Jay Inslee

Mr. INSLEE

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

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. That is the $64,000 question.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I am pleased to participate in this discussion. I think a preliminary question the U.S. Congress needs to ask itself is what role we have in acting as stewards for the taxpayers' money in this regard for $87 billion in expenditures. It seems to me that we ought to really scrupulously evaluate how effective this administration and their team has been to date in fulfilling its warrants to the American people in regard to the Iraqi situation. It is important to know whether this administration has been so accurate, so complete, so well-planned that, frankly, Congress ought to just give the administration a blank check and let it run. So I want to spend just 2 minutes evaluating the performance in that regard. Mr. Speaker, the administration allowed the American people to believe Saddam Hussein was behind September 11. As far as we know, according to the commission established for that purpose, that was wrong. The Bush administration led the American people to believe that Iraq was in cahoots with al Qaeda. According to information we now have, that was wrong. The administration told the American people that Iraq had literally hundreds of tons of chemical and biological companies. That may or may not be wrong, but to date appears to be. The administration told the American people that Iraq had sought to get uranium from Africa. That was wrong; in fact, fraudulent on someone's behalf. The Bush administration told the American people that troops would be welcomed with rose petals and open arms when they got to Baghdad. That turned out to be wrong. The administration told the American people that this would be largely a self-financing operation, as the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt) indicated. Mr. Wolfowitz said in a short period of time, the oil would flow, the dollars would grow, and the American taxpayers would not be on the hook. This administration's record on its warrants to the American people is sadly lacking. In that context, it seems to me the U.S. Congress ought to not only ask serious, probing questions of the administration, it ought to set conditions on the expenditure of money that it may appropriate in this regard. Questions are not enough. Conditions are needed because this is a significant sum of money, $87 billion. The entire Marshall Plan was $100 billion. This is not a Marshall Plan, it is a partial plan because it lacks two very crucial elements.

Mr. INSLEE. I think it is important to be generous in the spirit of bipartisanship. I will say partial plan because it lacks two important elements. Number one, it lacks a sincere effort to bring the international community into this effort. This administration, for reasons that are passive understanding, has had a sincere desire to be as unilateral as possible all of the way through this effort, and they have burned bridges every possible way. And now what we see to date when they finally say maybe we have to do something to rationalize this, they offer a fig leaf. We need full international participation in this effort because Iraq is not a prize to be won, it is a burden to be shared, and both taxpayers and our military should be sharing that burden with the rest of the world rather than exclusively having the United States shoulder it. There ought to be a condition for any money that is appropriated, specifically allocated or authorized by Congress. Second, another way that it is partial, it does not pay respect to domestic needs. The President has said that his tax cuts are a higher priority than building schools that could be built with $87 billion. He needs to rethink that. Third, how it is partial, and this is perhaps long term for our children's benefit, the thing it lacks is it simply is not paying for this obligation. It seeks to borrow from our children money to pay for this operation. It borrows from the Social Security to pay for this operation. We have heard about the lockbox, and it is not a lockbox. It is pulling in Social Security to pay for this obligation. Why does the President not want to pay for this? We should pay for it. Winston Churchill said all I have to offer is blood, sweat, toil and tears. This administration says while we have a war overseas, it will be balloons and fruit and candy back home with tax cuts, and now they want to continue to pass tax cuts, largely going to wealthy members of our society. If this is so important to American security, the President ought to be bellying up to the bar and asking Americans to recognize this not go forward with the tax cuts. That is an obligation that he ought to take and he ought to ask Americans to share in that, and he ought to be sincere in it and not have this let us be happy and fight a war at the same time. It is not the way the greatest generation did it in World War II or after World War II, and we ought to rise to that same obligation, to the world, and to our prosperity.

Mr. INSLEE. Is it a fair statement that under the policies of this administration that they have advocated as far as their budget that the veterans system that was in existence when these soldiers and sailors went to Iraq, when they come back from their extended tours, which are now being extended to the surprise of many, will come back to a veterans system that is less beneficial and less protective than when they left?

Mr. INSLEE. It would disturb anyone who has gone to Bethesda Naval Hospital, as I have, and have talked to the Marines who have lost limbs and who have had crushing injuries of lifetime disability, to think that they are going to have less effective and comprehensive medical care than existed before they started this battle. That is not what they ought to be fighting for. It also seems to me to be appropriate for this administration to throw overboard its predilection for unilateralism, this desire to go it alone, this kind of macho policy of not allowing anyone else to be an ally with you, to bring other people involved in this effort, not just American GIs and Marines. Because the success of this mission depends on winning the respect of the Iraqi people, and winning the respect of the Iraqi people for whatever new government is formed is going to be more enhanced if we get more people from around the community internationally to be involved in this effort additionally sharing this burden. I may add, too, the injuries are truly severe. We cry and we pray over those who have not come home, but we have got a very high proportion of very severe injuries from this, in part because of the magnificent trauma care that we have now developed, at least at the scene of the battle. These kids deserve a veterans plan that is going to treat them as well as their fathers and their grandfathers were treated and better. That is not happening right now and is a symptom of this administration's addiction to these tax cuts on an altar that is higher than any other human value, including veterans health care, and it is wrong. During this debate about this $87 billion, we should make sure that this issue is addressed, too, and not swept under the rug.

Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield, I think it is very important that the gentleman points out about the difficulty of perhaps having to bring folks home because we are stretched thin beginning in March, and the reason that is important is it points out a fundamental truth that the administration has refused to share with the American people. They have not leveled with the American people on one fundamental truth, and that is the first 60 or $65 billion that was allocated was just a down payment. This second $87 billion is a second of many installments. We have already heard talk about another $30 billion to $60 billion following this one. This could lead to a significant restructuring of the entire U.S. military by increasing the number of troops to deal with this rotational need of our military.

Mr. INSLEE. The gentleman points out something that I think is important and that is that the President needs to level with the American people about the real cost of this. Now, right now we have volunteers suffering the real cost of this war with loss of life and limb; but our children have a real cost they are enduring too, a Federal deficit that has gone over $500 billion this year with this additional $87 billion, the highest deficit in American history; and that is a real cost that the President, if he wants to show real leadership, would level with the American people about and say that we need to pay for, rather than hiding the cost and playing a fiscal shell game and putting that on our children. The only way to level with the American people is for him to throw aside at least some of the tax cuts, at least the additional tax cuts that he wants to give to the wealthiest folks in this country. If he believes the security interests of the United States demands that, then honesty to our children demands that and honesty about the true cost of war. That is why I believe when this debate starts, it is going to be very important for the U.S. Congress to condition any funds that are appropriated on making sure that it is paid for by us and not shucked off on the backs of our children as further deficit spending, as this administration has been wont to do, as it is necessary to condition this money on something that is going to be a requirement for success, and that is to get the rest of the world involved in this effort. It is the only way to win the Iraqis' respect for our ultimate efforts.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think there is an additional thing we need in addition to the sage comments of the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie); we need to stop the administration from stealing from the Social Security trust fund to pay for this war, and that is what they are telling us they want to do. They want to take $87 billion out of the Social Security trust fund to pay for this war. And the reason they want to do it is that they refuse to let go of their goal of continuing further tax cuts for the wealthiest folks in this country, and that is morally, ethically wrong to our children. And this Congress has an obligation to our kids to stop it right here during this supplemental, and I trust that we are making an effort to do that.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, if I may dovetail on your disenchantment with the total irresponsible comments of the Secretary. He said there was al Qaeda in Iraq before our attack on Iraq, and the evidence would suggest that was not the case. But as a result, following his efforts and his strategy, they are in Iraq and Iraq indeed has been turned into a potential breeding ground for terrorism. That is the kind of policy we do not want to see continued. This is the kind of mistake we do not want to see this administration make again.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. If the gentleman will yield, these are really hard discussions because we have been saying this now for months in the evenings with this group, that this effort needs to have more international support. We need to give our troops enough support so that they indeed can be secure. Since we last said that and then we went back to our districts for August, 40 more of our proud troops have died in Iraq, with the administration ignoring the obvious need to internationalize this effort. Over 100 people have been seriously injured, over 1,000 in the Iraq war, people coming back without limbs. But this administration cannot pay enough attention to common sense to put down their hubris and their arrogance for 10 minutes to come up with a policy that will keep our troops safe. The thing that is galling about it, and you do not have to be a Rhodes scholar and spend 40 hours a week thinking about foreign policy to know this. Yesterday I went out, the fellow was working on a cable wire in front of our house, it was a hot day, it has been really hot in August in Seattle. I just went out and gave him a pop and we started talking. He says, ``I'm not an international expert. I can't figure out why George Bush wants just our kids to die in Iraq. I just can't figure that out. That doesn't make any sense to me.'' I think when a cable guy on Holly Street in Bainbridge Island has that recognition, this administration ought to change its attitude to this effort, not want to be a bring-it-on mentality but an attitude of working with the international community. There is another thing I want to report to you about what people out on the street know about this issue. They know that we still have to get to the bottom of why the American people were not told the straight scoop before this war started. That is why we are cosponsors of a bill to have a bipartisan commission to get to the bottom of why Americans were deluded about the nature of the security threat in Iraq. I am not the only one who feels this. Two weeks ago in Shoreline, Washington, we just published a little notice, we were going to have a little meeting about Iraq intelligence. We were going to have it at noon on a Thursday on an 80-degree day in Seattle. We booked a room for 200 people. We had indications more were going to show up. We booked a room for 400, then for 600. We had 1,100 people show up at noon in Shoreline, Washington, who were raving angry about why this administration did not tell America the truth about Iraq before they got us into this war. They had one request and demand of the U.S. Congress: Do a bipartisan commission to get to the bottom of what happened here. Let me tell you why this is important, and we had pretty good people talking about this. Ambassador Joe Wilson, the guy who blew the whistle on the administration's fraudulent use of the claim about uranium from Africa, he flew all the way from D.C.; retired Admiral Bill Center, distinguished Navy career, who talked about the fact that he certainly did not see the threat that the administration was saying existed; Brewster Denny of the University of Washington School of Public Policy. They agreed with everybody in the room who recognized that if we are going to internationalize this effort in Iraq, you cannot do that successfully unless we have a full accounting about who was responsible about selling the American people and the world a bill of goods about what happened in Iraq. And 1,100 people recognized that in Shoreline, Washington. This measure of accountability that we need is necessary to clear the decks to get the type of alliance we need in the international community that maybe, just maybe, the administration is starting to finally figure out, way, way late. We hope we are going to have some support on the other side of the aisle about going forward to get to the bottom of this in a bipartisan fashion.

Mr. INSLEE

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am offering this amendment to restore personnel levels at the Environmental Protection Agency's budget for compliance monitoring and civil enforcement to the FY 2003 level. I understand the committee's estimate of the number of positions for inspections and civil enforcement, that the current appropriations bill would reduce that level by about 54 positions. This amendment would take $5.4 million from the EPA's Environmental Programs and Management Account of nearly $2.2 billion and redirect those funds to the EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance for salaries and other expenses to increase the personnel level for civil enforcement by 54 positions on the assumption that this amount is sufficient to cover the salary and expense of these employees. It is also my understanding that these additional funds would be redirected from within the agency's entire operating budget and not reprogrammed from other enforcement functions such as lab support or travel inspectors. Mr. Chairman, I recognize we have worked hard in a very difficult funding year to meet the needs of the EPA, and I would be most hopeful if the gentleman could accept this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, as a father, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2210, which will dismantle Head Start, which should be strengthened, not weakened, in any economic time.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support for this amendment for the simple reason that a monopoly of ideas is ultimately more destructive to American democracy than even a monopoly of money; and the American people understand this amendment should pass for two reasons, one philosophical and one practical. Let me address the philosophical one first. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said, ``Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,'' the overwhelming majority of American people have an understanding in their gut and in their bones and in their heads that if we loosen the rules on media consolidation, we will get more media consolidation. It is not rocket science. So let me address the practical issue that I have heard addressed on this floor today and argued on this floor that somehow if we vote for this amendment it actually means we are going to reduce the remedy we get against the FCC. Let me debunk that argument for this reason. It is based on two faulty assumptions. It is based on the assumption the President will veto this bill if we give Americans what they want, which is less consolidation in the media. The President might have said that today, some of his political advisers may have said that today; but when this bill gets to the White House desk, that e-mail account and Web site of the White House is going to melt down. They are going to have to double the number of e-mails that they can recover, and the FCC, when they did this, they thought this would just go kind of quietly in the night. That is why they had one hearing in Virginia for the whole country about this issue. They thought they would just sneak this by them. Let me tell my colleagues what happened when the American people found out about this. The U.S. Senate, or the other chamber, very quickly understood that it had to happen, the commerce committee had a good vote moving in this direction, and now it is up to my colleagues and me to keep this ball rolling. We do not know how far this ball is going to go unless we get the message to the American people; and let me suggest to my colleagues, that ball is going to go a lot further, which is total repeal of the FCC going backwards. I am not alone in this, and I want to make sure the Members in this Chamber know this is just not a good governing issue. It is not just a good government issue. It is not just a consumers federation. The labor community of the United States of America understands the consolidation of media voices is not good for democracy. That is why the Communication Workers of America are supporting this amendment. The Department of Professional Employees are supporting this amendment. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are supporting this amendment. The Newspaper Guild is supporting this amendment. The people support this amendment. So it is our job to push the envelope here. It is our job to make sure this does not get swept under the radar screen, and let me tell my colleagues why that is important. These consolidation rules go much further than repealing the Sherman Antitrust Act. They allow consolidation that will increase the concentration over 20 times the level of local market control of what would trigger a Sherman Antitrust Act investigation. That is in a one- newspaper town. In a two-newspaper town, mergers allowed under this rule, without this amendment, would increase concentration nine times the level of concentration that would trigger antitrust concern. I am standing here to say that our scrutiny of a monopoly of ideas should be every bit as vigorous as a scrutiny of a monopoly of money; and that is the reason we need to, in fact, pass this amendment. I have heard it argued today that there is a lot of new channels, there is Internet Web sites, there is new cable channels and that is enough. To me, it is a little bit like saying we will just have sort of 20 hoses, we have got all these new hoses to give you water, but then you screw the hoses all into the same faucet, which is the corporate board of governors who control these markets, and that is the promise you effect, that we have got to guard against by, in fact, passing this amendment. I will just make one closing comment if I can of those who may be thinking about this or my colleagues. I will say one thing that I think all of us as elected officials understand. This started as a very quiet, little modest regulatory issue; but it has turned into a firestorm of criticism, and there are two tsunamis. One has already washed over Congress, and that is the Do Not Call list. That finally got Congress' attention. The second one is this amendment. My colleagues vote against this amendment, they are going to have people with pitch forks and torches in front of their Chamber arguing that they should not get in bed with those who want consolidation of this industry. Let us push the envelope and fight back for this amendment.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, I am glad to join my colleagues because I feel this message needs to be repeated, that Congress is going to get to the bottom of this intelligence fiasco, and the best way to do that is through a bipartisan public commission to really find out what happened with the American people not getting the straight scoop about Iraq before this war started. I have heard certain people in the administration think that this is just going to kind of go away; it is going to kind of drift off and Americans will watch reality TV and forget this. I think the administration is very wrong on this; and we need them to embrace this idea of a bipartisan, led by a Republican, perhaps Warren Rudman, some esteemed Republican figure, to lead this bipartisan commission. I have got four points why this is so important, and the first two come back to the gentleman from Massachusetts' (Mr. Delahunt) question, which is what should be the standard for starting the preemptive war. I would suggest two, at least two. Number one, that the administration will not start a war unless the truth will convince the American people it is the proper thing to do, not the fudged intelligence, not the exaggerated intelligence, not the selective intelligence, but the whole intelligence. What clearly happened here is that this administration did not have confidence enough in their argument about freeing Iraqis, which might be a legitimate reason for a war, there are people who believe that, but they did not have confidence in that so they had to exaggerate intelligence and use selective intelligence and not tell us the whole thing. That is the first fundamental standard we have to meet before a preemptive war. The second fundamental standard we ought to insist on on a bipartisan basis is that we do the intelligence first and then we make the decision whether or not to go to war. We do not make the decision to go to war and then ask everybody to give the intelligence that fits that preconceived notion. The neutral evaluation of the scenario that occurred here is that some folks in this administration made an early decision to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and yes, there may be some legitimate reasons to do that; and some Americans believe even with no security threat to the United States, but we cannot start a preemp war on that basis, and that is what this bipartisan commission ought to say. I will just say two other points. I think some folks are so hung up on this uranium yellow cake they do not realize this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is the smallest tip of the iceberg of this selective intelligence failure. I heard today a gentleman point out four things that I do not recall the President telling us. The two highest al Qaeda operatives, officers if you will, in our custody in Guantanamo before the war started, told us that they had no relationship with Saddam Hussein. I do not recall the President standing in the State of the Union and telling us that the two highest al Qaeda operatives said they had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. Maybe I missed that, but I do not recall that. I do not recall him telling us that a retired national security fellow named Beers has said that looking at the intelligence he could not find any evidence of an ongoing relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. I do not recall him telling us that the Central Intelligence Agency told The Washington Post that, although there might have been some communication, there was no outstanding relationship between these entities. I do not recall any of these facts. What I recall is the administration trying to paint a picture, an implicit assumption of Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11, and all this intelligence was excluded from public information and that was just wrong. This President said, and it is almost a quote, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has some of the most lethal weapons systems devised by man. It is almost a direct quote. When we peel back these intelligence reports, we know there are lots of doubts about these issues.

Mr. INSLEE

Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Chairman, based on the statement of the gentleman, I withdraw the amendment.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado to elaborate on that.

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, we all recognize the difficulties in dealing with appropriations bills. The committee, under noble leadership, has done an admirable job in dealing with priorities, but I think we ought to support this amendment because it is a statement of intent by the U.S. House of Representatives to, in fact, embrace the type of visionary leadership that came from this podium right behind me on May 9, 1961. As we all know, on May 9, 1961, President John F. Kennedy stood at this well and challenged America to go to the moon and bring a man safely back within the decade. And that is the type of visionary leadership and over-the-horizon thinking that we now need in our energy policy in the United States. Many of us have been talking about the need for us to embrace a new Apollo energy project to, in fact, establish very high bar goals for us that, to date, we have not done; that we need to embrace a goal of eliminating our addiction to Middle Eastern oil; that we need to embrace a goal of significantly reducing our global climate change gas emissions; and, most importantly, we need to embrace a goal of building these new technologies here of hybrid cars and solar power and wind power rather than giving those jobs to Denmark, Germany and Japan. So I think we ought to pass this amendment as a statement of congressional intent to move in that direction. And just to make a suggestion to my colleagues as to why this is not pie in the sky, I just want to share a picture of a home in Virginia. This is a picture of the home of Alden and Carol Hathaway. They live in Hillsboro, Virginia. It is a nice home. I have seen it. They built it for $360,000, just a little more than a conventional home. This is a comfortable home. It is nice looking, and it has net zero energy usage off the grid. These folks, using existing technologies, have a net zero use of energy that is not produced in their home. This is technology that is on the very cusp of being market-based if we do a little more work on solar, wind, and things like they have, which is an in-ground heat pump. I just point this out because we are at a very exciting moment in time where we can push these technologies over the top because the prices are coming down so radically. I want to mention the Yucca Mountain situation. I have been a supporter of the effort to move forward in Yucca Mountain, and I understand it is important to continue that funding stream, but I want to confirm my understanding is the amount proposed by the Udall amendment actually moves us a little closer to the number proposed by the administration, which I would give some credence to in this assessment.

Mr. INSLEE. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman for his explanation, and I appreciate his leadership on that. Mr. Chairman, I would note that we do have a problem with nuclear waste, but we have a problem in not having a visionary energy policy. I hope we can support the Udall amendment.

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

Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Chairman, I bring this amendment to the House's attention really to deal with a weakness in our existing laws regarding the disposal of low-level nuclear waste. In the State of Washington, the Department of Energy has plans to ship into the Hanford site tons and tons of what is characterized as low-level nuclear waste for disposal in unlined trenches. Unfortunately, because of existing law, they may at the moment under RCRA statutes be allowed to do that. But this is clearly something we need to resolve because current RCRA law would not allow us to dispose of levels of Drano and paint cans, but does allow us to dispose of low-level nuclear waste in unlined trenches.

Mr. INSLEE. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman. I am very appreciative of his interest in this. I do think we need to light a fire under this process. I look forward to working with the gentleman in the conference committee.