, 95 percent of those sharks are finned and just dumped back into the water, some alive, left to drown, and some dead. In any regard, it is inhumane, it is cruel, and it is wasteful. The United States has emerged as a global leader in shark fisheries management. Yet, as Ms. Sonya Fordham of the Center for Marine Conservation notes, ``Our inability to address an egregious finning problem within our own waters threatens to undermine the U.S. role in these important international initiatives.'' I would also like to thank a gentlewoman who came all the way from Hawaii, Ms. Brooke Burns, a young 21-year-old from the series of Baywatch. She, I think, articulated in a most professional way the support of the American people in why this practice should not continue. This spring, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton) and myself plan to introduce legislation. And if Members can imagine, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento), if he will join us, on a bill together on this floor, that will be a day. I would say to my friend, we plan this spring, under the Magnuson Act, to have legal and binding law to act accordingly. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record correspondence regarding this matter: Ocean Wildlife Campaign, Washington, DC, September 22, 1999. Hon. Randy Cunningham, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Representative Cunningham: We are writing to express serious concern regarding the management and health of shark populations in U.S. Pacific waters, specifically in areas under the jurisdiction of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (WESPAC). Driven by the international demand for shark fin soup, the practice of shark finning--cutting of a shark's fins and discarding its carcass back into the ocean--is a rapidly growing problem that is directly responsible for huge increases in the number of sharks killed annually and appalling waste of this nation's living marine resources. The National Marine Fisheries Service has prohibited shark finning in the U.S. Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean. It is time to ban finning in the Pacific. Between 1991 and 1998, the number of sharks ``retained'' by the Hawaii-based swordfish and tuna longline fleet jumped from 2,289 to 60,857 annually. In 1998, over 98 percent of these sharks were killed for their fins to meet the demand for shark fin soup. Because shark fins typically comprise only one to five percent of a shark's bodyweight, 95 to 99 percent of the shark is going to waste. Sharks are particularly vulnerable to overfishing because of their ``life history characteristics''--slow growth, late sexual maturity, and the production of few young. Once depleted, a population may take decades to recover. The National Marine Fisheries Service, conservationists, fishermen, scientists, and the public have pressured WESPAC to end the practice of shark finning. Nevertheless, WESPAC and the State of Hawaii recently failed to take action to end or control finning. This issue of shark finning is characterized by a dangerous lack of management, rampant waste, and egregious inconsistencies with U.S. domestic and international policy stances. It is the most visible symptom of a larger problem: a lack of comprehensive management for sharks in U.S. Pacific waters. The history of poorly or unmanaged shark fisheries around the world is unequivocal: rapid decline followed by collapse. Sharks are not managed in U.S. Central and Western Pacific waters, and with increased fishing pressure there may be rapidly growing problems. We urge your office to take whatever action is necessary to immediately end the destructive practice of shark finning in U.S. waters and encourage WESPAC to develop a comprehensive fishery management plan for sharks that will, among other things: 1. Immediately prohibit the finning of sharks; 2. Immediately reduce shark mortality levels by requiring the live release of all bycatch or ``incidentally caught'' animals brought to the boat alive; 3. Immediately reduce the bycatch of sharks; 4. Prevent overfishing by quickly establishing precautionary commercial and recreational quotas for sharks until a final comprehensive management plan is adopted that ensures the future health of the population. Given the dramatic increase in the number of sharks killed in the Hawaiian longline fishery, WESPAC should cap shark mortality at 1994 levels as a minimum interim action, pending the outcome of new population assessment. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. David Wilmot, Ph.D., Ocean Wildlife Campaign. Carl Safina, Ph.D., National Audubon Society. Lisa Speer, Natural Resources Defense Council. Tom Grasso, World Wildlife Fund. Sonja Fordham, Center for Marine Conservation. Ken Hinman, National Coalition for Marine Conservation. Ellen Pikitch, Ph.D., Wildlife Conservation Society.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia, and as a cosponsor of this legislation, I rise to encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 974, the District of Columbia College Access Act. The Washington metropolitan area is one of America's leading centers for high technology. Telecommunications giant MCI was founded here. In the suburbs lies America Online, the MAE East, and several powerful and growing engines of the global internet economy. Yet, that growth, and these opportunities, lie beyond the reach of young people in the Nation's Capital City, who lack affordable access to many of this region's institutions of higher learning. We can change this situation for the better, for the betterment of our country, and for the betterment of the young people of this great city. I want the young people of the District of Columbia to have a fighting chance to achieve the American dream. I want for the global internet economy to be their economy too, and to be of their making. The D.C. College Access Act simply provides the young people of the District of Columbia an opportunity to have access to discounted ``in- state' tuition rates to public and private educational institutions in the state of Maryland, the commonwealth of Virginia, and here in the District of Columbia. The D.C. appropriations bill recently adopted by the House provides $17 million toward this program. I hope that the President will support that appropriation. I commend my colleague, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Davis) for developing this important legislation. And I also hope that my colleagues will support this bill.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate my constituent, Mr. James Eckmann. Mr. Eckmann just returned from a volunteer mission with the International Executive Service Corps in El Salvador. During his time Mr. Eckmann provided managerial and technical assistance to improve the lives of the people there. Specifically, Mr. Eckmann volunteered with Dr. Francisco Jose Barrienjos and provided advice and assistance to Dr. Barrienjos' small law firm on various aspects of working with American law firms and representing American companies. Mr. Eckmann also gave suggestions on client communications, marketing, employee relations, accounting and administrative procedures. Mr. Eckmann conducted this activity under the auspices of the International Executive Service Corps (IESC), an international management and business development organization. IESC has provided assistance to more than 21,000 projects during the last thirty-four years to business, government and nonprofit groups around the world. James Eckmann deserves our congratulations for a job well done. I know that he is proud of his accomplishments, and I am proud to have him as my constituent.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, let me give my colleagues some facts. The gentlewoman from Connecticut said that we were cutting NIH because we delayed 40 percent. My colleagues support the President's budget which only increased NIH 2 percent, so even if we delay 40 percent, remaining 60 percent, we fund more than they do under the budget now; and then the remaining 40 percent will also be spent, which is 12 percent more than the President, that his entire plan supports. So what I would say to my colleagues: listen to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich). I am also a cancer survivor, and I am glad the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) was a cancer survivor, and one of our priorities is to double medical research. The gentleman knows that, and we fight for it, and I believe in it. It is also our priority to keep our word not to touch Social Security and Medicare, and I will do everything I can to make sure that that happens. But we increased health care medical research by 15 percent last time, 14 percent this time; and we are going to continue to do that because I feel that is one of the gifts that we can give to this great country. As far as defense, General Shelton is one of my heroes. I mean he could break me in half with his training and his experience in combat. But I am disappointed in General Shelton. He testified before our committee on defense and said that the President's budget was adequate for defense. That was before we added $16 billion to defense. And then he comes out and says, well, this 1 percent will hurt defense. I do not like reducing defense myself, but at the expense of Social Security and Medicare and our other priorities to save and stay under the balanced budget? The gentlewoman said from D.C. said this is all for naught. I think it is important for us to lay down a marker and say: What do we really stand for? For health care? For education? The other day, yesterday in the conference, one of the members from the other body said, Oh, you're cutting education. Chairman said, No. We are adding $350 million above what the President asked, and we're adding more than we spent next year. And the gentleman says, Oh, you're cutting education because that's not what we originally wanted to put in there. That argument is wrong. Join with us and say we are adding money to education and health care.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I understand that. But the point is that let us get out of this charade of trying to veto all of these bills so that the President has more leverage on all of these bills. I think it is perfectly fair to say, Mr. President, we are going to give you 13 appropriations bills. Take out your red marker where your priorities are and identify under the balanced budget where those lines are, but do not dip into Social Security and Medicare. The 1 percent across-the-board, including Members' pay, which I support, is a way to stay under that, but yet Members even reject that. I think that that is false, and I think it is wrong. Get a life. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I think it is the height for someone that spent time in the majority that consistently voted to take money out of Social Security to then come up and rail on Republicans on Social Security. The gentleman that just spoke did that very same thing time and time again. Secondly, I was in the hearing where General Shelton testified to the President's budget on defense. He said that the President's budget was completely adequate on defense. We added $16 billion to that fact. And now the General says that 1 percent would be hurtful, after we added $16 billion and he testified that $16 billion would be less. General Shelton is a war hero, but I think he has no political spine in the fact that he is supporting the President and the Democrats in trying to veto every single one of these bills so that they can spend more money. In that defense bill that he said that the President signed this week, everybody knows that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior), the President, and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) did everything they could to have Democrats stand up and vote against the defense bill so that they could use it as leverage on all of these bills. I mean, that is wrong, Mr. Speaker. My colleagues ought to be ashamed of themselves, absolutely ashamed. And then the President signs it and says, well, it is because of the 1.8. The only reason he signed it is because Democrats stood before the President and said they gave their word, 100 percent of the Democrats on the committee in the Senate and the House said that they would support the defense bill. And then the President had to back out. Do my colleagues know what he told one of those Democrats? And I will not mention their name because it was a personal conversation. He said, Oh, do not tell people that I was going to veto it anyway. That is sick, Mr. Speaker, absolutely sick and what the Democrats are trying to do. Secondly, we add education money. One of the gentlemen from the other body from Illinois, in the conference we add over $300 million above the President's request for education, and the gentleman from the other body said, oh, but you are making a cut, right? We said, no. We are increasing education spending from last year and we are adding $350 million above what the President requested. He said, oh, you are cutting. And the gentleman from Illinois kept on. And Senator Stevens, or the chairman, I am not supposed to mention his name, sorry, the chairman of the committee said, no, that is not true. We are adding money from last year and we are adding money above the President's request. And the gentleman from Illinois said, well, that is not what we originally wanted. So we are still increasing, but the same old spin that we are cutting. Now, I am sick and tired of the Democrats using demagoguery to try and veto every one of these bills so that they can spend more money. They sit there and support the President. The gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) just walked in. They support the President's budget. Well, Mr. Gephardt, that story you told about Mars bars, where your mother wanted you to save the money, you should have listened to your mother. You still have not learned a lesson. You still want to spend and spend and spend and to tax to do that. Shame on you, Mr. Gephardt. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Shame on you, Mr. Speaker. I apologize.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, many of my friends on the other side of the aisle claim Republicans are spending Social Security money. They support the President's plan, where the President said he wanted 100 percent in Social Security, then 3 weeks later he came back and said, well, 60 percent in Social Security, 15 percent in Medicare. What he does is take $466 billion out of Social Security and puts it up here for new spending. He will not identify cuts. New spending. Then he took $19 billion and put it up here for new spending. We are saying no, put the 100 percent in Social Security, lock it up, let it accrue interest. We will not only save Social Security and Medicare forever, but that accrued interest also pays down the national debt, in which we pay nearly a billion dollars a day. I would ask of believability, fiscal conservative or liberal Democrat, being fiscally conservative is an oxymoron.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to stand in support of H. Con. Res. 102, introduced by my friend, the Vietnam War hero from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. This is not a theoretical matter for me. I know this is not a theoretical or abstract matter for the sponsor of this resolution. This resolution is about saving and honoring the lives of men and women who risk their lives in service to their country, and their families, and the innocent civilian victims of warfare. I came precariously close to needing the protections of the Geneva Conventions myself. On May 10, 1972, I flew my 300th air mission over Vietnam. I downed three North Vietnamese MiGs that day; together with the two I had previously shot down, I had just become the first U.S. Navy Ace of the Vietnam War. I was making the turn back home when forty miles inland, my F-4 Phantom was severely damaged by an enemy surface-to-air missile. I barrel-rolled that airplane until we reached the mouth of the Red River. My RIO, Willie Driscoll, and I ejected just as the Phantom exploded. As we floated down to the water, there was no bravado, no silk scarf, no Benson and Hedges. I was scared to death. I saw the Viet Cong approaching my landing place from the beach. But I was blessed to be rescued by Americans. The Viet Cong did not capture me. I was spared the fate of my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson), of being a prisoner of war. We are all in his debt. These individual stories, of people whose lives were risked in war, and of people who were taken prisoner in war, point to the justification for the Geneva Conventions. It is that war is between nations, not between individual men and women; and that the men and women who risk their lives in war should be honored and treated with respect and dignity by the combatant nations involved. Two miles west of the floor of this House lies ``the wall,'' the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. On its surface are the names of the men and women who gave their last full measure of devotion to their country during the war in Indochina. Each of them had parents and loved ones. Many had siblings and families of their own. The names of these family members and loved ones are not inscribed on the Wall, but in their grief, they are also casualties of the Vietnam War. For them, and for the men and women serving America's armed forces today, the Geneva Conventions are very real. They mean the difference between life and death. They define the difference between a civilized world, and barbarism. The Geneva Conventions, and the international organization that helps implement them, the Red Cross, deserve the honor of Congress today. I am grateful to my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sam Johnson) for sponsoring this resolution, and I urge all Members to support it.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Chairman, I miss the days back on the committee with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay). I remember when Chairman Ford, I remember when the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) was my chairman, and then I took over as the chairman, and we worked real good together. I want to tell my colleagues, as much as I feel that the liberal philosophy and even further left than liberal is wrong, and it does not work. We have not always been right on our side, and that philosophy has not always been wrong. I do not know if, in place, this bill will be good or not. I think it will be, and I want an opportunity to prove it. Now, my colleague on the Committee on Rules a minute ago mentioned, look at the groups that support and look at the groups that do not. When I was on that committee and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) was there, I asked a question to the President of the NEA, because I was upset at him because he represented the union issues and not the children. And I asked the President of the NEA, I said, kind of an attack, I said, when are you going to start supporting the children instead of the union social and liberal issues. And his response was, when they start paying my salary. I thought that was terrible. Yes, I think we will find the leaders of the unions are opposed to this. But I think that we will find the rank and file teachers, the administrators, the community where we put the control in their hands, are in favor of it. And by the gentleman's very testimony just now in the Committee on Rules, I say to the ranking minority member, the gentleman does not trust the very people that we allow to teach our children, the governors, to make the decisions, the teachers, the parents, the administrators. That is where the difference lies. The gentleman thinks that someone back here can make that decision better because, and not wrongfully, that there is a population that is underserved if the government does not do that. But in my opinion, that is grossly wasted. When I look at the groups that are in support of this measure, they represent the children. The children's issues, not the unions, not the social issues, not the political issues. And therefore, it tells me that this bill has got to be good. Let me give my colleagues what I feel. I have three schools coming back for the Blue Ribbon award. My wife got very upset with Dan Quayle, who is a good friend of mine, when he said teachers are bad, public education is bad. My wife is one of those public education people. I think the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay) has met her. And she knows and I know and the conservatives know and the liberals know that we have many, many fine, dedicated teachers and administrators out there, more than we have bad. But, in many, many cases it is just not working, and we want an opportunity to show that we think we can try to do it better. A classic example. When I was chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) was the ranking minority member. We had two sets of eight groups come in and they each had a fantastic program that worked in their district. Now, the old style, the liberal style would be to take all 16 of those programs because they are represented by Members of Congress and they want that program in their district, is to fund all 16 and have the Federal Government lay down rules and a lot of paperwork. Our view is to say, because I asked the question after the hearing, how many of you have any one of the other 15 of these groups in your district? They said none. We said, that is the whole idea. We want to give you the money so that you can make the decision that that program works in Wisconsin or this program works in California, we want you to have the ability to do that. And that is the idea of our block grant, and we feel that it is much better than mandating from Washington, D.C. Another example of block granting. Why? People say well, Duke, you want to cut education because you are against Goals 2000. I think Goals 2000 in itself is a marvelous idea, but all the paperwork and the bureaucracy is terrible. Let me give a classic example. Goals 2000 we made a lot of changes, but in the original form, there were 13 ``wills'' in the bill, and if you are a lawyer you know what that means, you will do this. They said it is only voluntary. Well, it is only voluntary if you want the money. Think about one school putting Goals 2000 forward to a separate board, not even the Board of Education, and then it goes to the Board of Education and then it goes to the principal, then it goes to the superintendent, then it goes to Sacramento to Governor Davis, and he has to have a big bureaucracy there to handle all of the schools' paperwork coming in for Goals 2000. Then, the letter work back and forth, and then where do they send it? They send it to the Department of Education, and what do you have to have here? A big bureaucracy just to handle that, and that takes money. That is why we are only getting 50 cents out of a dollar to the classroom. We think by giving a block grant, letting the parents, the teachers, the administrators and the community make the decisions on what they want to do, it is better than paying all of that bureaucracy and wasting about 40 cents on a dollar. We do not disagree. My colleagues want to better education; we want to better education. I know that my colleagues mean that from the bottom of their hearts. We feel that the method is bad. Please support us in this and join us. Try to make a difference.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Many of my seniors are having to spend their money on prescription drugs, on health care, and many of them are afraid to live day by day. What we are also trying to do is prepare our youth so that we do not run into the same problem in the outyears, to give them a way to set aside, to not tax savings, so that they can set aside money for when they become chronologically gifted that they will have the money and be able to enjoy their grandchildren.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I would tell my Air Force friend, I have a confession to make before the House, that I recently had to pay for a 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke as a wager for the Air Force-Navy game. Of course, Air Force won 21 to 14, so I had to pay for the 20-ounce bottle of Coke. I personally wanted Pepsi, we have a Pepsi dealership in my district, but I did lose that bet. However, stand by for next year. What I would like to address is both issues that the gentlewoman spoke to. I am not going to be as kind. My mother told me that if a person lies enough, that they are going to go to hell, and I would tell the speakers in the last hour that I am going to be happy to send them a fan when they die because they are going to need it. I have never in my life heard spin and such lunacy as I heard in the last hour. People across this Nation wonder, well, the Democrats say this, the Republicans say this. Let me give my colleagues some markers for credibility. The gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), her husband is the poster for Bill Clinton. The group that spoke, I am not sure about the young man that spoke there at the end, but the rest of them belong, and I want the viewers, Mr. Speaker, to look up: www.d_as in dog--DSAUSA, which stands for Democrat Socialists of America. Democrat Socialists of America lists 58 members of the Democrats, which every one of those speakers belong to. Their agenda, the Democrats' socialist agenda is government control of health care. They tried that. Mr. Speaker, $100 trillion, 100 trillion. Government control of private property, Government control of education. The highest socialized spending possible, the highest taxes possible, and cut defense by 50 percent. Now, for them to stand up and say that they are not tax-and-spend liberals, liberal is kind for this group. They are the farthest left in this House, and it makes me angry to hear such poppycock that goes on. Let me give my colleagues some facts. The gentlewoman talked about the $9 billion that the President proposed in the tax. He takes it, sets it up for new spending, and when we do not spend $19 billion extra on spending, he says we are cutting, but not a single one of them would stand up and support it, because it cuts not only the things that the gentlewoman mentioned, it also cuts student loans and puts a tax on them. They are not going to do that, at least not openly. The President, remember, he said, I want 100 percent for Medicare and Social Security. Well, then 3 weeks later, he says, I want 60 percent for Social Security and 15 percent for Medicare. Look at the bill. Look at the words, the language, the facts. The President takes $344 billion out of Social Security and Medicare, and he puts it up here where that $19 billion is for new spending, takes it out of Social Security. Then he puts in the 60 percent for Social Security and 15 percent for Medicare. They use it as a slush fund like they have for 20 years. Mr. Speaker, facts are facts. We said no, Mr. President. We are going to put 100 percent in Social Security; we are going to lock it up and make it a trust fund, not a slush fund. It will accrue interest. And the gentleman said, well, how about a long-term plan? Long term? That interest accrues and saves Social Security and Medicare forever, and it also pays down the national debt in a very short time.