Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, 3 years ago, with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, I met with Vice President Cheney to discuss the then crisis and run-up of electricity prices in the western United States. On a bipartisan basis, Republicans and Democrats, we told the Vice President that we believed the market was being manipulated by Enron and others, and he lectured us and told us that we were out to lunch, that this was nothing but market forces and, in fact, if we did not build a 500 megawatt electric generating plant every week for the next 16 years, prices would stay up at $2,000 or $3,000 a megawatt hour. Now, of course, the transcripts are now out there from the Enron traders. I cannot read them on the floor because they are absolutely chock full of obscenities, but they carry on about a few things. They carry on about how great it is going to be when the Bush administration goes to the White House, no more price caps; how Ken Lay was the greatest single contributor to George Bush over his political lifetime and might even be Secretary of Energy, or otherwise would be setting energy policy for the United States. One has to wonder why Vice President Cheney is still hiding the records of those conversations. Then, as they manipulated the market on 450 out of 573 days, one day they were on the phone yelling, cheering, ``burn, baby, burn'' as power lines were scorched by fire. They bragged about stealing millions from Grandma Millie in California. They talked about withholding power, increasing prices, wandering power through Oregon and other neighboring States in order to jack up prices in California, and still today people in my State are paying about 43 percent more for their electricity than they did 4 years ago for the same electrons generated by the same plants because of these scams by Enron, scams that of course Vice President Cheney said were nothing but market forces. Now the Republicans are refusing to do anything about it. This energy bill does nothing to deal with what Enron has done to defraud the people of the western United States and roll back these illegal and unfair contracts and prices. But now we are on to a new one, oil. Now, this is kind of familiar. Dick Cheney and George Bush say it is market forces, nothing we can do about it. In fact, the White House has done nothing about the escalating oil prices here in the United States. Now, it is kind of interesting because it is awfully similar to the electricity industry. There have been 2,600 mergers in the petroleum industry in the last decade. There are virtually no more small independent distributors, and many of the smaller companies have been gobbled up by others. Tremendous concentration in this industry. Of course the same thing that follows with these market forces is an absolutely obscene runup in profits. We are seeing just in the first quarter this year British Petroleum 165 percent increase in profits. ChevronTexaco, 294 percent increase in profits. Conoco-Phillips, a measly 44 percent. Their market forces are not working as well as the others, I guess. And Exxon-Mobil, 125 percent, and this next quarter promises to be even more lucrative for these companies. Now, there was a day when the United States Congress set an independent path on critical issues to the American people, like the oil crises of the 1970s, and the Congress actually took definitive steps. They enacted windfall profit tax to get at the price gouging of the industry. They adopted mandatory fuel economy standards. They in fact capped the price of fuel, because they knew that this was being manipulated and the American people were being gouged. But not this Congress. This Congress is offering the same old lame energy bill that it passed 3 years ago, 2 years ago, last year, and now we are going to vote on it again, same bill, $18 billion of subsidies to the suffering oil-gas industry that has record profits, profits of over $700 billion last year, and the taxpayers should subsidize it. Oh, come on now. I guess that is market forces. No. Wait a minute. How can subsidizing the industry be market forces? Well, I guess it is socialism, but we do not count that as socialism because we are giving it to a meritorious industry that needs the money; or, well, it does not need the money but it should get the money. Now, what is going on here? When are we going to begin acting on behalf of the American people? When is the Bush administration going to file their complaint in their favorite organization, the World Trade Organization? They love rules-based trade. They love the WTO, but guess what? Eight of the OPEC countries are in the WTO. They are violating the rules of the WTO by constricting supply to drive up prices; but the Bush administration, no, they are not going to file a complaint against OPEC. Then of course there is the Petroleum Reserve, which the President is filling at outrageous prices, and the list goes on and on. I have offered productive alternatives, as have other Democrats, but this administration stands mute because their friends in the oil industry are making out like bandits.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today the Bush administration set yet another record. Congratulations. They announced a new record trade deficit for April, which puts the United States on track for yet a new annual record in trade. Now, what does that mean to average Americans? Well, first off, it means that we are outsourcing jobs overseas, outsourcing capital overseas, losing jobs and productivity here; and we are going in debt to China and Japan and other nations. China has $122 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds; Japan owns $440 billion. They are getting to a point where they will be able to influence our economy and our interest rates in the United States and our currency. This is worrisome. The loss equals about $1.5 billion a day in U.S. wealth; $1 million a minute being hemorrhaged overseas. Now, when one is confronted with a policy that is failing, one usually would begin to rethink that policy. But no, not the Bush administration. As we know, they are very stubborn; and they are never wrong. In the case of trade, they think that there are tremendous benefits to the United States by outsourcing, exporting jobs, putting people here out of work. In fact, the President's own economic adviser in the annual report of the President of the United States said as much. He said that this was a good thing that jobs were being outsourced. It was a new manifestation of the radical free trade policies that they believe in down there at the White House. Now, the problem, of course, goes beyond just the outsourcing of jobs and loss of capital. It is ultimately undermining the national and economic security of the United States of America. As we lose our productive capacity in critical areas, we are going to have a hard time replacing those in a future time of crisis, whether it is with China or somebody else who will have captured much of that productive capacity, those critical skills that go with those capacities. I sat next to a gentleman on the plane last week going back to Oregon who works in the titanium industry; and he is very concerned about the loss of U.S. capabilities in critical metals, and very concerned that China is now leaping ahead in many areas, and if we should ever get into a conflict or an adversarial situation with China in the future, we would be at a disadvantage. But this administration thinks, in fact, that this is all really great, because a few people are getting really rich. The CEOs are doing great. So what if salaries are down, wages are down, jobs are lost here in the United States of America. The CEOs or the contributor class. The Bush Pioneers and Rangers, those who can gather up $250,000 or $1 million for the President's reelection, are telling him, this is great, their bonuses are up, they are doing well, their friends at the country club are doing well; and we can just maybe change the subject when it comes to average Americans. Maybe we can distract them with something else so they will not realize how screwed they are. I hope not. I hope that Americans next fall express their opinion of these radical free trade policies, the huge trade deficits, the outsourcing of jobs, the CEO class who earn 600 and 700 times what their workers earn. Mr. Speaker, this is a scandal, what we are doing; and it is undermining our country. And the President, if reelected, says one of the first things he is going to do is expand NAFTA, the job-losing NAFTA agreements, to all of Latin and South America. Just think of the opportunity. They pretend it means we will export things there, but they know it does not. It means the same thing as all of the other trade agreements. It means U.S. companies can locate there to exploit cheaper labor and lay off people here at home. But ultimately, who is going to be able to consume things here in the United States of America when the middle class is not working anymore? Ultimately, they are going to undo the entire system of the United States of America, but they do not really seem to care much about that. They announced a big victory just yesterday, that is, that Mexican trucks, unsafe Mexican trucks that weigh two times as much as U.S. trucks, that are bigger, that are driven by people who do not take drug tests, do not have U.S. commercial drivers licenses, do not have the same rest time requirements, do not have in many cases front brakes, will be rumbling down the U.S. highways soon. They announced a great victory when the Supreme Court threw out a case that would restrict Mexican trucks from coming into the United States. Again, something else very shortsighted and very much against the interests of average Americans and working Americans.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, a question that should be asked here in Congress but there is resounding silence from the majority because they do not want to embarrass the Bush administration is how could the Bush administration have been so wrong about Iraq? How could they have been so wrong about the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, about the nonexistent mobile biological warfare laboratories, about the fantasy that American troops would be greeted with flowers and there would be an immediate transition to a robust democracy in Iraq, so, therefore, there would be no need for a robust force post-war to keep the peace, no need for body armor for the troops or armored Humvees. And, in fact, the administration fired the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff because he did not believe that stuff and said we would need 300,000 troops or more to maintain the order. Of course, he was right; they were wrong. But how could they be so wrong? I guess you could be wrong if you took your intelligence from a convicted fugitive, bunko artist, bank embezzler, and that was the chief source of intelligence and information for this administration. Despite the fact that the CIA severed all ties with Mr. Chalabi 7 years ago, despite the fact that the State Department rejected Mr. Chalabi quite some time ago, the Bush principals involved in planning and executing this war, particularly Mr. Wolfowitz who was one of Mr. Chalabi's dearest friends and compatriots, believed Chalabi over their own CIA, over the people at the State Department and in other intelligence agencies. They said, oh, no, Ahmad, he is telling us what is really going on in Iraq. He is giving us good information. In fact, Chalabi was invited to a meeting of the Defense Policy Board 9 days after September 11, and he said, hey, skip Afghanistan and go into Iraq. Luckily, that initial advice from Mr. Chalabi was ignored. But at the same time he began building the case that there would be no guerrilla warfare and there would be quickly a new democratic government with him as its chosen head and that showers of flowers would come upon the troops and Mr. Chalabi and others. He was close and met with Condoleezza Rice, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Wolfowitz. Mr. Chalabi, despite the protestations of this administration and all attempts to hide their ties to him, was provided $39 million for his phoney intelligence by this administration, $340,000 a month in a stipend that continued even after his lies regarding weapons of mass destruction and the post-war environment in Iraq. Even then the administration continued to give him $340,000 a month. He was flown into Iraq before the war was over by the Pentagon with the idea that he was going to become the new anointed president and leader. They had to quickly evacuate him when they found out that the Iraqi people did not think as much about this convicted bunko artist, fugitive, bank embezzler as did the CIA and others. They basically ran him out of the country until the U.S. established control. He is, of course, not repentant about the bad information he gave us. He said, ``As far as we are concerned, we,'' meaning he and the other fraud members of the INC, ``have been entirely successful. Saddam is gone, Americans are in Baghdad, and what we said before is not important,'' and that is all of the lies he told us. He went on to say the U.S. intelligence agencies are at fault because intelligence people are supposed to do a better job for their country and did not do such a good job. That is Mr. Wolfowitz and others who believed his lies were at fault, according to Mr. Chalabi, not he or the others who lied to us, misled us, and caused death of American troops and a lot of chaos in Iraq. Now the director of DIA testified in March that all of the intelligence he gave us was either fabricated or embellished. The National Intelligence Council now says the intelligence was useless. Of course, his money was cut off last month. But, unfortunately, he did more damage than even that. He has compromised the U.S. dramatically in the Middle East. As we see today, a headline story in the New York Times, ``Chalabi reportedly told Iran that the U.S. had broken their code'' which will mean incredible problems for the United States in gathering intelligence in that region where we already had scant resources. Now the Bush administration, Mr. Wolfowitz and others, are trying to pretend like they never met this guy before. They did not give him $36 million, they did not base their war strategy on his phony intelligence, and they are not ``best buds.'' Well, you are judged by the friends you keep, and they cannot separate themselves from this. It has caused tremendous harm to our country, and those in the Bush administration who pushed Mr. Chalabi's information should be held to account. It has caused deaths of American troops.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Well, the pharmaceutical companies have a friend in the White House. Since George Bush has been President, pharmaceutical prices have gone up five times as fast as the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security, five times faster than inflation, and now we have passed the phony prescription drug benefit under Medicare that provides these bizarre discount cards which put all the obligation on the seniors and none on the pharmaceutical companies. They jacked up the prices of the most common drugs taken by seniors by up to 30 percent in the last year. Now they are going to give them a 15 percent discount. Just like the used car dealer, he jacked up the price 2,000 bucks before you walked on the lot, and then he says, I will give you a $1,000 discount. Hey, what a great deal. That is what is being done to America's seniors under the leadership of this President and the Republican leaders of this House who are in the pocket and on the take from the pharmaceutical industry.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, as we pause to commemorate Memorial Day and remember all those who have proudly served our nation, I am pleased that we will finally dedicate the long-overdue World War II Memorial here in Washington, D.C. Now Congress should re-dedicate itself to improved services and benefits for our veterans and our troops and future veterans. Since the fighting began in Iraq last year, nearly 800 American service men and women have died. It is my solemn privilege and honor to name the casualties from my district. Specialist Joseph M. Blickenstaff, U.S. Army, Sergeant Travis A. Moothart, U.S. Army, Specialist Nathan W. Nakis, Oregon National Guard, Lance Corporal Gary F. VanLeuven, U.S. Marines, Specialist Chase R. Witham, U.S. Army. In gratitude and in sorrow, I commemorate their courage and sacrifice. They chose to serve and served honorably and well. It is now our duty to keep these men in our hearts and in our memories as we celebrate the joy of living free and strong.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman, and I hope that we can get this rectified. As I said previously, there are many good parts to this bill. I believe in the all-volunteer military; I believe in the pay and benefits enhancements; and I believe in providing better equipment, which the bill does. I intend to support it.

Mr. DeFAZIO. If soldiers like this woman, Carissa Jenkins, were forced against their own better judgment and their own life circumstances to reup because they felt they were about to be compelled without their own volition back into active duty, would the gentleman agree that perhaps we could look at voiding these contracts and allowing them to decide without coercion whether or not they want to go back into active duty?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Is the ranking member familiar? I understand he is trying to get some information on this.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, there are many good parts of this bill, such as those that relate to pay and benefits, particularly a quality for National Guard reenlistees and others. There are some necessary, long-overdue basics for the troops, armored Humvees among others. But I rise to raise another issue which is of extraordinary importance, and hopefully I can get some agreement to resolve this problem. We do not have a draft in the United States of America. We have a great all-volunteer military. Unfortunately, there are two aspects to that. One I tried to address with an amendment which was not allowed which is what are called ``stop-loss orders.'' Many people in the military today are being forced to serve beyond the terms of their contract under stop-loss orders with no compensation. I think minimally they should be compensated. But today in the Portland Oregonian, page one, we have a story which is now breaking that faulty orders were sent out by the Army last month which told people in the Individual Ready Reserve if they did not choose a branch and reenlist that the military would choose soon a branch and mandatorily reenlist them. They now admit that this order was a mistake. Here is a quote from one veteran: ``I started crying and said, `I'm not doing this,' '' said Carissa Jenkins, 22, of Keizer who was discharged from active Army duty in January 2003. ``I have a baby, a husband. All my values have changed.'' She said she joined the National Guard last week to keep from going back into the regular Army. It is reported that in Oregon alone, enlistments were up by a factor of 1,000 percent for the month. Nothing else explains it except that these people were being told they were about to be drafted back into the military. And nationally, over 1,063 inactive Army Reservists signed up under these false pretenses. I would ask that these reenlistments, which were done under color of faulty orders, be abrogated by the Secretary of Defense. I would hope that the two gentlemen on the floor here would join me. If these soldiers want to sign up of their own free will without a draft, without faulty orders, then certainly they should be allowed to do that. But this woman and a number of others are saying, no, they did not want to go back onto active duty, they did not want to go back into active guard status, but they did it because they were told if they did not do that that the Army was going to do it to them. Is the chairman of the committee familiar with this situation?

Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize two important philanthropists who in their generosity to the University of Oregon are making a difference. Robert and Beverly Lewis attended the University of Oregon in the 1940s. They deserve special recognition for their contributions to cognitive neuroscience. Robert and Beverly Lewis donated $10 million to the University of Oregon for its Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative and in doing so provided the philanthropic version of venture capital to grow this project into a world class center. I take a special interest in the Brain, Biology, and Machine Initiative, a research effort that brings together the university's top scientists in molecular biology, cognitive neuroscience, genomics, optics, and computational science to study how genetic factors affect brain development at the Robert and Beverly Lewis Center for Neuroimaging. It is a project that combines robust competitive federal grants, state support, private philanthropy, and congressional interest funds. It is already yielding compelling research and significant breakthroughs in our understanding of the mind and brain. Thank you Bob and Beverly Lewis for your commitment to the University of Oregon. You are truly transforming lives.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today, the Committee on Resources held a hearing on the coming fire season in the West. Officials of the Bush administration predicted that arguably, this could be the worst fire season in the Nation's history. So far, so good. They are looking out for our resources, our communities, our people. Unfortunately, they went on to say that because the President shorted the budget and the Congress agreed with the President, that there is only about half the money in that budget that they expect they are going to need to fight the fires this year. Last year, a pretty bad fire season, but not the worst in history, the Forest Service ran out of money in August. Now, they cannot stop fighting the fires, so what do they do? Well, they go out and rob other Forest Service programs that are already underfunded. Over the last few years, they have gone and canceled fuel reduction contracts; that is, preventing the intensity or the possibility or probability of future fires through thinning and other activities, they actually would rob that program to pay for fighting this year's fires. But they do not learn their lesson. Over the last 5 years, the average spent to fight fires by the Federal agencies has been $1.2 billion. So what did the President ask for and the Republican Congress give him in this year's budget? Mr. Speaker, $600 million, one-half of that amount. We are going into the worst fire year in history with less than one-half of the 5-year average. Even worse, just a few days ago, the Bush administration grounded all the tanker planes, because they cannot coordinate between the FAA and the BLM and the Forest Service and they cannot work out some paperwork on certifying whether or not these planes are safe or not. So our first line of defense, the heaviest line of defense we have, that which I know has saved the lives of firefighters and has saved homes and communities, is grounded. Fourteen months ago I anticipated this problem and wrote to the Forest Service and they said, oh, do not worry, we have a plan. Their plan is a whole bunch of small planes and helicopters and yes, they can perform a valuable function, but they cannot get very quickly to distant fires, they cannot drop the huge loads that are sometimes needed to save a fire crew or stop a fire from breaching a hill and going down into a community or engulfing a house. We will not have that tool this year, because they did not plan. Now they say, well, they are trying to figure out where they might borrow the money to fight the fires. Might borrow the money. That means going back and decimating already underfunded programs in the Forest Service, maybe fuel reduction again, recreation most probably, capital investment improvements, all sorts of things that are detrimental to the resource and the public lands. I have a novel idea. Why do they not instead be honest about how much money they need and come to the Congress from the White House with the President's support and ask for what they think they will need to fight this year's fires? Ask for another $600 million. Yes, it is a lot of money, but we cannot ignore this problem. We could better prepare if they knew they had the money on hand. Instead of people scrambling around the Forest Service looking for other budgets to rob, they could be training more initial attack teams. We got a report on the Biscuit Fire, a huge fire in southern Oregon a couple of years ago, which says there were no initial attack teams available. It is reported by some observers from California that the big southern branch of that fire was isolated to a couple of trees on one ridge on the first day. Now, if we had been able to get an initial attack team in there, but again, because of underfunding they were not available for days, we might have been able to prevent the whole southern branch of that cataclysmic fire. So what is going to happen this year? They proudly say, well, they get 98 percent of those sorts of things. That is true. But if the 2 percent of the ones that they do not get, or even the 1 percent, are huge destructive fires that destroy resources, that destroy communities, that maybe even take lives, then is that not kind of a faulty way to save money? They say, well, we do not want all of those young people sitting around waiting for the initial attack teams; that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, it cost $200 million to fight that fire. So we could have spent a couple of thousand dollars to have young people trained. If there really are not any fires going on, let us put them out there and do some trail maintenance or something else; they can certainly do that work too if that is what we are paying them for. But when the fires are already starting to burn, to have them ready to go at a moment's notice is crucial and critical and could stop and prevent a huge catastrophic loss of resource, loss of life, loss of property. That is a good Federal investment. I do not begrudge paying those young men and women who are going to risk their lives for a little bit of down time when we are going to use them sometimes 3, 4, 5, 6 days straight a week or 2 later. So I find that this administration is just being so shortsighted. They can see the problem: The most catastrophic predicted fire in history, they grounded the tanker planes, asked for and got only half the money they think they are going to need; we will lack the initial attack teams and a whole host of other things we need to do. We are going to short the communities for their fire prevention programs, their cooperative fire management and other things where we help communities fireproof themselves and homeowners with a little bit of Federal matching money and assistance. What is wrong with this administration? Why will they not ask for the money they need to protect our people, our communities, our resources?

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I came to talk about something else. I do not have much time left now, but I wanted to talk about a new record that has been set by the Bush administration. Congratulations to George Bush and his economic team; they have set yet another record. They told us last year, if only the dollar dropped in value, well, that was all that was hurting our manufacturing. It did not have to do with their totally failed trade policies and the outsourcing of American jobs. It was just that the dollar was a little too high. Well, the dollar dropped catastrophically. It was at a record low just a month ago, and guess what happened during that month? The U.S. ran a record trade deficit. So their theory does not seem to quite work. But we are still outsourcing jobs at a record rate. The dollar has come back a little. That might even make the deficit worse yet again. Their theories have not panned out. We have a failed trade policy in the United States of America. We are losing our manufacturing base, our technology base. China is stealing our technology, stealing it from small companies in my district; and the Bush administration will not file a single complaint. Not one. They say, let us get China into the WTO, then they will have to follow the rules. Okay, well let us enforce the rules. Oh, no, we cannot enforce the rules. We are not going to file complaints against China. It might upset our friends, the Chinese. Our friends the Chinese are dealing in weapons, they are dealing with terrorists on sophisticated manned pads that can shoot down airliners, they are dealing in nuclear technology to terrorist nations. Our friends, the Chinese. The Bush administration says, if we only embrace them a little tighter, they will come around. Yeah, right, after they get all our money, all our jobs, and all our technology, they will come around? I am just getting tired of these excuses: that if only they were in charge, they would do better. We have a failed trade policy, and what has this President proposed? More of the same. Now, I have to admit Bill Clinton had a failed trade policy, too; but he copied his from George Bush who copied it from Ronald Reagan, and I opposed all of them as I oppose this. Let us bring jobs back home to America. We need a new trade policy, and we need a little honesty around here instead of a bunch of whatever.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, that was interesting. Now if only the Republicans controlled the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate, they would take care of this waste, fraud and abuse at the agencies. Many of the things the gentleman talked about are due to administrative mismanagement. If only George Bush was a Republican and they controlled the White House. Whoops. He is and they do. If only they controlled the House of Representatives. Well, they do; and the Senate. They control the entire Federal Government, and he comes up here and talks about the waste, fraud and abuse that he would eliminate if only they were in charge. Well, they are in charge. Why do they not eliminate it? They never bring bills to the floor to deal with waste, fraud and abuse. He talked about a few things that could provide a little bit of help for the troops. Let me talk about things that could provide a lot for the troops. Comanche helicopters, a scandal that has been going on starting with the Democratic administration and Republican Congress but continued under the Republican administration; $9 billion wasted. Finally canceled. No products. How many Humvees and sets of armor could we buy for that? Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of sets of armor and armored Humvees which, guess what, Donald Rumsfeld did not order. That is why we do not have them, not because there is not enough money in the Pentagon budget. They did not order what we needed to protect our troops because they did not predict what would happen because Rumsfeld would not read the reports from the State Department intelligence folks and from the CIA. He had Ahmed Chalabi, his favorite convicted felon from Jordan, who was feeding him information that he was paid to give, that he admitted was false. Then there is the $2 billion Crusader cannon, canceled. No product. How many sets of armored Humvees could be we buy for $2 billion? Then, of course, the $100 billion Star Wars fantasy. The Republican majority and the President want to spend $10 billion this year to deploy a missile defense system that does not work, according to the Pentagon itself; is untested, cannot even intercept a missile on a trajectory without decoys; $10 billion. Twice what we will spend defending all the borders and all the ports of the United States of America against the real threats, the new threats, the terrorist threats that these people are ignoring because they are worried that some suicidal maniac is going to shoot one missile at the United States, like Kim Jong Il who does not have any missiles that can reach the United States, and have this country instantly incinerated. That is not the threat. The threat is a tanker, a freighter, a truck coming across the border, or something being smuggled in some other way. But we are doing nothing to protect against that. We are going to spend the money. Why? Because the defense contractors are making a bundle, and then they turn around and give a cut to the Republicans to help keep them in the majority, just like the pharmaceutical industry I talked about earlier today. So it is just kind of pathetic, people standing up here saying, I'm a waste-watcher, and if my party was in charge,'' oops, they are. ``If my party had the Senate,'' oops, they do. ``If my party had the White House,'' oops, they do. And you are doing nothing about it. Well, do something about it. The minority cannot stop you. Please, do not give us that. The American people are not quite stupid enough to believe that the minority in the House, who is trampled over day in and day out, is stopping the Republicans from taking those steps. You are not even trying, because a lot of your buddies are making money on that stuff. New Record Set by President Bush

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of the Special Order of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the previous gentleman would not yield to my colleague, but it is the FDA's own assistant commissioner, Mr. Hubbard, who said they have seen no unsafe drugs from Canada but have found adulterated drugs in our relatively unregulated secondary wholesale market. So the gentleman is wrong on that. He said he has seen them. He ought to contact the FDA. Mr. Speaker, there is some room for agreement here. There is a problem in the affordability of insurance, health insurance for many Americans and businesses, medical malpractice insurance for many doctors. But guess what? It has spilled over into car insurance, homeowners insurance, personal liability insurance. It seems to be a big crisis in the health insurance industry. And is it that there is this whole new tide of claims in these areas? No, it is because the industry mismanaged its funds. It is an industry that is exempt from antitrust laws of the United States of America. They can and do collude to fix prices, redline people, and choose who they want to cover and who they do not. So they are sticking it to the docs and the American people and American businesses who buy health insurance in all lines of insurance. So one logical thing to do would be to subject the health insurance industry to the same rules that every other industry in the United States of America has to follow, make them follow antitrust laws, do not allow them to collude to set prices. But since they are such generous contributors to the other side of the aisle and to the President, oh, no, we are not going to make them like other industries, we are not going to make them competitive, let us give them a little gift here. We are going to go after other ways of dealing with this problem. Of course, the other way of dealing with this problem is exactly the same bill passed by the House of Representatives last year which is not going to pass the Senate. So why are we here today? We are here today because they want to remind their political contributors they did this last year and they can do it again this year. The Senate is not going to do it. They do not want to really legislate. They do not want to come up with compromises that might pass. There is a problem in affordability and access. There is a problem for both citizens and for docs to get the health insurance that they need. We are losing specialties. All those things are true, but their conclusion is to bail out their friends, the HMOs, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance industry, not to help the docs, because there is not going to be a bill, and not to help the American people get affordable health insurance. Mr. Speaker, there are better ways to deal with this problem. A number of States have adopted things that are called soft caps. The bill the other side of the aisle is trying to pass here today was brought up by initiative petition in my State. We hear people in America want this legislation. Guess what? In my State, which I think is a pretty good cross-section, the initiative for hard caps at $250,000 when people saw the egregious things that happen to some people through negligence, was rejected 4 to 1. The other side of the aisle is telling us the American people want this solution. No, the American people want access to their doctors, and they want access to affordable health insurance. But the other side is not going to do either of those things today because it would go against the economic interests of some of their most generous political contributors. This is identical to legislation passed in the House of Representatives last year, but here we are doing it again for political purposes, not legislative purposes.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support much of what H. Con. Res. 352 has to say about the valuable contributions people of Indian origin have made to the United States. As the resolution notes, people of Indian origin have made contributions in a wide variety of disciplines, including science, technology, the arts and public service. However, I am concerned that H. Con. Res. 352 presents a uniformly positive view of U.S. trade relations with India that is unjustified. While the resolution mentions the export of U.S. goods to India, it fails to acknowledge the rampant export of American jobs to India. U.S. trade policies, including our policies toward India, have failed American workers. The U.S. has lost millions of high-paying manufacturing jobs. Now, service sector jobs are increasingly shifting overseas. Around 400,000 service jobs, including 27,000 technology jobs, were siphoned off to India, China and other low-wage havens last year. Morgan Stanley estimates the number of U.S. jobs exported to India will double to about 150,000 in the next three years. A University of California-Berkeley study found U.S. firms exported 30,000 service sector jobs to India while eliminating 226,000 jobs in the U.S. It's not hard to see why: computer programming jobs in the U.S. that pay $60,000-$80,000 a year go for as little as $8,952 in China, $5,880 in India, or $5,000 in Russia. The U.S. economy will never be on sound footing, and workers will never enjoy job security, as long as Congress and the Administration perpetuate the discredited dogma of ``free'' trade. The Bush Administration argues in its latest Economic Report of the President that, ``When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than make or provide it domestically.'' I disagree with the Bush Administration's argument that ``it makes more sense'' to flood the U.S. market with goods and services from low-wage havens like India just because it's cheaper. I am disappointed that H. Con. Res. 352 does not present a more balanced view of U.S. trade relations with India.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to replace the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, in response to the gentleman who spoke earlier in the well about casting aspersions on Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration, I will not cast aspersions. I called for his resignation earlier; and if I have time at the end, I will go into those again. But I am going to read from the Army Times, not exactly a bastion of Democrats or liberalism. ``Editorial: A Failure of Leadership At the Highest Levels. ``Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal: The six morons who lost the war. ``Indeed, damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees at the notorious prison is incalculable. ``But the folks at the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons. ``There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the now infamous pictures, and an even more damning report by Major General Antonio Taguba. Every soldier involved should be ashamed. ``But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command, to the highest reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership. ``The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and isolated. The message to the troops: anything goes. ``In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned, at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has ruled at least two of these homicides. This is not the way a free people keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world. ``How tragically ironic that the American military, which was welcomed to Baghdad by the euphoric Iraqi people a year ago as a liberating force and ended 30 years of tyranny, would today stand guilty of dehumanizing torture in the same Abu Ghraib prison used by Saddam Hussein's henchmen. ``One can only wonder why the prison wasn't razed in the wake of the invasion as a symbolic stake through the heart of the Baathist regime. ``Army commanders in Iraq bear responsibilities for running a prison where there was no legal advisor to the commander, no ultimate responsibility taken for the care and treatment of the prisoners. ``General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also shares in the shame. Myers asked `60 Minutes II' to hold off reporting news of the scandal because it could put U.S. troops at risk. But when the report was aired, a week later, Myers still hadn't read Taguba's report, which had been completed in March; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also failed to read the report until after the scandal broke in the media. ``But then, of course, it was too late. ``Myers, Rumsfeld and their staffs failed to recognize the impact the scandal would have, not only in the United States, but around the world. ``If their staffs failed to alert Myers and Rumsfeld, shame on them. But shame, too, on the chairman and Secretary, who failed to inform even President Bush. ``He was left to learn of the explosive scandal from media reports instead of from his own military leaders. ``On the battlefield, Myers and Rumsfeld's errors would be called lack of situational awareness, a failure that amounts to professional negligence. ``To date, the Army has moved to court-martial the six soldiers suspected of abusing Iraqi detainees and has reprimanded six others. ``Brigadier General Karpinski, who commanded the MP brigade that ran Abu Ghraib, has received a letter of admonishment and also faces possible disciplinary action. ``That is good, but not enough. ``This was not just a failure of leadership at the local command level. This was a failure that ran straight to the top. Accountability here is essential, even if that means relieving top leaders from duty in a time of war.'' That is from the Army Times, the May 17, 2004, issue. I called earlier for Secretary Rumsfeld's resignation, as had others, because of the jiggered intelligence about the weapons of mass destruction and the so-called links that did not exist with terrorist groups with this regime, the fact that they ignored intelligence reports and plans drawn up by the State Department, and concerns about post-war occupation of Iraq, about the number of troops necessary to prevent looting, the downward spiral that could begin with looting, the fact that the troops did not have body armor, armored Humvees. That is all because they were not ordered, not because there was not enough money. They were not ordered. Rumsfeld did not think they would need them, in his arrogance. And today he talks about troops as fungible, and he reigns over a Defense Department that has wasted billions, while the troops are lacking basics. And he is the guy at whose desk the buck stops when prisoners are abused, as says the Army Times, not just a progressive Democrat from Oregon.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the President's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Thompson, who has previously said he will not allow the reimportation of less expensive FDA-approved drugs from Canada or any other country, deeming them unsafe, of course his assistant secretary, Mr. Hubbard, when questioned before a congressional committee, could not document one single instance of safety problems with Canadian drugs, yet can document thousands of problems with the supply chain here in the United States because of a virtually uncontrolled wholesale drug market. So it really is not the issue of safety. It is the issue of the profitability of the pharmaceutical industry. They make their profits all in the United States, and that allows them to sell drugs very cheaply in other countries, and they say that is necessary to protect their investment in new technologies and new drugs. I certainly want to see new drugs and new technologies developed, but why should Americans only pay for those investments? And that is the system they are attempting to perpetuate, and there is also of course the issue that it is only recently that the pharmaceutical industry has been allowed to advertise on television and now they are spending upwards of 6, $7 billion a year on promotion, which of course drives up the cost of drugs, and I am not quite sure of the value what the little purple pill ads or many of those other ads on television are, and I think consumers would be happy to consult with their doctors rather than 30-second ads if they could see the price of their drugs go down. Drugs are going up at about 10 times the current rate of inflation on an annual basis. They are simply not affordable for most Americans. So yesterday Secretary Thompson announced that the Maginot Line that this administration has created to defend the profits of the pharmaceutical industry, the Maginot Line that said this was an issue of safety, Americans should not be allowed to reimport lifesaving drugs at a fraction of the cost, that they are available in this country, he predicted it will crumble. He predicted that we will see the reimportation of drugs. Why is that? What happened to his safety concerns? I think the safety concern that has been elevated in their minds right now is the reelection of George Bush who read the polls. Eighty-five percent of the people cannot understand how it is free trade when we export American jobs, but there is no free trade issue when we prohibit the importation of less expensive pharmaceuticals from Canada, our neighbor, that our FDA approved. And then today in a further indication that their Maginot Line, their protection of this industry, is crumbling quickly, we have two major drug chains, CVS and Walgreens, who have both come out in favor of reimportation. They do not want to see individuals reimporting. They want to protect their businesses. They want to see that they and other wholesale purchasers can go to Canada where it they can purchase drugs more cheaply from a Canadian wholesaler by far than they can purchase them directly from a pharmaceutical company here in the United States. As big as they are, as much as they buy, the price they are charged is significantly higher than the price at which these drugs are sold in Canada. So the bottom line here is we have people in this country suffering. They cannot afford the drugs they need. Seniors in my district dividing pills in half, couples sitting down at beginning of the month and deciding who will get their pills this month and who will not, despite their jeopardy to their health, and the Bush administration says they are worried about the health and safety of Oregonians or the American public. Their health and safety is definably hurt by the fact they cannot afford lifesaving drugs. And since they cannot document a single instance of problems from Canada, then let us allow Americans to reimport drugs from Canada, and I would be happy if they could do that through their pharmacies because pharmacies are a key part of this chain and consumer information. The other thing we could do, and of course the Bush administration is adamantly opposed to but who knows, maybe they will change there too, is negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of the American people like every other civilized democracy on earth does for all their citizens. There is no other country on earth that allows the pharmaceutical industry to leverage these extraordinary extortionate prices for lifesaving drugs out of their citizens. Only the Government of the United States. But, amazingly, the Bush administration got a clause inserted in the so-called Medicare prescription drug benefit that prohibits the government from negotiating lower drug prices, prohibits the government from negotiating, not mandating, negotiating lower drug prices; unlike every other civilized democracy on earth; unlike the private insurance industry which can and does negotiate discounts; unlike the Veterans Administration, which can and does and gets a good deal for our vets, negotiates discounts; and unlike what we mandate in Medicaid. But they are saying, no, we cannot do that elsewhere. There would be too much market power, meaning it would bring down the price too much. And then what will happen to the industry? The industry will then have to drive a little tougher deal with all these other countries. Instead of just saying, Oh, they will not pay, you will have to pay, everybody would share the cost of the development of new drugs and Americans could have access at lower prices.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time. I was just meeting with some constituents in my office, and when I came in I heard the chairman speaking, and it sounded to me as though he was strongly opposed to our motion to instruct to better protect our ports and national security, but apparently from what I heard, he is going to support the motion. So I am a little confused. But let me make the points that I think need to be made about this. We have a law, a national law, a law in the United States of America, that says under the Maritime Transportation Security Act, that foreign- flagged, that is, vessels that sail to the United States many times with very obscure ownership, in fact, the way international maritime law works, Osama bin Laden could very well own some of these freighters, but we would not be able to find that out. So we are working on that problem and the Coast Guard has made some slight progress, but not enough in terms of lifting the veil of secrecy around who actually owns these ships, which I think is essential to our national security, but in the interim under the Maritime Transportation Security Act, these foreign-flagged ships of unknown ownership with crews who are not very well identified, that is, there are no foolproof counterfeit-proof IDs or certification for the crews, many of them have false documents, many of them are of a dubious lineage, no security checks that are meaningfully conducted on those people, are cruising in and out of the ports of the United States, and what we have today is a little better than before 9-11. Proposals I had made subsequent to a ship accident have been implemented by the Coast Guard to hold the vessels that are in international align and to require manifests and other things and do boardings when they think they are necessary, and that is all well and good. But the Maritime Transportation Security Act goes one step further. They are supposed to have a plan that has been approved by the United States Coast Guard, these foreign-flagged vessels of uncertain lineage. Now, the issue before us is are we going to allow foreign classification societies, flags of convenience, and others to certify these plans in foreign languages with no review by the Coast Guard and just assume that everything is hunky-dory? That is really the issue that is before us. I mean, let us take Liberia, for instance. There is no government in Liberia, pretty plain and simple, but they are a major flag of convenience for these freighters, these freighters which may be owned by Osama bin Laden. We really do not know. But they are done in an obscure way through nonexistent countries like Liberia. They exist, but they do not have a functioning government. They certainly do not have a Coast Guard. In fact, the government of Liberia, I think, recently moved. They were in Reston. I think they moved somewhere else in Virginia. They have a bunch of ex-Coast Guard people who are running their registry, which is just a for-profit thing they do, a flag of convenience, so that vessel owners, whoever they might be, can avoid the strictures of U.S. law for crewing and for safety and a whole host of other reasons. I have never been comfortable with this arrangement, but I am particularly uncomfortable with an arrangement where the nonexistent government of Liberia will be certifying vessel security plans without any review by the Coast Guard, except perhaps the retired Coast Guard who are being paid a fabulous salary to pretend that there is a government in Liberia and that they are processing these plans on behalf of that government. That is the situation we are confronted with. This does not give me great comfort. And, in fact, the international standards say, well, these nonexistent governments of Liberia, or its substandard performers like Panama, Malta, and Cyprus, again, all who are just trying to make money on flagging ships, and if they get tough with those people, like make them have an actual real vessel security plan, really certify the crews, well, they will just go to another country or so-called country, as in the case of Liberia, and get a flag from them for a few bucks more or less. That is what it is all about. They are trying to avoid safety, security, crewing requirements, and all that. And this becomes to me another major security loophole for the United States of America to say that Malta, Cyprus, Liberia, who do not care about the interests of the United States in these matters, would certify in foreign languages these vessel security plans. This is not adequate. It does not meet laws that were enacted with, I think, virtually unanimous support of the United States Congress under the Maritime Transportation Security Act. They undermine the Maritime Transportation Security Act. And then as I came in, I heard my chairman, with whom I have tremendous respect and he is a great advocate for the Coast Guard and he has helped them get more money, saying if we made the Coast Guard review these plans, they would not have enough people. They would need more resources. Then let us ask for the resources. This is a pattern I keep hearing from the administration. Yesterday I was at a hearing with the Transportation Security Administration folks, and we were raising concerns about rail and port security in the Railroads Subcommittee, and I said, Look, just be honest with us. Tell us you do not have enough people and you need more money. And they cannot do that because the political minders down at the White House are watching them. They cannot ask for more money for homeland security. We cannot ask for enough money to help the Coast Guard. I mean, the Coast Guard could contract this out if they do not have the staff, and the administration loves contracting out. We could hire a firm, a U.S. firm, who has security credentials or something else to certify these plans. But to allow Liberia, which does not have a government, to approve these plans of ships of unknown lineage and ownership in foreign languages and say that meets U.S. law, that is providing optimal homeland security for the United States of America, is absolutely wrong. So I hope that the ranking member was right in saying that the chairman will support this. I hope he will and I hope he will not just support it with his vote, but he will support it wholeheartedly through conference. We need these protections for homeland security. And if it is a matter of a few more dollars, then let us ask for that money so we do it compliant with our law and not with a loophole-ridden international organization that does not give a darn about U.S. security.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, congratulations to the Bush administration on yet another record: 354,000 people exhausted their unemployment benefits in March, the largest number since we started keeping statistics in 1971; and yet they cannot find work. We have 1.5 million people since the program ended in December, and the President and the Republican leadership have refused to renew the program. There are 23,000 Oregonians, people who want and cannot find work. They are the long-term army of the unemployed in America due to outsourcing and misplaced budget priorities. But the administration will not extend unemployment benefits to them because then they would have to admit that the rosy glow they want to paint upon the economy and job prospects actually is a sunset. So are they worried about creating deficits? No. There are $17 billion in the Unemployment Trust Fund. Why do they not care about this army of unemployed Americans? Why will they not help them find work, and while they are still looking for work, help them keep their families together and keep their homes with extended unemployment benefits out of the trust fund balance that is sitting unspent?

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, by attacking John Kerry's war record this morning, the Republicans would revive the controversy of the war in Vietnam, yet they are unwilling to meet the commitment to the veterans of that war who are still waiting for the benefits they were promised. They will attack veterans of the war, and they will not help the veterans of the war in the way we promised when they went to war. They have not yet repealed the disabled veterans tax. They are supporting $1 billion less than we need to provide health care. The President is proposing to double the prescription drug cost for our veterans. And yet they have the temerity to attack a distinguished veteran of that war, one who has also voted to meet the commitments to the veterans of that war and the veterans who are coming home today. But they are not willing to pay that bill, they are just willing to attack.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today Chinese Vice Premier Wu is in town meeting with Commerce Secretary Evans and Trade Representative Zoellick. This would give the President a chance to right mistake number seven of his administration, which is trade. The United States last year ran over a $500 billion trade deficit. We have exported hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and now high-technology jobs outsourced under the Bush administration. And their response has been, from the President's chief economist Mr. Mankiw, this is a good thing, it is efficiency. It is not a good thing. It is not efficiency. Americans need jobs. We need an economy. We need an industrial base. That is wrong-headed thinking. So today they have got a chance in meeting with Vice Premier Wu to rectify the mistake of their trade policies. The mistake is at the insistence of President Bush, this Congress voted to give China, the Communist Government of China, permanent most favored nation or special trade status. We gave up the right to annually review their compliance with trade laws. Big mistake. But the President said, Do not worry, I have a plan. Yes, he is right. They are stealing our products and our intellectual property left and right. Yes, they have violated five agreements on stealing our intellectual property and our products over the last 5 years or 7 years. But he had a plan. He was going to put them in the World Trade Organization because the President is big on rules-based trade. So the President got his way. China is now in the World Trade Organization, and guess what? Last year, according to statistics of the Chinese Government, let alone our own government which will not talk about these things, they counterfeited and stole between $20- and $24 billion of U.S. products and intellectual property. Those are the numbers of the Communist Chinese Government about how much they are stealing. Has the President filed one, one single complaint in his rules-based trade organization, the WTO, against the theft of product, property by the Chinese Government? No, not a single one. Yet I have a company in my district, Videx. Their company not only had their property stolen by China, they were totally cloned. The Chinese put up a fake Website to attract people with a little waving American flag on it, saying they were an American company, made an inferior product, have stolen the Chinese market, and now are stealing the Asian market from this American company. I thought this is a no-brainer. The President likes rules-based trade. So I appealed to the Commerce Secretary and to the President. I said, help this company. They are not big enough to fight the Government of China. And the response was, no, we will not help that company because the big companies in the United States who are manufacturing in China do not care about the theft of property. In fact, they think it might hurt their interest in accessing cheap labor and avoiding environmental laws and outsourcing jobs to China. So the Bush administration will not lift a hand to help Videx. The only response we have gotten was Lou Dobbs and Moneyline, and after my company Videx was on Lou Dobbs and Moneyline, they got calls from all over America, from other small businesses who have been stolen blind by the Chinese Government. And the response of the Bush administration is to do nothing. They are having meetings today with Vice Premier Wu. She is going to give them the same empty assurances the Chinese have given us for the last decade: Oh, we will stop stealing $24 billion a year worth of our product, sure. Do my colleagues believe that? I do not believe that, and I cannot believe that the President or his administration believes that. So what they should do today is tell the Chinese they are in the WTO, they said they would follow the rules, they are not, and that we are informing them today if they do not shape up by next week, then we are going to the WTO with complaints on the theft of products from Videx and dozens of other small companies across America. This is an administration that supposedly cares about small business, yet when small business is being robbed blind by the Chinese, and big business says, hey, do not upset the Chinese apple cart, we are manufacturing really cheap over there, $1-a-day labor, now they might get upset with us, and they might charge us $1.25 a day for the labor over there, or they might even let them have a labor union or something else. Help America's small business. Help them to fight the Communist Chinese Government. Help stop stealing America blind. Help stop stealing our industrial and intellectual base, and help turn around the international trade deficit. That is a mistake the President can begin to undo today in these conversations with Vice Premier Wu.