Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this Sanders amendment. It is eminently reasonable and aims to protect the jobs of American workers and strike a blow against the corporate welfare state. This amendment is beautifully simple. It says no more Export-Import Bank help for corporations that lay off a greater percentage of workers in America than in other countries where they employ workers, including Mexico or China and other low-wage platforms. No more Export-Import Bank help for General Electric when it cans workers in Bloomington, Indiana, and exports all their jobs to Mexico. Why cut workers' throats in our country with their own taxpayer dollars? Eighty percent of Ex-Im subsidies go to the biggest boys on the block, the Fortune 500 countries with global reach. And how do they return the favor to the American taxpayer? Well, General Motors gets more than $.5 billion from Ex-Im and then shrinks its U.S. workforce from 559,000 to 314,000 workers. That is almost a quarter million lost jobs in America. Motorola took $.5 billion from the taxpayers in the form of Export-Import Bank help and then slashed the American percentage of its workforce down to 56 percent. Here is how I see it: if we cannot have the Ex-Im Bank for American workers, then at least we should stop cutting our own throats with this giveaway to the runaway multinational companies that export jobs and leave American workers, American families, and American communities holding the bag. Say ``no'' to this abuse of taxpayer dollars and this betrayal of American communities. Stand up for the Sanders amendment. Vote ``yes'' on the Sanders amendment, which actually says, ``Do not hurt America first.'' If we have to take cuts, at least make those cuts equal globally to other countries. It does not say only serve America, it only says be fair to all concerned. Support the Sanders amendment.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the recent events in Venezuela have given the American people yet another example of the way that oil distorts U.S. foreign policy. Most Americans do not realize it, but Venezuela is a crucial supplier of oil to the United States. According to the CIA, petroleum dominates the Venezuelan economy, accounting for approximately one-third of its economy and 80 percent of its export earnings. In fact, Venezuela ranks third on the list of countries that provide with us petroleum, approximately 1.5 million barrels every day, or more than half of its total production. Stanley Weiss, founder and chairman of Business Executives for National Security, a nonpartisan organization of business leaders, wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times that the United States imports twice as much oil from Canada and Venezuela as it does from the Persian Gulf. And Venezuela is particularly important as a source of reformulated gasoline, which is required in many American cities that are struggling to meet USEPA emission standards for clean air. Every time an American citizen pulls up to a Citgo gas pump, they are pumping dollars into the Venezuelan national oil company known as Pedevesa. And it was labor unrest at the Pedevesa facilities throughout Venezuela that helped to spur the 1-day coup against Venezuelan President Hugh Chavez. So important is Venezuelan oil to the world's market that the price of oil dropped precipitously after Chavez was deposed and rebounded just as quickly when he was restored to power by the people of Venezuela. The Bush administration, which is dominated by oil in much the same manner as the Venezuelan economy, could barely contain its glee when President Chavez was overthrown in a coup d'etat. Meanwhile, every other government in this hemisphere reacted negatively to the overthrow of a democratically elected government. By putting the interests of the oil economy first and democratic rule second, the Bush administration not only found itself out of step with every other government in Latin America but foolishly forfeited the high moral ground. Now the administration has a lot of sorting out to do. It has to explain to Congress about what really happened in Venezuela. Did the Bush administration actively encourage antidemocratic forces to overthrow a leader with whom we happen to disagree? Did the Bush administration give a wink and a nod to the coup plotters? Under what authority was the Bush administration acting when U.S. military advisers found themselves on the side of the insurgents? When was that action authorized by the Congress of the United States? When did President Bush learn about the attempted coup and direction was given to U.S. diplomats, military officials, and advisers in the region? What did they receive from the White House, the State Department or the Defense Department? What relationship does the President, Vice President, or any of his advisers have with any oil interests in Venezuela? On whose order did the Bush administration officials choose not to speak out against the overthrow of a democratically elected president from a nation that is America's third largest oil supplier? The United States simply must occupy the moral high ground. We are engaged in a worldwide battle against terrorism and antidemocratic forces. We are trying to show the rest of the world what it means to stand up for democratic values. Not to support a legitimately elected government, no matter how much we may disagree with its president, has damaged the perception of the United States as a standard bearer for legitimate elections and democratic governments. The Organization of American States took a position diametrically opposed to this country's position. I hope the Committee on International Relations demands a full explanation by the Bush administration so there is no repeat of this sorry performance. President Chavez should understand that Americans believe in democracy and view Venezuela as a friend, not just as an oil well. And the American people can take from this latest sordid experience another lesson in the many ways in which dependence on foreign oil distorts our politics and our policy. Mr. Speaker, I submit herewith for the Record two articles, one from the Toledo Blade that talks about the administration's flip-flop in our policy towards Venezuela, and also a time line and related article from the New York Times on ``2 days that Shook Venezuela: The Fall, and Return, of President Hugo Chavez. [From the New York Times, Apr. 20, 2002] 2 Days That Shook Venezuela: The Fall, and Return, of Hugo Chavez The killings at the anti-Chavez demonstration rocked the country, reviving memories of the violent events in 1989, known as the Caracazo, in which hundreds were killed by government forces. Venezuelans across the political spectrum swore that such violence would never take place again. According to witnesses, shots were fired from several buildings as well as from a bridge one block from the presidential palace, which overlooks the route of the march. One of the buildings that witnesses identified as a source of gunfire contains the offices of Freddy Bernal, the mayor of the borough that includes downtown Caracas and one of the leaders of the Bolivarian Circles. Eddie Ramiez, an executive with the state oil company, was in a part of the march that came close to the presidential palace. ``Shots were fired from a building,'' he said. ``I think there were people there waiting for us, and some crazy person started to shoot.'' None of the snipers who fired from rooftops (as opposed to the bridge) have been identified, with pro-Chavez forces arguing that much of the gunfire was directed at Miraflores Palace and that some anti-Chavez demonstrators were also armed. Since Mr. Chavez's return to power last Sunday, his followers have sought to place the blame for the killings on the Metropolitan Police, which reports to one of his main political adversaries, Alfredo Pena, the mayor of Caracas. However, after an independent investigation, the country's two main human rights groups concluded that the shootings took place ``to minimize the action of the opposition with the acquiescence of organisms of the state,'' and police and military officers. Gen. Nestor Gonzalez, an ally of Mr. Chavez who broke with the president early last week, said that the military high command already had information at midday that there would be an attack on the anti-Chavez march. He said this week that the top commanders learned of the plans from ``a general who had personally infiltrated in the Bolivarian Circles.'' As the confrontation in the streets raged, Mr. Chavez ordered all television stations to join a national network and began delivering a speech warning Venezuelans ``not to fall into provocation.'' But independent stations split the screen so as to continue broadcasting the violence near the palace. Their transmissions signals were cut, and public opinion began turning against Mr. Chavez. Feeling vulnerable, Mr. Chavez ordered tanks and troops to move to the palace from army headquarters at Fort Tiuna, in Caracas. But military commanders, fearing a repetition of the 1989 bloodshed, told the president that they would not obey him. ``The result would have been a massacre,'' General Gonzalez said. Military dissidents who had plotted against Mr. Chavez had sought out business leaders thought to be sympathetic. they included Pedro Carmona Estanga, the president of Fedecamaras, the main national business confederation. Entreaties were also made to the American Embassy here but it appears they did not meet with encouragement. ``They were always impeccable at the embassy, from the ambassador on down,'' said a businessman who was a witness to several ``what if'' conversations. ``I can't tell you the number of times they made it clear that they would not countenance a coup. There was no winking going on, either. They would always say, ``We do not want a rupture.'' Other anti-Chavez groups also traveled to the United States to meet with Mr. Cisneros, the media magnate who has business interests there, and with American officials. The Bush Administration's two top officials for Latin American policy, Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich and John Maisto, the national security adviser for Latin America, are both former ambassadors to Venezuela and have maintained close ties with business, political and news media leaders here. So early on Thursday night top military officers, including the army commander, Gen. Efrain Vazquez Velasco, were confident when they delivered an ultimatum to Mr. Chavez: you must quit. Cornered, Mr. Chavez said he was unwilling to resign but would agree to ``abandon his functions,'' a slightly different procedure under Venezuelan law that would require the approval of the National Assembly, in which Mr. Chavez has a majority. The key figure in the hours of negotiations that followed was the armed forces commander, Gen. Lucas Rincon Romero, whose true loyalties still are not clear. Early on Friday, he announced that Mr. Chavez had ``resigned,'' which led 90 minutes later to Mr. Carmona being named as head of a military-supported transitional government. That part is still confusing to me,'' Mr. Carmona said of General Rincon's actions and statements this week, after he was placed under house arrest and General Rincon was once again at Mr. Chavez side, apparently forgiven by the president. ``There are facts that are still in a gray area.'' By midmorning on Friday, Mr. Chavez, himself a former army colonel who in 1992 led a failed coup attempt, looked to be finished. He was being held in military custody at Fort Tiuna; Cuba was beginning efforts that would have allowed him to go into exile there, and the Bush administration was already signaling its support for the new government. On Friday morning, the day Mr. Carmona claimed power, Mr. Reich, the assistant secretary, summoned ambassadors from Latin America and the Caribbean to his office. The representative from Brazil read a communique that stated that his country could not condone a rupture of democratic rule in Venezuela, diplomats said. They said Mr. Reich responded that the ouster of Mr. Chavez was not a rupture of democratic rule because he had resigned. ``He stressed the position that Chavez was responsible'' for his fate, ``and said we had to support the new government,'' said one Latin American envoy. Almost immediately, though, Mr. Carmona began making the political blunders that would quickly bring him down. After working hand in hand for months with Carlos Ortega, the leader of the Venezuelan Workers' Federation, the country's main labor union group, he named a cabinet that had no labor representatives and was tilted heavily toward a discredited conservative party. In addition, Mr. Carmona fanned military rivalries by naming two navy officers to the cabinet, including Adm. Hector Ramirez Perez as minister of defense instead of General Vasquez Velasco, and none from the army. ``There were many more people with aspirations than space to accommodate them, and they all seemed ready to jump ship when they felt they were being excluded,'' said Janet Kelly, a political science professor and commentator here. But the biggest mistake was a decree, announced at Mr. Carmona's swearing-in on Friday afternoon, that dissolved the National Assembly, fired the Supreme Court and called for new presidential elections only after a year. The effect was to suspend the Constitution, which generated immediate opposition to the new government, both at home and in the rest of Latin America. ``In hindsight, it was the most idiotic thing that could have been done,'' said a person who was at Miraflores for the ceremony. ``But we had just come out of an ambush and we were venting our distaste for the people who occupied those positions, so everyone applauded the dissolution.'' As Mr. Carmona spoke, military officers were jostling for position behind him, trying to make sure they would appear in photographs in the papers the next day, spectators recalled. But some civilian political leaders were already unhappy with the look of things, and ducked out of the ceremony. By Saturday morning, it was clear that Mr. Carmona's transition government was floundering. Ambassador Shapiro had breakfast with him at 9 a.m., and told him that dissolving Congress was an error and should be reconsidered. The government's image was further undetermined by raids on the home of some key Chavez supporters. Among those singled out were Tarek William Saab, who as chairman of the congressional Foreign Relations Committee was regarded as Mr. Chavez's main link to Iraq, Iran and Libya; and Ramon Rodriguez Chacin, who as minister of the interior and justice was in charge of the state spy apparatus. At the same time, though, Mr. Chavez's supporters in the poor neighborhoods of western Caracas were taking to the streets. By early afternoon, thousands were congregating outside Miraflores, demanding that Mr. Chavez be restored. At Fort Tiuna, though, some 30 generals and admirals were still arguing about who should get what post in the Carmona government. ``This was grave for Carmona,'' said Gen. Rafael Montero, a former minister of defense sympathetic to the anti-Chavez forces. ``He didn't have the advice he needed.'' With the high command distracted, the presidential guard, which was thought to be loyal to Mr. Chavez but had still not been replaced, was able to retake control of Miraflores. ``We never abandoned the president,'' said Col. Gonzalo Millan a member of the palace guard. He added, ``Kings are the only ones who do things by decree, but no one here is a king.'' In the interior of the country, unit commanders were also beginning to defy the desk generals and to declare their support for Mr. Chavez. At 1:30 p.m., Gen. Raul Baduel, commander of a paratrooper brigade in Maracay in which Mr. Chavez himself had once served, and four other senior field officers announced they were rebelling against the new government and began to organize a plan to ``rescue'' Mr. Chavez from his captors. Though he had by now been moved from Caracas to a naval base on the coast, Mr. Chavez was still refusing to sign a document of resignation. When a sympathetic corporal named Juan Bautista Rodriguez, a member of the unit watching over the deposed president, learned of Mr. Chavez's position, he offered to smuggle out a message to that effect to encourage the Chavez forces. ``I put it at the bottom of a trash can to disguise it,'' Mr. Chavez said this week. ``Later I learned that the soldier had recovered it. I don't know how he did it, but he discreetly transmitted a fax to someone who got the message to Miraflores.'' With the balance clearly shifting in favor of Mr. Chavez, who had by now been moved to the Caribbean island of La Orchila, the same military officers who had overthrown him began to distance themselves from Mr. Carmona. At 4:30 p.m. General Vazquez Velasco, still irate at not having been named defense minister, told Mr. Carmona that military support of his government would be withdrawn unless he revoked the offending decree dissolving congress. Mr. Carmona acted about half an hour later, but by then it was too late. A few blocks away from the palace, the pro- Chavez National Assembly was already convening to appoint Diosdado Cabello, Mr. Chavez's vice president, as interim president, as established by the Constitution. Around 10 o'clock, Mr. Carmona stepped down and the uprising was effectively over. Four Air Force helicopters headed to La Orchila to pick up Mr. Chavez, who arrived in triumph back at Miraflores around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday. ``I was absolutely sure, completely certain, that we would be back,'' Mr. Chavez said in a speech to his jubilant supporters. ``But you know what? The only thing I couldn't imagine was that we would return so rapidly.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to publicly recognize the life's work of one of Toledo, Ohio's most notable citizens, Robert Maxwell, who is retiring from his career after 38 years. Truly, Robert Maxwell is a ``Golden Guy.'' Bob moved through the ranks of the Lathrop Company, over which he began a tenure as President in 1986. That tenure saw outstanding growth as he developed the Lathrop Company into a premier construction company in our region. Even as he built the company, Bob fulfilled a deep sense of commitment to the community, involving himself in many concerns including 911 services, Toledo Public Schools' Partners In Education, the Toledo Area Chamber of Commerce, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society to name but a few. Although Bob is well known as an excellent businessman and community oriented philanthropist, his true passion is his family. Always, his wife and children are first in his mind and heart and his pride in his family is evident. He will surely receive many accolades upon his retirement, as he has throughout his career, both from his peers and the organizations he supports, but none are so important as his family and his place in it. In fact, he will tell you that his family means everything to him. Thus, though he leaves a storied career, it is to his family that he retires. The writer David Lawrence once wrote, ``My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human race, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my very own self, I am part of my family.'' Perhaps unconsciously, Bob Maxwell lived out this thought. Professionally and civically, he addresses his responsibility and his place in the family of man. Personally, he carries forth as a family man. Now as he leaves the working world, we wish Bob all the best in his retirement. May he spend his days doing all that he enjoys with those he loves.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, during this reflective season of Ramadan, Passover, and Lent, I have been reflecting on friends whose lives closely paralleled the stories of sacrifice in the Holy Books. It is this reflection that calls to my mind Mrs. Gale Cincotta of Chicago, who passed from this life to the next on August 15, 2001. I am grateful for the opportunity to encapsulate her life's work for the Record. Born of humble origin and reared in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, Gale became a neighborhood activist and then national leader as her personal knowledge of injustice led her on a passionate journey. Her dissatisfaction with her sons' educational opportunities spurred her to address the issue. She became impassioned with the root causes of an inadequate educational system: poverty, lack of decent and affordable housing and the resulting decaying neighborhoods. As her understanding grew about these issues, Gale found her true vocation. Armed initially only with a small but vocal band of neighborhood residents, Gale began a crusade which would eventually lead her to national prominence. She was, the Chicago Tribune noted upon her death, ``one of the most effective community activists in the nation.'' I would add that she had extraordinary vision, a sharp intellect, a love of those without voice or power, and a boundless sense of humor. Feisty, blustery, and with a keen ability to cajole or badger those with influence and power into doing what needed to be done, Gale earned the respect of all with whom she worked whether or not they agreed with her. Her passion was unmistakable, her commitment unwavering, and her expertise unparalleled. She taught many people, including myself, what being a neighborhood activist is really all about: it is about changing people's lives for the better. It is about helping them gain power to improve the condition of people's lives. Though responsible for many changes in neighborhood development and revitalization, lending practices and housing concerns across our nation, Gale's greatest public accomplishment was gaining Congressional approval of the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977. Passage of this Act, now a cornerstone of neighborhood financing that has released billions of dollars of private credit to formerly red-lined neighborhoods, was considered by the Chicago Tribune Gale's ``single greatest triumph.'' Ever the champion of marginal neighborhoods, she persuaded not only elected officials but also bankers, insurance companies, landlords, and business leaders that neighborhood investment--while being the right think to do--could also be profitable. She taught them that the savings of people of ordinary means should not be drained from their neighborhoods, but made available for reinvestment. Her work made the capitalist system work in some of the most neglected corners of our nation. Her tireless and unmatched efforts yielded visible results by turning faded city blocks into flourishing neighborhoods from coast to coast. Gale organized other programs and works, and many awards and accolades were bestowed upon her through the years, but surely none meant as much to her as the lasting legacy of the Community Reinvestment Act and the people and communities it still helps. Gale Cincotta lives on in the seeds she planted in the hearts of the people she served and the minds of those she battled with and against to make people's lives better. She never yielded. She once said to me that the media had convinced Americans they were all ``middle class'' and that had bred a dangerous political complacency among the working class of people and the poor, who struggled daily to gain an economic foothold in our country. Their interests will not be served by false images of how hard and political this struggle is really. The new director of the organization she founded, the National Training and Information Center, recalled that Gale--a mother of six sons and a widow--loved to dance. His message to the people upon taking the reigns as director began with a quote from an old Shaker hymn. The words seem to sum up Gale's legacy quite well: ``They buried my body and they thought I'd gone, but I am the dance and I still go on.'' Surely, she lives among us.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I wish to say this past week I have called on President Bush to request an emergency meeting of the United Nations security council for the purpose of enforcing a peacekeeping or enforcement action in the Middle East. In the past few months the world has witnessed a frightening increase in the level of violence in the Middle East. In this 21st century, which we had hoped would be a century of peace, our children have watched on television over 2,000 more people killed in this unnecessary fighting between the Palestinians and Israelis. We have seen lives and neighborhoods destroyed. We have seen children blown up and shot. We have seen the hope for peace diminished. Innocent Israelis and Palestinians have been literally caught in the crossfire of violence. To date, as many as 1,400 more Palestinians and 500 more Israelis have died. The situation is clearly out of control. I applaud President Bush's demands that Israel and the Palestinian Authority step back from one another. But the Israelis have refused to comply with the President's demand and the Palestinians have refused to comply with the President's demand. What happens in the Middle East is crucial to U.S. interests. What happens in the Middle East is crucial to the United States's war against terrorism. What happens in the Middle East is crucial to our economy. The Bush administration's initial policy of disengagement for almost an entire year was ill conceived. But with Secretary Powell's mission to the Middle East, we have some indication that the administration realizes how important it is to put the full weight of our diplomatic and foreign policy apparatus behind the search for peace. The United Nations should approve a peacekeeping or an enforcement action that is international in scope, because if the two sides can be separated and a situation created for dialogue, the world may have an opportunity to move forward. A U.N.-supported force, after bringing down the level of violence, could help provide for regional stability that is necessary for preserving the State of Israel's continuing right to exist and establishing an independent Palestinian state. Americans, I suppose, could ask, Why are we there? Is it because of regional stability, or is it because of our own oil interests? Let me reference a complicating factor and urge Americans to think domestically what we can do here at home also to contribute to a solution. U.S. dependence on imported petroleum remains our chief strategic vulnerability. We watch gas prices going up again, and we see the recession we are beginning to pull out of being triggered perhaps again because of a 20 percent increase in gas prices here at home. Too often our dependence on imported petroleum, including from places like the Middle East, have served as proxy for our foreign policy. I will insert into the Record this week important articles written in USA Today, which the headline reads, ``Gas Prices Up 20 Percent and Rising,'' and its relationship to what is going on in Iraq, in spite of the embargo, providing us with a minimum of 8 percent of the petroleum that we import into this country every day. I will also supply for the Record articles from the New York Times of yesterday talking about the missing energy strategy of the Bush administration. We have got to get serious here at home. Over half the petroleum we use is imported from very unstable places. It is time for America to become energy independent. And an article from the Times on Tuesday talking about Venezuela: ``Venezuela Woes Worsen as State Oil Company Calls Strike.'' This is going to impact prices here at home as well. Who or what is leading our foreign policy? Are we promoting democracy or securing international oil interests as our primary goal? Americans here at home need to demand a declaring of energy independence. The U.S. Energy Department headed by Spencer Abraham reported this week that consumers can expect no relief at the gas pump before fall and predicted that the average price of regular unleaded gas to be $1.46 between now and September, and in many parts of the country it is higher already. In fact, prices went up 23 cents a gallon last month alone, the fastest monthly increase in history. There is a connection between what is happening internationally and what is happening here at home. The same insatiable appetite for foreign oil drives our domestic policy. We gave over $4 billion in taxpayer dollars to Enron folks to protect their overseas natural gas and oil interests. If we had spent that money over the last 10 or 15 years on alternative fuel research and development here at home, we might be self-sufficient by now. And that is the direction our country needs to head. We need to have a Manhattan Project to the extent that we involve every single major research university in this country in helping us become energy independent and having a foreign policy again designed for democracy, not just oil. [From the New York Times, Apr. 9, 2002] Venezuela Woes Worsen as State Oil Company Calls Strike (By Juan Forero) Merida, Venezuela, Apr. 8.--A six-week tussle over President Hugo Chavez's management of the state oil company has turned into his most serious crisis, with exports of oil disrupted by a labor slowdown and a general strike called for Tuesday by labor and business leaders. ``This can only end with the president resigning,'' Humberto Calderon Berti, a former minister of energy and mines, told a throng of protesting executives from the oil company Petroleos de Venezuela in Carcas. ``All Venezuelans from all walks of life, from all social strata, from all the political and ideological sectors, must take part in the stoppage. This is about him or us. It is a choice between democracy or dictatorship.'' Government ministers said today that exports of oil and refined products remained normal for Venezuela, the world's No. 4 exporter. But analysts and executives from Petroleos de Venezuela said a five-day work slowdown among oil workers and managers had forced a scaling back of operations at several refineries and a cutback in production at wellheads, all of which has disrupted oil shipments to the United States and other countries. ``The reality is you don't have business as usual,'' said Larry Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, an industry-supported consulting group in New York. ``We believe half to two-thirds of their exports have been impacted. But it is literally an hour-by-hour situation.'' Latin America's fourth-largest economy may also grind to a halt on Tuesday, as dissident business leaders have promised, in protest against what they see as Mr. Chavez's autocratic style of governing and his treatment of oil company managers. The first such stoppage took place on Dec. 10. Millions of workers stayed home as part of a growing wave of protests aimed at forcing Mr. Chavez from power. The showdown that has churned up the current crisis began when Mr. Chavez, a left-leaning former army paratrooper who won office in 1998, took on the management of Petroleos de Venezuela, a behemoth with 40,000 employees. Calling it a ``state within a state'' that sapped resources while benefiting a small number of high-flying executives, Mr. Chavez in February fired the company president, a general whom he had appointed months earlier, and appointed five board members with ties to his administration. For many of the company's 15,000 office workers, who had long celebrated it as a meritocracy known for efficiency and high standards, the president's management decision was enough. The workers organized protests and slowdowns, which have won the support of leaders from business and labor, as well as from the local media, which report every anti-Chavez protest or pronouncement with relish. With Mr. Chavez refusing to withdraw his appointments or negotiate with dissident oil executives, the office workers and production workers persisted with their slowdowns, which have intensified since last week. At one drilling site on Thursday, two oil workers were killed when fighting broke out between government supporters and opposition party members. The exact impact on oil production, refining and the transport of crude and oil products was unclear today. But analysts and executives said the Amuay Cardon refinery, which processes 950,000 barrels of crude daily and is a crucial supplier of finished oil products to the United States, had reduced operations. At least two other installations, the Palito refinery on the north-central coast and Puerto La Cruz to the east halted operations, they said. Dissident oil executives, reading a statement outside a Petroleos de Venezuela office building in Caracas, said extraction of oil was slowing in the Furrial field in the east while refineries and plants that produce chemicals or distribute natural gas were also ratcheting down. ``Progressively everything is shutting down,'' said Alberto Quiroz, an oil analyst and former executive at Petroleos de Venezuela (which is known worldwide by its Spanish acronym, Pdvsa, pronounced peh-deh-VEH-sah). Top government officials, among them Vice President Diosdado Cabello, Energy and Mines Minister Alvaro Silva, and the oil company president, Gaston Parra, have sought to minimize the effects of the slow-down. ``Everything is normal,'' Mr. Silva told reporters. ``Go to the refineries. Everything is normal. There is a small group protesting, but everything is operating normally.'' The commander of the armed forces, Gen. Lucas Rincon, announced that the military was beefing up its presence at refineries and oil fields, which are routinely protected by the National Guard. Through it all, Mr. Chavez has refused to back down or acknowledge that the slowdown could hurt Venezuela, whose economy relies on oil for 80 percent of exports and 50 percent of government revenues. In a long nationally televised address on Sunday, the president said the military could run oil production and refining sites if necessary. He also took the opportunity to announce that he had fired 7 dissident executives and forced 12 more to retire. Blowing a soccer referee's whistle and calling the executives ``off sides,'' Mr. Chavez warned about a ``subversive movement in neckties'' trying to destabilize the country. But, he warned, ``I can do away with all of them,'' he said. Rafael Sandrea, president of the oil committee of Fedecamaras, a powerful business group, said Mr. Chavez's uncompromising approach had only made the opposition that much more defiant. ``The president has closed the door of reconciliation and opened the doors for war,'' Mr. Sandrea said. ``That is what this is now, war, between the people of PDVSA and the government.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the following article to my Colleagues. Women from Northwest Ohio have been trailblazers in the fields of education, health, business and politics. Toledo has a rich history of strong women and I commend their achievements. What's in a Name? An Honor for Women of Achievement Local places named for those who made a difference (By Ann Weber) ``You can use my name as long as you do a great job,'' longtime local volunteer Elizabeth Zepf is said to have told admirers years ago when they asked if they could name a community mental health center for her. Members of the Lucas County mental health board and the board of the newly established center agreed to the deal, and apparently have lived up to it. Since 1974, the Elizabeth A. Zepf Community Mental Health Center, 6605 West Central Ave., has been serving the severe and persistently mentally ill. Mrs. Zepf, who is in her 90s and living in Toledo, was prominent at the local, state, and national level of the March of Dimes, a member of the mental health board, and active in more than a dozen other organizations. The Zepf Center is one of numerous places in northwest Ohio that are named for women. At least one person believes there should be many more such places. ``Maybe they're not as obvious as men, but there are a lot of women who have made major contributions to the community and have not been recognized,'' said Ann Hurley, chairwoman of the Women Alive! Coalition and a reference librarian in the local history and genealogy department at the Main Library. But she noted that many of those women haven't worked in fields from which names usually have been plucked, such as high government office. Most of the places that are named locally after women are related to the fields of education, social service, and health--the ``invisible career fields,'' says Barbara Floyd, University of Toledo archivist. Even an exception--Ella P. Stewart, the first African- American woman pharmacist--was hailed not for her business acumen but for her work in human rights, she pointed out. Toledo has a rich history of strong women. ``Toledo was a hotbed of the women's suffrage movement,'' Ms. Floyd said. ``A lot of those women are perhaps lost to history because their contributions have been forgotten.'' Today, ``one of the areas that is striking is our prominence in the political field,'' she said, citing U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, State Sen. Linda Furney, Lucas County Commission President Sandy Isenberg, and State Reps. Teresa Fedor, Jeanine Perry, and Edna Brown. ``That's an amazing success for women in this area.'' Many of the area's prominent women have been profiled in a series of books written by the women's history committee of the Women Alive! Coalition. Volume I of In Search of Our Past: Women of Northwest Ohio was published in 1987; Volume VIII is in the works. ``We are a treasure trove of women's history. We don't ever see these volumes ending,'' said Susan Coburn, editor. She is the manager of the humanities department at the Main Library, and predicts that in the future women's names will be seen increasingly on government, professional, and technical buildings. Here are just some of the places in the area named for women, with information on what inspired the honors: Mildred Bayer Clinic for the Homeless, 2101 Jefferson Ave. Mildred Bayer (1908-1990) ``was always helping somebody,'' a classmate from the St. Vincent School of Nursing recalled in Volume III of In Search Of Our Past: Women of Northwest Ohio. From Mrs. Bayer's concern for others came medical clinics for migrant workers in Lucas County, Mobile Meals of Toledo, and mobile medical clinics in Nigeria. The Toledo clinic provides dental, vision, and primary health care to the homeless. Catharine Eberly Center For Women, University of Toledo The center was founded in 1978 and in 1980 was named in honor of Catharine Eberly (1922-1979), who served on the UT board of trustees from 1974 until her death in an automobile accident. Its services include career counseling, support groups, and leadership training for students and community women. Josephine Fassett Middle School, 3025 Starr Ave., Oregon Every St. Patrick's Day, staffers at Fassett Middle School in Oregon put a green balloon on the office portrait of Josephine Fassett, born March 17, 1884. The school's namesake was appointed supervisor of schools in Oregon and Jerusalem townships in 1914 and later, when the districts were consolidated, was superintendent of Oregon schools until she retired in 1954. Miss Fassett died in 1975. The school has just over 500 students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. Gillham Hall, University of Toledo The University of Toledo had a library collection of about 8,100 volumes when Mary Gillham (then Mary Mewbom) joined the staff in 1921. When she retired in 1969, it had grown to 600,000. Gillham Hall, now used for classrooms and faculty offices, was the first free-standing library building at UT. Designed by Mrs. Gillham herself, it opened in August, 1953. Aurora Gonzalez Community & Family Resource Center, 1301 Broadway Aurora Gonzalez (1924-1991) was the first Hispanic woman elected to the Ohio Hall of Fame. The neighborhood outreach center named for the activist hosted two presidents last year: George Bush and Mexico's Vicente Fox. It provides a food pantry, clothing locker, youth athletic and job-readiness programs, and family counseling. A nearby stretch of South Avenue between Broadway and the Anthony Wayne Trail honors Aurora's sister, Ruth Gonzalez Garcia. Eleanor M. Kahle Senior Center, 1315 Hillcrest Ave. Eleanor M. Konieczka Kahle (1916-1995) was an advocate for seniors who was elected to Toledo City Council in 1987, 1989, 1991, and 1993. Until 1993 she was director of the West Toledo Senior Citizen Center, which was named for her after her death. The center offers a variety of programs and activities--from computer classes to line dancing, bingo to flu shots. Josina Lott Residential & Community Services, 120 S. Holland-Sylvania Rd. Lott Industries, Inc. Hers is a familiar name to area residents, since two organizations have honored Josina Jones Lott (1898-1973), an educator and advocate for children with mental and physical disabilities. Lott Industries, chartered in 1955, serves Lucas County residents with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities through sheltered workshops and a vocational training center. Josina Lott Residential & Community Services, a separate entity, also serves adults with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities. It includes group homes and life- skills training programs for people living independently. Cordelia Martin Health Center, 905 Nebraska Ave. Cordelia Martin (1915-1999) was devoted to providing health care to Toledo's poor. The center is one of 10 sites (including the Mildred Bayer Clinic for the Homeless) administered by the Neighborhood Health Association. Primarily serving low to moderate income, uninsured and underinsured people, the center includes doctors' offices, dental care, a lab, pharmacy, the federal WIC program, and social service education and referrals. Anna C. Mott Branch, Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, 1085 Dorr St. Anna C. Mott (1835-1902) was a founder of the Toledo Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and in 1884 was one of the founding officers of the Toledo Humane Society. The Mott Library opened in 1918. Originally 6,000 square feet, it now is almost 14,000 square feet. Circulation has increased 45 percent over the past five years. Sofia Quintero Hispanic Art & Cultural Center, 1225 Broadway Sofia Quintero (1948-1994), active in politics and public affairs, was the first Hispanic president of the Toledo board of education. The mission of the nonprofit organization is public education about Latino heritage through the arts and events such as the Day of the Dead celebration, when Latinos remember loved ones who have passed away. Ella P. Stewart School, Toledo Public Schools, 707 Avondale Ave. The school was named in 1961 for Ella Nora Phillips Stewart (1891-1987), civil rights crusader and Toledo's first African-American woman pharmacist. She and her husband, William, were the first African-Americans to own and operate a drugstore in Toledo. The school has 340 students in first through sixth grades, and a museum honoring Mrs. Stewart with items such as dolls from her collection, medicine bottles from her pharmacy, and a shirt signed by President John F. Kennedy. Whitney Adult Education Center, 1602 Washington St. Dedicated in 1941 as the Harriet Whitney Vocational High School for Girls, the building is named for Harriet Whitney (1814-1903), Toledo's first woman school teacher. The building was closed as a high school in 1991 and now houses Toledo Public Schools' Adult Education Center and the Center For Change. Based there is the Adult Basic Literacy Program/GED and one of 22 local class sites, plus other services for adults such as vocational programs. There's also a night school for youths in day classes who need to make up credits and a program for at-risk students.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following article. The growing wave of Palestinian suicide bombings, followed inevitably by fierce Israeli military counter-attacks, ought to be proof for anyone that Middle East violence has degenerated beyond the bounds of any possible moral justification and into the realm of cultural psychosis. Each side in this conflict continues to point a finger at the other, claiming, ``You started it,'' as if the childish refrain were reason enough to continue down what looks more and more like a path to Armageddon. This is a regrettable characteristic of the Middle East mayhem, one not easily understood in the West. Any inclination to turn the other cheek is almost always overcome by religious and cultural injunctions to crush and grind the enemy into the dust. Charity toward an adversary, it seems, is a sign of weakness. Arabs and Jews contesting the Holy Land are never going to make peace with each other until both sides have had their fill of the bloodbath. The question facing a horrified, uncomprehending world is ``when will enough be enough?'' The relentless procession of young Palestinians willing, even eager, to don explosives and give their lives to kill Jews and regain their historic homeland provides no indication of an early peace. The so-called ``spiritual leaders'' of Hamas and other Palestinian movements point to such self-serving verses in the Qu'ran as, ``And slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse then slaughter.'' The Islamic militants who nurture, cultivate, and train the suicide bombers boast that they will send ``a million martyrs to Jerusalem,'' and who can doubt them? The Israelis, who also claim this territory as a religious and historic right, fall back on the self-perpetuating justification of self-defense. Memories of the Holocaust (``Never again'') warn them of annihilation. The shock of the continued bombings neutralizes the nation's calmer voices and nascent peace movement. And violence begets violence. The question of who is to blame no longer matters to a good bit of the outside world, but in the Middle East it remains pretty much the only issue. Until one side or the other takes responsibility, this burgeoning threat to humanity will continue to monopolize the world's resources and attention. As much as we in the United States wish it were otherwise, what is happening in Israel and the West Bank cannot be separated from our war on terrorism. The same ancient fears and frustrations fuel both conflicts. President Bush at first tried to distance the United States from the turmoil, but even he realizes now that inattention for several months last year was a mistake. An end to the madness that has engulfed the region could be reached in several ways. The preferable one would be through the services of a negotiator of uncommon skill and forbearance, possibly someone who is not yet apparent on the diplomatic stage. Another more horrifying possibility: a cataclysm of bloodshed that would make the current suicide bombings seem tame by comparison. World leaders, even those without a direct stake in the Middle East, have a responsibility to apply pressure on all the parties involved to see that the path of least violence is the one taken.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I submit the following article. [From the New York Times, Apr. 3, 2002] The Hard Truth (By Thomas L. Friedman) A terrible disaster is in the making in the Middle East. What Osama bin Laden failed to achieve on Sept. 11 is now being unleashed by the Israeli-Palestinian war in the West Bank: a clash of civilizations. In the wake of repeated suicide bombings, it is no surprise that the Israeli Army has gone on the offensive in the West Bank. Any other nation would have done the same. But Ariel Sharon's operation will succeed only if it is designed to make the Israeli-occupied territories safe for Israel to leave as soon as possible. Israel's goal must be a withdrawal from these areas captured in the 1967 war; otherwise it will never know a day's peace, and it will undermine every legitimate U.S. effort to fight terrorism around the globe. What I fear, though, is that Mr. Sharon wants to get rid of Mr. Arafat in order to keep Israeli West Bank settlements, not to create the conditions for them to be withdrawn. President Bush needs to be careful that America doesn't get sucked into something very dangerous here. Mr. Bush has rightly condemned Palestinian suicide bombing as beyond the pale, but he is not making clear that Israel's war against this terrorism has to be accompanied by a real plan for getting out of the territories. Why? Because President Bush, like all the other key players, doesn't want to face the central dilemma in this conflict--which is that while Israel must get out of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians cannot, at this moment, be trusted to run those territories on their own, without making them a base of future operations against Israel. That means some outside power has to come in to secure the borders, and the only trusted powers would be the U.S. or NATO. Palestinians who use suicide bombers to blow up Israelis at a Passover meal and then declare ``Just end the occupation and everything will be fine'' are not believable. No Israeli in his right mind would trust Yasir Arafat, who has used suicide bombers when it suited his purposes, not to do the same thing if he got the West Bank back and some of his people started demanding Tel Aviv. ``The only solution is a new U.N. mandate for U.S. and NATO troops to supervise the gradual emergence of a Palestinian state--after a phased Israeli withdrawal--and then to control its borders,'' says the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen. People say that U.S. troops there would be shot at like U.S. troops in Beirut. I disagree. U.S. troops that are the midwife of a Palestinian state and supervise a return of Muslim sovereignty over the holy mosques in Jerusalem would be the key to solving all the contradictions of U.S. policy in the Middle East, not new targets. The Arab leaders don't want to face this hard fact either, because most are illegitimate, unelected autocrats who are afraid of ever speaking the truth in public to the Palestinians. The Arab leaders are a disingenuous as Mr. Sharon; he says ending ``terrorism'' alone will bring peace to the occupied terrorities, and the Arab leaders say ending ``the occupation'' alone will end all terrorism. Like Mr. Sharon, the Arab leaders need to face facts--that while the occupation needs to end, they independently need to address issues like suicide terrorism in the name of Islam. As Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, courageously just declared about suicide bombing: ``Bitter and angry though we may be, we must demonstrate to the world that Muslims are rational people when fighting for our rights, and do not resort to acts of terror.'' If Arab leaders have only the moral courage to draw lines around Israel's behavior, but no moral courage to decry the utterly corrupt and inept Palestinian leadership or the depravity of suicide bombers in the name of Islam, then we're going nowhere. The other people who have not wanted to face facts are the feckless American Jewish leaders, fundamentalist Christians and neoconservatives who together have helped make it impossible for anyone in the U.S. administration to talk seriously about halting Israeli settlement-building without being accused of being anti-Israel. Their collaboration has helped prolong a colonial Israeli occupation that now threatens the entire Zionist enterprise. So there you have it. Either leaders of good will get together and acknowledge that Israel can't stay in the territories but can't just pick up and leave, without a U.S.- NATO force helping Palestinians oversee their state, or Osama wins--and the war of civilizations will be coming to a theater near you.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, March 23, 2002 was a great day of celebration for women and girls in Afghanistan. March 23rd was the official first day back to school for children in Afghanistan. At least 1.5 million children of elementary school age attended the first day back to school across the country. Children returned to classrooms for the first time in five years, and many stepped into classrooms for their first time ever. When the Taliban government took control of Afghanistan in 1996, it immediately imposed a repressive interpretation of Islamic law, forbidding girls from attending school and women from teaching. For five years Afghan girls were denied the basic right to education. Only 32 percent of Afghanistan's 4.4 million children were enrolled in school in 1999. Almost all girls, 92 percent, were not in school. We have all heard of the courageous stories of former female teachers operating illegal schools out of their homes, teaching young girls basic math and writing. Women all over the country refused to give up their right to be educated and to educate. A survey conducted by UNICEF at the end of last year found there were almost 600 home-based schools in Kabul alone. The women and girls that kept learning through illegal home schools must be commended for their courage and bravery. This is a time of hope for women and girls in Afghanistan. Education is important to the life of all nations. March 23 marked a new beginning for Afghan women and girls, and a new beginning for the entire country.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, in the memory of our former beloved colleague, Claude Pepper of Florida, who fought at our side in 1938 to preserve the Social Security system, I rise this evening to make my remarks. I want to talk about fiscal responsibility, responsibility to our Nation, responsibility to the future, responsibility to our children, responsibility to our senior citizens. Hubert Humphrey used to place particular emphasis on those Americans who are in the dawn of life and those who are in the twilight of life. I also rise to talk about fiscal responsibility to our veterans who have sacrificed and are sacrificing so much to keep freedom's flame burning brightly in America and throughout the world. Last week the Congressional Budget Office reported that the President's budget spends $1.63 trillion of the Social Security trust fund surplus over the next 10 years. That is $261 billion more than the administration initially claimed. The budget office also reports that the President's policies spend Social Security trust fund money in every single year for the foreseeable future. We have heard the administration officials, and some Republican leaders are extremely unhappy with the Congressional Budget Office for telling the truth; but that is why we have a Congressional Budget Office, to provide nonpartisan information, whether we like the results or not. We rely on it to be factual. Tomorrow, Madam Speaker, this body will take up the President's budget for fiscal year 2003, and the unfortunate reality is that the President's policies will lead to the exhaustion of the entire Social Security trust fund surplus for the next 10 years and then some, according to the House Committee on the Budget minority staff. The administration does this by using off-the-books accounting. We learned from the Enron-Arthur Andersen scandal that off-the-books accounting can get us into big trouble in a hurry. Indeed, even the administration admits that it spends some of the Social Security surplus despite Republican promises last year they would protect 100 percent of the Social Security trust fund surplus. Remember the lock box promise? Well, the Republicans have picked the lock and are proceeding to take our money out of the lock box every day, money that belongs to the senior citizens of this country. The Bush administration inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus; but now 8 months later, $4 trillion is gone and that jumps to $5 trillion next year if we take their budget on its word. Madam Speaker, this is the most radical fiscal reversal in American history. The budget surplus is exhausted, deficits are back, and the lock box is gone. What does it mean? For one thing it means that Congress may not be able to provide relief for the Medicare providers who are facing deep cuts in reimbursement. It means veterans will have to pay more for prescription drugs. The Veterans Administration is proposing to raise the copayment for veterans by 250 percent. It means the wealthiest Americans will continue to get giant tax cuts, but American's 35 million senior citizens will not get a prescription drug benefit. It means that programs for women, infants, and children will be endangered. For the people in the dawn of life and the twilight of life, this budget gives the back of its hand, and it is not right. Over the 5-year period from 1996 to 2000, Enron paid no taxes for 4 of the last 5 years and received a net tax rebate of $381 million. This includes a $278 million rebate in the year 2000 alone. Over the same period, the company's profits, before Federal income taxes, totaled $1.785 billion. Just their profits. In none of those years was the company's pretax profit less than $87 million. At the 35 percent tax rate, Enron's tax on profits in the last 5 years should have been $625 million. But the company was able to use tax benefits from stock options and other loopholes to reduce its 5-year tax to substantially less than zero. Among the loopholes that Enron used to avoid tax liability was the creation of more than 800 subsidiaries in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands. Madam Speaker, is it any wonder that we cannot do the right thing for America's children, for America's veterans, and America's seniors? Is it any wonder that this Congress cannot act responsibly? Is it any wonder that the Social Security trust fund is being violated every day, even as I speak here? As long as the big campaign contributors call the shots in Washington, we are going to see continued raids on the lockbox, and the American people are going to have to pay the bills that Enron, with an assist from the politicians, avoided. The responsible vote tomorrow on the budget resolution is ``no.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) for championing this very important resolution to put our Nation and the Congress on record in highest hopes that the elections this year in the Ukraine will ensure a democratic, transparent, and fair election process leading up to March 31. Their parliamentary elections will be held on that date. Of course the chairman of the full committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) have traveled together to that part of the world and have made such a difference in carrying the banner of freedom's institutions into regions of our world where heretofore people had not been able to exercise their full democratic rights. Having just returned from the Ukraine myself and having had the really historic opportunity to meet with nearly 300 of their younger citizens, and people representing nongovernmental organizations that are monitoring the elections and trying to produce information so people know what they are voting about, we can see a change, a glacial change occurring there for the better. But without question, people of that nation must feel free and unintimidated as they go to the polls, and they must understand what the various candidates' platforms are; and it is safe to say that that kind of transparency and information has not been easily available. Sometimes it is hard here, but there the systems are just not robust. It is not easy to understand how a party slate or individuals on it might actually support a certain program, and it is hard to distinguish among the major blocs and the people in those blocs. I would add an encouraging word for passage of this resolution and a great hope that the Government of Ukraine will ensure that the election process is open. Let flourish those who are attempting to help people understand the issues and understand what those who are running actually will champion in their own programs once elected to RADA or local office. This kind of information should be more broadly available. The Internet should be allowed to function so people will share information across regions and become more informed about what their vote actually means. The task before the Ukrainian people of building a more open and free society is enormous. That is true in Russia also and many of the former republics of the Soviet Union. I know that I detected, especially among the young, such a great hope, such a feeling that they had the future of the country in their hands. They are looking for us to pass this resolution to give a signal that our country stands and walks alongside those who are trying to build more open and free societies. In fact many young people who are 21 years of age are running for office in some of the towns, or are trying to run for parliament, to try to change the laws in order to make property traded freely with a mortgage system. They are fighting for laws so loans can be made by a regular bank and have a free credit system established. They want an educational system that is available to all so students are able to learn critical thinking methods. All of these challenges lie ahead of those young leaders. And so to the young people in our country, I encourage them to pay attention to Ukraine, the most important nation in Central Europe. As it goes, so will the nations around it. I rise in very strong support of House Resolution 339 and want to thank so very much the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Hoeffel) for bringing this to the attention of the entire world, indeed. We respectfully say to the people of Ukraine, vote, vote wisely, monitor the elections, help to move your country forward, as I know the hearts of your people tell you they want. I express my fullest support for this resolution.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Carson) for bringing us together for this very important discussion and also want to compliment the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) for doing such a fine job in simplifying what could be a complicated debate. I wanted to add my words this afternoon to the very important issue of Social Security, probably the premier program of the last century, that helped lift one-third of the Nation out of poverty. Even today, if you think about many of our seniors, certainly women, the majority receive checks in a month that average maybe around $550, $580 per month. Social Security for them is not pocket change; it is a lifeline. Without Social Security and Medicare, they simply could not survive. So you would think America, during this period of the stunning collapse of Enron, would have learned an important lesson, and that certain Members of this Congress who are trying to tinker around with Social Security would have learned an important lesson, and that is that the vagaries of the market and the private sector's penchant for gambling with other people's money is no substitute, can never be a substitute, for the rock-solid guarantee of Social Security, an insurance program and a disability program. Any one of us, any one of our family members, can be struck by a disability. Social Security is the social safety net for this country. Yet what we see in the Bush administration's proposal in the wake of Enron is not retirement security, but retirement insecurity. In fact, the lockbox that the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) referenced, where we all promised we would not touch the Social Security trust fund, in that in fact that trust fund would be there to pay dollars, the billions of dollars to our seniors across this country this year, next year, and as the baby boom generation retires, what the Bush administration is actually doing is taking these dollars and giving them away; and it is giving them away by the billions. How is that actually happening? It is happening because this trust fund is being borrowed from now to pay tax rebates to some of the wealthiest and most profitable corporations in our country, not just this year, but over the next 10 years. If you think about who is getting the benefit, let us take a look at Enron. If you look at the tax proposals that were passed here in this House, which I did not support, what they essentially meant was that we are taking money from the trust fund, and we are giving it to companies like Enron. Enron, unless we stop it, is going to be getting rebates, rebates that basically are transfers from the trust fund which are the accumulated savings of the American people, taken out of every worker's check, and put there for their parents or grandparents. Those dollars are being transferred, not by the thousands, not even by the millions, but by the billions, which is the amount that is in the trust fund; and if you take Enron, for example, just in the years we are serving here, the first 3 years they probably will get $350 million in rebates. Guess where that comes from? It comes from the one source of accumulated savings that the American people have, and that is the Social Security trust fund. So my aunt in Toledo and maybe your grandmother in Chicago, those savings that are there are being transferred because of consolidated accounting. The Republican Party has invaded the lockbox that we promised would be there in perpetuity. Overall, the numbers show that the Congressional Budget Office projected a 10-year non-Social Security surplus of $3.1 trillion; and now, just 1 year later, that projection has plunged to a deficit of $742 billion, almost $1 trillion. So the surplus that had existed technically in the annual budgets has been turned almost overnight into a deficit, and the borrowing is continuing from the Social Security trust fund. Now, Enron just does not get a little bit. I mean, $350 million in rebates, that is one-third of $1 billion. None of my relatives can even imagine how much money that really is. But that is what is going on here. And if there is any program that has marked the Democratic Party, and in fact it is one of the reasons I am a Democrat, is because of this Social Security program. It meant the difference for our grandmother between the poor house and being able to live out her final years in dignity. It was very meager, but at least it was something. It was something. To see this program violated for the likes of a chief executive officer like Ken Lay is absolutely abhorrent to me. If I look at other corporations that are benefiting and the money coming out of the Social Security trust fund and going to them, we can look at General Electric, because General Electric is one of the companies that is not just going to get millions. Enron is going to get millions; General Electric is going to get billions out of the Social Security trust fund. With the changes in the alternative minimum tax, it means that all of these little tax breaks and loopholes that the very well-paid accountants from companies like Arthur Andersen can find for these large corporations, they are going to get rebates through the Social Security trust fund, which sounds incredible because we were supposed to have put it in a lockbox and not touched it, and yet it is being drawn down to give money back to really the wealthiest people in our country and the wealthiest interests. And they are not having trouble. These companies like General Electric, they are not going bankrupt. Now, Enron went bankrupt because of wrongdoing, criminal wrongdoing, it appears. And many of these other corporations, take Chevron, take Texaco, we are not talking about pennies, we are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. The Social Security Trust Fund is being invaded to give nearly $200 million to Texaco, three-quarters of a billion dollars to Chevron. Think about that. Think about the transfer of wealth that is occurring. So some people are saying, well, let a senior family or someone who is going to be of retirement age someday, let them put money aside. We just have to encourage responsibility in the American people. How do we do that on minimum wage? How do we do that when we do not earn a minimum wage? How do we do that when we have no health benefits? Yesterday I sat in the Committee on Veterans Affairs thinking about this Special Order tonight and the fact that we were taking money out of Social Security Trust Fund to give it to some of the wealthiest corporations in the country, and we have a proposal from the Bush administration to charge veterans for prescription drugs. Now, we have always had a $2 copayment for various prescriptions, and many of our veterans average 10 prescriptions per month. What the Bush administration is doing is raising that copayment to $7 per prescription which, per month, would be $70, with a cap annually of over $850 for prescription drugs for veterans. I am sitting there and thinking, well, is this not interesting. We hear all of these patriotic speeches on behalf of our military; and yet, when it comes to serving those who have put their life on the line, then, as they are very elderly and unable to fend for themselves, they say, now you have to pay additional money for prescription drugs. Is that what Lincoln had in mind when he said we would care for the veteran, his widow, his orphan? Is that the promise? Was it a false promise that was made? So what we see happening is, why are we charging for prescription drugs for veterans, for those who have created and preserved the freedom that we have here in this country? Why are we charging them? Because we have to borrow. We have to take the money that should be placed into paying for those pharmaceuticals for those who have served our Nation. We are giving it away. We are giving it away to Enron in rebates, we are giving it away to General Motors in rebates, we are giving it away to Chevron in rebates, we are giving it away to IBM in rebates. That is where the money is going. So I want to say to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Carson), I am really very pleased that he has taken the leadership in pulling this together today, because this truly is; this is not a tangential issue for the Democratic Party, this is the core of the Democratic Party. I was here in 1983 when we saved Social Security. It was the key issue in the election of 1992, along with the recession. We were able to reconstitute a healthy Social Security Trust Fund which served us well into this millennium. I am certainly one Member that will do nothing to weaken the system. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be a Democrat. I am proud to be holding the Social Security Trust Fund in our hands, and we literally do, and preserving it for the American people for this generation and generations to come. I thank the gentleman again for giving this time this evening and urge him on in his efforts to inform the American public and to re- create that lockbox permanently.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, our thoughts and prayers this evening are with the men and women in our Armed Forces who serve America's cause on the front lines in Afghanistan, fighting one front in the war against terrorism. We await their prompt return, and we extend our deepest sympathies to the families of our fallen soldiers. As we prosecute the war against terrorism, we must take affirmative steps as a Nation to drain the swamp of hatred and violence in central Asia and the Middle East, in Indonesia, Africa, and Central America. But the real dimension of our mission must be clear. Even as our troops carry out their dangerous assignments in the four corners of our world, the Bush administration is pushing a plan for $98 million in outlays for military equipment to protect not democratic values, but an oil pipeline in Colombia. This aspect of the Bush administration foreign policy should serve to focus our attention on the urgent need for the United States to wean itself from a dangerous addiction to foreign oil. In fact, that historic addiction to Saudi oil, to Kuwaiti oil, to Iraqi oil, to Colombian oil, to Nigerian oil, lies on the basis of the repressive regimes whose dissidents strike out now against our country. It is an addiction that distorts our foreign policy, that drains our national wealth and demands treatment. The treatment on the home front for that oil addiction is restoring fuel independence, energy independence for America again, and one of the most promising sources is biofuels. I would like to submit for the Record this evening a simply magnificent article in foreign affairs called ``The New Petroleum,'' written by a Member of the other body, Richard G. Lugar and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey. The first sentence of this article reads: ``Oil is a magnet for conflict.'' And it talks about well over two- thirds of the world's remaining oil reserves lie in the Middle East and becoming more and more precious as this century and millennium proceed. But then it talks about ethanol always being there as an alternative to gasoline, but never really being taken seriously, because until now, it has only been possible to produce ethanol from a tiny portion of the corn plant, the edible portions. But recent breakthroughs in genetic engineering and processing of new biocatalysts have made possible something called ``cellulosic biomass,'' literally using every scrap of organic material on the face of the Earth, including this country's waste material put into our landfills, to spawn an entire new industry for our country and, indeed, countries of the world. If the hundreds of billions of dollars that now flow into a few coffers of a few nations were to flow instead to the millions of people who till the world's fields, most countries would see substantial national security, economic, and environmental benefits. It talks about genetically engineered biocatalysts and advancing processing technologies that can make a transition from fossil fuels to biofuels affordable, and would not the world's security picture change dramatically. U.S. diplomacy and policies in the Middle East could be guided by a respect for democracy, rather than a need to protect oil supplies and accommodate oil-producing regimes, all of which are undemocratic. It talks about cellulostic ethanol, radically improving the outlook for rural areas around the world, and how the nearly $70 billion spent annually for imported oil representing nearly half of the U.S. trade deficit, and would it not be better to spend those dollars here at home producing new jobs based on new fuels production for our own people and the world. It talks about how renewable fuels will actually reduce greenhouse gases around the world, and it talks about how these technologies are even better than the battery-powered technologies that are being developed and the various nuclear technologies that are being promoted by the Bush administration, which have spent plutonium, for which there is no real safe answer. It talks about ethanol's economic viability as a result of these new technologies coming online with biocatalysts and new genetic engineering and the tremendous difference it will make in the price per gallon. The current efficiency of ethanol processing is somewhat analogous to that of petroleum refining in the early part of the 20th century, when after the invention of thermal cracking, it made possible a major share of the petroleum molecule for gasoline production. We are at the dawn, at the dawn of the biofuels age. We only need to see it. Dartmouth engineering professor Lee Lynd talks about using only some of our Nation's agricultural and forest residues to produce a minimum of 8 percent of replacement for gasoline. And then take a look at much of the land idled across the country, and many of the forests, where there is residue on the ground, harvesting that, using that, using all the corn stalks that are being thrown away, all of the cotton hulls that are being thrown away, using those organics to produce fuel, and replacing a minimum of 25 percent additional. So we would add the 8 percent, add the 25 percent, and we are moving to well over nearly 40 percent already of replacing what we currently are required to fuel with gasoline. I include for the Record this really incredible article; again, ``The New Petroleum in Foreign Affairs,'' by Senator Lugar and R. James Woolsey. It is the future. Please take a look at it. The article referred to is as follows: The New Petroleum (By Richard G. Lugar and R. James Woolsey) why change? Oil is a magnet for conflict. The problem is simple-- everyone needs energy, but the sources of the world's transportation fuel are concentrated in relatively few countries. Well over two-thirds of the world's remaining oil reserves lie in the Middle East (including the Caspian basin), leaving the rest of the world dependent on the region's collection of predators and vulnerable autocrats. This unwelcome dependence keeps U.S. military forces tied to the Persian Gulf, forces foreign policy compromises, and sinks many developing nations into staggering debt as they struggle to pay for expensive dollar-denominated oil with lower-priced commodities and agricultural products. In addition, oil causes environmental conflict. The possibility that greenhouse gases will lead to catastrophic climate change is substantially increased by the 40 million barrels of oil burned every day by vehicles. Ethanol has always provided an alternative to gasoline. In terms of environmental impact and fuel efficiency, its advantages over gasoline substantially outweigh its few disadvantages. But until now it has only been practical to produce ethanol from a tiny portion of plant life--the edible parts of corn or other feed grains. Corn prices have fluctuated around $100 a ton in the last few years, ranging from half to double that amount. Ethanol has thus been too expensive to represent anything but a small, subsidized niche of the transportation fuel market. In spite of recent reductions in the expense of ethanol processing, the final product still costs roughly a dollar a gallon, or about double today's wholesale price of gasoline. Recent and prospective breakthroughts in genetic engineering and processing, however, are radically changing the viability of ethanol as a transportation fuel. New biocatalysts--genetically engineered enzymes, yeasts, and bacteria--are making it possible to use virtually any plant or plant product (known as cellulosic biomass) to produce ethanol. This may decisively reduce cost--to the point where petroleum products would face vigorous competition. The best analogy to this potential cost reduction is the cracking of the petroleum molecule in the early twentieth century. This let an increasingly large share of petroleum be used in producing high-performance gasoline, thus reducing waste and lowering cost enough that gasoline could fuel this century's automotive revolution. Genetically engineered biocatalysts and new processing techniques can similarly make it possible to utilize most plant matter, rather than a tiny fraction thereof, as fuel. Cellulosic biomass is extremely plentiful. As it comes to be used to produce competitively priced ethanol, it will democratize the world's fuel market. If the hundreds of billions of dollars that now flow into a few coffers in a few nations were to flow instead to the millions of people who till the world's fields, most countries would see substantial national security, economic, and environmental benefits. paying for rogues Energy is vital to a country's security and material well- being. A state unable to provide its people with adequate energy supplies or desiring added leverage over other people often resort to force. Consider Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, driven by his desire to control more of the world's oil reserves, and the international response to this threat. The underlying goal of the U.N. force, which included 500,000 American troops, was to ensure continued and unfettered access to petroleum. Oil permeates every aspect of our lives, so even minor price increases have devastating impacts. The most difficult challenge for planners, policymakers, and alternative-energy advocates is the transportation sector, which accounts for over 60 percent of U.S. oil demand. The massive infrastructure developed to support gasoline-powered cars is particularly resistant to modifications. It precludes rapid change to alternative transportation systems and makes America highly vulnerable to a break in oil supplies. During a war or embargo, moving quickly to mass transit or to fuel- cell or battery-powered automobiles would be impossible. For most countries, excluding only those few that will be the next century's oil suppliers, the future portends growing indebtedness, driven by increasingly expensive oil imports. New demand for oil will be filled largely by the Middle East, meaning a transfer of more than $1 trillion over the next 15 years to the unstable states of the Persian Gulf alone--on top of the $90 billion they received in 1996. Dependence on the Middle East entails the risk of a repeat of the international crises of 1973, 1979, and 1990--or worse. This growing reliance on Middle Eastern oil not only adds to that region's disproportionate leverage but provides the resources with which rogue nations support international terrorism and develop weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missiles to carry them. Iraqi vx nerve gas and Iranian medium-range missiles show how such regimes can convert oil revenues into extensive and sophisticated armament programs. is oil running out? Optimists about world oil reserves, such as the Department of Energy, are getting increasingly lonely. The International Energy Agency now says that world production outside the Middle Eastern Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will peak in 1999 and world production overall will peak between 2010 and 2020. This projection is supported by influential recent articles in Science and Scientific American. Some knowledgeable academic and industry voices put the date that world production will peak even sooner--within the next five or six years. The optimists who project large reserve quantities of over one trillion barrels tend to base their numbers on one of three things: inclusion of heavy oil and tar sands, the exploitation of which will entail huge economic and environmental costs; puffery by OPEC nations lobbying for higher production quotas within the cartel; or assumptions about new drilling technologies that may accelerate production but are unlikely to expand reserves. Once production peaks, even though exhaustion of world reserves will still be many years away, prices will begin to rise sharply. This trend will be exacerbated by increased demand in the developing world. As Daniel Yergin, Dennis Eklof, and Jefferson Edwards pointed out in these pages (``Fueling Asia's Recovery,'' March/April 1998), even assuming a substantial recession, increased Asian needs alone will add enough demand by 2010 (9 million barrels per day) to more than equal Saudi Arabia's current daily production. The nations of the Middle East will be ready to exploit the trend of rising demand and shrinking supply. The Gulf states control nearly two-thirds of the world's reserves; the states bordering the Caspian Sea have another several percent. Barring some unforeseen discoveries, the Middle East will control something approaching three-quarters of the world's oil in the coming century. a whole new world If genetically engineered biocatalyst and advanced processing technologies can make a transition from fossil fuels to biofuels affordable, the world's security picture could be different in many ways. It would be impossible to form a cartel that would control the production, manufacturing, and marketing of ethanol fuel. U.S. diplomacy and policies in the Middle East could be guided more by a respect for democracy than by a need to protect oil supplies and accommodate oil-producing regimes. Our intrusive military presence in the region could be reduced, both ameliorating anti-American tensions and making U.S. involvement in a Middle Eastern war less likely. Other states would also reap benefits. Ukraine, rich in fertile land, would be less likely to be dominated over time by oil-rich Russia. China would feel less pressure to befriend Iran and Iraq or build a big navy to secure the oil of the South China Sea. The ability of oil-exporting countries to shape events would be increasingly limited. The recent report by the President's Committee of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) predicted that U.S. oil imports will approximately double between 1996 and 2030, from 8.5 million barrels per day, at a cost of $64 billion, to nearly 16 million barrels per day, at a cost of $120 billion. They estimated, however, that with concentrated efforts in fundamental energy research and investment in renewable fuel technologies, this could be reduced to 6 million barrels per day in 2030. The report concluded, ``A plausible argument can be made that the security of the United States is at least as likely to be imperiled in the first half of the next century by the consequences of inadequacies in the energy options available to the world as by inadequacies in the capabilities of U.S. weapons systems. It is striking that the Federal government spends about 20 times more B&D money on the latter problem than on the former.'' fuel farmers Cellulosic ethanol would radically improve the outlook for rural areas all over the world. Farmers could produce a cash crop by simply collecting agricultural wastes or harvesting grasses or crops natural to their region. Agricultural nations with little to no petroleum reserves would begin to see economic stability and prosperity as they steadily reduced massive payments for oil imports. Even more striking would be redistribution of resources that would occur if farmers and foresters produced much of the world's transportation fuel. We know from the positive results of micro-credit institutions and other such programs that even small increases in income can be a major boost to a subsistence-level family's prospects. If family income is a few hundred dollars a year, earning an extra $50-$100 by gathering and selling agricultural residues to a cellulosic ethanol plant could mean a much improved life. Such added income can buy a few used sewing machines to start a business or a few animals to breed and sell. It can begin to replace despondency with hope. There are likely to be even larger effects on rural development if biomass ethanol production can lead a shift toward using plant matter of other products as well, such as biochemicals and electrical energy. The cleanliness of renewable fuel technologies makes them particularly attractive to countries that lack a sophisticated infrastructure or network of regulatory controls. At least some facilities that process carbohydrates should lend themselves to being simplified and sized to meet the needs of remote communities. If such towns can produce their own fuel, some of their fertilizers, and electricity, they will be far better positioned to make their way out of poverty and to move toward democracy and free enterprise. Local economic development can promote political stability and security where poverty now produces hopelessness and conflict. A major strength of the new technologies for fermenting cellulosic biomass is the prospect that almost any type of plant, tree, or agricultural waste can be used as a source of fuel. This high degree of flexibility allows for the use of local crops that will enrich the soil, prevent erosion, and improve local environmental conditions. Finally, as recession and devaluations overseas move the American balance-of-payments deficit from the 1998 level--$1 billion every two days--toward nearly $1 billion every day, there will be increased calls for protectionism. The best way to avoid the mistakes of the 1930s is to have a solid economic reason for increasing U.S. production of commodities new bought abroad. The nearly $70 billion spent annually for imported oil represents about 40 percent of the current U.S. trade deficit, and every $1 billion of oil imports that is replaced by domestically produced ethanol creates 10,000-- 20,000 American jobs. easy being green To be politically and economically acceptable, changes in fuel must be understood by the American public to be affordable and not disruptive. Most other countries require the same tough criteria--U.S. difficulties in convincing developing nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are directly related to the cost and the damage this would have on their development plans. But if one of the most effective ways to reduce greenhouse emissions also produced an improved balance-of-payments deficit and opportunities for rural development, economic benefits would suddenly far exceed the costs. The political acceptability of reducing emissions changes substantially when the economics change. A shift to biomass fuels stands out as an excellent way to introduce an environmentally friendly energy technology that has a chance of both enjoying widespread political and economic support and having a decisive impact on the risk of climate change. Renewable fuels produced from plants are an outstanding way to substantially reduce greenhouse gases. Although burning ethanol releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it is essentially the same carbon dioxide that was fixed by photosynthesis when the plants grew. Burning fossil fuels, on the other hand, releases carbon dioxide that otherwise would have stayed trapped beneath the earth. If one looks at the complete life cycle of the production and use of ethanol derived from feed gains, the only addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere results from the use of fossil fuel products in planting, chemical fertilizing, harvesting, and processing. But this fossil fuel use can be substantial--up to seven gallons of oil may be needed to produce eight gallons of ethanol. When ethanol is produced from cellulosic biomass, however, relatively little tilling or cultivation is required, reducing the energy inputs. It takes only about one gallon of oil to produce seven of ethanol. There is a virtual consensus among scientists: when considered as part of a complete cycle of growth, fermentation, and combustion, the use of cellulosic ethanol as a fuel, once optimized, will contribute essentially no net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. According to a 1997 study done by five laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy, a vehicle powered by biomass ethanol emits well under one percent of the carbon dioxide emitted by one powered by gasoline. More surprising, however, is that ethanol produced from biomass emits only about one percent of the carbon dioxide emitted by battery-powered vehicles, since the electricity for those is commonly produced by burning fossil fuels at another location. Although local air quality is improved, total carbon dioxide emissions are not curtailed; they are merely exported--for example, from Los Angeles to the Four Corners. Unless the electricity to charge the car's batteries is produced by renewable fuels or nuclear power, electric vehicles are only 20 to 40 percent better as carbon dioxide emitters than gasoline-powered cars. Biomass ethanol beats both by a factor of about 100, fundamentally changing the global-warming debate. fringe benefits Cellulosic ethanol is the only alternative fuel that requires, at most, very modest changes to vehicles and the transportation infrastructure. One need not spend money retooling Detroit, nor spend years awaiting the gradual replacement of older vehicles by those with new technology. Nor does one need to modify or construct pipelines and storage tanks to hold hydrogen as an alternate to petroleum. This compatibility with today's infrastructure saves billions of dollars and not just years, but decades. Moreover, there is nothing incompatible between using ethanol now in internal combustion engines and using it later in more efficient power systems, such as hybrids or fuel cells. Essentially all automobiles currently on the road can use fuel containing up to ten percent ethanol. But strict fuel economy standards have encouraged the development and production of flexible fuel vehicles (FFVS) that can use up to 85 percent ethanol. FFVS are already in dealers' showrooms, containing (at no added cost to the consumer) the minor engine modifications--a computer chip in the fuel system and a fuel line made out of slightly different material--that make large-scale ethanol use possible. Even pure ethanol vehicles are quite practical. Brazil has 3.6 million on the road. Corn ethanol will continue to serve an important role as ethanol production shifts to cellulosic biomass. Commercialization of corn ethanol has provided a base of industrial experience, talented people, and infrastructure from which a much larger cellulosic ethanol industry may be launched. For corn farmers, biomass is no threat; it will probably be a boon. Indeed, there is likely to be a continuing, perhaps even an expanding, market for corn ethanol because of the value of its byproducts, such as animal feed. In general, the transition from corn to cellulosic biomass and from a few producers to many is likely to expand opportunities for American farmers. bioengineered bugs Ethanol's economic viability depends on making it cheaper to produce. This can be achieved by making it out of cellulosic biomass, which includes essentially anything that grows or has grown: agricultural and forest residues, prairie grass, kudzu, waste wood, used paper products, even much of urban waste. Last year, about 95 percent of the ethanol produced in the United States came from corn. But agricultural residues and other wastes have low or even negative cost--some you are paid to haul away--while crops like prairie grass cost only a few tens of dollars a ton. This represents a substantial savings in the raw material used in ethanol and puts it within the range of oil, even inexpensive Persian Gulf oil. Only recently have scientists developed the means to convert cellulosic biomass efficiently into ethanol. The edible portions of corn and other grains easily ferment into ethanol because of their chemical make-up. Most biomass, however, consists of more recalcitrant hemicellulose and cellulose, requiring both the breaking up of these two fibers as well as the fermenting of both five- and six-carbon sugars. This all happens in nature, but two parts of it-- fermenting five-carbon sugars and breaking up cellulose quickly--are technically challenging. The first is now done by genetically engineered microorganisms; this tool and other new techniques are now being brought to bear on the second problem. How far along are these developments? The current efficiency of ethanol processing is somewhat analogous to that of petroleum refining in the early 1900s: after the invention of thermal cracking made it possible to use a major share of the petroleum molecule for gasoline production but before the invention of catalytic cracking opened up an even larger share of petroleum to exploitation. In short, we have come a long way, but still have some inventing to do. The new, genetically engineered microorganisms have already taken us far toward the fermentation of ethanol from a wide range of plant material, laying the groundwork for reductions in processing costs as well. The new microorganisms, combined with other improvements in processing, fundamentally change the equation for considering ethanol a major transportation fuel. According to a recent study by Dartmouth engineering professor Lee Lynd, utilizing only some of the nation's agricultural and forest residues, with no additional land use, could supply over 15 billion gallons of ethanol a year--more than ten times the amount now produced from corn, and enough to replace around eight percent of the nation's gasoline. (Not all residues would be used, of course, since some must be left for long-term fertility.) Lynd also calculated that taking a little over half of the 60 million acres of cropland historically idled by federal programs for conservation and other purposes, and using for ethanol production the mown grasses with which much of this acreage is ordinarily planted, would produce enough ethanol to fulfill around 25 percent of the country's annual gasoline needs. These calculations use current automobile mileage. Lynd notes that further mileage improvements, achieved through a shift to hybrids or fuel cells, could obviate the need for gasoline entirely, without taking land from food crops or nonagricultural uses. The coproduction of animal feed and biomass residues from alfalfa and witchgrass is especially promising. There is, in short, no basis for the argument that America does not have the land to produce enough ethanol to make a very large dent in U.S. gasoline consumption. Biofuels must be produced in ways that enhance overall environmental quality. Sound land-use policies certainly must be followed, to protect wildlife habitat and address other environmental concerns. But professional land-use techniques should readily accomplish this. Alternative fuels are often seen as an unpalatable necessity representing a retrenched standard of living, forced upon us in an age of limits. The opposite may be true. Utilization of renewable fuels will make it possible for us to continue enjoying the freedom afforded by private cars, even as the production of petroleum begins to decline.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, recently my community unexpectedly lost one of its foremost citizens. Gene Cook, an elected official and community leader for nearly four decades, passed away on February 15th, 2002. Ever the gentleman, Gene went about moving our community and its citizens forward. As the longest serving member to date on the Toledo City Council, Gene's influence can be felt through a legion of initiatives and projects throughout Northwest Ohio. Born in a west Tennessee farming community, Gene moved with his family to Cleveland when he was a boy. There he developed true passion and skill for sports that always remained an integral part of his life. After completing wartime service in Korea, Gene enrolled in the University of Toledo where he excelled in football, basketball, and baseball. He want on to a professional football career and until permanently sidelined by injury, he played for the Green Bay Packers, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, and Baltimore Colts. Gene began his tenure in public service in 1967 with his election to the Toledo City Council. He served in various capacities on the Council, including thirteen years as vice mayor and three years as council president. He retired from the Council in 1997 after thirty years of able service. Beginning in 1977 and continuing to his death. Gene was also the general manager of Toledo's Triple A baseball team, the Mud Hens. A skilled marketer, Gene guided the club through many innovations including its last, a move to a new stadium in downtown Toledo this spring. A family man at heart, Gene together with his wife of 45 years, Marion, reared three children: John, Gary, and Shelley. The Toledo Blade noted that ``in spite of all his public accomplishments, his greatest accomplishment was his family. HIs pride in family was the very essence of Gene. His joy in life was having his wife and children and grandchildren with him.'' No truer or finer testament may be given to a man. We extend our sympathy to Marion, to her children and grandchildren, to Gene's sister and brother, Betty and Bill, and to his many friends and relatives. As they set out on this difficult journey and carrying Gene in their hearts, may his legacy to them and our city help carry them through.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit for the Record an essay written by Lia M. Jelinger of my district. Such a kind woman, she serves as an example for all of us and it is important to share her story. Her message is timeless, though it need be oft repeated: It all started in WWII, whilst suffering under the German Occupation. I was a teenager then, and experienced suffering, hate and destruction. I made a vow, as young as I was not to be part of all this evil, but to show love and compassion the rest of my life toward my fellow men. It was in 1957 when I immigrated to the United States with 5 kids in tow. My first job opportunity was to work as a nurse in pediatrics in a local hospital. After that I proceeded to become a foster mother and took care all together of 25 foster babies. A few years later I worked for Special Olympics, sewing banners, flags, and ribbons at home so I could be there for my family. I received the ``Service to Mankind Award'' and personal awards from Eunice Shriver. In 1990 with so many blessings given to me I started working for the VA here in Toledo 3 days a week under a senior program. Lately I found myself with too much idle time on my hands, which could be utilized and decided to volunteer on my off days. I am 73 years young now and still going strong. I reckon that there are days of achy cracking bones, but that does not stop me to spread love and compassion I have for my co- workers and patients alike being cheerful and to make their day. I had always wished to some day meet a WWII veteran and one day the opportunity presented itself. A frail old man entered the office and asked for some help with his hearing aid and made clear he was a WWII veteran. I proceeded to ask him where he was in combat and he told me he was in the Netherlands, fighting in the Battle of Arnhem and in Germany. I was overwhelmed since I came from the Netherlands and asked him permission to hug him and so I did thanking him for his contribution towards our freedom. He then started to cry and told me that nobody ever did that to him. I want to honor those who lost their lives and those who are still living. It was a horrible experience that we went through as civilians also, but the good thing about it for me is, that it formed character. God bless this great country of ours and may God keep all those courageous men and women then and now safe with his protection and loving care.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay homage to a man of my district, Lowell F. Rupp, who passed from this life on Monday, January 7, 2002 at the youthful age of 73. Mr. Rupp was a long-time and much loved civic and business leader in Fulton County, Ohio. Born on a family farm still operational in Fulton County, Mr. Rupp eventually purchased the farm from his father. He produced corn, soybeans, and wheat, selling the seed as well. Even though I came to know him through politics, for me the picture of Mr. Rupp remains with the land, for he was a farmer in his very soul. Entering German Township politics, he ``sought elective office out of a love for people and a desire to make a difference in their lives.'' That, indeed, he did. After serving for ten years as a German Township Trustee, Mr. Rupp was elected a Fulton County Commissioner. He served in that position for sixteen years, retiring at the end of his final term in 1994. His tenure as commissioner brought a great deal to the residents of Fulton County: he most assuredly did make a difference in their lives, improving their livelihoods, bringing positive progress to the county and always moving forward. Under his stewardship, the Fulton County Courthouse Plaza, a new county health department building and senior centers in four regions of the county were established. He helped to obtain expansion for water lines into the county and improvements to its fairgrounds. Those who worked with Mr. Rupp in pursuit of projects benefiting the county--myself included--found him to be a most able and honorable man. One of his colleagues describes him as a ``rock-ribbed Republican'' who never let partisanship get in the way of doing the best job he could for the public good and noted, ``He was a gentleman to work with. We were both opinionated and agreed to disagree.'' Mr. Rupp practiced a style of politics from which all could take a lesson, and though driven to achieve what he thought was right, still understood the art of compromise. A man of great yet quiet faith who lived his beliefs, Mr. Rupp was a lifelong member of the Evangelical Mennonite Church. He was also a member of Gideons International and the Archbold Rotary. Lowell Rupp and his wife Ardith celebrated nearly 53 years of marriage together. As deeply as he surely loved his family, words can do little to assuage the grief felt now by Mrs. Rupp, their children Beverly, Pamela, Bruce, Larry, and Leslie, sister, brother, and grandchildren. May the tangible legacy he leaves behind in what his public service gave to his community help them as they find their way now. Lowell Rupp's memory, his talent, his energy, and his service are the gifts he has left to his family, and to us. While we are saddened at his passing, we are grateful for his life.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay homage to a man of my district, Lowell F. Rupp, who passed from this life on Monday, January 7, 2002 at the youthful age of 73. Mr. Rupp was a long time and much loved civic and business leader in Fulton County, Ohio. Born a family farm still operational in Fulton County, Mr. Rupp eventually purchased the farm from his father. He produced corn, soybeans, and wheat, selling the seed as well. Even though I came to know him through politics, for me the picture of Mr. Rupp remains with the land, for he was a farmer in his very soul. Entering German Township politics, he ``sought elective office out of a love for people and a desire to make a difference in their lives.'' That, indeed, he did. After serving for ten years as a German Township Trustee, Mr. Rupp was elected a Fulton County Commissioner. He served in that position for sixteen years, retiring at the end of his final term in 1994. His tenure as commissioner brought a great deal to the residents of Fulton County: he most assuredly did make a difference in their lives, improving their livelihoods, bringing positive progress to the county and always moving forward. Under his stewardship, he helped establish the Fulton County Courthouse Plaza, a new county health department building and senior centers in four regions of the county. He helped to obtain expansion for water lines into the county and improvements to its fairgrounds. Those who worked with Mr. Rupp in pursuit of projects benefiting the county--myself included--found him to be a most able and honorable man. One of his colleagues describes him as a ``rock-ribbed Republican'' who never let partisanship get in the way of doing the best job he could for the public good and noted, ``He was a gentleman to work with. We were both opinionated and agreed to disagree.'' Mr. Rupp practiced a style of politics from which all could take a lesson, and though driven to achieve what he thought was right, still understood the art of compromise. A man of great yet quiet faith who lived his beliefs, Mr. Rupp was a lifelong member of the Evangelical Mennonite Church. He was also a member of Gideons International and the Archbold Rotary. Lowell Rupp and his wife Ardith celebrated nearly 53 years of marriage together. As deeply as he surely loved them, words can do little to assuage the grief felt now by Mrs. Rupp, their children Beverly, Pamela, Bruce, Larry, and Leslie, sister, brother, and grandchildren. May the tangible legacy he leaves behind in what his public service gave to his community help them as they find their way now. Lowell Rupp's memory, his talent, his energy, and his service are the gifts he has left to his family, and to us. While we are saddened at his passing, we are grateful for his life.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today we celebrate Gladys J. Herron, who passed from this life on December 5, 2001, at the age of 87 years. Gladys was an activist, teacher, mentor, and friend, a businesswoman and a woman of God. Her life is a story of richness born of struggle and of quiet triumph over oppressive odds. Born in Florida, Gladys came to Toledo with her family in 1924. She attended Toledo schools and its university, and married a firefighter, Capt. Robert D. Herron, from whom she was widowed. Gladys' fortitude first became publicly apparent when, in response to the discrimination prevalent at the time, she founded the first beauty school for young black women. The Herron Beauty School was the first black school of cosmetology in the Toledo area, and it eventually yielded twenty independent beauty salons. Hundreds of women owe their businesses and careers to this persevering, dignified woman. In 1955, she became the president of the Ohio Association of Beauticians, and she also served as president of the Toledo Beauticians and the Toledo Business Women's Club. She accomplished this at a time when racial equality and women-owned enterprises were only horizons on the American landscape. She mothered our community in every way. Continuing in community activism, Mrs. Herron was involved in more than a dozen organizations including 1970s-era social programs CETA, SASI, EOPA and PIC, Toledo Affirmative Action, the Urban League, NAACP, the Head Start Policy Council, the Cordelia Martin Health Center Board, the Lucas County Welfare Advisory Board (which she chaired for fifteen years), the Concerned Women for Better Government (of which she was a charter member), the Perry Burroughs Democratic Club and the Lucas County Democratic Party. A religious woman, Mrs. Herron also served her church, Third Baptist Church, singing in the Sanctuary Choir and serving as a member of the Board of Trustees, the Advisory Council, and the 20th Century Literary Club. Not content to rest on the laurels of her earlier years or settle down into retirement, Gladys in her later years was a founding leader in the senior citizen movement, involved in both the AARP and the Area Office on Aging of Northwest Ohio. It was Mrs. Herron's tireless effort and expert leadership which led to the establishment of the J. Frank Troy Senior Center. She was the center's first director, and together with two other Toledo women who established centers in other parts of the city, made up the core of senior rights in our region. I appointed her as our district's delegate to the decennial White House Conference on Aging held in 1995, where she represented her fellow seniors most ably and admirably. Gladys Herron leaves an imprimatur on our community and in our hearts. Her passing writes the preface to a new chapter in American life that will be felt through generations and will be better for all because of her vigilance, faith, and vision.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the accomplishments of Dale Stormer, longtime labor leader in both our community and in our nation. Dale, who had a gruff exterior and a heart of gold, passed from this life on October 28, 2001. He leaves behind a lasting legacy of union activism and commitment to bettering the lives of our nation's workers. No one mastered the intricacies of health insurance and employee benefits more thoroughly or with more vision, compassion, and zeal. Dale was president of the Toledo Area AFL-CIO from its inception in 1966 until 1973. Upon his leave, the union boasted 31,000 members. He returned after a two-year hiatus, serving as Executive Secretary until 1991. In that year, he went to Chicago, where he is credited with saving the union's health and welfare fund. He finally retired to Florida in 1997, though his heart remained in his union. His eye was always on the underrepresented, the exploited and the needy. After being discharged from the U.S. Navy, Dale entered his life's work when he helped organize the employees of the Sears Roebuck and Company store in which he worked. In 1956, he became the head of the Detroit retail workers union, and joined the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) in 1961. Dale first came to Toledo in 1961 to serve the HERE Local 868, which had been placed in trusteeship, and he represented the union's members for almost thirty years. He also served the HERE international union as a vice president. His crowning achievement in organizing came when he was a founder of the Toledo United Labor Committee. This local consortium of union policymaking brought together the AFL-CIO, the UAW, and the Teamsters into a collective 50,000 members strong. To build strength through unity remains a hallmark of his leadership and acumen. In addition to his union activities, Dale also found time to participate on the boards of the local United Way, Red Cross, and Toledo Lucas County Convention Center. He was asked to serve on former Ohio Governor Richard Celeste's Advisory Council on Travel and Tourism and was appointed by former Governor Celeste to the board of the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo. His love of boating yielded him a twenty-year membership in the Bay View Yacht Club. If Dale ever relaxed, surely it was by boating on Lake Erie and on Florida's Caloosahatchee River. It was the one hobby in which he indulged, according to his son. A man of humble origins who led his union brothers and sisters and our entire community to a better life, Dale was a labor leader first and last, He leaves behind this legacy, along with cherished memories his wife Ruth and sons John, Don, Ron, Tom, and Tony hold close in their hearts.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to say what a joy it has been in my life for 19 years to be able to work with the great gentleman from the State of Michigan, Dave Bonior. There must be something in the water of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie to produce the Phil Harts of this country and the Dave Boniors. I want to thank the Wolverine State for sending this incredibly decent human being here to the Congress of the United States. There are many things I like about Dave Bonior. The first thing I like is his wife. I think Judy is just so incredible and what a great partnership they do have. But I like the way that he treats her. I like the way he treats the Members. I watch the way he treats people, always with great love and with affection and with such great passion for the work that he does. We have had so many fights here that deal with economic justice domestically and internationally. Dave Bonior has always been at the head of that line. He has always been leading us. I can remember during the great fight on the rules that would govern trade in the Americas, as he stood here and he talked about what would happen to working people on this continent in the factories and on the farms, I was sitting out there with tears in my eyes; and I thought, how could he have the strength and the intestinal fortitude, knowing what is going to happen, to stand there and to be such a strong advocate and to maintain his passion and his composure. That was a point in my career where I could not have done that. I hope that from him I have learned how to do that better, and I thank him for what he is, because what he is has kept other Members here and running for office because of his beliefs and his unwillingness to change who he is and who he represents and how he loves people, that it is still possible to be here and to carry those values so close to your heart. In fact, they are his heart. I just want to say from the Buckeye State, always a competitor to those to the north, that we deeply, deeply appreciate your service to the people of our country and the world. We appreciate your service as a spokesman for those who have no voice or who have less voice. You have never wavered, you have always been a gentleman, you have always been a leader, you have always been a scholar. It has been my deep privilege to serve with you, Congressman Dave Bonior of Michigan. May you be Michigan's next governor. I only wish I could vote for you. God bless you.

Ms. KAPTUR. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my sincere disappointment with the Republican House conferees and their leadership who gave the big insurance companies their holiday wish and abandoned the millions suffering from mental illness when they killed the mental health parity amendment in conference. Mental illnesses are brain disorders. They are as much physical illness as diabetes or heart disease. Members of Congress and federal workers already have health insurance providing parity for mental health benefits. Other Americans deserve the same protection. The cost of parity is low and the benefits are significant. For example, in my own state of Ohio mental health and substance abuse costs for state employees dropped with parity. There are 54 million Americans with mental illness, two-thirds of whom receive no treatment. The Wall Street Journal has estimated that untreated mental illnesses cost U.S. businesses $70 billion a year in lost productivity and absenteeism; other estimates are much higher. Parity is inexpensive, support for it is broad, the authorizers have not acted, and those who opposed the amendment should be ashamed for voting to protect unconscionable discrimination.

Mr. KAPTUR

Mr. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, each year Crestwood Elementary School in Swanton, Ohio spends Veterans' Day honoring local veterans. It is an insightful and moving day-long series of events in which both the children and adults fully participate. The 2001 observance featured two essays describing ``What Makes America Great'' which I would like to enter into the Record. The first is by 6th grader Stephen Johnson and the second by 6th grader Dennis Parker. Three things that make America great are: freedom, the land and its climate, and the people. First of all freedom makes America great because we can choose our government. For example we can elect candidates for president, vice president, mayor, trustee, secretary, and various other offices within our country's governmental system. We have the freedom to go where we want, and how we're going to get there. We also have freedom to buy, and drive what we want. For example, we can buy airplane tickets, cars, houses, and many other things. We are even allowed to choose what we want to do with our lives. For example we could be a doctor, nurse, dentist, president, vice president, and many different jobs within our country. Secondly America's land and its climate make America an abundant and bountiful country to live in. The land provides us with minerals, food, water, shelter, wildlife, and the clothes such as cotton. The climate provides this country with sunshine, darkness, warmth, coldness,, and the four seasons. The climate has caused America to form oceans, mountains, valleys, plateaus. and hills. The natural resources give us wood for pencils, lumber, paper, and fire, oil for cars and other automobiles, water for drinking, and land for farming. Thirdly the people make America great because history and events are based on people. The people are faithful, and loyal to their country. There are many different kinds of people living in America. The history, and events are based on people because there was the Boston Tea Party, World War I, World War II, and there was the tragedy that happened just recently. The people are faithful, and loyal to their country by recycling, burning waste, not polluting the air, and many other things to help our environment. There are many different kinds of people living in America because in America you are free to pick your job, your house, and many other things that make America a great place to live in. Here is the second essay: If you want to know what makes America great, then take a look around you. I think people took America for granted until the terrorists' acts on September 11, 2001. In a heartbeat, innocent lives were destroyed. Instead of television heroes like Batman and Superman, they became firefighters, policemen, and just ordinary people like moms and dads, every day Americans just like you and me. Our country's freedom was taken for granted by Americans that was won by our veterans and forefathers. We fought in wars to end injustices, communism, and nationalism. Now, we are trying to stop terrorists, and our country is united even more. People show their love and patriotism for our country by flying flags, giving blood, money and food to people in need. They don't care about how much money we have or our skin color. They just want to help out. That is why America is the best country in the world. If you want to know what freedom is, then look around you. We have freedom of speech, religion, and education. We can go to school, speak, and pray without being punished. We aren't told what job to have, where to live, and what to do. We have many laws, but they are not to punish us, they are to protect us. America is great because we can vote for whomever we want in a secret ballot. We are allowed to choose our president, governor, or mayor without being punished. So basically, America is cared for and so are its people. They want to help America and make it even more united. Our veterans played a very important part in American history because they helped us gain freedom. So remember every time you say the Pledge of Allegiance, or sing the national anthem, be proud, and think of our real heroes. We are united because we are free and we are free because we are United. God Bless America!

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend, the ranking member, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey), for granting me this time; and also to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the chairman of the subcommittee, for moving this conference bill to the floor. I might add, much improved from when it left this Chamber initially. September 11 reminded us all that neglect breeds violence, and an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This bill has a lot of pounds of cure in it. Speaking as co-chair of the Ukrainian Caucus here in the House, I would like to speak specifically about Ukraine, noting that from when the bill left the House, the totals for that country have been raised from $125 million to $154 million, so Ukraine is no longer singled out as the only country in the world to receive a cut in foreign assistance, especially before their third parliamentary election, which will occur early next spring. Our ultimate goal is to help the Ukrainian people participate fully in this third election so they keep moving forward and do not slip backwards, as has happened to Belarus right under our own eyes. We hope that the funds in this bill will also help to make sure that not only their elections will be properly observed on Election Day, but they can be prepared to participate in the elections; that there will be monitoring of the electoral races, making sure that election laws are not violated and that the oligarchs are not buying votes; and that the government does not tamper with the candidates' rights to present their own platforms in those elections. We should all do all we can do to help the Ukrainian elections to be truly free and truly fair. I urge support of this improved conference report as an improvement over the original House bill. Again, I wish to thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), who was a very worthy and engaging advocate in this bill; and also the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Lowey) for her incredible leadership always.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my beloved colleague the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Ways and Means, for yielding me the time, and I rise in strong opposition. This is not a bill. It is a raid. First, it is a $260 billion raid on Social Security and Medicare. Yes, tax cuts for the super rich gut the lock box, and it holds the unemployed hostage for tax cuts to the Fortune 500 that are not even required to invest the dollars in America; $1.4 billion more to IBM; $671 million to GE that has not created a manufacturing job in this country in over a decade. With American troops at war, sacrificing themselves, five of the top corporate tax evaders walk away with over $100 million, and they are in the energy business like discredited Enron that has both hands out. By golly, their CEO, Ken Lay, he is laughing all the way to the bank with the $200 million he took out of the deal, and in fact, he should pay at the 38 percent tax rate. I would not mind if we taxed him at the 50 percent rate to pay for all the unemployed people he put out of work. Let me just say, we ought to think what Bill Natcher, our colleague, used to tell us, think about it America. Vote no on this Republican trickle down raid on the public Treasury.