Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I had assumed that a point of order would be raised. I know that those opposing this amendment don't want to talk about this amendment, and I can understand why. Carlos Lazo escaped from Cuba in the late 1980s. He hopped a raft, but unfortunately he was caught; he was caught by Castro's forces. He was taken back to Cuba where he spent 1 year in Castro's prisons. A little later he decided that the pull from freedom was strong enough that he would try again, and he did. He got on another raft and this time he made it. He made it and he became an American. Not only did he become an American, he became a soldier. Not only that, he went over to Iraq and served us proudly. In fact, Sergeant Lazo was recently awarded the Bronze Star for bravery in action in Iraq. Last June, when he came home from Iraq, he wanted to visit his two sons who are still in Cuba. He is divorced. They and their mother live in Cuba. He tried to do so. He went to the Miami Airport only to find that since he had been in Cuba once in the past 3 years, he couldn't go again for another 3 years. He was prevented from going to see his family. Here we are, our government, telling one of its finest, a soldier who put his life on the line in Iraq, a soldier that we trust in Iraq, but don't trust to be able to go and see his family more than once out of every 3 years. We acknowledge that he should be able to go see his family, but only once every 3 years. What kind of a policy is that for us to have? And who would object to that? How hard-hearted do you have to be to say a soldier serving his country cannot go home and see his two kids? Those on the other side might say, well, why don't we just bring his family over here? And he says, well, I have a good relationship with their mother and she wants them to stay there, and who am I to say any different? He also would like to see his grandmother and relatives while he is over there, that couldn't come here. The notion that we should tell him what is best for him is at the root of this whole policy of denying Cuban-American families the right to see their families. If this amendment is indeed ruled out of order and we are unable to decide the fate of Sergeant Lazo, the only alternative is to vote for the Davis amendment that will be offered shortly. Point of order

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, let me point out again, this is another thing that the other side doesn't want you to hear. That is why I was just interrupted. The only way we can allow Sergeant Lazo to see his family is to vote for the Davis amendment, which will allow him and other Cuban American families to go see their families better than once every 3 years. I think Sergeant Lazo says it best. He says, Cubans pray every day that their parents die 3 years apart if their parents are in Cuba, so they are able to go see them. Who are we? Who are we as Americans to tell other Americans that they should only be able to go and see their family, their mother, their father, or their kids in this case once every 3 years? What kind of policy is that? Again, I am not able to offer this amendment. It is going to be ruled out of order. So the only way we can allow Sergeant Lazo or other Cuban Americans or others to see their families more than once every 3 years is to vote for the Davis amendment that will be offered shortly. Again, Cuban Americans are only allowed once every 3 years. If they have a mother in Cuba and she dies and they decide to attend her funeral, if their father's dies 2 years later, they cannot go to his under this policy unless we vote for the Davis amendment. I ask my colleagues to please look at their hearts here, see if this is what they want to do as an American to deny another American the right to see their family in Cuba. That is what this amendment is all about. Because we are unable to offer this one, that is what the Davis amendment will be about. When we are debating the Davis amendment, I suppose we will hear on the other side, as we have heard in the past, hey, we oppose this, we live in a Cuban American community, we know that they do not want to go see their families. Perhaps the people they know feel that way, but I can tell my colleagues, I represent some Cuban Americans as well. People do all over. Sergeant Lazo comes from the State of Washington, and they would like to go. And who are we, who is anyone to tell others that they cannot go there? At the root of what we are trying to do is to give people the freedom to make that choice themselves rather than imposing that choice upon them, a choice whether to go see their families, to be able to visit their kids, as a soldier. And there are other soldiers as well; he is not the only one. I would ask Members to please vote for the Davis amendment if we are unable to vote for this one.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would rather respond to the questions on this. What this amendment simply does, those who are opposed to change in Cuba have said let us keep the current regulations. Let us keep the current exemptions that we have. Let us keep it all the same. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) just stood and said the dissidents are saying that, let us keep it exactly the same. This amendment, with regard to the religious exemption that exists, says keep it the same. That is what we are doing with this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. I offered this amendment to see what the other side would do on this, and just to let this body know how far we are going here. They claim to respect religious liberties and to allow religious visits to Cuba. Yet, when I say let us protect that current exemption that exists, they say we might want to go further. We might want to apply a religious test and, in fact, it is happening right now in Miami. There are groups that are going down under a certain religion, and now we have our own Department of Treasury and the Congress apparently saying we are not sure you are really that religion, we are not sure you really believe that. And so we might restrict that further. In fact, regulations were just issued a few months ago to say that, you know, we think, and this is without approval of Congress, just new regulations saying it ought to only be 25 people that could go at one time. Anything else is unreligious apparently. That is where we are going. It just baffles me to see where we are going here.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, I offered this amendment to allow people to see what this is all about. And the notion that what the other side wants to defeat this amendment for, because they might allow more religious travel, is pretty much laid bare by opposition to the other amendments that have been offered, allowing family members to travel or military members to travel, or support for regulations in the past to restrict religious freedom; to say, hey, if you are of a certain religion, then we at the Department of Treasury, we are going to decide how many are really in your congregation, what kind of religion you have or whether it is really a religion at all. That is what this is about. But I am cognizant of the fact that if this is twisted, like many of the amendments offered on Cuba are, and people misunderstand it as this is something to lift the whole embargo, in fact, the talking points just read refer to a different amendment because it talked about lessening. I am talking about keeping. I am cognizant that if this were to go down, that would embolden this side to restrict religion even further, saying we have license. The House has said, let us restrict religion even further. That is the last thing I want, and I will not be party to that. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I inadvertently voted ``no'' on rollcall No. 346. I intended to vote ``aye'' on rollcall No. 346. Amendment Offered by Mr. Sanders

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

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to the case of Carlos Lazo. Sergeant Lazo has served our country honorably in Iraq. There has been a lot of talk about our soldiers in Iraq today. This sergeant returned from Iraq a while ago and wanted to visit his two children in Cuba. Carlos is a Cuban American who escaped that country on a raft several years ago. He would like to go back, but our government will not let him. You see, he has visited Cuba once in the past 3 years, and that is all you are allowed under current policy. So this soldier, who received a Bronze Star in Iraq for his service and many other accolades, is not trusted by our government to visit his own family in Cuba. This policy is wrong. The same policy prohibits a child with parents in Cuba from visiting them more than once every 3 years. So if your father dies one year, you go to his funeral. If your mother dies the next year, you cannot go to hers. How is that fair? Why is our government doing this? We need to change this policy, Madam Speaker, and this week we may have an opportunity to do so. I would encourage my colleagues to join me in this endeavor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. This ruling did just come out, and in Arizona we have I think the largest number of charter schools in the Nation. Most of them serve low-income, special-needs kids. In this case, that is who they are serving, and the ruling simply came out and said IF they are structured as a for-profit; they cannot receive funds anymore. Keep in mind, these are Title I funds. These are special education funds. And for a school to be told, all right, you are not going to receive them anymore, these are disadvantaged kids in most respects that are going to be held at a loss. What we are saying is simply if the Department of Education needs clarification, we can do that with reauthorization, but do not in the middle of a process say to these schools, we are going to treat you differently just because of how you are structured; although, we did not think it before, now we think it is different. So I think that the gentleman is wise to go ahead and accept the amendment, and as more information comes out, I am confident that everyone will feel comfortable with this decision.

Mr. FLAKE. I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Chairman, I think the salient points have been made here. Our Federal Government says to hospitals, you have to treat whoever comes in your door. It is not the hospital's choice. I have toured the border hospitals. It is not just the border hospitals in Arizona. It is hospitals 100 miles from the border. It is hospitals in Tucson. It is hospitals in Phoenix. It is others. They do not have the luxury of deciding who they are going to treat. Yet this amendment would say, sorry, you have to treat them, and because of our failure to impose control at the border, you are just stuck with the bill. That is simply not right. Nobody is more convinced than the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and me of the need for immigration reform. That is why we have proffered legislation to do that. I would challenge those who have offered this amendment, please join us or offer your own legislation. We cannot continue with the status quo. It is just eating us alive in Arizona, not just health care costs but education costs, criminal justice costs, across the board. But let us find a solution. Let us not simply pretend that it does not exist, pretend that those who are here just do not exist. They do. We have got to do something about it. Let us work together and do it, not just say, hey, unfunded mandate, sorry, got to deal with it. And to say that, Well, let's not entice them further, let's not provide any of the funding until we get immigration reform, tell that to the hospitals who could not survive. They will be closed. They simply are doing what the Federal Government tells them to do in terms of admitting patients and under this they would simply say, Sorry, we can't fund it. We're going to have to close our doors. I commend the gentleman for opposing the amendment. I join with him, and I encourage all of my colleagues to say, Let's find a solution. Let's have meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform that will deal with issues like this. But let us not bury our heads in the sand.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to the case of Sergeant Carlos Lazo. Sergeant Lazo is a Cuban American, a proud Cuban American who is serving in our military. He recently did a tour in Iraq and came home, wanting to visit his two children in Cuba. He was prevented from doing so, stopped at the airport, because we have a policy that only allows Cuban American families to visit each other once every 3 years. Here is a man serving in our military, proudly; we trust him in Iraq, but we do not trust him to visit his own family in Cuba. It seems to me this policy is flawed. We will have amendments next week on the Treasury-Postal bill. I urge my colleagues to look at this case, to meet with Sergeant Lazo who is on Capitol Hill today, and to rethink this policy of ours that denies Cuban Americans the ability to visit their families.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Beside me I have a stack of Congressional Records. It used to be that the Government Printing Office would print thousands and thousands and thousands of these because we did not use computers much. We did not have a searchable data base. These were very important and they still are, but by and large when these come around to congressional offices, they go straight to the waste basket. We did an informal survey in our office of the Congressional Record. When the printed copy comes, we called about 20 offices or so, what do you do with them? Overwhelmingly, nearly all of them said it goes straight to the wastepaper basket because we have it online now, a searchable data base. You can search anything back to 1989 immediately the following day. So our legislation would simply do this: it would save $5.4 million annually by instructing the Government Printing Office to print 1,000 per day rather than the 6,000 per day that they are doing now. We simply need to move into the 21st century. It used to be that we needed a lot more of them than we need today. We simply do not need to do that. This would also save about 57 tons of paper that are discarded every year, and all of the environmental damage that goes along with that. This is a good amendment. It is a commonsense amendment. We simply are moving away from buggy whips and other things. We need to recognize that we simply do not have the need any more for printed record. To the extent that we need them, we will still present them. One thousand a day is pretty generous, and we need to save money where we can. And we need to have credibility when we tell Federal agencies to cut their budgets to live within their means. For us to go on printing 6,000 of these a day when we simply do not need them is not right. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I am willing to save time and money, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE

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

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, before yielding the balance of my time to the distinguished chairman, let me just point out, if this is contempt, the only difference, because the Lantos substitute is the same substance, is that this maybe is contempt with teeth as opposed to toothless contempt. It is the same bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde).

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to the Hyde U.N. Reform Act. I appreciate the work that the chairman has done on this important topic and the work of the entire committee and staff. I lived in the country of Namibia April 1989 through April of 1990. I worked with government officials and the future leaders of that country as it sought full implementation of U.N. Resolution 435. This experience gave me a firsthand witness of how effective the U.N. can be in ushering in democracy and helping a country in its peaceful and successful emergence from the authority of another country. Several years later, after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, I traveled to Iraq with my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). While we were there, we saw the indulgences of Saddam, his sons, and his friends in the form of palaces and rooms full of booze, paintings, fine china, luxury furniture, and more. Several of these palaces were built and outfitted when the U.N. was supposed to be monitoring the sale of oil in exchange for food and medicine for the Iraqi people. Sure, the lot of some Iraqis improved marginally under the Oil-for- Food program, but they were the lucky ones, and their conditions went from destitute to impoverished. We cannot characterize Saddam's agreement to the program as being driven by a genuine concern for Iraqis. His intention was malicious at the outset. He only agreed to the program after he was satisfied that he would be able to manipulate it. My point is that I have seen the U.N. work, but, more often and more recently, I have seen it fail miserably. I will not recount the list of scandals, because it is too long. We have heard all about them already. Let me just touch on a couple of points in the Oil-for-Food scandal, however, because that is the catalyst for the reform we are talking about today. The GAO estimates that more than $10 billion of illegal transactions took place under the program. In January of last year, an Iraqi newspaper published a list of about 270 foreign officials, business people, and political entities that have benefited from the scheme, and many of those officials are from countries opposed to U.S. interests. Russia alone received more than $1 billion worth of oil vouchers. Benon Sevan, the leader, the senior official responsible for the administration of the program, solicited and received on behalf of a third party several million barrels of allocations of oil. The U.N.'s own investigations under Paul Volcker have stated that Saddam's actions ``seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations.'' The son of the Secretary General was employed by a contracting firm up until the time that the firm won a contract from the U.N. for the program. The Volcker Committee reported that ``Kojo Annan actively participated in efforts by Cotecna to conceal the continuing relationship with him.'' Just this week we are hearing about questionable communications between the Secretary General and that same contracting firm. Two of the senior investigators on the U.N.'s self-appointed investigation led by Paul Volcker recently resigned on principle and said that the inquiry downplayed Annan's role in the corruption in an interim report released in March. So now, the U.N.'s own investigation is under question. We need effective investigations into this scandal, truly independent inquiries. We also need to serve justice where necessary and where possible under our law. In the last Congress and once again in this Congress, I introduced the Oil-for-Food Accountability Act with cosponsors from both parties, I believe around 70 at last count. This amendment that I am introducing today contains provisions of that bill. Specifically, this amendment would create a certification of U.N. cooperation that, one, requires the U.N. to provide documentary evidence to member states investigating the Oil-for-Food program; and, two, to waive privileges and immunities of any U.N. employee charged with a crime associated with the program. Mr. Chairman, this scandal is far too big and too connected to the U.N. to not include these amendments as part of an underlying bill to reform the U.N. I urge support of the amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me once again remind Members what this is all about. We all know the brutality of the Castro regime and how they deprive people of basic goods. Because of that, why in the world do we add to their burdens? Why do we deny Americans, Cuban families, Cuban- American families the ability to send items to their families? That is what this amendment is about. We will hear all kinds of things about the brutality of the regime. Let us stipulate that. I have been there several times. It is worse than anybody knows. It is awful. People there live with such burdens. Let us not burden them further. Let me say, last year when this amendment was offered, the opponents were saying the administration is going to change it. This amendment will be moot. Those regulations will change. There has been a public outcry; it is going to change. Guess what, a year later it is still there. The restrictions are still there, yet we heard they are going to change. Well, they have not changed. We need to send a signal this policy cannot stand.

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

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume to respond to the majority leader's comments, that I would think standing with the Cuban people would be to allow them to receive personal hygiene items, like toothpaste and toilet paper. Keep in mind these restrictions are imposed against Americans, not Cubans. These are imposed against American families from sending to relatives in Cuba these items. These are not restrictions on Castro. These are restrictions on Americans. We that believe in freedom ought to give Cuban Americans and others the freedom to make the choice, do we send gift parcels or do we not? Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. FLAKE. I have no beef with the Cuban government.