John Hostettler

Mr. HOSTETTLER

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

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, once again I would like to thank the committee for the legislation that is before us and that we are moving in the right way. The amendment that I offer at this time strikes the language in this bill that gives preferential treatment to pilots who were former military or former law enforcement personnel. Mr. Chairman, in order for us to determine whether this program really works, I believe that we should have a better cross-section of pilots. I would like to open this legislation up to all pilots. Since this bill creates a training program, there is no reason to discriminate against those pilots who truly want to provide a safe environment for their passengers. Why not allow all pilots to carry firearms if they so choose? Had the pilots of the four airplanes that were commandeered on September 11 been carrying side arms, the hijackers, armed with box cutters, might not have been successful in their mission. The American people support the idea. In a Time-CNN poll conducted just weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, 61 percent said they favored allowing pilots to carry guns. Two more recent polls, conducted by the Wilson Center and the Winston Group, found support for arming pilots has risen to 75 percent. Airline pilots themselves overwhelmingly favor this option. The Nation's five largest pilots unions, representing 90,000 pilots, sent a letter to President Bush seeking his ``assistance in the immediate development and implementation of a program to defend the American traveling public with voluntary armed pilots.'' The pilots make the very good point that they are the first line of deterrence and the last line of defense for their aircraft. And few professionals are better equipped to be armed. Pilots endure rigorous screening before they can work for a major airline. There is every reason to believe that all of these professionals have the ability to protect their planes. Most importantly, we already entrust pilots daily with the lives of hundreds of men, women, and children on airplanes weighing 450,000 pounds, traveling 530 miles per hour, carrying 24,000 gallons of fuel, while flying 7 miles above the Earth. Clearly, these are responsible and trustworthy professionals. And whether they have a background in the military or law enforcement, they should be allowed to carry weapons and to be trained properly to carry weapons and to defend their airliners from potential terrorist attack. Mr. Chairman, I ask my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, as a result of an error on my part, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment at this time and offer it at a later time.

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

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Once again, Mr. Chairman, the amendment I offer simply opens up the bill and the provisions of the bill to all the pilots that desire to take part in this program, that volunteer to take part in this program, and does not discriminate against them should they not have taken part in previous law enforcement activity nor been a member of the military.

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

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I would advise the gentleman from Minnesota that we are currently considering amendment No. 8, which simply strikes the preferential treatment of individuals.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, this is the preference with regard to military service personnel and law enforcement. parliamentary inquiry

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

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Yes, this is the amendment we are currently discussing, and I will talk to that.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, it has been withdrawn; but under unanimous consent, as the Chair has pointed out, it will be brought up at a later time, and that unanimous consent request has been granted.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, we are currently considering Amendment No. 8, and that amendment does the following: The amendment ensures that the program proposed by this act will be carried out expeditiously by requiring that at least 20 percent of the pilots who volunteer during the first month be trained and deputized not more than 6 months after the program is enacted. Also this amendment provides that at the end of 2 years, at least 80 percent of all those pilots who volunteered during those years will be trained and acting as Federal flight deck officers. With our Nation's present safety concerns, time is of the essence to get this program up and running. Those who would cause harm to our citizens need to know that there are pilots who are trained and ready to defend their passengers against harm. The Transportation Security Administration recognizes the deterrent and life-saving effect armed personnel can have in a terrorist incident at an airport. Just this past weekend, following the shooting deaths of two people at the El Al Airlines ticket desk at Los Angeles International Airport, the TSA, or Transportation Security Administration, announced that armed agents will begin patrolling the ticketing areas of the Nation's airports. According to press accounts, a TSA spokesman said these armed agents could react quickly to an incident, preventing additional deaths and injuries like the armed guard did in Los Angeles. On Saturday, according to numerous press reports, the TSA issued a press release that said, ``Had this event occurred at another airline counter without armed security guards, the situation, unfortunately, would have been worse.'' This incident emphasizes that we cannot be complacent about any of the security measures that we put in place at our airports and at the other modes of transportation. I wish that I could verify these press reports with an actual copy of the TSA statement. However, the TSA and the Transportation Department will not make them available to my office, despite repeated requests. Nevertheless, in the case of airport terminals, the TSA is absolutely right. Having firearms in the hands of people can thwart terrorists and save lives. Today we have an opportunity to apply that same logic to the airplanes themselves, the very place where the attacks took place on September 11. Tom Heidenberger, a pilot for U.S. Airways, lost his wife Michelle, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 77, when terrorists hijacked the plane and flew it into the side of the Pentagon on September 11. Tom, who continues to fly, told me why arming pilots is so necessary. ``Had the terrorists known there were means to protect the cockpit, had the crew been able to defend against the takeover, my wife would be here today,'' he said. Let us learn from the horrible events of that day and make sure they can never happen again by arming as many pilots as soon as possible.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, there has already been a significant bit of discussion about this amendment, but I would like to clarify what this amendment does, one more time. The amendment strikes the language in this bill that gives preferential treatment to pilots who were former military or former law enforcement personnel. It is correct, Mr. Chairman, that there is a preference only, but if we want a cross-section, a complete cross- section, of pilots who volunteer to take part in this plan, the question is, why do we have a preference in the first place? The underlying bill calls for, at this time, a rigorous training program, a rigorous training program that would result in a pilot who has much responsibility in the safety of the crew and passengers of the flight already, a program that he or she would have to take part in in order to become a flight deck officer and wield a weapon potentially on board a flight. Mr. Chairman, if we truly want a cross-section, then I believe that the preference is not necessary. There are thousands of pilots who desire to carry firearms on to the flight deck, lethal force to protect the crew and passengers of their plane, of the flight, that have never been in the military or in law enforcement. If they are so willing to go through the rigorous training program and to adequately be able to wield lethal force aboard a plane, why should we give a preference to others? So, Mr. Chairman, once again, this simply strikes the language that grants a preference for individuals who have been currently military or law enforcement personnel. I think it is a good amendment. I think it does what the underlying premise of this bill would do, and that is to not only deter potential hijackings, but also to thwart those hijackings should they attempt to take place. Likewise, we would know that more pilots would be part of the pool of individuals that would be considered for volunteering to serve us. So, Mr. Chairman, once again I ask that the full House accept this amendment.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I would be glad to answer that question. The fact is that staff of the House had a different form, had a different paper that had transposed the numbers 7 and 8 on their sheets and had said that when I initially offered amendment No. 7, which is the amendment that is pending before us now, which is No. 7 and has always been No. 7, according to their paper was No. 8. So they spoke to the amendment No. 8 and all of us, including myself, were considering No. 7, that is actually No. 7. So I offered, because that was the best information at the time and was informed that we should do that, and so I asked unanimous consent to withdraw it and then to bring it up at a later time. Then it was found out between that time and the previous amendment No. 8 that, in fact, the transposition had taken place, and so that is where we find ourselves now.

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

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

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully ask unanimous consent to modify amendment No. 9 with the text that I have now and will deliver.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, this amendment that I am proposing today would clarify what I believe this bill infers. Air carriers would simply be prevented from firing or otherwise discouraging those pilots who join the flight deck officer program. It also ensures that air carriers cannot prohibit Federal flight deck officers from flying their aircraft. This amendment simply ensures that the brave pilots who volunteer to protect the citizens of this country will not be discriminated against by airline carriers. I want to ensure that terrorists know that if they attempt to hijack one of our airliners, in all likelihood they will not succeed. Given that pilots are not yet armed at this point, we have to ask: If an armed pilot is not the last line of defense against hijackers, where does that leave us? In a recent Committee on Armed Services hearing, I asked the commander in chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, General Ralph Eberhart, about what happened on September 11 when it was determined that the fourth plane, Flight No. 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania, may in fact have been aiming to target our Nation's capital. I asked, ``What were the actions that NORAD contemplated?'' General Eberhart stated, ``At that time, the authority was passed, if we believed that, in fact, it constituted a threat to people on the ground, that we could take action to shoot it down. ``The decision was made rather than to go out and try to meet this airplane to stay over New York City and Washington, D.C., in case, if we left it uncovered, there was another airplane coming. So had we seen it continue toward one of those metropolitan areas or we were sure it was going to another metropolitan area, be it Baltimore or whatever, we would have engaged the airplane and shot it down.'' He went on, ``Obviously, we're always hoping, and we don't do that until the last minute because we were hoping that, as those brave souls attempted, that maybe they regained control of the aircraft or that the hijackers changed their mind. So we don't want to do this prematurely, and we want to see a hostile act, and we want to see it pose a threat. ``So we take this action after a lot of deliberation and to ensure that we have no other option. But we were prepared and we would have been able to shoot that aircraft down had we needed to.'' I then asked General Eberhart: ``General, there is still an action item that your command may be responsible for doing something that was similar to what was contemplated on September 11, are you not? That is still a possibility?'' General Eberhart said, ``Regrettably, I'm afraid that's always going to be a possibility now. We redefined it on 9-11, and we now train for that. We've established the procedures for that. We exercise for that, hoping that that would never happen. But hope's not a good strategy.'' General Eberhart's remarks are obviously very telling. If terrorists get control of a commercial airline, the only alternative is for the Air Force to shoot it down. Does it not seem reasonable to insert one more preventive step before an F-16 launches a missile at a passenger plane? We allow law enforcement officers, animal control officers, and forest rangers to carry their weapons on airplanes. Why not the individuals entrusted with the safety of the plane itself? These are the people we entrust with our lives every time we board a flight, and the majority of them possess distinguished military backgrounds. These are the ones who are trained in responding to life and death situations in a moment's notice. Several months ago, I had the opportunity to join several commercial pilots and pilots associations in a press conference to agree that they, not F-16 missiles, are the preferred last line of defense against an attempted terrorist takeover of a commercial aircraft. They strongly prefer firearms to stun guns to do the job most effectively. In fact, every law enforcement official who uses a Taser backs it up with lethal force; no one depends on Tasers alone. I will add that the open market currently offers some ammunition suitable for firing onboard aircraft. These facts, combined with the fact that this bill shields the airlines from liability, leave no reason for the airlines to prohibit pilots from protecting their planes and passengers. This amendment simply ensures that pilots are able to do just that. I ask the House for its acceptance.

Mr. HOSTETTLER

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Kansas for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to join the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin) and the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Mrs. Wilson) in sponsoring H.R. 4714, a bill to prohibit members of the Armed Forces in Saudi Arabia from being required or formally or informally compelled to wear the abaya garment. Present DOD policy of ``strongly encouraging'' our female military personnel to wear the abaya sure sounds like an order to me. Christians like Lt. Colonel Martha McSally should not be forced to wear a Muslim outfit, especially when off duty and on their own time. I am puzzled by the fact that our female military personnel are treated like second-class citizens while stationed on soil they are defending from Iraqi aggression. As a matter of fact, the State Department does not require its female embassy employees to wear the abaya in Saudi Arabia. When Second Lady Lynne Cheney accompanied Vice President Dick Cheney on his recent visit to Saudi Arabia, she did not wear an abaya; she wore a business suit. It gets better. The Government of Saudi Arabia, according to their officials in the D.C. embassy, does not require foreigners to wear the abaya. Forcing our female troops to wear the abaya in the past and now today strongly encouraging them to do so has a negative impact on our recruitment and retention of highly qualified military personnel. How many well-trained, well-qualified military personnel have separated from the military to avoid wearing the abaya in Saudi Arabia? How many have not decided to enlist in our U.S. military in the first place to avoid ever being forced to wear the abaya? The argument that women should wear the abaya for force protection begs the question what are we doing in any country if the best force protection measure is wearing an abaya? Likewise, I believe Lt. Colonel McSally was right when she said, ``When you separate your troops into two groups and then impose the values of the host nation on one of them, to me that is abandoning your American values.'' This important legislation informs our allies that while our presence in their country is advantageous to their security, we are there not to defend their values, but the values of Americans. Some of those are women who have volunteered to put their lives on the line for our liberties. The time is now for the Congress to take control of this issue, given our responsibilities under Article I, section 8 of our Constitution; and H.R. 4714 does just that. I should not have to remind anyone in this Congress about the plaque that hangs in the House Committee on Armed Services room which reminds us, all of us, including officials from the Department of Defense, that according to our Founding Fathers, ``The Congress shall have power to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.'' In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to commend Lieutenant Colonel Martha McSally for her courage in bringing this issue to the public's attention. For 6 years, she quietly tried to persuade the Pentagon to modify its policy with no success. She even discussed the issue with then Defense Secretary William Perry in 1995. In 2000, she lobbied then Secretary of the Air Force, Whit Peters. Moreover, she has written memos and met with top generals in the Air Force and still got nowhere. It was not until she was questioned by a reporter for USA Today in April 2001 that she talked publicly about this policy, and I am glad she did. Otherwise, the Congress would probably still be in the dark about this religious liberty and quality of life issue for our female military personnel. Mr. Speaker, I hope we take action to remedy this injustice now. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 4714.

Mr. HOSTETTLER

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from Wisconsin for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the amendment. Article 1, section 8 of the United States Constitution gives the Federal Government jurisdiction to establish uniform naturalization laws. We have been given constitutional authority to establish these laws, and it is our responsibility to make adequate provisions for children who find themselves in conflict with our laws through no fault of their own. This amendment requires the Office of Children's Affairs to report to Congress on a plan that would aid unaccompanied children in the naturalization process. While Congress has a responsibility to protect the citizens of the United States from enemy threats, I do not believe an unaccompanied child under the age of 10, for example, has the intention of undermining our way of life, even though the circumstances of his or her arrival may conflict with our laws. Some of these unaccompanied children find themselves in America through smuggling rings for slave labor or prostitution. The perpetrators are the adults who abandon them and break our laws, not the children themselves. For that reason, I strongly support finding a means of handling these situations when they sadly arise. This amendment does not overburden the government with additional cost, though it does require the development of a plan by the Office of Children's Affairs created by the underlying bill for dealing with such eventualities. This is the least we can do for the most vulnerable of exploited immigrant populations. Currently, the INS holds approximately 4,700 unaccompanied alien children in custody every year. Many of these children have valid claims to refugee and asylum status; but without adequate legal counsel, they are not afforded the opportunity to make such claims. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, just how many of these unaccompanied children have been shuffled through the process and have not gotten the procedural consideration they are due in this great country. Planning for these cases and the interests of the children should be one of the foremost priorities to be dealt with by the new Office of Children's Affairs. It is for this reason that I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. HOSTETTLER

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, the distinguished chairman of the committee, for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge passage of this common sense legislation. I am disappointed that we even need to debate a bill that is designed to prevent people from circumventing State laws in order to abort a baby carried by a minor. I do not think most of our constituents consider parental involvement in their children's lives a radical notion. I do not think most Americans consider parents to be the enemy of their children. I do think most parents desire to support and love their children through the most difficult circumstances they may face. Under current law, any person in the world can take a pregnant girl into his car, drive her to another State and coerce her to get an abortion, all without her parents' knowledge or consent. That is a frightening and unacceptable scenario. Why do we treat abortion differently than we do any other medical procedure? If, for example, a minor was taken across State lines to receive an appendectomy without parental consent, she would be turned back, and for the purpose of the gentleman from New York, the Fugitive Slave Act already applies to appendectomies. If a school counselor or second cousin took a minor in for a tonsillectomy without the permission of the child's parents, they would be turned away. Once again, the Fugitive Slave Act, using as an analogy, already applies to tonsillectomies. A schoolteacher cannot even take children to the local museum without their parents' permission, and yes, the Fugitive Slave Act already applies to museum field trips. Opponents of this bill argue that an adult, even if he is a rapist or a child molester, should be allowed to transport a girl miles from her home, across State lines for the invasive surgical operation known as abortion. Since the Supreme Court created a right to an abortion out of thin air 29 years ago, our children have been susceptible to ideological predators who care more about their proabortion agenda than they do about frightened vulnerable girls. The gentleman brought up the testimony of the vicar from Massachusetts, and I would like to return to that testimony. It has been discussed here that the people that are involved in this procedure are confidantes of the individual. According to the testimony of the one witness supplied by the minority, in her own words, she said this: ``I didn't know the girl. I knew her school nurse. The nurse had called me a few days earlier to see if I knew where she might mind find money to give the girl for bus fare to and cab fare home from the hospital. I was stunned. A 15-year-old girl was going to have to get up at the crack of dawn and take multiple buses to the hospital alone. The nurse shared my concern but explained that the girl had no one to turn to. She feared for her safety if her father found out, and there was no other relative close enough to help.'' The vicar never testified that the father would have run her out of the house as the gentleman from New York earlier spoke. It was up to the nurse and the child who was under duress at this time to come up with this excuse, and the vicar used that opportunity to pray on the child's weakness and to move ahead with this. Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to remember that parents should ultimately be given this opportunity to have a decision in their child's most critical time in her life, should that ever happen.

Mr. HOSTETTLER

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably absent from the House of Representatives on December 5 through December 13, 2001, due to the illness and subsequent death of my dear mother. Although I received the appropriate leave of absence from the House, I would like my constituents in the 8th District of Indiana to know how I would have voted if I were present on Roll Call votes #469 through #498. For the record, I would have voted in the following ways: Hostettler Vote Rollcall Nos.: 498 Yea; 497 No; 496 Yea; 495 Yea; 494 Yea; 493 Yea; 492 Yea; 491 Yea; 490 Yea; 489 No; 488 No; 487 Yea; 486 Yea; 485 Yea; 484 Yea; 483 Yea; 482 Yea; 481 No; 480 No; 479 Yea; 478 Yea; 477 Yea; 476 Yea; 475 Yea; 474 Yea; 473 Yea; 472 Yea; 471 No; 470 Yea; 469 Yea.

Mr. HOSTETTLER

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment and wish to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), for his constant support on this issue. This amendment does not seek to address the constitutionality or morality questions inherent in the abstinence education debate. Rather, this amendment seeks to promote the health and safety of our children. Each year, three million teens contract sexually transmitted diseases; and nearly one million become pregnant. These statistics, Mr. Chairman, are simply appalling. However, as appalling as these statistics are, we must note that these rates have declined in recent years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, abstinence programs have played a role in the decline in teenage birth rates, which have dropped by 22 percent since 1991. As the CDC states, ``Many initiatives have focused on the prevention of pregnancy through abstinence and many teenagers have heard this message.'' Currently, the Federal Government spends more than $5 billion per year on HIV/AIDS, STD, and unintended pregnancy prevention combined. Most of these dollars go towards the provision of services such as screening, pregnancy tests, free contraceptives and condoms and referrals. About $15 million goes towards promoting ``safe sex'' messages and education. Federally funded abstinence education programs receive only about $80 million per year, practically all of it promoting the fact that sexual abstinence is the only method to be completely safe for preventing unwanted pregnancies and diseases. The need to support abstinence education is significant. More than 700 State and community-based abstinence education programs are funded through title V. Much of this money is provided to volunteer organizations that have annual budgets of less than $20,000. A small grant of $2,500 or $5,000 means they can purchase some curriculum, some videotapes, maybe a combination VCR/TV, and devote instructors to serve and educate kids about how sex can wait and that many of the consequences of early sexual activity are incurable and deadly. Mr. Chairman, Federal abstinence education funding is making a difference in my home State of Indiana. For example, the Peers Educating Peers, or PEP program educates adolescents about sexual health in nearly 20 Indiana counties serving more than 10,000 adolescents per year. PEP uses high school role models to educate junior high school age students about refusal skills, open communication, and responsible decision-making. PEP has demonstrated its effectiveness as teen birth rates have dropped an average of 43 percent in the five counties where the program has been operating the longest. Because of a SPRANS, or Special Projects of Regional and National Significance grant, the PEP program will expand their successful program to Evansville in my congressional district where the teen birth rate is 40 births per thousand, the second highest birth rate in Indiana. This amendment, which would increase funding for abstinence education, makes both common sense and public health sense. It makes common sense because abstinence education works, and I have already highlighted the success of programs like PEP in Indiana. It makes public health sense because Federal abstinence education funding goes towards prevention of sexual activity, just like public health messages like ``wash your hands,'' ``do not smoke,'' or ``do not drink and drive'' prevents communicable diseases, long-term disease, accidents and death. Finally, it puts the money where it is needed. The CDC reports that about half of our children are sexually abstinent and about half of our children have become sexually active. If those are the proportions, according to CDC, then let Federal support reflect those proportions. This amendment to increase abstinence funding is a good first step to achieve a fair distribution of resources based on the needs of young people. As President Bush has stated, ``For children to realize their dreams, they must learn the value of abstinence. We must send them the message that of the many decisions they will make in their lives, choosing to avoid early sex is one of the most important. We must stress that abstinence is not just about saying no to sex; it is about saying yes to a happier, healthier future.'' I urge my colleagues to support the proposed amendment and provide increased funding for abstinence education.

Mr. HOSTETTLER

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