Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the people of Ohio are wondering why the Bush administration has turned its back on them. After all, Ohio was the linchpin State in the Bush victory in 2004. Now, what else can Ohioans think? The Bush administration has just cut the funding for homeland security in Ohio and its major cities by one-third. Over $8.5 million was cut. Last year, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo, the four largest Ohio cities received $26.1 million in antiterrorism funding; this year $17.6 million, an $8.5 million reduction. Why? Surely President Bush does not think the terrorist threat has diminished. If he does, perhaps he should read the newspapers. Dateline Toronto, the Canadian Government just broke up an alleged terrorist ring in Ontario Province. That is on the north side of Lake Erie, and Ohio shares a border across that lake with Canada. And that ring apparently possessed enough material, 3 tons of it, to cause an explosion three times larger than that which destroyed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. If that is not enough to think about, Mogadishu, Somalia, has just fallen into the hands of Muslim militia groups in what the New York Times calls ``a setback for U.S. policy.'' Now that failed state might become another stronghold for al Qaeda. That is not good news. How about Baghdad? The violence in Iraq continues to escalate. And in Kabul the situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate. And here in Washington the Bush administration responds by making deeper cuts to homeland security funding to the four largest cities in Ohio. What did Ohio do that would cause President Bush to turn his back on her? Funding in Columbus, the largest city in the State, will fall from $7.6 million last year to $4.3 million this year. Mayor Coleman said that Columbus is the 15th largest city in the country, ``and time and again we are being told to do it yourself. Best of luck.'' My own hometown of Toledo is being cut from $5.3 million to $3.85 million this year. I think the President spent almost that much just on ads during the last campaign in our region. Yet recently in our city, the U.S. Justice Department made national news with the arrests of three men whom it suspects of being potential terrorists. Indeed, Ontario's terrorists drove from Columbus through Toledo, up to Detroit, across the bridge to Windsor to their Ontario hideouts. Toledo is a major port on the Great Lakes, literally the crossroads of America. Our position as a premier international transportation center, with such great proximity to our Nation's population center, is key to our economic vitality. We have to make sure that our air, water, rail, port and surface transportation infrastructure is safe and secure, and we need the Federal Government's help to do exactly that. At this very moment, this crucial moment in our Nation's history, this President is turning his back on Ohio, the State that delivered for him, turning his back on Toledo and Columbus and Cincinnati and Cleveland. He is turning his back on virtually every city across our country, cutting homeland security funds by over one-third when our communications systems cannot even work interoperably. No, Mr. President, mission not accomplished. There's still a lot to do. National security is the responsibility of the Federal Government. National security is the job of the Federal Government. Let the record show, Mr. Speaker, that the Bush administration has turned its back on the safety of Ohioans and across this country on the safety of Americans, including especially on our Nation's fourth seacoast. I hope the Bush administration listens to this message this evening. We need help with homeland security in Ohio, in our major cities and across this Nation.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim the gentlewoman's time and address the House for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, America, which should value our birthright of independence, is all too quickly becoming America the dependent. We are dangerously dependent, for example, on foreign oil for our energy needs. Indeed, we import nearly 75 percent of it; a third of our trade deficit is due to this oil dependency. We could become energy independent here at home with energy sources here that we would invent and create and refine, and what a job-rich America that would create. America is becoming more and more dependent upon imports from foreign manufacturers than we are exports from our country in all fields: in appliances, in clothing, even food. This year America may become for the first time in its history a net food importer. The balance of payments which had been the pride of our country, more exports than imports, has been reduced to red ink. The monthly trade deficit for March was just in 1 month over $62 billion, and we are still on another record annual trade deficit pace. In fact, our monthly trade deficit figure is so huge it equals the entire annual budget of our Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans fought to make us free from foreign tyranny, but the new tyranny is taking a different form. At the end of March, our overall publicly held debt was a staggering $4.6 trillion, not counting promises that the government has made to pay for retirement programs and health benefits that are due to the American people in the amount of over $8.4 trillion. Now, would you believe that nearly half, 43 percent of this debt, overall debt, of that amount, $2 trillion is now held by foreigners. We have already heard that it took 200 years for our Nation to accumulate $1 trillion of debt. But would you believe we are now at the point where $1 trillion of our public debt is held by Japan, China and Hong Kong? As this chart illustrates, Japan is the largest holder of our debt, followed by Europe, followed by China and Hong Kong, which are rising very quickly. In fact, would you believe that between October of 2003 and March of this year, China alone more than doubled its holdings of our public debt from $151 billion to $321 billion. The United States government, our taxpayers this year will pay more than $200 billion in interest on publicly-held debt with nearly $100 billion going to foreign holders of our debt. That's right. We are going to pay interest to foreign holders of U.S. debt, almost five times as much as we appropriate on an annual basis for the entire U.S. Department of Energy. Imagine if we invested those dollars in ourselves. We will pay interest to foreign holders of U.S. debt nearly three times as much as we spend in a year on the Department of Housing and Urban Development to build this country from coast-to-coast. We will pay interest to foreign holders of U.S. debt nearly twice as much as we appropriate for the entire Department of Labor. We have just had more miners killed in Kentucky, God rest their souls, because they didn't have oxygen equipment that would last them long enough that would outlast the monoxide until the rescue workers could get there. Yet we can pay this kind of money to foreign holders of our debt. We will pay about as much interest to foreign holders of U.S. debt as we will appropriate for fighting the war in Iraq. Wow. Think about it. What do we do about it? Without a doubt, first thing we should do is clean up our fiscal house, and that starts with balancing our budgets and digging out of this red ink. We cannot expect to continue in this fashion and remain the leader of the free world. Our currency is being devalued. We see the skittishness in the stock market, and interest rates are going up at the same time as gas prices are going up. This is very clear. There are certain rules of economics that never fail you. We are either going to have a currency devaluation, or we are going to have inflation go out of control. But the point is, more and more, we are going in hock to foreign interests. We need to ask, how do we take our country back? At a minimum, how do we owe the money to ourselves rather than other Nations? In prior generations, when we were faced with a problem like this, we didn't turn to foreign bankers; we turned to the American people. We did it through balancing our budget, and we did it through savings bond sales. There used to be a time when savings bonds could be purchased easily at any local bank or even in smaller denominations at our U.S. Postal Service. It was a way the average American, who is as patriotic as anybody in this world, could invest in their own country. They could buy bonds in very small denominations, and they knew their investment was secure and that they were investing in America, not someplace else. But in recent years, the Federal Reserve and our Treasury have gotten lazy. They are selling these denominations in big, big numbers, thousands of dollars apiece, and they like to do it through just a few cushy dealers on Wall Street. They love dealing with the big bond houses to get fees for every bond they sell. It is a very undemocratic bond system. In fact, the Federal Reserve loves to reward their friends on Wall Street instead of strengthening our Nation down to the average citizen and their ability to own a piece of the republic. I would like to restore that spirit of independence to our country, and this method, tried and true, of savings bond purchases helped us through military wars and economic depressions. Savings bonds can be called upon again, in a new war, to maintain America's economic independence and take it back from foreign investors who are owning larger pieces of us every day. Independence, independence, independence. Reduce America's ownership by foreign interests.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim my time.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, since we are on opposite sides in this debate this evening. But I wanted to follow on something Mr. Obey said, because I used to work for a former President in the United States and I understand quite a bit about the way OMB operates. One of the most shocking things I learned as a White House staff member was that you might have somebody in front of you who was the OMB examiner on agriculture this year, and then next year they switch that person to defense or switch them out to another agency, and you find out they do not know the details about anything. I was shocked that the defense examiners at OMB have nowhere near the experience that the Members of this institution do, and this is really where historical memory and where experience in detail rests. So I would agree with the gentleman from Wisconsin, we need a lot more sunlight over there on the executive side. We have total sunlight over here. And I have a totally different impression of the OMB as a former White House staff member than I ever did before, when I used to hold them in very high esteem until I realized they did not know the details of many programs. They just shifted them around, and they did not have the kinds of commitment and depth of knowledge that Members of Congress do.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I just want to say this may be the first year America imports more food than she exports. This is not just a problem inside the borders of the United States. We have to keep our agriculture alive in this country, and it is becoming more and more difficult every year because of what is happening in the global economy and subsidies that are out there in other countries. Thank you for yielding.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to put on the record that the State of Ohio used to be one of the leading tomato-growing States in the Nation until subsidized western water, and we lost our industry to the West. Now, Arizona is one of the most irrigated States in the country. You are draining water that is never going to come back. And yet I look at our part of the country that has to fight for such a small part of the market right now. I would just ask the gentleman, I would love to look at the type of subsidies that attend to your agriculture in Arizona from major government agencies that do not come to Ohio farmers. We are trying to maintain a very small market share. Hydroponic production is one of the ways in which we are successfully doing it, but I would just beg for the gentleman to take a look at what has really happened to the movement of agriculture. One State in the Union now produces over half the fruits and vegetables in the country, most of it irrigated. Ohioans have a right to compete in this market.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I would like to join my dear colleague from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt) in saying that aquaculture is a growing business in Ohio. We want to keep all of our communities competitive. I would say to the gentleman from Arizona, Ohio is really a shrimp in this. Arizona has a $4.2 million aquaculture designation in this bill. So we are really a shrimp compared to Arizona with your subsidized water and your Bureau of Land Reclamation incentives for your folks out there. But I can tell you, when I was born we had 146 million people in this country. Today we have 300 million. The oceans are half depleted in fish. And the Great Lakes are in great competition with Canada. We have to put caps on what our commercial fishermen can fish. And this project has resulted in a 30 percent increase in juvenile perch, one of the most desired fish in the region. So we need more fish. The oceans are not providing. We have to do our job here. Life is important. Being competitive in the international aquaculture environment is important. And the gentleman's own State, though it costs more to do it there because you have all those irrigation costs, we are trying to do it using fresh water. I think this is a wonderful investment by the American people in their own self-interest.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, as a member of this subcommittee for many years, I would like to point out that everyone of the projects that is included in this bill is carefully monitored and with the proposals being reviewed on campuses before they are submitted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for funding. Then the U.S. Department of Agriculture reviews each project to be sure that the projects are ones of scientific merit, and research contracts are effectively negotiated between the USDA and the recipient. And the subcommittee monitors each one of the projects with detailed questions at every hearing. This is the most recent hearing manual with each of the amendments that the gentleman is offering about. There is careful review. There are quarterly reports. There is documentation that is required for every single project. So I do not quite agree with what the gentleman has said, because it is a contract negotiation and because there is careful review and a lot of projects do not get funded. The gentleman mentioned something about 400 projects. Well, we have 435 Members of this institution. And we do have a responsibility to the country. There are projects in Arizona. There are projects in Ohio. And we cannot fund everything that we are asked, but we do the best job that we can, and we try and make and build a better country. So the specifics, the gentleman had a question about I think the greenhouse nurseries projects in Ohio. And I can assure the gentleman that the unsubsidized family farmers of Ohio in this particular industry are competing in a global market. And the work that is being done by several land grant universities, including Ohio State University, Michigan State University, Indiana State University, are trying to help an endangered industry compete against subsidized Canadian production where power in that nation is made available at much cheaper rates. The power costs of operating these kinds of greenhouses is enormous in the current marketplace. I only wish that our region of the country had what the gentleman has, and that is the Bureau of Land Reclamation, and your subsidized water projects in the west that have literally pulled much of our vegetable production from nonirrigated facilities to the irrigated west. I wish we had the kind of subsidies the gentleman's region has benefited from. Perhaps because the gentleman lives in a suburb, he does not appreciate what it takes to produce food in our country with the kind of competition that we face. Now I read in the gentleman's biography that he grew up on a ranch. I sure would like to know if your family benefited from any of those Bureau of Land Management subsidies or any of those Arizona water projects. Maybe the gentleman gets his water from the rain. I do not know. But, you know, other parts of America need to compete, too, and they are not subsidized. So we hope that our industry will be able to survive. But I would defend any of the projects that have gone through this careful review through the U.S. Department of Agriculture along with many of our land grant institutions. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman to take a look in the mirror and to his own State.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Oregon, Mr. Blumenauer, for yielding me this time, and to thank Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, a staunch supporter of human rights, for coauthoring this legislation with our dear, dear and respected colleague from the State of California, Congressman Tom Lantos, who is the once and future chair of this committee, I am sure, some day, and to say, as many others have stated this evening, we respect your life. Many of us love you and love your family. Perhaps some of us have a deeper understanding of some of the tribulation that you have faced in your own life because our families have faced the same. We had relatives in what is now the nation of Ukraine, but in the Soviet Union, our uncles, who were sent to the gulag for over 20 years by Joseph Stalin. One died and one survived, miraculously, after 20 bitter years. So I think our family shares a deep personal understanding of what despotism and terror is. I rise this evening because I have to say that this act, the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, I fear will result not in less terrorism, but in more. I do not really believe it is in the interest of the United States, of Israel or the world to further radicalize elements in the Palestinian population, and I do believe this bill will do exactly that. It is not in the interest of the government of the United States nor Israel nor the world to make it impossible for Palestinians to become more educated and to learn how to govern an emerging nation. Indeed, if our current policies as a world were so intelligent, they would not have yielded a Hamas to the point where it actually won an election and other elements of Palestinian society were so crippled and so inept and so disorganized that they were not able to govern in a way that an emerging nation state would. I have asked myself during the gruesome Soviet period, what glimmers did we have, what connections did we have, what elements were we able to nurture that even provided a road forward? I think of our family's East European heritage in Poland and enduring the most repressive times in Poland. This country found a way to support a non-governmental organization in the form of Solidarity, and there were church groups working and there were other groups that provided just small glimmers of light. I remember a dear, dear friend, Reverend Martin Hernati born in the homeland of Congressman Lantos, who said to me, ``Marcy, I am walking through a tunnel. It is very dark in the tunnel and I see no light at the end of the tunnel, but I must keep walking.'' I remember Cardinal Mindszenty in the nation of Hungary, locked up in the U.S. embassy for many years, as a single man, a single individual, as a symbol to the West. I thought about the ``Refuseniks'' in the Soviet Union, how we connected with them, helping them to publish their works, helping to hear a voice from inside a closed society, and I asked myself, in this situation, what are the parallels? What are the parallels? In this bill, no one wants to support Hamas. All we are asking for is the right to amend this bill to find other non-governmental groups that we can help to support, to help educate, to help inform, to help teach, in the hope, even though we are all walking through the tunnel and we see no light at the end of the tunnel, that we give the ordinary person, the moderate, and there are some moderates, some hope, some ability to connect. I read from the statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who say in opposition to the current form of this bill, ``A further deterioration of the humanitarian and economic situation of the Palestinian people compromises human dignity and serves the long-term interests neither of Palestinians nor of Israelis who long for a just peace. ``Non-governmental organizations have a long history of helping the world's most vulnerable people. Their humanitarian role should be respected. While this work is not easy,'' and surely the gentleman from California knows it is not easy, surely the gentlelady from Florida knows it is not easy, ``it is essential. It deserves Congress' continued support.'' I would hope that with the Prime Minister of Israel coming here this week, that we would have a proposal that would take the Quartet and actually somehow have discussions, even a resolution, to try to restart the failed peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Wouldn't that be a great moment? Wouldn't it be worth being here and serving here? We need resolutions that will not radicalize, that will not divide, that will make peace possible.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to pay tribute to a former Member of this body, Congressman Sonny G.V. Montgomery of Meridian, Mississippi. Our Nation laid him to rest this week in his home State. As a Congresswoman who arrived here in the early 1980s, it was my great privilege to serve on the committee which he chaired, the Veterans' Committee, which was his life here in the Congress of the United States. I can recall so many times, as a Member of that committee, what a gracious, gracious Chair he was. Even to the new young members who had much to learn. I remember so much of what he did and the camaraderie that he established as a very precious gift not just to the committee or to the Congress but to the Nation. And we could use more of that spirit here today. I remember in 1984 when the Montgomery G.I. Bill passed in a Democratic Congress with his leadership, how generation after generation a young veteran would come to be able to afford an education and to obtain decent health care and what he did to strengthen our Armed Forces, including our Guard and Reserve, and given us the best Armed Forces that the world has ever known. He hardly ever claimed credit for that publicly, and yet he worked on it for years. I can remember many State of the Union addresses where in what I called the Montgomery chair back there in the back row he would sit and he would welcome the Presidents from each party as they would come into this Chamber, and I cannot ever remember Sonny Montgomery losing his temper. If he did, I certainly never saw it. I watched him when we struggled with the issue of Agent Orange. When some of the scientists who testified before the committee said, We really cannot show causality, we cannot show that, in fact, this veteran has cancer because he was mixing Agent Orange in big vats with paddles in Vietnam back in the 1960s and early 1970s. And there came a point in the committee when Sonny said, You know, there is a time when you have to do what is morally right even though it may not be scientifically provable. And for the first time in the Nation's history since Vietnam we were able to treat veterans who contracted serious illnesses as a result of their service. Special centers were set up, such as in New York, in order that we could assess and learn about these terrible, terrible illnesses that resulted from exposure to Agent Orange. Sonny Montgomery traveled to the districts of the Members of his committee. I was so impressed, because many times we would get a veteran who, unfortunately, because of illness would be out of control in the audience, and Sonny had a way of moving his hand and talking to the veteran, kind of calming him down. He was an amazing, amazing man to watch. He loved veterans. He loved Americans, but he had a special gift to be able to reach those who sometimes were distant. Half of the homeless in America are veterans. The work that he did as Chair of that committee helped us to recognize for the first time the problem of homeless veterans. He got great assistance from a young Congressman then who had joined the committee, Lane Evans of Illinois, who currently due to Parkinson's illness is in Illinois right now trying to heal himself. These men did so much for our Nation and for the improvement of the conditions under which our veterans serve. I can remember when Sonny came to my district in Ohio. It didn't matter where you took him, to a Veterans Post, a Legion Post, a public meeting, people would stand and cheer. He was ``Mr. Veteran'' from coast to coast. And he left a legacy of improved education, of improved health care, of a veterans system that increased the number of health care clinics, both in urban and rural areas, to care for our veterans, and he took very seriously the slogan from Lincoln that is on the front of the Department of Veterans Affairs, ``To care for them who shall have borne the battle, his widow or widower, and his or her orphan.'' He lived it. He traveled the world. We improved cemeteries around the world for our veterans. We worked on housing programs to go beyond the GI single- family home mortgage to multiple family home construction. He did so much so quietly and so effectively. Personally, he worked with me many, many years as we were trying to build the World War II memorial here in Washington in three different committees of jurisdiction, and yet was that steady force that was always at our side as we worked for 17 years to move that piece of legislation from dropping it here in the hopper all the way to dedication just a few years ago here on the Nation's Mall. His staff, Matt Fleming, Gloria Royce, so many people who served on that committee, knew that they had worked with a very great man, a man who always carried himself with great humility and great humor. He was one of the founders of the Prayer Breakfast, the Bipartisan Prayer Breakfast here that meets every Thursday morning, and he offered the ``sick and wounded report.'' He took an interest in every Member here, and he would know about their families and he would report to us on what was happening, and he built such a bond between people on both sides of the aisle. I look at a certain Member whose voting record is different than mine, and I will say, how did I meet that person? My gosh, I met that person at the Prayer Breakfast with Sonny Montgomery. He would go to the national meetings of the VFW or when the young winners would be selected from the Voice of Democracy awards at the VFW or through the American Legion and would receive standing ovations by thousands and thousands and thousands of people. He was a two star general himself, having served in World War II, in Korea and then, of course, in the Guard, and he became a champion of the Guard and Reserve at a time when so many Americans were not really paying attention. He improved the facilities, he improved their opportunities. So today, Mr. Speaker, in ending my remarks, I just want to say it was truly a deep, deep privilege to serve with Congressman and General Sonny G.V. Montgomery of Meridian, Mississippi. It is obvious the people of his district love him and appreciate him, and so does America. God bless him and God bless America.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I have been asking myself why the President of the United States really can't get a grip on policies that would help America become energy independent here at home. Last week, as we were looking at rising gasoline prices all across our country, he suggested that we import, import more ethanol. I thought about that comment and his whole administration's lack of attention to energy independence for our country, and I sort of sat there at my desk and thought, why would the President behave this way? And I thought a lot about how we form our personalities and when we take whatever occupation we get into as adults, why we behave the way we do. There are some personalities that result from experiences that make you self-made, and then there are those personalities that I call derivative personalities, and their behaviors result from a different set of experiences, so when they get in a job they really can't command and direct, because they have never really done it themselves. Here is an example. I grew up in a family where our mother made our clothing. We didn't have a lot of money, so we learned how to scrimp, and we learned how to invent and to create. And those are learned skills. The President grew up in a family that was extraordinarily wealthy. I would guess that they bought most of their clothes. In fact, I can remember when the President, his father, didn't even know how much socks cost in the store during one of his Presidential races. They always bought everything. They never made. They had enough assets, he inherited enough, that they really didn't have to learn how to be self- made. So he doesn't have a mind that lends itself to creativity necessarily. We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business. We have a President who inherited his wealth. Everything that he did, he had this soft landing pad. He failed a number of times in businesses that he inherited from his own family, but he never really paid the consequences, because someone was always there to catch him and to refinance him, even in the purchase of the baseball team that he owned, which then he eventually sold and used those dollars to get elected President of the United States. Most American families don't have that kind of landing pad. In our family, we had to earn our way to go to college, and we had to get good grades, because there was nobody there that was going to save you. Nobody in our family had ever gone to college before. I had to keep good grades to keep a scholarship up for the scholarship I did receive. But the President's education was paid for by his family. In fact, he was admitted to schools, based on his grades, that most Americans could never get admitted to. I think what these kinds of experiences do is create a different kind of personality, a personality of people who are self-made and they know how to create, versus a personality that is more derivative and sometimes can't solve problems, and they look to someone else to solve them. So if we have an energy problem in America, the President would look to somebody else. And he says, well, let's import the ethanol. He doesn't really think about creating a whole new industry here at home and using the Government of the United States to help create that industry. That is why he has proposed cutting programs. At the same time out of one side of his mouth he talks about energy addiction, but then is trying to use the Government of the United States to create a new energy future for America. He really doesn't know what to do with it when he is in command of it. It was actually Congress that adopted the first energy title to a farm bill. It didn't come from the administration. And if you look at every single budget that he has offered, he talks about energy independence, and then he cuts the programs that would lead us in that direction. What America really needs is a new biofuels industry as a complement to other forms of power that we can create. But we need self-made people to help move America in that direction. Many of our farmers are figuring it out. We need programs to help them finance the development of the new infrastructure and the production facilities that are necessary to green up this industry. They need the President's help to do it so they are not bought out by Big Oil and by companies that really don't want them to bring up this new industry. But the President really doesn't know how to create it. His Secretary of Agriculture isn't doing it. We could have programs like title IX in USDA funded at $1 billion. We struggle to even get $25 million or $23 million in our committee, which is laughable in terms of a trade deficit in oil of over $60 billion and counting. The President's Cabinet members are not energy-focused. The Secretary of Defense said energy isn't his job. He runs the largest instrument in this country that uses fuel, and energy independence isn't his job? He said that to us in committee. Mr. Speaker, we need people in our country and the Presidency and this Congress who are self-made, not derivative, to lead America to a new independent energy age.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, a little over 3 years have passed since the invasion of Iraq, and it seems that we are no closer to victory than we were the day U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad. So where are we in Iraq? This is a question many are asking. Just this morning, a suicide bomber attacked police headquarters in Fallujah, killing 15 and wounding 30 others. According to AP reports, 13 of those killed were Iraqi recruits and two were Iraqi police. In Baghdad over the past 2 days, 34 bodies have been discovered throughout that city. The hands of the men had been bound. All showed signs of torture, and all had been shot in the head. Another 12 bodies, all Sunni Arabs, were found in the streets over the weekend. This is appalling news, Mr. Speaker; and, sadly, it is simply a continuation of the sectarian violence sparked by the February bombing of the holy Askariya Mosque in Samara. The elevated violence has claimed hundreds of lives, and many experts and scholars worry if this is deteriorating into a full-out civil war. We can only hope that will not be the case, Mr. Speaker, but the signs are troubling, and insurgents are targeting Iraqis as well as U.S. troops. Iraqis are attacking other Iraqis, and no one seems to know how to stop the violence. It is clear that the administration's pre-war intelligence was finagled or flubbed, and war efforts are being bungled. Constant miscalculations and inability to view the situation for what it really is continues to place our troops in harm's way every minute of every day. Is it any wonder that well-respected military officers out of a sense of patriotic duty feel compelled to speak out against Secretary Rumsfeld and others in this administration, drawing light to the constant bungling? In March, military General Paul Eaton, retired, said, ``Mr. Rumsfeld has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his ego, his cold warrior's view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower. As a result, the Army finds itself severely undermanned.'' Retired military General Paul Eaton: ``Secretary Rumsfeld has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone else responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. Mr. Rumsfeld must step down.'' Retired Lieutenant General Greg Newbold: ``Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that we made the right strategic decisions but made thousands of tactical errors is an outrage,'' he says. ``It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.'' Major General John Batiste in April said, ``the current administration repeatedly ignored sound military advice and counsel with respect to the war plans. I think the principles of war are fundamental, and we violate those at our own peril.'' And Central Command Commander General Anthony Zinni in April said, ``I think we are paying the price for lack of credible planning, or the lack of a plan. We are throwing away 10 years of planning, in effect, for underestimating the situation we were going to get into and for not adhering to the advice that was being given to us by others.'' Mr. Speaker, all of these are troubling remarks. All of those men speak from personal experience at ground level. Their concerns and protestations were ignored by higher-ups in the Pentagon and in the Oval Office. The price for speaking the truth in public? Ask General Shinseki. He got fired for daring to speak out on the number of troops that would be a needed to maintain the peace once major combat operations were under way. So, thus far, we have 2,404 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq and another 17,762 injured; 27,000 Iraqi civilians have died, and the world does not even know how many there have been injured. From my own State of Ohio, 107 brave soldiers have died, and 664 have been injured. And the only thing this administration sees fit to do is throw money at the problem and wait for a new President to figure it out sometime after 2008's elections are over. Our esteemed colleague from the other body, Joseph Biden, this week suggested that he agreed with some experts who have proposed decentralizing Iraq, similar to what was done in Bosnia in the mid- 1990s. He writes, ``America must get beyond the present false choice between staying the course and bringing the troops home now and choose a third way that would wind down our military presence responsibly while preventing chaos. The idea, as in Bosnia, is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group, Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab, room to run its own affairs while leaving the central government in charge of common interests.'' Mr. Speaker, is it not time to at least consider a new direction to stem the rising violence?

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to claim Mr. Pallone's time to address the House for 5 minutes.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I hope the American people are paying attention to the massive oil company profits being made off of the pocketbooks of our people. Gasoline prices have gone up 68 cents just since last year per gallon. Gasoline prices are soaring. I left Ohio this morning after casting my vote in the primary election. Gas was $3 at the pump, and some of the brands were as high as $3.85 a gallon. Who are we making rich? ExxonMobil, they are number one. They declared a record quarterly profit of $8.4 billion, 7 percent more than they made last year. Meanwhile, their chairman, Lee Raymond, is planning on his retirement. His package totals $400 million when all pension payoffs and stock options are included. I have often asked myself, what does somebody do with $400 million? When is enough enough? Now, this is the same Exxon that has yet to pay the $4.5 billion in punitive damages awarded in the Exxon Valdez case 17 years ago. They haven't even paid off those they harmed. Now, not to be outdone, ConocoPhillips said its earnings rose 13 percent, to $3.29 billion, just in the first quarter of this year. Now, Chevron Corporation's first quarter profits soared 49 percent, to $4 billion, as the firm joined the procession of U.S. oil companies reporting colossal earnings. Meanwhile, constituent after constituent in my district tells me they can no longer afford weekend family trips due to gas prices. People are only filling their tanks up halfway, hoping prices will drop and they will not have to pay these exorbitant prices. Other companies like Halliburton, think about this. We have a Vice President. He got a tax refund of nearly $22 million. Halliburton is an oil servicing firm that has gotten so many no-bid contracts from this government related to the war in Iraq and other oil-related expenditures. Come on. Can't we connect those dots? Can't we figure out what's going on here? Farmers tell me that higher fuel costs mean their already ultra-slim margin of profit is likely to disappear. Small businesses worry about whether or not they can impose delivery surcharges to make up for higher fuel costs. Now, all the President of the United States says, listen carefully. He says we have to study this. Hmm. He says we have to study this. We have to study the profits. Mr. President, we need to do something. The President says that these companies should reinvest their money in energy projects here. But keep in mind that Exxon officials told the staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this year that Exxon doesn't intend to spend any money in this country because of flat demand for petroleum products by the year 2030. So the President appears to be some days late and a refinery short. Something the President could do, using his Presidential authority, is to change the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Strategic Fuels Reserve and begin converting this country to non-oil-based fuels. His agriculture bill didn't do that. We put a title IX in the agriculture bill to convert quickly. We can do ethanol and biodiesel right now. But guess who won't sell it? Every one of those oil companies. Think about the communities you live in. Let's say you buy a Ford Taurus that is an E85, and you can put ethanol in the tank. Unless you are from Minnesota or Iowa, where are you going to buy the fuel? Guess who locks you out at the pump? Every single one of those companies, because they want business as usual. At some point, we have to do what is right for the country before any single company's interests. This is in the national interest not to have the economy take a nosedive again because of our dependence on imported petroleum. The other body is contemplating the cute idea of a $100 tax rebate to every citizen. Well, what does that do about the price of gasoline? What does that do about converting the type of fuel you put in your tank and making America energy independent again? What does this do to end our presidentially decreed addiction to oil from unstable regimes? All it does is it transfers wealth to those very same companies that are locking out the new future for America, the new energy future we needed to embark upon in the last century and, sadly, we did not have the leadership to do it. So profits are up again. Golden parachutes are being readied. The industry snubs its nose at the consuming public that can't afford these prices. The Bush government says, trust us, let's just study some more. That is all we need to do is study. Is it any reason the American people are upset? They have a right to be upset. We need leadership in this government. No more followership. [From The Blade: Toledo, Ohio, Friday, Apr. 28, 2006.] Quarterly Profit Tops $8 Billion at Exxon Mobil

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

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, when you become President and Vice President of the United States, but you have spent your life in the oil industry, I suppose it isn't surprising that decisions that you might make when you are President and Vice President would result in your enriching yourself more from the industry in which you had spent your life. It may not be surprising that gasoline now in this country is well over $3 a gallon, and imported oil over $70 a barrel, two-thirds of what we consume in making that gasoline coming from the most undemocratic places in the world, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Venezuela, Colombia, Nigeria. It is interesting, if you look at the President and the Vice President, the President spent his life in Midland, Texas, really drilling that community dry, and then he and his family founded the Zapata Oil Company and made relationships with oil companies in Mexico. The President that we have now had investments in Bahrain prior to his becoming President of the United States. And the Vice President, of course, was the CEO of Halliburton, which got all of those noncompetitively bid contracts in Iraq. We watched the former President Bush become a major partner in the Carlisle Group, getting big money from all the oil-producing countries in the Middle East and huge investments and speaking fees from these very same places. Is that merely coincidence? Yesterday, at long last then we see President Bush make a cameo appearance before the Renewable Fuels Association, and he gave a speech that many people had been waiting years to hear. He said in the speech we needed an investigation of why prices are going up the way they have over the last year. I would like to respectfully suggest to the President we need more than an investigation. We need new energy, new energy leadership by the President and Vice President. We don't need any more studies, and we don't need any more investigations. The President said that every car can run on 10 percent ethanol. Well, where is his action plan to do it? That is what many of us have been arguing, not just this year, not just last year, going back to the beginning of his administration when we pushed for a renewable energy title as part of the farm bill, and his administration has barely funded it, and they fought it every step of the way inside this Chamber. Now, the President said that with small changes some cars can run on E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Mr. President, there are more than 5 million cars, trucks, vans on the road that will run on 85 percent ethanol right now. Every major manufacturer has announced major efforts to produce more E-85 vehicles. DaimlerChrysler announced two more just this week. Guess what, Mr. President? The drivers can't get the fuel for the cars they have bought. What are you doing to help America develop the infrastructure for these new fuels? The President talks about increased research for new forms of energy, but what are we doing with the research we already have? Where are the Federal standards requiring Federal buildings to use more solar energy? How about the White House itself? How many Federal facilities are putting wind generators on their own property to develop energy? How many of our military bases are converting to biodiesel and to ethanol? When will the Chevy Suburbans that escort the Presidential motorcades actually use E-85 as an example of what can be done? I encourage the President to put a gas pump right over there at the White House. The President can talk about not buying oil to place in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help hold the price of gasoline down by a penny or two, but why is he letting America continue her addiction to imported oil? Wouldn't a good way to break with the past be to rename the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as the Strategic Fuels Reserve and start filling it with stocks of ethanol and biodiesel that can be rotated through the fuel supply system to help make these new fuels a bigger part of our energy mix? I introduced H.R. 3345 last year to do just that. I invite the President's endorsement of that effort. We need real action for today and tomorrow, not more of these false promises. We really don't need to build any more oil refineries when we are trying to move to new sources of energy. That would be like building more horseshoe factories when the automotive age was dawning. We need to mandate that oil companies use their exorbitant properties to put E-85 and biodiesel pumps in the ground right now across this country and to use some of their profits to do that. We need to help our country, not just let these companies enrich themselves and their top executives more. Then the millions of vehicles that are already on the road could help lead America to a new energy future. We need a President that gives us some action, not just talk. We need legislation like the Biofuels Energy Independence Act, H.R. 388, my bill to provide additional financing for the marketing, production, and distribution of biofuels, as well as the establishment of a biofuels feed stock reserve held by our farmers. We need legislation like H.R. 1398, my bill to require that by 2010 gasoline be blended with at least 10 percent ethanol, and that diesel be blended with at least 5 percent biodiesel. We need standards that give us quantifiable goals against which we can measure progress, and to which we can hold ourselves accountable. In short, Mr. President, while we appreciate your kind words and good wishes, we are begging for your active support in the form of realistic budget requests, speedy implementation action by agencies, and a commitment to making a difference not 10 years from now when your administration has its place in history but in the remaining days that you have to make a difference that can be felt in every American home, every American business, and every American community.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, April 26, the world will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the world's worst nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine when it was under Soviet control. The explosion released into the air radiation equivalent to 90 Hiroshima-size bombs in the heavily populated areas of northern Ukraine, southern Belarus and southwestern Russia. Millions of people throughout the world were affected by this disaster, and millions more continue to live with its consequences on a daily basis. Some have written about the North European countries being affected by what has been termed ``white winds,'' the white winds that came from Chernobyl. Radioactive contamination continues to harm the health of men, women and children throughout our world. It is critical that we do not allow ourselves to forget the looming consequences of Chernobyl, which are with us still today, lest the tragedy repeat itself. We must remind our fellow Americans and the world that those problems continue to exist, and the countries that were affected by Chernobyl require assistance in resolving them. In order to achieve this goal, the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, in cooperation with the Chernobyl Challenge `06 Coalition, is organizing a series of events at the end of this month to commemorate this solemn anniversary. I am very pleased to cooperate with our co-chairs of the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, Congressman Sander Levin of Michigan, Congressman Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, along with myself. Tomorrow, April 26, at 10 a.m. here in the Rayburn House Office Building foyer will be a 1-day photo exhibit entitled ``Chernobyl 20.'' The exhibit will include photographs by some prominent artists illuminating the human stories behind the Chernobyl catastrophe and highlighting the dignity and hope of its survivors. We welcome the public to come tomorrow and view this photo exhibit in the Rayburn House Office Building foyer. It begins at 10 a.m. and will remain there the entire day. On April 27, the following day, Thursday, from 2 in the afternoon until 6, in HC-6 here in the Capitol, a congressional briefing will feature expert testimony on Chernobyl issues including radiation and health, agriculture and food, environment, economics and U.S. assistance and the containment of the fourth unit reactor. The ambassadors of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia will provide brief remarks to inform about the current situation with respect to Chernobyl and their countries. If citizens are interested, they can contact our office at our Web site, rep.kaptur@mail.house.gov for information. On Thursday, April 27 as well, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the evening, in B369 Rayburn House Office Building, the Chernobyl Challenge `06 Coalition, in cooperation with our Congressional Ukrainian Caucus, will hold a congressional reception and Members of Congress will have an opportunity to speak. Again, if citizens are interested they can contact our Web site at rep.kaptur@mail.house.gov. The Congressional Ukrainian Caucus is very grateful that for the briefing that will be held on Thursday, from 2 to 6 in Room HC-6, the Capitol Building, that some of the following speakers will appear, from the Chernobyl Children's Project International and the Children of Chernobyl Relief and Development Fund, their executive directors, several pre-eminent scientists from major organizations, public and private sector universities, talking about the illnesses that plague people today as a result of this huge catastrophe. And then, finally, those who have served as ambassadors to our country and ambassadors from the affected nations will address what we can do in the way of additional international response to meet today's challenges still arising from the Chernobyl catastrophe. I have never seen birth defects as I have witnessed among the children affected by this continuing tragedy in Chernobyl. The thyroid cancers, the conditions to the heart, the distortions of the human form related to radiation resulting from Chernobyl are horrendous. The southern part of Belarus is largely depopulated, though some people who are refugees from Afghanistan are moving into the area, incredibly, and eating and planting seeds in the ground and eating contaminated food and infecting themselves even until this day. There is so much for the American people to understand. Though it was 20 years ago, Chernobyl lives as it will for thousands of years to come.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, tonight I rise on behalf of both current and retired Delphi workers in my district and around our Nation who are suffering from the financial woes of the largest automotive parts manufacturer in the country. Unfortunately, these Delphi workers are but the latest victims in a series of tragedies for the American worker. What we are currently witnessing, the bankruptcy and subsequent reorganization of Delphi is the fallout from regrettable trade agreements like NAFTA, and CAFTA, and the accompanying influence of some elected officials who are for globalized big business at the expense of the American people, big business built on low wages, no benefits, and no worker safety. Job loss is also due to major auto firms' leadership and executive boards who failed to make fuel efficient vehicles that Americans and the world want to buy. So our workers suffer. Delphi's most recent proposal is to lower wages from $27 an hour to $22 an hour through 2007, and then to $16.50 thereafter. This would be a 40 percent cut in middle-class wages. On Friday, Delphi filed a motion in bankruptcy court asking a judge to void its labor contracts. But how can you ask American workers to compete with a country like Japan which keeps its markets closed, the second largest market in the world? How can you ask our workers to compete with poverty level wages in Mexico and China? And how can you ask our workers to compete when big firms outsource everything to avoid paying workers what they justly deserve? Late last year, Congressman George Miller, ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, took the initiative to hold hearings on this subject. I want to make sure this evening that many of the workers' voices from my district are heard, like Mary Pat Bishoff of Marblehead, who said, ``My husband is 49 and has 32 years in at Delphi. He got sick and has been off since October. With only 5 years left on our first mortgage and 8 years on the second, we had to refinance and take them up to 30 years just to survive. This will force us to pay $733.11 a month instead of the $152.11 we were paying. We are faced with a decision as so many others are, should he retire and risk losing his pension? Or, if he stays and they cut pay, that means sick pay will also go down and we will lose our home.'' What kind of a choice is that? David Saylor of Port Clinton said, ``I retired from the GM assembly plant at Lordstown, Ohio in December of 1987, with the promise I would have complete health care coverage for life. Well, I will now have to pay $21 monthly, and that will greatly impact me since I took an early retirement and do not have the full 30-year retirement benefit.'' Raymond Stahl of Vermillion, Ohio said, ``They are shutting down the plant I work at and are moving it. Now I am out of a good paying job, and at my age it is going to be hard to even get another job let alone one that pays so well. America comes first, not overseas.'' Andrew Briscar, another Ohioan, said, ``I worked very hard for 20 years at the Delphi Packard Electric to get to a point where I can make a comfortable living for myself and my son. Now Delphi Packard Electric wants to cut my pay and benefits to a level that a young man or woman might make just coming out of high school.'' Mr. Speaker, workers who dedicate years of service to a company should be able to count on a decent retirement and measure of economic security. This Congress must step up with meaningful pension reform to help secure pensions and encourage companies to continue providing them. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation should have been reinfused with funds long ago with its $23 billion deficit, and we ought to be renegotiating trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA that continue to cash out good American jobs. Opponents said these jobs would go south, and they surely have, with GM now being Mexico's being largest employer. And it is no surprise that companies like Delphi, GM's biggest supplier, are following them. I have spoken with Delphi management, and our delegation is doing everything possible to keep these Delphi jobs in America, but we need a majority of Members here dedicated to that purpose. I have invited Chairman Steve Miller of Delphi to tour the Sandusky Delphi facility and to meet with key employees and public officials, and he has yet to take me up on that offer. Mr. Speaker, I would encourage the Members to sign on to the Balancing Trade Act of 2005 which I have introduced to ask our trade ambassador to come back to us with recommendations to write all of these trade deficits that we are incurring with other trading countries around the world. America simply must put ourselves back in a positive trade balance status.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to address the confusing new Medicare Prescription Drug Program, in light of yesterday's visit to my Ohio congressional district by Bush administration Health and Human Services Director Michael Leavitt. Yesterday, Monday, April 3, Secretary Leavitt arrived hours late in a blue bus after people had waited and waited in very cold weather. He spent only a few minutes, shook the hands of a couple of staff people, and spoke briefly with only two hand-picked seniors, and, by the way, spoke to them in front of the news cameras, before making his prepared remarks to the press. To the one senior that had a chance to ask the Secretary a question, explaining that they could not afford their medicines, he towed the administration line saying, ``This is a good program that helps a lot of people.'' When asked by one senior about the program not covering his wife's medication needs, incredibly, the Secretary answered in the same way, and this was to the one person, ``This is a good program that helps a lot of people.'' Now, the Secretary had his picture taken. It was on the front page of our newspaper, but of the 79 people in the room, he shook hands with only two, spoke to only one and left. I guess he is doing this all over the country. The Secretary says, yeah, this program has had a few bumps in the road. It is a new program but we fixed them. No, Mr. Secretary, you have not fixed them and they are more than bumps in the road. The one thing that is guaranteed is that the pharmaceutical companies are making billions. Here are a couple of comments that have come from consumers and seniors in my district. A husband and wife team says they take five prescriptions each. Under their old plan they had a 20 percent co-pay, but by this summer they will have reached the $2,250 cap. And the new drug plan is a farce and an insult to seniors of this country because now they are going to have to pay the amounts beyond that and they ask, ``Is there anyone that cares or is listening in Washington?'' Another husband wrote, ``It is costing my wife and me more per month for the new Medicare coverage premium. The only way we have any coverage is to purchase an insurance policy from a private insurance company. On top of that there are the ridiculous amounts that Medicare has set that won't cover any meds until we reach some huge amount in the thousands of dollars. My wife informed me today she is going off her psychiatric medicine. We used to receive patient assistance directly from the drug manufacturers through a clinic and we can no longer receive the drug samples or any patient assistance. We cannot afford to purchase our meds, Congresswoman. Isn't it wonderful how the Bush government has helped us?'' Another senior writes they find that their medical costs increase at every turn in the road. They currently pay nearly $6,000 annually for prescriptions of which insurance pays $600. ``For the first four months of the year,'' this senior says, ``I have to pay $5 for generic drugs, $18 for preferred drugs, with a cap of $35 for the brand name drugs. But under this new plan that will increase to $10, $25 and $50. And believe it or not, of the eight prescription drugs I need, only two are on the preferred list for $25 each and the rest will each cost $50 each. Congresswoman, please do your part in righting this wrong.'' Health professionals have been writing to us. Another senior wrote us, ``When I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription I brought $20 with me because that is what I always paid. I couldn't believe it when the pharmacist said I had to pay $260. I had to leave the pharmacy without medicine. It was embarrassing. How am I going to afford $260 a month? I just don't have it. I guess the people who are for this plan want us to die.'' Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight not just to outline problems with the program, because they are significant, but also to place in the Record what we can do to fix it. First of all, to let the government negotiate the prices that seniors have to pay with these pharmaceutical companies. They can't stand up to these big companies. We need to extend the deadline this year so that they can try to get qualified for the program, but there is so much confusion out there. Why should there be a May deadline? We ought to cushion that. We ought to standardize plans like we did for Medicare part B so there is only 10 standard plans and people know what is in them. We ought to ban the gifts that these pharmaceutical companies are giving to people as lures in order to try to sign them up for these inadequate programs. We ought to disclose coverage gaps. Companies which do not offer gap coverage should be required to make that fact known in writing. We ought to disclose plan changes. It should be stated clearly that a company might drop a drug from coverage. We ought to create uniform ID numbers, simplify the application, expand extra help eligibility, and require broad formularies. There are many other ways to fix this program, Mr. Speaker, but we surely should not put that burden on our seniors.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as the world prepares to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, I rise in support of House Resolution 703 recognizing the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and supporting continued efforts to control radiation and mitigate the adverse health consequences related to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The scope of the devastation that followed that explosion was truly unprecedented. More than 600,000 emergency workers, liquidators, risked their lives putting out the reactor's inferno that raged for 10 days while exposing themselves to extremely high and deadly doses of radiation. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes because of radioactive contamination. More than 5 million people in Ukraine, Belarus, and Western Russia found themselves coping with life in towns and villages contaminated by iodine and cesium. In the Record I will place a full statement regarding this resolution as well as support from the Children of Chernobyl Relief Fund and the Chernobyl Children's Project International for the incredible work that they continue to do two decades later in dealing with the devastation that still lives.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, as the world prepares to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, I rise in support of the H. Res. 703 Recognizing the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and supporting continued efforts to control radiation and mitigate the adverse health consequences related to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. I applaud the leadership of Congressmen Gallegly, Hyde, Lantos and Wexler on this important issue. Twenty years ago this month, a human error triggered an explosion at the Chernobyl Power Plant's Reactor No. 4, causing the worst civilian nuclear catastrophe in the history of mankind, one which transcended geographic boundaries. Immediately after the explosion, increased levels of radiation were registered as far as Japan and the United States. The hardest hit were the people of Ukraine, Belarus, and western Russia, collectively taking close to 70 percent of the radioactive fallout. The scope of devastation that followed was truly unprecedented. More than 600,000 emergency workers, liquidators, risked their lives putting out the reactor's inferno that raged for 10 days while exposing themselves to extremely high and deadly doses of radiation. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes because of radioactive contamination. More than 5 million people in Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia found themselves coping with life in towns and villages contaminated by iodine and cesium. Thousands of square miles of agricultural land and forests had to be removed from use because of contamination. Twenty years after the initial fallout, Chernobyl has not been relegated to history books. Twenty years later, it continues to cause human suffering, environmental and economic hardship. The disaster at Chernobyl has triggered a well documented epidemic of thyroid cancer, particularly among those who were infants and teenagers at the time of the explosion. Long latency periods for other types of cancers and ailments suggest that the toll on human health in the affected populations is a developing story, and not a thing of the past. The consequences to the environment, as well as agriculture are equally devastating. Shortly after the fallout, short-lived iodine deposits onto vegetation entered into the food supply, mainly through milk, delivering large doses of internal radiation to consuming public. As for long-lived long-lived cesium, that will remain a problem for decades to come. The Chernobyl disaster has been causing tremendous economic hardships as well, with Ukraine and Belarus spending up to 5 percent of their respective GDP on mitigation of its consequences. Environmental and economic degradation in the affected regions, increased health care costs, loss in productivity of human capital add to the heavy burdens of Chernobyl's enduring legacy. As scientists and researchers continue their pursuit of a greater understanding of Chernobyl's long term consequences on human health and environment, it is important that we avoid closing the page on Chernobyl by rushing to speedy conclusions. Instead, I join many of my constituents in urging caution in accepting as definitive and conclusive some of the findings of the IAEA-led Chernobyl Forum report, particularly in the area of health consequences. Our Ukrainian colleagues in particular, encourage long term commitment to researching and analyzing Chernobyl's legacy. The whole world stands to benefit as together, we advance our understanding of man-made environmental disasters of this scope. Another important aspect of Chernobyl's legacy is its impact on energy policy choices that are before the Government of Ukraine. It is my belief that Ukraine's long term energy security is not feasible without renewed emphasis on renewable energy. We share the same concerns in U.S., and both of our countries share great potential for development of bio-fuels, and other renewable energy technologies, such as fuel-cells, wind power. It is also critically important that we address the issue of completing the Shelter Implementation Plan with the urgency and efficiency it deserves. President Yuschenko has highlighted this priority in his address to the Joint Session of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. It is often said that the next Chernobyl can be Chernobyl itself--the decaying concrete-and-steel sarcophagus, hastily constructed after the accident to secure the Reactor No. 4, has an estimated warranty of 20 years. That time is now, as the structural integrity of the encasement causes great concern. It is not just an Ukrainian issue, but indeed an issue of European security. As the largest single country donor to the Chernobyl Shelter Fund, the U.S. provides important leadership in this multi-national donor effort. I urge the redoubling of efforts by all stakeholders to the Shelter Implementation Plan to ensure its timely completion. The Congressional Ukrainian Caucus is stepping up to the plate in commemorating the somber milestone of the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl. I am grateful to my colleagues and our Caucus Co-Chairs, Congressmen Weldon, Levin and Bartlett, for their strong leadership and support in organizing events commemorating Chernobyl's anniversary. They include a special commemorative photo exhibit Chernobyl: 20 which documents the human experience there over the past 20 years, looking through the lenses of the world's top photographers. The exhibit is scheduled to open at the Rayburn Foyer on April 26, 2006 at 10 a.m.; an in-depth briefing, scheduled for April 27, 2006, 2 p.m-6 p.m, will explore a broad range of Chernobyl issues, including impact on human health and agricultural/food systems, environmental, economic and social rehabilitation in the affected regions, U.S. and international assistance, Chernobyl Shelter Implementation Plan progress; and finally, the Congressional reception honoring the tireless work of NGOs dedicated to improving human condition in the effected regions, scheduled for the evening of April 27, 2006, 6 p.m.-8 p.m. The U.S. has provided assistance in remediation efforts in the aftermath of the catastrophe, followed by technical, humanitarian and economic assistance in the subsequent years that. One of the objectives of the briefing on Chernobyl is to review past U.S. assistance to the countries stricken by Chernobyl disaster, and identify current priorities that require continued commitment and financial support. Life in the Chernobyl affected regions of Ukraine, Belarus and western Russia would have been a much more difficult challenge were it was not for the tireless work of many NGOs that go wherever they see human needs and opportunities to improve people's lives. Many lives were not just improved, but saved, because of the work of such organizations as Children of Chernobyl Relief and Development Fund and Chernobyl Children's Project International. This month, these charities send multi-million dollar convoys and airlifts of valuable medical equipment and medicine to Ukraine and Belarus, over the past decade bringing more than $100 million worth of medical supplies to those in need. This example of human compassion and resilience in the face of adversity is truly a hopeful sign for all survivors of the Chernobyl catastrophe. I am submitting for the Record the respective statements of Children of Chernobyl Relief and Development Fund and Chernobyl Children's Project International in connection with H. Res. 703. Finally, I would like to mention the political dimension of this catastrophe. When the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl blew up 20 years ago, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other countries were part of the closed Soviet society, one where secrecy prevailed and freedom was denied. In my view, there was a direct link between the inefficiencies of the Soviet system, indeed its criminal disregard for the environment and for its citizens, and the disaster we commemorate today. In many ways, Chernobyl was a wake-up call for the Soviet Union, for the world. We dare not fall asleep again. We must continue to support Ukraine's democracy and ease her transition to the European Union; we must align ourselves with the brave people of Belarus who are trying to advance their own beleaguered country; and must build a strong relationship with Russia so that the authoritarian practices of the past that led to such disastrous results can be transformed to a more open, hopeful society, whose future will be of unlimited potential. The occasion of the Chernobyl' s 20th anniversary offers a unique opportunity to step back in time and reflect on fragility of human life as we interact with powers of nature and technology. Let us be thoughtful and mindful of the lessons of Chernobyl in our everyday actions. Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund The Children of Chornobyl Relief and Development Fund wishes to add its support to House Resolution No. 703: ``Recognizing the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and supporting continued efforts to control radiation and mitigate the adverse health consequences related to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant''. For the past sixteen years our organization has been working to address the human legacy of the world's worst environmental accident. Relying almost exclusively on private contributions, CCRDF has delivered over $53 million dollars worth of medical supplies, state-of-the-art technology and physician training programs to help save the lives of children stricken with thyroid cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and early childhood diseases. The children who are undergoing treatment in our 20 partner hospitals offer painful but eloquent testimony to the critical need for continuing medical aid to the Chornobyl survivors. It is now well established that the nuclear disaster caused an epidemic in thyroid cancer beginning in the 1990s. Children and adults who were exposed to radioactive iodine were stricken at a rate of 80 times higher than normal. Over 9,000 additional children in Ukraine have been diagnosed with precancerous conditions. But thyroid cancer is just one of many health problems confronting the Chornobyl communities. Fully one-third of all children in some provinces suffer from endocrine disorders or tumors that require medical or surgical intervention. Children who live in contaminated territories suffer from immune deficiencies and depleted levels of killer-T cells at a much higher rate than children from relatively clean zones. Recent studies by Ukrainian and Israeli scientists have shown that the children born to Chornobyl nuclear cleanup workers--the so-called ``liquidators'' have a seven-fold increase in chromosome damage as compared to their siblings born prior to the Chornobyl accident. There is growing evidence that birth defects have doubled in the wake of Chornobyl, and the rate of some birth defects, such as spina bifida and cataracts are even higher. The Ukrainian-American Association for the Prevention of Birth Defects under the direction of an eminent geneticist from Alabama--Dr. Wolodymyr Wertelecki has been tracking birth defects among a very large population of newborns in the provinces of Rivne and Volyn in northwestern Ukraine. They have found an epidemic of spina bifida, and a wide range of other deformities that are ordinarily extremely rare. Although USAID has discontinued funding for Dr. Wertelecki's research centers, we believe that his program has proven its value. The next stage could be even more important as Dr. Wertelecki's team is developing programs to reduce the incidence of birth defects through prenatal programs and the introduction of folic acid into local foodstuffs. The United States could play a vital role in creating a nationwide birth defects registry in Ukraine and Belarus. Our government could also help to save the lives of thousands of youngsters who are born each year with congenital heart defects by providing training and technology to diagnose these life-threatening conditions at birth or in early childhood, We have seen how even modest investments can have a dramatic impact on infant survival and cancer remission rates at several of our partner hospitals. In Kharkiv Children's Hospital No. 16, for instance, the recovery and remission rates for childhood leukemia have improved from a dismal 5 per cent in 1991 (a virtual death sentence) to 75 per cent in 2004 thanks to the installation of modern equipment such as a blood cell separator and a full protocol of chemotherapeutic agents. We have created model neonatal intensive care units in Poltava and Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk, where infant mortality has dropped by as much as 45 to 80 per cent, even as the hospitals began to take on a larger volume of infants with more difficult pathologies. By raising the standard of care, we have also stimulated citizen initiatives, private philanthropy and indigenous government programs that were virtually unheard of during the Soviet era. Thanks to the generous support of the Ukrainian-American community, and thanks to corporate donors such as John Deere, Monsanto, Philip Morris and UMC, we have been able to bring doctors the tools and training they needed to achieve quantum leaps in the kind of care they can provide their patients. Unfortunately, Chornobyl's legacy is likely to endure long after this 20th Anniversary. We have to remember that the 20- year latency period for many forms of cancer is just beginning to toll, and already, Chornobyl liquidators are dying of oncological illnesses at a rate almost triple the rate of working age males in Ukraine. Of the 34,000 liquidators who have died in Ukraine to date, 25% died of various forms of cancer as compared to a rate of 9% for most Ukrainians. Our colleagues at the National Institute of Pediatrics and Obstetrics and Gynecology in Kyiv have found evidence of cesium-137 and strontium-90 in placentas and breastmilk, showing that newborn infants are being directly exposed to highly dangerous radioactive materials at their most vulnerable stage. We need to remember that the half-life for these elements is 30 years, so they will be with us for many years to come. In the coming years, the United States Government should make significant efforts to strengthen Ukraine's medical infrastructure, and to invest in better maternal and children's health. We must also provide funding for independent research studies that will look at a wide range of other health problems such as the accumulation of radionuclides in the gastro-intestinal tract of youngsters who live in areas contaminated with radioactive materials. For our part, we will do everything in our power to reduce the impact of Chornobyl by giving Ukrainian children a fighting chance to overcome even the most daunting illnesses. We thank you for your consideration. Alexander B. Kuzma Executive Director