Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the Senate on a voice vote yesterday, kind of pathetic, voted to borrow $87 billion from the American people for the conflict in Iraq. A substantial portion of that is to go to rebuild, or build, not rebuild, build the infrastructure of Iraq. As the gentlewoman from Ohio said, some of it is going to pay Iraqis for make-work or no-show jobs when we cannot get unemployment benefits for Americans here. If we took that money and we divided it up, there are 435 of us here in the House of Representatives, and we divided it up among our congressional districts, that would be $220 million per congressional district. Now, my district has just about the highest rate of unemployment in the United States. My State has the highest rate of unemployment, my district and the gentleman from Oregon's (Mr. Walden) are unfortunately right up there in the State. Mr. Speaker, $22 million could mean a lot for us. It could put a lot of people to work. Albany, Oregon, under Federal mandate, is going to borrow money to build a new water system. Of course, we are going to give $50 million to Iraq to build a new water system for one city. Sweet Home, Oregon, same thing. Federal mandate. They can borrow some money, but we are going to give money to Iraq to build them new water systems. My port of Port Orifice sewage system, fell into the ocean after a big storm. Problem. The Federal Government says this depressed little coastal community, they will lend them some money to help them do that project; lend them some money. But, in Iraq, we are going to give them new sewer systems. The American people are borrowing money to build these projects in Iraq with no prospect of being repaid under the leadership of President Bush. We could also, with the same $220 million, guarantee my coastal ports, which were zeroed out in the President's budget for continued dredging maintenance, we could dredge those ports for 5 years. We still have not spent $220 million yet. We are working on it. This is just one district. Just imagine what this would mean across the United States of America if every Member of Congress got to take that $220 million home instead of sending it over to this deep pit in Iraq. We could give 1,000 students full tuition, room and board at the University of Oregon or Oregon State in my district; 10,000 community college scholarships. Instead of them having to borrow money from the Federal Government, we could have given them scholarships. This is just one congressional district. We could give thousands, more than 10,000 students full tuition, a free ride for the year. We could put thousands to work on infrastructure projects meeting Federal mandates. That is just one congressional district. Imagine if that were repeated across the United States of America. If only the President would borrow money to invest here, or even spend money like the unemployment trust fund. Now, since this $87 billion that was borrowed or authorized yesterday by the Senate, the President will probably sign the bill soon, following the $79 billion that we borrowed last April which is not yet spent, we have to wonder, what is the plan? The plan was to vote on borrowing another $87 billion before they spent the $79 billion. And so what are we going to do to bring stability? Well, now they say what they are going to do is train Iraqis. Now, on September 5, Donald Rumsfeld said there were 55,000 Iraqis all told, including security guards, et cetera, trained. Since then the estimates of the Iraqi forces have grown at the rate that would mean they have trained 1,000 people a day. Wow. Must be some program. Unfortunately, they have not yet begun the $1.2 billion program to train Iraqis in Jordan to become police and security. Yes, that is right. We are going to pay $1.2 billion. The French and the Germans offered to do it for free, and they are good at training people do to that, but God forbid that we should save the American taxpayers $1.2 billion and take something from the French and Germans that they are good at. So the Jordanians and, of course, we know they are really good at this, are going to be training the Iraqis to become police. But somehow, magically the numbers keep going on up. It is like zip, zip, zip. Then last week Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz speaking in Georgetown raised that figure to 90,000. Three days later Rumsfeld said 100,000. Now, how is this happening? Do we think this is really happening? Do we think we can believe these folks? Now remember, these are the same people who told us, this is a country that can afford to rebuild itself and pay for its own reconstruction, and soon. That is what we were told. That is what the American people were told. They would be waving little flags, welcoming us as victors. Our kids do not have the flak jackets they need because Rummy said there would only be 30,000 Americans there by now, and we have more than 30,000 flak jackets. They have planned miserably. I would recommend to my colleagues and everybody, Blueprint for a Mess from the New York Times on Sunday, November 2, New York Times magazine, the best compilation of the total abysmal failure to plan and, in fact, to reject planning for the postwar Iraq by this administration.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it is my distinct privilege and honor to congratulate the Pearl Buck Center in Eugene, Oregon on 50 years of supporting families with special needs in Lane County. When the Pearl Buck Center opened in 1953, it was one of the only educational programs in Oregon providing educational services to children with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. The Pearl Buck Center has continued this tradition of leadership in the community, the state, and the nation, providing vocational training, employment, education, and case management services to people with developmental disabilities. Annually, the Pearl Buck Center provides services to over 400 individuals with developmental disabilities and their children. Since it was founded, the Pearl Buck Center has helped thousands of adults and children meet the challenges of their disabilities and find opportunities to succeed in school and on the job; to succeed as parents and as self-sufficient individuals; and to contribute to the community and society. I would like to acknowledge the vision and dedication that characterizes this organization. I hope that all Americans will reflect on the commitment of the staff and volunteers of the Pearl Buck Center and on the struggles and successes of the individuals they serve. October 2003 has been designated as National Disability Employment Awareness Month. In this special month, I extend my deepest appreciation and thanks to the Pearl Buck Center for their efforts, past and present, to help individuals with disabilities more fully realize their abilities, potential, and independence. We are all richer for your half-century of service.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I do sincerely believe that what is at stake here is the future integrity of the air traffic control system in the United States. There is none better in the world. I fear that in the future, fragmentation of that system, taking major control towers and putting them into the private for-profit sector, will bring pressures to bear that will ultimately cause a catastrophe. Look at Europe. Just last year, a midair collision. We have not had a midair collision in a really long time in the United States of America. This is not about making the system safer, it is not about making it more efficient. The Europeans, the Canadians and others admit that our traffic controllers are 75 percent more productive than their's. So it is not about making it more productive. It is not about making it safer. The only reason that we are opening the door here, and we are blasting the door open here by removing any restriction on privatization, as was in the original bill, this White House has shown it will fight to privatize. They have already threatened to veto the bill unless we inserted the specificity of 71 towers. So they are clearly going to go ahead with privatization. Now, they are going to go ahead, not because they think it will be safer, not because it will be more efficient. I do not even believe it will be less expensive. The other failed air traffic privatizations around the world have actually cost the taxpayers more, and they have had to be bailed out in England and in Australia. This is a ticking time bomb that I believe one day will kill Americans, and I just cannot believe that we are going ahead in this form without the proper consultation, without a conference, but vitiating all the rules of the House, just so someone might be able to make a little bit of money on something that is run so well by the government today.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. There is some confusion about what actually we are voting on here and what the impact will be, and I would just like to make that clear to Members. This President early in his term issued an executive order finding that air traffic control is not inherently a governmental function, which opens up the potential for basically a contracting out of the air traffic control system of the United States. The original House bill, debated fully in committee, prohibited privatization of air traffic control. It made a minor exception, particularly for maintenance of the system. The Senate bill debated and voted on an amendment which absolutely prohibited any contracting out by the FAA, even for maintenance purposes. So we went to conference with a prohibition in both the House and the Senate bill on the contracting out of air traffic control, the control of our air space and the safety of the flying public. At the one brief conference meeting last July, suddenly we were confronted with a proposal to privatize 71 air traffic control towers in the United States. For unclear reasons why 71, and then, of course, for policy reasons, two were stripped, which has been spoken to earlier because Alaska is indeed unique, but there were still 69 to be contracted out. The leadership found they could not pass that bill. So this week we voted to go back to conference. There was no conference. There was a press conference by the majority, and then we are back now in the House, and as the Chair said earlier, there was no conference, and that would normally violate the rules of the House. It never met, but that rule is waived, so we are here now. We have heard from that side that there is no mandate for privatization in this bill. That is correct, but what we have here is very clear intent. The President has said air traffic control, the control of our air space for safety purposes and national security, is not inherently a governmental function. I think that is an astounding finding, but that is what this President has found. And that means that with no language in the bill, the President can contract out any or all of the air traffic control system in the United States, and I believe that would be disastrous for the traveling public and disastrous for national security. We are going to trust to some private, for-profit contractor, working perhaps under direction of the airlines, with spacing of airplanes and other critical things that go to safety issues in this country? I do not believe that is an experiment we need to conduct. We have the most efficient air traffic control system, the safest air traffic control system in the world. There is nothing to be improved upon here except that no one makes money on it. So that is what the vote is about. There is going to be privatization if my colleagues vote for this conference report. The White House has made it clear. They said they would veto the bill if they did not get the right to do at least 69 towers. So it is clear where they are going to go. They have said it is not an inherently governmental function. Protecting the flying public, their safety, protecting and securing the air space of the United States, according to this administration, is not an inherently governmental function. That is an absurd position for the Government of the United States, particularly after 9/11. They also stripped out language in the bill that said that flight attendants shall get additional training to deal with terrorists. At the urging of Continental Airlines, it was changed to ``may,'' and I hope everyone who flies on Continental will remember that they do not seem to take seriously what happened on 9/11. Other airlines did not like that, but it was stuck into the bill. Then the final issue of cabotage. Sounds exotic. It is very simple. Air China will now be able to deliver packages into the heartland of the United States, having landed in Alaska, something prohibited in existing law. We will lose jobs and security because of that. Vote no.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, this is a crucial issue of the privileges of Members in our representation of our districts, of our constituencies, and of the precedents of the House of Representatives on how we conduct business. The House earlier this week voted unanimously to return to conference because the bill had been in dispute because of a contentious section regarding the privatization or contracting out of 69 air traffic control towers. The only way it seemed possible to resolve that issue was to return to conference. The House voted unanimously to return to conference, but no conference meeting was ever held. Earlier in the debate one would have gotten the impression that such a meeting was held. It was not held. The Chair has ruled that an actual physical meeting of the conferees representing the various points of view on the bill in representing their constituents must be convened and they must have the opportunity to work through those issues. In this case, there was no meeting of any conference. No Democratic Member, and, to the best of my knowledge, no Republican Member, was invited to a conference, there was no public notice of a conference, and no conference took place. Yet the bill was modified and returned to the floor of the House here. So, Mr. Speaker, given the 200 years of precedent that an actual conference meeting must take place before you can have a conference report, I would respectfully make a point of order under clause 12 of rule XXII that there be at least one conference meeting. As I understand it, that same rule provides for a point of order in the House against the report and for an automatic request for a new conference if the House managers fail to meet in open session. So I would ask that the Chair so rule, that this bill is out of order, and that we be mandated to return to actually have a physical meeting of a conference.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, the answer is yes then; when we vote to go to conference, there has to be an actual meeting?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire whether the rules and precedents of the House require that after the House has voted, that we meet in conference, that an actual meeting of a conference take place?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DeFAZIO. I do.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I would make a point of order, since there was no actual meeting of the conference.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman has raised several issues. This bill opens the door even wider to privatization. The original House and Senate bills prohibited privatization. This bill does not. The President has determined that air traffic control is not an inherently governmental function. They want to contract it out. They want to make it into private for profit. And on the so-called operational areas, guess what. They are voluntarily reported. And of the 219 contract towers, only eight of them voluntarily reported an error. To say they had a very low error rate, the GAO determined, the IG determined that this was not a valid study, because we do not have mandatory reporting. We do not know whether there were errors or not. We cannot say they are 4\1/2\ times safer. And to say that we did this because of contributions is outrageous, and I should have had the gentleman's words taken down.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, that was a wonderful exercise in obfuscation. The critical thing is that the House voted unanimously to send a failed bill, a bill which had inserted privatization into a system that no one voted to privatize when the bill passed the House and the Senate will taken up and a majority voted to not privatize, and they had a press conference and then they brought the bill back. I was supposedly a member of that conference committee. There was no conference committee. We did not meet. We found out from the press that they had reported back the conference. The conference in July, which was called in a very hurried way, yes, we actually had one meeting. We were to meet again after we had a series of votes. We are still waiting for that meeting. The point is, suddenly after both the House and the Senate had voted in the interest of public health and safety and control of the national air space and national security to prohibit the privatization of air traffic control of the United States of America, both bodies had voted overwhelmingly to not privatize. Suddenly a Senator shows up with an amendment to privatize 71 air traffic control towers. When asked about it, he said, this was a de minimis sort of amendment. The chairman objected, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), because it included Alaska. So suddenly this great principle of privatizing 71 was dropped down to 69 like that. Here is what the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) said recently about this: ``My hotel room is on the top floor of the Sheridan and the airplanes take right off towards my hotel room. Every morning I look out and there is one coming right at me. It is an interesting experience and I want to make sure everything is done right in that field.'' So somehow in Alaska, nowhere near as busy as many of the other airports in question here, it is not safe to privatize, but somehow it is safe to privatize other major facilities. In fact, what the majority has done is they took out these 69 airports and they have opened the door wide because they have stripped the original exclusion of the House and the Senate on privatization from air traffic control from the bill entirely. So now the President has determined that the air traffic control of this country, the control of our air space, the safety of the traveling public, is not an inherently governmental function. That is what the President has done, reversing an executive order of the previous President. That has opened the door to privatize the entire system or, worse yet, to fragment it up and cherry-pick out some profitable areas to be subcontracted or contracted to Halliburton or others. That is what this is all about. We have the most productive and safest air traffic control system in the world, bar none. What problem are we fixing? We are fixing the problem that nobody is making money on it. It is run by the government. That is the problem. We should put this on the model of the private security we had at airports before 9/ 11. Have we so soon forgotten the firms, Argenbright and others, who hired and maintained on staff known felons to provide screening at airports, paid minimum wage, had a turnover of 140 percent, that would be the model for our air traffic control system? They want to cheapen it, dummy it down. As one of my colleagues said, rent-a-controller. Maybe we can get temporaries. Maybe we could transmit all the data to India and have the people there do our aircraft spacing. Come on. This is the safest, best run, most efficient system in the world, bar none. What problem are you fixing here? You are not fixing a problem, unfortunately. You are attempting to open the door for someone to make money and to allow the airplanes, perhaps, to dictate how the system runs. Maybe we can get those planes closer together. We do not really have to worry about wake turbulence. Maybe we could taxi them a little quicker. We do not really have to worry about collisions on runways. Maybe there are other places we could squeeze the system. Every one of those things would jeopardize the safety of the American public which I put paramount and this bill does not, and this process is absolutely corrupt.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I do not believe that either the chairman of the committee, and I certainly know that the ranking Democrat on the committee is not comfortable with this process, not comfortable with the allocations that have been put forward for crucial legislation for the American people. At issue and still hanging out there are everything that goes to Health and Human Services and Education that the government does, things crucial to the health of our people, crucial to the education of many; also the issue of veterans health care, as the gentleman from Wisconsin said. We still have not adequately funded and taken care of identified problems with veterans health care, and yet money to do that in the bill coming up later today was stripped from the legislation late in the night. We have the issue of homeland security. I serve on the Select Committee on Homeland Security, and we know that we are not meeting the needs adequately of aviation security; of port security; of the other aspects of homeland security; of first responders, those who we are going to call on, our fire, our police, and others in our home States who do not have the tools they need to respond day to day, let alone to potentially catastrophic emergencies and terrorist attacks. Yet here we find ourselves again on the floor of the House, yet again continuing through a temporary measure the operations of the government. I guess things would not be this way if the Republicans held the White House and controlled both the House and the Senate. Oh, well, actually, they do. That is right, I forgot. So it must be the Democrats that are holding things up. Maybe it is Bill Clinton who is responsible for this. I think maybe it is his fault, actually, because he left us with a surplus and now we have a $500 billion deficit and we do not have the money to adequately fund these programs, so we are hung up and cannot get the votes together to pass anemic bills that will not meet the needs of homeland security, will not meet the needs of America's young people, will not meet the needs of our veterans or our seniors. We just do not have the money to do it. We do not have any money at all. We are just stuck here. Except, wait a minute, later today we are going to take up a bill to borrow $87 billion to continue the conflict in Iraq and to build Iraq; to build an economy for Iraq, to build an infrastructure that is gold plated, a wonderful gold-plated infrastructure; but we do not have money here in the United States to perform some of the same functions. We are going to put another $50 million into the Port of Umm Qasr. I cannot get $8 million to dredge the ports in my district. The President says we are simply out of money. But we can borrow $50 million for the Port of Umm Qasr, and we will be voting on that later today. Mr. Bremer, the proconsul in charge of Iraq, is appalled that many people get their water through lines from open canals. He thinks they need a modern water system. The city of Albany in my State is doing a bond measure to meet Federal mandates for water supply because they get their water supply through an open unlined ditch, but they cannot get a penny from the Federal Government to help with that project; but we can borrow the money to do it in Iraq. How is it we can borrow money for all these projects in Iraq and we cannot find enough money here, under arbitrary limits, to fund education programs for Americans, to fund veterans health care programs, to fund homeland security? What is wrong with this picture? Well, it turns out that the Republicans themselves cannot agree, between the White House and the House and the Senate. So we find week after week we do these temporary bills, temporary bill after temporary bill; and yet they do not deliberate toward any real result. I am certainly not on this esteemed committee, but I am on another committee that will be the subject of debate later today; and I was just involved in a conference committee, except the conference committee never met. The result was dictated by the White House, something that I believe will jeopardize public health and safety, and it was accepted by the majority party. But then they found they could not get the votes to do what the House was dictating they should do. Same thing is happening here with our education programs, with our veterans health care, with our first responders, with our homeland security. The dictates have come down from above the level of this committee that say this is all the money there is. We can borrow money for Iraq, but we cannot borrow money to fund these vital programs here in the United States of America; and we put a higher priority on cutting taxes. Therefore, we cannot get the bills passed. The votes are not here. This is a very sad state of affairs.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the whining from the other side of the aisle is extraordinary. They can see all this waste, fraud, and abuse; but they control the White House, the Senate, and the House and yet they do not do anything about it. Puzzling. Here is something else they do nothing about which is very puzzling. There are 4 million American workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits and cannot find work. The President and the Republican majority say that we cannot afford to extend unemployment benefits to these people, despite the fact there is $20 billion sitting in the Unemployment Trust Fund of taxes paid by Americans. No waste, fraud, and abuse here; there are just people who cannot find work and want it. Now, the Republicans say we cannot afford it, but they are borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to pay Iraqis for no-show jobs. The anti-waste, -fraud, and -abuse crowd is happy to pay Iraqis for no-show jobs, but they will not give unemployed Americans benefits out of a trust fund. These are people who want to work and cannot find work because of the miserable economic record of this administration.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, the House finds itself in a bit of an awkward position here. The Federal aviation reauthorization legislation passed this body some months ago with little controversy, an excellent bill moving us forward with investment in the future of aviation air traffic control air safety. A quite similar bill passed the Senate, and it appeared we were on our way to meeting the October 1 deadline. Unfortunately, something strange happened on the way to adopting a Federal aviation reauthorization, and that is White House ideology and politics and stupidity. We were summoned to an emergency meeting of the conference the day before the House was to adjourn for the August recess, because the FAA bill was going to be brought to the floor the next day. There was just one little change, an unwritten amendment to privatize 71 air traffic control towers. Well, the gentleman from Alaska (Chairman Young) did not like that much, so, whoops, suddenly these deeply-held principles could be changed, and it was suddenly 69 towers could be privatized, because the two in Alaska did not need to be privatized anymore. Now, when the Senator from Arizona was questioned as to how he came up with the list of 69 that presented to him by the White House, he said, oh, there were really good reasons for it. These were all just little VFR dinky airports and this would be a more efficient way to do it. I said well, I wonder if he ever landed at Boeing Field in Seattle. I did not think Boeing was aware of the fact that that was just a VFR field, a little dinky field. I thought it was actually kind of crucial to the aviation industry of the United States of America and Boeing, our largest manufacturer, in fact, our only commercial manufacturer. Then others went on to question about others on the list. The bottom line was he was defending the indefensible. The White House wants to say that it is not the business of the government of the United States of America, it is not the business of government employees, to control air traffic, to provide for safety and control of the national air space. That should be a private sector function. Somebody might be able to make a little bit of money doing it, despite the fact there is no successful model of privatization in the world. They are all more expensive and less efficient. Well, what the heck, that does not matter to this White House. So what if we gouge the taxpayers for more money, if someone can make a little money, and maybe we can bust another union here. That is all this is about. It is quite simple. Both the House and the Senate, by near unanimous majorities, voted to not privatize the air traffic control system. But the ideologues at the White House presented to their compliant lap dogs that order, and they trotted into the conference with it. They got it done by voice vote, no one signed the conference report from this side of the aisle. But they have not been able to bring the bill to the floor because, guess what? They cannot get the support in the House or the Senate for what they wanted and what they got, which is privatization of air traffic control, jeopardizing the safety and the future of the air space of the United States of America. Now they say, well, we will just go back to conference and strike it. Now, they are going to try the bait and switch rouse here which is to say, well, we will strike out that offensive and stupid provision out of the bill, you know, the arbitrary privatization of 69 air traffic control towers against the will of the Senate and the House. We will just strike that out altogether. But, of course, what they are conveniently omitting there is that both the Senate and House had had affirmative language to prohibit privatization, and absent that, the ideologues at the White House can actually privatize more air traffic control towers, further jeopardizing the safety of the traveling public and the control of the air space of the United States of America. So that is what they are going to try now. But I do not think that this House, the Members of this House or the Members of the other body, are that dumb that they are going to fall for that. I do not think it gives those who are weak-kneed enough cover to go in that direction. It is the same issue: Do you believe in privatization of air traffic control or not. Do you want to follow the failed models of other countries that are more expensive and less efficient or not? That is the bottom line when this comes back up on Thursday. They are going to say, oh, we took that out of the bill. It is underlying the bill without a prohibition, and the ideologues at the White House will sure as heck rush forward with privatization, because someone might be able to make a little bit of money. So what if it kills people and jeopardizes the air space.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I regret the congressional schedule keeps me from attending the deployment ceremony to honor members of the 41st Brigade. This ceremony marks just a portion of the honor and debt of gratitude that our state and our nation owe you for your service. We also owe a debt of gratitude to your family and friends for their understanding, support, and sacrifice. The media talks so much of high tech and secret weapons, but the enduring strength and real secret behind the military power of the United States is men and women like you who have volunteered to serve as the new citizen soldiers, highly trained and motivated. You constitute the key to the success of our total force--a military second to none in the world. You and the other 8,000 Members of the Oregon National Guard continue a long and honored tradition of service to Oregon's citizens in times of disaster, crisis, or strife, while training and preparing to defend our nation in time of need. The mission ahead of you will be both difficult and dangerous--to bring stability and order to a ravaged nation in the midst of one of the most volatile regions on Earth. All Americans and our allies around the world will be more safe and secure if this region can be moved toward peace, but this course is not easy or certain. I pledge to do all I can in Congress to ensure that you have the best training and equipment necessary to accomplish your mission and return home safely. I further pledge that your service and sacrifice will not be forgotten and will be reflected in the treatment and benefits you and your family receive. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of all the citizens of Oregon's 4th Congressional District, thank you and Godspeed.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, today the House will vote to borrow $87 billion to continue the conflict in Iraq and build and revitalize the Iraqi economy. They say it is necessary to support the troops. It is not for dearth of funds that our troops lack ceramic body armor or armored Humvees and other essentials. There are ample, unspent funds, billions from the $79 billion we borrowed for this war last April, but it is bureaucratic incompetence, indifference and intransigence at the Pentagon. Secretary Rumsfeld and his advisors did not order armor because they did not think that we would need it, and they could never admit they were wrong. It did not fit their scenario. They say it is necessary for the security of the American people that we are going to borrow $20 billion in the name of working Americans to invest and stimulate the Iraqi economy, to build their infrastructure, roads, bridges, highways, state of the art telecommunications, sewer and electric. Well, it is not going to boost our economy here at home, and that is the security that my constituents and most Members' constituents are worried about. If we invest in the economy as the Democrats have advised, it would provide 1 million jobs for Americans.

Mr. DeFAZIO

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment will not, as has previously been criticized, deduct from the funds that will be used to build Iraq or, I should say, the money we will borrow to build Iraq. It is a simple amendment. It says, none of the funds made available in this act, U.S. taxpayer dollars, may be used for the participation of Iraq in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Now, why would we want to restrict that? Well, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is a cartel. It is an energy cartel. They flout international law, the World Trade Organization, and other agreements by artificially constraining production in violation of the World Trade Organization's precepts to drive up the price, to profit themselves; and, of course, U.S. consumers are the losers. Now, OPEC controls about 40 percent of the world's oil production, three-quarters of the reserves, and they set these production quotas for its 11 members. We have heard a lot about how Iraq is going to become a free market economy. It is going to have a tremendous impact on world oil prices when its production hits the free market. If they join OPEC, they will be assigned a quota; and their quota will be controlled in the interests of OPEC, not international oil supply, not the consumers of the United States of America, but solely to benefit members of a price- fixing oil cartel. This same cartel agreed to cut oil production, they just voted a couple of weeks ago, on November 1, by 900,000 barrels a day, which is already raising the price of gasoline at the pump here in the United States, jacking up the price of home heating oil as we go into a home heating season here in the United States. And the Iraqi representative who was sent to the last meeting at the behest of Mr. Bremer and the United States, in all probability with U.S. funds, Ibrahim Bahr al- Uloum said Iraq should play an active role in achieving the objectives of this organization, which translated, means Iraq fully intends to participate in the price-fixing, the manipulation, and the cartel. I do not believe that U.S. taxpayer dollars should participate in this activity, which is contrary to the United States, the precepts we advocate in world trade, and our own consumers and taxpayers. Now, why do we need the amendment? Well, Mr. Bremer has supported the membership of Iraq in OPEC, the price-fixing cartel. There are ample discretionary funds in the bill in addition to the $2.1 billion that will go to rebuild the Iraq oil infrastructure and flows through the Iraqi oil ministry which could be used to facilitate the participation in this price-fixing cartel. I just do not think that the United States taxpayers should be asked to foot this bill. Hopefully, in fact, the U.S. will try and convince the Iraqi council and others that it would not be in their best interests to participate in a price-fixing cartel, particularly if they are going to depend upon us for so many billions of dollars to fix their oil infrastructure. I know the gentleman from Arizona believes very much in the rule of law and is a big advocate of the World Trade Organization, their dispute mechanism, resolution mechanism; and I am certain he is very well aware that the quotas of OPEC violate the precepts of the WTO. They are not based in a shortage; they create shortages. The only way we can constrain supply under the WTO in this manner is if we have a certified shortage or conservation of resources. This is neither. This is price-fixing to gouge American consumers and others in oil-importing countries, and the United States taxpayers should have none of this. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, well, that was a quite a week's work for the United States Congress. We just managed to add $87 billion to the debt of the United States of America if this legislation stands in conference with the Senate. $87 billion will be borrowed to continue the conflict in Iraq and to build a vibrant new economy for Iraq, roads, bridges, highways, telephone systems, 9/11 ports, a lot of things that we could use here in the United States, investment that if it was made in the United States, would put more than a million people to work. But in the wisdom of the Republican majority in the House, this will be money that will be borrowed and spent in Iraq. They would not allow us to convert it to loans. One gentleman from Indiana famously stood up with an amendment to convert it to loans last night. He knew his amendment was not going to be made in order. He got an hour to debate it and then went away like a sheep when his amendment was not allowed, did not even challenge the ruling of the Chair, did not even try to get a vote. And then when he was offered a chance to vote on a democratic amendment to turn it into a loan because they have $7 trillion of oil reserves, he voted no. People like that are going to have to explain that to their constituents. How is it more important that the working people of America assume billions of dollars of debt, that people for three generations are going to repay over the next 30 years for the people of Iraq so they may prosper, so they may better exploit their $7 trillion of oil reserves, and we cannot ask them to contribute to that process. It is not about war damage. It is about the damage done to their economy by a brutal dictator. Here are a few things that were not in the bill. Even though we are borrowing $87 billion, it did not include $4.6 billion transferred from rebuilding Iraq to quality-of-life enhancements for our troops so they can have potable water, health and dental screening, postdeployment health care coverage for the Guard and Reserve, prepaid phone cards, transportation home on leave, they would not allow that. It was more important to borrow the money and spend it on Iraq. An amendment to increase imminent-danger pay for the troops, the American men and women serving over there. And family separation allowance, prepaid phone cards, and $25 million in loans to Reservists who own small businesses disrupted by this deployment. That was not in the bill because it was more important to borrow and spend the money to rebuild Iraq and to benefit the Iraqi people. An amendment to add $1.8 billion for veterans health care was not part of this bill. An amendment to add $1.8 billion, another, a second one, by reducing the Iraqi construction account for veterans health care was not allowed. I guess we know where the parties stand. We hear a lot about the Republicans are with the troops. They may be good at wrapping themselves in the flag, but when it comes to putting the money and their vote where the troops are, they are not there. They are AWOL. And they were AWOL on these amendments. They were AWOL on the amendment to add the Armed Forces Tax Fairness Act to the bill. It would not have taken any money away from the Iraqi people, but would have given benefits to the people in the Armed Forces here. An amendment to provide additional compensation to Guard and Reserve members, an amendment to provide Guard and Reserve members medical and dental screening upon being called to active duty, tricare coverage to certain Reserve members. An amendment to increase the basic pay of Reservists by $1,000 a month. An amendment, this one was quite an amendment, it was a tie vote, so that means that any person who voted against it on that side of the aisle, and 99 percent of them did, to give a $1,500 bonus to those serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, and it would have come out of the foreign aid portion, the build-Iraq portion of this budget. So the Republican majority decided it was more important to give more money to a country with $7 trillion of oil reserves than it was to give a $1,500 bonus. I guess they have not talked to their Reservists who have been called up. I have. Many of them have taken huge cuts in pay. They are putting their family businesses at risk, if they have family businesses. Yeah, they may get their jobs back when they return, but they are never going to make up for that income. This would have just been a fraction of what many of them lost. But, no, they could not do that. It was more important to give $20 billion to the Iraqi people to build their infrastructure, their roads, their bridges, their health care, their education system, their sewer, their water systems, things that we could use across America. An amendment to reimburse any servicemember or any family who purchases protective body armor. We voted $79 billion last April, we borrowed, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the President, borrowed $79 billion for this war last April, and it did not include the body armor. Well, the money was there, yes. But Rumsfeld did not order it because he said, oh, the troops are not going to be there long enough to need it, and people are going to greet them by waving little tiny American flags. So he just did not order the body armor. It is not that they did not have the money. They did not order it. They did not order the armored Humvees for our troops. What they have not done is incredible, but what they have done is even worse. They have indebted the people of the United States of America for $87 billion, most of it to benefit the residents of another nation and not here in America.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. So, basically, Mr. Chairman, we are debating an amendment which is not going to be allowed so all of this debate is meaningless. Is that correct, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, as I understand the Pence amendment, that Mr. Kolbe from Arizona has risen to reserve a parliamentary point of order against this amendment, is that correct?

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I have been in my office and trying to find out what was going on. My understanding is that are we are at the moment debating the Pence amendment, is that correct?