Peter DeFazio

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, when the House passed the so-called Medicare Modernization Act, the purported prescription drug benefit for seniors in the dark of the night, after holding the vote open for 3 hours by a small margin, a lot of Members did not know fully what was in the bill. We know we were lied to about the cost and that it was withheld from the Congress. There were a lot of other provisions people did not realize were in there. But there is one that we still have a chance to correct tomorrow with an amendment I am going to offer. Seniors are going to be outraged if my amendment is not accepted. The bill waives all privacy rights for seniors on Medicare and Medicaid. That is, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is, notwithstanding any other provision of law, able to disclose their personal information to private insurance companies who supposedly will not share it with anybody beyond their company. It is bad enough it is going to a bunch of private insurance companies, but we know, with the interconnectedness of these companies and problems with data retention, that these seniors are likely to have their data widely shared; in addition to which, that means these seniors will be solicited over the phone by mail, aggressively, by private prescription drug plans, insurance companies, obviously trying to sell them something they probably will not really understand. Now, some people on that side will say, well, how else are we going to market this plan? You do it the way we do the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan. The government compiles all the data, you send it to all the eligible people, and then you, the consumer, have a choice. They look at the ones they are interested in, they have a 1-800 number, a Web site, they contact them. We do not give the personal information about every Federal employee or Member of Congress to private insurance companies to solicit us; why should we do that to every senior in America? They will be outraged. Mr. Speaker, it is a simple amendment. It just says that this will not go into effect, and then the Secretary of Health and Human Services can work out a much better plan for marketing this program that does not violate the sanctity, the privacy of all, every one of America's seniors. That would be an outrage, and they will notice.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, I welcome the born again saviors of Social Security on the Republican side of the aisle. They have been looting the program for years, and now they want to make it right. The President this year will borrow $168 billion from Social Security, money only extracted from people who work for wages and salary, and will transfer part of it to the wealthiest in America, many of whom do not even pay Social Security tax. And he is replacing that money with these bonds. And now the President questions whether the government will honor these bonds with the full faith and credit of the Government of the United States. So Republicans have a great new idea: Social Security will not hold the bonds anymore. They will issue them to individuals. Now, if we are not going to honor these bonds for all the people of America, what assurance do people have that those individual bonds will be honored, and the Republicans want to charge them a management fee and a so- called claw-back. So anybody that takes one of those individual bonds, if it is honored, is guaranteed to get less than they would under the existing system. Oh, that is a great plan, guys.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

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

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I know the gentleman from Florida's speech was written by his staff, but he said that we could not pursue Osama bin Laden. If he had listened to my speech where I quoted back legislation that he voted for and I voted for which authorized the war with Afghanistan, it went on to the fact of any nation that harbors such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism. That pretty well covers Osama bin Laden. I do not appreciate the gentleman raising these bizarre allegations. He may disagree with me, he may want to cede this authority to the President of the United States and abdicate our constitutional duties. That is fine. But do not raise these false issues. It does not go to Osama bin Laden. He is already covered. It does not go to Iraq. It is already covered. It does not go to a third country that is potentially threatening or any group threatening the United States. That is covered under war powers.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is simple. Let me read it in its entirety. ``None of the funds made available by this Act may be used to initiate military operations except in accordance with Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States.'' The intent of this is simple: To prevent the President from committing U.S. forces to additional wars without first coming to Congress for a vote authorizing such military action. If the President wishes or feels it is necessary to have a war with Syria, Iran, North Korea or any other nation, then under the U.S. Constitution and my amendment, he must first come to Congress. Some will try and argue that this would tie the hands of the President and the Pentagon and the CIA when it comes down to tracking down al Qaeda. My amendment would not impact the government's ability to hunt, apprehend or kill members of al Qaeda. On September 18, Congress adopted a broad authorization of force that says the President is authorized to use all necessary appropriate force against nations, organizations, and persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, aided the terrorist attacks, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons. Referring back to the preceding list of countries, if the President could demonstrate that any of them were involved in 9/11, he would not need further authorization from Congress. Nor would my amendment impact on our ongoing military operations in Iraq. On October 16, 2002, Congress authorized those actions under the United States Constitution. Further, there are those who would say what about covert activities? It is important to note that title 50, United States Code, section 413, already provides Congressional authorization pursuant to amendments in 1980 to the National Security Act of 1947, for the President to authorize covert operations under certain circumstances on behalf of the United States. In other words, if my amendment passes, the President will still have all of the authorization from Congress he needs to actively pursue al Qaeda operations in Iraq and other terrorist activities around the globe. The amendment simply seeks to reinforce war powers granted solely to Congress under the U.S. Constitution to ensure the President cannot launch a major war against Iran, Syria, North Korea or any other nation without a vote from Congress. Some will say, Is that really necessary? On April 18, 2002, in response to a letter I and other Members sent to the President about the need to authorize the war with Iraq, I received a letter from then- White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez, now Attorney General. Mr. Gonzalez stated that the President has broad Constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief, and as the sole organ of the Federal Government in foreign affairs to deploy the Armed Forces of the United States, a formal declaration of war or other authorization from the Congress is not required to enable the President to undertake the full range of actions that may be necessary to protect our national security. That is an extraordinarily broad assertion not supported by a President after more than 200 years of interpretation of the Constitution. So I feel my amendment, as narrow as it is, is necessary to protect the war powers separation of the President as the Commander-in-Chief. The Congress of the United States has the sole authority to declare war, except in case of sudden attack upon the United States, its citizens, or armed forces. Ample opportunity exists for the President to continue to pursue al Qaeda and others and the war in Iraq under this amendment. I urge my colleagues, if they support that interpretation of the Constitution, which is broadly acknowledged by most legal scholars, except Mr. Gonzalez, and I do not know if he is a legal scholar, and would uphold our authority.

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

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, a large majority of Members of the United States House of Representatives voted on October 14, 2002, to allow the President to wage war, probably an extra-constitutional delegation of authority. There was no direct declaration of war, yet it was authorized under the War Powers Act by this body, so a great deal of the responsibility lies here. The rationale at the time that was frequently mentioned in the weeks leading up to the vote was the potential for mushroom clouds, as mentioned by Ms. Rice, Mr. Cheney, President Bush and others very prominently just before the vote in the House, just before an election, when Members felt great pressure. There was a lot of talk about the delivery system of Saddam Hussein for his widely believed-to-be- extensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and links to al Qaeda. Now, I attended the briefings, saw the thin gruel that was presented to Members, and I certainly was not convinced, but I am sure many others were, particularly with a picture of a UAV, which looked like something that could not fly. It had aluminum patches riveted on it and it clearly could not carry anything. It seemed the Air Force guy giving the briefing did not think much of it either. Be that as it may, a large majority of this House bought into that rationale and authorized the President to go to war. Subsequent to that, revelations about ``yellow cake'' and Niger and uranium and the potential for nuclear threat was totally dispelled shortly, well, actually internally in the administration before the President used it in the State of the Union, but publicly after that. So much had been dispelled that on February 5, 2003, I introduced a resolution suggesting that Members of Congress had been misled, had not had good information, and should reconsider this extraordinary delegation of war-making authority to the President. The Congress failed to act, and we know what proceeded from then. But now, I would believe that a majority of the Members, not just those of us who opposed the war or some who now feel that they should not have supported the war, but a large majority, would want to have a full investigation of how this happened. How did this all happen? Was it the result of a massive failure of intelligence? If so, then why did the President pin the highest civilian honor, the Medal of Honor, on George Tenet, the head of the CIA who is now an expensive consultant and living in luxury. If he was responsible, then maybe he should suffer some consequences. Well, that did not happen, but they want to blame the intelligence agencies. Now, is it all the intelligence agencies? Is it one intelligence agency? Is it because of total misinterpretation and incompetence by the administration, or was it selective use, cherry- picking of intelligence, or was it something even worse, deliberate manipulation? We do not know. We simply do not know. The Senate held one set of hearings on the failure of intelligence. They promised that after the election they would hold yet another set and reveal a report on the use of the intelligence. They are now refusing to do that with an emboldened and enlarged Republican membership. So we do not know. The American people do not know. Something that is costing $1 billion a day, almost 1,800 American lives, more than 10,000 wounded, and we do not know exactly why this administration took us to war and under what auspices they took us to war. Now we have a memo, the so-called secret Downing Street Memo from British intelligence, saying that as early as July 2002 that many of these facts were known. Now, a number of us were disturbed by that and we wrote to the President on May 5. Mr. Speaker, 122 Members have now signed that letter. The President has not even acknowledged the letter from 122 duly elected representatives of the United States House of Representatives. He should answer that letter. But, better still, the majority should stop stonewalling an investigation. If this was all very innocent or if it was just the incompetence of the intelligence agencies, then let us find those who were responsible. If it is something else, let us find those who were responsible. You should not stonewall this important information, so that we can learn from our mistakes and move forward with more confidence in the Congress and the administration when it might come to future threats against the United States of America. Now, yesterday, we were sent to the basement, led by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), because we were told there were no rooms available to hold a hearing on this memo and these issues. Unfortunately, it turned out that all of the rooms in that vicinity, which were much larger, were vacant, as were many other hearing rooms. This Republican leadership should have a full and fair and nonpartisan investigation of how America was led to war.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it has been a little over a year since the Bush administration secretly negotiated a trade agreement called CAFTA, and we had heard that they were going to bring it before the Congress before the Memorial Day break. Of course, that did not happen, and now it appears it will not happen before the Independence Day break because they simply have not been able to twist enough arms to get enough Members of Congress to vote against the interest of the American economy, the American workers and their own constituents. This is potentially a turning point in trade policy for the United States. The statistics are staggering. Last month we recorded a $56.96 billion trade deficit; that is, that we borrowed almost $2 billion a day from foreign interests, foreign governments, in the case of China, to finance consumption of goods produced overseas often with U.S. capital, often by jobs that were formerly filled by Americans here in the United States of America. Now, if you use the broadest measure of the Department of Commerce, that means that is about 7 million jobs; that sort of a trade deficit on an annual basis means a loss of 7 million jobs. It means the undermining of our industrial base. And increasingly, it means the loss of some of our most sophisticated, highest-technology jobs and manufacturing in the United States of America. This is simply not a sustainable policy, but the reaction of this administration is this is working exactly as planned. It is making a few multinational corporations and a few others very wealthy. So what if we have lost millions of jobs? So what if the United States of America is going in hock to China and Japan and other countries? They think it is working just fine, exactly as intended, so-called free trade. So they want to extend our failed NAFTA agreement, which has contributed mightily to this deficit, the agreement with Mexico and Canada which promised to bring 800,000 jobs to the United States and instead caused us to lose a million jobs, mostly to Mexico. They want to extend that throughout Central America so that some companies might not have to go as far as China to find exploitable labor who will work for $0.25 an hour or less, oppressed by the governments, not allowed to organize, working in unsafe conditions. But until now, Congress is holding firm, and that is good news. And the American people should be contacting their Representatives and their Senators. I was very disappointed to see both Senators from my State, a State which has lost a lot of jobs because of NAFTA and these free trade policies, vote to endorse a continuation or acceleration of these failed policies in committee in the Senate just yesterday. But they are not listening to the people of Oregon and the people of America. I am, and a majority of House is today. So let us make them continue to listen, let us continue to speak out, and let us break the cycle of failed trade policies and begin to work for trade policy that brings and keeps quality jobs, manufacturing jobs, high-technology jobs, high-paying jobs, jobs with good benefits home here in the United States of America.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, are we for States rights or not? I often hear from that side of the aisle we are for States rights. I guess we are for States rights until we disagree with policies adopted by a State. My State and nine other States have by large margins adopted the right of people in a regulated way through physician prescription to receive medical marijuana for certain conditions for which there are few other effective or no other effective treatments. Plain and simple. It is not about legalization. You say, well, do not cripple law enforcement. Do we want to divert our limited law enforcement resources, who cannot give me a permanent DEA agent to help with the meth epidemic in the rural areas of any district, into chasing around old, sick people growing marijuana? I do not think so. That is not helping law enforcement with their mission. Let us focus them on things that are a real threat to the American people, not on issues that have been decided by the people of the various States that this is something that should be made available in a compassionate way to help a few people.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, the economic disaster wrought by a radical free trade policy on the working people of America is well documented, but I am going to focus on another aspect of this WTO agreement that the previous gentleman spoke about. He said that the secretive dispute resolution panel, which has no conflict-of-interest rules, does not allow outside interveners, only allows the two representative governments into the room, and deliberates secretly and comes up with a binding, a binding, decision and cannot change U.S. laws. Now, I raised this issue with the Clinton administration when they negotiated this misbegotten agreement; and I said, How can you enter us into an agreement where secretive panels can preempt our laws? They said, oh, you do not understand, you are wrong, just like the gentleman before me. Yes, it is technically true, they cannot reach into the United States and change a law. We can, if they find our rule to be non-WTO compliant, which they have more than 90 percent of the time when complaints are brought against the United States of America, we have an option. We can repeal the law, or we can pay a fine to keep it, a huge fine, in many cases. So environmental protection, consumer protection, buy America, buy Oregon, buy your State, all of those things, we can have those laws. That is right. He is technically right. We just have to pay massive penalties to foreign governments to keep them. This is an extraordinary undermining of the sovereignty of the United States of America and the interests of the American people. This is not about free trade; this is about corporate-managed trade through a secretive body which is dominated by those very same corporations and many dictatorial governments around the world; and the U.S. is bound by their secretive decisions. This is absolutely outrageous. To date, the WTO has ruled U.S. policies illegal 42 out of 48 cases, 85.7 percent that has been brought against us. They ruled illegal regulation issued under the Clean Air Act; the United States Tax Code; laws to protect companies from unfair dumping or subsidized foreign products, among others. And it is true. We can keep those laws if we are willing to pay massive fines to keep them. Now, what kind of sovereignty is that? Next in their sights are buy America laws, those referenced by the gentleman from the Carolinas. What he said is he does not want to see a Social Security program administered from China. Now, people would have thought that was a weird thing to say. No. The WTO requires we cannot discriminate in terms of who the vendors will be. In fact, homeland security can be provided by the Chinese, or maybe even by Iran, under the rules of the WTO. Will that not be just peachy? This is an extraordinarily radical agreement which we do not need. The U.S. did just fine as the greatest trading Nation in the world with bilateral agreements. We can go back to that system, and we can do better than we are doing under this so-called rules-based system.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I thank the ranking member for his leadership on this issue, and I thank the chairman for his leadership. I know that were we acting independently as a committee to formulate the legislation and set the surface transportation policy for the United States of America, the bill would be much more robust than what is before us today. But we have to deal with the facts that are before us. We are 20 months overdue on a surface transportation reauthorization. We have extended the old transportation bill seven times at lower levels of funding than under any scenario of bill that will come out of any conference with the House and the Senate. That means that projects have been foregone, investments have not been made, jobs have not been created. As the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) point out, people are sitting in traffic. We are not keeping up with demand; we are not keeping up with maintenance as we should. For every billion dollars we invest, now, remember, we are borrowing a pile of money to run this government, $1.3 million a minute to run the government. Some of it goes to pay people, not to grow things. Some of it goes to other programs of dubious value. But for this program, for surface transportation, for highways, for roads, for bridges, for mass transit, we are not borrowing the money. The American people have already paid the tax. It is sitting there waiting to be spent, spent productively, putting people to work, and moving us more efficiently and moving goods more efficiently. We should not forego that. A billion dollars, 47,000 jobs are created or sustained for every billion-dollar investment; $6.1 billion in additional economic activity; 32 percent of our major roads are in poor or mediocre condition; 28 percent of bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete; 36 percent of the Nation's urban rail vehicles and maintenance facilities, 29 percent of the Nation's bus fleet and maintenance facilities are in substandard or poor condition. My State alone, the little State of Oregon, has a $4.7 billion interstate, not intrastate, interstate bridge problem. The interstate that connects Canada, the United States and Mexico; California, Oregon, and Washington, $4.7 billion. Our neighbors to the north in Washington State have one problem, a viaduct problem in Seattle, an incredible safety issue on an incredible choke point and problem. That is $1.5 billion for that one project. And so it is across the country. Member after Member can come forward and enumerate these projects that are necessary, needed investments. We need the most robust bill possible. I am hopeful that this is the last extension. I am hopeful this will be a conference that comes to a positive conclusion. We can get this done before the end of June with a sense of urgency and with the leadership of these two gentlemen.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time. I am pleased that we finally have a bill out of the Senate, and I am pleased that we are going to move forward to conference. At this point, given the tardy adoption of the legislation by the Senate, it is necessary that we have, hopefully, one last, final, temporary, 30-day extension. We are now 20 months overdue on this essential piece of legislation. This is a bill that, if adequately funded, could provide tens of thousands of jobs, putting Americans to work at projects that are needed to improve the transportation infrastructure, failing bridges, roads, highways, congestion management, mass transit; to more efficiently move people to work, from work, about in their daily lives; to move goods to firms for just-in-time delivery. It could be a real boost for an economy that, in my opinion, is still sputtering, and dependent upon too much borrowing and not enough real investment. This is real investment. This is money we do not have to borrow. We are borrowing $1.3 million a minute to run the government. We do not have to borrow a single penny to build and rebuild these roads, bridges, and highways and move Americans more efficiently about the country. I have a letter from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and I think they have said it well: ``An uncertain funding stream has forced the States to slow down planning and design and to delay construction of critically needed highway and transit projects. Further delay in enacting a reauthorization bill continues to reduce the purchasing power of Federal transportation dollars and increase the costs of projects.'' I think that says it well. So we should act with all dispatch to move forward to conference and resolve the differences between the House and Senate, and adopt the most robust funding level possible, perhaps even having to challenge the White House on the numbers where they have drawn a line in the sand. I have tremendous confidence in our chairman of the committee and of the conference, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), and I know that the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), of vast experience in a number of past reauthorizations, will lend all the support he can from our side of the aisle, and I will back him up as best as I can. We need to adopt a permanent surface transportation reauthorization before or by the end of this next extension.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, next Monday is Memorial Day. And tonight, in my opinion, a majority in the House of Representatives besmirched that day. A majority, a partisan majority, on a near party-line vote, rejected the idea that our National Guard troops deserve health insurance while they are serving our country. They said, oh, they get it 90 days before they are deployed. Yet many Guard members fail to qualify for deployment because of existing and pre-existing medical problems. They get it for 180 days after they come back. That should be enough. The chairman of the committee said something extraordinary. He said, oh, they have all got health insurance at their jobs. What jobs? 50 percent of my Guard unit that just came back from Iraq do not have jobs, and they have a very limited health insurance that is going to run out pretty darn soon because of that vote tonight. Now, they are probably going to go back next year to Afghanistan. But in the interim, we cannot afford health insurance for those young men and women and their families. That is extraordinary to me. The chairman talked eloquently about 16-year-old helicopters. We need to replace them. What about the 22-year-old Guardsman who does not have a job, just came back from Iraq, whose health insurance is going to expire this summer, who has a wife and a kid and a not really great economy in Oregon and cannot get health insurance through our State because of cutbacks in Medicaid? But we are going to ask him to go back to Afghanistan next year. What is that all about? We cannot afford health insurance for that young family? We have to buy some new helicopters. Those helicopters are junk without the Guardsmen and the Guardswomen and the regular Army and the Marines, the people who make them work. It does not matter if they are 1 month old, 1 year old, 16 years old. Without those dedicated troops, those helicopters cannot fly. It is unbelievable to me that the chairman of the committee would force Members of his own party to follow him in this vote. Fifty percent of my Guardsmen are unemployed. Fifty percent have just returned from Iraq to no job. They do not have insurance. And of the 50 percent that have jobs, despite the chairman's statement, most of those people do not have health insurance either, like so many Americans who work full-time and do not have health insurance. And we are worried about Guard retention. They are going to have fabulous new bonuses to try and get people to enlist or re-up. How about basics? Basics? Health insurance for those Guardsmen and -women and their families; the same education benefits that people on active duty get. We are using our Guardmembers indistinguishably from the active duty Army. Indistinguishably. They are performing special operations. They are doing all the same things we ask the regular Army to do. But they do not get the same education benefits. They do not get the same health benefits. They do not get the same retirement benefits, and many times they do not even get the same equipment. They are put in harm's way with inadequate equipment. It is a disgrace to this House that we were told we cannot afford to add one-quarter of 1 percent. That is about 18 hours' spending out of a year to the military budget in order to provide permanent health insurance for everybody who is still active in a Guard unit in this country. Hopefully, the Senate will act with more wisdom and force a reversal here. I am proud to have voted with our Guardsmen and -women, and I am proud to have stood up with them and said they deserve better and our country recognizes their service and they recognize it by extending adequate benefits including health care, particularly as we come up to Memorial Day. So those who voted against it, I hope they are asked on Memorial Day, why did you vote against giving me health insurance? Because there are an awful lot of Guardsmen and -women who would like to know the answer to that question.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, not too long ago we passed the so-called energy bill here in the House, and tonight we passed the Energy and Water Development appropriations bill. The question that the American people should ask as we head into the Memorial Day weekend is, what has the Republican Congress done to rein in price gouging by the oil industry and the OPEC oil cartel? The answer, if you look at these two bills, is: Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip. If you would listen to the Republican President from the oil industry, the Republican Vice President rich from the oil industry, and the Republican Congress replete with donations from the oil industry, they are powerless in the face of so-called market forces to do anything about the price gouging of the American people. Now, if this were really just supply and demand, maybe, maybe you could understand that. But it is a little more than that. The OPEC oil cartel conspires to restrict supply and drive up the price of oil in violation of all the so-called free trade agreements that this Republican Congress and this Republican President say should rule the world. The World Trade Organization, well, I have asked this President four times now in writing to file a complaint about this illegal activity by the OPEC cartel. It violates the rules of the World Trade Organization, of which this President is such a great fan. Now, why will he not file a complaint? Of seven of the OPEC cartel, six are in the World Trade Organization and one wants to join. Tremendous leverage. File a complaint about their illegal activity. Save the American people from cartels that price-gouge them. But, no, the President will not do that. Why is that? It is because the oil companies, from which the President has sprung forth, and the Vice President make a lot of money on this. Every time the oil cartels raise the price about two bucks a barrel, well, they take that plus another 10 percent for profit. So the higher the price, the bigger their profit. If you look at the quarterly statements of the largest oil companies in the world, ExxonMobil and others, they are awash in tens of billions of dollars of cash extracted 10, 20, 30 cents at a time in excess profits from the American people at the pump. Now, this is hurting real people. But this administration says they are powerless. This Republican Congress says they are powerless. They cannot take on the OPEC cartel. They cannot take on the price-gouging oil industry. They pass so-called energy legislation that says maybe 10, 12, 15 years from now, if there is any oil in ANWR, and if we can pump it, and if they do not take too big of a markup or price gouge on that, it will provide some price relief. That is their answer. Today, in this bill there was nothing. They could not even adopt the minimalist study of what the OPEC cartel is doing to the American people. That was not allowed by the Republican majority. And they certainly could not allow the amendment that would stop the United States Government from buying from the oil companies at this extortionate price and pumping that oil into the ground for a future crisis. This is a crisis now, today, for working American men and women, people who have to commute to work in my district by car. Small businesses across this country and big businesses and the airlines are going broke. But this administration says they are powerless, they can do nothing. Well, guess what? The United States of America can do better, but we just have to get rid of the oil cartel. Not the OPEC oil cartel, but the oil cartel running the United States Congress and the White House and the Vice President's office.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, last weekend I traveled back to Oregon, as I frequently do, and participated in an Armed Forces Day parade in Cottage Grove, Oregon. The particular focus this year was the return from Iraq of the 2162nd, a National Guard unit which is based in Cottage Grove, in the last 60 days. There was a good turnout among members of the community. Of course, we are looking forward next week to Memorial Day, which will be a sober event, as we will honor some of those who have recently lost their lives in service to our Nation. But one thing stands out in both of these celebrations and that is that there is tremendous support for our troops in uniform, but that support somehow is not getting translated in many ways into policy here in Washington, D.C., in the budgets proposed by the President that relate to offset of benefits for disabled veterans, a disabled veterans tax, that relate to other services for veterans or equity in benefits for the National Guard. Today, as I got to the plane, I saw an article ``Dental Problems Stymie Guard Call-ups.'' This particular article was about the National Guard in Washington State where 30 percent of the 4,500 called up were ineligible for active duty because of dental problems, 20 percent nationally. I do not know the percentage for Oregon; I have not seen it. But when I was meeting with members of the 2162nd, when they were down in Fort Hood prior to their deployment to Iraq, and the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Hooley) and I were meeting with them, this one fellow in the front says, I have a problem, Congressman; I would like you to try and help me out here. He opens up his mouth really wide and he is missing a couple of front teeth. I said, What is going on there? He said, I had two bad teeth. I went to my predeployment physical. They said, You have those bad teeth; we have to take care of them. So they yanked his teeth out and sent him to Fort Hood. But at Fort Hood they said, You are not active duty military. We are not going to take care of your problem. You go to the end of the line and you will be in Iraq before we get around to it. So he was going to go home to Oregon on his leave before he left to try to get false teeth inserted so he would not spend a year in Iraq with a big gap in his front teeth. We need equity in benefits and better benefits for our Guard members. We are treating the National Guard indistinguishable from active duty forces, yet they still often suffer in terms of equipment and they definitely suffer in terms of equity of benefits, health coverage for our Guard members before they are activated. All Guard members should receive health benefits during their service in the Guard. That means they will be ready to defend the country at the drop of a hat. They are ready to deploy. But it also is a good way to induce and recognize the service of these people in our National Guard. This morning when I got to the plane there was another Guard member there from Kingsley Air Force Base who does military police work, on his way to a conference. And he and I got in a little chat and we were talking about the proposed base closure in Portland. Then he said, When are we going to get recognition on our retirement benefits. The fact that Guard members have a set age instead of a set number of years of service, they are discriminated against. Education benefits, they are discriminated against. Active duty military soldiers serve in Iraq, come back, leave the military, can get education benefits. National Guard soldiers serve in Iraq, come back having finished their contract in their term, want to get education benefits. No. They have to sign up for another term in the Guard. But the active duty soldier did nothing to earn those benefits. We need equity in education benefits. We need better health care benefits. We need better pension benefits. We have to begin treating our National Guard members like the essential component they are of the Nation's national defense today. They are not an afterthought. They are the front line as much as the active duty military. And there can be no more fitting recognition by this House of Representatives coming up to Memorial Day, in the wake of Armed Forces Day, than to deliver on those changes in benefits and those improvements for our Guard soldiers and to better deliver veterans benefits for all of our Nation's veterans so that Lincoln's words do not become a hollow promise. We will take care of our veterans. We can afford it in the greatest Nation on earth, and we should make good those promises before Memorial Day.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I have always been a strong supporter of funding for arts programs and will continue to be. The arts community in my district is vibrant, and funding for the National Endowment for the Arts is an invaluable part of education and social enrichment throughout Oregon. I was pleased to see the amendment offered by Congresswoman Slaughter and Ranking Member Dicks, which would increase funding for the NEA, approved by a voice vote. But we have an unresolved crisis on our public lands that needs to be addressed. A lot of members would probably like to believe that by passing the Healthy Forests restoration Act, Congress solved the forest health and hazardous fuel build-up problem. Nothing could be further from the truth. I fought hard to get funding for fuel reduction projects included as part of HFRA. That bill eventually authorized $760 million annually for critical fuel reduction, but Congress hasn't even begun to approach that commitment as evidenced by the appropriations bill we're considering today. This Interior bill contains $211 million in hazardous fuel reduction for the Bureau of Land Management and $286 million for the Forest Service. That's an increase of $9.8 million and $23.5 million respectively. I very much appreciate the Chairman and Ranking Member for including these increases in the bill, but they fall far short of what is needed to reduce hazardous fuel and the yearly threat of wildfire throughout the West. The GAO recently stated that at these anemic spending levels we will continue to fall further and further behind. The GAO says that if we doubled the funding for fuel reduction, we would only stay even with the problem. Earlier this year when the agency testified before the Forests Subcommittee on which I serve, they said we would need to triple the funding for fuel reduction if we wish to begin to address the build-up of dangerous trees and shrubs in our national forests. If we tripled the overall funding, more than 60 percent of that money could be spent under the expedited environmental analysis and judicial review authorized by HFRA, instead of using budget gimmicks to only claim that we are fully funding that important law. But the administration thus far has used that authority on less than 10 percent of projects. And the vast majority of those projects are simply burning rangeland, which does virtually nothing to improve forest health and reduce wildfire risk. The bottom line is that we are not even beginning to address the fuel build-up problem on forested federal land and we won't start with this bill. We gave them the authority to get more done in an expedited way, now let's give them the money necessary to do it. The administration plans to treat only about 1 percent of the acres that they claim are in need of fuel reduction. The money in the amendment offered by Mr. Beauprez would be small compared to the need, but every additional dollar helps. This amendment would allow them to do 60,000 more acres of fuel reduction next year. And not of only burning sagebrush, but actually treating 60,000 more acres of forested lands which are overstocked tinder boxes that could result in catastrophic fires and threaten our communities. Congress needs to get serious about funding hazardous fuel reduction projects and fullfil the commitment made when it passed HFRA. This amendment would be a small but important step toward that goal and I urge its adoption.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it has been nearly a year since the President signed the secretly negotiated CAFTA agreement and has begun the process to bring it forward to the House for an up-or-down vote. No amendments allowed. It is a perfect agreement, of course. It is only perfect in that it mirrors all of our most recent failed trade agreements, such as its predecessor, NAFTA. Some would say this is about helping the American economy, putting Americans to work, to help our exporters. That is what they said about NAFTA. And it turned out that the people of Mexico, the aggregate buying power of everybody in Mexico who spent every peso on American goods was slightly less than the State of New Jersey. It was never about the purchasing power of the people of Mexico and the idea that somehow they were going to buy American goods and put Americans to work here at home. It was always about United States capital, multinational corporations, chasing cheaper labor into Mexico and now further into Latin America; chasing lack of environmental standards and enforcement into Mexico, particularly the maquiladora area, which is a total environmental nightmare, further into Latin America; in chase of the lowest standards, the lowest common denominator, the most abused labor. And that is what CAFTA is all about. It mirrors the NAFTA agreement. Like the NAFTA agreement, it will deliver the same thing. They told us we would gain 140,000 jobs with NAFTA. Well, we lost close to half a million jobs because of NAFTA. CAFTA will be the same. When we are doing something that is failing the Nation and the Nation's workers and driving down wages here at home and trying to pull down our standards of consumer protection, environmental protection, labor standards, then maybe it is time to think about doing something different, and perhaps the House of Representatives is on the verge of doing that. Perhaps they are beginning to listen to the large majority of the American people. We are going to run a trade deficit this year of $2 billion a day. Every billion dollars represents tens of thousands of lost jobs, the export of our industrial base, and, now, the export of our knowledge base. We cannot continue these same failed policies as the President would have us do. I have heard that they have begun the purchasing phase of the CAFTA agreement. Now, most Americans would wonder, what is the purchasing phase? Well, they have tried the strong-arm phase for the last year. They still do not have enough votes to jam another failed trade agreement through the United States House of Representatives. So I am told by friends on the other side of the aisle that they are about to begin the purchasing phase. The White House is open for business. What do you need? How much does it cost? What can we do for you? It is not any argument that this is somehow going to deal with our trade deficit, help raise wages here at home, help provide jobs here at home; it is all about what deal can we cut for you so these same multinational corporations can continue to move jobs offshore, and, in this case, a little closer to home. Perhaps they could avoid some of the transport costs from China or India where they have sent many of our other jobs, or Vietnam, and they can find almost as exploitable and cheap labor in Central America. The combined buying power of these five nations is less than four days' purchasing power of the United States of America. If every person in these affected nations spent every cent they earned in the next year, it would be totally insignificant to the American economy; and, obviously, they are not going to do that. So it is very much the same as NAFTA: it is to move our plants, our equipment, some workers have even been made to package up their machines and train their replacements in the case of NAFTA, and they will be doing the same thing under CAFTA. Mr. Speaker, it is time for a major change in policy. It is time for a policy that brings jobs home to America, that puts people at work here in America, that helps maintain wages in our country, and helps bring people overseas up to our standards instead of trying to drag the American people down to the lowest common denominator. I hope that Members, particularly on the other side of the aisle, will not be bought by the White House in this debate and they will vote in the interests of the people who sent them here to Washington, DC.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member on the Committee on Homeland Security.

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment which I am offering with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) of the Subcommittee on Aviation would make a good program even better, the Federal flight deck officer program, the last line of defense on the plane. Arming the pilots on the flight deck makes a tremendous amount of sense. There cannot be an air marshal on every plane, planes lack secondary barriers, and on longer flights pilots have to frequently open the door to receive food or use the facilities. If a terrorist attack or attempt should occur, knowing that the pilots are armed could provide the critical thing to save the passengers on that flight. This amendment has the strong support of the Airline Pilots Association--I have a letter here--the National Rifle Association and others. This would make a number of changes. They would be issued badges which they do not currently have and they sometimes have a hard time convincing people they are authorized to have a gun and they are a Federal law enforcement officer for purposes of aviation. It would give them an appeals process for revocation of their certification. It would look toward making the training more accessible for people, particularly the recertification, although the facility we are using now is an excellent facility but we want to be certain that because of distance or time that more pilots are not precluded from becoming volunteers and providing this critical defense. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica).

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

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from New York for yielding me the time. I also thank the Committee on Rules for making in order an amendment by myself and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) that will help perfect the Federal flight deck officer program. Many, many pilots are willing to volunteer to undergo rigorous training to certify themselves as Federal flight deck officers to become the last line of defense on our planes. There cannot be an air marshal on every plane. We still do not have secondary barriers in the planes. There are times when the flight deck door is open. There are ongoing threats. It is essential to improve that program and I am hopeful Members will look favorably upon that amendment later today. With that said, I wish that the rule was more inclusive. My colleague, the ranking Democrat on the Subcommittee on Aviation, wanted to offer an amendment to mandate that the taxes we are collecting from the traveling public to pay for enhanced security at the airports; that is, to put in-line explosives detection systems at airports that do not have it across America to find explosives in checked bags, and possibly that same equipment could be used for cargo on those planes, was not allowed. It is unfortunate. Most Americans are under the impression that all of their baggage is being screened. It is not being effectively screened. Some of it is being hand searched. Some of it is being trace searched. Some of it is being looked at. Some of it is being loaded on the plane. And some of it is going through very sophisticated in-line explosives detection systems, and we have the numbers. Where those systems exist, we can find threat objects, explosives a very, very high percentage of the time. Where those systems do not exist, there is a very disturbing lack of detection of test objects, threat objects, explosives. We also have a huge and gaping hole at the passenger checkpoint. The last wakeup call we are probably ever going to get before the day when planes start falling out of the sky was in Russia where two terrorists, women, boarded planes with explosives, we do not know exactly whether they were in their carry-on bags or whether they were wearing suicide belts, but here in the United States of America we are doing nothing to find suicide belts or explosives in bags. We are still using 1980s technology at the checkpoints, technology that was thrown out of the United States Capitol more than a decade ago as inadequate to the threat, thrown out of the White House and other places. Yet aviation was attacked and aviation in Russia was attacked by what I think, as does the chairman of the committee, is the most likely future threat, which is explosives. We need to move ahead with more robust acquisition of that equipment in the near future and this bill does not mandate that. I would congratulate the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) for the first ever authorization. It is a good first start. Remember, the Homeland Security Department started out of chaos. The President refused to create a homeland security Cabinet-level position or department until one day when an FBI agent was spilling her guts here in Washington, D.C., to a committee and Karl Rove wrote out the plan on the back of a napkin. Congress is just starting to make sense of what the Department of Homeland Security will be in the future.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, this Homeland Security appropriation falls short in many areas: port security, first responders, interoperable communications, and aviation. In aviation, recent tests by the Inspector General and the GAO show that there are unacceptable, continuing vulnerabilities to our system of aviation, and their conclusion is simple: the performance of finding explosives and other threat objects will not improve until we give the screeners 21st-century technology to fight 21st-century threats. The junk they are working with was thrown out a decade ago because it was inadequate for the United States Capitol before 9/11, but we are still using it in our airports and demanding they find threat objects that the machines simply cannot find. The Subcommittee on Homeland Security of the Committee on Appropriations is failing the test too. They are failing to protect the American traveling public.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, finally, blatantly, 18\1/2\ months after the expiration of the Surface Transportation Act which provides crucial funding for all of the road, bridge, highway mass transit and related work of the Federal Government, spending our gas taxes which are collected day in and day out and being underspent by this administration, the Senate acted to increase funding. Strangely, this is the one bill, the only place that George Bush in over 5 years in office has said he is going to veto a bill if it spends more money. Now, he will not do that for agriculture subsidies to pay big corporate farms not to pay things. He wanted to cut their subsidies, but the Republicans have refused to do it, and he is not threatening to veto that bill. He is not threatening to veto bills that are doing wasteful things like the Star Wars Project in Alaska that does not work, has not met a single parameter of its goal. He cannot threaten vetoes there. But when it is spending our gas tax money, this is the only bill where we are in the borrowing money. We are borrowing $1.3 million a minute to run the Federal Government under the Bush budget, but we do not have to borrow money to have a robust highway bill. We just need to spend the taxes we are all paying every time we tank up our car or truck. This is money that will put people to work. This is money that will maintain and improve our crumbling infrastructure. It will help mitigate congestion, people sitting in traffic, idling, wasting gas, wasting their time. It could better fund mass transit, alternate transportation, all these things; but somehow the President has drawn the line in the sand. He said last year, not a penny over $256 billion. He wants to underspend the trust fund so he can borrow that money to pay for tax cuts for rich people. Plain and simple. That is what he wants to do with our gas tax money. We pay money at the pump to improve our roads, bridges, and highways. We have to pay it right there at the pump. He wants to underspend that trust fund, and then he wants to take and divert that money over here to give rich people tax cuts. Now, is that a better way to stimulate the economy of the United States, to improve the business climate, to help the traveling public? I do not think so. It might help them pay for their corporate jets, but it is not going to help the rest of us who are down there mired in traffic. So the Senate voted yesterday 76 to 22 to increase funding substantially above the levels the President says he will veto. Well, an override of a veto is 66 votes in the United States Senate. Maybe this will send a message that we have been trying to send to the White House for 2 years. There is a huge bipartisan coalition, Republican and Democrat in the House and the Senate, who want to invest in our roads, bridges, highways, mass transit, alternative transportation, put Americans to work, help Americans get to work, and help improve the efficiency of our business. Hopefully, they will change their tone down at the White House and stop threatening to veto needed investment. The President's own Department of Transportation, the people he politically appointed and controls, says this bill should be $376 billion. And the President says not a penny over 256. Now he has come up a little bit to the House level of 284, but that is not adequate to meet the needs of the system. And the Senate wants to spend more of our gas tax dollars on what they were collected for, projects to rebuild and improve the efficiency of the Nation's infrastructure. So I take this as a very positive move. Hopefully, the Republican leadership can move with dispatch to have a conference committee and get a bill done by May 31. That is when the fifth extension of the long-expired highway bill expires. Because if we do not, hundreds of projects across America will not get built this summer, those jobs will not be created, those bottlenecks will not be solved, those bridges will not be repaired, the traveling public will be impaired. The White House will be happy with that because then they get to take more money, divert it from the gas tax, and spend it on more tax cuts for rich people. But I do not think the rest of America will be amused by that. So I am hoping the American public will demand that Congress act quickly to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate and get a bill now 18 months overdue to the President's desk. And if he chooses to veto it, then pressure the Congress to override that ill- intentioned veto. Let him veto something wasteful. Let him veto something that we are borrowing money to pay for, but do not veto a paid-for highway bill with vital investment in America's transportation future.

Mr. DeFAZIO

Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, I want to comment briefly on the $82 billion spending bill that will be approved today for the ongoing U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. I will support this bill. I am pleased it includes additional money for body armor and armored vehicles for our troops. It includes money to purchase bomb-jamming devices to protect our troops from roadside bombs. I also support the improved life insurance death benefits for military personnel and their families. And, I am hopeful that the additional funds that are in the bill to train and equip security forces in Iraq all Afghanistan will be expeditious and well spent. This money is critical if Afghan and Iraqi forces are to take over security duties from American troops, which will allow our men and women to finally come home. I have called for negotiating a timeline for the withdrawal of American troops with the new Iraqi government, hopefully to be completed within the year. But, for that to become a reality, well-equipped and competent security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan must be prepared to take our place. This bill will help achieve that goal. I am also pleased that the final bill retained language inserted in the Senate directing the President to include future requests to fund the U.S. presence in Iraq in his regular budget. We have been in Iraq for more than two years and in Afghanistan for more than three years. The fact that we still have troops in Iraq should not come as a surprise to the budget writers at the White House and the Pentagon. It is not appropriate to continue funding these long-term, ongoing operations via supplemental appropriations bills, which are considered outside of the normal budget procedures and restrictions. While I support the bill, I am outraged that, more than two years after the U. S. invaded Iraq, the Pentagon leadership has not gotten their act together to adequately protect our troops and to come up with a plan to get them home. As columnist Mark Shields pointed out late last year, in the three years immediately after Pearl Harbor, the United States produced the following to win World War II: 296,429 aircraft, 102,3351 tanks, 87,620 warships, and 2,455,694 trucks. At the time, the U.S. population was 132 million and the size of our economy was less than $100 billion. Yet, approaching three years into the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the United States, with a population of almost 300 million and defense spending of $500 billion a year, under the failed leadership of the Pentagon, only 6,000 of the nearly 20,000 Humvees in Iraq are factory armored versions and more than 8,000 of the 9,128 medium and heavy trucks used in Iraq are without armor. Despite repeated promises from the Pentagon leadership that the situation is getting better, a recent article in The New York Times showed that the emperor has no clothes. As the article details, one Marine Company has returned home to expose the reality of their tour in Iraq, ``one they say was punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but also by a shortage of men and planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and ruined the careers of some of their most competent warriors.'' I have heard similar stories from the Oregon National Guard members I have talked to. How did this happen? Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against our country; Congress has provided the Pentagon with $1.6 trillion--$167 billion in supplemental appropriations bills for fiscal years 2001-2005; and $1.45 trillion in regular defense appropriations for fiscal years 2002-2005. Today's bill will add $75 billion or so to the Pentagon budget. Given that level of funding, it is hard to understand why our troops continue to suffer shortages of critical equipment. It is hard to understand until you remember that Secretary Rumsfeld and the other civilian leaders at the Pentagon argued that our troops would be greeted in Iraq as liberators with flowers and candy, not the bullets and bombs that have led to more than 1,500 of our soldiers getting killed. Before, the invasion, the Pentagon planned to reduce our troop levels to 20,000-30,000 within a few weeks of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. The fact that 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq more than a year and a half after the war began shows how badly the Pentagon leadership miscalculated the post-war situation. Those miscalculations also led the Pentagon to vastly underestimate the equipment that our troops would need to survive and succeed in Iraq. First, the Pentagon leadership did not even order the necessary equipment like body armor, armored Humvees and bomb jamming devices. For example, under the Pentagon's original war plan, the Pentagon planned to have only 235 armored Humvees in Iraq for the 20,000 troops who would remain after overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Then, when it became clear that this equipment was necessary, the Pentagon did not procure it with any sense of urgency. As The New York Times article I mentioned above noted, ``The Army's procurement system, which also supplies the Marines, has come under fierce criticism for underperforming in the war, and to this day it has only one small contractor in Ohio armoring new Humvees.'' The performance of Secretary Rumsfeld and his senior leadership at the Pentagon has been a disgrace. Unfortunately, it is our troops who have had to pay the price.