Bob Filner

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, reserving the right to object, I just want to clarify that amendments under the Medical Research paragraph are still eligible with the unanimous consent request of the gentleman. Is that correct?

Mr. FILNER. Then I will have to object. I want to know if it is eligible for offering at the point of line 8, as the amendment requests. I have to ask this, otherwise I will have to object to the unanimous consent request. I think the intent is to keep my amendment eligible. I just want to make sure that it is.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to see, before I pursue the objection, whether amendment No. 19 would be in order, given this unanimous consent agreement.

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

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, this discussion and the amendments show a couple of things about the processes which we are undergoing in discussing this bill. Number one, it shows that everybody agrees that there are accounts in the veterans budget that are underfunded, and the chairman of the committee seems to agree that we should plus-up the research account in this case by $30 million, plus-up the construction of the State veteran homes by $30 million, and I support that and would go even further. It also makes the point that many Members are caught up in a conundrum here. The absurdity of our rules where we have to do something good in order to do something good in the veterans budget, we have to do something bad in the space budget. This at a time when we have surpluses. I do not think the public understands why we should go through such an exercise that we have to cut $60 million out of the space program in order to fund $60 million in the veterans account when we have the money to do both, and this is what we should be doing. We should be plussing-up the account in research, as an amendment I had on the floor to do. We should be plussing-up the account for the State veterans homes, which I have an amendment to do, without having to take from NASA. My colleagues, we all know, we all know we have the money to do this. This is an absurdity. This is a game we are playing here that puts us in very low esteem with our constituents who say, when the gentleman from Florida said he represents the place where they have the fourth highest veterans and he also is strongly in support of the space station, his constituents have to say well, why not do both, and they are right. We should be doing both, and though I support the plus-up of $30 million in the State veterans home account, I would have to underline what my colleagues from Texas said, this does not allow us to make up for previously approved projects and projects that have already been approved by their States which, with appropriated funds, we cannot make up that backlog with this plus-up. We need an additional $50 million more. The amendments are absolutely right in that we need these plus-ups, and I am glad the chairman of the subcommittee understands that we were falling behind in those accounts and this House has catched up, but I need to point out the absurdity of the rules we are under, which force us to take money from another account which is absolutely vital also to our future as a civilization. Mr. Chairman, I would urge somehow that the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Appropriations would put us into realistic situations without forcing us to make these kinds of choices which are not mandated by the reality of our funds today.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I have an issue which has been before this House before, an issue of, I think, great moral urgency but financially responsible; and that is to right a wrong that was committed in this country by the Congress of 1946, which took away the veterans' benefits that had been promised to our Filipino allies who were drafted into World War II, fought bravely at Corregidor and Bataan. Many died. But were ultimately extremely helpful, if not responsible, for our slowing up of the Japanese advance and then our ultimate victory in the Pacific. What we did do to these brave men was to take away their benefits after the war, and they have yet to be recognized in this way. Many are in their late 70s and early 80s. Many will not be here in a few years. I think this is an emergency item that ought to be considered by this House. My amendment would provide $35,200,000 for health care benefits to these veterans of World War II. This is the benefit that they need the most in their twilight years. Like their counterparts, they fought as brave soldiers. They helped to win the war. Many of them marched to their deaths, in fact, in the famous Bataan death march. Yet we rewarded them by taking away their benefits. We owe them a fair hearing. We owe them the dignity and honor of considering them veterans. My amendment would restore just some of those benefits to these veterans. I think all of my colleagues know that veterans are entitled to, under certain conditions provided by law, certain preventions and certain medical care. But this amendment divides the benefits from the pensions from the medical benefits and says let us at least now, within our budget means, give health care to those brave Filipino soldiers. My amendment would make available monies for care in this country, a small portion also for our VA clinic in Manila to serve the Filipino World War II veterans and U.S. citizens there alike. What we are saying here is that the honor and bravery of veterans of World War II will finally be recognized by this Congress 54 years after they were taken away. I would ask this body to recognize the bravery of our allies, the Filipinos who we drafted, provide them with eligibility for benefits, health care benefits that are given to American soldiers who fought in the same war for the same honorable cause. Now, Mr. Chairman, this amendment is being challenged on a point of order because authorization has not been given. I would make the point that, not only did these veterans earn this benefit in the war, not only are there dozens of programs in this bill that are not authorized, but that, through the regular legislative process, we have not been allowed to bring this bill up. I ask the floor, I ask the Chair to allow us to finally grant honor and dignity to these brave soldiers, many of whom, as I said, are in their 80s, and finally right a historical wrong of great proportions.

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

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to know if this bill before us, upon which a point of order has been raised because the program is not authorized, even though I see it as an emergency item for our veterans, is it not true that there are dozens of other programs in this bill that are also not authorized by this committee or this House?

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I would just ask the Chair if there are not dozens of programs in this bill that are not authorized by this House?

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the ranking member for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I speak today on one part of the bill before us, title I, the bill funding the Department of Administration, and I speak as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Benefits of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs in this House. Now, all of us on this side of the aisle have spoken of our deep respect for the chair, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh), but we also have taken issue with the sense that we are doing all we can do in this bill, in this case for our Nation's veterans. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) talks in a passive sense that we have been allocated a number. This is an active decision by this House to allocate certain figures, and this House can do what it will with regard to the budget. As the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has pointed out, we have spoken about our priorities. This budget ranks veterans' affairs, I am afraid, very low in the priorities. The chair said that this is fully funded, medical care for our veterans is fully funded. I am not sure what that means, but I would challenge my colleagues to go to any town hall meeting of veterans in this Nation and tell them that their benefits and their health care is fully funded. The gentleman from Michigan said this is a good and responsible budget. I take issue. It is not a good budget. It is an irresponsible budget. We are reneging on our commitment to our Nation's veterans, Mr. Speaker. We have asked our veterans to sacrifice in war. When we had deficits, we asked our veterans to take cuts because we had to share the sacrifice of cutting those deficits. But now that we have surpluses, it is time to make up on those commitments and start fulfilling those commitments. Many of our national cemeteries are a national disgrace. The waiting list for our veterans to see medical specialists goes months and months and months to get adjudication. Their benefits claims may take years. This is not a good and responsible budget. We are falling behind, Mr. Speaker, on medical research for veterans. We are falling behind on our commitment to fund our State veterans' homes. We are falling behind on helping our homeless veterans. We are falling behind on providing educational benefits to those veterans. The Montgomery GI bill is almost worthless in terms of its spending power in today's market. I am going to submit amendments, Mr. Chairman, to cover some of these shortcomings, but I want to speak on a couple now. We are not adequately meeting the benefit and health care needs of veterans who served in the Gulf War and who now suffer from various diagnosed and undiagnosed disabilities. It has been almost 10 years, Mr. Chairman, since the men and women of our Armed Forces were sent to the gulf, yet they do not know what caused their illness, and we have no treatment for it. We must not relax our efforts to fund necessary and appropriate research. This budget does virtually nothing for those veterans. I speak today, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the Independent Budget, a budget that was propounded by a coalition of all the veterans organizations in this Nation. It is a responsible, professional budget. They show that this budget falls behind on our commitment by a minimum of $1.5 billion. It points out that as our veteran population ages, the need for long-term care increases. One means of providing that is through our funding of State veterans homes. In fact, a new home just opened in my congressional district; and already there is a waiting list of hundreds and hundreds. Other areas should have the same opportunity as the veterans in my San Diego region with the opening of this new home. Yet this budget has a decrease in funding for State homes. Mr. Chairman, our Nation's veterans require an educational benefit that will actually allow them to attend college. I will propose such an amendment when the time comes. We have fallen behind on trying to deal with our homeless veterans. Thirty to 40 percent of those on the street are veterans. This is no way to treat those who served for us. We should increase that. This budget does not. Finally, Mr. Chairman, we have a group of people in this Nation who served during World War II and were drafted into Armed Forces, Filipino veterans who helped us win the war in the Pacific. They are in their 70s and 80s. We need to provide them the health care that was taken away by this Congress more than 50 years ago. $30 million is all that is required to provide this health care. I will submit an amendment to do just that. Mr. Chairman, we are falling farther and farther behind with this budget. It is time to reverse our priorities. It is time to recognize the heroism and sacrifice of our Nation's veterans. Let us truly fully fund this budget. Let us truly make this a good and responsible budget. Let us do better for our Nation's veterans.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, is it in order to challenge the ruling of the Chair?

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, based on the precedent that there are dozens of other points of order waived in this rule, I move to appeal the ruling of the Chair.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FILNER. I understand the Chair, but I would argue that a waiver is very pertinent. That is, this House can choose to protect certain programs from a point of order and can choose not to. I would ask the Chairman of this committee to not raise this point of order, as he has asked the Committee on Rules to waive points of order on dozens and dozens of other programs to provide a basic level of college education to those who have sacrificed for this Nation. It seems to be worthy of a waiver in this case. I would ask the chairman to so do.

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chair for his courtesy in hearing this amendment. I have a series of amendments, Mr. Chairman, that speak to the former statements or earlier statements of the gentleman from New York (Chairman Walsh) to the notion that we are not falling behind, the gentleman says, in our commitment to our Nation's veterans. It is true that in the last 2 years we have upgraded our spending over the previous year, but that was after a decade or more of flatline budgets. We have not caught up. I ask the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) to visit cemeteries around this country, which are deteriorating. I ask the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) to sit for months and months with our veterans who must wait for doctors' appointments, who must wait for years to get their disability claims adjudicated, who are trying to go to college; and that is the nature of the amendment I have before us today. Mr. Chairman, in 1981, the education benefit to our veterans which allowed them to go to college was $493 a month. 20 years later, with incredible soaring costs of education and associated expenses, we are paying only $20 more per month. I ask the gentleman from New York (Mr. Walsh) is that not falling behind? Here we have an amendment to catch up, to make sure that the Montgomery GI bill named after our former Member and great chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, that the goal of the Montgomery GI bill, to provide meaningful readjustment benefits to discharged Members, while also giving military recruiters an effective tool to support the concept of an all volunteer force. My amendment will allow us to meet these goals because today this bill is not accomplishing any one of them. We are not providing a benefit that will help our retention and recruitment. We are not providing a readjustment benefit. We are not honoring the sacrifice of our veterans. My amendment would provide $900 million in additional funding for enhanced educational assistance. This number, Mr. Chairman, is important to explain how it was arrived at. All the Members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs applauded when the so-called transition commission reported its findings to our committee. That commission said that the Montgomery GI bill benefit should provide for the full costs of college education and its associated expenses for our veterans. Then we would have a recruiting tool to help our Nation's armed forces. In fact, that notion was embodied in H.R. 1071, the Evans-Dingell bill, which would pay for those full costs, in addition to a stipend of $800 a month. The chairman of our committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), also introduced a bill, H.R. 1182, which would pay for 90 percent of those costs. When we realized that the budget could not provide for that in the short run, a coalition across this Nation of veterans' organizations and higher educational institutions came together and came up with a compromise to say, let us at least provide at the beginning for the average costs of attending a 4-year public school college as a commuter student. That number would come to $975 a month this year for full-time study. The gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows) introduced that bill as H.R. 4334. It has the full backing of veterans' organizations, as I said, all across this Nation, and in accord with that H.R. 4334 would provide all veterans and service members with an opportunity to get a good college education while taking into account the realistic costs of college today. Let us not forget that it is largely thanks to our veterans that the rest of us are able to be safe and sound at home enjoying this prosperity. We ought to have the opportunity to give them the opportunity to continue their education. Mr. Chairman, I urge the committee to accept this amendment. The committee would not put this before our Members for a vote following the tradition of many parts of this bill, which have items that are not authorized. I would ask for this committee now to accept this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record the statements of various groups across this Nation, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the AMVETS, the Noncommissioned Officers Association, the Blinded Veterans of America, in support of this amendment. They all have weighed in, and I include that in the Record. Non Commissioned Officers Association of the United States of America, Alexandria, VA, June 16, 2000. Hon. Bob Filner, Rayburn House Office Building, House of Representatives, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Filner: The Non Commissioned Officers Association of the USA (NCOA) is writing to state its strong, wholeheared support for your amendment to H.R. 4635, the Fiscal Year 2001 VA-HUD Appropriations Act, that would provide enhanced readjustment educational assistance under the Montgomery GI Bill. Although the House of Representatives recently approved a modest increase to the basic monthly stipend, even when fully implemented the increase approved will still only equate to about 60% of the cost of attending a public four- year college. The military services are in the throes of a recruiting and retention crisis that is nearing emergency proportion. Recruiting is at its lowest since the all-volunteer force began, even though enlistment requirements have declined by thirty-three percent. Sixty-five percent of high school graduates go on to post-secondary education. Only about 16 of one hundred youth are available as military prospects. Prospective enlistees rated assistance with education to be the number one attraction of military service for several decades. That, however, is no longer the case. Prospective enlistees and veterans observe and realize the emphasis Congress has placed on higher education by providing more attractive and richer education programs without the sacrifice and risk associated with military service. This realization inevitably results in a negative message to prospective recruits that compounds the bad image which now prevails about military service being an obstacle to a rewarding and productive life--not a means to it. One comparison dramatically illustrates the need for your amendment. The basic benefit program of the Vietnam Era GI Bill provided $493 per month in 1981 to a veteran with a spouse and two children; however, twenty years later, a veteran with an identical circumstance receives only $43 more. One other comparison illustrates how Congress is sending precisely the wrong message on the need for high quality military members; just last year Congress approved the DC College Access Act that provides grants of up to $50,000 for DC high school graduates to pursue higher educational goals. Today, our warriors who go in harms way will receive a total benefit of $19,296 but only after paying $1200 to establish eligibility (many of who quality for food stamps because of inadequate military pay). This is morally wrong. At a time when military recruitment is difficult and retention is declining, this is also shortsighted public policy. NCOA firmly believes it is a fundamental responsibility of any great society to honor and help those who accept the disruption and sacrifices that military service brings. The Association also believes that the programs and services, including the educational assistance programs, offered to those who defend our country must be better than the programs that are offered to those who do not. When Congress considers education policy, the starting point should be the veteran education benefit but that has not been the case. By Congress' inattention to a program that is arguably the most important recruiting and retention tool available, Congress has devalued military service and we are witnessing the consequences today. It will take a strong message to reverse course and your amendment is right on target. An unprecedented partnership of 50 military, veterans and higher education associations endorsed H.R. 4334, The Veterans Higher Education Opportunities Act, upon which your amendment is based. That legislation and your amendment simply says: Individuals who volunteer for and honorably serve in the Nation's uniformed services shall be provided an education benefit equal to the average cost of a commuter student at a public four-year institution of higher learning. For those who have provided for our peace, security and prosperity, providing them with an ``average'' education benefit is reasonable and doable. The Non Commissioned Officers Associations support this amendment and urge your colleagues to do likewise and help restore the veteran education benefit to the pre-eminent place it should occupy in our society. Sincerely, Larry D. Rhea, Director of Legislative Affairs.

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

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I do want to point out that it is the birthday of our esteemed chairman, and I hope he will take all of these testimonials as a ``happy birthday to you,'' Mr. Chairman. I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Madam Speaker, I have heard statements on the floor this morning that says this is a good bill for veterans. I defy any of you to go before any town meeting in this Nation and tell our veterans that this budget makes up for the contract that we made with them. We are not, my colleagues, fulfilling our contract with our veterans. We have asked them to sacrifice during war. We asked them to sacrifice in this budget process when we had deficits, and now we continue to ask them to sacrifice when we have surpluses. That is not right. This is not a good bill for our veterans. We are falling further and further behind each year that we have a surplus, and we do not make up for past injustices to our veterans. This budget does represent the strongest request the administration has ever made; but serious deficiencies are in this budget. Whether we look at research, whether we look at our State homes, and whether we look at Montgomery GI bill benefits, we simply have not fulfilled our contract where our Nation's veterans. Let me just tell everyone about research. Yes, we have fulfilled the administration's request, but if we consider inflation and salary increases, we have fallen behind another 10 percent in this vital account. We are 10 years after the Persian Gulf War, and we do not have either a cause or a treatment for that affliction that is affecting hundreds of thousands of our veterans. We need the research. We have the money. Let us put this in this budget. The biggest emergency we now face in our recruiting and in our retention of military is the lack of educational benefits for our veterans. Today's Montgomery GI benefit is $535 a month. It is not enough to pay for any bit of college that any veteran wants. This is an emergency, I will tell my colleagues. And I have an amendment to deal with this later on in the discussion. And if we are going to make our all-volunteer force effective, we need educational assistance at a much higher level. A whole coalition across this country agreed that this budget could afford a Montgomery GI bill increase that would basically allow the average commuter student to pay for three-fourths of his or her college education. That would mean a rise under today's prices to $975 a month for our GIs. We can afford this amount of money. We must make that much money available. Our budget today makes $535 available per month for college education. This is not a recruitment tool. This is not an honor to our veterans. Let us see this as an emergency. Let us raise the Montgomery GI bill benefit to at least the $975 a month that a broad array of organizations has requested. Let us reject this budget. Let us honor our veterans in the way they should.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding me this time, and I thank him for introducing this motion for a great former Member of our body. I thank also the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Houghton) for their support of this issue. Mr. Speaker, I have the honor of rising in support of this measure to name the post office in Ithaca after Matthew McHugh. We have heard a lot about his legislative accomplishments, his work in the Committee on Appropriations, his work at the World Bank. I had the privilege of meeting Matt McHugh before he held any of those offices, a little after the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) knew him. I was a student at Cornell in 1968 when Matt McHugh was the Ithaca city prosecutor. ``Town and gown'' relations between Cornell and Ithaca were never very good, but in 1968 at the height of tensions around this country and at the Cornell campus, literally uprisings, the tensions were even worse. And yet the Ithaca city prosecutor was respected by students at Cornell, and he respected us as students. It was that mutual respect and that mutual sense of good feeling which has characterized the career of Matt McHugh ever since that day. At 30 years old, he was elected the first Democratic district attorney for Tompkins County, New York. Many students at Cornell, including myself, worked in that first campaign for Matt McHugh. The respect that he earned in that job, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) intimated earlier, led to his election to Congress in 1974, again, as the first Democrat from that area in a very, very long time. Now, Matt McHugh was the kind of man who kept up his relationships. He was never a man who was unfriendly; always a gracious, sharing, caring individual. I kept my relations with him as a Hill staffer in the 1970s and 80's. And what we are saying today, those who knew him and those who served with him, is that Matt McHugh saw politics as a noble profession. Everybody who knows Matt McHugh, and knew him as an elected official, learned that, in fact, politicians, elected officials, could be noble; that elected officials had not only intelligence and insight, but they had integrity and ethics, fairness, and in the case of Matt McHugh, grace. His wife, Alanna, and his wonderful daughters, played a key role in all of his life. He was proud of them and they were proud of him, and he showed what a family in politics could do together. Mr. Speaker, having lived in Ithaca for 10 years, and I think the only Cornell alumnus in this body at the present time, I know that all Ithacans will be proud that a post office in their city will be named after Matt McHugh.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I have to be honest with my colleagues, Mr. Speaker. I am disappointed in this bill. I know the deep commitment that the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn), chairman of the Subcommittee on Benefits, have for the veterans of this Nation. I know they want to do what is best for our veterans. But the Veterans and Dependents Millennium Education Act, S. 1402, does not come even close to where we need to be for an effective educational benefit for our veterans today. If this is a bill for the millennium, it is a bill for the last millennium. Let me try to show that through the history that our committee has gone through. The previous speakers have talked about the congressional Commission on Service Members and Veterans Transition Assistance, which reported its work to the Congress more than a year ago. That commission said that the biggest single thing we can do for our veterans in terms of benefits is to make the Montgomery GI Bill really relevant to their education and pick up the full cost of college education plus a decent stipend. In fact, that would be a great inducement to recruitment, which, as we all know, is falling behind today. Everybody on our Committee on Veterans' Affairs applauded that recommendation and said we ought to move forward with it. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans), the ranking member of the committee, introduced H.R. 1071, which said that the recommendations of that Transition Commission were accepted. That bill would pay for the full cost of tuition, fees, books, and supplies, and, in addition, a stipend of $800 a month. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) put forward a bill which was almost as good. His bill, H.R. 1182, would have paid for 90 percent of a veteran's tuition cost. When those of us on the committee and the veterans and education community recognized we would have to take steps toward that and could not do it all at once, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows) introduced H.R. 4344, which had a broad coalition backing of 47 organizations which represented veterans of our Nation, the military and the higher education community. The bill of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows) would reimburse veterans for the cost of attending a 4-year public college as a commuter student, and that worked out for this year to a monthly stipend of $975. That stipend of $975 should be compared with the $600 that is in the current bill. We can do better. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn) said this is something we can do right now, we can do the bill of the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Shows) right now. We have the funds to do that. The bill before us just will not accomplish what the Montgomery GI Bill set out to do and what the Transition Commission recommended. The $536 that a veteran gets now does not go very far considering the cost of higher education. In fact, the increase to $600 has already been eaten up by the inflationary pressures that are faced by our colleges. If you compare that with the $300 a month that was the benefit back in 1985, you can see how the benefit has not kept up with current demands. Today, when America's economy is booming, when our budget is in great surplus, I have a hard time looking veterans in the eye and telling them to pursue a degree with the kind of money that the Montgomery Bill gives them today. It comes up short when you compare it to the cost of higher education. All our veterans know it, we know it, the committee knows it, and all of you here said that you know it. You see this as a first step. Now, I know that, as I said, our leadership on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Quinn), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) on the Democratic side, we all want to do more, and I certainly will work with both of you, all of you, in the months ahead to provide the kind of education benefits that our veterans deserve and this new millennium demands. People have said that our former member, Sonny Montgomery, great chairman of the committee, is with us in the Chamber. We salute him, we salute the bill to which he gave his name, the Montgomery GI Bill. Let us really honor Sonny Montgomery by significantly, in the months ahead, improving this benefit for our veterans.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, and colleagues today I recognize Ron Saathoff, as he is honored by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, at its 12th annual Worker's Memorial Dinner with its Labor leader of the Year Award. As President of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 145, Ron has been a committed labor leader for many years. He has been a determined advocate for decent wages and benefits for firefighters, and has led the fight to ensure that safety is the Fire Department's highest priority. Ron has displayed a commitment not only to firefighters, but to the entire labor movement. He serves as a member of the Labor Council Executive Board, and as Chair of the Labor Council's Finance Committee, Ron has helped the Council grow and become a stronger organization. Through his dedication, Ron has done much to advance the cause of the labor movement in our area. My congratulations go to Ron Saathoff for these significant contributions. I believe him to be highly deserving of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO Labor Leader of the Year Award.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, today I recognize the National Association of Letter Carriers Branches 70, 1100, and 2525, as they are honored by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL- CIO, at its 12th annual Worker's Memorial Dinner with its Community Service Award. Some eight years ago the National Association of Letter Carriers began its annual food drive and has collected millions of pounds of food every year since. In 1999, more than 1,500 local National Association of Letter Carriers branches in more than 10,000 cities and towns across the country collected a total of over 50 million pounds of food for the needy. NALC Branch 70, Branch 1100, and Branch 2525 annually collect large amounts of food that directly benefit families in need in our community. Their food drive provides local food banks and pantries with food to serve to needy families throughout the year. The NALC's commitment to serving the community and especially those members of our community who are most in need is exemplary and worthy of our highest praise. My congratulations go to National Association of Letter Carriers Branch 70, Branch 1100, and Branch 2525 for these significant contributions.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, and colleagues, today I recognize Bill Tweet, as he is honored by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, at its 12th annual Worker's Memorial Dinner with its Labor to Neighbor Award. As Business Manager of Ironworkers Local 229, Bill has been one of Labor to Neighbor's strongest supporters. This vital program educates and involves union members and their families in the campaign to protect jobs and the future of working people in San Diego and Imperial Counties. By sponsoring the annual Labor to Neighbor Golf Tournament, Bill has helped to raise funds for member education and voter registration programs. Ironworkers Local 229 has also been a leader in staffing phone banks, walking precincts, and registering union members. Bill's dedication to strengthening the Labor to Neighbor Program and the San Diego area's labor unions is an inspiration and example for us all. My congratulations go to Bill Tweet for these significant contributions.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, today I recognize the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, as it is honored by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, at its 12th annual Worker's Memorial Dinner with its Spirit of Cooperation Award. The Viejas Indian Casino recently signed a contract with the Communications Workers of America Local 9400, in what is possibly the first ever union contract with any Tribal Casino in the United States. Not only did Viejas sign an agreement with the union allowing it to organize workers at the casino, but they also gave the union space for a temporary organizing office on the property and allowed the union easy access to the employees. After the representation election, Viejas and the union successfully negotiated a contract that provides good wages, benefits, and union representation to employees. Viejas has been model of employer attitude and has forced a truly special relationship with the union. Viejas has also been a leader in supporting community efforts through their charitable giving programs and active participation in community and business associations. My congratulations go to the Viejas Bank of Kumeyaay Indians for these significant contributions.

Mr. FILNER

Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker and colleagues, today I recognize Willie Pelote, as he is honored by the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, at its 12th annual Worker's Memorial dinner with its Friend of the Labor Council Award. As the California Political and Legislative Director of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Willie oversees statewide political and legislative affairs for the nation's largest union of public employees and health care workers. He is responsible for developing and implementing the union's political strategy for campaigns at all levels of public office. Through his work at AFSCME, Willie has been a strong supporter of and partner with the Labor Council. Willie helped AFSCME local unions in San Diego build strong member education and involvement programs, and he supported the development of the very successful Labor to Neighbor Program. Willie's leadership has helped advance labor priorities across the state, as well as locally and for that he deserves our highest praise and admiration. My congratulations go to Willie Pelote for these significant contributions. I believe him to be highly deserving of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO Friend of the Labor Council Award.