Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to address the House.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me, and I want to add my words of great compliment and appreciation to Tim Friedman, a true gentleman who has served this House with such distinction for over three decades of his life. His career here represents the highest level of public service, and members of his family, his children, his relatives, all of his friends here, all the Members of Congress that he has served and the American people should know this man because so many of the really top quality staff members who serve the Nation do not get the kind of recognition that they genuinely deserve. I want to thank him for his gentlemanly demeanor, being a true man of the House, and for helping us build a better Nation and world. Your service has been exemplary. Thank you on behalf of the Nation and thank you on behalf of the people of Ohio as well, all of whom you have served with such distinction. Congratulations. God bless you and may the future be even brighter than the years that you spent here. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding to me on behalf of such a fine and good man.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to discuss the escalating conflicts in the Middle East, and bearing in mind that the answer to real stability throughout that region is a resolution to the half century old Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a two-State solution with negotiations ongoing. That has not happened during the lifetime of this administration. In fact, they have ignored that completely. The second solution is to decouple U.S. foreign policy from our reliance on the oil regimes in the Middle East which supply the largest share of this country's dependence on imported petroleum. Those are the two answers. We are getting distracted by a lot of other activities in the region, but without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a two-State solution, and this country being able to stand on its own two feet again, and not have to beg any repressive society for oil, we will not find a solution for security for the American people at home nor abroad. The situation is worsening. War is an abandonment of reason, and it is critical for Members of Congress to stand for a path to peace, especially at a time that we witness and the world witnesses more killing, more death, more carnage escalating around us, escalating around those directly involved in the Middle East. It is especially essential to be a voice for peace when others believe that escalating the military option without serious and equal emphasis on political and diplomatic efforts will yield calm and resolution. Ghandi instructed us an eye for an eye will leave the world blind, and physics reminds us that to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I think in this latest conflagration between Lebanon and Israel there will be more than an equal and opposite reaction. Indeed, I predict, and it is happening already, escalating violence will reap more radical extremism throughout the region as moderate voices are muffled by the bombs and the escalation of the rhetoric and the escalation of the violence. Please notice, as a result of U.S. policy already in country after country, radical extremes are gaining political edge in the halls of government. The Muslim brotherhood of late has made major inroads in Egypt's parliament, rising from a level of couple dozen seats out of around 450 seats to nearly 100, and Egypt has signed a peace treaty with Israel. In Pakistan, orthodoxy is being elected at the provincial level over and over again. In Iraq, the Shi'ia majority is aligning with Iran, and indeed, the prime minister who is to address the Congress, this Congress this Wednesday, has come out full bore along with the parliament for the Hezbollah, condemning the actions of Israel, our ally. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has gained a toehold in parliament and enormous and growing sympathy on the street. Lebanon's wartorn areas from the last invasion by Israel beginning in the 1980s and its need for rebuilding were neglected by the world community, including this country, and Hezbollah took root for over two decades now. I am one of the few Members of this Congress that tried to go beyond the usual lip service paid to Lebanon to help it rebuild its wartorn areas and rebuild its civil society so that it could function at the point where Syria would withdraw, and the government of the United States, the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, every single instrument of this government stopped us every step of the way. We could take such tiny little steps. Is it any wonder that Hezbollah gained footing in the southern area of Lebanon? No one else took an interest, and violence displaced the opportunity over the 2\1/2\ decades for the development of civil society. No one in our country really cared, and major political opposition in Congress existed to helping Lebanon at all. How do you build a peaceful path? How do you secure Israel with enemies on every side? Iran's moderate voices have been silenced by extremism and decades of lack of engagement by any sitting President of this country. Even backchannels were let atrophied. And so the world is poised for more hatred and more mass killings. I will not associate myself with lopsided policies that ripen hatred toward this country, annihilate prospects for peace and threaten both Israel's and Palestine's ultimate existence. Mr. Speaker, I place in the Record at this point Bob Herbert's article, ``Find a Better Way,'' from The New York Times today. It is superb. (From the New York Times, July 24, 2006) Find a Better Way (By Bob Herbert) It's too late now, but Israel could have used a friend in the early stages of its war with Hezbollah--a friend who could have tugged at its sleeve and said: ``O.K We understand. But enough.'' That friend should have been the United States. It is not difficult to understand both Israel's obligation. to lash back at the unprovoked attacks of Hezbollah, and the longstanding rage and frustration that have led the Israelis to attempt to obliterate, once and for all, this unrelenting terrorist threat. Israelis are always targets for terror-- whether they are minding their own business in their homes, or shopping at the mall, or taking a bus to work, or celebrating the wedding of loved ones. (A quick example from a seemingly endless list: An Israeli security guard prevented a Palestinian suicide bomber from entering a mall in the seaside town of Netanya last December. The bomber detonated his explosives anyway, killing himself, the guard and four others.) But the unnecessary slaughter of innocents, whether by Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, American forces in Iraq or the Israeli defense forces, is always wrong, and should never be tolerated. So civilized people cannot in good conscience stand by and silently watch as hundreds of innocents are killed and thousands more threatened by the spasm of destruction unleashed by Israel in Lebanon. Going after Hezbollah is one thing. The murderous rocket attacks into Israel must be stopped. But the wanton killing of innocent civilians, including babies and children, who had no connection at all to Hezbollah is something else. The United States should have whispered into Israel's ear, the message being: ``The carnage has to cease. We'll find a better way.'' Instead, the Bush crowd nodded in acquiescence as Israel plowed headlong into a situation that can't possibly end any other way than badly. Lebanon, which had been one of the few bright spots in the Middle East, is now a mess. Even if Hezbollah is brought to its knees, the circumstances will ensure that there will be legions of newly radicalized young men anxious to take up arms and step into the vacuum. (When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, its strongest resistance enemy was the Palestinian guerrilla group Fatah. When it withdrew 18 years later, it left behind a stronger, more extreme guerrilla movement in Hezbollah, a force that didn't exist at the time of the invasion.) Joseph Cirincione, an expert on national security matters (and a supporter of Israel) at the Center for American Progress in Washington, said last week: ``There is no question that Hezbollah provoked this current crisis, and that it was right for Israel to respond, even if that meant crossing the Lebanon border to strike back at those who had attacked it. But this operation has gone too far. It's striking back at those who had nothing to do with Hezbollah.'' As a true friend of Israel, the task of the United States is to work as strenuously as possible to find real solutions to Israel's security. The first step in that process, as far as the current crisis is concerned, would logically have been to try and broker a cease-fire. But the compulsive muscle-flexers in the Bush crowd were contemptuous of that idea. Always hot for war, and astonishingly indifferent to its consequences, they egged Israel on. That was not the behavior of a friend. Neither Israel nor the United States can kill enough Muslims to win the struggle against terror. What Israel needs are stable, moderate governments in the region. (This is one of the reasons why it made no sense to cripple the Lebanese government.) What the United States needs is as much serious diplomatic engagement on all fronts as possible; and an end to the Bush administration's insane addiction to war--ever more war--as the answer to the world's ills. The. U.S. especially needs to be deeply involved in the effort to establish peace between Israel and its neighbors. There is no grand solution to the centuries-old problems of the Middle East. As with the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union, you try to keep things as cool as possible, step by, sometimes agonizing step. It may not be pretty, and it will surely be frustrating. But if the conflict, however aggravating, can be kept cold, as opposed to hot, you're ahead of the game.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank our colleague from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) for their own energy and helping America shape a different century and different millennium in this 21st, and to say that there could be no more important dedication for us as public officials than to meet America's chief strategic vulnerability in imported petroleum with real answers. To do so, as Congressman Schiff reminded us, when President Kennedy helped to do what was hard and lead America to land a man on the Moon, it was done within 10 years. At that time, I remember as a child, it seemed so impossible to land a man on the Moon. Yet now we see space shuttles. When you stand outside and look at the sky, and you watch the shuttle come before the Moon and then go back around again, you may see what this Nation has achieved since the 1960s. But, indeed, we did land a man on the Moon in 10 years. I am troubled by the long-time horizon on new forms of energy, because if the government of the United States were serious, within 10 years it could use its own power to help convert this Nation. I will just discuss two of the committees on which I serve that have major roles to play in this conversion. Both Congressman Schiff and Congressman Van Hollen have talked about the Department of Agriculture. What Congressman Van Hollen has said is true, that although the President, in his State of the Union, talked about energy addiction and the importance of transitioning America to be energy independent, the cost-cutting budget of the Department of Agriculture, under his administration every single year, has cut funds for renewables. Farmers struggle in the rural communities across this country to try to piece together the investment dollars and have the confidence that what they are doing will weather the kind of beating that they will take from the oil cartels, who command the marketplace and control the price in this country. Please don't try to convince me it is a free market. Oh, no, it is only a free market for those who control the spigots. It isn't a free market for the consumer at all. Because in the community I represent, even if I want to buy a car that runs on ethanol, there is only one pump, and that was only put in after considerable pressure. Who has time to go way over to another part of the State or another part of the city to go fill up, with families having the pressures that they have on them in the workplace today? No, the Department of agriculture, although I authored the first title to a farm bill in American history, title 9, that has the ability to invest some dollars in renewable energy through the farm community, it is such a pittance. It is almost laughable, except it is all we have. There isn't any major division over at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, even until today, that deals with energy independence and bringing up the full array of renewables. We know about ethanol, because ethanol is derived from corn, and corn is heavily subsidized. So, of course, we are going to get more alcohol from corn. But you know the truth is, in terms of science, that isn't the crop with the most oil, with the most ability to be refined. There are other seed crops that have much higher oil content. We have just never developed them. So the Federal Government isn't in the lead on this in agriculture. It is actually following in the wake of real progressive States like Minnesota, which I call the Thomas Alva Edison Center of the 21st century. What they are doing, they are viewing new energy production and new renewables and new investment there as economic development for the State of Minnesota. We have a lot to learn from them. The Federal Government ought to just copy what the State of Minnesota has done and make it available across the country. But it is a tragedy now because even though Detroit makes dozens and dozens of vehicles that will run on these new renewable fuels, there are no gas pumps around the country. There were a few incentives in one of the bills that we passed here in terms of tax credits and incentives for companies to put in tanks in the ground, but it is not serious. It is just sort of limping along. It isn't the kind of great challenge President Kennedy gave to us and the challenge that the Nation met. If I could just say a word about the Department of Defense, it is incredible that the Secretary of Defense of this Nation would come before the Defense Appropriations Committee, when asked the question, what role did he see for his Department, the largest purchaser of petroleum in the United States of America, and petroleum-based products, to help erase this strategic vulnerability that we had due to the fact that we import three-quarters of our petroleum, he said, That is not my job. That's the Department of Energy's job. I couldn't believe it. I went up to him afterwards, and I said, well, if it isn't our job, why do we have our Fifth Fleet porting in Bahrain holding up that government? You start looking around where we have put our defense forces to protect the oil lanes. We had a vote here today on Oman. It is pretty clear the Strait of Hormuz is very strategically important to us, because we are totally dependent on that oil lifeline. To me, that is America's chief defense vulnerability. So why doesn't Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld know about it? He doesn't want to know about it. Know what, the generals know about it. The generals at the Air Force know it, the generals at the Navy Department know it. The generals over at Army know about it, and they know about the soldiers in the field. We have research projects going on at DOD to try to have solar tents where the sun's rays are used if we have to move battalions around and try to provide alternative ways of powering these different defense systems that we have in theater. People on the ground know. The Guard and Reserve know. America has to change. I hope the Secretary or somebody in his office will give him some of my remarks, because the Department of Defense ought to be in the lead. Then many of the other Federal agencies will follow. The Federal agency that deserves the biggest star for doing what is right is the postal service. The postal service, with its vehicles, and some of them only get 12 miles a gallon, we ought to convert those, has done more than any other Federal agency to use its power to try to use vehicles that run on new fuels, batteries, new technology, hybrids, which Congressman Schiff and Congressman Van Hollen have referenced in their remarks. The Federal Government itself, as major a share of the U.S. economy as it is, could do wonders. Would it not be great if the President had hybrids as part of the White House lineup? Wouldn't it be great if the Secretary of Defense could see his way to thinking about this and integrating the energy mandate into what the Department of Defense does? Wouldn't it be great if the Secretary of Agriculture actually helped the farmers of this country become owners in the new energy industries that are being created across the fields of Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio, Indiana and so many other places, rather than making these farmers struggle and be threatened with bankruptcy because they can't, they don't have all the connections on Wall Street, and they can't get up to the $40 million level for investment? So I thank the gentleman for giving me a chance to say a few words here this evening. I share your absolute commitment to energy independence by 2020 or even sooner than that.

Ms. KAPTUR. I just wanted to add that if one looks at the automotive industry, and I have all major companies in my district and in my State, and talking about their focus along with our focus, we have to continue to open closed markets of the world. That's where markets expand. You have to put some energy there. You can't just kind of put it on the back shelf. Many years ago President George Bush the first went to Tokyo. I still remember he got very sick at a dinner, and he was there for auto parts talks, market opening talks. And ever since that day, there has never been an aggressive effort by any administration to open up the second- largest market in the world. So we have failed on the trade front significantly. And the major automotive firms have chosen a low-wage strategy rather than an innovation strategy. So they have been moving plants around the globe seeking cheap labor, whether it is China, Mexico, wherever it is, rather than focusing on the innovation that is inherent in the American people that was responsible for the dawn of the automotive age in this country in the first place. Those kind of minds are still out there, but we are kind of wed to old technology and the fact that if you sell a very large vehicle in this country, you make a little more profit than if you sell a smaller vehicle. The larger vehicles use more gas and petroleum-based products. We were stuck in that mold for a very, very long time. And if you go out and ask the average consumer what they are looking for, and the lines are showing it, they are looking for the new technology, and it just was not brought on. So the strategy that was chosen in the 1980s and 1990s has not led our Nation toward energy independence in vehicles. Now we see ads on television by the big companies saying we are trying to catch up. Well, we really need to catch up very, very quickly or they are going to become another segment of our wealth that are purchased by foreign interests and no longer belongs to us. We are seeing a lot of that as we pawn off pieces of America to try to cover our long-term debts and what we owe to the future, which I am very upset about, but alone can't solve. Nonetheless, I think our automotive companies really need to focus on innovation, listen to what the consumer is saying, give them what they want, and open up the closed markets of the world. That would go a long way to helping this industry revive. And then we have the legacy costs of the companies that have been in existence for a very long period of time that this Congress could do something about in order to make whole the pension and health benefits that workers were promised. That is a whole other Special Order. I thank Congressman Schiff and Congressman Van Hollen for allowing us to speak about such an important subject and one that is at the top of the list in terms of domestic security, and that is energy independence.

Ms. KAPTUR. Coming from the industrial Midwest, I think I have more automotive plants in my district than the entire State of California has, so I come from an area where the automotive industry was born and hopefully is being reborn. But it is amazing to me the way in which the U.S. automotive industry chose to meet foreign competition. It was not to try to pry open Japan's market which remains closed to the goods of all countries. Even when the old Yugoslavia made Yugos, you couldn't get them into Japan. So less than 3 percent of the cars on their street are from anywhere else in the world, the second largest auto producer in the world. They did not really choose a strategy of opening up closed markets or of converting here at home the largest automotive market in the world through the intervention of more fuel-efficient vehicles. They were forced to do that by CAFE standards and so forth here. But they fought that every step of the way and forced on the American people choices that were very, very oil-consumptive choices. So SUVs came on the market, and yet you could look over to Europe and see a Mercedes diesel run on biodiesel operating over in Europe. Yet here we had something like the Hummer comes out, and it gets 9 miles to a gallon at a time when we know that we have to have more fuel-efficient vehicles. I had an interesting experience a couple of years ago. I went up to the Detroit auto show, and I said I would like you to show me the floor with the new flex fuel or the biofuel vehicles, and the salesman just looked at me. We really don't have the industry well focused yet in terms of, look, Americans want to change the country. These are the vehicles that are available to you. This is how we are going to make it easy for you to convert. They are still not there yet. They have globally forced on the American market the big gas guzzlers. But if you go anywhere else in the world, whether it is Brazil or Germany, anywhere you go, you see the more fuel-efficient vehicles being employed. Think about your church parking lot or think about the supermarket parking lot that you shop in, and just go and look and see what is in the lot and what people are buying and what the miles per gallon is, and then do the same thing in Italy and do the same thing in Japan and do the same thing in Brazil and say to yoursel, What is wrong with this picture? Why aren't Americans being given the very same choices as consumers in other countries? Why have they been able to be more fuel efficient than we are? And if I can say just one thing on solar energy, since I represent the solar energy research center of the Nation, we make solar panels at a third of the cost of the Japanese, and they are just as efficient. In fact, they are more efficient, but they are bigger. Because they are bigger, they are one-third the cost. All of the companies in my district that are making these solar panels, they are being exported to Europe because Europe has the special incentives for renewable applications. And the majority of the technology on solar roofing and solar panels is being shipped to other countries because we don't have those same incentives here. So our government, those in the leadership here, can't see their way forward to help America convert when she wants to. The American people are with us on that. They know we have to change. Why don't we make it easy?

Ms. KAPTUR. I think the honest answer to that is initially about 15 percent. If one looks at the current type of production where we have field crops, if we compare ourselves to Brazil where they have many fewer cars than we do but they are really heavily biofueled right now, they have got well over half of their vehicles that are running on alcohol-based fuels. Under current technologies and current types of plants that we use, and current refining capacity, I think we could get up to about 15 percent. I do believe that with biotechnology and the introduction of more oil-rich seed crops we could push that number up, and that is part of the horizon of cracking the carbohydrate molecule, as we in the 20th century cracked the carbon molecule to produce gasoline and refine it off of petroleum. We are really neophytes in terms of really using oil seeds in order to produce the maximum number of Btus per acre and per ton. So I think if one looks at the period of a decade, we could do an enormous amount surely in the areas where we have field crops already in production. I would say that for the future, the Midwest would have a larger share of its vehicles that run on alcohol-based fuels than perhaps California. California might have more of a mix of hybrid battery technology, maybe hydrogen-infused systems. I do not think that there is just one answer here. But right now, because the oil companies really lock out the biofuels at the pump, we cannot move the vehicles that are already being made and sell them. Most Americans who are driving these flex-fuel vehicles do not even know it. So I would say that biofuels is at least a fifth of the answer, and then we have to look to fuel cells. We have to look to hydrogen-infused systems. I think that in the future, we are working on one project in the Midwest, we are taking the rays of the sun and converting them to hydrogen. Then we will have the plug-in vehicles, the experimental plug-in vehicles. So there is a series of technologies being used and developed. But imagine if the Federal Government were a partner rather than just sort of a bystander in this effort. We could ratchet up the usage so much more quickly.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to point out that last Friday, the New York Times had an ad on the editorial page, the title of which was ``True Energy Security,'' and it says as a subheadline, ``Interdependence is the Surest Means of Protecting Against Energy Shocks.'' This ad was paid for by the largest energy company in the world, ExxonMobil. I called the New York Times to figure out how much money ExxonMobil had to pay for an ad in that newspaper to tell us how wonderful it is that they are charging us such high prices and that America is truly dependent on imported fuel. Believe it or not, that ad cost $44,037. I started to calculate if I gave several people in my district $20 gas coupons based on the $44,037 that they spent just on that ad in that one newspaper to try to get into our minds and turn around in our heads what is actually happening and make us think they are doing us a favor, I could have over 2,000 families in my district be able to save money through those coupons. This company made so much money last year, it blew the lid off Wall Street. They made the largest profits in the history of the New York stock market, billions and billions and billions of dollars. And are they lowering gas prices for our people? Never. They are raising them. And then they are telling us we should feel good about it. In fact, the ad says that the answer to energy security is interdependence. I wonder how much they had to pay a firm on Madison Avenue to invent that word? Because our country was not founded on interdependence on oil regimes. Our country was founded on independence. Independence, not interdependence. If you look at what is happening with our imports of petroleum, they now consume the largest share of our trade deficit with the world. Two- thirds to three-quarters of the gasoline you buy comes from petroleum that was refined from imports. That means your money, your hardearned money, is going somewhere, in the case of ExxonMobil we are talking about Saudi Arabia. And if we really look here at the last 20 years, every single year the amount of imported petroleum has gone up, to the point where now, in 2006, it is about three-quarters. America has lost her independence. Independence. I am giving this Special Order tonight because I want the American people to think about what it will take to become independent again; what it will take on the part of the leadership of the President of our country, this Congress, to help move us to a new energy age. In rural America, we know there are new biofuels on the horizon. Why isn't our government helping our butanol, our ethanol, our biodiesel producers, to guarantee their investment for 30 years, as we did when we set up rural electric and rural telephone across this country, so that small farmers can band together and have some sense that some big company like Exxon isn't going to come in and squash them if they try to put a gas pump in a town and then ExxonMobil, who is so much bigger, can come in and put a gas pump right next to them, cut the price in half, because there is no competition by these oil cartels? We need this government to help the American people transition to a new energy age. So many farmers across this country can't raise the security, they can't raise the investment dollars in and of themselves. The hurdle is too high. We need to have the kind of leadership Franklin Roosevelt gave us when we set up rural telephone and rural electric across this country and have a new rural energy initiative that would help America just in that sector modernize quickly, in the area of hydrogen fuels, in the area of new types of turbines. My goodness, we invest so much money in research across this government, that ought to be at the top of everyone's priority list. Yet the Secretary of Defense said before our committee, well, Congresswoman, energy independence isn't my job. What a wrong answer that was. The Department of Defense buys more petroleum and more imported fuel than any other organization in this country, public or private. The Department of Defense ought to be leading America into energy independence again and unhook us from our dependence on oil regimes

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim Mr. Emanuel's time.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Not for the ordinary people.

Ms. KAPTUR. I will just say to the gentleman that post-NAFTA, the wages of Mexicans were cut in half. Two million people are streaming across this continent because their way of life has been destroyed. Travel with me to meet these people. In our Nation, the middle class has lost a million jobs to Mexico. Why is it the gentleman refuses to see this continental tragedy.

Ms. KAPTUR. Would you be kind enough to yield?

Ms. KAPTUR. What about our workers? Millions lost jobs because of NAFTA.

Ms. KAPTUR. Would the gentleman be happy to yield me a couple of seconds on his time?

Ms. KAPTUR. As I finish my statement, I will yield some time to the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, today the House will consider another so-called free trade agreement, this time with Oman, a nation that is not a democracy. In fact, far from it. It is a sultanate with rule by the superrich. This agreement will yield no more liberty. We should defeat the resolution and this bill. Oman is not a free country. Free trade should only exist among free people. Trade should enhance liberty and freedom, not undermine it by enshrining gross privilege. Exploitation of Oman's working class by its own rulers, along with imported labor from poorer countries who have no rights, underpin the ugly underbelly of Oman, no matter how the gold on their palaces glitters. Free trade should benefit America and America's workers, so name me a free trade agreement that has done that? The gentleman and I were here for the passage of the horrible NAFTA agreement--he voted yes, I voted no. It has put hundreds of thousands of our people in this country out of work, and it has hurt millions more people in Mexico. NAFTA has yielded trade deficits with Mexico when we used to have surpluses. Trade deals with Canada, Vietnam, and China have not helped America. Free trade deals help a narrow band of invesors this gentleman is more than happy to help. ``Free trade'' cannot anchor America's democratic principles. Indeed, trade with an undemocratic society ultimately crushes liberty's cause. Constitutions dedicated to liberties and rights and justice must come first. Is America so bankrupt and desperate for a landing pad in the Middle East that we cede more of our fundamental values of liberty globally with yet another repressive society? Free societies exist because people of those nations believed in liberty first. America's trade policy should embody our enduring values of liberty, not enshrine pecuniary relationships without principle. Oman should first take their place at freedom's table, and then let us talk about free trade. I ask my colleagues to defeat the rule and to defeat the resolution on free trade with Oman. It is not a free country, and it is time America identified with those in the world who aspire for freedom themselves, not just the superrich.

Ms. KAPTUR. Only for those at the top.

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding me this time and wish to say to my colleague from California who just left the podium that one of America's problems in the Middle East is that we have become too identified with the superrich, undemocratic leaders of those countries who ignore the teeming masses of the poor among them. That is where ``the resistance'' comes from.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today, again, the newspapers of our country tell the story of more organized killings, more death, more carnage, more bombings, more escalating violence in the Middle East. There are photos in this newspaper of fathers and relatives crying in Lebanon, and below it, young people crying in Haifa, in Israel. We all read these stories and we say, why cannot the killing stop? I as just one Member of this Congress am very proud to represent a community that knows what it will take for the killing to stop. Toledo, Ohio, in fact, was the first community in the United States of America to elect a mayor who was of American Lebanese heritage, Michael Damas, who is no longer living. You know, I am so proud of the people of my community. Today they came to our office in Toledo and they said, Congresswoman, we have a statement that we would like you to consider. And I thought it was so thoughtful and even-handed that I wanted to read it to the American people tonight. They asked, of course, that Americans who are in Lebanon be removed safely, and they asked us to urge the President of our country to move them out quickly. But then they wrote, ``We the American Lebanese Descent Community of Toledo request that the war and the bombing be suspended and our U.S. Government pursue peace and save lives in the region: Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese and others. It is a simple statement. But I think it is a much more judicious statement than the President of our country made as part of the G-8 summit the other day when using a vulgarity. The President said at one point that Syria should get Hezbollah to stop its attacks on Israel. His statement was not even-handed, it was not comprehensive, it did not talk about peace, it did not recognize the legitimate interests of the people of this country, the people of Israel, the people of Lebanon, the people of a future Palestinian. His statement did not talk about limiting carnage, and the retribution that characterizes the deteriorating situation in Lebanon and in adjoining countries. I am very proud of the people of the greater Toledo area for understanding what it is going to take to create peace and to initiate peace. I am very proud to sponsor today as well, a resolution submitted by Congressman Kucinich of Cleveland that reads as follows. It calls upon our President to appeal to all sides in the current crisis in the Middle East for an immediate cessation of violence and to commit the United States and our diplomats to multiparty negotiations with no preconditions. And it calls upon the President to appeal to all of those sides, as the people in my community have done, for an immediate cessation of violence. Would it have not been great if President Bush, like President Reagan had done with Menachem Began when he served as Prime Minister of Israel, and asked for an immediate cessation of violence? That did not happen with President Bush. This resolution of Mr. Kucinich would commit the United States and our diplomatic efforts to multiparty negotiations without precondition. It would send high-level diplomatic missions to the region to facilitate such multiparty negotiations, and would include representatives from the Governments of Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and it would support an international peacekeeping mission to southern Lebanon to prevent cross-border skirmishes during such multiparty negotiations. Does that not sound like a much healthier way for the world to move? There will be many resolutions offered here this week. And I ask myself, will they be as judicious as the people of our community? Will they be as full-bodied? Will they be as even-handed? Will they have a peace process envisioned at the end of this horrible, horrible road? Will they recognize the legitimate interests of all parties concerned? And will they seek to limit carnage, or will those resolutions continue to engender hate and further retribution? Mr. Speaker, this is a critical time for the world, not just for our country, but for so many fragile nations who really need the time to heal and the time to let democracy develop. Mr. Speaker, I hope, with those peace-loving people of our community that peace is just ahead.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, there are plenty of signs that the United States economy is not working well. One of the signs is our national debt. The latest figures show we are somewhere ever $8 trillion in the hole, and every day the hole gets deeper. You would think someone here in Washington would pay attention. Back in the year of 2000, as a result of major decisions made during the 1990s by the Congress, by then President Clinton, we were able to balance the annual budget and were actually paying down this enormous debt, the accumulated debt of the country. So things do not look too good there, and the United States has to cover those borrowings by borrowing from foreign interests. We know nearly half of U.S. debt securities are now purchased by foreign interests, and the United States is in hock, having to pay every year hundreds of billions of dollars in interest, interest to those foreign holders of our debt, interest we could be spending here at home; dollars we could be spending here inside the borders of the United States, rather than to those who are loaning us the money. Another sign of our predicament is this, that is, the monthly and annual trade deficits of our country, where more imports are coming into our Nation, more and more and more every month, every day, every year, than we export out. It is not that we are not exporting things. We are. But we are importing vastly more than we are exporting. In fact, the latest figures, compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, indicate that in the month of May, the last month for which we have final figures, our goods and services deficit went up another $63.8 billion in 1 month. In 1 month. That means, if you look at these monthly figures of our trade deficit, more imports coming in here than exports going out, in January of this year, they surpassed the debt, the trade debt from last year, in February, in March, in April, and then in May. May was worse than April. Without question, this year will go down as one in which the United States will have amassed the largest trade deficit in history. We are literally in uncharted waters, because when these goods are purchased in our country, those dollars that are then forked over for those goods go somewhere else. Go somewhere else. And then those countries, take China, for example, or Korea, any of the nations with whom, or Japan with whom we have huge trade deficits, have those dollars to spend. We do not have them to spend. They do. So they are literally taking our earned assets, and they are trading them internationally. In fact, the State of Indiana just did something incredible. They made a decision to lease out the Indiana Turnpike to foreign interests. This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. So the poor State of Indiana, the taxpayers of that State that had paid off the bonds on the turnpike over 30 years ago are now in hock to Spanish and Australian investors for the next 99 years. Unbelievable. It is like a fire sale. Chicago Skyway did the same thing. Leasing out a public asset to foreign interests. And then we not only owe them the annual interest payments; but our children and our grandchildren, you can just see the pieces of America being taken away because we are not paying our own way. There was an article in a London paper, the Telegraph, the headline of which is, ``U.S. could be going bankrupt.'' And it is really talking about at what point do you officially declare bankruptcy. And it says, the United States is heading for bankruptcy, and research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said the United States is indeed bankrupt insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who in this context are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds. Certainly pension benefits, certainly health care benefits, all of those endangered because the Nation is in hock. We owe others. What is interesting about that Indiana turnpike deal is that the tolls have been doubled now. So the foreign interests to which the Indiana turnpike was leased out have now doubled the costs on the U.S. consumer. We do not have control of our own future until we get the trade accounts and our budget accounts in order. Certainly the President ought to submit a balanced budget. Certainly this Congress ought to pass one. That has not happened during the Bush administration. [From the Telegraph (UK), July 14, 2006] US `Could be Going Bankrupt' (By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor) The United States is heading for bankruptcy, according to an extraordinary paper published by one of the key members of the country's central bank. A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a leading constituent of the U.S. Federal Reserve. Prof. Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the U.S. is already bankrupt. ``To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors,'' he asked. According to his central analysis, ``the U.S. government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds''. The budget deficit in the U.S. is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries--including the UK--which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP. Prof. Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: ``The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy. ``Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke.'' Experts have calculated that the country's long-term ``fiscal gap'' between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters. The figure is massive because President George W. Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics. Prof. Kotlikoff said: ``This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9 trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc.'' The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the U.S.'s future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds. Prof. Kotlikoff said: ``The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century.'' Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. ``For a start, the expected deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending on health care than to changing demographics,'' he said. ``This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much of short- sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more pressing.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in very strong support of the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. Unfortunately, this great American struggle is not over. We have seen voters denied their rights in recent elections as they have been incorrectly purged from lists, their absentee votes not counted, and voting machine integrity and security not assured. Ohioans have raised countless questions about today's new electronic voting systems, their flawed security, their lack of transparency, their reliability and, yes, their very integrity. Who controls the security codes in these machines? How do we ensure that local boards of election and judges at the precinct level are empowered to properly count votes and not the voting machine companies who know more about those machines and how to program them than the people conducting the elections themselves? Strong efforts have been made in Ohio to curb the authoritarianism of our Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, as he has purged people from lists in our State in particular precincts where voters are heavily minority. Mr. Chairman, we must pass the Voting Rights Act in its stronger form. The struggle is not over. As Reverend Joseph Lowery reminds us, keep hope alive, extend the Voting Rights Act. I am in strong support of the passage of the Voting Rights Act to protect the ability of all citizens, particularly minorities, to vote. Unfortunately, this struggle is not over. We have seen voters denied their rights in several recent elections as voters have been incorrectly purged from lists, their absentee votes not counted, and voting machine integrity not assured. Ohioans have raised countless questions about today's new electronic voting systems, their flawed security, their lack of transparency, their reliability, and yes, their very integrity. Who controls the security code for the machines? How do we assure that local Boards of Elections and judges at the precinct level are empowered to properly count votes and not the voting machine companies who know more about those machines and how to program them than the people conducting the elections. Strong efforts were made by Ohio's Legislature to mandate voter verifiable paper trails on election machines, over the objections of Ohio's Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Chairing the Bush campaign in Ohio, he opposed this standard. Blackwell also steered and limited the voting machine vendors from which local election authorities could choose, and imposed voter registration standards that were confusing and ridiculous. Voters of Ohio ended up challenging his capricious rulings in federal court on the day of the last Presidential election. He even tried to inject more confusion into the process by specifying the ``weight of paper'' used for voter registration forms when his own office was not using that kind of paper. His goal was clear: to create more confusion on election day by churning the electorate in key precincts to diminish turnout. Congress passed the Help America Vote Act following the 2000 elections to fix these kinds of heavy-handed tactics and the mess America witnessed with the hanging chad ballots in Florida. Unfortunately, the bill did not mandate standards for the new equipment. To this day, and I believe purposefully by the Republican majority, no federal agency assures standards for voting technology on which localities can depend. Voting rights stand at the top of our liberty pillar. We must pass this Voting Rights Act in its strongest form and restore America's trust in elections by ensuring their legitimacy and making them tamper- proof. Mr. Chairman, before closing I would like to repeat a call that has been made by countless leaders of the civil rights movement including the Reverend Joseph Lowery, ``Keep hope alive: Extend the Voting Rights Act.'' [From the New York Times, July 7, 2006] Don't Dismantle the Voting Rights Act (By Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb) The Voting Rights Act, signed into law on Aug. 6, 1965, by our father, President Lyndon Johnson, opened the political process to millions of Americans. The law was born amid the struggle for voting rights in Selma and Montgomery, Ala., which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called ``a shining moment in the conscience of man.'' By eliminating barriers, including poll taxes and literacy tests, that had long prevented members of minority groups from voting, the act became a keystone of civil rights in the United States. Now, crucial provisions of this legislation are in jeopardy. Last month, Congress seemed set to renew expiring sections intended to prevent voter discrimination based on race or language proficiency. Instead, a group of House lawmakers opposed to those sections succeeded in derailing their considerations. The Voting Rights Act prohibits discrimination in voting everywhere in the country. But it has a special provision, Section 5, intended for regions with persistent histories of discrimination. These states and localities must have their election plans approved by the Justice Department. Since the act was last renewed, in 1982, the federal government has objected to hundreds of proposed changes in state and local voting laws on the basis of their discriminatory impact. In recent years, proposed election changes in Georgia, Texas and other states were blocked because they violated the act. Yet states and localities are not subject to Section 5 forever. In order to gain exemption, they need only meet a set of clear standards proving that they have been in compliance with the law for 10 years and have not tried to discriminate against minority voters. In Virginia, for example, eight counties and three cities have been exempted from Section 5. Another section of the act, Section 203, which Congress added in 1975, mandates language assistance in certain jurisdictions to promote voting by citizens with limited proficiency in English. There are now 466 such jurisdictions in 31 states. No one disputes that our nation has come a long way since the Voting Rights Act was first signed into law. But while it would be nice to think we don't need this legislation anymore, we do. We still struggle with the legacy of institutionalized racism. If either of the act's two sections under attack is weakened or allowed to expire, the door will be opened to a new round of discriminatory practices. The reauthorization stalled in Congress is called the Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006. Were he alive today, we believe President Johnson would be honored to have this bill named after such remarkable women. Its passage would be a fitting tribute to their collective efforts to expand the scope of civil rights and citizenship. In his own era, our father faced powerful opposition to the Voting Rights Act, including from members of his own party. Nonetheless, he pushed forward with the legislation because he knew it was desperately needed. It was the right thing to do then. It still is.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, newspapers across the world today carry the story that China has hit a new record in terms of its exports to countries like the United States. Surges in exports all over the world demonstrate that since last year, the Chinese have actually increased their exports by over 25 percent, and since the beginning of this year by 55 percent. Truly, this Nation is the dump market of the world. We are absorbing everybody else's imports, and nations like China are not taking as many exports as they could from us in order that we have a balanced trade account. Newspapers like the Toronto Star indicate that this new record surpasses the record that was set last month in May. As you think about the outsourcing of jobs in the United States of America, going to Mexico, going to China, it is very interesting that the United States is cashing itself out in order to float its currency and its borrowings during this period of time when the Bush administration and its allies here in the Congress are driving us into deeper and deeper debt, more and more borrowing. This is a reciprocal of that kind of phony economy here at home. In China, even the Chinese admit that that country needs to rely more on domestic demand, selling things inside their own country rather than exporting everything to the United States. And if China's industrial boom, and they grew about 10 percent since the beginning of this year, is to be sustained, they have to start selling to their own people. Years ago, they said the answer to the trade issues with the Asian countries, the Asian tigers, is to manipulate the currency rate. So you hear a lot of discussion in this country about the Treasury trying to rig the relationship between the yuan in China and the U.S. dollar. But the facts are that the United States is in a huge trade deficit with almost every other industrial country in the world, and we are having to borrow in order to float the borrowings that we are doing on the trade accounts in order to sustain the hollowing out of our economy. Recently Maytag announced its closure in the State of Iowa. All the way back to when Goodyear first closed in Los Angeles, we have a reborn steel industry. Our steel industry was killed back in the 1980s, but guess what. It has been reborn all through foreign ownership. We don't even own it anymore. Won't the American people recognize what is happening to the real wealth creation of this country? I do not want America to be owned by transnational corporations that have no loyalty to the United States of America and the values for which we stand. This is the latest example of why we never should have had permanent normal trade relations passed with China, because it only digs us deeper and deeper and deeper into debt. Our people do not have good middle-class jobs. They cannot hang on to their pensions. Their health benefits increase in cost. And we literally are making our children, as graduates of the colleges across this country, debtors, because we cannot even pay the educational bills of the next generation. What a sorry state to begin this new millennium and this 21st century here in the United States of America. I am deeply distraught by these latest numbers from China, and surely, at a minimum, Members of Congress should sponsor my Trade Balancing Act of 2006, which basically says to any Presidential administration, if we have more than $10 billion of debt in trade with any nation in the world, we ought to go back and figure out why we do and then renegotiate those trade agreements. We cannot depend on fiddling around with currency manipulation because they told us if we did that with Japan back in the 1980s, our accounts would just look terrific. If the dollar and the yen came into balance, the trade accounts would heal. But guess what. They never did because you know why? Japan never opened its market to our goods. And neither will China. So you have to deal with the Asian tigers in a different way. Surely, surely this should be a wake-up call to the American people. Surely, surely this should be a wake-up call to the Members of this Congress who could change the trade laws of this country in order to create a balanced trading environment, a level playing field where our businesses, where our workers, where our communities have a chance to compete again. Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record this article from the Toronto Star, the title of which is ``China's Trade Surplus Hits New High. And I would have to say as it hits a new high, America's economy hits a new low here at home. [From the Toronto Star, July 11, 2006] China's Trade Surplus Hits New High (By Elaine Kurtenbach) Shanghai--Month after month, China's export-driven economy pushes its trade surplus with the rest of the world to new heights. June was no exception. Yesterday, China reported that its global trade surplus rose to a record monthly high of $14.5 billion (U.S.), after a record $13 billion surplus in May. The data from China's Commerce Ministry is sure to raise the likelihood of more tension over Beijing's currency controls, especially with the U.S., which is one of China's $202 billion in 2005, has fanned antagonism over the persistent imbalance between the two countries. That figure is bigger than China's global trade gap because China has trade deficits with some nations. June's increase raised the trade surplus for the first half of the year to $61.5 billion, a 55 per cent jump over last year's first-half surplus of $39.7 billion. The surge in exports also has worried China's economic planners, who say the country needs to rely more on domestic demand than on exports and Investment to fuel growth if its industrial boom is to be sustained. The economy grew at an annual rate of 10.3 per cent in the first quarter of the year. First-half figures have yet to be released but state media reports, citing authoritative government officials, have said it likely would remain at about 10 per cent. But he added ``these numbers suggest that the PBOC is fighting back effectively.'' The latest trade figures were likely to ratchet up complaints over China's currency controls, which its trading partners say keep the value of the yuan artificially low, making the country's exports cheap in overseas markets. China still limits daily movement in the yuan's value to just 0.3 per cent above and below its daily official rate. Chinese officials have pledged to make trading more flexible, but have shied away from setting a timetable. In the meantime, the yuan has risen about 1.5 per cent since it was revalued by 2.1 per cent against the dollar to 8.11 yuan per dollar.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to discuss the need for changes at FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and how our Nation approaches disaster response in general. I am one of the Members here that voted not to move FEMA from being an independent agency into the new Department of Homeland Security, and every day that goes by and every disaster that happens proves that was the wiser course of action. FEMA should be restored to its former status as an immediate national response, emergency response agency. It should not be buried five levels down in the Department of Homeland Security, now the second largest agency in our government after the Department of Defense. It simply is too burdensome, and the American people are suffering as a result of it. If New Orleans was not a lesson, if Katrina was not a lesson, if Rita was not a lesson, then what kind of students are we? Today, I visited areas in my own congressional district in northern Ohio that have been declared national disaster areas now because of the flooding that occurred June 21 through June 23 in northern Ohio. Water rose as high as 6 to 7 to 8 feet, 25 homes were completely destroyed, 317 received major damage, 1,064 received minor damage and 3,262 had cosmetic damage; and that is as of just today. The local response was rapid and top notch, the best they could do. FEMA's Federal response has been what I would term somewhat timely and not overly effective. As I have visited with elected officials and residents affected by flooding over these last few days, outlining key Federal help that we can bring to them, I was struck by how disjointed the assistance is and how we try to help people at the local level to apply for what they are eligible for. They simply do not know. I explained to officials and constituents that Federal assistance might cover losses not addressed with their own personal insurance and that they had to file an insurance claim form with their private insurance company before contacting FEMA. But let me tell you what they require down at the county level. If, in Ohio, you were affected by the recent flood, they tell you, Go to the FEMA office that we have temporarily established in an adjoining county. So people from the affected county have to go to an adjoining county. When they get to the FEMA office, they are told, Oh, we can't help you fill out the application here. We can just talk to you about it. You have to go to your local library. They have to go back into their home county, go to the main library to try to get into the computer program to apply for the FEMA program. Well, guess what? The local librarians do not work for FEMA. They do not know all the Federal assistance. I sat with one gentleman today at a computer in the library where he tried to get into his password and code that he had gotten last week, as FEMA had instructed him, and guess what? The password didn't work. And he was a computer techie. He knew more about computers than I did. He was not a senior citizen who was not familiar with computers. We could not get into his records to find out if FEMA had even received his application from a week ago when he filed it. What happens in Ohio is that, assuming you can file, if you can really get it done at the library, which I do not think is right, FEMA ought to have the computers right at the temporary FEMA office, then you get an envelope in the mail from the Small Business Administration. Well, nobody in my area has gotten them yet, but the average person says, Well, if I applied at FEMA, why am I getting a letter from the Small Business Administration? The reason is because SBA will establish your income eligibility for grants, or for loans if you do not qualify for grants, and if you do not submit the SBA paperwork, you cannot get the FEMA assistance. But the average person who is scraping mud out of their living room and has had their basements totally destroyed and has had to take time off work in order to try to find a place to live, how do they have time for all of this? Twenty-five years ago, FEMA had trailers that were under the purview of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They moved those trailers in. If you lived in a home that was in bad shape and had been damaged, you could go live in a trailer. They had their own generators. You could at least live there while you fixed up your other house. FEMA changed all of that back during the Reagan administration during the 1980s, and we have created a much less ready FEMA to respond to national disasters. One of the other things that has happened is that our people, our mayors, our county commissioners, who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to help people, that have had to put personnel on overtime, that have had to use their equipment, that have had to buy fuel that isn't cheap, they have now been told by FEMA that that is not covered in the Federal assistance to local communities. All that is covered is an individual's damage. What kind of Government of the United States is this that we cannot respond to people who are in need, whether it is in the gulf or in northern Ohio? Assistance could include up to three months' rental payment for temporary housing; grants for home repairs and replacement of essential household items not covered by insurance to make damaged dwellings safe, sanitary, and functional; grants to replace personal property (including vehicles) not covered by insurance; and unemployment payments up to 26 weeks for people who temporarily lost jobs because of the disaster and who do not qualify for state benefits, such as self- employed individuals. This is all well and good, but it is limited. Most relief comes in the form of loans, not grants. People suffering property-loss or damage from flooding or sewer backups can apply for low interest loans administered by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to cover residential losses not fully compensated by insurance. Loans are available up to $200,000 for primary residence and $40,000 for personal property, including renter losses. Loans are available up to $1.5 million for business property losses, both property damage and economic injury, not fully compensated by insurance. This is all well and good for those people who can afford to get the loans and have the know-how and wherewithal to apply. But these are often those hardest hit by disasters of this type Mr. Speaker. Today, as I visited areas in the Eastern portion of my Congressional District, it became clear that the process for applying for assistance is a quagmire. For starters, there isn't even a FEMA field officer in Erie County--a county recently listed as eligible for disaster assistance. Folks have to travel over to an adjoining county to register to speak to a live FEMA person. And that person can't help them apply for assistance--they have to go somewhere else for that. Moreover, they cannot do it in person. They can travel to these locations to get advice, but are then required to submit the information via computer at their local library. The FEMA process is too cumbersome Mr. Speaker. People need immediate help, not help weeks from now. People hardest hit need more personal assistance, not less. They need more grants and fewer loans. They are the senior citizens and low-income families who could not afford, or may not have even been aware, that they needed flood insurance. And why, Mr. Speaker, is a property-owner saddled with the responsibility of assuming a loan when it is a city or county sewer- system that overflows--resulting in massive flooding or an unacceptable drainage rate? It doesn't make any sense to me. Mr. Speaker, we need to expand the criteria for grant assistance, not lessen it. More importantly, though, the formula for reimbursing municipalities for their response must be re-evaluated. The City of Toledo spent almost $275,000 responding to last month's disaster. And they have been told not to expect one cent in reimbursement costs. This is unacceptable. FEMA officials say that the City did not spend enough money to qualify for public assistance. A city of similar size would need to spend, approximately, $1.5 million before reimbursement costs would kick in. Why such a high number? Does this administration think that any city, much less a city the size of Toledo, can absorb such a loss? It's mind- boggling. Local municipalities have seen their budgets devastated by the down- turn in the economy. If Federal Government is going to pass the buck on program after program--unfunded mandates sapping at the local budgets-- then the government must step up when emergencies like this result in unanticipated costs spiraling out of control.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you. Mr. Speaker, people who work full time should not live in poverty. Yet America's minimum wage has been set at $5.15 for the last decade, while the costs of housing, health care, education and gasoline have skyrocketed. This stagnant wage represents a decline in purchasing power for the working class, so great that it is at its lowest value in a half a century when adjusted for inflation. The Democrats have a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next 2 years. The Republican leadership of this Chamber, however, saw fit to block this legislation from reaching the House floor for a vote. Ironically, that Republican majority then voted to raise their own pay. Last week, I voted once again to block the automatic pay raises for Congress, called cost-of-living adjustments. Don't those at the low end of the pay scale deserve more than those at the very top? Don't they deserve more attention? My office has been flooded with letters and emails urging the increase in the minimum wage. Some of my constituents write because they are struggling to pay their bills with minimum-wage salaries. Others are earning more than the minimum wage, but promote the increase, anyway, as they realize this is also a moral issue. Yes, people who work should not live in poverty. One of my constituents wrote me a series of questions that I believe my Republican colleagues who are opposed to increasing the minimum wage could benefit from hearing. One constituent asked: ``How do you distinguish between the working poor and their need for a raise and Congress' need for a raise?'' Another: ``Do you ever decide not to go to an event because you have to make your auto's gas last until the end of the week?'' Or: ``When your child is sick, do you look at your budget to see where the $20 copay for the prescription is going to come from?'' Or: ``When I get an extra $50, I put it towards my running bill at the VA for my prescriptions. Basic needs. What are Members of Congress going to do with their raise?'' The American people are asking. Frankly, they should turn them down and let them be given to those who need the help. Unfortunately, millions of Americans are faced with vital decisions daily, things too many Members of Congress take for granted. These Americans are among the working poor with full-time jobs earning $5.15 an hour. Millions fall into this boat, even more when you consider that the poverty line has not been adequately adjusted to reflect the true level of poverty in this country. My Republican colleagues who are against the minimum wage cannot identify with that struggle. Opponents argue the market should dictate wages. Well, Mr. Speaker, we know the market works very imperfectly. They favor those with capital and those who inherit it, even with no work of their own. A market where chief executive officers make 262 times that of the average worker and 821 times that of the minimum-wage worker is not a market that is working well. And it is surely not working well enough to build a solid middle class. This same erroneous argument of letting the market dictate has been used to tout the value of flawed trade agreements like CAFTA and NAFTA. These lopsided agreements have been structured in a way to favor capital over workers across borders, outsourcing more of our jobs and putting a crushing downward squeeze on the middle class and on keeping the minimum wage at rock bottom. Trade agreements that do not have protections for workers are fueling the influx of immigrants into our country. These workers do not necessarily prefer America to their home country. It is just that these poor trade agreements have really wiped out their livelihoods, and they are fleeing to the United States. These workers are willing, due to dire circumstances, to work for sub-minimum wages which in turn depresses all wages in on our country. People who go to work every day and perform the services essential to keeping our economy functioning deserve to live above the poverty level. America is the richest nation in the world. It should be able to pay a living wage and build a middle class for those who hold the least in society. We need to reward work itself, or it will lose its value. The definition of opportunity in this country will lose its value. We should follow our conscience and raise the minimum wage. I ask those who are listening in this Chamber and elsewhere to write their Member of Congress and urge an increase in the minimum wage in our country from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour over the next 2 years. It is the right thing to do.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the house for 5 minutes and to claim the gentleman from Illinois' time.