Marcy Kaptur

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today I rise for the record to express my deepest regard and sympathies to the new Nation of Ukraine at its 68th anniversary remembrance of the tragic great famine of 1932 and 1933. Ukraine, always known as the breadbasket of Europe, lost nearly a quarter of its population as the Stalinist-led government, headquartered in Moscow then, forcibly exported Ukraine's wheat and spent the money earned on industrialization. Only God knows the true count of the millions of Ukrainian peasants and village dwellers who were systematically starved to death as collectivization of the countryside made independent farming impossible. Inside the borders of the Soviet Union, over 50 million people ultimately perished through the end of the Second World War, beginning with upwards of 8 million innocent people who died during forced famine of the early 1930s. The totalitarian regime of Joseph Stalin understood the power of food as the most fundamental weapon and used it cruelly. For several centuries, Ukraine then fought for its freedom. When forced to join the U.S.S.R. in the 20th century, Ukrainians resisted with valor. The forests of Western Ukraine are filled with the bones of their sacrifice. Every family suffered permanent losses. Yet no threats or punishments could deter Ukraine from its constant attempts to leave the Soviet Union and restore its independence. Fearing for the integrity of its empire, the Soviet regime then decided to simply eliminate Ukrainian culture by destroying the intellectual and military elite that pursued ideals of freedom and liberty. The regime falsified history and finally starved millions upon millions into submission. Genocide of this magnitude is unparalleled in human history. It is almost impossible to comprehend a political system that would contemplate and plan the deaths of millions of its citizens. These deaths of men, women, children and elderly were executed in the most tortuous ways imaginable. Young men were forcibly inducted into the military, taken from their farms and villages. Families that did not cooperate were shot. The remaining millions were starved to death. Women and children scratched in the frozen earth to find even an onion to make soup in the winter. Mothers died to give their last shreds of food to their children. History shows even in the face of such brutality, Ukrainians did not retreat. They continued to fight for freedom. Deep in their souls their spirits remained unbent and steadfast. When Ukrainian independence finally was declared in 1991, Ukrainian patriots did not rest. They refused to forget their roots and live like tumbleweeds. Life without a homeland for them was life not worth living. Finally, they prevailed; but the memory of the earlier horrors remained always and drives them in their sense of duty. Many of my own ancestors died miserably inside what is now Ukraine during the 1930s. Our family well knows that this horror occurred. We, history, must never forget that such profound events happened. We must remember. We must prevent such evil from happening again. We must also recognize that such hatred can be perpetrated only when freedom does not reign in a land. Therefore, we must maintain our dedication to freedom and representative government. We must resist anyone who attempts to take it from us. We must help those in the world who have gained their democratic freedoms to keep them alive and nurture them into maturity. We must not rest until such seemingly simple gifts as a right to life and the right to pursue happiness are guaranteed for every person in the world. Democratic freedoms must prevail more now than ever. Recent events make us more aware of precious endowments of our known Nationhood. Now we have an additional reason to continue our work for democratization and defense of human rights. The memory of those who died defenselessly in this struggle so long ago deserve to be honored. For several centuries, Ukraine has fought for its freedom. When forced to join the U.S.S.R., Ukrainians resisted with valor. In furtherance of this remembrance, I would strongly encourage the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, and the U.S.-Ukraine Joint Cultural Heritage Commission, each funded annually by the Congress of the United States on behalf of the people of the United States, to accurately reflect the great famine in their historical documentations, including cemeteries, massacre sites and other hallowed grounds in Ukraine. Those commemorations should also give proper tribute and restore the lost heritage resulting from the mass immigration of writers and scholars to the West. In closing, Madam Speaker, we will mourn the lives of these innocent people lost to history on November 17, 2001, when a commemorative service will be held in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Let us never forget them. Let us work ever harder to build a world free of terror for our children.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as we complete our commemoration this evening of our dear colleague Congressman Jerry Solomon of New York, I am reminded that his patriotism and his devotion to duty inspired us all, and as we confront this latest test of America's will and position in the world and what is just for all people, I am reminded of a book that I have been rereading called Sacred Rage that puts in context some of the forces that are arrayed against the United States and our interests now and the entire issue of terrorism and its roots. In that book by Robin Wright, much is discussed, including some of the religious fervor that has been promoted and directed against the people of the United States, some of the hatred of U.S. policies in the Middle East that are at the basis of some of the antipathy toward our country and our people, but also the economic underpinnings of the unrest in the Middle East and Central Asia and how directly it is tied to petroleum and oil. This evening I am going to spend a little bit of time talking about that because, as the American people understand better some of the underpinnings of the terror, we can get a clearer sense of new directions to set in order to build a more peaceful world for the future. This evening I wanted to talk about the United States' increasing dependency on imported fuel and petroleum, and I have two charts here that describe it very clearly. This is a chart dating back to the mid-1980s and each year showing an increase in the amount of imported oil that comes into our country, and in spite of conservation efforts, in spite of other things that we have done, more miles per gallons and so forth, we have become more and more dependent on imports of petroleum to drive this economy. We imported 1.2 billion barrels of oil in 1982, but last year, 3.3 billion barrels, and so we have nearly tripled in the last 20 years our dependency on imported petroleum. Serious work on alternative fuels has been largely ignored, while billions of dollars in tax subsidies and profits have accrued to the oil industry. The second chart that I have gives a sense of our entire petroleum usage in this country, which is the red set of bars here, and this is just the last decade from 1992 to the present showing that the number has been rising slowly, the usage has been rising slowly in total petroleum consumption, but the yellow bar underneath shows how much is imported of that total, and my colleagues can see that our total consumption is going up but the amount of imported fuel is going up as a larger share of that. In each single year of the 1990s and last year, it has gone up to now almost half of total usage in this country, and over half of what is imported comes from the Middle East. Last year, the United States imported more than 3.3 billion barrels of crude oil, and our largest supplier, Saudi Arabia, actually sold us over 557 million barrels. America's addiction to imported oil threatens our freedom of action. It saps the lifeblood from our economy, and truly, it distorts our foreign policy goals. What an irony of modern history that while our country's bombs fall on Iraq's no fly zone, our Nation continues to purchase an estimated $15 billion worth of Iraqi crude annually. That is really something to think about. America's addiction to imported oil threatens our freedom of action without question. A couple of decades ago when President Jimmy Carter warned about America's growing energy dependence on the outside world, our Nation responded by creating the Department of Energy with the goal of putting America on a course to be more self-sufficient. Conservation saved millions of barrels per day, and more fuel efficient cars stemmed the growing usage of oil, but truly, Americans were never really committed to being energy independent, and we fell asleep as to the risks, again as these charts attest. We are more dependent now on imported oil than at any time in our history. Half the oil, as I mentioned, that we consume is imported, and half of that comes from OPEC, from the OPEC cartel. We spend $86 billion on our oil habit every year, and in the meantime, those dollars are foregone for domestic investment opportunities in alternative fuels for America's independence such as biodiesel, ethanol, clean coal, the range of alternatives that exists if we but had the will to apply them. The United States Department of Energy itself has warned us that dependence on foreign oil has cost our economy deeply. Price manipulation, if you think about it, by the OPEC cartel from 1979 to 1991 cost our economy over $4 trillion. One of the earlier speakers this evening talked about September 11, and in some places in our country the price per gallon going up to over $4 a gallon. Think about the price manipulation that my colleagues might have seen in their own communities, in their own towns and think about all those dollars and how much wiser it would have been had we invested those here at home in domestic production. America's foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, has been heavily influenced by the extraction and removal of oil, and in fact, oil has become a distorting proxy for our foreign policy. It clouds it. It creates a situation where we cannot see politically clearly enough in that region of the world. We ought to remove it as a proxy for our foreign policy, and we ought to make a commitment to do it. Becoming energy self-sufficient here at home makes global economic sense, too, because over the next 15 years the world oil reserves will begin diminishing. They have reached their peak in terms of availability on the face of the globe, and prices will rise even higher with each barrel pumped. There is no more opportune time for our Nation to get serious. Putting America on a sound energy footing will require national leadership, and it will require the active involvement of our Federal Government and our State governments. The goal should be to make each State in our Union energy independent to the greatest extent possible and eliminate Federal requirements that discourage alternative fuels. If you look at our defense budget, just the cost of maintaining the oil supply lines from the Middle East at a minimum costs us over $50 billion a year, $50 billion a year. That has to do with military emplacements that have been stationed in that part of the world, ships that patrol, planes that fly, et cetera. Imagine if we could be investing that kind of money here at home to make ourselves energy self-sufficient. The State of Minnesota, and I just returned from there, is leading the way in new ethanol producing plants that are also creating new value added for our depressed world countryside. The Federal Government really needs to take a look at Minnesota, and every other governor should take a look at Minnesota. They are doing so much to encourage the use of renewable fuels, and I sort of felt as I went through Minnesota and I looked at these various farmer co-ops that were producing this ethanol, I thought I was seeing a modern day incarnation of Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Edison. They are tinkering around and finding an answer and applying it in that great State. In addition to those kind of efforts, I have introduced other legislation that will deal with America's long-term energy dependence. One piece of legislation would expand and rename what we call the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and rename it the Strategic Fuels Reserve to allow that reserve to also access ethanol and biodiesel, not just crude oil and petroleum. The biofuels initiative would authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to provide loans for production distribution, development and storage of biofuels beyond the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. These fuels provide the American farmer with new market opportunities, and their mass production could provide the rural areas of this Nation with the economic infusion of jobs and investment that has been dreamed about but has not occurred for generations. With a bill that has been introduced in the other body by Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, it is my great hope that for the first time we can look at this biofuels initiative and make it a central pillar in new agriculture legislation that will clear this year for our great Nation. If you think about commodity crises and their levels today, it is clear that more can and should be done to utilize those domestic surpluses to produce new fuels for this economy. Economic security is provided by the increased utilization of renewable biofuels and would provide significant economic benefits. According to our own Department of Agriculture, a sustained annual market of 100 million gallons of just biodiesel would result in a $170 million increase in income to farmers, and that is a very small increase. Ethanol, biodiesel and other alternative fuels also provide us with environmental security. Biodiesel contains no sulfur or aromatics associated with air pollution, and the use of biodiesel provides a 78.5 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions compared to petroleum diesel, and when burned in a conventional engine, provides substantial reduction in unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter. For too long we have been uncreative and cynical about the opportunities that alternative energy sources provide us. Some day, not so far from now, the oil reserves will be tapped dry. Alternative energy sources like ethanol, biodiesel, solar energy, wind power, geothermal, fuel cells, clean coal and hybrids will provide us with new opportunities to become more energy independent and to determine our own destiny, not be forced to shape the foreign policy and economic domestic policy of this Nation based on imported petroleum. I have been active on this issue for quite a while. Last year, as I mentioned, during the appropriations committee markup, we had an amendment which would have increased the appropriated amount for renewable energy programs by $106 million. It failed in committee, but an amendment I cosponsored with former Congressman Matt Salmon increased that funding by an additional $40 million. We just have to be vigilant, and if one looks at the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which I referenced a little bit earlier in my remarks tonight, if we think about that reserve, it should hold about 700 million barrels of crude. It only has 545 million barrels today, sufficient to push the United States from wild price swings for a period of approximately 53 days. None of the fuel in that reserve is biobased. In fact, 92 percent of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been purchased from foreign sources; 41.9 percent from Mexico; 24 percent from the United Kingdom; and over a fifth from the Middle East, the OPEC-producing Nations. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve should also include the development of alternatives to our Nation's reliance on petroleum. Every single part of our government should be asking the question, how can we move America toward a more independent future? How can we make our economy more secure in the years ahead? This is a primary source of instability. Since the economically damaging Arab oil embargoes of 1973 and 1974 and 1979, to the current recession which was precipitated by rising oil prices that began in 1999, the economic stability of the United States has too often in modern history been shaken by economic forces outside our borders. How long is it going to take us to wise up? Legislation here should shift our dependence away from foreign petroleum as our primary energy source to alternative renewable domestic fuels. Currently the United States annually consumes about 164 billion gallons of vehicle fuels and 5.6 billion gallons of heating oil. In 2000, 52.9 percent of these fuels were imported. That means every time you go to the gas station and you fill your tank with gasoline, half of what you pay goes offshore to one of those oil cartel interests. Does that make you feel good? Would you not rather be investing those dollars in this country? Since 1983, the United States importation of petroleum and its derivatives has nearly tripled, rising from 1.25 billion barrels in 1983 to a level of 3.3 billion barrels in the Year 2000. If we think about the benefits of continued development and utilization of ethanol and biodiesel, they involve energy security for our country, economic security based on independence that we grow and process here at home, and environmental security. In terms of the Middle East and the situation we are now facing with Enduring Freedom, there is absolutely no question that every single one of those Gulf oil states, their economies are propped up by the dollars that come from inside this economy. Now, we cannot cut them off tomorrow, it would create a terribly disruptive situation in that part of the world. But it is high time that the United States thought very hard about how it is going to live up to the promise of our founders, and that is our own new Declaration of Independence, recognizing how our independence is being subscribed by forces that perhaps because of inertia we have let overwhelm us, but now, particularly at this time in our history, to be wise enough and to have enough foresight and enough determination to wean ourselves off of this dangerous dependence on imported petroleum. To think that we have major military presence in the Middle East, not because of Enduring Freedom, that has come on recently, but major military presence to patrol those oil lanes and to make sure that that product gets to our shores, should cause every single American to think very hard. What does that mean to our children's future? What does it mean to the independence of this country? Think about the fact that $50 billion to $100 billion of taxes paid every year by the people of this country go directly into our defense budget to support the petroleum industry, which is largely now every year more and more an imported product into this market. Would it not be wiser to spend those dollars here at home, using our ingenuity, using our promise, using our hopes for a better future, and investing every single dime here at home where it would create ripple effects into our economy and cut our very dangerous dependence on imported petroleum? Mr. Speaker, I want to thank those who have listened this evening. I think that this is absolutely the most important economic issue that faces us as we try to move toward peace and resolution of the very serious threat that is facing our country from the Middle East. But unless one understands this piece of the equation, one will never be able to understand how to lead us to a more secure and independent future.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. I would like to thank our esteemed colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Gilman), and the dean of the New York delegation, for yielding me some time, as a Midwesterner, a Buckeye, to place in the Record very sincere remarks in memory of the life of our beloved colleague, Jerry Solomon, someone with whom I had the great privilege of serving for over a decade and a half. When I first came to Congress as a young Member we began our service on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. He was already there. And I remember as a new Member his devotion, his commitment, his seriousness and his humor on the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. He then obviously moved over to Rules and became very involved there, rising to chair the committee. I think I will always remember Jerry coming through these doors with those big brown folders. And I do not know how he got all those papers, but they were always like a foot thick and they had like a rubber band or a tie or something. The papers never seemed to fall out. He would kind of grip them, like that. It must have been an old duffle bag Marine trick or something, but he carried those folders all over the floor. And what a great patriot. What a patriot. He loved this country so much. And I agree with what my sister colleague, the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) has said. His determination and his directness was refreshing. It was so refreshing. Sometimes you didn't want to be at the end when it had a barb, but you always knew that he would level with you. And he had such a way of carrying himself. He kind of pitched his shoulders here, and he looked like he planted himself on the floor. He always stood his ground. Many people will talk about Jerry getting a little red faced and excited at times, but I also remember his humor, the great sense of humor that he had. And in some of the issues we got involved in, you needed to have a great sense of humor. I remember his great friendship and support on all of the economic questions that we faced as a country, his deep concern about the workers in his community who had been thrown out of work, his mastery of international trade law, and his work with us in trying to right the wrongs that existed in trade policy so that we would pay attention to those who paid the price of trade laws that are out of balance, truly, and do not pay enough attention to workers. He really fought for the workers of his State and our country. So I just wanted to say to his wife Freda, to his five children, and they used to sit down in the dining room here all the time and dine together, his love for you shown always. And I can still see his smiling face. What a square-jawed, patriotic, truly caring gentleman he was, and it was my great privilege to have served with him. I thank the people of New York for renewing his election many, many, many years, allowing him to gain the seniority here where he was given true voice. My deepest condolences to his family and the people of his home State. And once again I thank the dean of the New York delegation for this opportunity.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this Legislative Branch Appropriations Conference Report and as a new member of the subcommittee this year, I wish to thank Chairman Taylor, Ranking Member Jim Moran, my esteemed colleague Steny Hoyer, and the entire subcommittee for welcoming me so warmly and for their hard work in crafting this outstanding bill. I also rise to highlight a provision in the bill that I worked to have placed in the conference report and wish to thank the Majority for their assistance in this effort, along with Chief Administrative Officer Jay Eagen. This provision permits the women and men who provide food service in our House office buildings to be paid for the time they were unable to come to work. It allows them to collect at least some of the wages they lost--through no fault of their own--during recent shutdowns of House office buildings. The genesis of this provision is particularly interesting--the result of one of my staff asking cafeteria workers how the shutdowns had affected them. The reply was: it hit home and it hit hard. Food service workers in the Ford building have not been paid since October 17. Food service workers in the other House buildings were paid for the first three days of the shutdown, but after that were forced to take leave or assume leave without pay status. We are all acutely aware that not only the Ford building but also the Longworth building and therefore the Longworth Food Court remain closed today. These women and men are neither salaried employees, nor federal employees like their counterparts in the Senate. Thanks to the great wave of privatization in 1995, these women and men instead earn hourly wages and many rely on and are challenged to stretch every penny of their paychecks to support themselves and their families. Quite literally, every dime counts. Many of us through the years have come to know these women and men quite well. We know them by name and have come to rely not only on their service, but also their smiles. Whether it be a cup of coffee, lunch, or just a mid afternoon snack people like Betty, Pat, Maria, and Doris play a meaningful and consistent role in our lives. They work hard. They help keep us going. They deserve compensation for the days they were unable to work, just like any member of our salaried staffs and I am very pleased that as a result of this provision and bill they will indeed receive at least some of it. Once again, I wish to thank my colleagues on the subcommittee for their work in bringing the conference report before us today and would once again encourage all my colleagues to join me in supporting its passage.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Let me say to my colleagues and to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla), our esteemed chairman of the subcommittee, that this motion is simple and to the point. It instructs our conferees to agree to the highest possible level of funding for international food programs within the scope of the conference, including the Title II Public Law 480 Food for Peace program. Mr. Speaker, perhaps never in the history, in the recent history of our great country have we had a greater need to use our food power to build a more peaceful world. Three matters individually and collectively within our purview in this legislation justify the need for the highest possible level of funding. I just wish to mention them and make a few remarks. The first is the Global Food for Education Initiative. The second is the ongoing need for an expanding emergency need for food assistance for Afghan refugees and other desperate people in and around that beleaguered country. Thirdly, to offset the administration's proposal to reduce the section 416 commodity assistance with the resultant increase in dependency on the Public Law 480 Title II program for vitally needed development assistance throughout the world. It is interesting to think about the conditions which breed revolution and instability, and to observe how often that desperate people living in desperate conditions in the countryside provide the seed bed for political instability. If we think historically, just for a second, back to the middle part of the 20th century, the countryside became the killing fields inside what became the Soviet Union through the forced starvation of millions and millions of people by Joseph Stalin and his consequent success in gaining control over what became the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. The countryside was dead center in what happened with control of the food supply. If we think to China and the revolution in 1949 and the role of Mao Tse-tung in moving people back to the countryside, the rural countryside became the seed bed for the revolution and the consequences that followed, and the imposition of will over 1 billion people. Now, today, in the Middle East, in East Africa, we have witnessed the powerful instability that can grow from food insecurity with little to eat and little to hope for; and it is not just in Afghanistan where people are at prefamine levels with millions that have fled that sad state of affairs. If we also think about the madrassas operating inside Pakistan that use the lure of milk to feed hundreds and thousands of little boys who are then systematically taught to hate anyone whose religion is unlike theirs. Food is being used as a weapon in the conflict that we face with Enduring Freedom. It is best that we understand it, and that we use the power that we have with our food commodities to help build a more peaceful world. The Global Food for Education Initiative, the program so strongly supported and developed by Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, can be an important piece of the solution. Why can we not think about using the Global Food for Education Program to offset what the madrassas are doing in Pakistan, and to feed children out of our good will, and to provide educational opportunity to both boys and girls, and hopefully produce new political leaders for the future that will embrace the world in a more fair open manner? This body has said we would like to see the funding for this program continued, and we would like to see permanent authorization as part of the farm bill, the authorizing legislation itself being H.R. 1700. So we want this motion to instruct to place some responsibility on these conferees to see that the Global Food for Education Initiative, and the hard work that the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and others have done, to make that a permanent authorization and to receive the support it deserves inside this conference. Secondly, in terms of the starvation and pre-starvation levels that people in Afghanistan and the refugees are facing, there is no question about the ongoing immediate need for expanding emergency food programs for those refugees, whether they be inside the country, if we can find a way to deliver it, or to the adjoining nations, during our Nation's conduct of Enduring Freedom. We know that the United Nations World Food Program has predicted that we will need to provide a minimum level of assistance for 7.5 million people, and that such aid could last for well over 1 year. Even though the administration has already suggested more resources will be provided, and has done so out of the emergency funding we adopted earlier this year, there is no doubt that more will be needed; and not only direct food, but once stability reigns again, to help people develop their own abilities to raise food so there can be a more permanent chance for development in that region. Once we complete emergency assistance, we have to look at meaningful development assistance so we can leave the region in a more self- sustaining condition than it is in, obviously, today. If we want to change the concerns about poverty, malnutrition, and how people are treated, including women, then we must also have long- term development goals in mind, and that is where food for peace, food for progress, section 416, are answers that make the most sense. Finally, before yielding time, let me say that the administration's proposal to reduce section 416 commodity assistance may have made sense before September 11. I do not really think it did. But after September 11, it makes absolutely no sense at all, because it will force the resultant increase in dependency on the Public Law 480 title II program, which we need for the type of developmental assistance in the Middle East, in East Africa, and other places where instability reigns. If we are to have longer programs that will end world hunger, a goal to which our Nation leads the world and has subscribed to throughout our existence, then we have to be sure that any emergency food assistance is followed up with a program of meaningful development assistance, and that is why these programs were invented. This program benefits American farmers and our States seeking to develop new markets for our commodities as the largest food-producing Nation in the world, as well as the countries receiving the benefit of the program, targeted to those who are hungry in the urban areas and to development in the rural countryside, to stem the instability that we know has bred the revolutions of modern history. Public Law 480 has a long history of turning former recipients into long-standing customers and into stable political allies. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the esteemed gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), who has been such a leader on these international food programs.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts so very much for speaking out again today, and for providing the type of national leadership that we need in order to make this Global Food for Education Program permanent. I think, if the gentleman might want to engage in a colloquy at this point, I know he has thought a great deal about how our commodities leverage food from other countries, and the participation of other nations in this Global Food for Education Initiative. Perhaps the gentleman would wish to place some of that on the Record at this time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) for that very generous statement and strong support and also for her continuing leadership on so many fronts. I know that some of the initiatives that the gentlewoman has taken on for Africa, for example, using these programs will be the first time that farmer to farmer programs and modernization programs will be used for development in rural Africa in areas that so desperately need attention, and I hope that the people of North Carolina understand the genius that they have sent here in allowing the gentlewoman to serve in our Congress, and I thank the gentlewoman so very much for being here with us today. In closing, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to say, as we look at the range of what America can do in order to promote a more peaceful world, what other programs have such scope as these? We are talking here about emergency assistance for Afghan refugees and food inside Afghanistan. These programs are being used currently in places like Lebanon where for the first time in the history of our country we have taken food commodities such as wheat and soy oil, sold them inside Lebanon, and now we are helping to redevelop villages, very poor, poor villages that did not even have water rights at the Lebanese-Israeli border in order to try to build a more peaceful world. What other programs do we know that have this kind of range? If we think about the farmer to farmer programs that the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) was talking about in Africa or those that operate in the Caribbean, here we have programs that operate globally, using the bounty of this land being a win-win, helping our farmers and our rural communities bolster their income and yet, in my opinion, being the most important development bank that this country has in place with vast experience in every corner of the world. So as we vote on this motion to instruct today and ultimately move our agriculture appropriation bill, we certainly would ask for the membership's full support of our international food programs, particularly at this time in our Nation's history being front and center and well understood as providing us a path to a more peaceful future.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for those comments. I am reminded of the day that we had the special press conference up here in the Capitol with Senators McGovern and Dole, these two dogged World War II veterans who could be doing anything else with their lives at this point, yet they were here on the Global Food for Education Program because they as veterans understand what it takes to build peace. What a contribution they are still making, though not legislators or Members of Congress at this point in their lives, to have an influence to do what is good in the world as Americans, regardless of party. We owe them so much. They are giving their great genius to the country, and we owe them such thanks for that, and for making a difference working with us, especially now. I wait for the day when the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Bonilla) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern) and I can go into Pakistan and help to distribute maybe some of this milk, and to take a look at what is being taught in private schools that are being established there as we try to help part of the world that so greatly needs greater stability, to use our food programs as the real fulcrum of a better future for millions of children.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to place on the Record, as we talk about this, if we look at the hijackers here that did such damage to our country, 15 of 19 of them came from what is now Saudi Arabia. If we look at the areas of Saudi Arabia they came from, they came from the rural, southern parts of the nation. Other nations have been subjected to terrorist attacks, but if we really see where many of the Shiite and Sunni fundamentalists who are committing most of these acts come from, they come from parts of the country that never received support from their own governments. So therefore, these are breeding grounds for the discontent that is destabilizing that part of the world, and now our part of the world. I know from every single farmer in my region to every single farmer across this country, they know they can be a part of the answer to retooling for peace using food as the fulcrum for a better future. I know the gentleman sees this in his mind's eye, and we can do so much good if we can get even our own government to recognize the power of people who have been fed, and that those who would seek to do harm in their own regions or in others would have less cause for action. It is too bad that the world has to move to this point, but I will say, in defense of our country, prior to September 11 there was one Nation providing the majority of food commodities inside Afghanistan, and it was the United States of America, through the World Food Program. So we have tried to make an effort. In some of these other nations, I think it has been more difficult to get the governments to be willing to allow food commodities and assistance to flow to some of these rural areas that may not be looked upon favorably by the central governments. But I think people may and these nations may be rethinking the damage that has been caused by ignoring major segments of the population that then are underdeveloped and underfed, and are prime targets to be lured by those who would want to create harm and instability, and to create a political movement that grows out of the poverty and deprivation of huge segments of the nations of the Middle East and of East Africa. So I know that we have other Members who are desirous of speaking on this subject. We have been hoping that they would make it to the floor from their committee meetings. They do not appear to be here at the moment, so I think we are going to have to move on with the legislation. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Chairman Bonilla) so very much for his leadership on this, and for his support. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the very able member of our subcommittee, who has been such a leader on not just domestic food programs but world food programs. We thank her for leaving her committee meeting in order to come to the floor to discuss this very important motion to instruct.

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) for such an eloquent statement and for her leadership on international food programs as well as our domestic programs like WIC and all of the Food and Drug Administration programs on which you have worked so hard in the subcommittee. We are truly fortunate to have you as a Member of this Congress and Connecticut certainly has made a very good choice in sending you here. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just mention before calling on our dear able colleague from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), that it is probably important as we talk about this motion to instruct to acknowledge the courage, the dedication and the patriotism of the workers from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the World Food Program who have been working under extremely difficult conditions, certainly in the Middle East and Central Asia, but in Africa, in Indonesia, in so many other places on our globe. They do not get a great deal of publicity. Over the years so many have lost their lives. They in my judgment are as important as any person serving our Nation and we want to thank them, and we want to let them know that this Congress understands the heroism of their work and the great humanitarian role that they play in treating all people equally and bringing the bounty of this land to places that most Americans will never see. We wish them to know the depth of our thanks and respect that we hold for the work that they do largely unacknowledged. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton), a very high ranking member of our Committee on Agriculture. If the word is agriculture, if the word is leadership, if the word is development, she is at the front of the line.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today we are preparing to send a letter to the President of the United States expressing the displeasure of many Members and genuine concern about the administration decision to send a delegation from our countries to the World Trade Organization's fourth ministerial conference in Qatar. That is to occur next week. We are writing to express our deep reservations about the appropriateness of that venue in light of recent actions by the monarchy in Qatar, not to mention the obvious security concerns for our citizens. We are deeply disappointed by the failure of the Qatari monarchy to support U.S. military action in Afghanistan. In fact, the President of the United States has said Nations should choose sides. Well, Qatar has chosen the wrong side. Indeed, in this war against terrorism, Qatar has decided to sit on the sidelines, and at worst to condemn U.S. military action; so why are we sending a delegation there? Indeed, the government of Qatar has condemned the air campaign against the Taliban and refused to make its airports and infrastructure available to U.S. forces. On October 23, Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin-Jassem bin-Jabr al-Thani condemned, and that is a quote, the allied attacks on Afghanistan and called them unacceptable. What is unacceptable is the notion that Doha, Qatar is an appropriate site for the World Trade Organization ministerial. Mr. Speaker, we will be asking the President to prevail on the World Trade Organization officials to move the ministerial to another location in light of the government of Qatar's opposition to the war on terrorism. The government of Qatar should be made to understand that its failure to support the coalition in the campaign against terrorism has consequences, and it is not business as usual. In the Financial Times today, there is an article indicating that Vice President Cheney disregarded fears over the WTO choosing the venue of Qatar for this meeting. In fact, it says that the White House disregarded security concerns among top U.S. trade officials this month by committing Washington to sending a delegation to the meeting of the World Trade Organization previously scheduled for Qatar. It mentions that U.S. Government security experts on Friday warned business lobbyists planning to accompany the delegation that there were substantial risks in attending the meeting in the small Gulf state. One delegation member was very concerned about Mr. Cheney's call and said, ``I think this is a momentously bad call based upon what we have learned about security risks there.'' It is no secret this organization calls itself the World Trade Organization, and when those two Trade Towers came down in New York, those were the Twin World Trade Towers. There is a message here, and it is a pretty important one. For the Record, I will be including information on Qatar's policy of denying its own people fundamental rights. In fact, the government officially prohibits such things as public worship by non-Muslims. Our own CIA Fact Book indicates that the people of Qatar do not even have the right to vote, and freedom of speech is severely limited. I could not be giving this speech in Qatar. In addition, like the Taliban, the rulers of Qatar oppress women, and women occupy a strictly subservient role inside that society. I think it is fair to say that trade has failed to bring freedom to Qatar. In fact, the U.S. State Department calls oil the cornerstone of Qatar's economy, accounting for more than 70 percent of total government revenue in that country. Starting in 1973, oil production there increased dramatically, but freedom certainly has not followed. We are constantly told how freedom takes root in unfree countries if we simply trade, whether it is Vietnam, China or Qatar. That logic is simply not true. Despite billions upon billions of dollars worth of engagement between Western commercial interests and Qatar, the people of Qatar have no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of religion, no freedom of association. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Bush and Cheney administration to seriously review the decision that they have made to send a delegation to Qatar and to find a location that is safer in view of these very troubled times.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, as one Member, I feel a particular obligation at this time in our country's history to help provide information and insight to the American people, and indeed to the people around the world, who are looking to us for leadership and for an explanation of enduring freedom, the roots of the engagement in which we now find ourselves involved with a growing coalition around the world. From time to time I will be coming to the floor, as I did last week and now again, to talk about some of the events in past years that have created the context for the conflict in which we as a Nation have now been placed in dead center. Last week we talked a bit about the economics of the Middle East and America's over-reliance on imported oil and the fact that each of the economies of the larger region in which this conflict is occurring make money primarily from oil, with Saudi Arabia being the largest supplier of petroleum to the United States. In Toledo today, where I just flew from, gas prices are down to 99 cents to $1.01 a gallon. Do not tell me there is no relationship between the desire of the oil-producing countries to have America win this battle and therefore to manipulate a bit on the spot market and the price of petroleum. I am sure Americans in the short term think that is probably a good thing, but in the long run what it does is it connects us to a very unstable part of the world. Indeed, 52 percent of the petroleum that we consume is imported from Saudi Arabia, from Nigeria, from Venezuela, from Mexico. America now consumes three times more in imported petroleum than she did 20 years ago. Oil and our inability to make ourselves energy self-sufficient here at home, simply because we have not had the will, is our major strategic vulnerability; and again we are faced with major unrest in the Middle East, this time some of that being brought to our own shores. I wanted to talk a bit tonight about a wonderful book that I read 15 years ago and I have been rereading over the last few days called ``Sacred Rage,'' by a very well known journalist in our country, Robin Wright, who is both courageous and I think has shades of genius. The subheading of this book is ``The Wrath of Militant Islam.'' I just finished the chapter on Kuwait. Last night I was reading about Lebanon. I cannot go into the entire book this evening, but I will reference one of the beginning chapters that deals with Iran and the turning point as she, the author, would view it in the Middle East back in March 1982 when over 300, nearly 400 mullahs, religious leaders from that part of the world, convened at a conference in Tehran in the Revolutionary Nation of Iran at that point, and Iran was turning from a monarchy to a theocracy, and the men that came together at that time, and I will quote from the book, because it is very insightful and it bears on what is happening today, agreed to several common goals. They agreed, first, that religion should not be separated from politics. This is a very foreign thought to people of the United States in this democratic Republic. Second, they agreed that the only way to achieve true independence was to return to their Islamic roots. Third, they agreed there should be no reliance on superpowers or other outsiders in their region, and the region should be rid of them. Fourth, they recommended that the Shia, which is one sect of Islam, should be more active in getting rid of foreign powers. Now, the Persian Gulf War a few years after that, of course, engaged the United States in trying to hold the border of Kuwait as Iraq attempted to move into that country. After that particular war, the Persian Gulf War, which was largely fought for oil, in my opinion, and the preservation of those oil supply lines through the Persian Gulf to the United States, I do not think that was a moral goal, but it was a goal that this Congress voted for and the American people supported, but after that the American people kind of forgot. It was over. Sure, we deal with the veterans in our districts and the people that served over there, but we became more and more hooked through the decade of the 1990s on imported fuel. Not everyone has ignored this unfortunate development; and today, or actually yesterday, a brilliant writer, Rob Nixon, who resides in Madison, Wisconsin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, wrote an editorial entitled ``A Dangerous Appetite for Oil,'' and I am only going to quote a couple sentences of it. I will enter it into the Record this evening. He advises the most decisive war we can wage on behalf of national security and America's global image is the war against our own oil gluttony. He talks about the fact that for nearly a century, oil has been responsible for more of America's international entanglements and anxieties than any other industry. Oil continues to be a major source of America's strategic vulnerability and of its reputation as a bully in the Islamic world and beyond. Frankly, America made friends and supported regimes that could continue the oil lifeline to this country, and part of the ``Sacred Rage'' relates to the exclusionary manner in which the governments of those nations dealt with their own populations and the rather maldistribution of wealth that occurred. Now, that is not America's fault; but we should be focused on those forces that create some of the rage that is directed against us and those forces that we contain here at home we should be about doing. One of those forces is to make ourselves energy self-sufficient here at home. That is what Rob Nixon writes about. He talks about outside the West, the development of oil resources has repeatedly impeded democracy and social stability. The oil extraction industry typically concentrates wealth and power and provides many incentives for corruption and iron-fisted rule. In most oil exporting countries, the gap between rich and poor widens over time; and from the perspective of local people beneath whose land the oil lies, the partnership between oil transnationals and repressive regimes has been ruinous, destroying subsistence cultures while offering little in return. In fact, he quotes then the Nigerian writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was hanged in 1995 for leading protests against such destruction and dubbed that process ``genocide by environmental means.'' Mr. Nixon writes, ``Oil and related extractive industries have arguably done more to tarnish America's image abroad than any other commercial pursuit. By scaling back our reliance on foreign oil, we could reduce a major cause of anti-American feeling while simultaneously decreasing our vulnerability to oil embargoes and price spikes,'' and I might add the manipulation of the market which is occurring inside our borders today. But we will never be able to drill our way out of this. In fact, even if we were to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, we would get about 140 days worth of supply for this country. And he, like many others across this country, talks about encouraging more quickly advances in developing wind and wave power, biomass research, which is something I so strongly support, particularly with the development of ethanol and biodiesel so I can buy it and you can buy it; transport fuels based on renewable oilseed crops, and photovoltaic modules that can convert, even diffuse, light into electricity, such as is being done by Solar Cells, a new company in my district. We can do this. We can do this in the United States. We just have not had the will to do it. As far as having oil as our chief proxy of our foreign policy in the Middle East, what a dangerous dependence. What a dangerous dependence this has proven to be for our people. Robin Wright, in her book Sacred Rage, was given many, many commendations by well-known Americans, one of them Roger Mudd from NBC News who said, ``If ever there was the right book on the right subject for the right readers at the right time, Sacred Rage is it. The Kansas City Star wrote, when the book was published, ``Robin Wright manages against all odds to get a fix on a phenomenon that is complex, elusive, and kaleidoscopic. Moreover, her style of writing is so vivid that the book reads like a novel.'' I know that those who are listening can also get this at local libraries. Mr. Speaker, if one looks at page 69, one will see a poster from the Party of God, which is one of the groups operating, in this case in Lebanon at that time, and it shows a powerful image of how those who were engaged in this particular sect felt about the West. It is important for Americans to understand who is actually trying to exert this negative force against us and to understand why, because once the why is understood, we can begin to move the world forward. Today in The New York Times, there was an editorial by Thomas Friedman, which I will also enter into the Record, called Drilling for Tolerance. And again, he talks about why there is such instability in that part of the world, the role of oil in shaping our foreign policy to too great an extent and, again, he proves the point that trade has not brought freedom. He talks about how little many who should have known here in the United States understand about the internal politics of Saudi Arabia, and, in fact, some of the very schools that are educating youth to hate us. He talks about all public schools, the religion classes in Saudi Arabia, students being required to learn the following, and it states, ``It is compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemy.'' That is, anyone who is a non-Muslim is an infidel, someone who is an enemy. Imagine this being taught to 10-years-olds, 12-year-olds. He goes on to talk about how it is time to tell the truth. He says he was always for getting rid of oil imports before September 11, but now even more. He says, Why should we continue to purchase oil from countries like Saudi Arabia when they are using the very proceeds to buy textbooks to teach this kind of wrath to their youth? So I just this evening very much want to urge the American people to have courage in these moments. The depth of this democracy of our great Republic will weather us again. We have educated all of our people. We believe in helping both men and women move forward in our country. We believe very much in free enterprise. We are not a monarchy. We believe in helping to distribute the resources of this land to all who work hard, and for those who are unfortunate and cannot, we try to take care of them as well. Those strengths, along with our military and with the great patriotism we have, will carry us through. [From the Foreign Affairs, Oct. 30, 2001] Drilling For Tolerance (By Thomas L. Friedman) In April 1988 Saudi Arabia asked the U.S. to withdraw its newly appointed ambassador, Hume Horan, after only six months. News reports said King Fahd just didn't like the U.S. envoy. What the Saudis didn't like about him, though was that he was the best Arabic speaker in the State Department, and had used his language skills to engage all kinds of Saudis, including the kingdom's conservative religious leaders who were critical of the ruling family. The Saudis didn't want someone so adroit at penetrating their society, so--of course--we withdrew Mr. Horan. Ever since then we've been sending non-Arabic-speaking ambassadors to Riyadh--mostly presidential cronies who knew exactly how to penetrate the White House but didn't have a clue how to penetrate Saudi Arabia. Yes sir, we got the message: As long as the Saudis kept the oil flowing, what they taught in their schools and mosques was not our business. And what we didn't know wouldn't hurt us. Well, on Sept. 11 we learned just how wrong that view was. What we didn't know hurt us very badly. On Sept. 11 we learned all the things about Saudi Arabia that we didn't know: that Saudi Arabia was the primary funder of the Taliban, that 15 of the hijackers were disgruntled young Saudis and that Saudi Arabia was allowing fund-raising for Osama bin Laden--as long as he didn't use the money to attack the Saudi regime. And most of all, we've learned about Saudi schools. As this newspaper recently reported from Riyadh, the 10th-grade textbook for one of the five required religion classes taught in all Saudi public schools states: ``It is compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider the infidels their enemy.'' This hostile view of non-Muslims, which is particularly pronounced in the strict Saudi Wahhabi brand of Islam, is reinforced through Saudi sermons, TV shows and the Internet. There is something wrong with this picture: Since Sept. 11, the president of the United States has given several speeches about how Islam is a tolerant religion, with no core hostility to the West. But the leader of Saudi Arabia, the keeper of the Muslim Holy places, hasn't given one. The truth is, there are at least two sides to Saudi Arabia, but we've pretended that there's only one. There is the wealthy Saudi ruling family and upper middle classes, who send their kids to America to be educated and live Western- style lives abroad and behind the veil at home. And there is an Islamist element incubating religious hostility toward America and the West, particularly among disaffected, unemployed Saudi youth. It is said that truth is the first victim of war. Not this war. In the war of Sept. 11, we've been the first victims of our own inability to tell the truth--to ourselves and to others. It's time now to tell the truth. And the truth is that with the weapons of mass destruction that are now easily available, how governments shape the consciousness, mentality and imagination of their young people is no longer a private matter. We now have two choices: First, we can decide that the Saudi ruling family really is tolerant, strong and wants to be part of the solution, and thus we can urge its members to educate their children differently and ensure that fund- raising in their society doesn't go to people who want to destroy ours. If so, I don't expect the Saudis to teach their kids to love America or embrace non-Muslim religions. But if countries want good relations with us, then they have to know that whatever religious vision they teach in their public schools we expect them to teach the ``peaceful'' realization of that vision. All U.S. ambassadors need to make that part of their brief. Because if tolerance is not made universal, then coexistence is impossible. But such simple tolerance of other faiths is precisely what Saudi Arabia has not been teaching. If the Saudis cannot or will not do that, then we must conclude that the Saudi ruling family is not really on our side, and we should move quickly to lessen our dependence upon it. I was for radical energy conservation, getting rid of gas-guzzlers and reducing oil imports before Sept. 11--but I feel even more strongly about it now. ``Either we get rid of our minivans or Saudi Arabia gets rid of its text books,'' says Michael Mandelbaum, the Johns Hopkins foreign policy specialist. ``But one thing we know for sure--it's dangerous to go on assuming that the two can coexist.''

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Strickland) for bringing up this very important subject at a time when the American people are expecting to hear from us, their representatives, and also our beloved colleague, the gentlewoman from Cleveland, Ohio (Mrs. Jones), whose family obviously has enormous experience in this area, merely to say thank you to all of you for highlighting this important issue to the American public, the issue of safety in the airline industry and how important it is and what common sense it makes to have a Federal position at our various airports around the country, Federal positions, Federal responsibilities, Federal training and a program of instruction and of career advancement, so we can get the very best type of training and trained individuals to serve in these critical positions now and into the future. It would be so very easy for us to merely take the Senate bill and to pass it here; yet it has been held in abeyance now for several weeks. So there is not a commitment by the leadership of this institution to federalize these security positions. All of us flew back here over the last 2 days. We know the people out there at the airports are doing the very best that they can. But, honestly, we need to have the same kind of professionalism that we have in our security services around this country at different levels. I just wanted to thank these gentlemen for telling the American people that it is high time we took up the Senate bill and passed it here. I know that the gentleman has time remaining, and I want to give him a chance to close.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, we have another bit of evidence on why free trade does not bring freedom. The oil monarchy of Qatar wants to host the World Trade Organization talks next month, but yesterday the monarchy of Qatar condemned the actions of our brave soldiers who are fighting in Afghanistan in the war against terrorism. Qatar's foreign minister said the following: the attacks against Afghanistan are unacceptable and we have condemned them. This same government two days after the September 11 attacks denied permission for America to use its airport facilities in the campaign against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Now the United States plans to send our top trade negotiators to this country for an international trade meeting? Mr. Speaker, President Bush has said that in the war against terrorism every Nation must take sides, that each Nation must decide where it stands. The Government of Qatar made its decision yesterday, and Qatar is standing on the wrong side. President Bush has no choice. He must not permit U.S. negotiators to attend the World Trade Organization ministerial in Qatar next month. There should be no Qatar round. Free trade should bring freedom.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, tonight I would like to speak a bit about trading our freedom for oil. Imported oil and the politics it attends have reared their ugly heads too often in modern history. Osama bin Laden's vengeance reveals its newest facet. President Jimmy Carter was right when he said that the Arab oil embargoes of the 1970s, and the economic havoc created here at home, constituted the moral equivalent of war. With public consciousness high at that time, our Nation created the Department of Energy to put America on a course to become more energy self- sufficient. Conservation saved millions of barrels per day, more fuel- efficient cars stemmed the growth of rising petroleum usage, and small efforts were made to develop alternative fuels. But in reality, America was not really committed to a nonpetroleum future. By the 1990s, America had fallen asleep again. Foreign petroleum constituted half of U.S. consumption, with its share of total volume rising each year. Serious work on other fuel alternatives was largely ignored. Billions of dollars of U.S. tax subsidies continued to flow to the petroleum industry. Even the U.S. defense budget grew, including standing forces in Saudi Arabia, our largest supplier, to protect our foreign oil sources. By 2000, the U.S. imported over half of its petroleum, expending billions of dollars annually while foregoing that investment domestically. The current recession, too, has been triggered by rising prices of imported petroleum. The U.S. engaged in the Persian Gulf War after Iraq invaded Kuwait to take over its oil fields. No longer working through surrogate heads of state like the Shah of Iran, the United States became directly embroiled in Middle East oil politics in that war. Then the subsequent, decade-long U.S. containment bombing of Iraq's no-fly zones ensued. What an irony of modern history, that as our Nation bombs Iraq, we continue to purchase billions of dollars of Iraqi petroleum. Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, 5,000 U.S. troops have been stationed to regularly defend the trade path for U.S.-bound oil out of the Straits of Hormuz and into the Arabian Sea headed to our shores. Now America is at war again. This time our enemies are oil kingdom zealots whose wrath grows out of the very undemocratic regimes that weaned them. In these places, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, even Sudan, oil trade over the decades has not brought freedom nor democracy. Trillions of U.S. consumer dollars have flowed to the oil kingdoms and yielded unrepresentative governments, some tyrants, great poverty, poor education, gender bias and political instability. Indeed, trade without freedom has yielded a virulent hate towards America, equal to that directed against the oil kingdoms themselves. America must remove oil as a distorting proxy for our foreign policy. America can do this. It will take Presidential leadership and the leadership of this Congress, the kind of leadership less allied to the Carlyle Group and more allied to America's independence. As a consumer, I want to purchase an ethanol-powered car. Even though Detroit makes such a car, I cannot buy fuel for it at the pump. The oil industry has a lock on fuel sold to American consumers. But every time I buy a gallon of gas, I am angry because I know half of my money flows offshore into the pockets of cartels in undemocratic regimes. The American people must be freed to purchase a broader range of fuels. The lock of the cartels on our gas pumps must be broken. The Government of the United States should employ its antitrust powers to free our consumers at the pump, free us to purchase the fuel of our choice. For me it is ethanol produced by farmers in the Midwest. Let me buy it. Putting America on a solid energy footing will require national leadership, and our Federal Government must spur America forward, akin to the dawn of the space age and the establishment of NASA. We must demonstrate will here at home first. Becoming energy self- sufficient makes global economic sense too, because over the next 15 years world oil reserves will begin diminishing, with prices rising even higher with each barrel pumped. There is no more opportune time for our Nation to get serious. Let us free America from its dependence on foreign petroleum.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Victory Bonds Act of 2001 that was introduced by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Sweeney), the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce), and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cardin), and all those who have worked so very hard here to bring this bill to the floor, including the gentleman from New York (Mr. Houghton). Like so many other Members of this body, I also have introduced a savings bond measure and find that this one has many similarities to the one that I have introduced and would urge the support of my colleagues for, and I would ask the American people to think very hard about purchasing one of these freedom bonds in order to help in our war efforts. The amount of yield on the bond would be announced on a fairly regular basis, but it is more than is paid for a current savings account in a local financial institution and is guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the government of the United States. It is probably important to say for the record that it is also important to purchase savings bonds because in the last 20 years almost half of our public debt is now owned by foreign interests. This is a staggering figure. We pay over $370 billion a year to offshore interests to finance the spending of this economy. The past due bills for the defense of the Nation, for the bailout of the savings and loans, and for all the other expenses accrued in this government has gone up markedly over the past two decades. This is a real way to make America free again and to become independent again. I would also urge, in discussing the purposes of this particular bonds act to assist in the recovery and relief operations following the terrorist acts, including humanitarian assistance and to combat terrorism, that probably the key way that America can become independent again is to cut our chief strategic vulnerability, which is our dependence on imported petroleum. It is no coincidence that Saudi Arabia is the major nation in the Middle East from which this Nation imports petroleum. Of course, we import also from Venezuela, Mexico, Nigeria, and other places where democracy is not exactly in full bloom. So I would hope that as these bonds are purchased by the American people, that we would look very hard at energy independence for our country and begin to wean ourselves off our very dangerous dependence on imported petroleum. In fact, to combat terrorism in the future, the most important way to do that is for us to be independent here at home and to use some of these dollars for investment in renewable technologies here in the United States, in clean technologies, in the biofuels that we can produce off our land, and in the clean coal reserves that we can develop, where we have more Btus underground than the Middle East has in Btus in the form of petroleum. So I want to commend the authors of this legislation to create freedom bonds and ask the entire American public to participate in this. Think about this for Christmas and holiday gifts; think about it for anniversary and graduation presents. It is the most important purchase Americans can make this year, particularly when the proceeds are invested in job producing projects here at home, and not just idle consumption but in fact produce new wealth creation industries here at home. I would hope that kind of creativity is a part of the execution of these Freedom Bond Acts, and in closing, I offer full support for this measure, Mr. Speaker.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) for bringing us together this evening so all of us coast to coast can express our union and solidarity with the women of Afghanistan, with those who are in country with their children, for those who have fled and are fleeing and are in refugee camps in Iran, in Pakistan, in Tajikistan, and God knows where else. As I have read the press reports and I have been watching television and reading the newspapers and looking at the demonstrators and thinking about our role in the world and that region of the world, I keep looking for women and every picture only has men. Men fighting, men drinking tea, men demonstrating, and I keep saying, where are the women? Where are the women? Knowing that war has ravaged through that region for many, many years; and obviously there are more women than men. The demographics alone, because of war, would attest to that. So where are they? In coming here to this chamber this evening I kept thinking about the words of the great Negro national anthem, and the words that ring in my ears tonight, ``God of our silent tears, God of our weary years,'' a song borne of the great struggle for freedom in our own land and across the world, of those who were placed in slavery and whose heroic history has been so much part of America's own struggle for liberty. I kept thinking about the silent tears of the women of Afghanistan and so many women of the Middle East and Central Asia. I thought about their silent tears. I thought most of the world never sees those tears because we do not see them, and under that burqa you cannot see anything. In fact, I tried to look out of it as I handled it on the floor, and one cannot really see very well out of it. It looks like you are looking through a multi-screened door where so much of the light is shut out. Truly you feel like a prisoner. It is a visible symbol of the abysmal human rights record of the Taliban regime and the fact that women have no official dignity. In fact, they are beasts of burden. They are there to cook. They are there to carry their children and to bury their children. And they have absolutely no moment, no moment, no place, no home. No place of comfort. No place to hide, no place just to be. They are in our hearts this evening because many of us understand some of the tinges of oppression, but nothing like what they are living through. Others this evening have talked about their lack of access to health care and the fact that they can receive no health services. I can remember Congresswoman Pat Schroeder on this floor one evening talking about the fact that during World War I, more women died in childbirth than people were killed in the war. This is before health services were available to people. Can you imagine the struggle of bearing a child in Afghanistan? God of our silent tears; God of our weary years. We think of them especially tonight. I learned from the world food program last week that, of course, the United States has provided some of the meager food sustenance that has kept that population alive over the last several years. Over 257 bakeries have been started inside Afghanistan just to make use of the raw wheat, and the diet basically is a piece of wheat bread that looks like pita and tea, that is about what the average person eats every day. But the Taliban had ruled that because women, the mothers, the widows, were feeding the people and working in those bakeries, that they would shut those bakeries down because, in fact, women were doing the work and women were not allowed to be seen in public. And there was such civil unrest across that country that the Taliban reversed its own ruling because the people were fighting for their own survival in a country that is now prefamine and the world community is desperately trying to find ways to move donkey trains in there with wheat bags and trying to move product in any way that we can in order to help the civilian populations. We know the majority of people trying to feed the desperate are women and many of them are widows. Tonight, I know that every single woman here thinks about the future, and every man and woman in our country wants to help those who are in dire need. I know that in the weeks ahead, this Women's Caucus through the leadership of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender- McDonald), who has just been fantastic in her leadership on this issue, and so many others is going to make sure that our Women's Caucus keeps in sight, in fact right in the bull's-eye of U.S. policy in that region of the world humanitarian assistance and food programs, in fact, linking our food programs to education wherever we can possibly do it and that America's true greatness and the generosity of its people will be seen extending a hand across the ocean and a hand across a forgotten part of the world. We want every life that can be saved to be saved, and we know that our first partners in this effort will be the women of Afghanistan who know the price of life and the price of death. This evening, we rise in their honor. Those of us who are wearing these little squibs of cloth cut from the burqa, we will not forget them. We ask the God of silent tears and God of weary years to be with them, to protect them and to know that we are in sisterhood and brotherhood with them.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a remarkable woman in my district, Patricia Posey, who passed from this life on September 12, 2001. Pat lived a life of true riches for 77 years, sowing seeds which rooted deep in our community and which will flower for generations. A master gardener, her love of this pastime and the beautiful bounty her efforts produced became legendary in West Toledo. Her gardening genius was well recognized, and she was published in several local, regional, and national magazines. Pat enjoyed sharing of her labor of love in the garden by hosting dinners featuring her produce. She was a winner of PBS' Victory Garden contest as well as local contests. Certified by the Ohio State University's Extension Service and the Lucas County Co-Operative, Pat mentored others to become master gardeners as well. Founder of the Toledo Mud Hands Garden Club and member of the American Horticulture Society, Pat's garden was even recognized by the National Wildlife Foundation as a wildlife refuge. Truly a woman of substance, Pat volunteered for Grace Community Center, Feed Your Neighbor, and Love for Children. Her work as director of Toledo New Careers Program and later 15-year director of Stautzenberger Business College earned her The Golden Nike Award from the Ohio Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs. She enjoyed sewing, cooking and baking, making over 2000 pastries every Christmas and canning dozens of jars of produce from her garden. Our heartfelt condolences to Pat's son, Joseph, her brothers and sister Barney, Leo, Mel and Alma, grandchildren Samuel and Hannah, great-grandchild Lucas, her nieces and nephews, relatives and friends. I know the memory of Pat will be carried carefully in their hearts and on a sweet Spring day when the earth is fresh and the garden new they will share the moment with her, smiling.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to pay tribute to Julia Pappas of my district, who passed from this life after 94 years on February 28, 2001. As another political season draws near and with recent events bringing out the patriotism of Americans, Julia's life and example of citizenship should be reflected upon and recognized. Born on Christmas Day 1907 in Andrianoupolis Thrace Asia Minor, Julia was an immigrant to the United States. Even as she reveled in her Greek heritage, she became fully immersed in her adopted homeland's society. She was avidly involved in grassroots politics, and could always be counted on for support. She understood better than many that the right of American citizenship came with civic responsibility, and was a strong advocate for citizen participation in our political process. Julia was a dedicated member of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, where her presence was familiar and her involvement in church activity second-to-none. She truly lived her faith showing through word and deed its importance to her. She was a member of the Cathedral's Daughters of Penelope, AHEPA Auxiliary, and the Philoptochos Society. She was also a Red Cross and Lucas County Democratic Party volunteer. A lifelong traveler, Julia saw the world and reported on her travels to others, enabling them to understand the different cultures of our world. She was able to realize ``a lifelong dream'' of visiting Jerusalem, a trip she felt deeply. Twice widowed, Julia was an absolutely devoted wife, mother, grandmother and greatgrandmother. She thoroughly enjoyed watching her grandchildren grow and participated in their lives. I know her daughter Helen and daughter-in-law Patricia, along with her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and extended family have many cherished memories of her. A true lover of life with a strength of spirit unmatched, Julia Pappas came to embody the actress Helen Hayes' retort that ``Old age is not something to which I have arrived kicking and screaming, it is something I have achieved.'' Few have achieved it with more grace and aplomb than Julia Pappas, beloved wife, mother, grandmother ``Yia Yia'' and friend.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize a most auspicious event in the life of Salem Lutheran Church in Toledo, Ohio. On Sunday, November 4, 2001, the congregation will celebrate its 160th anniversary. Such an occasion is truly a monument to faith. Salem is Toledo's first and oldest Lutheran church, having been founded in 1842 in one of Toledo's most historic neighborhoods, the near North End. Originally made up of the German, Greek and Syrian immigrants in the neighborhood at that time, the church's congregation changed through the years and remains reflective of the diversity of its neighborhood yet today. Particularly in its second century of life, Salem Lutheran Church has been a place of constancy in a neighborhood and for a people who welcome many newcomers. Comfort is found within its walls for local people, but also those who are poor and often beaten down by serious struggles of life. The church's building houses not only a place of worship but also provides a place for its neighbors to come together to eat and for other community services and church- based programs benefiting them. Salem's pastor and parishioners have been active in the Toledo Area Lutheran Coalition, a cluster of churches dedicated to a cooperative relationship. It is a teaching parish, serving as a host site for Synod youth interns and seminary interns several times since 1994. In the words of its current pastor, today ``Salem serves as a model for central city multicultural ministry, offering an ecumenical ministry site . . . to grow in service.'' She describes the congregation's move toward the future noting, ``there is a sense of gratitude we are still here, an awareness of the resurrection power of God, and a renewed sense of mission with the people of our neighborhood.'' Following Christ's admonition, whatsoever you do to the least among us, that you do unto Me, the congregation of Salem Lutheran Church flowered in the neighborhood in which these He described have lived. In its past, its present, and into its future, Salem Lutheran Church will always be a place of faith, hope, and love, and a testament to Christ's Word and the perseverance of His followers. As today's congregation reflects on its past and is inspired by its future, I am pleased to offer my voice to the chorus of congratulations on its 160th anniversary.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life of the Imam Abdelmoneim Mahmoud Khattab, Imam Emeritus of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo. Imam Khattab passed from this life on September 15, 2001 after courageously battling cancer. The Imam was born in a village near Cairo and eventually attended Al- Azhar University in Egypt. He received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in that ancient institution of learning. After graduating he worked briefly for the Egyptian consulate in Calcutta, then returned to Al-Azhar to lead the Institute of Foreign Languages. In 1964, the university appointed him to direct the Canadian Islamic Center in Edmonton, Alberta. While there, he received a second graduate degree, in Sociology, from the University of Alberta and completed work toward a doctoral degree from the University of Waterloo. Prior to his arrival in Northwest Ohio in 1980, Imam Khattab was the director of London, Ontario's Islamic Center. His arrival in Toledo preceded the groundbreaking of our own community's Islamic Center, and he guided its construction and philosophy. A decade later, he led the effort to establish a chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Toledo and he established a training center at the Islamic Center for students of Al-Azhur to train to become Imams for American Muslim communities. Imam Khattab was truly a man of enlightenment. His wise and thoughtful counsel could be counted on even in the most troubling of times, and he was both friend and mentor to many. Quietly persistent, combining his sense of humor and powers of persuasion, he led the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo on a path of prominence not only in our community but our country. Imam Khattab's successor, Imam Farouq Aboelzahab, described his theology: ``When he talked about Islam, he talked about Islam as a religion of love and humanity. He represented Islam as a religion that cares about human beings, regardless ethnicity, national background, or religion. He committed himself to that goal.'' Noted as an original thinker, Imam Khattab was a true religious scholar whose teachings put him on the cutting edge of Islam in North America. Years ahead of many of his contemporaries in terms of interpretation of Islam, The Islamic Center's President noted, ``He's done so much for Islam. He never had any barriers. Nobody was ever categorized. He didn't differentiate between men and women. . . . He wasn't just the religious leader. He was in our homes. He was our friend, our father, our brother, our uncle.'' Able to make religion both global and personal, Imam Khattab earned an international reputation for bringing disparate groups together. Not only did he bring together the 22 ethnic groups that made up the families of his mosque, but also he promoted unity among all religions, focusing on the common themes between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Although he retired and returned to Ontario in 1998, Imam Khattab remained an integral part of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, returning to the mosque weekly. He also served on many regional and national organizations including the Council of Imams of North America, the World Call council, and Michigan's Interfaith Roundtable. Our deep condolences to Imam Khattab's wife Fauzia, children Khalid and Huda, brother and sisters Muhamad, Soad, and Zuhrah, as well as the entire community of the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo. The Imam may be gone in body, but his spirit lives on through the millions of lives he touched and his legacy is carried through our own work now and in the future as we build on his foundation of faith.

Ms. KAPTUR

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his assurance, and also the chairman for his interest in this issue.