Gene Green

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. I want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, for allowing for this special order tonight, particularly on education. While I was in my office returning some phone calls and listening to my colleagues from the Republican side for the first hour, the fear they have is Federal control of our schools. Well, I think the three of us would agree we do not want Federal control of our schools. We have fought against that. In fact, in 1994 we reauthorized elementary, secondary education funding, and it was a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President who signed that. We actually freed a lot of the schools from the paperwork and the requirements that we built up, both Republican and Democratic Presidential administrations. Goals 2000 was a great program, and is still a great program for schools to benefit and States to adopt without Federal controls. Just Federal assistance without the Federal Government saying this is what they have to do. They can do it for literacy, they can pay for lots of different programs with it, but this is our effort to help local schools and States to provide for educational opportunities. I know the gentleman talked about vouchers, and again this week we will talk about experimenting with the District of Columbia. And Lord knows the District of Columbia needs help for their public school system, but I really do not know if we need to use them as an experiment, because those children need an education. We do not need to lose a generation of children by experimenting with some program that may work in the District of Columbia so then we can export it to the States. I know the gentleman also talked about national standards. And, again, as long as they are voluntary, I think most folks agree with that. Like the gentleman, I have two children that went through public schools and are now a junior and senior in college, by the way in public institutions in Texas, because we also have some low-tuition rates in our public colleges in Texas. And, sure, they could have gotten a better education, but they also got an adequate education. It is an urban school district, literally a microcosm of our country, probably 70 percent minority students today. And when they were in school it was probably 65 percent minority students. But they went to public schools and they got an education. Of course, my wife teaches in those schools so she also made sure they had that motivation, not just in school but at home. One of the concerns I have, and in serving a lot of years in the legislature, was the facilities situation we have. We talked about that in special orders a number of times, our deteriorating schools facilities around the country, whether it be in New York, or Washington, DC, or Houston, TX, or a lot of our districts. Providing opportunity for quality education is one of the most important things we do in Congress. I always believed that the key to the future of our country was a quality education. Now, we all know we want to make sure we have a strong military. We want to have a strong economic base. But it does not take too far to go. We can go just across the river in Virginia and talk to the folks in the Pentagon, and they will tell us that to have a strong military, we have to have an educated force there, people who can think, people who can respond to different circumstances. And that is what public education is supposed to do. Granted, does it do it 100 percent of the time? No. That is why we are here. That is why we have teachers every day and legislators across the country and school board members and superintendents trying to make it work. As the gentleman mentioned, my wife is an algebra teacher. I have to admit, I took algebra and barely struggled through, even college calculus. And if somebody gave me the quadratic formula tonight, I could not solve it without the best tutor I ever had in college, who is my wife. But that also taught me a way of thinking. So whether it was managing a business or practicing law or serving here in an elected office, we have a way that we can make decisions. And that is what we are trying to teach children. Sure, we want them to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. We want them to know the history of our great country. We want them to know English. We want them to know lots of things. We want them to know science, although some of us, I have to admit, are not science oriented. That is why I am not on the Committee on Appropriations. But we also want them to have a way to think and be able to change with the times. So that is why I think public education, the investment we put into it, lots of things, is helping those local districts and the States where most of the funding is raised. Just as we help our children to read, we must also give them schools that are safe places to learn. Today, our Nation's schools are increasingly run down, overcrowded, and technologically ill-equipped. Too many of our school buildings and classrooms are deteriorating, again, not just in Washington, D.C., that we hear about, as a Nation we hear about all the time, but all across our country, whether it be in an urban area like I represent or rural area. According to a GAO report, one-third of our schools need major repair or outright replacement. Sixty percent need work on major building features, such as a sagging roof or cracked foundation. Forty-six percent lack even the basic electrical wiring to support computers and modems and modern communications technology that we want our children to be able to respond to not only this decade but the next century, and we cannot do it with the facilities we have today. These are problems, again, not just in my own district in Houston but also across our country. A number of studies have shown that many school systems, particularly those in urban and high-poverty areas, are plagued by decaying buildings that threaten the health and safety and the learning opportunities of our children. Good school facilities are an important precondition for school learning. Now, we know that if you have a great teacher, a great teacher can teach you under a tree. But that teacher cannot teach you under that tree if it is snowing or raining outside. So we have to have a facility that is adequate not only for those good days that that teacher may be there, but also for the whole school year. Numerous studies have linked student achievement and behavior to good physical building conditions. Not only are our schools in a state of disrepair, but we also need to see the accommodating growths in enrollment. And I heard my colleagues talking about that earlier. In Houston, our school enrollment is skyrocketing. The Texas school population increased by 7.9 percent in 1 year. In the Houston Independent School District, we experienced an increase of 3,700 students just from last year. We have a solution to that, or at least a down payment, or a start. The Senate Labor-HHS-Education appropriations includes $100 million for provision for school facility infrastructure, and it is a good starting point. In fact, I think it is ironic when my colleague, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], asked me today about doing a special order on education, I am always willing to do it, one of my school superintendents from Aldine School District, Sonny Donaldson, whom I work with on a number of occasions, just happened to send me a letter talking about how important that $100 million provision is for school facility infrastructure in the Senate appropriations bill. Our House bill did not include that $100 million. I have to admit, $100 million, we can spend that in the State of Texas alone. But it is a help from the Federal Government to leverage, as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] talked about, to show that we will provide a dollar for maybe what a local district may provide $10 or $100, but to provide that assistance, that we recognize that that child is also our responsibility on the floor of the House. We cannot just put it off on school board members, we cannot put it off on State legislators or school superintendents; we have to take the responsibility on ourselves. As we help our communities build and maintain their schools, we must ensure that every school and classroom is connected to the information superhighway. And the President has proposed a 5-year, $2 billion fund that will support grass-roots efforts and again put the fingertips of every child by the year 2000 on modern computers, high-quality educational software, trained teachers in connection with the superhighway. Again, I appreciate the opportunity to join my colleagues tonight.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, like my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, I would like to rise today to thank both the chairman and ranking member, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio], for their fairness and courtesy to many Members, and also to the only Texas Member on the Subcommittee on Energy and Water, my colleague, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Chet Edwards, who was instrumental in helping this project begin this year. The Port of Houston is so important to many levels, not only to the Houston region, but also to the State and outlining our Nation. More than 5,535 vessels navigate the channel. It is the eighth largest port in the world, and with this startup money for the 45-foot depth and the 520-feet widening, it is so important to be competitive in this day and time. In fact, yesterday's Journal of Commerce talked about the importance of ports being at least 45 feet in depth. Again, I would like to thank the chairman and the ranking member and the staff working on this and appreciate the first money for the startup here, and we will be back again

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, who is also a pretty good basketball player in his own right.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, normally we stand up here and talk about a lot of the great issues we debate, and every once in a while we get to talk about something in our hometown. This evening I would like to talk about my own district of Houston, Texas, where we are celebrating tonight and hopefully celebrating the rest of the week. I see my colleague from Georgia over there. I would like to congratulate the Houston Astros on their division title, and more than that, wish them luck in their game tomorrow against the Atlanta Braves. The Houston Astros captured their first ever National League Central title last Thursday, thanks to a 9-to-1 win over the Chicago Cubs, and it was their first division title since 1986. Since their All Star break, the Astros were 39-32 and 42-35 over the last 77 games. The Astros have been in first place in their division since July 18 of this year. Attendance at these games this year topped the 2 million mark for only the fourth time in our club history. Congratulations to both the owner, Drayton McLane, and our manager, Larry Dierker, Tal Smith, and all of the players and staff of the Houston Astros administration. Astros manager Larry Dierker joins a short list of rookie skippers this year who have won a division title in their first year. In fact, the last time a first-year manager was to achieve this feat was Hal Lanier, who led the Houston Astros to the 1986 division championship. No stranger to major league baseball, Larry Dierker's name has been associated with baseball in Houston almost since the inception of the club in the early 1960s. He made his baseball major league debut in Colt Stadium on his 18th birthday and on that day he struck out both Willie Mays and Jim Hart in the first inning. His 14-year pitching career saw him become become Houston's first 20- game winner in 1969, the same year he pitched a club record of 20 complete games. Larry Dierker was named to the National League All-Star team for the 1969 game that was played here at RFK Stadium in Washington, and also the 1971 contest in Tiger Stadium in Detroit. He still ranks among the club's all-time leaders in virtually every pitching category. With a manager like Larry Dierker, the Astros truly have a leader who not only knows Houston, but also knows the ins and outs of baseball. Mr. Speaker, we also have two major stars on our team also affectionately called the Killer Bs. Jeff Bagwell, the home run king for the Astros, hit a total of 43 home runs this season. Not only did he set a new club record, he finished second in homers in the National League. Bagwell also established club records this year with 135 RBIs, 335 total bases, and 84 extra base hits. Setting a new Astros single season club record for homers, Bagwell ranked second in the National League for the number of RBIs. Then there is the other Killer B, Craig Biggio. He is the first player in the history of major league baseball to play in 162 games without grounding into a double play for the season. Biggio broke a 1935 record held by Augie Galan from the Chicago Cubs who went 154 games without grounding into a double play. Currently, Biggio crossed the plate 146 times this season, the most runs by a national leaguer since Chuck Klein stored 152 runs in 1932. Not only that, he has been hit by a pitch 34 times this season, establishing a new Astros record, which is not a record, I have to say, we are proud of, to have one of our players hit 34 times. Overall, 100 Astros were hit by pitches this year, the highest total by a team this century. The rest of the team will not back down from any of the pitchers either. In fact, the great pitching staff we have is congratulations to Darryl Kile and other outstanding pitchers. Kile is currently up for the top pitching award, the Cy Young Award. He has pitched 255-2/3 innings this season with a ranking of second in the National League. In addition, he has thrown 4 shutouts, tying for second in the National League. These key players, as well as the team, all contributed to their National League Central division title last Thursday, and being a Houston Astros fan, along with thousands and thousands of people in Houston, I want to congratulate the Astros and wish them the best of luck in their playoff game versus the Atlanta Braves tomorrow and also the series over the next few days.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, the United States is currently negotiating a new bilateral aviation agreement with Japan. It is vitally important that the United States press for the broadest possible agreement that would open up nonstop service to Tokyo from Houston, TX. Priority must be given first to providing service to those major U.S. cities, including Houston, that have no nonstop service to Tokyo at all currently. There is ample traffic to support daily nonstop service between Houston and Tokyo. In addition, more competition is needed between new United States gateways and Japan rather than additional increased service from existing United States -Japan service points. Why does Houston deserve nonstop service? Houston is the fourth largest city in the Nation and is a huge market which is currently unserved by nonstop service to Japan. The addition of nonstop air service will result in substantial economic benefit to Houston as it would increase annual output by over $800 million, provide over 5,600 new jobs, and increase incomes in Houston by $170 million. Here are more facts to back up this argument. Houston is the largest city in the United States without nonstop service to Tokyo. Houston is also the second largest United States metropolitan area in terms of Asian population that does not have single plane service to Asia. Houston is the second largest international traffic gateway without single plane service to Asia. Two hundred seventy-three Houston firms currently trade goods and services with Japan. Nearly 540 other Houston companies do business with East Asia as a whole, including Japan. Japanese companies have almost 90 subsidiaries in Houston as well as the largest concentration of Japanese specialty chemical companies outside of Japan. That is also in Houston. Houston is the Nation's second leading city for international business. I am proud to have joined the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Archer], the chairman, and my other Houston colleagues in a letter to the President earlier this year on this issue. As negotiations continue with Japan, consideration should be given to the fact that new service between unserved United States cities and Japan is more competitive and more preferable than additional service from cities that already have service to Japan.

Mr. GREEN. In reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, and I know it is a bipartisan effort by both Republicans and Democrats, because I am honored to represent the Intercontinental Airport now that the Federal court saw fit last year to give it to me from district 18, having lived there for many years. It is important to the whole business community and all of Houston because of the port and the trade we already do with Japan to have that nonstop service. I hope those negotiators understand that.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for mentioning education. It sounds like a pretty good idea. If they would quit trying to cut education funding, then maybe we could get 90 cents of every dollar to there. My kids did go to public schools, and I am proud that they did, and they had a great education. But today I am concerned about what happened yesterday. We had an incident yesterday in the House that brought ridicule to this House. We had a former Member confront a current elected Member of Congress on this floor while the House was in session. The election challenge to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez] must be completed and put to rest now. We have more important things to address, like they said, like education, like campaign finance reform, instead of letting something like that get in the way of the action of this House. That is why it needs to be put to rest. We should never allow something like this to disrupt what Congress has to do in dealing with enforcing the Balanced Budget Act and providing educational opportunity. Yet, what we see is just continuing festering of that election contest. Let us put it to rest.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. After the Civil War, we had radical Republicans trying to punish the South. Now we have latter day radical Republicans attacking public education, and yesterday we had a Republican colleague compare public education to a Communist legacy. Public education is a local responsibility; State and school districts, especially parents. To compare public education to communism does a disservice to the millions of students, teachers, and parents who work hard every day to educate their children. Mr. Speaker, 75 percent of Americans support public education. It is unconscionable to equate support for public education with communism. Communism and public education? Not in our United States.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, there are 52 million students in public schools today. Fifty-two million students. That is more than at the height of the baby boom generation. The question is are these students receiving the best education? Students from kindergarten to high school need a positive learning environment, an environment where students can ask questions, and teachers are accessible for individual tutoring, where students and teachers want to teach and want to learn. Students are not receiving enough help and enough support to learn at an adequate level. This is not the fault of the teachers. Look at the numbers. Fifty-two million students. There is a serious overcrowding problem. Schools are overcrowded, the buildings are unsafe. Thousands of students across our Nation go to school in buildings with leaky roofs and broken windows while students in the District of Columbia here wait until the roofs are fixed to start school. Teachers are stretched to their limits. In some classrooms teachers are teaching more than 40 students. We need more teachers and more help for teachers. Teachers provide that personal contact and that mentorship. With an increase in teachers, they can accurately assess the needs of their students and focus on that learning. These are concerns affecting children every day. We need to partner with our local schools and our States to make sure we solve our educational problems.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I am proud to be here opposing the amendment because I think the amendment is cynical. Some of us have worked for many years to improve vocational education funding; and like some of my colleagues, I served on the committee that dealt with vocational authorization, and we worked to make sure that the funding was there. Yet on the floor of the House we say that we are going to give you vocational money to be trained, but we are not going to give you a safe workplace. We can train you, but you will be killed on your job. That is what this amendment will do. I have been to the memorial services for machinists in my district who were killed on the job site last year. I do not know if many of the other Members on the other side of aisle have seen what happens in an industrial-type district. Again, this looks like it is a war against workers who work with their hands because that is where the injuries are. They are in the trenches, they are in the chemical plants and refineries, they are in the machine shops, they are in the printing companies that I used to work at. That is where it is. Those are people who work with their hands that lose their limbs and also their lives. Is OSHA doing the best job that they can? Of course not. I went with OSHA inspectors when they were at my company and was disillusioned, but I thought they needed to be better trained. But they were not. They were looking for things that I thought were not really important enough. Maybe that is why we need to provide them better training and more funding. I want to increase vocational education money, but I do not want to take it away from a safe workplace because the United States has one of most dismal records of safe workplaces. My colleague from Kentucky who talked about the loss of jobs because the imports do not have to comply with regulations; well, if that is what you want to do, we would not have a minimum wage because around the world the minimum wage may be a dollar a day. They do not have job safety in some of the countries we have to compete with. Let us take that debate up on something else, on trade issues, and not on lowering our standards to compete with somewhere else in the world. I do not want to lower our standards. I do not want any more job deaths because OSHA did not go out there and was not able to inspect the plant. I do not want to hear of any more chicken plants in North Carolina that keep the exit doors chained shut, and people die because of that. That is what this amendment is aiming for. Again, it looks like we are having a war against the workers because of the last amendment and this one; that is what is frustrating. In 1993, we had 6,300 workers die from traumatic injuries and more than 50,000 died from occupational diseases. On the average day, 154 workers lose their lives as a result of workplace injuries and illnesses, and another 16,000 are injured. Again, I represent an industrial district that has people who work with their hands in refineries and machine shops. This amendment again is a cynical way to try and say, we are going to cut OSHA because we do not like what they are doing somewhere else. Let us give them some guidance, but not cut their funding. Let us put more inspectors out there, who are better trained, to make sure we can lower the number of deaths in our workplace. Again that is what is frustrating to hear, an amendment like this today, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GREEN. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, that worries me because we have not seen a lessening of injuries on the job. Maybe what we need to do is make OSHA better by providing more funding for training of those inspectors and more inspectors to go out and inspect those sites. As the gentleman from Wisconsin, the ranking member, said, there are only 900 OSHA inspectors and they inspect the average workplace once every 87 years. We need to do a better job.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Speaker, we have an interstate highway system that we build with predominantly Federal dollars, with some State dollars, and of course, we have different levels, depending on what the level of the highway system is. We could not build those highways if it was just Texas and New Jersey. We could not build as many, but we have to leverage it between the two, and I wish I could tell the gentleman I was talking about a program like the Federal highway system for education, but under our budget constraints we cannot do that. But we can provide some funding to help those districts, just to help provide those. Maybe that will be the extra help to convince the local taxpayers to provide a bond election to build those schools, because very few districts can build schools out of current revenue. They just do not have that ability. You cannot do capital improvements without leveraging over a number of years, and even a small amount of money from the Federal Government would help to--and again, we are not going to tell them how to build those schools, we are going to just let them be a partner with them for a little bit, to make sure --maybe they can afford 95 percent and we can do 5 percent or something like that, or even less, but it will make a difference. That will show that we are all in this together as Americans, again, across our country, worrying about and addressing the issue of educational opportunity for our children and quality. Again, like our colleague, the gentleman from North Carolina, said, the education is in the classroom with those teachers and those parents who participate. All we need to do is make sure we are partnering with them to help them.

Mr. GREEN. I would like to thank my colleague from New Jersey for taking this special order this evening. Also my colleague from North Carolina [Mr. Etheridge], who again was the State superintendent, in talking with him, since he is a first-termer, about educational opportunity. Also, having played basketball with the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Etheridge], I think they need to lower the hoop for me and maybe raise it for him, because he is quite a bit taller. But thank goodness he has always been on my own team, so we will keep the hoop the way it is. What the gentleman said is right and what our colleagues said was correct, in that over a month ago we reached a bipartisan agreement on helping parents and helping students in college, whether it be the Hope scholarship program, the tax deductions for parents with children in college, or the Pell grants for children who are too poor to be able to benefit from tax cuts or the scholarship programs. We addressed that in a bipartisan effort, although I have to admit before July 30, if you would have told me in June or May it would have been bipartisan on the quality, or the total amount of the tax cuts that had been provided for education, I would not have believed it. But I think on a bipartisan basis, and I know one of our colleagues got a lot of press saying we were all breaking our arms patting ourselves on the back for it. It was a bipartisan agreement that I supported, and because it was bipartisan, it addressed higher education needs in our country. As our colleague said, we need to think about tomorrow and the future of our country, the college graduates, the assistance for those students. That is why it is so important. Again, I was proud of this Congress for addressing that in a bipartisan way. My concern here is, and here today we debated the Labor-HHS appropriations bill and up until today the biggest concern we heard was there was an amendment by our colleague from Pennsylvania to take away the national test. Well, frankly, I supported that amendment, because I do not know if we need a national test. I know we might need some voluntary national standards, and for my two terms previous to this in Congress I have worked for some national standards that the States could voluntarily adopt. I am proud to say, Texas is one of those who adopted those goals, with a bipartisan legislative effort, a Republican governor and Democratic legislature, who did that. But now we need to address on a bipartisan basis pre-K through the 12th grade, because again, as our colleagues said, we know what is wrong with the system. We know we need to have a standardized test. Texas has a standardized test. It has taken us a number of years to get to that point. A student in our high schools, unless they pass that exit level exam, they do not receive a diploma. That is tough, because I have had parents and students who have said, wait a minute, I worked 12 years, maybe 13 years to get that diploma, but they could not pass that test that supposedly is on basic skills. It is a little tougher than basic skills now, because over the last few years it has been made tougher because the course level is harder now. But we have gone through that. So we do need some type of test instrument. I am not a big proponent of tests because I worry about how they treat students who may not have the same opportunity. Last night I was using a special order to recognize a school district that my two children graduated from that were recognized in the State of Texas, and in my own county. It is an urban school district with easily a majority minority district, but they were recognized because of their increase in their test scores, their low dropout rates, and also their high attendance records; that they had to have a 94 percent average attendance record. They were recognized for that, and because of the quality education. What we need to do though, is to say, now we need to do for kindergarten or pre-K through 12, what we did bipartisanly for higher education. We need to talk about a voluntary national standard, because again, the child may be educated in the Alvino School District in the State of Texas but they very well may move to New Jersey. Frankly, New Jersey or Texas wants to know if a student is educated in the other State, that they have a certain level of educational quality; again, not that we want to set those standards, but we want to have a nationwide standard that districts and States all across the country will say, yes, we measure up to those standards. But they will be adopted locally by that State board of education, that State superintendent, however the State structures it. So we can do it. But again, we need to make sure it is not the Federal Government turning our backs on the future of our Nation. We talk on this floor a lot of times about the defense of our country. We need to look to the future and see how we can defend our country in the future, where the best way we can defend our country is not just by additional bombers and additional troops and better trained troops, but it is a better educated populace. It is an educated populace who can go into military service and maybe make a career out of it, since we have career military, and are educated to the point that they can defend our Nation. But again, an educated Nation, high skills, higher education, is what will make our country powerful, even in addition to our military power. That is what is so important. The voluntary national standard issue is not whether to implement a national test, the issue is to set a national standard for students, and we need to focus on providing quality education for students. We know the system is not working as best it should. That is why we need to put our shoulder to the grindstone with those school board members, with those State school board members, with those legislators, and with the parents and those teachers who are providing that education every day. I learned as a State legislator in Texas for 20 years that we did not educate students in the halls of the State legislature. We do not educate students here on the floor of the Congress. The education of those students is by those teachers in that classroom. Any help we can give with whatever power we have, whether it be funding, whether it be assistance to those teachers, to have smaller class sizes, to have more adequate books, to provide that assistance; and again, through title I, that is a great program that has been with us since the 1960's. I would like to see it continued. We expanded it in 1994 when we reauthorized title I funding, Federal help for schools. But we need to do more of that. The crumbling school buildings, we know even if we had gotten the $5 billion that was talked about, that again, leveraging that across the country, we could spend $5 billion in the State of Texas alone and it would not have helped that much. But again, it is the effort, and that little bit of Federal assistance to the local taxpayers who have had to vote those bonds to build those schools, to some of the States who provide building assistance. But mainly, it is also saying, we are all in this together and we are all Americans, whether you are from North Carolina, New Jersey, or from Texas. That is what is so important. The question is, are we providing children today the best education and the best learning environment, with the best facilities? Of course not. We would not see the problems we are having. That is why we need to make it even better. This year specifically we have 52 million students who have entered school this fall. This is a record number, surpassing those of us who are the baby boomers. There are 52 million students. Are these children going to receive the best quality education to take our place here as Members of Congress, or as doctors, lawyers, engineers, whatever profession they may go into, or whatever trade they may have? Obviously, we cannot say yes tonight. Students from kindergarten to high school need a good learning environment, an environment where students feel comfortable asking questions, where teachers are accessible for individual tutoring if needed, and where teachers want to teach, and more importantly, where students want to learn. Students are not receiving enough personal attention. We need to lower the pupil-teacher ratio. In Texas in 1984, when we went through our reform in public education, we lowered our class size in kindergarten through fourth grade to 20 students, 22 students per teacher. That has been a tough standard. In fact, we have had to grant waivers because of the growth. In every session, we will have administrators come back and say, we need to take that away. But we learned that the lower, the smaller class sizes--in fact, the ideal class size is 15 to 1, but we could not afford it. But we did say 22 to 1, to those most important years of K through 4. I introduced a bill as a State senator to make 22 to 1 from K through 12th grade. Of course, the cost of that was astronomical, but it made us talk about it. So whatever we can provide on the Federal level to make sure those teachers can work with those students in smaller class sizes. But again, it is a Federal concern and it is a State responsibility, but it is our job as Members of Congress to make sure we are planning for tomorrow. The schools are overcrowded. Buildings are unsafe. Even as we stand here tonight, in the District of Columbia we know that the schools have not reopened because of the hazardous conditions that they have. But that is not just in D.C. It is easy to pick on D.C. when you are around the country, and sometimes they give us very fertile ground to pick on them. But it is not just in the District of Columbia, it is all over the country that we have problems with buildings and deteriorated conditions. As the gentleman said earlier, it is not just in the urban areas, it is not just in a district like I represent. It is also in my suburban districts that I represent, but it is also in the rural facilities. That is why I think whatever bill we can craft needs to address both the rural, the suburban, and the urban needs to provide that leverage that will help that local school boards and those local taxpayers to approve a bond election, maybe, or that State to provide a little extra money for building and construction that a lot of States do not provide. Teachers are stretched to their limits. Like I said, some teachers have 40 students in their classroom. My wife is a high school algebra teacher. Last year she had over 40 students in an algebra class. How do you teach algebra students? I had enough trouble when I sat through geometry twice during the day to learn. Obviously, that is why I became a business major and a lawyer. But you cannot teach students when you have 40 in a classroom, and that is what is so sad. You have to have smaller class sizes and buildings to match that, so teachers can do it. A lot of our schools are going through a building boom, if their taxpayers support the bond elections. Again, using the Alvino School District as an example, they passed the bond election that provided for a great many more classrooms for our school. Selena Park ISD in my district passed a bond election, the voters did. The Houston Independent School District, over 200,000 students every day attend. The bond election failed, so we have problems there, but they are trying to come up with facilities. I have a high school that is in ISD that I went to high school with. Years ago they decided to do away with the library because they needed the classrooms, so they use the city library across the street. They do not have a cafeteria at that high school. They use a junior high cafeteria that is a block away. That is wrong. We ought to provide those facilities for the high school students and junior high students without them having to use a city library. I at one time thought that was great because we could leverage the funding. The problem is that city library is not equipped like a school library would be, particularly a middle school library or a junior high and a high school library. So we have problems with buildings, we have problems with pupil-teacher ratios, and we in Congress need to do something bipartisanly. That is why we are talking about this. Let us just not talk about tests, and say the President wants national tests, let us be against that. Let us talk about what we can do constructively, and that is why we can have some voluntary national standards, and also put our money where our mouth is. That is why I was proud of this Congress in July, and I hope I will be proud of this Congress when we address putting funding in the kindergarten through the 12th grade for public education, so we can prepare those students for tomorrow. I will close, I say to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], thanking him. Some of us in 1992, we heard Fleetwood Mac too often singing ``Don't stop thinking about tomorrow,'' but if we as Members of Congress stop thinking about tomorrow, then we are not doing our job. Our job is to make sure our country is as great tomorrow if not greater than it is today. If we are derelict in our duty in not providing for educational opportunity and better opportunity for our children, then we are doing a disservice to our Nation and we are doing a disservice to those students, those 452 million students, who started school this year. That is not what I came to Washington to do. Again, I want to thank the gentleman for allowing us tonight to give this special order. I know we have taken up most of his time, it seems like, but the gentleman has heard a lot of accents tonight, from North Carolina to Texas to the Northeast. That is because it is a national problem. It is not just a localized problem. I thank the gentleman again for allowing me to participate.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Michigan, and I agree education should not be a partisan issue. In fact, the bipartisan budget agreement, the education tax cuts to help parents prepare to send their kids to college, increased Pell grants, HOPE scholarships, put our money where our values are. That was bipartisan although it was not part of the original budget package until Democrats talked about it. But now he is right; we need to focus our attention on kindergarten through the 12th grade, public education. Voluntary national standards should be adopted by the States. Many States are already doing it. Texas has already done this. Education is a national concern, but a State and local responsibility. But Congress needs to help. Congress needs to provide assistance to those parents and those teachers and those principals and those people who are working every day to provide that quality education. The Republican majority was convinced last month, or in July, that college education was helped. Now the American people need to convince this Congress we need to work on public education, kindergarten through 12th grade. We talk about national tests today, but we are not talking about really quality education. Let us get off the test issue and get back on just talking about education.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], my colleague from Houston. That championship game last week was exciting not only for those of us who are from Houston, but all across the country. Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to be here on the floor of the House and pleased to announce the high performance rating for a school district in Houston, Aldine Independent School District. It was recognized by the Texas Education Agency for the quality of their program. As the parent of two graduates of Aldine schools, and my wife who teaches in the Aldine schools, and representing, along with the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee], about half the district, it is a pleasure to see the school district receive the recognition that it deserves. According to the latest data released by the Texas Education Agency, Aldine ranks among the Texas high performance school districts. This rating was based on 1996-1997 Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, our Statewide TAAS scores, attendance records, and low dropout rate. Aldine is the largest recognized school in the State with a student enrollment of approximately 48,000 students. To earn a recognized rating, 75 percent of all students in each students group, district- wide, must pass each TAAS subject area. In addition, the dropout rate for all students cannot exceed 3.5 percent. They must also maintain an attendance rate of at least 94 percent. Only a few schools have reached the high performing level of recognized or exemplary and Aldine is one of the four ``recognized'' school districts in Harris County, TX. By achieving a recognized designation from the State, it is a great honor for everybody in the school district. But it is more than that. It recognizes each individual's hard work and commitment to education. More specifically, a special thank you for the dedication of the curriculum program directors, principals, the teachers, the teaching assistants, and the students. It is a collaborative effort by these individuals which guarantee the continued success of the school district. One of the reasons for the success of the Aldine Independent School District is their curriculum. The staff development focuses on teamwork and giving teachers of all subject areas the chance to support academic success. Each teacher in the district receives the same materials containing the same common strategies throughout the district. Program directors from different subject areas then work with the teachers on integrating those common strategies into their curriculum. The curriculum is based on the continual assessment of student performance, analysis of student performance data, and the development of benchmarks, targets, and then implementation. It is a structured system to ensure that the skills are mastered and applied to each student's learning. Not only has there been success for Aldine Independent School District, but there has also been success for the State of Texas. Students across the State of Texas have improved their performance on TAAS testing, TAAS is a statewide assessment of skills, from 55 percent in 1994 to 73 percent in 1997. In comparison, Aldine ISD students have improved their mastery from 49 percent in 1994, to 75 percent in 1997. For the State of Texas as a whole, the figures show an increase in the number of highest performing districts and a decrease in the number of lowest performing districts statewide, despite tougher performance standards for the years 1996 and 1997. Again, each year the performance standards get tougher, as we know, the worldwide competition gets tougher. Texas has the most high school seniors taking the SAT test than any State in the country, at 48 percent, and these scores have continued to improve. Texas has brought education to the forefront. It is a priority for everyone, and that is an important distinction. Again, Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be here this evening and recognize the contribution and the success of the Aldine Independent School District to the education of our children.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of William N. Kemp, who passed away on July 15, 1997, in Houston, TX. Dr. Kemp was a self-employed optometrist for 41 years in the North Shore area of Houston and was the founder of the firm Drs. Kemp and Peterson, Optometrist. He was past president of both the Harris County Optometric Society and the Texas Optometric Association. Dr. William Kemp was born August 21, 1925, in Wharton, TX, where he lived until entering the Navy for 3 years of service during World War II. He attended Texas A&I University in Kingsville for 3 years and was graduated from the Illinois College of Optometry in Chicago. Upon graduation, he moved to the North Shore area of Houston and was active in the community for many years, especially in the Lions International. Dr. Kemp was active in politics where he served as president of the North Shore Democrats and skillfully represented Houston alongside with Congresswoman Barbara Jordan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. In 1972, Dr. Kemp was elected to the Texas State Board of Education, district 8, where he served for 11 years. Dr. Kemp is survived by his wife of 41 years, Kathryn Lourene Kemp; three sons, Paul Davis Kemp, George William Kemp, and Robert Harris Kemp; two granddaughters, Kimberley Shae Kemp and Toni Louise Kemp; and one grandson, Matthew W. Kemp. William Kemp will be remembered as a leader in his community whose ideas reached far and wide. His genuine enthusiasm for his community prompted people of all ages to become interested and involved in improving their community. Because I experienced Dr. Kemp's vitality and wisdom firsthand, I have no doubt that this tireless role model made Houston, TX, a richer place to live. As friends and family reflect on his lifetime of contribution, it is only fitting that we also pay tribute to this great man and good friend.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of a very important provision of the Energy and Water Appropriations bill that provides for the $23.8 million for the widening and deepening of the Port of Houston. This construction project is investment not only in Houston's future, but also in the economic viability of our Nation, and I am proud to represent a large portion of the Port of Houston. The port provides $5.5 billion in annual business revenue and creates 196,000 direct and indirect jobs in our community. By generating $213 million annually in State and local taxes, this project will more than pay for itself over the next several years. With last year's passage of the Water Resources Development Act, the Port of Houston was authorized to receive $240 million in Federal funds for the deepening and widening project. Additionally, in a 1989 bond election, Houston voters approved $130 million in local contributions. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio], the ranking member, and also the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Edwards], my friend and fellow Texan who serves on the subcommittee. The gentleman from Texas has been instrumental in working with us on this important project. The expansion of the port is important to Houston on many levels. The Port of Houston, connected to the Gulf of Mexico with a 53-mile ship channel, is the busiest U.S. port in foreign tonnage, second in domestic tonnage, and the eighth busiest U.S. port overall. With more than 5,535 vessels navigating the channel annually, and anticipated increases over the next few years, the widening of the channel from 400 to 520 feet and its deepening from 40 to 45 feet is necessary to safeguard the economic viability of the port. The Port of Houston generates $5.5 billion annually to the Nation's economy and the port generates over $200 million again in State and local taxes and nearly $300 million in customs fees, so there is no doubt that the Port of Houston continues to be a vital force in the commerce of the United States.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, the Republican majority has placed a provision in the budget bill to expand the definition of independent contractor. Because of the negotiation on tax cuts and health insurance for children and Medicare, not much has been said about this issue. Mr. Speaker, this provision goes a long way toward taking away many of the benefits that employees need. We are not talking about personal parking spaces or perks. We are talking about health insurance coverage, pensions, and employer contributions to Social Security and unemployment insurance. Employers say they want clear rules on how to classify an independent contractor. We can clarify those rules very easily without leaving a hole that one can drive a Mack truck through. If this provision passes, perhaps millions of workers will lose their benefits and be classified as working for themselves, even though this is not the case. Outside of Washington people are concerned about and oppose this systematic downsizing and lowering of our standard of living. That is what this provision will do. There is lots in that tax bill to be concerned about, but one of the things I am concerned about is the complaint of the American people that their standard of living is being lowered. They are doing it with this Republican bill.

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Speaker, recently the Houston Oilers received the final agreement to leave Houston and become the Tennessee Oilers, playing in Memphis, TN, this year and later on in Nashville, TN. As a long-time Houston Oiler fan, I am looking for a new professional team to adopt. I worked as a 13-year-old at the old Oiler football games at Jeppesen Stadium, now Robertson Stadium, on the University of Houston campus. Today I am cleaning out some of my Oiler paraphernalia like a lot of people in Houston are doing. I want to present them to the gentleman from Nashville, TN [Mr. Clement] and say, ``You can have this hat, you can have this glass that says Houston Oilers,'' even a bumper sticker from our local radio station that plays the Oilers and their games, and even a pin that says, ``Love You, Blue.'' Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman [Mr. Clement].

Mr. GREEN

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Lewis] for accepting this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Bentsen amendment, and I commend my colleague from Houston for his leadership on this important issue. On March 15, 1996, the EPA issued a final rule to amend the Federal PCB regulations and allow the import of PCB waste for disposal in permitted facilities in the United States. This rule allows the importation of foreign PCB waste for disposal in the United States. The EPA has estimated that the U.S. disposal industry would receive $50 to $100 million annually if PCB's are imported into the United States from Canada and Mexico. And where would PCB's be disposed? In Kansas, Utah, Pennsylvania, Port Arthur, TX, and Channelview, TX. Mr. Bentsen's amendment would prohibit the EPA from using any funds to implement its final rule. PCB's when incinerated release dioxin--one of the most toxic chemicals known. Dixon, as we all know, causes a wide range of adverse health effects and it accumulates in the environment. The incineration of PCB's is recognized as a health hazard. That's why the Congress designed a phase out of domestic PCB manufacture in the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976. Last week, the ninth circuit court overturned EPA's rule to allow the importation of PCB's. The Bentsen amendment will ensure the continual prohibition of imported PCB's even if EPA exercises its option to appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment.

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. [Mr. GREEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, again, I thank the chairman for the commitment to work with us over the next year, and we will be looking for other opportunities to address the needs of Houston.