Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to replace the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) and proceed at this time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, during the lead-up to the war in Iraq, we had great assurances from the President and his staff that in the aftermath the United States would not be tagged with the bill. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: ``It is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden of their own reconstruction.'' Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, arguably the godfather of this policy: ``There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 billion and $100 billion over the course of the next 2 or 3 years. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.'' Then, of course, the wonderful Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld: ``I do not believe the United States has responsibility for reconstruction. In a sense, funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of others things, including the Oil for Food program.'' Well, what a difference a few months makes. The President has presented the second bill for Iraq, $70 billion last April, and now another $87 billion that he wants this Congress to borrow on behalf of the American people to spend for the ongoing conflict and to rebuild that country. That is right, borrow. We are going to obligate Americans for the next 30 years to pay for the rebuilding of Iraq. Apparently, it is necessary when creating a democratic and civil society that there be massive investment in public works, public infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universal health care, telecommunications, ports, rail, water, all those things; and the American people should borrow the money, according to the President, to do those things so that the Iraqi people can move toward a democratic and civil society. But, unfortunately, according to the President, it is not necessary to do those things and pay for those things and not advisable to borrow the money to do those things to pay for the continuance of a democratic and civil society here in the United States of America. Yes, he says we can borrow $20.3 billion to do all those things in Iraq, but we cannot afford it here. We are borrowing money to pay tens of thousands of Iraqis to have no-show, no-work jobs, to provide stability, but the President says we cannot draw on the Unemployment Trust Fund, the $16 billion balance on taxes we have paid, to give extended unemployment benefits to Americans. On a per capita basis, the United States is going to spend ten times as much per citizen in Iraq on drinking water as it will in the United States, despite the D-minus grade that our water infrastructure has, despite the unfunded mandates on rural communities that cannot afford to meet those Federal requirements. Two times as much for water resource projects, ten times as much for sewer and drinking water. Iraqis will receive 300 times as much to put together a reliable electricity system in their country. Did the President not notice, I guess they have generators at the White House and Camp David, he did not notice that the lights went out in the eastern United States, but they did because of a crumbling and underinvested infrastructure. We are going to spend 300 times as much per citizen in Iraq. Thirteen times as much for medical infrastructure. In the little port of Umm Qasr over there, we are about to borrow from the American people another $45 million to further upgrade that port, at the same time that the President cannot find $8 million to dredge ports in Southern Oregon. We just do not have the money to keep those ports open, he says, but we can borrow $45 million to further improve Umm Qasr, into which we have already dumped $50 million. Then there is the Mawizeh marsh. The President wants to borrow on behalf of the American people $50 million to restore a marsh. Well, we have big huge controversy over the Klamath marsh and that area in Oregon, and we need $25 million to move toward resolving that controversy. But the President says that money is not here in the United States of America, but he will borrow $50 million to restore a marsh in Iraq. Then there is the horrible problem of Basra and Umm Qasr. Their water supply comes through an open ditch, only half of which is lined. Of course, my city of Albany gets its water through an open ditch, none of which is lined. So it is an emergency that the American people borrow $200 million for Umm Qasr and Basra so they can have a modern water supply system, but, sorry, there is no money for Albany, Oregon, and hundreds of other communities across this country. Apparently it is necessary, the President says, to borrow these funds on behalf of this generation and future generations of Americans so that Iraqis can live a better life, but we cannot afford to do similar projects here in the United States of America, to put Americans to work. If that money were spent here in the United States of America, it would put 1 million people to work, but that is not on the President's radar screen.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, the President has asked the United States Congress in the name of the American people to borrow $87 billion to continue the actions in Iraq and to rebuild the nation of Iraq. That is going to be paid for by a couple of generations of working Americans, and there are an awful lot of questions about the request by the President. Now, let us look at some of the details here: $20.3 billion to rebuild Iraq borrowed by the American people and sent to Iraq, perhaps utilizing some U.S. contractors such as Halliburton. Here are some of the things we are going to pay for: $20 million for executive job training, a 4-week class at the cost of $10,000. I have community colleges in my district that would provide that same class for a tiny fraction of that cost whose budgets are underfunded because of the cuts in the Federal Government's spending on education. $10,000 a person for a 4-week class, send them to my community college. We can house them and educate them for a lot less. Then we have the $100 million for the witness protection program. What witnesses? Well, the witnesses that might come forward to tell us something about the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, among other things. That will be to pay for 100 Iraqi families at $1 million each. In the United States of America when we put people in the witness protection program, it generally costs $120,000 per family. So it is going to cost us roughly eight times more per family, but I guess that is because of the high cost of living in Iraq, or the life-style to which they would like to become accustomed. Again, the American people will borrow this money, or the President is asking Congress to borrow it on behalf of the American people. It is going to cost $255 per person in Iraq to rebuild the electricity infrastructure. They said we are not just rebuilding the bomb damage; they have this horribly outdated system, and we have to rebuild it. Mr. Speaker, guess who else has a horribly outdated electricity infrastructure system? The United States of America. Did the President notice that the lights went off in one-third of the country? Also, we had a big blackout in the West a few years ago. Our system is operating on the edge. What is the President proposing here, $255 will be borrowed for each Iraqi by the American people, sent to Iraq to rebuild their electricity infrastructure, and the President is asking for 71 cents on behalf of every American here in the United States. It will cost $45 million to further improve the already fully functioning port of Umm Qasr while the President is proposing zero dollars to dredge ports in my district and elsewhere in the United States because he says we cannot afford it. He is asking to borrow $45 million and send it to Iraq to further improve their ports, but he cannot find a penny for ports in the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the United States. It is going to cost $150 million for a national 911 system in Iraq. Mr. Speaker, is that so they can call the next time a rogue regime uprises? What does this have to do with the war? The American people are going to borrow $150 million because the President wants it, send it to Iraq to give them a 911 system. Job centers, 22 centers, $350,000 each. If we took the $20.3 billion the President wants this Congress to borrow and spend on behalf of rebuilding the nation of Iraq, if we matched that dollar per dollar in the United States of America, if we borrowed $20.3 billion to rebuild the infrastructure system in the United States, we could put 1 million Americans to work in the very near future, in addition to investing in our future, our economic productivity, our ports, our highways, our water systems, our electricity grid. It is one thing to borrow money to invest in the United States of America; it is another thing to indebt the next two generations of Americans to borrow money to spend rebuilding Iraq. Mr. Wolfowitz told us they can pay for their own reconstruction. I guess that guy made about a $50 billion mistake that is going to cost the American taxpayers, but he is still held in highest esteem by the Bush administration. He is still working there. He is still pumping out the same mistakes. How many more billions will he cost us before the President demands his resignation. This is outrageous that the American people are being asked to borrow this money. Instead of borrowing money, investing in infrastructure and putting a million Americans to work here, he is proposing more tax cuts. His last tax cut, the dividend tax cut, returned 5 cents on the dollar to the United States economy. If it is spent on infrastructure, we get $7 for every dollar borrowed. Mr. Speaker, let us get our priorities straight: America first.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, last fall the President's economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, said the war in Iraq could cause $100 billion to $200 billion. Well, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, said, ``That is absurd. Those are crazy numbers.'' In fact, Wolfowitz said, ``Don't worry, they can pay for their own reconstruction.'' Now, the President is asking Congress to borrow $87 billion in the name of the American people, $20 billion of that to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq. Now, it is nice that we want to build a $150 million children's hospital in Iraq, but American kids lack basic health care. Where is the money for that? It is nice that they want to rebuild the Port of Umm Qasr, $80 million. The President has zeroed out dredging ports in my district. Billions for the electric grid; not a penny for the faltering electric grid in the United States of America. $20 billion invested here would create 1 million U.S. jobs. $20 billion in Iraq is a drop in the bucket of what it is really going to cost, but it will produce some nice profits for Halliburton.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. I understand, Mr. Chairman. I certainly meant not to impugn the other body with that statement, just to talk about the reality of what has happened to the Water Resources Development Act in the past. But to continue, there are a number of Federal mandates that would be helpful to our local communities and our States if the Water Resources Development Act becomes law. But even more importantly, today in the United States of America, I think, is the fact that this bill represents a real jobs program. We can cut taxes for the wealthy people until the cows come home, and it is not going to put people back to work in the United States of America. But if we invest in infrastructure, it will. We know that the return on the dividend tax cut was 5 cents on the dollar. For every dollar we borrowed to cut dividend taxes, and we borrowed all that money, we are going to get 5 cents of stimulus to the economy; not a great investment. But for every dollar we borrow, and again we would have to borrow, to invest in water infrastructure, we are going to get $7, seven times over the impact on the economy. If we spend $1 billion under the Water Resources Development Act, we get about 45,000 jobs, real jobs, putting Americans back to work. This is an economic stimulus bill. It is also a bill, as the gentleman who preceded me from Maryland discussed, that helps to deal with environmental problems, and also I want to recognize further that the Corps of Engineers often is subject to criticism, but there is an awful lot of good work that the Corps of Engineers does. I was just up in the mountains of my district last weekend seeing a project they are doing on a reservoir which is to help with fish runs, but also the dam itself was originally built to stop the annual flooding. So there are many good things that the Corps has done and many more that they will do if this legislation becomes law, if whoever else it is who is responsible for passing this somewhere else on Capitol Hill gets their act together.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thought that we were able to talk about the reality that there are people on the other side of the Capitol.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Costello) for yielding me this time. I would like to congratulate the chairman and the ranking member for their excellent work. This is a piece of legislation that is overdue, and we can only hope that the Senate will not be the usual dead weight on this issue and will actually move this needed bill through. This bill would go a long way toward helping many communities across the United States meet Federal mandates. There is a lot of talk around here in Washington, D.C. about unfunded mandates. The law is replete with unfunded mandates. Announcement by the Chairman

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, congratulation to President Bush on a perfect record: 32 straight months of job loss; 32 straight months of industrial manufacturing job loss and yet another record trade deficit. This is something that will be hard for anybody to match, the disastrous trade policies of this Nation. We are hemorrhaging $1.5 billion a day of wealth from the United States overseas, $1 million a minute, more than 1,000 jobs a day are being exported. The President likes to talk about the wealth and benefits of exporting. Yes, there are tremendous wealth and benefits in exporting, particularly exporting jobs at the bidding of multi-national corporations who are so generous when campaign time comes around. Yes, they are feigning concern down there at the White House because they know there is an election coming and the money cannot take care of all the problems. So they are pretending they do not know where these jobs have gone and they have decided to change the flow chart at the Commerce Department and make one politically appointed bureaucrat responsible for finding out where they went and rectifying the situation. All we need now is a new trade policy.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the way Congress and the President could best commemorate the terrorist attack, the tragedy of 9/11, and the loss of thousands of innocent lives would be to ensure that we have done all in our power both here and abroad, that Americans are as safe as possible against another assault. Unfortunately, as a member of the Committee on Homeland Security and a senior member of the Subcommittee on Aviation, I can say with confidence that we have fallen far short of that mark. Significant portions of the Aviation Security Act have not been implemented. Our first responders, those who responded so selflessly on that tragic day, still lack basic resources and help from the Federal Government, even as Congress is considering the President's request for another $87 billion for Iraq. On this day, Congress should resolve to remember by redoubling its efforts, avoiding dangerous distractions, and providing all the funds necessary so we can say with confidence, never again.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the President gave quite a speech Sunday night. More of the same failing policy with a new face and a new breathtaking price tag, $87 billion he wants to borrow now. And he wants to borrow $20.5 billion from the American people to rebuild the roads, bridges, ports, water and electric systems in Iraq. Mr. Speaker, what about here at home? We have to say maybe we could use some investment here in the United States on our bridges, roads, ports, water and electric systems. So the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) and I have introduced the American Parity Act, and I urge my colleagues to support it. The President would have to match dollar for dollar every dollar that he borrows from the American people to invest in Iraq, he has to invest a dollar here for the same purposes here in the United States of America. $20.5 billion for infrastructure in the United States could put a million people to work in this country and begin to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure with our tax dollars as opposed to a nation far across the sea. I urge my colleagues to support the American Parity Act.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the President announced to the American people yesterday that he intends in their name to borrow $87 billion on top of the $79 billion he borrowed earlier this year to rebuild Iraq, Afghanistan, and continue the struggle in that area. Now, I would hope that the Congress this time will choose to scrutinize this request. The last time the President just breezed through here and the Congress said, $79 billion, no problem. So I would hope every penny will be reviewed. I would hope that this Congress would choose to pay for this instead of borrowing $87 billion, indebting our children and grandchildren, by freezing tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country. We could pay for it if we just stop cutting taxes. But I really want to focus on a part of that which the President proposed, $20.3 billion on top of $2\1/2\ billion he requested earlier, to rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq, to build schools, electric grid, water and sewage, oil infrastructure, transportation, communications, housing, public buildings, roads and bridges, and money for the police, fire, the first responders. Now, we are going to borrow $20.3 billion in the name of the American people, and we are going to send it to Iraq to rebuild their country. Now, it has not been long since we heard from the Bush administration that this would be free, the architecture of the war in Iraq. Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a House subcommittee in March that Iraq would generate $50 to $100 billion of oil revenue over the next 2 to 3 years. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon. Mr. Wolfowitz is somehow still in good standing with this administration despite the fact that he was wrong by about $100 or $200 billion here. And the American people are going to be asked to pay for it. Now, it is time for a little fairness and equity here. I have introduced with the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) a bill, the American Parity Act, which says that if the President is going to request $20.3 billion to provide jobs and rebuild the infrastructure of Iraq, schools bridges, roads, highways, water systems and dredge the ports, all things which he is not funding here in the United States, then we should have dollar for dollar matching for that under the American Parity Act and put people to work here in the United States, invest in our infrastructure, roads and bridges. Now, I had someone say to me, well, wait a minute, you are proposing to make the bill bigger here to borrow. Yeah, that is right. We would borrow $20.3 billion to invest in our Nation in long-term projects, putting people to work today but also investing in roads, bridges, highways, water systems, things that will last us for decades. Now, I do not object to borrowing money to invest in America and to put people into work in America, but I have a real problem with borrowing $20.3 billion to invest in the infrastructure in Iraq while ours is crumbling here at home. The President has proposed a zero fund, no funding of the dredging of ports in my district and elsewhere around the country, yet he is proposing to dredge ports in Iraq. The President has not proposed a penny for the Federal Government to partner in waste water systems, yet it is estimated we have a $16 billion annual deficit under Federal mandates in water systems that were being put in our communities from the party that said they were not going to send unfunded mandates. Mr. Speaker, where is the money to help the communities meet those Federal requirements? On Interstate 5 just in the State of Oregon, I know this goes on around the entire United States, we have a $4.5 billion bridge replacement problem. That would put a lot of people to work. But the President is telling the Congress that there just is not money to put into the roads and bridges and highways here in the United States, and he is trying to reduce the spending. We are at a stalemate over a new transportation bill because the President says there is no money to pay for it. But somehow we can borrow $20.3 billion to do those same projects in Iraq. When is the President going to propose to either fund or borrow the money to fund similar projects here in the United States of America? With the American Parity Act, if it were adopted as part of his proposal, we would fund, dollar for dollar, comparable projects in the United States, putting tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans to work and provide some fairness and equity and at least some return to the American taxpayers for their borrowing. But I fear that this administration and the leadership of this House is not that interested in funding infrastructure work here in this country, but they are perfectly willing to borrow the money in the name of the American people to rebuild it in Iraq. It is a sad day for the United States Congress.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to replace Mr. Menendez on his time.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was forced to vote against the fiscal year 2004 VA-HUD spending bill today. However, I could not, in good conscience, vote in favor of a bill that so clearly fails to meet the needs of our nation's veterans. A vote in favor of this bill is a vote to maintain the status quo, a status quo that has resulted in six month waiting lists, increased out- of-pocket expenses, and limited coverage for many veterans. My vote against this bill is a signal that the status quo is totally unacceptable. I am not alone in condemning the VA-HUD appropriations bill for its failure to meet the needs of those who selflessly served our country in the armed forces. As top officials of national veterans organizations, including AMVETS, PVA, DAV, and VFW, wrote to Congress regarding H.R. 2861, the legislation is ``wholly inadequate'' and ``represents a flagrant disregard to promises made to veterans by this Congress.'' H.R. 2861 is $2.1 billion below the level set for veterans programs in the House Republican budget resolution. While I thought the House budget resolution was itself inadequate, a lower funding level is a slap in the face to veterans. H.R. 2861 is also $3.3 billion below the levels requested by national veterans organizations. The bill includes shortfalls for medical care, medical research and construction, among other areas. Mr. Speaker, the federal budget is about priorities. The lack of support for veterans programs in H.R. 2861 shows what happens when the President and his allies in Congress prioritize tax cuts for millionaires over adequately meeting our commitment to veterans. I reject that prioritization, which is why I voted against this bill. My vote was in favor of fully funding the benefits our veterans were promised, have earned and deserve.

Mr. DeFAZIO

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

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. As I speak here on the floor, there are fires burning across the West, a major fire in my own district, and others elsewhere. The President asked for an additional $280 million to fight these fires because the Forest Service has already spent 84 percent of the inadequate budget for this year, 16 percent left; and the years fires have hardly begun. Last year we spent $1.6 billion. Now, the majority here wants to pretend that we can do this all on the cheap. We do not need money to fight fires. We do not need money to prevent fires. They have jammed through a so-called Healthy Forest Bill after stripping out the money we proposed last fall in a bipartisan way to fund fuel reduction efforts. You cannot do that for nothing, but they want to pretend you can; and now they want to pretend that you can fight fires for nothing. There is not an additional penny in this bill for the fire emergency in the western U.S. So you know what the Forest Service is going to do? They are going to borrow money. You know where they are going to borrow the money? They are going to borrow money from the already underfunded fuel reduction programs. Guess what? We have created a little endless cycle here. We are going to pretend we are doing something about fuel reduction in healthy forests, but we are not really going to do it. But it is a great political issue. In fact, the little bit that we are already doing, we are going to rob it to fight this year's fires. The Forest Service is already preparing those cuts. That means this year's fuel reduction program will not go forward because the majority here will not even meet the President's meager request to help fight the fires that are burning today in the western United States. Come on, you can find the money for everything else around here, tax cuts, for all sorts of other things; but somehow we get fires burning, we cannot find the money to fight the fires. And what is worse, we are going to create worse fires in the future because you are going to borrow that money and stop those programs in their tracks. It is a sad day for the United States Congress.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, if you are defending the indefensible, that U.S.-manufactured, FDA-approved drugs are available at half the price or less in Canada, well, then change the subject. Say it is about safety. PhRMA has spent tens of millions of dollars advertising how it is about safety. Which capsule has been tampered with? Well, actually the answer in Canada is neither. Not a single one has been found in the last decade in Canada of a USA-manufactured, FDA-approved drug that has been tampered with. However, what is really at risk here and the real danger is the danger to their profits. Look at the difference in price. Which one of these capsules is the one that is 50 percent cheaper? Guess what? They are identical, but this capsule took a short vacation to Canada and the price dropped in half. That is what we are defending against here on the floor. This is not about safety. You want to talk about safety for my seniors. I am a gerontologist, and I have sat with seniors who cried because they could not afford the prescription drugs they needed, couples who decided which one would get the prescription month in month out. Go talk to your pharmacist. Go talk to your seniors. Ask them how they divide the drugs and the dosages in half, not to save money but because they cannot afford to take a full dosage. That is what is killing seniors. It is killing them today. Now you want to create this mythical threat of adulteration. So the manufacturers, the drug manufacturers, the most wealthy, profitable industry on Earth cannot afford to invest in tamper-proof packaging? I guess it is beyond their capabilities. Come on. Let us get real. Let us talk about what it is really about. It is about profit. The profit center for the drug industry is in the United States because other countries have negotiated the price down on behalf of their citizens, and we were getting gouged to pay for it. The research is not going to go away. That is the last thing that is going to go away. They only make money on the patented drugs. They will maybe cut the CEOs salaries and maybe the $6 billion a year in direct advertising before they cut the research. We will still get the research. We will get the new drugs, and we will have healthier seniors if we pass this legislation.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. As this is the first significant trade agreement in the 21st century, let us look back and see, is our trade policy working? 2001, $358 billion trade deficit; 2002, $436 billion trade deficit; a record first quarter this year, $136 billion headed toward a $550 billion trade deficit; $1.5 billion a day, $1 million a minute. Three million jobs have been lost in the last decade due to trade policies, capital exports; 251,000 manufacturing jobs since January 1; 53,000 in May. NAFTA, WTO, Fast Track, FTAA. Every time here on the floor of the House we hear the same carrying on about exports of goods and services and consumer benefits. Yes, exports will result. I agree. But they forget to tell us that there will be a much greater increase in imports, and they do not talk about the net, which is this deficit headed to more than $.5 trillion. Then, if cornered, they will fall back and say, what about the consumer benefits? Well, the benefits are not really great for American workers when their jobs have been exported, no matter how cheap the goods are. Earlier, we heard an eloquent lesson in geography, new false promises for our farmers. Already there are pending unfair trade complaints for dumping against grapes, raspberries, pears and salmon from Chile. But do not worry, we will retrain these people who lose their jobs for the new high-tech economy and for all the skilled work. Except now IBM, Boeing, GM, they are all exporting their jobs; and it is estimated under these agreements we will export 3.3 million skilled jobs in the next decade because of these trade agreements. There is a new twist in this one, though. We are going to import skilled laborers from Chile under this agreement. Yes, we will mandate the importation of skilled laborers to displace the few remaining jobs in the United States of America. Is our trade policy working? Yes, exactly as designed, but not the way it is being sold here on the floor of the House. It is about access to cheap labor, weak laws, and profiting a select few multinational corporations. Will the last worker in the last manufacturing plant in America please turn out the lights.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Today Congress will vote on and approve so-called free trade agreements with Singapore and Chile. We find our Nation sunk in the hole of a $500 billion trade deficit, and Congress is going to get out the shovels and dig a little deeper. Mr. Speaker, 251,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost so far this year, exported from the United States; 53,000 jobs in May alone. We have a record 136.1 trade deficit for the first 3 months on a track to $550 billion trade deficit this year. Our trade policies are failing our workers and our Nation and our future. And the response of this administration and this Congress is a collective yawn and a vote to continue down the same disastrous path. It is pathetic.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this rule, which this amendment would address, in my opinion is perhaps the most radical usurpation of the public interest in the history of regulation. But then again, the head of the FCC does not believe in regulation nor does he believe in public interest. To quote him, he has called regulation ``the oppressor.'' And when asked about public interest, he said he has no idea. ``It is an empty vessel in which people pour whatever their preconceived views or biases are.'' And he went on to say, ``The night after I was sworn in as a commissioner,'' this is Michael Powell, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, ``I waited for a visit from the angel of public interest, I waited all night, but she did not come.'' So his conclusion is, if you believe in markets, part of the right price is determined by the give-and-take of consumers and producers, and ``Thou shalt not regulate,'' and that, in fact, is what he has done here. Now, there is substantial agreement on this side of the aisle that what he has done is an extraordinary blow to our system in the United States of America, our system of governance of our democratic republic. But there is some disagreement over the tactics on how we fight back. Considering the fact that the Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the White House, I believe that we need to send the strongest possible message, and this amendment would, thus far, absent adoption of the Dingell legislation, which I believe the Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), and others will never allow to come to the floor of the House, but absent that, this is the strongest statement that we could send so far. We would be standing with more than 400,000 Americans who commented against this rule. Now, the chairman of the committee got up to say, well, the benefits of this flow to the public, but he did not go on to say, they just do not realize it. Because almost every person who testified on the most- commented-upon rule-making in the history of the United States of America said ``no.'' ``No.'' There was one hearing held in the distant realm of Virginia. That is how much public scrutiny this rule received. Why did it receive so little public scrutiny? Because they knew that more than 400,000 people would oppose it had they only known about it ahead of time. Now we are hearing about a lot of red herrings. This place kind of smells a little bit. The waivers will go away. No, the waivers are preexisting in this rule. The waivers will not go away. They want to help the little guys that are doing good things with the waivers. That is the only reason they are supporting Michael Powell and total rollback of public interest and the total collapse of any idea of diverse media in this country and the total concentration of this system. No, they are really for the little guys and the waivers and the exceptions and the grandfathers, and that is why we are really here. Well, no, that is not why we are really here. We are really here because the big money and the big interests want to own it all. It will be great, the day we can go anywhere in America, turn on the tube, watch a local station and we will see exactly the same thing we would have seen at home. It will purport to provide local news. Some people are getting puzzled when they see what is considered to be local news under the current system, which is already concentrated enough, which has nothing to do with where they live. Imagine what it will be like when it is totally one or two or three big companies dictating all the content across all the country, and not only the content of television but the content of newspapers and radio. It will be great. We will not have to be confused anymore by conflicting opinions. God forbid we should even begin to discuss the concepts of fairness, which stood as the rule of this land for nearly three-quarters of a century under which we had a vibrant democracy. Fairness. Now it is whoever can own it can say whatever they want and the hell with fairness. We do not have to have fairness. We do not have to have diversity of opinion. We afford it, we bought it, we can say what we want, we can exclude who we want, we can discriminate against the groups that we do not like that say things we do not like about our President or about anything else we disagree with. That is the vision of Michael Powell and the majority in this House. That is the system they want. That is wrong. It is wrong whether in the majority or the minority. It is wrong for the future of our Nation. So, please, support this amendment. Send the strongest message possible. And if this passes by a big margin, if the worst thing that could happen in the conference committee with the Senate is that we bargain back a little bit toward the good work done by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), then, okay, that is the best we can do. I would love to see the President put in a position to have to veto something so much in the public interest that people care so much about.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, when you are in a deep hole in Washington, D.C., what do you do? You dig it a little deeper. That is what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are proposing with the Chile and Singapore free trade agreements. The United States ran a record $435.7 billion trade deficit last year, up from $358.3 billion in 2001, and we are headed toward a new record this year. We have a failed trade policy. We are exporting millions of jobs every year while Americans cannot find work. But this one is even better. This is truly a groundbreaking agreement. The Bush administration has gone further than the losers in the Clinton administration who pushed free trade and the Bush administration I and the Reagan administration, 20 years of failed trade policy in this country. This one is even better. We are going to export jobs and import workers. It has a little provision they snuck in, and Congress is not allowed any amendments in these trade agreements, that will actually import skilled workers to the United States. They are only coming on a temporary basis, only take away jobs on a temporary basis. We are going to export all those obsolete industrial jobs, they say. I think we need those industrial jobs, but that is the theory on that side of the aisle. They say do not worry, we will retrain people for these new jobs, the high-tech jobs, the skilled jobs. Now the estimates are that we are going to export 3.3 million highly skilled high-tech jobs over the next 5 years. And under this trade agreement, we are going to import workers to do the few that are left here. This is really great. This is wonderful. What a great country. Mr. Speaker, if the American people could only have a voice on this issue. They will not get a voice here in the House, and it is very unlikely they will get a voice in the United States Senate. We are exporting $1.5 billion a day in U.S. wealth. We are continuing to drag down the economy. The output of our economy over the last decade, according to credible economists, has been drug down by 35.2 percent over 10 years because of our trade deficit. What will this legislation do with Chile and Singapore, which is the forerunner for massive new free trade agreements all up and down South America? It will actually accelerate that decline. We are already running a trade deficit with Chile, and it will grow greatly under this. And with Singapore, yes, we had a little tiny trade surplus; but it is down by 50 percent in 1 year, and like with Mexico under NAFTA, we will be running huge and growing trade deficits with Singapore. We cannot continue to run these deficits year in year out, export American jobs year in and year out, export America's industrial manufacturing base and continue to be a great economy. We are headed toward disaster here. In fact, the percent of our GDP that we are losing with these trade deficits is now exceeding the percent that Argentina was experiencing before their economic implosion or the Asian nations before their economic implosion. Mr. Speaker, how long will people around the world continue to lend us money to buy foreign goods and undermine our own economy? This is absolutely absurd what we are doing here, and we are going to do more of it. Only inside the Washington, D.C. beltway would people look at $500 billion trade deficits, loss of our manufacturing base, the importation of skilled foreign workers and say this is great for our country because one or two multi-national corporations that nominally are based in the United States, they probably do not pay taxes here, but still pretend they are American companies, will get a little bit under this agreement.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, this week the House will take a historic vote, probably very late toward the end of the week, late in the evening, giving the pharmaceutical industry the maximum amount of time to beat back a provision of law that would lower the price of prescription drugs for every American, not just those on Medicare, but every American. Let us use a couple of examples here. This is a simple vote. It would allow Americans to reimport, without limit, American-manufactured, FDA- certified, safe drugs from Canada back into the United States. The interesting thing about these drugs is they are manufactured in the United States of America; but when they take a vacation to Canada, their price drops dramatically because the Government of Canada, unlike the Government of the United States, with the exception of the Veterans Department and some other agencies at the Pentagon, negotiates with the pharmaceutical industry and negotiates lower prices. They use market forces to benefit the people of Canada. The Republicans here in the House, bizarrely enough, are offering a $400 billion prescription drug benefit for seniors that is based on subsidies to the private insurance industry and supporting the outrageous list price for drugs, which no one pays except the uninsured; but they would mandate that that be done. They would outlaw the United States Government from negotiating lower prices, unlike the Government of Canada, the Government of Great Britain, the governments of all the EU, virtually every other government in the world. In almost every country in the world a person can buy U.S.-manufactured, FDA- certified drugs for a substantial discount below the price those drugs are made available here. In the case of one drug for glaucoma, Xalatan, the cost in the U.S. is $631 a year. If we buy it in Canada, it is $429 a year. If the government negotiated, as the VA does, we can get it for $336 a year; but under the brilliant Republican plan here in the House, a drug that costs $631 a year will cost a senior $746. They will pay actually more than the drug costs today list price. This is the grand new benefit that they are going to deliver at a cost of $400 billion. We could lower the price of drugs more substantially for every American, particularly those on Medicare, by simply voting for and allowing the safe reimportation of U.S.-manufactured, FDA-certified drugs from Canada, plain and simple. We are going to hear a whole host of reasons why that is a bad idea. It will hurt their profits. Yes, it will hurt their profits. They say, well, if our profits go down, we will not do the research. That is a lie. The pharmaceutical industry makes its money on new drugs. They get an exclusive 17-year patent for those drugs. That is their profit center. The last thing that is going to go is the research because that is where they are going to make their money. Maybe they will cut the obscene salaries of their CEOs. Maybe they can be get by on two, three million a year instead of sixty. Maybe they will cut the billions they are spending to direct promote their drugs on television, something that was outlawed by the FCC and the FDA until quite recently and something that is very problematic, to get people induced to go out and by a particular drug, to go into their doctor who is pushed for time and say I want that purple pill, I saw it on television. Well, that is not what you need. I want the purple pill. Okay, I have only got 10 minutes, you are out of here, you have got the prescription. Doctors tell me they do that. So if they saved those billions, they cut the salaries and some of their other overhead and administrative costs, they would still have plenty of money to do the research, and they could still earn a good profit; but Americans would pay 40 or 50 percent less for their drugs. They say this legislation will kill people. They claim somehow the drugs that took a vacation to Canada have become unsafe while they were there. They say this will kill people. I will tell my colleagues what is killing people in the United States of America today: the fact that they cannot afford life-saving drugs. There are seniors in my district who divide their drugs in half. There are seniors in my district, couples, who decide which one is going to get the critical drugs this month because they cannot afford to buy all of them because they do not have a benefit. That is killing people. Bringing back U.S.-manufactured, FDA-certified drugs from Canada is not going to kill people. It will kill obscene profits on the part of this industry because they are gouging America's seniors. America's seniors are paying twice as much as people in Canada for many drugs and even more if we go across the border to Mexico. So this is going to be a simple vote, but it is going to be a vote on which millions of dollars are unleashed to send false messages to try and pressure Members of Congress to vote against the interests of all Americans who would be healthier and benefit from less expensive drugs. We could do this through the miracle of market forces and, yes, even free trade. I voted against the NAFTA agreement. I think it stinks and it is killing jobs in this country; but guess what, probably prohibiting the reimportation of drugs is NAFTA illegal, but no one ever files a complaint when these NAFTA illegal things benefit the big corporations, only when they benefit people, and this Congress is going to try and stop changes in that situation.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to proceed out of order.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank both the gentleman for their efforts, and I will do all I can to support those enhancements. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his words, and I thank him for his work on this and also his desire to increase the funding. I share that. I intend to support the bill here today on the floor because it does at least partially fund these needs, and I will certainly support a bill that comes back from conference which does better in these areas.