Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I was absent from the House floor during today's vote on H.R. 2831, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007, which will protect women against pay discrimination and restore all employee's rights regarding nondiscriminatory pay. The legislation will reverse the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear by putting into statute widely accepted rules in employment discrimination law. I strongly support federal protections against pay discrimination; therefore, had I been present, I would have voted for H.R. 2831. Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mr. Tierney) having assumed the chair, Mrs. Tauscher, Acting Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3161) making appropriations for Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies programs for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.

Mr. INSLEE

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment to ensure that the U.S. Attorney General appoints attorneys to assist in enforcing Federal law when it comes to public interest as outlined in 28 U.S.C. 542 and 28 U.S.C. 543. It is in the public's interest to prosecute crimes committed against Native women, including domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence. As they take on this task, I also urge them to consult with tribes as practiced and required under Executive Order 13175. As we know, there are 4 million American Indian and Alaska Native people throughout the United States, and jurisdictional questions today are preventing the enforcement of Federal laws. Indian women suffer 2\1/2\ times more domestic violence and 3\1/2\ times more sexual assaults than the rest of the American population. An Amnesty International report showed that 86 percent of these crimes are committed by non-Indian men, and the law prevents Tribal courts from prosecuting them. As a former prosecutor, I was shocked that the majority of criminals go unpunished. Justice Department data compiled by Syracuse University showed that in two decades, only 30 percent of tribal land crimes referred to U.S. Attorneys were ever prosecuted. I would like to see U.S. Attorneys consult with the tribes and work to enforce Federal law, especially when it comes to crimes of domestic violence, stalking and sexual assault. And ensuring that U.S. Attorneys appoint special attorneys to assist in prosecuting these Federal laws is imperative. I will include for the Record information from a Wall Street Journal article entitled, ``Tattered Justice on U.S. Indian Reservations, Criminals Slip Through Gaps.'' It is time we close those gaps, and I urge U.S. Attorneys to act with dispatch in this regard. [From the Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2007] On U.S. Indian Reservations, Criminals Slip Through Gaps (By Gary Fields) Cherokee, N.C.--Jon Nathaniel Crowe, an American Indian, had a long-documented history of fighting with police officers and assaulting women. But the tribal court for the Eastern Band of the Cherokee, under whose jurisdiction he lives, couldn't sentence him to more than one year for any charge. Not when he left telephone messages threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend, not when he poured kerosene into his wife's mouth, not when he hit her with an ax handle. ``We put him away twice for a year, that's all we could do,'' says James Kilbourne, prosecutor for the tribe. ``Then he got out and committed the same crime again.'' Indian tribes are officially sovereign nations within the U.S., responsible for running services such as schools and courts. But a tangle of federal laws and judicial precedents has undermined much of their legal authority. As a result, seeking justice on Indian reservations is an uneven affair. Tribes operate their own court systems, with their own judges and prosecutors. Sharply limited in their sentencing powers, they are permitted to mete out maximum jail time of only 12 months for any crime, no matter how severe. The law also forbids tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians, even those living on tribal land. Federal prosecutors can intervene in serious cases, but often don't, citing the long distances involved, lack of resources and the cost of hauling witnesses and defendants to federal court. In the past two decades, only 30% of tribal- land crimes referred to U.S. attorneys were prosecuted, according to Justice Department data compiled by Syracuse University. That compares with 56% for all other cases. The result: Many criminals go unpunished, or minimally so. And their victims remain largely invisible to the court system. The justice gap is particularly acute in domestic-violence cases. American Indians annually experience seven sexual assaults per 1,000 residents, compared with three per 1,000 among African-Americans and two per 1,000 among whites, says the Justice Department. The acts are often committed by non-Indians living on tribal land whom tribal officials cannot touch. Local prosecutors say members of Indian communities have such low expectations about securing a prosecution that they often don't bother filing a report. ``Where else do you ask: How bad is the crime, what color are the victims and what color are the defendants?'' asks Mr. Kilbourne, who has prosecuted cases on Cherokee lands since 2001. ``We would not allow this anywhere else except Indian country.'' The lack of prosecutorial discretion is one of many ways in which Indian justice has been split off from mainstream American due process. For example, some defendants appearing before Indian courts lack legal counsel, because federal law doesn't require tribes to provide them with a public defender. Although some tribes have them, others can't afford to offer their members legal assistance. It's not unusual for defendants to represent themselves. The Indian Civil Rights Act, passed by Congress in 1968, limited to six months the sentences tribes could hand down on any charge. At the time, tribal courts were seeing only minor infractions. Congress increased the maximum prison sentence to one-year in 1986, wrongly assuming that the Indian courts would continue to handle only misdemeanor-level crimes. Tribal offenses, meanwhile, escalated in both number and severity, with rape, murder and kidnapping among the cases. The Supreme Court weighed in on another level, with its 1978 Oliphant decision ruling that tribes couldn't try non- Indian defendants in tribal courts--even if they had committed a crime against a tribe member on the tribe's land. In its ruling, the court held that it was assumed from the earliest treaties that the tribes did not have jurisdiction over non-Indians. ``If you go to Canada and rob someone, you will be tried by Canadian authorities. That's sovereignty,'' says University of Michigan law professor and tribal criminal-justice expert Gavin Clarkson. ``My position is that tribes should have criminal jurisdiction over anybody who commits a crime in their territory. The Supreme Court screwed it all up and Congress has never fixed it.'' Jeff Davis, an assistant U.S. Attorney in Michigan who handles tribal-land cases, acknowledges that his hands are often tied. Mr. Davis is also a member of North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. ``I've been in the U.S. Attorney's office for 12 years, and both presidents I have served under have made violent crime in Indian country a priority. But because of the jurisdictional issue and questions over who has authority and who gets to prosecute, it is a difficult situation.'' Often cases don't rise to the level of felony federal crimes unless the victim has suffered a severe injury. Federal prosecutors have limited resources and focus almost exclusively on the most serious cases. Compounding that is the fact that domestic-abuse cases are difficult to prove, especially if the lone witness recants. ``It requires stitches, almost a dead body,'' says Mr. Davis. ``It is a high standard to meet.'' For some non-Indians, tribal lands are virtual havens. Chane Coomes, a 43-year-old white man, grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota--home to the Oglala Lakota, near the site of the infamous 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Marked by a small obelisk, the mass grave is a symbol of unpunished violence, literally buried in the soil of the tribe. The 2000 census documented Shannon County, which encompasses the remote and desolate reservation, as the second-poorest county in the U.S., with an annual per- capita income of $6,286 at the time. Only Buffalo County, S.D., was poorer. According to local authorities, Mr. Coomes used his home on the reservation as a sanctuary, knowing he would be free from the attentions of tribal prosecutors. Tribal Police Chief James Twiss says Mr. Coomes was suspected of dealing in small amounts of methamphetamine for years. Tribal police also thought he might be trafficking in stolen goods. In 1998, Mr. Coomes assaulted a tribal elder, Woodrow Respects Nothing, a 74-year-old decorated World War II and Korean War veteran. Because it couldn't prosecute, the tribe ordered Mr. Coomes off its land. But attempts to remove him were unenforceable. ``All I could do was to escort him off the reservation,'' says tribal police officer Eugenio White Hawk, who did that several times, the last when he spotted the banned man hauling horses in a trailer. ``He kept coming back. After a while I just left him alone and let it go. It was just a waste of time.'' Mr. Coomes remained in his Shannon County home until 2006 when he was accused of beating his estranged wife in nearby Nebraska and threatening to kill her, according to Dawes County District Attorney Vance Haug. The crime was committed off the reservation, and the subsequent investigation gave state authorities official jurisdiction. After raiding his home, they found stolen equipment as well as 30 grams of methamphetamine and $13,000 hidden in the bathroom, along with syringes. Mr. Coomes is now in the Fall River County Jail charged with possession of stolen property, grand theft and unauthorized possession of a controlled substance. He also faces separate charges, of assault and ``terroristic threats'' related to his wife, in Dawes County, Neb. If convicted on the latter charges, he faces up to six years in prison, Mr. Haug said. Mr. Coomes's attorney declined to comment. The jurisdictional quagmire also has implications for Indian members on the other side of the tribal border. Gene New Holy, an ambulance driver on Pine Ridge, had been arrested by the tribe more than a dozen times for various drunk-driving offenses, for which he received only two convictions totaling about a month in a tribal jail. In state court, four convictions would have led to a maximum sentence of five years. Lance Russell, the state prosecutor for Shannon County and neighboring Fall River County, had never heard of Mr. New Holy until Feb. 11, 2001, when Mr. New Holy got drunk at a Fall River County bar. According to court documents, he nearly hit one car on a main highway, forced two others into a ditch and sideswiped a third that had pulled off the road as Mr. New Holy approached it in the wrong lane. The last car he hit contained three tribe members--cousins Bart Mardinian, Anthony Mousseau and Russell Merrival-- all of whom died. The accident was less than a mile off the reservation, enough to give Mr. Russell and the state jurisdiction in the case. Mr. New Holy is serving 45 years in state prison for three counts of vehicular homicide--much longer than the 12 months per count he would have served under tribal law. His attorney didn't return a call seeking comment. ``The holes in the system are more practical than legal, and the victims of crime pay the price,'' says Larry Long III, the South Dakota attorney general. ``The crooks and the knotheads win.'' The Eastern Band of Cherokee, located in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, is one of the most efficiently run tribes in the country. Its ancestors hid in these mountains while Cherokee east of the Mississippi River were forcibly moved to present-day Oklahoma, a migration known as the ``Trail of Tears.'' Today the tribe is spread across five counties and is economically well off: It takes in more than $200 million annually from the Harrah's Cherokee Casino & Hotel, which it owns, and has a robust tourist industry. About half of the tribe's gambling spoils go to pay for infrastructure and government services. Its court, which is housed in a prefabricated building, looks like any other in the U.S., except the judges wear bright, red robes. The offices, while cramped, are modern and computerized, and are a little over one hour's drive from the federal prosecutor's office in Asheville. Tribal authorities meet regularly with federal prosecutors for training. The tribe's top jurist is a former federal prosecutor who has regular contact with his successors. Yet even here, the justice system works erratically. In 2005, tribal police received a tip that James Hornbuckle, 46, an Oklahoma Cherokee who had moved to the reservation, was dealing marijuana. Officers built a case for weeks. They raided the business and then Mr. Hornbuckle's home, where they found 10 kilograms of marijuana, packaged in small bricks. By tribe standards, it was a big haul, and authorities approached the U.S. Attorney's office. Gretchen Shappert, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, says federal sentencing guidelines for marijuana are so lenient, that ``we'd need 50 kilograms in a typical federal case'' to pursue it. The feds rejected the case. If the state court had jurisdiction to prosecute the crime, Mr. Hornbuckle might have received a three-year term. Instead, he pleaded guilty to the marijuana charge and was sentenced to one year in tribal court. Recently the tribal council voted to permanently ban him from the reservation, with backing from the feds. Messages left for Mr. Hornbuckle's attorney weren't returned. Mr. Crowe's name is all too familiar on the reservation. Tribal Police Chief Benjamin Reed has known him since he was a juvenile. ``What I remember is his domestic-violence incidents. He just wouldn't stop,'' Mr. Reed says. Crystal Hicks, who dated Mr. Crowe before his marriage, says the tribal member was verbally abusive. She says she left him after she had a miscarriage, when he berated her for not giving him a ride to a motorcycle gathering. ``He said I was using the miscarriage as an excuse,'' says Ms. Hicks, 27 years old. After that, in several telephone messages saved by Ms. Hicks and her family, Mr. Crowe threatened to kill them and bury Ms. Hicks in her backyard. He was jailed by the tribe and ordered to stay away from the Hicks family. ``One year,'' says Ms. Hicks. ``He even told me he was fine in jail. He got fed three times a day, had a place to sleep and he wasn't going to be there long.'' After he married, the violence escalated, says Police Chief Reed. During one incident he drove to the home Mr. Crowe shared with his wife, Vicki. ``He had threatened her, and dug a grave, and said no one would ever find her. We believed him,'' Mr. Reed said. ``Just look at some of the stuff he'd done. That girl was constantly coming down here, her face swollen up.'' At one point, he choked his wife, poured kerosene into her mouth and threatened to light it, police reports say. Mr. Crowe's attorney didn't return calls seeking comment. None of these acts led to more than one year in jail, a sentence he has been given twice since 2001. His criminal file at the tribal court building fills a dozen manila folders. There are reports of trespassing and assault convictions, telephone harassment, threats and weapons assaults--one for an incident when he hit his wife with an ax handle, breaking her wrist. His latest arrest, in September, came about a week after he finished his most recent sentence, when he came home and beat his now-estranged wife--again. After seven years, his crimes finally triggered federal involvement, although almost by accident. Federal prosecutors from around the country met at Cherokee earlier this year to discuss crime on tribal land. One federal official mentioned to Mr. Kilbourne, the tribal prosecutor, a new statute that allows federal intervention where defendants have at least two domestic-violence convictions, regardless of the crime's seriousness. Mr. Kilbourne, who was preparing for a new trial against Mr. Crowe the following week, quickly turned the case over. Mr. Crowe pleaded guilty to assault last Friday and is awaiting sentencing. Corrections and Amplifications The attorney for James Hornbuckle, a Cherokee who was cited in this article, couldn't be reached for comment. This article incorrectly says his attorney didn't return calls seeking comment. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an important amendment that will help continue our work in Congress to break the cycle of domestic violence from which we still suffer. We started that work in the Violence Against Women Act of 2005. We now need to extend it. I want to recognize the chairman's strong showing of support for efforts against violence in this fashion by $60 million of funding. We appreciate that. But we do have several new programs that the Congress has authorized, has approved, has recognized as a valid effort that have not had an appropriation to date. We aim to fix that with an effort to provide that appropriation. It would direct the Department of Justice to administer grants to fund four priority new programs for children and Native women in order to break this chain, this multigenerational chain of violence. The amendment offered by myself and Mr. Burton would, for the first time, provide Federal funding to local domestic violence programs that provide direct intervention services to children who have witnessed domestic violence in their families. We know how witnessing violence ends up perpetuating violence down the chain of generations. We have to nip this in the bud. We have to get kids treatment early. We know this amendment will do it. Men who have experienced violence in their families as children are twice as likely to become perpetrators themselves. This amendment will also, for the first time, fund a competitive grant program for nonprofit organizations to provide community services to teens and young adult victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. We know girls and young women between age 16 and 24 have the highest rate of intimate partner violence. Teens need to learn at an early age about healthy relationships. This amendment will help that. My amendment also ensures that we can track crimes against American Indian and Alaska Native women through a national tribal sex offender registry. This is a place where we have been lacking resources in the tribes. One out of every three American Indian and Alaska Native women are victims of sexual assault on reservations. Currently, every State has a sexual offender registry, but crimes against native women are rarely entered. We need to pass this to fix that problem. So we know that this epidemic of domestic violence affects every State and community. We know that these VAWA programs can help break the cycle, and we know that we've authorized these programs, but we have not appropriated a dime for them. We have done this with some other new programs in this bill. We have carefully selected four programs. This has the wide support of groups across the country who have selected these four programs as the highest priorities of those programs that have been authorized but not appropriated. The Chair's done a good job with limited resources, but we hope that we can extend this effort and these authorized programs to nip and end this circle of violence.

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

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. This is a misguided amendment. It is quite a surprise that of all of the decent efforts to help communities across the country, for some reason the gentleman picked this one. That is something beyond at least my understanding. The particular project involved here is a community center that is involved in a whole host of youth projects, including the Edmonds Boys and Girls Club, the Sno-King County Youth Club, the Triple Threat Basketball Club, the Brighton School, the Cascade Symphony Orchestra, the Edmonds High School Multi- Class Reunion, the Olympic Ballet Theater, the Sno-King Community Chorale, and Edmonds Community College. I don't know why those seem like such un-American activities to the gentleman, but to our community and to the country at large, those are integral parts of our communities. I may note this is not a situation where somehow there has been some sort of Federal largesse, that is an intrusion into the community. This is an effort where we have multiple parties that have been associated with funding this project. This is not just the Federal Government. In fact, it is less than 10 percent of the entire project. It is financed with Federal funds. It is largely a matter of local development, including a variety of local corporations. So where we have less than 10 percent in this final phase, why this has been selected doesn't make sense. Now there is a difference, I suppose. I hold a press release from the author of the amendment dated February 28, 2007, announcing that the city of Winnsboro, Texas, had received $100,000 in Federal funds. The author of the amendment said: ``I am excited that some of the hard- earned tax dollars sent to Washington are flowing back into the county.'' There is a difference, I suppose, between that money flowing to Edmonds, Washington. In that case it was money going to the proponent of this amendment. In this case it goes to a different one. I am not sure I understand the difference. I guess the difference is the money that went to Texas was chosen by the bureaucrats. The money that is selected here has been chosen by the United States House of Representatives. Now, I don't know why the proponent believes there is some intrinsic genius of the bureaucrats. Some believe all bureaucrats are smarter than all Congressmen, or the least wise bureaucrat is smarter than the most intelligent Congressman. Some may hold that view; I don't. We have a valid community purpose here. We have a small Federal commitment, and we have a useful thing that is helping kids at risk as well as community development. I note that an economic evaluation of this particular project showed that it would have significant economic value as well as community value in helping the kids in these local communities. So I would commend this small investment of Federal dollars in this community. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, the best way to stop a disastrous war would have been not to have started it, but the American people know that, it having been started, we did have a moral obligation to the Iraqi people to give them a reasonable chance to form a government. But after 4 years, after 3,600 lives, after $450 billion of American money sunk into the sands of Iraq, that moral obligation has been fulfilled in spades. Now we have a moral obligation to our sons, a moral obligation to our daughters, a moral obligation to our husbands and wives. The moral obligation to Iraq has been completed. The moral obligation to our families now needs to be honored, and it could only be honored by passage of this resolution. Now, people have said that we can't just leave; we need a way forward. There is only one way forward to security, to reduce the threats from the Mideast, and that is to break our addiction to oil from that region of the world. Take one-half of the $80 billion and put it in energy efficiency, we'll give you security. Pass this resolution.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor of the House this evening to discuss the potential loss of Internet radio by Americans, a tremendous service that, because of Internet software and musical geniuses, 70 million Americans now enjoy the ability to listen to music by Web broadcasters over the Internet. It is a tremendous service. It is as ingrained in a lot of Americans' daily lives as a cup of coffee and the morning newspaper. Unfortunately, I have to inform the House that that service may be gone in a matter of a few weeks if we don't reach a resolution of a, frankly, wrong decision decided by the Copyright Royalty Board. What I am disturbed to report to my colleagues is that some time ago, March 2, 2007, we had a decision by a Federal agency, the ramifications of which would be to shut down the ability of Americans, on a realistic basis, to continue to enjoy Internet-based radio. The reason this happened is that this board was given the authority to set the royalty that should be paid by Webcasters who stream out this great music, by the way, tremendously diverse music. One of the great things Americans love about Internet radio is you have such eclectic, different types of music, not just top 40. You know, I haven't progressed past the Beach Boys in the 1960s, but there are a lot of kinds of other music. Internet radio has been tremendous by allowing people to enjoy thousands of different genres and types of music. But now this Copyright Royalty Board has issued a decision which will explode the royalty that these Webcasters are forced to pay to those who generated the music, to the extent that it will make it totally economically impossible for these businesses and these Webcasters to continue to stream music to the 70 million Americans who now enjoy it. We need to fix this problem. We need to fix it urgently, because the decision will, this guillotine will come down on July 15 if either Congress doesn't act or an agreement is not reached between the parties to adjust this copyright fee that will have to be paid by the Webcasters. So we need to fix this problem, and, in doing so, we need to do it in a way that is fair to the musicians and artists who create the music that 70 million Americans enjoy over the Internet. These artists work hard in producing this music. They share their genius. It's an artistic gift they have, and they share it with Americans. They need to be compensated fairly to allow them to maintain their business model as well. Unfortunately, this was a wildly disproportionate decision by this board that is grossly unfair to the distributors of music and simply will allow them not to continue in business. And to give folks a feeling of how distorted this decision will be, I would like to refer to this graph which shows Internet radio per-song royalty rates under preexisting law starting in 2005, that started at $.00008 dollars in 2005, and by 2010, we will have foisted on us 149 percent increase in these royalty rates. I am not sure any business model can tolerate a three-fold increase just in the per-song royalty rates that these folks are having to undergo. Unfortunately, this royalty rate means about a 300 percent increase for big Webcasters. But because of the particular rules here, it's a 1,200 percent increase for small Webcasters, so the small Webcasters, which are the vast majority of Webcasters will be hit potentially by 1,200 percent increases. Now, this board, this Copyright Royalty Board has refused to reconsider their decision. What it means in the real world is the Internet going silent. Many of the stations a few days ago went silent to demonstrate and to protest its decision. I know Americans are disturbed by this, and they are now talking to my colleagues. I know thousands of them have communicated with my colleagues as a result of this, so we need to fix this problem. I know in my district, I am from an area just north of Seattle, First District in the State of Washington, we have a Webcaster called Big R Radio. They stream to over 15,000 listeners who enjoy their product. But because of this decision, their rates are going to go up to a level, and you have got to understand how bad this is, the rates they would have to pay just for their royalties, not for their overhead, their rent, their salaries, the royalties they would have to pay for this exceed by 150 percent the revenues that this business is getting in. Well, obviously, that's untenable, and this company will have to either go offshore or simply shut down if some change is not made. That is bad for Big R Radio, the company, and it's bad for the 15,000 people that enjoy their music right now. We need to fix this problem. So the first damage that was done is this per-song radio royalty, but there was another, perhaps even more odious thing that this board did, the preexisting rule required a $500 charge, or, excuse me, a per- station minimum fee. This new ruling required a $500 charge for each streaming station that they offered. Webcasters, of course, stream under certain channels. But under this decision, there was no limit on the amount total in this per streaming channel that would be placed. Many, if not most Webcasters, have multiple channels. So, if you look at what it will cost, just three of these Webcasters, Pandora, RealNetworks and Yahoo, because they are getting socked with this $500 per channel, and they broadcast literally thousands of channels with no limit, just those three Webcasters would have to pay $1.15 billion, with a B. These rates will dwarf the radio-related revenues by substantially more than $1 billion. In other words, it will charge these businesses more than $1 billion more than the revenues they generate from this business. That's absurd. It's ridiculous. It has no relationship to economic reality, and it is a government glitch, a foul-up of the highest order that needs to get repaired. This would result in 64 times more the total royalties collected by the group called SoundExchange that collects these royalties in 2006, an increase of more than, this is a pretty amazing number to me, 10 million percent over the minimum fee of $2,500 per licensee. Clearly, this is beyond the realm of economic reality. Finally, this royalty board, the third thing that they did, they eliminated the percentage of revenue fees that many small Webcasters use to determine their performance royalty, which would be severely damaging to small Webcasters. So, to put this in perspective, in a global sense, I want to refer to what this will mean in total royalties. If you look at this chart, you show total royalties in 2004 of $10 million. The estimated fee under the old royalty rule in 2006 would be $18 million. But under this decision, this flawed decision, it will actually be $1.150 million. So if you want to see the difference graphically of what the old royalty would be in 2006, this bubble would go to this supernova, I would call it, in 2006. This is untenable. It needs to be fixed. Now, in order to fix this, Representative Manzullo and myself have introduced the Internet Radio Equality Act, it's H.R. 2060, and this bill would fix this problem by doing something that appears eminently fair to me, which would simply have the same rate to be paid by Internet-based Webcasters as broadcasters now pay over satellite radio, over cable radio and over juke boxes. What we are simply saying is that we ought to have equality, fairness, that is why we named it the Radio Equality Act, by having parity, the same level, which is 7.5 percent of revenue, a transition rate, in 2010. This is something that is fair, equal, and economically realistic to allow 70 million Americans to continue to enjoy their radio over the Internet. And now, 128 Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have cosponsored this bill just in a matter of a month or two; and the reason they have done so is I think they have heard from their constituents who want to keep their service going and realize how ridiculously out of whack this particular decision was. Now, I know it may surprise some Americans to know that government agencies can make mistakes, but certainly one was made here and we need to fix it, and we need to fix it quickly. On July 15, this decision will go into effect. I encourage my colleagues to look at this bill, H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Internet Equality Act, and cosponsor it to add their voices to the choir to demand action by the legislature to fix this bureaucratic foul-up. Obviously, this is supported by a large number of people, not just broadcasters. National Public Radio certainly has an interest in this. I know that many of my constituents enjoy it, and it is in great jeopardy tonight if we don't act. I know one station has already gone off the air because of this bureaucratic snafu. The NPR affiliate Rock Island Illinois-based WVIK served hundreds of thousands of citizens. They have switched off their Web stream because this is an economically untenable situation for them if it is not fixed. So what their constituents and their customers are now hearing over the Internet is silence. Silence may be better than some of the music my kids have listened to over the years, but it is not better than the thousands of stations and access that people have over the Internet. We want to keep that available for Americans. I also want to say that why I think this is so important is diversity. One of the best things about the Internet is it gives you what you want, not what the broadcaster wants you to listen to. And, frankly, because of the consolidation of the industry and the radio over-the-air industry, we are hearing a lot more of the same thing over and over and over again. And some of it is great music. We are still stuck in the 1960s, many of us, and we enjoy it, but diversity and having access to Appalachian bluegrass or music from the subcontinent of India; I heard of a genre, it was basically heavy metal, hip-hop, country at the same time, and that is quite a genre. But this provides diversity for people, and they ought to have their multiple tastes enjoyed and that is really in jeopardy tonight. Now, the other thing I want to say is that this decision will go into effect July 15, and these stations will be in great economic jeopardy beginning just in a week or so; and, unfortunately, some of them as of July 15 might shut off their streaming. Others are going to start to consider what to do. Some may consider going offshore, which is not a healthy situation for us for a variety of reasons. But I want to assure the parties who might be involved in discussions in this that after July 15 it will not be the end of this discussion. If Congress is unable to act before July 15 and if the parties don't reach some resolution of this, July 15 will not be the end of this effort. It will not be the beginning of the end of this effort; it might be the end of the beginning of this effort, because as these stations start to shut down, Congress will be deluged more than they have already been deluged with voices of protestation exercising their right to petition their government for redress of grievances, and one of the biggest grievances people are going to have is they can't hear their radios over the Internet anymore. The 128 cosponsors we have today even before the sword of Damocles has fallen on the music is going to grow, and we are going to be back here to continue to grow this until we get relief. So I am hopeful that the parties are talking to one another to try to reach an economically viable and fair resolution of this so that artists, performers, songwriters can continue to have a meaningful economic model, so they can continue to do their work and they will be compensated for it; that Web casters can have an economic model to allow them to stream it over the Web, and 70 million Americans can continue to enjoy the pursuit of happiness over the Internet listening to this great music. If that does not happen by July 15, we are going to be back here until it gets resolved and this chorus, this drumbeat will continue. We do not intend to let, in the words of Don McLean's song, not allow the music to die. It is, too, a part of the American culture, and I will encourage my colleagues to help out by cosponsoring this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to Mr. Ferguson.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, behold the polar bear Ursus maritimus, one of the most magnificent creatures on earth, legendary in its strength and to date its survival. But today its survival is at great risk. It deserves the protection of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and it does not have it. Today we seek to close the loophole that alone amongst marine mammals allows the importation of bear heads, bearskins, bear claws in opposition to the basic concept of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And we do so because this animal certainly is at risk. It is at risk because where there is no ice, there are no polar bears. This creature is dependent on the ice, and the ice is disappearing. That is what has led the Bush administration's Secretary of Interior to propose to list it as a threatened species. But it gets worse. If you look at what the future is going to bring this bear, by 2040 the recent studies indicate that there will be no meaningful sea ice in the Arctic ocean by 2040 upon which these bears depend for their survival. Now, we have folks who do enjoy trophy hunting in the United States, and there is nothing wrong with hunting or any suggestion of that in this amendment. But the truth is this: At this moment of risk to these bears, polar bear cubs need their parents in their dens more than we need polar bearskins in our dens. And this will simply close that loophole to remove that lack of protection from these animals. Now, these animals are not threatened just in the United States. The ongoing trophy hunt is going on in Canada, where the International Polar Bear Community has found that at least half of the specific populations of polar bears are at great risk for extinction. And we know that hunters can be a force for conservation. We know they help provide habitat for ducks with Ducks Unlimited. But the fact of the matter is, is that with a bullet to a bear, you cannot conserve it. And the fact of the matter is that the $750 permits that go to this bear hunt cannot solve the problem of global warming. And we stand here today to say that we ought to have the same level of American national commitment to the polar bears' continued survival as we have had for the bald eagle. And if we demonstrate that commitment, our grandchildren will enjoy these polar bears. And if we do not, they will not. Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. LoBiondo).

Mr. INSLEE. I would like to address this canard that this is an anti- hunting amendment. In fact, Americans enjoy passing down the tradition of hunting to their kids, their sons and daughters; and that tradition should be able to continue. But if the prey is gone, there is no hunting. And if we don't get serious about recovering polar bears, we will not be able to hunt anything because they will not exist. And if we don't stop this loophole which allows importing polar bear heads, contrary to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, we cannot tell our children we are serious about recovering this species. Listen to the science. In 40 years will there will be no polar ice cap. And shooting polar bears and putting them in our dens in Texas or any other great State in this country is not consistent with what we did for the American bald eagle. And if we work together, hunters, nonhunters, left and right, east and west, we can accomplish this goal. But I'm suggesting this is a commonsense measure to close this loophole and listen to the science. These species are going to have a 30 percent decline in the next 30 years. Three of the six Canadian groups that are already hunted are deemed at risk by the international scientific community. I don't know what the Canadians are thinking. It's a great country; they're the greatest ice hockey teams in the world. But maybe they haven't got the best polar bear policy like we do in the good old USA. Enforce the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Bring some common sense. Tell our kids we're going to keep these species available to them and pass this amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. I will reserve to close.

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to submit that the day we yield to Canadian judgment, we would replace baseball with ice hockey. It is not the American principle. We have a strong Marine Mammal Protection Act. It has a clear loophole. We do not want the last polar bears to be head and skins in dens. We want this species to continue. This will do that. Pass this amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, this is an old polar bear species that has been around here for centuries, and the ice is melting under its feet. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) for a brief question.

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

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, many of the 70 million Americans who enjoy music over the Internet woke up and their music was silent today, and the reason, because of an outrageous decision by a Federal agency that caused outrageous increases of 300 to 1200 percent of the copyright fees that Internet Web broadcasters have to pay. And in protest of that outrageous decision, Web broadcasters today have joined together in a day of silence to let Americans know what's going to happen if Congress refuses to act to right this wrong. And I call today on my colleagues who will be hearing and have heard from many of their constituents on this day of silence. I hope they will cosponsor H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. The simple fact is, if we do not pass this bill, Web broadcasters are going to go out of business. Many of the 70 million Americans who enjoy music over the Internet will not get to listen to it. Congress needs to act. It's the right thing to do. Let's pass this bill.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you. We look forward to working with you. We think the tide is coming in on marine renewables. Thank you very much.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the chairman.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to engage in a colloquy with Chairman Visclosky and my colleague Rush Holt. I'd like to thank the chairman for including $22 million in funding for hydropower energy at the Department of Energy. As the chairman well knows, U.S. wave and current energy resource potential that could be credibly harnessed is about 400 TerraWatt hours per year. That's about 10 percent of our total national energy demand. Just like the wind, coal, gas, oil, geothermal, conventional hydropower, and nuclear power industries have been nurtured through Federal research and development and other industry incentives, this new renewable energy source needs support from our government to get started. The U.S. stands poised to take advantage of many of the technological opportunities available to ocean, wave and tidal power. While the Europeans profited in the early years of wind energy development, we're poised to lead the world in marine renewable energy technology development. Early successes will lead to continued investment. Success begets success. The investor community is carefully watching and waiting to see what the government is going to do to help this industry, just like the research and development funding and tax subsidies we provided to all of the other renewable energy industries. With that, I'd like to yield to my colleague Mr. Holt, who's been a leader on energy issues.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Greater Seattle Service League, GSSL, for their commitment to raising funds and awareness for Childhaven, a Seattle-based organization dedicated to breaking the cycle of child abuse. The organization uses scientifically-supported programs to protect and treat children through 5 years of age while simultaneously providing counseling and education to victims' families. Childhaven currently operates four Seattle-area branches to reach people around the City. Anyone who visits the Childhaven facilities will see firsthand the miracles that can be established by the caring and proven efforts at Childhaven. The GSSL began in 1979 as a group of recent college graduates committed to making a difference in the community; they have subsequently grown into a philanthropic force in the Seattle area. GSSL and Childhaven have been in partnership for 27 years. For the past 18 years, their yearly Hoopaholics fundraiser has allowed basketball enthusiasts to play a few games, raise money for Childhaven at the same time, and hear about the power of mentoring by committed people like Mike Pierson. Since its inception, the $300,000 that has been raised through Hoopaholics has gone toward continuing day-to-day program operations, furnishing the new Broadway Center and purchasing vans, books, furniture, and playground equipment for other branches, among other purposes. GSSL is truly a valued partner of the Childhaven Treatment Centers, and the efforts of its mentors are greatly appreciated.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, next week the House will take the second step in the clean energy revolution. The new Congress a couple months ago passed a bill, the first step, to reel back $14 billion of tax giveaways to the oil companies and create a fund for clean energy; but the second step starts next week. When we take that step, we ought to be invested with the same ambition and innovative spirit of these companies that are doing great work around America, like A123 Battery Company that is making a battery so you get 150 miles a gallon in a plug-in hybrid; the Imperial Fuel Company, the biggest biodiesel supplier in the western hemisphere; the RAMGEN Company, making a compression technology to burn clean coal cleanly. We ought to be invested with the same spirit of innovation that we had when John F. Kennedy stood behind me in 1961 and said we are going to do the Moon. So next week when we start, we should not hear the voices of timidity saying that we cannot improve our fuel mileage. We need a giant leap for mankind with innovation. Americans are a people with can-do spirit, and we will do it next week.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor this evening with Mr. Cleaver of Missouri, and perhaps others will join us, with a message of optimism in the face of a great challenge that our country faces. And we have faced many challenges, but one of the more pressing for ourselves and our grandchildren is the issue of global warming, this concern that our increased carbon dioxide and other gasses is going to result in significant climactic shifts. And the science, of course, has been very disturbing recently about this threat. But we have come to talk about a message of optimism that our country ought to have in our ability to solve this problem. And it is a large problem. It is perhaps certainly more global than we have ever had outside of war. But we today want to talk about why we believe America is ready to face that challenge, why we believe America is capable of succeeding in beating global warming, and why we believe the effort to defeat global warming will ultimately benefit the United States economy by allowing us to lead the world in new clean energy technologies. And I would like to, in preface to our comments today, just set the stage about what the challenge is and why we believe the solution is one that Americans are fully capable of obtaining. First, the challenge. The challenge, of course, is that we have created a condition where we may double the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere by about 2050, twice as high as carbon dioxide has ever been since before pre-industrial times. And, of course, all of the scientists in the world agree that carbon dioxide is a global warming gas, and it does stand to reason that if you double the amount of this global warming gas, you could have problems in your climate. And, unfortunately, the evidence has become more and more disturbing. Just last week, the Goddard Space Science Department at NASA came out with a new report authored by lead author James Hansen that said, ``If global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects, including the increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones.'' This is not a quote from some fellow living in a tepee. This is NASA. The agency that sent an American to the moon has been looking at what is happening right here at home on Earth and has concluded that, indeed, we have trouble; and what is very disturbing is that the most recent science has been more disturbing. We were briefed by Dr. John Schellenhuller, who is the lead scientist in Europe on this subject, last week, who told us about the increasing melt in the Arctic that has increased in severity, about the melting tundra. The rate of the melt of the tundra is melting much more rapidly than was anticipated even a year ago; and, of course, that can release methane gas, which is even 16 times worse for global warming than even carbon dioxide. My local scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle have confirmed these findings. So, basically, we have got an issue that we have got to deal with. And right now there really is a race going on in the world of tipping points. These scientists have told us that we are approaching tipping points where the climate can tip into regimes where we would have uncontrollable global warming and that that could happen in as short as shortly after the next decade. But we have another tipping point which we believe we are about to cross over here in Congress, and that is a tipping point where the U.S. Congress will tip from sort of an approach of the ostrich, where we had our head in the sand, to tip over to the approach of the American eagle, where we will have a new vision about a new clean energy technological future for this country. So we are here tonight to say that that new approach of optimism is one that will prevail starting next Wednesday when the Energy Subcommittee in the U.S. Congress will start discussions about a new clean energy future for this country. I will be introducing a bill in about a week called the New Apollo Energy Act, which will come forth with a whole suite of ideas about how to adopt new clean energy solutions. And, of course, we call it the New Apollo Energy Act because we think what Kennedy believed about America, which was that we were the greatest innovation country in the world, is something that we have got going for us. So we should use our technological genius just like we did when we went to the moon. So before I yield to Mr. Cleaver, I want to talk about why I have optimism about our ability to skin this cat, why I believe we can dramatically reduce our carbon dioxide emissions and dramatically tell our grandchildren that we are going to use our know-how to solve this problem. And the reason I am confident about this is that in the last year I have been doing a rather intensive review of the technology that we hope to bring to bear on this subject and I have been getting to know the Americans really across the country who tonight are inventing new technological solutions so we can move forward on clean energy. I just want to mention a few of them. First, there is a company in Massachusetts called the A123 Battery Company. I love the number. A123 Battery Company. And they have developed a lithium ion battery which is so powerful that basically in the size of about two or three shoe boxes you could put it in your car, which they are prepared to do this fall, and turn your hybrid car into a plug-in hybrid car. And I drove one actually, a converted plug-in hybrid that I drove around the capital a few weeks ago. This battery is so powerful that you will be able to plug in your car, drive it for 20 to 40 miles just on electricity, no gasoline. Then after 40 miles you use gasoline and you will get over 150 miles a gallon on either your ethanol, eventually, once it is a flex-fuel, plug-in hybrid, or your gasoline. Now, that is a heck of a deal for Americans for your first 40 miles to have zero carbon dioxide coming out your tailpipe. A123 Battery Company. The second company called Nanosolar. Nanosolar is a new company in California that has developed a photovoltaic cell, a solar cell, which uses nanotechnology to dramatically decrease the manufacturing costs and the costs of solar energy. And they are going to make a solar cell that is 1/50 as thick as the current silicone-based solar cells. It is called thin cell technology. A third company, Ausra Company, a former Australian company that has been moved to the United States that has breakthrough technology on solar thermal where you use parabolic mirrors to concentrate the sun's rays to heat gas to 1,100 degrees and turn a turbine, again, dramatically potentially reducing the cost of solar energy. So I wanted to first start our discussion with the context of great Americans doing great things in energy, and here are three companies moving forward. And to continue this discussion, I want to yield to Mr. Cleaver, who has been a great leader on these energy issues fresh in Congress. I would like to yield to him for his perspective on our ability to move forward in global warming and clean energy.