Chaka Fattah

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. On behalf of our country, I attended the Healthy brain: healthy Europe conference in Ireland. The estimate in these 28 EU countries was that some 36 percent of the population had some type of mental health challenge, and they deal with it much more openly and without the stigma that sometimes we attach here in our country to mental health challenges. I want to thank my colleague from Pennsylvania for his extraordinary leadership on this issue, and I thank the gentlewoman for offering this. We will support this amendment and ask for a recorded vote.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with the chairman and his wisdom, and I would also ask my colleagues to support it. I have no objection.

Mr. FATTAH. I rise reluctantly in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, if the proposal would have been to put this money in the veterans courts or drug courts or youth mentoring, I probably wouldn't be standing; but the idea of putting it into savings when we know that the allocation is already shy of what we needed and that many programs that we have had to give shorter appropriations to than we would have otherwise makes me reluctant to support this amendment, and I would ask the House to oppose it. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the committee, over the time that I have been on the committee, each and every year has increased its appropriations to the FBI, and this year is no exception. The chairman, in his wisdom, working with a very tough allocation, has provided $8.5 billion--to be exact, $8.489 billion, which is a $111 million increase. I think that the gentleman, if his concern is about us providing adequate funding for the Bureau, can rest assured that the committee has taken every--they have taken that responsibility very seriously. If his concern or effort is to suggest that somehow pro bono lawyers are going to make up the difference for a cut at Legal Services, in a big city like Philadelphia, it may be so that we have law firms who can have pro bono partners who can spend their time helping people who are not going to be able to pay them, but in large swaths of our country, that is not the case. Legal Services was created and it helps people, many of whom are veterans, for instance, who are stationed far away from home, who have to fight off efforts by people who are trying to repossess a car or do something else nefarious. They need access to the courts. And so it was President Nixon who created Legal Services, understanding that one of the things about our country, it is a country of laws. People have to have access to the courts, and they need representation. So I think there is already a justice gap, that is the percentage of people eligible to the numbers who are actually able to be helped, and I think this would be unwise. I hope and I believe that this House will not support this amendment because it would be taking from people who need it the most when there is no definitive need for it in terms of where it is being allocated. Mr. Chairman, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee, Congressman Cohen, my colleague who represents the city of Memphis.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the spirit. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. FATTAH. I thank the chairman. Mr. Chairman, I don't want anyone to be confused here. On the floor, the chairman from the subcommittee and from the full committee has said--and I have said it--that we realize that the Legal Services Corporation and the shortfall needs to be addressed. I believe, before we pass a final bill, it will be addressed. There is no possibility that I am going to support a bill that has got $300 million funding for Legal Services Corporation. There is this notion of a $10 million increase on top of a $25 million cut. I don't want these votes to be viewed as some kind of ceiling for Legal Services, and I think we ought to be careful here to make sure, as the House is working through this, that we understand that the amount that the bill is at now is unacceptable. It has already been cut. Taking that cut and adding $10 million back to it is not a satisfactory response, notwithstanding the intentions of our colleague here. We want to address the bigger issue, which is the full funding for Legal Services. As we go forward in this effort, I want to make my intentions clear that I intend to fight to make sure that we live up to our commitment and our responsibilities in terms of fully funding Legal Services.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition, but I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I support the effort here to increase funding for a very important program that is addressing a major problem in our country. I divorce myself from the offset, not in terms of the actual offset, but in any criticism of the ATF. I think that they have some very brave, courageous Americans who are trying to make our country safer. I think in lieu of the balancing act here, I support the amendment, and I agree with it.

Mr. FATTAH. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. FATTAH. We are in agreement again, maybe coming to it from different angles, but the important thing is we are at a ``yes'' on this amendment. The way we all get to these points may be different. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. I visited at the ATF headquarters. In looking at their work particularly focused on explosives--and their new site in Alabama--looking at some of the work that they are doing around the country, it is so vitally important that I think at this time in our country's history for us to retreat from our commitment to this agency would be a very unfortunate and unwise decision. So I would hope that the House would vote in opposition to this amendment and make sure that as we go forward we can try to address whatever the concerns are. But cutting ATF by this amount of money would put so many Americans at risk, and I think it would be unwise.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. It was not long after 9/11 that we held a conversation here in Washington, and the former Speaker was on a panel over in Rayburn, I think. We were discussing this, and he said, well, this is the situation that we find ourselves in after these attacks. And I asked Speaker Gingrich at the time, former Speaker, this notion of us being a nation of laws, what did that mean now. Because under former President Bush, the original President Bush, he had complained about the Chinese holding people without trial. We had issued a formal complaint that the Chinese were holding people without trial, using secret evidence and so forth and so on, and what did this mean now in the context of our own country's conduct. Speaker Gingrich said that, well, he wasn't really sure because we are at a difficult moment. So now we are here. We have had two Presidents who tried to close Guantanamo. President Bush who opened it, and his second administration wanted to end it, and then we had two Presidential elections in which the country voted for Barack Obama, who said he wanted to close this facility. We have a congressional majority that is not going to do it, that is going to put every impediment in the way of doing it. We have our national security enterprise that says that this is used as a recruitment tool against our interests, that this is working against the security of the United States. And, more important than perhaps even that is, I am sure, gnaws at our ideals as Americans that you would take someone, hold them, never try them, never produce any evidence in a tribunal of any type, military or civilian, and say that you are going to do it in perpetuity, that this is not the great Nation that our ideal speaks to. This is the act of something less than what we should be doing as a great country. Mr. Chairman, I know that it is not popular and Mr. Nadler's amendment is not going to probably enjoy majority support, but at the end of the day, we can't just ask what is popular or what is politic. At some point, we have to ask ourselves what is the right thing. If we can complain about China holding people without charge, with secret evidence and no trial and no access to lawyers, then we have to think about looking in the mirror and think about what we have allowed other people's actions to turn our country into in this circumstance. So, Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Nadler amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, this is an appropriations bill. I just want everybody to know it is $2 million per inmate at Guantanamo. It is a premium facility, $2 million per inmate.

Mr. FATTAH. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FATTAH. I am very supportive of the Commercial Crew Program, and I think that there is a shortfall in that particular program. I think that is what the gentleman is referring to in his hope that we can address that shortfall so that we don't have to spend what has now been about $500 million with our Russian counterparts in order to transport astronauts to the International Space Station.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. FATTAH. Mr. Chairman, we spend a lot of time making something simple complex. The problem here is that, in a small nation, an island like Cuba, trying to discern whether somebody is related--a cousin, a nephew, a so-and-so who might work for some entity--is very problematic. What this restriction would basically mean is that you wouldn't be able to do any business. That is notwithstanding everything else, notwithstanding the failure of the last 50 years, notwithstanding the fact that everybody else in the world is doing business in Cuba, this language would prevent us from being able to do any business there because you would not be able to predetermine whether there was a blood connection between some person you were selling a cell phone to and someone who, at some point, was a grunt in the military. That is the issue. That is why we should support the Farr amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FATTAH. We had a big celebration at the Ben Franklin Institute in Philadelphia for electric cars, and there was such a variety of vehicles. Alternative fuels are important. I think that the gentleman's amendment is one that we have accepted in previous appropriation bills, and I concur with the chairman that we would accept it in this case.