Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I serve on the Judiciary Committee where we look at these types of issues. I appreciate the support of the gentleman from Virginia on this cause. As I listened to the gentleman from Massachusetts make the allegation that no doctor in no State shall prescribe medicinal marijuana, I acknowledge the statement, and the implication at least was that this is new legal ground that we are plowing here. But, in fact, the FDA says no doctor in no State shall prescribe a pharmaceutical or medicine that is not approved by the FDA. That is why we had this major debate in this Congress here a year or so ago with regard to the reimportation of drugs. So it is not new ground. It is old ground. It is old ground, and we know the cause, and we know what the driving force is behind this. It is seeking to get the camel's nose under the tent, seeking to establish a very small sliver of marijuana so that eventually the people that are behind this, that want to legalize marijuana in their individual States and across this country, can drive that wedge in and eventually be able to legalize this substance that has not been supported by any branch of medicine that I can identify. The American Medical Association, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Glaucoma Society, Academy of Ophthalmology, Cancer Society all have rejected marijuana for medical purposes. What we have here is an initiative that is designed to advance a social agenda, the social agenda of the people that want to legalize marijuana. And, in fact, if we do that, we are going to see it planted in more places around this country, not less, and more accessible to more people, and this society will be more replete with the abuse of this hallucinogenic drug, a gateway drug that reduces the productivity of the American people and causes more people to get on to serious drugs, such as methamphetamines, heroin, cocaine, et cetera. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for the time. In response to the gentleman from Washington, the PATRIOT Act under 215 has been used. It has been used 35 times. There have been 35 specific reports that have been presented to Congress. It has just not been used in libraries. This amendment is worse than previous law before the PATRIOT Act was passed because this creates a sanctuary and the sanctuary is listed in the Sanders amendment. It says library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, or book customer lists. That will be the place where we cannot investigate an international terrorist investigation. It establishes a sanctuary when there has not been a single case of abuse, not a single individual that can be named. We have had 12 to 13 hearings. I have asked for those records to be presented to our Committee on the Judiciary. The request has been made by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) as well. We have zero records that have been offered, not a single name of an individual that has been abused. I would ask my colleagues, inform your constituents. Do not be concerned about the fear, about the phobia of this abuse of civil liberties, but send the message to your constituents that this has been properly used. A report comes back to Congress. If there is an abuse, we will deal with it. So we want to know about that abuse.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for the opportunity to say a few words with regard to the Nadler amendment, an amendment that would prohibit the use of national security letters to get medical reports of all kinds. That would also include insurance company records which qualify as financial institutions. We have another amendment on the floor of this Congress which qualifies as a sanctuary amendment. It carves out another region that terrorists then would know that they can go ahead and go in and operate on without fear of government intervention or government investigation. In fact, there is a significant case. Suspects have bought bulk amounts of Cipro, which is the antidote for anthrax. That may be an indicator of a dirty bomb or a series of dirty bombs that could be set up and staged and the perpetrators would want to have the antidote. Could that also be the case for smallpox? These kinds of indicators need to be available to our investigators. This creation of this fear of Big Brother, this relentless attack on the PATRIOT Act without substance is causing concern amongst the citizens. I have civil libertarian instincts within me, but I have come to the conclusion that we are far safer, the requirement that these reports come back to Congress and we review those reports, we are far safer that way than we are erring on the side of liberty safety without merit on the other side. I think it is important that we put protections in the PATRIOT Act. The standards that have been there before with criminal investigations are higher for the PATRIOT Act, not lower. We did not expand any access into information to speak of. We made a high standard. That high standard is held and it is maintained, and the records come back before Congress without a single case of abuse; but we want to carve out another sanctuary for another issue here to placate some people who have been caused to have fear of the PATRIOT Act by a propaganda campaign across America.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I first want to say that I appreciate the opportunity to bring this amendment forward. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) for his extraordinary work on this entire bill. I want to remark that his persistence here on the floor yesterday, today, and quite likely tomorrow has been a long marathon, and he has maintained his composure, his intellect, and his judgment. I bring before the Congress, Mr. Chairman, an amendment that seeks to upgrade this good appropriations bill that we have on Justice, and it recognizes that there is a Federal law today that prohibits sanctuary policies. Presently many cities have been enacting sanctuary policies which prohibit local police from asking about a person's immigration status or reporting illegal aliens who commit crimes to immigration authorities for deportation. The law I am referring to was passed in 1996, and it is called the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. It forbids localities from preventing their police officers from asking or reporting immigration information to the Federal Government. The existing Federal law says, and I quote, ``Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit or in any way restrict any government entity or official from sending to or receiving information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.'' Now, Mr. Chairman, despite this ban, some cities continue to prohibit their officers from asking about immigration status or providing information to the Federal Government. Make no mistake, this is a situation of local governments blatantly violating Federal law. As a result, U.S. taxpayers pay to incarcerate illegal alien prisoners who are later released back onto the streets. Sanctuary policies tie the hands of local law enforcement officers and keep illegal aliens who commit crimes in our country from being deported according to U.S. law. These sanctuary policies have disastrous consequences. A case in point, a tragic case in point, was the issue regarding a Denver police officer, Donnie Young, who was assassinated in cold blood about a month ago. The suspect in the case, Raul Garcia-Gomez, was an illegal alien, who has since fled to Mexico. He has since then actually been arrested in Mexico. But Denver has an illegal alien sanctuary policy, and it is based upon the mayor's executive order. The current mayor, by the way, is a successor mayor to the executive order, but it is still his executive order, and he could rescind that executive order. The mayor happened to also own at least a part interest in the restaurant where this illegal alien worked. They had gotten a letter from the Social Security Administration saying that this Social Security number you sent on this individual does not match the individual. But the individual continued working at the restaurant. He had sanctuary there. He was picked up three times on the streets of Denver. He offered no driver's license one time, a Mexican driver's license at least one other time, and no insurance card on another occasion. Each time he was allowed to drive away. There were at least four different opportunities for that community to enforce the laws and take action against this illegal alien, and each time he has been shielded by the sanctuary policy that is a direct violation of Federal law. Last month we passed an amendment that will provide the necessary resources and training to State and local governments so that they will be more willing and better prepared to work with the Federal Government and to protect our Nation's citizens. Even with the proper training, though, law enforcement officials cannot help in this area if they are forbidden from doing so. My amendment today would provide funding for the Department of Justice to enforce the law as it presently exists. It does not enact any new law. It does not promote a new policy. I want to repeat, it simply provides funding to see that our current law is enforced. Our State and local governments serve as the front line of defense against terrorism and criminal aliens. Every murder, every rape, every violent gang crime committed against Americans by illegal aliens is an utterly preventable crime. If we better enforce our immigration laws to keep criminals out, we will save lives. We must use the law enforcement resources that we have to enforce our laws, with the end result of making our Nation a safer place for our children and grandchildren to grow up in. This amendment simply directs $1 million of the $600-and-several million in this appropriations process to that enforcement of the existing Federal law. It is an issue that we raised last year as well. It is an issue I know the Chairman is very much concerned about. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska for yielding me time and for bringing this amendment. There has been a lot of good work done on this bill overall, but I have heard said on this floor that this bill strikes the right balance. If it does, then the bill last year and the year before and the year before did not strike the right balance, because we are seeing a reduction in these funds that go into the JAG grant. We have an intense amount of methamphetamine abuse across this country, and particularly in the Midwest. That is why you see Midwesterners down here on this floor. I will see 1,119 fewer adults and juveniles be offered up for treatment or be adjudicated due to violations of methamphetamine if we do not get this amendment passed today.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. We will see if we can get those dogs to shake hands with you.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) for organizing this Special Order tonight. I also thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) for his work on methamphetamines and drug interdiction, and for his work in this battle for our children and save and preserve the human resources that are our young people in this country. Something that I think brings methamphetamine to the Midwest ahead of many places in the country is because we have a strong work ethnic. We have people who want to put a lot of their energy and their time into working, and they do not feel so guilty about using some drugs to get behind the steering wheel of a truck or do some other things. We have cleaned up a lot of that with the commercial drivers' licenses and the drug testing that is part of it. It is far safer on the road than it used to be. But the culture remains. As the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) said, we also have access to the materials, especially anhydrous ammonia in the corn belt. That access to the materials to make drugs and that kind of culture that encourages people to use it has caused us to be more sensitive. I watched it come into Iowa 10 years ago. I have spent my life in the construction business running bulldozers and scrapers and excavators and loaders and trucks, and out in the sun, heat, cold and rain. We have some element that comes into that industry that does use drugs. I have hired a lot of people over the last 28 years that I spent in business. We were not without a problem or two in our crew. We were not without a confrontation of me inviting that employee into my office, closing the door, setting my chair in front of the door and taking a stand that no one will leave this room until we come to an agreement that there is going to be some rehab, some therapy, there is going to be some treatment, and you are coming out the other side of this thing a productive human being again. I have invested in this from a human standpoint, from a financial standpoint, and from a policy and legislative standpoint. In fact, the one single bill that I worked the hardest on in my entire legislative career was 2 years in the Iowa Senate to pass a good workplace drug testing law that we have in Iowa today. It took 2 years to get there, and it took nearly 12 months out of every year of relentless pounding to get that last vote, and we passed it by one vote. It has been in law since St. Patrick's Day of 1998. It allows private sector employers in Iowa to guarantee a drug-free workplace. We are invested in this Iowa. We are invested in this in an intensive way. We understand the loss of human resources. In fact, if I had a magic wand, if God granted me the power to do a single thing today, and his message was to pick one thing, cure either cancer or eliminate illegal drugs, particularly methamphethamines, in a heartbeat I would say Lord, get rid of the illegal drugs. We will find a cure for cancer eventually. We are coming along cure by cure; but drugs steal human potential. They go into a person's life when they are young and full of potential, and they change the course and direction of that life, sometimes to the morgue, as the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) pointed out. That lady was from Iowa, by the way. And sometimes it ruins their potential. Their children suffer. I believe that we need to do a lot of things to bring this drug scourge under control. One of them is to step up and do the funding necessary to support our law enforcement in their interdiction efforts. I brought along this chart, this chart is similar to the chart that the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Terry) pointed out. It fits the same numbers. It is a little different way of presenting it, but it works out like this. The Byrne and the local law enforcement block grants fit in these categories in these previous years. And then we got to 2006, rolled them all together under the JAG grant, the Justice Assistance Grants, cut the funding and rolled them into one grant. Our President, a man whom I admire, made a proposal that we go to zero on this. I agree with the gentlemen that the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) has done good work to get us where we are today. Going from the President's recommendation of zero on up to $348 million is no small thing. But we have a big, big problem all across this country, and we need to address it with the resources. So this increase in funding is necessary. It is unusual for an individual like me to come down and say we need to increase spending, but if it is invested in anything that provides return on that investment, it is going to be in fighting and interdicting drugs. The effect on Iowa would be, as near as we can calculate, this: There would be 14 fewer multi-jurisdictional drug enforcement task forces. There would be only 11 left of 25. So there would be 41 fewer counties that had operations in them, 31 where there are 72 counties today. Out of 99 in Iowa, 72 have functioning operations. That would cut that 72 down to 31. We would have 57 fewer drug task force officers. That would be officers, prosecutors, treatment providers and other jurisdictional personnel. So we would 36 out of 93. And the volume of illegal drugs confiscated in Iowa would be reduced by 1.4 tons due to fewer task force operators and officers, and the law enforcement agencies responses to protect the public from toxic meth labs would be delayed by 709 cases. All in all, 1,919, a calculated estimated number, fewer individuals would be brought forward for assistance for substance abuse treatment and adjudication for their crimes. We know associated with illegal drugs are a whole series of crimes. These crimes include larceny, armed robbery, burglary, assault, raped, domestic abuse, child abuse and homicide. There will be fewer Iowans, fewer Americans alive a year, 2 years from now if we do not get this funding back up to where we can provide the proper resources for our law enforcement personnel. In fact, I want to say a few words about the Regional Training Center in Sioux City, Iowa, which has done a magnificent job of training law enforcement officers. They were first put into place with the assistance of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Latham) from the fourth district, the north central part of Iowa. They have reached out and done some exceptional things. I bring this sheet along to point out far the Regional Training Center has reached. They have trained 19,308 law enforcement officers from 38 different States and several foreign countries. If you step into that Regional Training Center, there are arm patches from police departments from all over the country and foreign countries. They bring the officers in, teach them the technology, the infrared technology, the sensor technology, the means to apply their law enforcement. They put them through the gymnasium. They are working out in 90 and 95 degrees, working up a sweat, working out the physical part of their job that sometimes is necessary to arrest and bring the drug users to justice. Also, they have implemented a new course there, a new course in the Regional Training Center that has for years trained law enforcement officers, over 19,000 of them. They have graduated 10 of the canine corps. I met all 10 of the canine corps one day. They were all lined up at attention. The dogs sit at attention, and they speak a foreign language. They do that so they listen to their officers. Their officers speak a foreign language to them, and they respond to that so no one else can control the dogs. These dogs all graduated with good records and fine grades as far as I could tell and by the reports that they gave me. By the way, the return on drug dogs is the best return on an investment dollar that I have seen in law enforcement with regard to dealing with drugs. The dogs are there all the time. They are essentially available 24 hours a day. It takes an officer to handle them, an officer to be trained with them. They are not cheap in their purchase and in their training, but once they go out into the field, they bring another element to them. They can sniff out drugs, they can sniff out bombs, they can control violent intruders, and they are trained to do all of that. Additionally, there is just the intimidation effect. There is the effect of when there is a dog there that is sniffing everything you have, you are not likely to bring drugs through there, and he will find them. I am looking forward to the next class to graduate. I understand that the next class is a class of 20. That will be the size of the canine corps so we can keep filling up the Midwest and the rest of the country, if all goes well, training drug dogs continually along with training officers. We will soon be over 20,000 officers. But that budget was cut last year from a $2 million previous appropriation and a $2.5 million cut, was cut down to $250,000. Some thought the decimal point just inadvertently fell in the wrong place in middle of the night with a bleary-eyed staffer, but there are not a lot of coincidences. They need their appropriation. I will be speaking with the chairman about that. I want to thank also the chairman for including that line item for the regional training center at least in the budget, although there are no earmarks for this budget, and each, according to the way it is proposed, will have to compete for those grants. I am hopeful that the Regional Training Center in Sioux City will be able to do that. They certainly have served 38 countries. It qualifies them as a national center. In fact, the name has just recently been changed to the National Training Center. Again, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska for bringing this subject before us. I look across at the speakers that have spoken so far and those to speak yet tonight. You can tell that this is a nationwide effort that we have. We care about our young people, our human potential. We want to give the tools to the people that have their lives on the line protecting us.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on H.J. Res. 27, which seeks to withdraw the approval of the United States from the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organization. During my first term in Congress, I witnessed firsthand the breakdown in affairs at the World Trade Organization's trade negations in Mexico. Negotiations collapsed as delegates from many underdeveloped countries celebrated their perceived success as an increasingly powerful band of poor farming countries, known as G-21, held strong to prevent talks from proceeding. It is important that each participating country have a voice in negotiations, but by banding together to divert trade talks, underdeveloped countries ultimately hurt themselves. No one in Europe or the United States will starve to death because of their efforts, but the citizens in their own countries will be put at risk. What occurred puts the viability of the WTO in question, but it also allows the U.S. to go forth with trade promotion authorization on its own. While I believe the WTO needs reform, I do not want us to abandon our place at the table. If America were to pull out of the WTO, we would lose the ability to influence the organization and its negotiations internally. Our farmers and producers in Iowa and across the country are some of the most efficient in the world and are capable of competing and winning in world markets, so long as they do not face unfair foreign government policies. The enforcement of a rules-based trading system through the World Trade Organization is our best opportunity to gain access to these markets for our Nation's farmers and rural communities. Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote against H.J. Res. 27 because it is clear that our economic interests continue to benefit from engagement with trading partners.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Garrett) for bringing forth this important special order and for his presentation with regard to the United Nations. I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words about how we might better reform the United Nations and how we might better direct the future of this country and the world. There has been a lot said, Mr. Speaker, about the United Nations and what kind of a structure it is. This country has for a long time believed very firmly in the sense that we can bring together an international dialogue, resolve the world's problems and avoid war. That was why the League of Nations was established and certainly why the United Nations was established. The U.N. was established in an endeavor to correct some of the mistakes that were made with the League of Nations and establish an organization that might function essentially in perpetuity in a fashion that is going to be helpful towards peace and security in the world. Unfortunately, it has not worked out so much that way, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the entire structure of the United Nations is something we do not talk about very often. It has a huge flaw, and the flaw is this, that in the minds of the people in this country and around the world we believe, since we have a forum there, we have a general assembly there that brings in voices from nearly every nation in the world and they sit in a place and they have an open forum and an open debate, that somehow that is a semblance of democracy and so, therefore, the will of the people of the world will be manifested in the policy of the United Nations. The big flaw is that many of those people that sit there are either dictators themselves or mouthpieces for dictators, people that would cut the tongues out of their own constituents if they were to stand up and speak like a free people as we do here in this country. So, therefore, the voice of the world is not heard in the United Nations. It is often the voice of the rulers, the despots. In fact, as we listened to the United Nations and the loudest voices in the United Nations prior to our engagement and liberation of Iraq, we heard a loud noise come from France, and they were organizing intensively to oppose the United States' potential operations in Iraq? That same noise came from Germany, and it came from Russia, and it came from China, where we remember those days two-and-a-half, 3 years ago. I said at the time that the decibels of resistance to a potential liberation of Iraq that came from those countries and others in addition to that can be indexed almost directly in proportion to their oil interests in Iraq and in the Middle East. In fact, at the time I did not know how prophetic that was, because we were not aware at the time of the Oil-for-Food Program. Now when you add that at least $10.1 billion worth of fraud that came with Oil-for-Food, the $5.7 billion in oil smuggling, the $4.4 billion in illicit surcharges, we know now it is bigger than that. We know the names of some of the players? We know that those players were in places where their voices were echoed in opposition to the liberation of the Iraqi people. One can only suspect their interest was to continue raking the gravy off of the Oil-for-Food Program and pocket the money themselves. So they had what is called a vested interest. In fact, if I remember the words of Barber Conable, it was, Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle. Well, their moral principle was actually an immoral principle, a principle of profit. That is part of the corruption of the United Nations. There is a sex scandal within the administration that brought actually sometimes more media than the Oil-for-Food scandal did. And then we have those things. We need to keep encouraging the investigation into the Oil-for-Food Program, and then we have the operations of peacekeeping in Africa where we have peacekeepers perpetuating sexual violence on innocent citizens, innocent people. An organization like this that does not have a legitimate oversight program truly needs a U.N. Reform Act? I am 100 percent supportive of this U.N. Reform Act. A number of the components in here are essential. I think it is essential that the United States looks at holding back and reserving some of its dues to the United Nations until we get a bright light that shines on the United Nations, until we have a United Nations that functions as truly the voice of the people of the world and has the accountability like we have here in the United States. So, with that, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman yielding on this important subject matter. It is an issue that I know the gentleman has done due diligence on and paid attention to. I rise today to address the issue of an amendment that I had prepared to offer that I will not be offering that would require the Secretary of Agriculture to report to Congress on the National Animal Identification System, including the effectiveness of the pilot programs funded in the FY 2005 budget year. Analysis of the economic impact of the proposed system on the livestock industry and the expected costs of the implementation of the system need to be part of a report. USDA has been working diligently to establish a National Animal Identification System since December of 2003. That is when they discovered bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, in a Canadian cow in Washington State. On May 5, 2005, USDA announced their Draft Strategic Plan and Draft Program Standards. The Department plans on making this a mandatory system by 2009, which would identify animals for disease surveillance. It is not a new concept, Mr. Chairman. In fact, in the 90s we had implemented a plan to address and identify cattle vaccinated for brucellosis, which is a bacterial disease that affects cattle, hogs, and other livestock. This program has been successful and is scheduled to be phased out. This is not a new thing for the USDA. I have been saying since before the discovery of BSE that we need an animal identification system that is up and running. It would be an insurance policy for livestock owners in the case of a disease outbreak. It would also be a system that is beneficial for foreign trade. It would be creative, and it would be invaluable for our marketing opportunities and for our breeding information. Overall, the need for this system is immediate. The Canadians and the Australians, whose system I have visited and observed, and others already have electronic systems in place that they continue to refine. For the sake of disease surveillance in trade, for the future of the livestock industry, I would like to see a system up and running as soon as possible. In fact, I am in the process of finishing my own bill on animal identification that I plan to introduce in the coming weeks. One of the most important and immediate needs is to know what the USDA has been doing. They have invested approximately $18 million in a pilot program working in cooperative agreements between the States and the tribes, and the accountability of the USDA yet has not been apparent to us. We need to know how these projects are progressing and how they justify their worth to the taxpayer. Also the USDA has spent another $15 million on development, infrastructure, promotion and staff overhead of the animal identification system that they are seeking to implement. It may only be the tip of the iceberg, but when the USDA issued its Draft Strategic Plan and Draft Program Standards in May, many hoped to see a cost estimate for the system. Farmers are concerned about the costs that they might have to invest into them out of their profit margins. So I have those similar concerns. I am asking the USDA to produce that report. In fact, last year in the report language of the same appropriations bill, there was a request for a report on BSE itself, and that was to be before this Congress on July 15 of 2004. We have not seen that report yet, and I hope we are able to get one. The CBO score for this proposal, by the way, I did have it scored, scored it at zero; so there is not a cost to our budget. Again, I hope we would be able to get some report language that could address this important topic of animal identification. I thank the chairman for his diligence on this issue and for yielding to me.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. I would address it this way, that I am cool towards mandatory COOL, not towards Montana or my colleague from up there. We have a situation here where we have our cart ahead of our horse. We cannot identify our meat until we can identify where it comes from. We have initiated a trace-back system for an animal ID in this Congress. That needs to be done first. I introduced that amendment in the Committee on Agriculture last year. Identify where the livestock comes from first, then have the discussion about whether it is mandatory or whether it is going to be an option for our producers. And whether it is a benefit to us from an economic standpoint, a retail standpoint, that really needs to be looked at from the marketing perspective and the more voluntary perspective. But I say delay that until we know where these animals come from. We are going to get that done in this Congress in the next couple of years, and then we can take a look at it from the perspective of what is the most legitimate approach. But right now we have our cart in front of our horse.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me time, and I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on this issue. As I listen to this debate and I am listening to the points that are being made by the other side, and, by the way, I rise in opposition to the Sweeney amendment, one of the questions that has not been answered here is what is the distinction between a steer, a hog, and a horse? Why would we elevate the horse to a level beyond that of another animal? Does it have a certain intrinsic value that distinguishes it? That is something that I would like to hear, but I think it is important for the people who own horses to manage their horses. Another question is, should horses be eaten? I have not really heard the answer to that. I know they do that in other places of the world. I have never eaten a horse. I had some zebra in Africa last year and, actually, it was the best meat I had on the continent. I never felt the desire to eat a horse, but they do that in other countries. We have a horse herd that needs to be managed. Whatever that is, whether it is a 1 percent, a 2 percent or a 10 percent of the herd that is slaughtered, all of it does something that allows them to cull out the herd. It saves those horses from disease and starvation. And if you have seen those horses as I have in dry lot that were not taken care of, you do not want to turn these horses over to the people who do not have the means to take care of them. But the U.S. horse herd should be managed. We should be humane with our animals. We should treat them well and give them veterinarian treatment, and those that do not fit into the plans need to be managed and taken care of and euthanized. Now there is also the address made that we are doing this for foreign interests, that this is for the interests of foreign markets and foreign palates. We have a balance of trade that is now a minus $617 billion a year. What is wrong with marketing American products that help that, reduce the deficit in the balance of trade? And, by the way, if it is the euros that come from France, that is okay with me. I think that is a great way for us to start to repair the balance of trade. Another thing we cannot do is set up a species in this country that sets it up as a sacred species. American horses cannot be turned into sacred cows by the Sweeney amendment.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goode) for yielding me this time and for bringing this amendment before this Chamber. We look at our borders of this Nation. No nation without borders can be a sovereign nation. Without borders, you have no nation. We have borders that are absolutely porous, and we are hearing from the criticizing media that we cannot control the borders between Iraq and Syria, between Iraq and Iran. What about controlling the borders between the United States of America and our neighbors to the south and to the north? We know we have troops that are training all over this country at bases around America and around the world. We also know it is good for morale to be engaged in something that is meaningful. What better terrain than, particularly, our southern border where coffee-stain camouflage matches that terrain as well as it does the terrain they are in in Iraq today. We are dealing with this giant haystack of illegal immigration, and we have a policy that says we are going to look for OTMs and terrorists and criminals. And we have 8 or 12 or 14 million illegals that have come across the border and live in this country today, or more; and that number is so great, we stopped 1,139,000 from coming across the border in the past year. That is how many we caught. Most people will tell you that two out of every three make it through. So out of that number and that huge haystack of 3 million or more pouring across our borders, we are going to reach in and find the needles, the terrorists or criminals or OTMs? I do not think so. I think this Nation has to mobilize the resources that is has, consistent with the Goode amendment, training the military, put them on the border not as a protection force that is going to draw from our national security at other places in the world, but put them where they can protect our national security while they train to be deployed elsewhere as well. The Minute Men that stood on the border set that standard, and I think the United States military can follow through.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge funding to redraw the flood plain maps that would assist in addressing flood plan management problems along the Missouri River. The States of Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Missouri, as well as all cities and counties bordering the river, have an immediate need for improved flood plain information along the Missouri River. The lack of incomplete data hampers the way that communities plan for their economic future and interact with state and federal agencies. The existing data is approximately 30 years old. Coupled with that, is the fact that the recently completed Upper Mississippi River System Flow Frequency Study, which includes the main-Lower Missouri below Gavins Point Dam, resulted in significant change to the existing hydrology and hydraulics along the river. This indicates that current flood plain management for the Missouri River is inaccurate and does not support the regulatory requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). This need for new information is due to the changes in land use and the pressure from development occurring all along the river. Improving the flood plain mapping, which meets the requirements of the NFIP (authorized by P.L. 86-645), can be developed working from the results of the Upper Mississippi River System Flow Frequency Study. The new flood plain information will allow development of water surface profiles and Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRM) for regulating current and future development of the 100-year and 500-year flood plains as well as the floodway along this 313-mile reach of the river.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader for yielding me this time. I ask myself this question: If we are going to deal with this debate on embryonic stem cell research, what are the ethics of this? One can go to Google and do a Google search on permissible medical experiments. And I did that, and I found that there is a list of 10 things that have to be qualifiers for permissible medical experiments on human beings. One is the subject must be a volunteer. The second one is there must be no alternative. The third one is results of animal experimentation must be proven successful prior to their experiments. The net result in death or disability cannot be accepted. The seventh one is there cannot be even a remote possibility of injury, disability, or death. The human subject must be at liberty to end the experiment. And the likely result cannot be injury, disability, or death. The exception is if a physician wants to experiment upon himself. Where do I find this information, Mr. Speaker? I find this information in the military tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, October, 1946, Nuremberg.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Peterson Amendment to end the 20 year moratoria on natural gas production from the outer continental shelf and Gulf of Mexico. High natural gas prices have not only affected the 61 percent of U.S. households that use natural gas for heating and cooking, but America's small businesses, including agriculture. The agricultural industry depends on natural gas for crop drying, irrigation, heating, farm buildings, food processing and nitrogen fertilizer production. Undoubtedly, the most demanding use of natural gas by the farm sector is in the production of nitrogen fertilizer. It accounts for 90 percent of total costs of producing fertilizer. The surge in natural gas prices over the last four years has been a key reason why nitrogen fertilizer costs have jumped by nearly 50 percent at the farm level. This problem is not going away on its own, a recent report by Iowa State University estimates that farmers can expect to pay 20 percent more for fertilizer this year than they did last year. Nitrogen fertilizer is an essential component in today's high- yielding agriculture and accounts for more than 40 percent of the total energy input per acre of corn harvested. The importance of nitrogen to crop production can be illustrated by the fact that it is applied to 96 percent of all corn acres, 86 percent of all wheat acres and 80 percent of all cotton acres. According to data from the University of Illinois, without nitrogen fertilizers, corn yields would reduce by one-third to one-half. This 20 year moratorium has created a supply squeeze for natural gas. On one hand, electric utilities and other industries have been influenced to move away from using our plentiful supplies of coal and towards the use of natural gas. Natural gas has been the fuel of choice for more than 90 percent of the new electric generation to come online in the last decade. At the same time, access to natural gas is limited due to environmental policies. Clearly we can't have it both ways. Our family farmers are already efficient. Since 1980, they have increased efficiency by 35 percent while still boosting corn yields by 40 percent. But they need Congress to produce the kind of policies that enable them to access the resources they need at a reasonable price. American agriculture is being held hostage to high natural gas prices, yet we have a plentiful supply right here in the United States. A vote in favor of the Peterson Amendment will be a vote for agriculture.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding this time to have an opportunity to address an issue that is so important to this country, and that issue is the energy that drives this economy. We all know that everything that we purchase in this country has got an energy cost component in it; and so when we address the energy issues, we know that when we can provide more supply of energy, whether it comes from someplace else on the globe, whether it comes from the northern hemisphere, whether it comes from the United States, whether it is renewable energy or whether it is a consumable energy, that is at least in theory not renewed, all of those things add to the overall size of the energy pie. It is our responsibility here in this Congress to be able to expand the size of that pie so we have more energy available to the consumers; and we know that due to the law of supply and demand, the more supply there is, of course the less relative demand there will be. The relative costs of energy will either be slowed in their increase or actually diminished in some cases, and we can see reductions in the price of energy. It is critical to me, in the part of the State I come from. We are very vulnerable to energy. We use gas and diesel fuel for the production of agriculture, for example, and we also produce ethanol and biodiesel. So we are a renewable energy export center, as well as a consumer of energy. I have watched this policy here in the United States, and we tend to take sides a little bit. That taking sides falls into a few categories: energy consumers who want all the energy they can get, as cheap as they can get it; and environmentalist interests that want to be able to preserve the pristine areas of America at whatever cost to the economy. I would take the stand that natural gas in this country, for example, we have a huge domestic supply of natural gas in the North American Continent underneath nonnational park public lands. We have a tremendous supply of natural gas offshore in the Outer Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico, and a lot of that is, as we stand here, off limits to producers. That has driven up the cost of natural gas in my district and all across this country and put an additional price on virtually everything that we sell and purchase. So, Madam Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to address this House and the opportunity also to have some time yielded to me for this important subject matter.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I would point out that Iowa and the Corn Belt are held hostage to the price of natural gas in two ways. It is our input cost for nitrogen fertilizer. Ninety percent of the cost is the cost of natural gas. The other side is that we use it to dry grain. We have to have a full energy picture. I congratulate the gentleman for bringing this amendment, fully support it, and I urge adoption of it.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I point out that the U.S.-produced nitrogen fertilizer that American farmers have historically relied upon is being outsourced to foreign producers. Of the 16\1/2\ million tons of nitrogen fertilizer production capacity that existed in this country prior to the year 2000, nearly 20 percent has been closed permanently and there are another 4 million tons, 25 percent again at risk of closing within the next 2 years. We have outsourced our nitrogen fertilizer protection to foreign countries like Venezuela and Russia, where they are subsidizing their natural gas. Here we refuse to develop our natural gas. And now we are faced with Chinese involvement in the Western hemisphere, who are involved in capital investment, and I know that there is drilling going on offshore for Cuba. I do not know if it is affected by this bill. But I know this: The gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) was right. It is not the question of whether we are going to drill for this oil. We will do it sometime. It is just a question of whether we do it before or after we lose the jobs, before or after we lose the production of this natural gas to foreign countries.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and particularly the gentleman from California (Chairman Cox) for yielding me time and for working and participating on this amendment. I rise today in support of the Cox-Sensenbrenner amendment which authorizes funding to train State and local law enforcement officers to perform immigration officer functions. I submitted a nearly identical amendment to the Committee on Rules because I believe this amendment provides the help our local law enforcement needs to enforce our Nation's immigration laws and keep our citizens safe. I am proud to stand today with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), my chairman, and the author of the underlying bill, the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the Committee on Homeland Security chairman, to urge my colleagues to support this funding. Under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, State and local governments can enter into cooperative agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to train on Federal immigration law and be reimbursed for that training. This amendment would authorize the funds needed for that reimbursement for States all across this Nation. There are two reasons to encourage local police to assist in enforcing immigration laws. First, while there are an estimated 8 to 10 million illegal aliens in the United States, ICE currently has only about 2,000 special agents to identify and remove them. Second, local officers come into contact with many of those illegal aliens, especially criminal aliens, daily in performing their duties. So it is a practical marriage. The House Committee on the Judiciary has promoted and supported local immigration enforcement since section 287(g) was added to the INA in 1996. In January of 2002, the Committee on the Judiciary pressed the Attorney General to accept local assistance in enforcing the immigration laws. As the then-Immigration Subcommittee chairman stated, ``In light of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, and the growing problem of illegal immigration into the United States, this is perhaps the most pressing time for the Department of Justice to consider utilizing the power'' conveyed under section 287(g). The Federal Government subsequently authorized officers to perform immigration enforcement functions with Florida and Alabama. The Committee on the Judiciary has revisited this issue in evaluating interior immigration enforcement, in examining sanctuary policies in a number of major cities, and in assessing the inherent authority of local police to enforce the immigration laws. This amendment is an improvement over a narrow provision struck from H.R. 1817 during the markup of the legislation on May 12. That narrowly tailored provision applied only to States with a location 30 miles from a border or coastline. In order to truly protect our citizens from those who have entered our country illegally to do them harm, this policy must be applied nationwide. As an April 2005 Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims hearing revealed, alien gang violence has followed immigration patterns from the ports and borders into the communities of the interior United States. Similarly, new reports indicate that local police far from the nearest national border confront alien criminals and smugglers on a daily basis. So in summary, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in support of this amendment that addresses the necessary cooperation between local law enforcement, both local and State, and the Federal educational support so that we can build that level of cooperation.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this Chamber and address the Speaker and the House. I would like to speak about the embryonic stem cell research that is a matter of discussion around this Congress intensively in the last weeks and months as we have been here. I would like to join some of my colleagues in explaining the progress and promise of adult stem cell research, and I would like to also dispel many of the myths promoted by those urging more Federal funding for the destruction of human embryos required for embryonic stem cell research. I am for stem cell research, adult stem cell research. I am not for ending human life in the process of trying to find a cure for the lives of others. Among the favorite myths of proponents of embryonic stem cell research is the legend that there are 400,000 embryos stored at IVF clinics that are simply going to be discarded. So we should derive some benefit from them, my opponents say. This figure has become so fixed in their rhetoric that it now seems to be a fact. Members of both Houses, in a letter to President Bush, even cited the number, the 400,000 number, in an effort to get President Bush to change his current policy on the funding of embryonic stem cell research. These proponents then use that number to create the assumption that an equally large number of therapeutic stem cells can be derived from them. Here is why this argument is wrong, Mr. Speaker: IVF embryos will not just die anyway. Most IVF embryos are designated for implantation, and the rest can be adopted. In 1995 about 500,000 women were seeking to adopt a child. That would be 500,000 families, most of them husbands and wives. Seventy-five children are alive and well today who started life as frozen embryos. All of the frozen embryos have the potential to become an independent, well-adjusted human being. Only a small fraction, 2.2 percent, are slated to be discarded. Only another 2.8 percent of embryos in IVF clinics, that is, roughly 11,000, have been designated by their parents for research. That is a total of 6 percent of all the embryos presently in IVF storage that are intended for disposal or research. Only 6 percent. Ninety percent are designated for a future. More than 90 percent stored in clinics are saved for later use by parents or donated to other infertile couples for implantation. That means of the original 400,000 frozen embryos, only 11,000 are actually available to be destroyed for their stem cells. Of those available embryos, less than 275 stem cell lines would be created. That can be with private sector dollars. It does not have to be dollars extracted from the taxpayer. When we are asking the taxpayer to contribute money to the Federal Government and diverting those dollars, Mr. Speaker, to go towards embryonic stem cell research, which of necessity must end a human life, and a human life like those 75 children that have come from frozen embryos to childhood and on their way to adulthood, that is an immoral choice, a choice that we are imposing upon tens of millions of people that understand in this country that life begins at the instance of conception; and we cannot declare an embryo, a fertilized egg, that has all of the chromosomes and all the components of an individual little blessing, we cannot declare them to be something of science to be discarded. And if we roll ourselves back into history, back to the time of the Second World War, the Nazi regime, Dr. Josef Mengele, he did research on people, people who saw more than half of their world population extinguished by the Nazi regime. He did research on people because they were Jewish and put them in chambers and froze them to death and put them in heat chambers to see how much heat they could stand and put them through a whole series of scientific experiments to find out the limitations of the human body, how much suffering could they take, how much weather could they take, how much deprivation of food and water, how much torture could they take, and documented that. And civil societies have refused to use the information and the data that came from the Nazi regime because it resulted in the death of human beings. This embryonic stem cell research also results in the death of human beings, Mr. Speaker. It is the same kind of philosophy done in the name of science. We can find and have found better and other ways to produce similar and better science. We need to follow that path. There is no legal prohibition against embryonic stem cell research in this country. The debate in this Congress is about will we impose a tax upon Americans and compel them to dig into their pockets and contribute to this diabolical science that ends the life of an innocent human being for the potential of improving the life of others when we have other alternatives. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to join my colleagues in explaining the progress and promise of adult stem cell research and to dispel many of the myths promoted by those urging more federal funding for the destruction of human embryos, required for embryonic stem cell research. Among the favorite myths of proponents of embryonic stem cell research is the legend that there are 400,000 embryos stored at IVF clinics that are simply going to be discarded, so we should derive some benefit from them. This figure has become so fixed in their rhetoric that it now seems to be a fact. Members of both Houses, in a letter to President Bush, even cited the number in an effort to get President Bush to change his current policy on the funding of embryonic stem cell research. These proponents then use that number to create the assumption that an equally large number of therapeutic stem cells can be derived from them. Here is why this argument is wrong: IVF embryos will not just ``die anyway.'' Most IVF embryos are designated for implantation, and the rest can be adopted. In 1955, about 50,000 women were seeking to adopt a child. 75 children are alive and well today who started life as ``frozen embryos.'' Only a small fraction--2.2 percent--are slated to be discarded. Only another 2.8 percent of embryos in IVF clinics, roughly 11,000, have been designated by their parents for research. That is a total of 6 percent of all the embryos presently in IVF storage that are intended for disposal or research. More than 90 percent of embryos stored in IVF clinics are saved for later use by parents or donated to other infertile couples for implantation. That means of the original 400,000 frozen embryos, only 11,000 are actually available to be destroyed for their stem cells. Of those available embryos, less than 275 stem cell lines would be created. So, behind the seemingly impressive number of 400,000 frozen embryos, the reality is that the actual number of stem cell lines. likely to be produced from them is so small as to be clinically useless. In order to treat diseases--which is, as I will explain, still a very distant prospect using human embryonic stem cells--hundreds of thousands more embryos beyond those currently frozen and available for research would be needed. This could only be achieved by a deliberate effort to create new embryos for the sole purpose of destroying them-- an outcome that the use of the frozen embryos is supposed to avoid, but would most likely cause. Federal funding of this destructive embryonic stem cell research would, therefore, create an incentive to create and kill more human embryos for stem cells, which would lead to a US human embryo farm industry. There is an ethical alternative to killing these embryos: Adult and cord blood stem cells are treating patients of over 58 diseases. Even if these frozen embryos were going to be discarded anyway (which they are not), and even if there was no ethical alternative (which there is), it would still be morally wrong to kill these human embryos for experimentation. From the Nuremberg Code to the Belmont Commission, this utilitarian justification for harmful or fatal research has been soundly rejected in order to protect patients and the practice of medicine. Civilized cultures have protections in place to make sure we do not allow research on, or use organs from, death row prisoners who are ``going to die anyway,'' and we do not do research on terminally ill patients unless such research has a chance to help the patient. We take a great risk if we dehumanize human embryos and accept ``they are going to die anyway'' as how we judge what is acceptable treatment for our fellow human beings. Examples of atrocities that would be justified by the statement that the victims are going to die anyway include: Harvesting organs from and experimenting on death row inmates (like China), harvesting organs from and experimenting on the terminally ill, and submerging 15 live human unborn children into salt solution to learn if they could absorb oxygen through their skin. One fetus survived for 22 hours in an actual U.S. case. The second major myth is that the stem cells lines that could be derived from these frozen embryos have the potential to cure numerous diseases, but that such cures remain just around the corner and just out of reach because the administration refuses to fund research in which these embryos would be destroyed. This, too, is false. Adult stem cells have treated over 58 diseases in human patients in published clinical studies. Embryonic stem cells have not treated even one patient, and have mixed results--at best--in animal trials. Moreover, human embryonic stem cell research is completely legal. The debate is solely about federally funding research that requires the destruction of embryos, human beings in their earliest stages of life. President Bush is the first president to federally fund human embryonic stem cell research. He determined that such research could be funded so long as the cells had been obtained from embryos destroyed on or before August 9, 2001. Since then NIH determined that there are 78 derivations of embryonic stem cells that are eligible for Federal funding, and 22 cell lines are currently receiving Federal funds. According to the director of the National Institutes of Health, the Bush policy is sufficient for basic research. There are 16 additional ``eligible'' embryonic stem cell lines in existence that have not been ``contaminated'' by mouse feeder cells. NIH spent about $25 million on embryonic stem cell research in 2003, funding 118 research projects. HHS reports that as of February 2004, embryonic stem cell providers had shipped more than 400 lines to researchers, and there are 3,500 vials of embryonic stem cells that are waiting to be shipped to researchers. The ultimate goal of researchers is free and unfettered access to Federal dollars to create and destroy embryos for research purposes, and to employ human cloning as the method of choice. Embryonic stem cell research will not, no matter what the claims of its proponents, become the cure-all it is touted as. Of the fewer than 275 potential viable stem cell lines genetical diversity will still be lacking, since minorities are poorly represented among IVF clients. Stem cells from IVF embryos will cause serious immune rejection problems if transplanted into patients. Researchers argue that to avoid immune rejection, we need to clone people to make stem cells that are genetically identical to the patient receiving the stem cell transplant. Many of my colleagues, I'm sure, have been visited by members of disease organizations, desperate for cures for their loved ones. One of the myths promoted by some of these organizations--and I believe that the families, most of the time, do not know the falsity of their statements--is that somatic cell nuclear transfer is not cloning. This is absolutely false. Somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, is the process that created Dolly, the cloned Scottish sheep. This makes me irate, that some in the scientific community would mislead victims of disease and illness and their loved ones into fighting for research they would oppose were they told the truth, and making them believe that this sort of research will cure all that ails them if they were just provided the money. Here are the facts: All medical advances (at least 58 therapies) from stem cells to date have been from ``adult'' stem cell research, which carries no ethical concerns. There have been none from embryonic cells, not even in animal studies. The benefits of research that kills living human embryos is purely speculative and has been hyped by researchers who are after federal funding and by a media that doesn't understand or report the distinction between adult and embryonic stem cells. Proponents continue to make the false claim that embryonic stem cells will cure Alzheimer's Disease. It almost certainly will not. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has irresponsibly refused to promote or fund ethical adult stem cell research, despite the fact that is it shows far more promise in treating diabetes than does research on cells derived from human embryos. This debate is purely about federal funding. Embryonic stem cell research is completely legal. Americans do not support destructive embryonic stem cell research, especially when they are provided with the facts. When respondents in a poll at the beginning of this month were told that scientists disagree on whether embryonic or adult stem cells will end up being most successful in treating diseases, 60 percent favored funding only the research avenues that raise no moral problem, while only 22 percent favored funding all stem cell research including the kind that involves destroying embryos. Killing human embryos is morally wrong. A human embryo, a person in his or her earliest stages, must be destroyed to obtain embryonic stem cells. Destroying early human life shows a profound disrespect for human life. The ends do not justify the means. Some pro-life members of Congress support funding of embryonic stem cell research on the basis that this research could save the lives of people with debilitating diseases. This obfuscation of the term ``pro-life'' is based on a utilitarian ethic. It is unethical to destroy some human lives for the betterment of the lives of others. Even President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission concluded that embryos ``deserve respect as a form of human life.'' The Commission recommended funding of embryonic stem cell research, only if there were no alternatives. Adult stem cells are currently being used to successfully treat humans suffering from many diseases. Taxpayers shouldn't spend their hard earned money on embryo destruction. Federal funding of the destruction of human embryos for research is unethical. The debate is over the use of taxpayers money, not whether it is legal. American taxpayers should not be forced to fund unethical research. The fact is that patients and their loved ones need real hope, not hype. That hope resides in non-controversial, tried-and-true adult stem cell research. When this issue comes to the floor next week, please join me in returning our focus from destructive embryonic stem cell research to adult stem cell research, which has been proven to work, is not morally controversial, and holds true promise for disease victims.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.