Pete Hoekstra

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. No. There is a reason it is called mandatory sourcing. It is not preferential sourcing, where there is a scoring system and if you are within 5 or 10 percent of the private sector price you have to buy it from us. It is not preferential competition. It is mandatory sourcing. You must buy from Federal Prison Industries. If you want a waiver or seek a waiver, Federal Prison Industries determines whether you will get it. It is absolutely outrageous. And I just want to mention one other thing the gentleman talked about. The inertia, the momentum where we build up this prison industrial complex; 111 different factories: Alderson, West Virginia; Atlanta, Georgia; Beaumont, Texas; Butler, North Carolina; Dublin, California; Edgefield, South Carolina; Fort Dix, New Jersey; Greenville, Illinois; Jessup, Georgia; Leavenworth, Kansas; Lee, Virginia; Manchester, Kentucky; Oakdale, Louisiana; Pollock, Louisiana; Ray Brook, New York; Safford, Arizona; Sandstone, Minnesota; Seagoville, Texas; Terre Haute, Indiana; Tucson, Arizona; Minnesota; Mississippi; Texas; Connecticut; New Jersey; Kentucky; California; Pennsylvania; Illinois; Tennessee; New York. 111 different factories. Absolutely they are building it up. So we have this momentum put in place that just wants to gobble up more and more business. They want to grow and grow, grow by 30 percent after they have grown by 16 percent. They have come up with these creative marketing schemes, and what they are selling is they are selling their mandatory sourcing. They are going to these Canadian companies and saying if you sign these contracts with us, we may or may not do anything with the product except pass it through. It may not even stop at a prison, but if you sell through us we can make people buy your stuff that otherwise probably would go to an American company. Thank you, Federal Prison Industries. Number one, you take our jobs. This is a new scheme that has come up within the last 12 to 18 months. So this is the direction this Justice Department is going. I guess they do not realize that there has been a little bit of an economic downturn in America. They think we have full employment. This Justice Department is now saying, before we put people in Michigan or Indiana back to work, we have to get those people in Ontario back to work. And when we get those people in Ontario back to work, we will take a look at Michigan and Indiana. But we have to first take care of those people in Ontario. It is really too bad that the Attorney General and Federal Prison Industries are getting away with this. Probably Federal Prison Industries is getting away with this because the Attorney General is not paying any attention to it, although we have met with the White House. We have tried to get the attention of the Justice Department. The President came to Michigan a couple of months ago, and he asked about this issue. I think he shares our passion. He thinks it is wrong. He made a comment along the lines of, hey, Pete, I think we have that issue done. But, Mr. President, no, we have not. Matter of fact, it has gone from bad to worse. This Federal Prison Industries is a fast- growing growth industry. That is what we want to have in the economy, but that is not what we want to have at Federal Prison Industries. But under your Justice Department, that is exactly what is happening.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It is not points. If Federal Prison Industries makes it, they can demand that that housing project that the gentleman just talked about buy from them, no matter what else they get. No matter what other kind of bid, they have to buy from Federal Prison Industries. The companies in our districts cannot even go compete for that business.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I want to make it very, very clear. Our companies are not even allowed to compete for the business. Federal Prison Industries gets right of first refusal.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. They may never bid.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The interesting thing here is this is just not an office furniture industry issue. If you go through the numbers, they are selling $159 million worth of clothing and textiles. That is why if you go to the gentleman from Pennsylvania's (Mr. Toomey) district, our colleague, I visited up there. There are lots of cut and sew operations that are operating at 25, 30 percent capacities. These are great plants. The workers have been sent home. Federal Prison Industries has grown. It is what happened with Hathaway Shirts in Maine. The contracts went to Federal Prison Industries, and the last shirt manufacturer in the United States closed down. But they are still making shirts over at Federal Prison Industries. They are doing the electronics. They are doing fleet management. It is a fast growing area. I think somehow they got the Midwest on their target zone. I think they forgot that Michigan is part of the union. Stay away from office furniture. Stay away from automotive parts, but they have made that a key part of their business. They are now also moving into the services industry so there is a lot of folks in here. It also talks about the coalition that we have been able to put together. The day I dropped the bill we had 104 co- sponsors. It was awesome. A bipartisan bill. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), two leading Democrats, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the ranking member on the Committee on the Judiciary, a Democrat, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, me, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), yourself, about 104 Members are joining us in this effort. The sad thing is the way that we get co-sponsors.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. That is right. Exactly. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), he has been just a yeoman on this for the last 5 years. But what really got him interested was a small company in his district which made a very specialize product, missile containers. Well, Federal Prison Industries thought that would be a nice business to get in. How do they justify getting into the missile container business? They said, well, we are going to go into the container business. So we are going to take a very small piece of the container business so obviously it is a minimal impact on jobs in that industry.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. No. Actually what Federal Prison Industries does and what they did with office furniture was they took a growth industry in America and decided to piggyback on it. And now that that industry is facing some difficult times, the industry is down, there is more foreign competition coming in, and then they are looking over here and they are competing with their own government. I just get absolutely enraged when I am back home in my district because these are my neighbors. It was just a week ago and I am speaking to a local group and a friend of mine that I would like to think of as still a young man, but somebody I worked with, somebody that I graduated with. He said, maybe you did not hear, but I got laid off last week. He had been with the company for 28 years. This is as the industry is going down 18 percent. Federal Prison Industries is growing by 24 percent. What does that mean? It means they grew from $174 million in the office furniture industry to a $217 million company in one year, as the industry in the private sector was going down and they deliver poorer quality products as at a higher price. These people come up to me and say, how come I am out of a job? I pay taxes. The company paid taxes. We have got shuttered plants. Hathaway is now a shuttered plant. I am sure the folks up in Maine, they are not getting any State income taxes. You cannot explain to them and say, well, we have got to put these prisoners to work. In our bill we do not just put these people in cells. We give them vocational training. We are increasing the investment in vocational training. We are allowing them and encouraging them to make stuff for not-for-profit organizations, to work with Habitat for Humanity. So they are going to be doing things and staying busy, but the thing that they are not going to be doing is they are not going to be putting American workers out of business and out of their jobs. And the other thing that my bill does is it says we are not going to shut you down. We are saying all you have to do is be able to compete. All I want is the workers in west Michigan, the workers in Indiana, the workers in Maine and down south to be able to compete for the business that if he can, they can get a better product. If they can deliver a better product at a better price right, that they can get that business. Right now they cannot compete for the business.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. The problem that we have, I believe, is within the bureaucracy of Federal Prison Industries. I think you used the word ``inertia.'' They have got this momentum going. They are building new plants. They are employing all of these workers. They cannot think outside of the box. They are wedded to the box that says we are going to make products that everybody can identify with. Going out and starting a new relationship with Habit for Humanity and a new category of products that does not compete with the private sector, that is too hard to do. This is pretty easy. And I think that is what it is. The scary thing here, this is where we are today. Over the next 5 years, the plan of this Justice Department, in their annual report, Attorney General John Ashcroft not only endorses these results of increasing sales by 16 percent and saying that is a wonderful thing, without thinking about what it has done in your district and my district and other districts around the country, they are requesting, and I think other documents would show that what they want is 30 percent growth over the next 5 years. So I mean there are those within this group of people who see this as a wonderful opportunity, for whatever reason, a wonderful opportunity to put more Americans out of work. So my legislation is going to pass; I just do not know whether it will pass this year or whether it will pass in 3 to 5 years. Because each and every year when we go through this process, and the gentleman and I have worked on this for about 5 years together, but it becomes much clearer to Members. We have been kind of tilling the soil, and the seed does not sprout and grow until it happens in their district. Then they come back and say, hey, Pete, Mark, I finally get it. I had a company that was selling this stuff to the Federal Government and they were doing a great job, and last week Federal Prison Industries came in and said, oh, by the way, that is now our business, we are going to make it. And they say, Pete, my folks make that. They had a better quality product, it is cheaper, and they cannot even bid for the business. Is that right? And I have to say, yes, that is exactly how it works. Glad to have you on board and glad to have you now being a supporter. What we need is we need to get to the 218 Members this year so that we can get those folks in our districts and other districts back to work as soon as possible by at least providing them the opportunity to compete for this business.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise to set in context a bill that I introduced with my colleagues, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), along with 98 other cosponsors just before the Easter recess. The bill is H.R. 1829. It deals with an issue of reforming Federal Prison Industries. Some of our colleagues may ask, what is the importance of this bill? Or, what are you trying to get accomplished? Let me put that in a framework. What is Federal Prison Industries? Federal Prison Industries is a corporation, and many of the documents and many of the talking points that I will be using tonight come out of the annual report, which was just released by Federal Prison Industries within the last couple of weeks. But Federal Prison Industries was established on May 27, 1930 when Congress enacted H.R. 7412. One of the key provisions was to ``reduce to a minimum competition with private industry or free labor.'' On June 23, 1934, this bill was signed into law, authorizing the establishment of Federal Prison Industries. The key phrase is ``reduce to a minimum competition with private industry or free labor.'' I am going to spend much of the evening talking about what Federal Prison Industries is doing to American workers and American companies. In effect, what Federal Prison Industries is doing is it is costing American workers and American taxpayers all across this country to lose their jobs, even though the underlying statute clearly states, ``reduce to a minimum competition with private industry or free labor.'' Federal Prison Industries and this Justice Department has lost sight of the goal of this legislation and what the role of Federal Prison Industries was intended to be. Now, some within the Justice Department today may say, this is our contribution to creating high-quality and high-paying jobs in America, and we will get into that in detail also as we go through this process. But the key point here is that when Federal Prison Industries was established, the mandate was you will reduce to a minimum the impact on American workers and free labor and American business. The message from the current board of directors is very encouraging. It says on page 5 of their annual report, ``Our mission is to do so without jeopardizing the job security of the American taxpayer.'' In 1930, the underlying statute says ``reduce to a minimum.'' In 2003, reporting on their annual report for 2002 it says, ``mission is to do so without jeopardizing the job security of the American taxpayer.'' If we go a little further, we will start to see where I think we get into some problems. Mr. Speaker, what we have talked about, laying the context, is in the 1930s up to 2003, the underlying legislation, the board says they should reduce to a minimum the impact on American workers, American taxpayers, their jobs, and free labor. It is interesting, as we go to the ombudsman message in the annual report. The ombudsman says something different: ``so that a balance can be achieved between protecting jobs for Americans while teaching inmates meaningful job skills.'' A balance. It is a subtle shift, but it is a shift that FPI has been undergoing for the last 10 years. They have shifted from having a minimum impact on the American workforce to, in a number of different industries, having a devastating impact on American workers. In Maine at Hathaway Shirts, that closed last year because of contracts, because of Federal Prison Industries going out and claiming contracts that otherwise would have gone to the private sector. Ask the workers at Hathaway Shirts as to whether Federal Prison Industries is having a minimal impact. I think they would tell us very clearly that when someone loses his job and the factory locks its doors, that is not a minimal impact; that is a devastating impact. Their jobs are gone. We have put more inmates to work. It is outrageous that Federal Prison Industries and this Justice Department is talking about a balance as they are putting American workers out of business. What kind of balance is that? American taxpayers are out of a job and someone is asking for balance. It does not look like there is a whole lot of balancing going on. This Justice Department has no idea as to what a balancing act is when they weigh putting a prisoner to work at the expense of an American taxpayer. By the way, when Members say, well, it is good to keep prisoners working, there is no debate with that. But what we do not want to do is we do not want to put them to work at the expense of American taxpayers. On page 24, an interesting fact. They will say they make money for America. Here is what it says in their annual report about taxes: ``As a wholly owned corporation of the Federal Government, FPI is exempt from Federal and State income taxes.'' That is not a bad deal. I wonder what kind of Federal and State income taxes Hathaway Shirts was paying. Of course, they are now out of business. FPI is exempt from gross receipts taxes, and they are exempt from property taxes. That is an interesting thing. They pay no taxes, and they put Americans out of work. The Justice Department and FPI is looking for a balance. As far as I can see, it is an outrageous balance every time we put an American worker out of a job. What do they make? Clothing and textiles; law enforcement, medical, military and institutional apparel; mattresses; bedding; linens; towels; embroidered screen printing on textiles; custom-made textiles and curtains; fleet management; vehicular components; rebuild and refurbish vehicle components; new vehicle retrofit services; fleet management customized services; dorm and quarters furnishings; package room solutions; industrial racking; catwalks; mezzanines; warehouse office shelving; custom fabricated industrial products; lockers; storage cabinets. It looks like a lot of stuff they make in my district. They have an office furniture business group: office furnishings and accessories, seating products, case goods, training table products, office systems products, filing and storage products, package office solutions, turnkey solutions, distribution and mailing services, assembly and packing services, document conversion, call center, order for film and services, laundry services, recycling of electronic components, reuse and recovery of usable components for resale, recycling activities, custom engraving, printing and awards, promotional gifts, license plates, interior and exterior architectural signs, safety and recreational signs, printing and design services, remanufacturing of toner cartridges, exterior and interior task lighting systems, wire harness assemblies, circuit boards, electrical components and connectors, electrical cables, braided and cord assemblies. Wow. They make a lot of stuff that is made in my district. The interesting advantage that Federal Prison Industries has, we think, well, hey, if they can go out and compete for this business and they can provide a better quality product at a better price and at a better service delivery than the private sector, so be it. If that were only the case. Federal Prison Industries has this wonderful thing called mandatory sourcing. The balance that the ombudsman calls for, here is the balance that Federal Prison Industries has: if the Federal Government wants to buy something and Federal Prison Industries makes it, we have to buy from Federal Prison Industries. The private sector may make the product, they may make it in a better quality at a lower price and a better delivery schedule; but sorry, they do not qualify. We know they paid their taxes, but they cannot even compete for the Federal Government business. Here is what they make. The law says they should have minimal impact on jobs and free labor, and they have an element called mandatory sourcing. They are quality jobs. This is great. Here is what we do with our prisoners. We criticize China for their prison labor. Federal Prison Industries, and our Justice Department. Inmate pay rates: 23 cents to $1.15 per hour. Wow. It sounds more like China than it does America. The good thing is, of course, these people are covered by OSHA. Wrong. If we are paying them 23 cents to $1.15 an hour, we cannot cover them with OSHA laws. These are the people that are putting American workers out of business around the country today. My district is heavily impacted by the recession, making a lot of office furniture products, and the industry is down by 40 percent. I have been joined by one of my colleagues. I will give him a chance to have a little dialogue here. Before I do that, let me highlight one small fact. I am not sure my colleague has seen these numbers. I am sure the American people have not seen them. As the American economy is struggling, here is a growth company. We can invest in the U.S. Government, and we may get one of the best growth companies in America today, Federal Prison Industries. Federal Prison Industries, in the business segment clothing and textiles did not have a good year. They were only up 1 percent; electronics, not a bad year, 14 percent; fleet management, vehicular components, wow, this is a growth industry. This is a business segment that grew 216 percent. Graphics, they had a rough year. They were down 10 percent. Industrial products, they were down 54; office furniture, up 24 percent. Not that great of a growth rate, office furniture up only 24 percent. The statistic they are now telling us is that the office furniture industry in the private sector was probably down 15 percent to 18 percent, so they grow by 24. The real manufacturer decreases by 18 percent, and Federal Prison Industries increases their market share. Overall, last year Federal Prison Industries grew by 16 percent. It is the ugly little secret that this Justice Department, this Federal Prison Industries, whether it is in clothing or textiles, whether it is in office furniture, whether it is in automotive or whatever, as these industries are laying people off, Federal Prison Industries through mandatory sourcing and offering poor quality, higher-priced goods with longer delivery schedules is adding more and more jobs. The Justice Department's answer or contribution to creating high- quality, high-paying jobs in America is to put more prisoners to work in prison, lay off taxpayers, and pay the new jobs at 23 cents to $1.15 an hour. That is Justice's idea of justice in America today. It is absolutely outrageous that the Federal Government is allowing this to go on. I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 1829. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and I, it was not all that long ago that we visited a plant in his district, a company that made innovative products and wanted to sell to the military, and had sold to the military. What they found out, maybe my colleague is going to share the story with us, but again they were dramatically impacted by Federal Prison Industries to such an extent that they were jeopardizing jobs in their plants so that Federal Prison Industries could expand the sale of their goods and services. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, excuse me. If the gentleman will clarify, who sells it cheaper?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. You say, well, why do the Federal procurement officers not support your bill? You know what? They do. Because as this Congress asks different agencies to do more with less, the Federal procurement officers come back and say, hey, we can buy better goods and services from the private sector for a lower price, but you make us go to Federal Prison Industries. If we are going to have to use Federal Prison Industries, then do not make us do more with less because we cannot buy the best products and we cannot buy the services. You are asking us to get more efficient and more effective in using vendors who do not meet the standards that we need to compete.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Number one, I agree with you. I would like to go to the same place and say you are just not going to make stuff that competes with the private sector. The law called for minimal impact. But we have got to get the 218 votes. We need to pass this through the House. We need to get it through the Senate. And we need to get this done so at least these workers will have the opportunity to compete and fight for their jobs. They are, in many ways, fighting an uphill battle. They are fighting 23 cents an hour labor. They are fighting factories that have no OSHA regulations. They are fighting a bureaucracy that the capital is funded by us so there is no cost or a minimal cost of capital. But the surprising thing is they have shown that they can do it. So I am willing to accept that as somewhat of a compromise, and the compromise that we have developed, not only do we have great bipartisan support here, but we have got support from the Federal Contracting Officers. Where else can you go and get a letter of endorsement from the AFL-CIO, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Teamsters and the NFIB? I mean, this is where organized labor and the business groups all come together because we are all interested in one thing. We are interested in creating, and maybe in this case, preserving high-quality, high-paying jobs in America where this Justice Department, this FPI, this Federal Prison Industries and some would say this administration, is bent on eliminating high-quality, high-paying jobs. It is outrageous.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. It will be very difficult. Again, the folks in the Defense Department are very much in support of this type of reform because they want to go to the private sector, or at least they want to have the opportunity to go to the private sector. Typically, the private sector is going to be more flexible. From experience, we know they can provide a more cost-effective product and a better quality product. So, again, that is why Federal procurement officers are with us. The folks that are not with us are the bureaucracy within the Department of Justice; and I am hoping that somebody just rings the bell over there and says, wait a minute, guys, this is wrong. We need to stop this, and we cannot believe that on our watch this is what is happening. We are growing the inmate workforce at the same time that unemployment rates in many parts of the country are going up. Again, Federal Prison Industries and Office Furniture grew by 25 percent as the industry went down by 18 to 20 percent, a 45 percent differential. It is terrible to say, but I would probably have been overjoyed if Federal Prison Industries would have stayed level, but they did not even have the courtesy in this competitive, tough economy to not be greedy. They got greedy.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. This is why Federal employees support us as well. What may happen is the Federal Government may decide to outsource and contract out certain things, and the winning contractor may be Federal Prison Industries.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. I would not go that far.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from Colorado, for yielding me this time. I think this is an excellent amendment. Under current law, school districts are required to identify all children who have disabilities in a district, including private school children. All children. School districts are also obligated to provide special education and related services to these private school children as a group in an amount equal to the proportionate amount of Federal funds generated by these children to the district under IDEA. Now, what does this mean? It means the school district receives a certain amount of dollars to provide services to these children. Under current law, however, no parentally placed private school child is entitled to individual services, even though the school district receives this money. The only requirement in the law is that the school's disabled population as a group must be helped. In practicality, what this means is that many of the students who have been placed in a private or parochial school do not get the direct services specific to their needs; and when those services are available, they are often offered at times and at places that are inconvenient to the child's parents. I support the Federal investment in meeting the education needs of all of our Nation's children with disabilities. Support this amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding me this time. As a Congress, we have a responsibility to not only fund special education but also to make sure the dollars spent on special education are targeted to the children who really need the extra assistance and learning. Each year, thousands of children are wrongly identified as needing special education while many others are not identified early enough or at all. Mr. Chairman, this misidentification reduces the resources available to serve children who are actually disabled. Furthermore, it gives some children with controllable but negative behavior the ability to misbehave without fear of punishing. H.R. 1350 takes important strides in addressing the problem of overidentification and the mislabeling of children with disabilities by way of prereferral services and early intervention strategies. It also takes important strides in reforming current discipline procedures to make our schools safer for all of our children and teachers. The Shadegg amendment supports the efforts of this legislation before us, and expresses a sense of Congress on reducing misidentification and ensuring that our schools are safe. I encourage Members to vote for this amendment.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I speak in support of the conference report to S. 151, the PROTECT Act, which creates new and increases already existing penalties for crimes against children, as well as provides for the national coordination of the AMBER Alert communications network. An important provision in S. 151 doubles the authorization level for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which serves as the national resource center and clearinghouse to aid missing and exploited children and their families. The conference report also makes other changes to require Regional Children's Advocacy Centers grantees to provide information to the Attorney General on the use of funds for evaluation of community response to child abuse, and coordinates the operation of a Cyber- Tipline to provide online users an effective means of reporting Internet-related child sexual exploitation in the areas of distribution of child pornography, online enticement of children for sexual acts, and child prostitution. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a private non-profit organization, mandated by Congress, working in cooperation with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention within the U.S. Department of Justice. It is a critical resource for aiding over 18,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the nation in their search for missing children. The Center is uniquely positioned to access vital information to aid in the search and recovery of missing kids. It is the only child protection non-profit organization with access to the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Missing Person, Wanted Person, and Unidentified Person Files; the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS); and the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS). Additionally, it is the only organization operating a 24-hour toll-free Hotline for the recovery of missing children in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice. It is also the sole organization operating a 24-hour, toll-free child pornography tip-line in cooperation with the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children does our country and our nation's families a great service in the fight to keep our nation's children safe. I want to congratulate my colleagues for quickly resolving the differences between the House and Senate bills and I urge their support for final passage.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Turkey may need assistance, but today is not the day to approve that assistance. Today we send a clear signal to America and the rest of the world that we support our troops. Turkey has not supported our troops. The U.S. over the last number of months has consistently and frequently consulted with Turkey as to the direction of the war with Iraq and the role that Turkey would take. Turkey allowed us to make improvements to their infrastructure. We invested millions of dollars, contracted with Turkish companies to work, yet they would not allow us to deploy our troops. The Pentagon supported their economy by purchasing Turkish-made apparel for U.S. troops for 1 year, waiving a Buy America provision, sacrificing American jobs for Turkish jobs. The U.S. continues to promise protection to Turkey in the event of an attack. That is more than what we can say Turkey did for us. Turkey has been an ally for a long time. So maybe sometime in the future would be the appropriate time to come back and take a look at how to help a friend with tough economic times. But in this vote, where we are supporting our troops in our war effort, this is not the place to reward Turkey. Let us remove this from the bill. Let us make this a clean bill that signals to our troops that we stand with them and that we will be with them through the conclusion of this war effort.

Mr. HOEKSTRA

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, can I inquire how much time remains?

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Musgrave).

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. The myth has been repeated often that what we are doing tonight is taking money from young people who have served. That is not accurate. In February, we put $100 million back into the trust, and the way that this works is that these young people work. They then have the opportunity within the next 7 years to claim their educational award. There is plenty of money in the trust fund to take care of any awards that are going to be coming due in the coming months. The money is there. What is not there is the policies and the procedures within the corporation that will ensure that this does not happen again. It is called an antideficiency provision, where it is very possible that in the last year the corporation had made commitments for which there was not money that had been appropriated by this Congress. That is a serious issue; and before we give the corporation $64 million, we ought to make sure that they have the proper procedures in place so that this does not happen, so that sometime in the future when young people do come to claim their education awards, that the money will not be there. We do know right now that the money will be here. We had Les Lenkowsky come in and testify this week in front of the authorizing subcommittee, and he indicated this is not an immediate problem. This is something that we can work through. This is something that we can get done right; and rather than making sure that we get it done right, put it in the authorizing language, put it in the reauthorization, because I am expecting that there is going to be a significant bipartisan majority that is going to vote to reauthorize the corporation to make sure that we take this program, we reform it, we move it forward and we expand it. There is no debate about whether this is a good program or not. This is an issue about management that says when we give an organization $64 million, we are going to make sure that they spend it in an appropriate way and that this Congress has done the appropriate oversight to make sure that the problems that we have uncovered in the past do not repeat themselves in the future. That is what this is about. Are we going to make sure that it is done correctly or are we going to give them more money before they are held fully accountable for their performance in the past? Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, thousands of our Nation's troops woke up today with the express task of defending our country against Saddam Hussein's reign of terror in order to protect the safety and freedom of his people, neighboring countries and other nations like ours across the globe. Our Nation's founders tasked Congress with the authority and power to wage war and the responsibility to fund these efforts. The bill before us today appropriates additional money to fund the work of our men and women fighting in this war. This bill provides critical dollars for efforts to protect and defend the homeland security of the United States. It provides vital resources to first responders, law enforcement officials, and public health workers across the Nation who have developed safety plans to counter the increased national threat posed by terrorism. The President asked that we keep this a clean bill. Unfortunately this emergency wartime supplemental appropriations bill also seeks to fund an extraneous program entirely unrelated to national defense, homeland security or counterterrorism efforts. Included in this supplemental is a $64 million deficiency appropriation for the Corporation for National and Community Service in order to make the corporation's AmeriCorps trust fund solvent. The $64 million shortfall was incurred because of poor tracking procedures at the corporation and a recent decision by the Office of Management and Budget to change the way the corporation has been determining the amounts of funds available in the National Service Trust. The funding was put into the defense supplemental at the 11th hour without the knowledge of the Speaker, the majority leader, the majority whip or the authorizing committee. I chair the subcommittee which has responsibility for oversight for the corporation. It said that this $64 million, if not appropriated in this supplemental, kids in the AmeriCorps program will suffer. We had an oversight hearing this week. That is not what the chairman of the Corporation for National Community Service told us this week. He said they have plenty of time to work through this with the authorizing committee to explain exactly what the accounting problems are, what the accounting issues have been, and most importantly, what they will put in place to make sure that this does not happen again. It is time for us to continue holding the corporation accountable for its performance. I am pleased that they have now had a couple of years of clean audits. That is significant progress after the mismanagement of the corporation through much of the 1990s. But this latest example of where what the corporation is trying to do in managing its dollars and managing the resources and the commitments that it makes to young people across the Nation reinforces the need that the corporation needs oversight and that it has to get its books in order. We have the time to make sure that we fully understand what is happening here and how the corporation intends to fix it. We do not at this point in time have to allocate $64 million to the trust fund on this supplemental bill. The President wanted a clean bill. He said, let us focus on national security. Let us focus on the war. And let us focus on homeland security. That is what the President came to Congress with. That is what he said. This is not the bill. It gives $64 million. They may need it, but they have testified that they can get this money sometime in the future and make sure that they do not deprive any of our young people of the grant and the scholarships that they have earned through the AmeriCorps program. We are working through a reauthorizations process. We want to get this program reauthorized. We want to reform it. This is one of the elements that should be part of a reform package and should not be dealt with in this supplemental package. Let us make sure that we do it right. Let us make sure that the corporation does it right before we give them $64 million through this supplemental. In the past they have shown that they have not been able to manage the corporation well. They have made improvements, but before we at the 11th hour sneak something into a supplemental bill, before we give them $64 million dollars, let us make sure that they get it right. Let us make sure that they are managing this agency in the way that we expect our dollars to be allocated. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment and vote for this money when we determine that this is absolutely essential.

Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).