Steve King

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for bringing his expertise to the floor. I listened with fascination to the Russian narrative. That is one I wasn't aware of. I look forward to looking into that in further detail in the future. I see we have some freshmen who have come to the floor, apparently poised to proceed with a Special Order over the next 60 minutes. I trust this is in a great celebration of the first 100 hours and the accomplishment of the 100 hours now being in the Congressional Record, and you are here to celebrate you are finally going to have a voice in this process. Maybe next week one of you can offer an amendment and go to a subcommittee meeting and go to a hearing or do a markup, and you can get into the Congressional Record some of the things you promised your voters you were going to do. I have to believe you didn't think you would be muzzled for the first 100 hours, and you thought there would be a process for you to be allowed to offer amendments, engage in debate, go to subcommittee and committee meetings, and maybe even go before the Rules Committee and make a request and have it granted that you could bring your pet issue to this floor of Congress and actually accomplish the things that you pledged you would do. If any of you have had any of that voice up to this point, I think it would be interesting to hear that. I suspect, no, you are full of frustration, quietly, and now we are going to hear your voices, full throated, maybe in the next hour, hopefully next week. Pelosi time only says 42 hours. I am not sure if you are going to give that chance. Please make that request so we can go to real-time. Congratulations, you got it all done in the first real 100 hours. You didn't need Pelosi time. I want to hear your voice in the amendment process. Welcome to Congress. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this great honor to speak to you this afternoon. I also thank the gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, as always, I am profoundly pleased and honored to have the privilege to address you on the floor of the House of Representatives here in the United States Congress. I have had the interesting observation here as I listened to the speakers that come from the other side of the aisle that there is another story, the rest of the story is out there, and a number of things need to be discussed, and one of them is what did we actually do here in the first 100 hours, as was referenced by at least three of the speakers. In the first 100 hours, the point was made that they kept all of their promises that they would keep within the first 100 hours. We are going to disagree as to how we define that and what the results of it were, and I think it is appropriate in this democratic process that we have that is framed under this constitutional republic that we are, that we talk about and have open dialogue and debate. And that was one of the casualties, I would point out, Mr. Speaker, to this accelerated 100-hour process. The 100-hour promise was something that sounded good politically. It had a nice ring to it. The bell tolled 100 hours, so therefore the image of accomplishing these things for America was going to get done in 100 hours. Well, 100 hours can be counted a lot of different ways, and some people would have thought that at midnight, December 31, when you heard the band strike up Auld Lang Syne, then the 100 hours would begin and this harder working than ever Congress and more ethical than ever Congress and more open and more democratic than ever Congress was going to go to work, and in the first 4 days and 4 hours would accomplish these things. No, I did not actually make that point either, Mr. Speaker. I think it is appropriate for us to have a real legitimate method of keeping track of the 100 hours. If that is going to be the one promise that is sacrosanct, to accomplish these six things in the first 100 hours, then a legitimate clock is a good way to measure that. So I put up a legitimate clock and kept track of the first 100 hours. And I am going to make this concession at this point, Mr. Speaker, that these six bills, H.R. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, were passed off the floor of this Congress within the first 100 hours of a legitimate clock. My legitimate clock, and I am going to post this up here for the benefit of the people who are observing this process on the floor, Mr. Speaker, I would point out that a legitimate clock would be a clock that calculated from the moment we gavel in, the gavel in in the morning, the opening prayer, the pledge, and off into this process of floor action, until we gavel out in the evening; set your stop watch, click it on in the morning when the gavel gavels us in, shut it off in the evening when we gavel out, and then keep track of the hours. If the 100 hours is sacrosanct, if all of the other promises were subordinated to this one, 100-hour promise trumps all, then let's watch that clock closely, because everybody is eager to get to an open process in this Congress. And I point out also, Mr. Speaker, this first 100 hours has not been an open process. There has not been a legitimate hearing. There has not been a legitimate subcommittee meeting. There hasn't been a legitimate full committee meeting. There hasn't been an amendment accepted. There have been requests to offer amendments. There hasn't been an amendment that has been considered in this Congress. And there has not been a legitimate Rules Committee process that would set the parameters as to what amendments might be considered on this floor, how this debate might move forward. So the open dialogue and debate, especially my sadness goes out to the freshmen who haven't had a voice in this process. That has all been subordinated to this 100-hour promise, get these things done in the first 100 hours and then give us a little break, Mr. Cooper from Tennessee says. Cut us a little slack on that one. We are going to get around to be an open process. We are going to get around to be a more fair, a more Democratic Congress than we have been. Well, there is nothing that can be done about it, so I am going to take the gentleman from Tennessee at his word, and many other gentlemen and gentleladies from across the majority party, including the Speaker, at her word. Now, there are some reasons not to take her at her word, but I am going to take her at her word on this 100 hours. So the clock has now ticked, Mr. Speaker, and I have had the stopwatch on it all along, from gavel in the 110th Congress to gavel out, a real legitimate means of checking the time, and it turns out to be this. Real clock, 100 hours ticked over at 11:44 a.m. today Eastern Standard Time. That was when the 100 hours was up. I would have liked to have heard a bell or whistle or maybe a cannon go off that says now, let's deploy out to our hearings and committee rooms and subcommittee rooms and let's start to consider bills and amendments and let's start having an open debate process and let's start to bring the brains of all of the people that have been elected by the 300 million Americans to bear here so that we can use the resources of the knowledge and the information base from all of our districts to improve legislation. Because if you don't do that, then there is this thing that always shows up in legislation called unintended consequences. One of the unintended consequences has emerged here easily, and that was the unintended consequence of the political price, at least, that had to be paid for exempting American Samoa from the minimum wage. $3.26 an hour is something that has been labeled sweatshop labor by many people on the other side of the aisle as they demagogued the issue when they were advocating for an increase in the minimum wage. But when it came time to actually put it into play, there was an exemption for American Samoa. I happen to have a soft spot in my heart for American Samoa. My father spent some time there 60-some years ago during the Second World War and spoke fondly of American Samoans, the people, their heart, their happy spirit, and I appreciate the gentleman who represents American Samoa here on the floor of Congress. But that was an unintended consequence, I believe, that they had to pay politically, because we didn't have an open committee process. But the real 100 hours clicked over at 11:44 a.m. Now we are at about 102 hours, as I check this clock, Mr. Speaker. But the odd part of it is that there is real time, and then there is Pelosi time, Mr. Speaker. And her clock has only clicked over to 42 hours as of 11:44 this morning. I don't know if she shut it off or not. I don't know how they are actually keeping hours. We have been checking with her hours on a regular basis throughout the work here in this 110th Congress to try to understand what their rationale is for when they turn their clock on and when they turn their clock off. And they refuse to give us a single criteria of what that measure might be. So, Mr. Speaker, I can only conclude that this 100-hour clock was if things got bogged down here, was going to have to be a clock that would run out of time when the six pieces of legislation, H.R. 1 through 5, were passed, if they needed to stretch it that far, and that the rules could be changed along the way and when the clock was clicked on and off. I have tried my best to divine the rationale that only gets you to 42 hours, when we have gaveled in and gaveled out now to about 102 hours. But I do know this: This is going to be the hardest working Congress in history. That was a point also, Mr. Speaker, and at least a harder working Congress than the 109th. And you are going to measure that by being here more days. We are going to do 5 days instead of 2 or 3 days. Actually, I am thankful, Mr. Speaker, because I wanted to do 5 days here. I would like to do 5 or 6 days here, and I would like to do it for 2 or 3 weeks in a row, hard and intense. I want Members in this town so that I can network with Members of Congress and that my staff can network with their staff and we can get things done. I will point out that the individual Members are far more representative of their district if they have access to other Members of Congress and more days to carry on that kind of network and dialogue and debate and deliberation and information sharing than if there is only going to be a gavel in here for 2 days or perhaps for three. No matter how busy we are back in the district Members of Congress are more effective when they have longer periods of time here, and I would submit give us some time, Mr. Speaker, to go back to the district so that we do not lose touch with the soul of the people in our district. We have got to have the feel of the rhythm. We have got to know what the economy is doing. We have got to know the rhythm of the issues that come up. We have got to have town meetings so that people can stand up and have their voice represented here in Washington. So I am glad we are here more time, but the way it is calculated out by the Pelosi clock is this hardest working Congress may be hardest one in history, actually has only by the Pelosi clock worked 4.2 hours a day. Now from an administration that ran on a campaign of harder working, these are days that we have gaveled in. This is not any kind of stretch. We were here for 10, 11 days actually pounding this out of actually being in session, Pelosi clock only clicks over 4.2 hours. That is not a lot of time, and there are not too many folks in my district that can work 4.2 hours a day on a 5-day week or a 2-day week or a 7-day week and still feed their family. So what is the measure going to be? I have said often the people in the district need to measure this by going to the polls. But what got accomplished in these 100 hours that are, gavel in to gavel out, real clock or the 42 hours of Pelosi time, what got accomplished? Six pieces of legislation. She met that goal within a legitimate clock. Should have just had a legitimate clock. It all would have looked even better, but here is the cost to the country as this points out. This is my infinity piece, Mr. Speaker, in that we cannot quite measure this cost to the country because it has gone on too far and it has been too much. H.R. 1, cost to the taxpayers of about $6 billion, and this is the cost of some of the changes that were passed that were the 9/11 commission's recommendation, not the promise of all of the changes recommended, but some of the changes recommended, and most of this is the additional cost of examining every piece of freight that comes in from overseas. But it does not include the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission to set up a committee that is going to bring all of our homeland security appropriations process under one set of scrutiny. That was a recommendation, too, of the 9/11 Commission. That one was ignored. So all of the recommendations? No. That was a promise. The reality was spend more money, $6 billion, on something that is right now impossible to achieve, and we have set up a system that has done a very good job to inspect these freight-sealed containers in foreign ports before they are loaded on ships so we know what is coming here. Second item, H.R. 2 was the minimum wage passage. 25.8 million small business owners in America who create three out of every four new jobs are now being told you are going to have to give a $2.10 raise to all of your employees, and I have been an employer for over 28 years. I have met payroll for over 1,400 consecutive weeks. I have never paid anybody minimum wage, but I met the payroll, and I know this, that we pay on merit. So we have different levels of our wages depending upon the job they do and the level of their efficiency and their proficiency within the job. But my lowest person on the totem level, the one who is entry-level wages, if I give him a $2.00 an hour raise or a $2.10 an hour raise, I guarantee you every employee is lined up outside my office wanting their wages to go up $2 an hour, too, all the way up to the top of the chain, including everybody but the CEO who has to then take it out of whatever your net profits are. So you make a decision. Do I have as many people? Do I go buy a machine to replace some of these laborers? I am going to be innovative here. I cannot afford to give this raise to everybody because I cannot compete with my competition and sometimes my competition is illegal labor which makes it all the harder because there is not going to be a limitation on wages paid to illegal workers. 25.8 million small businesses punished in that. Meanwhile, the representative from American Samoa stands over here at this microphone within the last hour and a half and makes the argument that the economy in American Samoa cannot sustain the minimum wage. Now, why is it that Democrats can understand supply and demand and the empirical rule of supply and demand in minimum wage law that if you raise wages it will cost jobs? Why is it they can understand it when they have got it in a microcosm of American Samoa, about 60,000 people there, but they cannot understand it when it is infused out across an economy of the United States of America that is 300 million people? You take it out of that 300 million people and take it over here and say here is what happens in American Samoa, what is the impact? The impact is 5,000 more jobs lost in American Samoa by some allegations. Could understand that in a microcosm, but not in a broader sense of the overall economy. That is a scary thing to think about people in charge that do not understand the basic elements of free enterprise and supply and demand and the market system. H.R. 3 forces taxpayers to pay up to $135 million to fund research that takes innocent human lives, the embryonic stem cell research mandate. Right now there is no prohibition in America against doing embryonic stem cell research with private dollars or with public dollars of any kind out there. We just were not going to appropriate your Federal tax dollars to do this. So, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is immoral to compel taxpayers to fund scientific operation that ends innocent human life for the sake of someplace down the road 50 years speculating that someone's life would be improved. There is not a sound basis for this science. This turned into a political argument. It is not a scientific debate. This has already been lost by that side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, long ago, within the last year or two, with more mountains of real scientific evidence building up that cord blood stem cell research, or that also amniotic stem cell research, much of that far more promising. If embryonic stem cell research had merit, it would attract private investment dollars. It is not. That is why they have got to come here. They have turned it into a political argument, not a scientific argument and refuse to debate the science of it. That is the cost of $135 million to taxpayers that will be spent to take innocent human life. I have, Mr. Speaker, held those little snowflake babies in my arm. I looked Sam and Ben in the eye and I looked David in the eye here a year ago, giggly, laughing, bubbly little children that were for 9 years frozen, and now they are happy, human lives that are enriching the lives of everyone around them. Parents who could not have children are now parents of real children they nurture and love. These are also adoptable embryos. Next, H.R. 4, Part D, the prescription drug that commands the Federal Government to negotiate the value of prescription drugs. There is nothing government can do to improve Part D that was passed here a couple or 3 years ago. The cost of that has gone down. It was projected to be $43 billion a year on average. Now, it is down to $30 billion a year on average. We would have never passed a Medicare policy without including prescription drugs if we had anything more than aspirin so awful back in 1965, but because there has been profit in the prescription drug industry, we now have a broad array of innovative new drugs that save thousands and thousands of American lives and improve the American lives. That is because of research and development that has been invested. This will shut down some of the research and development, and it is a mandate that puts the Federal Government in the business of these negotiations. The Federal Government does a lousy job of that. I mean, look at the price of hammers and toilet seats. You can look for the same kind of thing to be what you get with prescription drugs. Only research and development slows down, gets shut down, and that means the progress in health is diminished. H.R. 5, cost to taxpayers, $7.1 billion, and it will not help 84 million Americans with current student loans. $7.1 billion. But that $7.1 billion translates into higher tuition rates, Mr. Speaker, higher costs for education. When I have high school students who will say to me in an auditorium what are you going to do to lower my tuition costs, I ask them, what are you doing to shop for the best bang for your tuition dollar? Are you looking at the cost of the richest institution versus the private school versus the community college? Are you paying attention to take some college courses while you are in high school so you can shorten up that window of time to get your 4-year degree? A lot of them will look at me and say, well, I never thought of that; I never thought I had to be the invisible hand of the consumer when I went to college. It never occurs to them they can have more to say about the cost of tuition increase if they are smart consumers of that education and higher education. So this will raise the price of tuition, and ultimately, it does not help the problem. It makes it worse because everybody will pay more tuition, and some, a few, a small few will get a short break for a narrow window that looks to me like it is about 6 months over a 6-year period of time. H.R. 6 increases our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and hurts families and seniors with higher energy prices. We finally after years of struggle, Mr. Speaker, last year marginally opened up some of our drilling offshore in the 181 area down off of the Florida panhandle coast. We have 406 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the outer continental shelf known reserve. That is just the stuff we know, and we have not been able to drill and explore to the fashion we need to. We have a lot of oil on the outer continental shelf as well. The political barrier to going into that natural resource has been foreboding because there is an environmental political caucus over here that if anything comes up and they say, oh, that is a green issue, their brain shuts off, the curtains come down over their eyeballs. You cannot talk to them anymore because it is a green issue, and they are going to vote green. For example, a lot of them belief that ANWR is this pristine, arctic wilderness that somehow or another if we go up there and drill an environmentally friendly well will be destroyed forever and the tourism dollars for the Eskimos would never show up. Well, truthfully, and they know they have to live there, tourism is never going to be their salvation. What if we drilled an environmentally friendly well in ANWR of Alaska and no one came there to see it, then my question is, like when a tree falls in the forest, if no one hears a noise, did it make a sound? Well, if you drill an environmentally friendly well in ANWR and no one looks at it, did it damage the scenery? Not if nobody's looking, Mr. Speaker. But even if someone is looking, even if thousands are looking, no, it does not damage the scenery. I have challenged the greenies on this side of the aisle. We can fly you over the north slope of Alaska today and challenge you to point out the oil fields. I can fly you over them at 4,000 feet, and you can look down there, and unless somebody is giving you a crib sheet, you are never going to know it because these are not derricks sticking up in the sky. These are not pump jacks pumping oil out of the ground, leaking oil and spilling it into the soil, that idea of the old wildcat days you see in the movies from 80 years ago in Texas. No, these are well casings that have submersible pumps in them. You do not even see their collector pipes that go on off over to their refinery. This is as an environmentally friendly as it gets. We need to open up all of these resources, and instead, this energy initiative that passed here, H.R. 6, cuts down on the amount of energy available to Americans that can do no other, and it changes the deal, Mr. Speaker. It changes the deal. Where I come from, if you are going to put your capital on the line, a deal has to be a deal. When you look somebody in the eye, whether or not you shake their hand and you say I will do that for X money, that is a deal. We buy cattle out of the window of the pickup on main street of our towns, two or three pot loads of cattle. Yeah, that is fine, I will take these because I trust you. You keep your word; you will bring me what I want. We should do the same thing out of this Congress, but the system that is set up out there and the conditions by which some of the findings that are off in the gulf coast, and I am thinking of Chevron that has that field, appears to be something that will increase U.S. domestic oil supply by 50 percent, when that finding is opened up, those kind of deals now are no longer a deal with this piece of legislation because it directs a renegotiation of those leases to punish the very people that are producing the supply of oil that is driving down the price, that has taken us from $75 a barrel down to $53 a barrel. The more that is on the market, the lower the price gets. Now a deal is not a deal out there in the gulf coast, Mr. Speaker. A deal gets changed, and H.R. 6 says to government, go force, I say this force, renegotiation of those leases because the hook in that is that if you do not renegotiate then you will not be eligible for new leases in areas that might be the most massive oil find in the history of America. This is debilitating, and the argument was made a little bit ago that they have reduced the dependence on foreign oil. Good night, Mr. Speaker. It couldn't be any more off than 180 degrees by our measure. It has increased our dependency on Middle Eastern oil and it has reduced our availability of oil and gas onto the domestic market, when we can be pumping it out right between us and Hugo Chavez. It is going to slow down that development. And that is just some of the things on my mind as this 100 hours concludes. I hope the Speaker keeps her promise now and we can come back to work, I think on Monday, and we can gavel in here, and some of these freshmen can have a voice in this process. Not a single freshman has introduced a single amendment. They have not had a bit of impact on one word of all of this legislation that has come through. No freshman has changed one word in anything that has been passed in these first real 100 hours or the 42 hours by the Pelosi clock. I know there is a lot in the gentleman from New Mexico, and I am very interested in hearing it emerge here on the floor of this Congress, Mr. Speaker. So I would be very pleased to yield so much time as he may consume to the gentleman from New Mexico. And I would point out that we are splitting the time between now and 2:00.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 6 for a whole series of reasons. The gentleman addressed Vladimir Putin, who just nationalized $20 billion worth of Shell Oil Company's investment. You get a sense of what we have when you have those countries taking over the private investment. I, for one, don't object to profits that go into companies like Exxon, Chevron, Shell, companies that take their profits and reinvest them back into research and development and exploration. That is why oil went from $75 a barrel down to $53 a barrel, and the trend is on back down. This bill sends it the other way. I happen to represent Iowa, and Iowa produced 26 percent of the ethanol in the United States of America. That is number one of the States in the United States. We have a Nation that eclipsed Brazil in ethanol production. We have over $1 billion in private capital investment just in my congressional district for the 2006 construction season for renewable energies. That tells me that research and development is coming in the private sector. They are producing enzymes in the private sector. They will catch up, and they will take care of the cellulosic ethanol. The government does a poor job of investing those dollars. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition of H.R. 6, the CLEAN Energy Act. We need a balanced energy policy in this country. This bill hurts agriculture and renewable fuels, small petroleum companies and well as the energy sector. This bill that affects every man, woman and child in America was not even given committee consideration. I guess an iron fisted rule from the Democrats is what we have come to expect. Mr. Speaker, the liquid hydrocarbon sector supplies more then 99 percent of fuel used by Americans for transportation and operation of businesses. They produce the diesel fuel used by farmers in my district to run their tractors and combines. These are tractors and combines that plant and harvest our food in America. Natural gas is also the major cost in Nitrogen fertilizer farmers in my district use to grow corn. Corn, Mr. Speaker, is the major feedstock for ethanol in this country followed only by natural gas. This bill will hurt America's farmers by making them pay more for fuel to grow food and more for fertilizer to grow more ethanol. One last point, asphalt is made from petroleum. Asphalt is used for roads. Roads are used to transport grain to market and children to school. I wonder if the Democrats realize they will be putting additional strain on local and State governments, the largest buyers of asphalt, who will then have to raise taxes to cover their cost. To recap, this bill raises operational costs of farming in my district by making fuel and fertilizer more expensive. In addition, farmers will get hit by increased taxes from their local and country governments. While recovering royalties from the 98-99 lease issue seems like a politically friendly catch phrase, I would like to make two points on this issue. Recently, Russia forced Shell to hand over a $20 billion project. The Democrat plan to force producers to renegotiate their lease royalties or be barred from future leases is blackmail of American oil companies. This blackmail stems from a mistake from a Democrat administration. Maybe the Democrats are taking a page from Putin's energy policy playbook. They make American petroleum companies fear blackmail on two continents. Have the Democrats given any consideration to what this legislation will do to small business? Large companies are somewhat cushioned against these types of blows. Small independent oil producers are not. If they are forced into bankruptcy or mergers, all the Democrats have done is to consolidate petroleum production into fewer hands. Right now, America is importing a large sum of petroleum from unstable countries. By importing this petroleum, America is enriching her enemies. Importing oil is a fact of life right now. Since I have been in Congress, I have been saying that we need to produce more BTU's here in America. Section 345 of the 2005 Energy bill contained incentives for petroleum producers to venture into deep water. In September 2006 Chevron discovered an oil field 270 miles south-west of New Orleans. This field is projected to increase America's proven reserves by 50 percent. I don't know if Chevron took advantage of Section 345 but it sure would make it easier to convince the accountants of the need to head to deep water. H.R. 6 repeals section 345. The test-well that Chevron had to drill to find this new field cost them $100 million. The Democrats will no doubt point out the revenues reported in the media as justification for this legislation. I'm curious if the Democrats will acknowledge that the media has reported the gross revenue of oil companies. Not the net profits, but the gross receipts. As a former small business owner, I wish to remind my Democrat colleagues about simple economics about how to calculate how much profit is made. The GROSS revenue are profits before bills are paid. Once the bills are paid, the net revenues of oil companies are very much in line with other industries as stated by Congressman Cole earlier today. Some of the debt that oil companies pay is to shareholders. With the recent run-up in oil prices, oil companies have been a profitable sector to invest. When Democrat's take a bite out of the oil companies, they are taking a bite out of 401(k) plans, retirement plans and pension funds. Any tax increase on oil companies will hurt retirees and stockholders. Right now over seventeen million people rely on those funds for their retirement security. I realize that this bill contains a section that will use royalty money for renewable research. Yet, there is no provision that would prevent this account from being raided for other projects. Most of my colleagues know that Iowa is not only a consumer of energy, but a producer of energy. The Fifth District of Iowa is an energy export center, exporting ethanol and biodiesel all across this Nation. Rest assured the American consumer is driving renewable demand. It is also driving research. Ethanol is good to invest in. Ethanol companies realize that more investment means more money. Ethanol companies also realize that more ethanol means more money for investors. In order to maximize ethanol production companies are doing research to increase the yield of ethanol from feedstock. Rural investors raise money for new ethanol plants in days. Mr. Speaker, if the Democrats want research to happen for renewable energy, then clear the way of burdensome regulations. Mr. Speaker as I conclude, I wish to reiterate, H.R. 6 sounds good, but it will do nothing but drive up energy prices for the American consumer. The American consumer, who drives to work, drives kids to wrestling practice, the independent truck driver driving more miles to make ends meet. It will make it harder for the American consumer living on a fixed income to make ends meet. I ask my colleagues to join with the American consumer and oppose H.R. 6, the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I oppose this legislation, because I believe it will make seniors pay higher prices for their drugs and will restrict their access to the drugs they need. Earlier this week, I met with Dr. Mark McClellan, the former administrator for CMS. Dr. McClellan pointed out to me, while no program is perfect, Part D has proven to be very successful. Premiums seniors pay for the basic drug benefit have fallen over 40 percent from the expected premiums. CMS reports that, on average, beneficiaries are saving nearly $1,100 a year on their drug costs, with many seniors and their doctors having more drugs to choose from under Part D than they did before. Also, Part D cost nearly $13 billion less than expected in 2006, and 10-year costs have been lowered by approximately $180 billion. In order to make drugs cheaper, the Secretary will have to refuse coverage for a number of drugs that are regularly prescribed to seniors. When Medicare's list of covered drugs is shortened, either doctors will be forced to choose cheap drugs which could hurt the welfare of their patients, or seniors will be forced to pay out-of- pocket for many of the important, life-saving medications they need. I urge a ``no'' vote on this harmful legislation.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it's unethical to end one life in pursuit of helpIng others. I am for stem-cell research. I am for scientifically sound, ethical, adult stem-cell research. The failure of embryonic stem-cell experiments has dried up private research dollars. Consequently, proponents have no alternative but to pressure Congress for funding. Today, the House of Representatives passed legislation that requires taxpayers to fund science that ends innocent human lives for the questionable potential of improving the lives of others. This legislation would divert resources from truly promising treatments in favor of controversial research whose benefits remain speculative. To conduct scientific research of this type, thousands of embryos, persons at the beginning of life, must be killed. The debate is about the inherent value of human life at its earliest stage. Supporters of embryonic stem-cell research will not take a position on when life begins. They know that if they do, they cannot sustain their argument. Moral arguments aside, it is a fact that other forms of stem-cell research are resulting in treatments for people who suffer from debilitating diseases. Adult stem cells, which are extracted from umbilical-cord blood, placenta, bone marrow, nasal mucosa, hair follicles and fact cells, are today successfully used in treating real people who suffer from at least 72 specific diseases. Successes include, among the 72 diseases, Parkinson's Disease, Crohn's Disease, diabetes, spinal-cord injury, strokes, arthritis and numerous cancers, including breast, brain and leukemia. Conversely, proponents cannot name a single person with improved health due to embryonic stem-cell research. Embryonic stem cells may never produce a safe and effective treatment for any disease. The political hype declaring them a cure-all today cannot be sustained by the facts. If successful, however, the necessary next step must be to clone the cells. It is logistically impossible to provide enough embryonic stem cells without human cloning. Another falsehood is the excuse that the embryos would otherwise be thrown away. None of the embryos were created for research. Every embryo was created for the sole purpose of giving parenthood to those who yearn for it. Over 90 percent of frozen embryos are now stored by their parents, who hope to have more children or to provide for embryo adoption to other couples. At least 500,000 couples are on waiting lists to adopt children. For each available embryo, 45 couples wait in line to adopt that child. So far, more than 80 formerly frozen embryos have been adopted by families. Now these ``snowflake babies'' are giggle, screaming, playful children. It is a glorious miracle for couples who imagined they would never experience parenthood, much less pregnancy and childbirth. These ``snowflakes,'' some of whom were frozen for 9 years, are as worthy of our protection as every child. They are not medical waste. Proponents of this research say they cannot look a paraplegic in the eye and say, ``We can't experiment on frozen embryos.'' I ask them, can you hold the ``snowflake babies'' in your arms and look their moms and dads in the eye and tell them, ``I wish we had experimented on your children before they learn to walk, to talk, to love, to laugh and play?'' The American medical community has many times refused the results of critical research because the findings were achieved unethically. International standards for Permissible Medical Experiments are clear. The subject must be a volunteer, there must be no alternative, results of animal experimentation must have been proven successful, they subject must be able to voluntarily end the experiment, there must be no possibility of injury, disability, or death, and the promise must outweigh the risk. Embryonic stem-cell research violates each of these principles. Principles for Permissible Medical Experiments may be found in the military tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10, October, 1946, Nuremberg.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I would yield.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman for yielding and appreciate the privilege to address this subject matter. This motion to recommit is a motion about cloning. Many of the other civilized nations in the world have taken a position against cloning. This Congress has taken a position against cloning, but there isn't a way in the laboratory to move forward with these experiments on embryos without cloning. We are asking for a moral standard here. The people say, on the one side of this argument, No, we're opposed to human cloning; we think that's abhorrent to us; that that is ethically something that we're opposed to. This motion to recommit allows a Member to take that stand and put that vote up and say, I'm opposed to cloning, whatever you believe about the research that is involved here.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Yesterday what happened in the minimum wage bill seemed to be discriminatory for some reasons that I think we all know. I am not aware that there is a political subdivision, a geographical area or even a subdivision of some university that might have assisted----

Mr. KING of Iowa. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I would say that I am not aware of a circumstance like that, of whether there happens to be a geographical area or a political subdivision or an interest that might be from a university that could be part of this bill.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, it is always a profound honor to come to the floor of the people's House and vent what is on my mind. I would point out that your organization and timing is impeccable. I thank the gentlelady from the District for ending exactly on the hour, so it is easy to keep track of the time as we unfold the next 60 minutes. I also appreciate her remarks with regard to Abraham Lincoln. He is a hero for America, for all people of all kinds, of all colors, of all places, and a man that demonstrated profound and tremendous leadership. As I listened to the gentlelady speak about Abraham Lincoln's leadership, I reflect upon a great example of leadership that I would like to share here this evening to start out this discussion. I will say that I have been assured that this is a matter of historical fact by a Washington D.C. historian, and that is as far as I verified it, but I liked the story so much, that I would just as soon not know if it shouldn't happen to be true. But I believe it to be true, and at least its consistent with the leadership in the spirit of Abraham Lincoln. That is, in 1863, as Abraham Lincoln was considering whether to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, it was not an issue that was totally in favor with the Republican Party at the time. But as he deliberated on this issue, he called his Cabinet in, and said, I want to hear from each of you on this Emancipation Proclamation that is here, and that I am considering signing. So he started his Cabinet on his left, and all around the table, and they were all men at that time, as we know, and the ones that had the right to vote back then. The first one, the Cabinet member said, Mr. President, my advice to you is, no, don't sign the Emancipation Proclamation, because after all, the blacks that are north of the Mason-Dixon line are free today, and it doesn't help them. So the next Cabinet member chimed in, and he said, Those south of the Mason-Dixon line, you can't free them because they are in the Confederacy, so your jurisdiction doesn't reach there today. It is a gesture and a gesture only. The third Cabinet Member said, But it is, it is an empty gesture, because on the north side of the line and on the south side of line there isn't anybody that you can free with the Emancipation Proclamation. It is simply a symbolic act. As this went around the table, around the Cabinet room table, and each Cabinet member said to President Lincoln, Mr. President, my advice to you is, no, don't sign it, because among other things, you will alienate some of the people in the north that are pro-slavery that are still fighting under the blue uniform, or the Union. There was reason after reason why President Lincoln shouldn't sign the Emancipation Proclamation and not a single reason given by any member of the Cabinet as to why he should sign the Emancipation Proclamation. So it was nay, nay, nay, nay, Mr. President, all the way around that table, his best advisors. President Lincoln took ahold of his lapels, and he said, Well, gentleman, the aye has it. That story is a story of leadership, and it is a story that I hope goes down in history for a long time. So I appreciate the remarks of the gentlelady from the District and the spirit with which you deliver them. I appreciate you being here tonight. I would like to take up the issue that we had a discussion on yesterday, and that would be the discussion of the minimum wage. Now, on January 11, which was yesterday, the House passed H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, Mr. Speaker. This bill would raise the Federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, over about two or three increments in a period of 2 years and would arrive at $7.25 an hour. This bill specifically applies the minimum wage rate and hike to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I bring this to the floor, because as I spoke here earlier on the embryonic stem cell research mandate that was passed out of this Congress this afternoon, there was a question and an inquiry, I was asked to yield by the gentleman from Florida, who asked if I knew if there were any geographical carveouts or any special political subdivision carveouts or any, perhaps, university or laboratory carveouts that would show preference that we should shine some sunlight on before the vote rather than after the vote. Of course, I know of none, asking out there if there are any, and we will be looking through the bill to see more closely, now that we have had a chance to scrutinize it, if there are any carveouts of that nature. But what prompted the gentleman from Florida's inquiry was, as I went back and dug in to find out, was that there is a carveout in the minimum wage legislation that was passed yesterday. So one of the things that is specific is the application of the minimum wage to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, happens to be some islands that my father set foot on when he spent his 2\1/2\ years in the South Pacific during World War II. So I paid a little bit of attention to that because that was part of the family lore as I grew up. But the bill does nothing to foresee American Samoa to submit to the Federal minimum wage or this new hike. In fact, it specifically exempts the American Samoans from minimum wage. Now why would that be? The vote on this bill was 315-116, all Democrats voting ``aye'' and 116 Republicans voting ``no.'' But as reported in the Washington Times today that although the legislation specifically extends for the first time the Federal minimum wage to the U.S. territory of the Northern Mariana Islands, it exempts American Samoa, which is another Pacific island territory that would become, the only U.S. territory not subjected to the Federal minimum wage laws. The only territory, the only location in the jurisdiction of the United States of America exempted from Federal minimum wage law would be American Samoans. This loophole pleases the tuna corporations that employ thousands of Samoans in canneries at a rate of $3.26 an hour. It is an industry- specific rate that is set by the U.S. Department of Labor. But the tuna industry has lobbied Congress for years arguing that imposing the Federal minimum wage on Samoa would cripple the economy by driving the canneries to poor countries that don't require a minimum wage. Then one of the biggest opponents, though, of the U.S. minimum wage there is StarKist tuna, which owns one of the two packing plants that together employ more than 5,000 Samoans. Yet StarKist is about 75 percent of that, about 3,750 employees perhaps at StarKist. Chicken of the Sea would be the other 1,250 employees, totaling the 5,000. Chicken of the Sea is also California based. But what is interesting, and I think what inspired the gentleman's inquiry this afternoon, was that StarKist's parent company, this company that has now an exemption from minimum wage law, their parent company is Del Monte Corporation, Del Monte Corporation, headquartered in San Francisco, which is the hometown, of course, of our new Speaker. Now, a spokeswoman for the Speaker said yesterday that the Speaker had not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte. That is interesting. I don't know that I could say that about any single company in my district, small company, large company. Trade associations represent multiple interests that might come into that. I am lobbied by individuals, I am lobbied by trade associations, I am lobbied by individual companies over and over again, hundreds and thousands of voices coming into my office. I welcome them all, but I could not take an oath that there is a single company in my district that has not lobbied me in any way, or, let me expand that, even if that were true, there is no way I could take the oath that not a single company has lobbied any of my staff. There are decisions made by my staff that I take responsibility for. That reflects upon me. So one could impute from this statement that the Speaker has not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte. One can impute to that that also includes the Speaker's staff. I couldn't make that statement about a single company in my district, but this large company, larger than any company in my district, and domiciled in and headquartered in San Francisco, has had no contact with the Speaker's office or staff over any period of time, over, not just within the last week, but over the last 2 years, 4 years, 6 years or more? I think that deserves a little bit of scrutiny. But as reported in The Washington Post on January 9, aides to the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, the gentleman from California, and the sponsor of the bill said, and I quote, ``The Samoan economy does not have the diversity and vibrancy to handle the mainland's minimum wage, nor does the island have anything like the labor rights abuses that the chairman found in the Marianas.'' That is also interesting. It works good for a smokescreen for a short period of time, but here are the facts. In June of 2005, a U.S. court in Hawaii sentenced the owner of a sweatshop factory in American Samoa to 40 years in prison for what prosecutors called the biggest case ever of modern-day slavery. That isn't a small statement, and that is not a short sentence to prison, 40 years in prison for the biggest case ever of modern-day slavery in American Samoa. The chairman, who has been tracking this research on the labor problems within the Marianas and presumably American Samoa, contends that he didn't find anything going on in American Samoa that would be comparable to the labor rights abuses found in the Marianas. What would be worse than the biggest case ever of modern-day slavery of labor rights abuses? I don't know how you would define that. I will challenge the chairman, come up with those cases, explain to us how this one that was worthy of 40 years in prison, the biggest case ever of modern-day slavery, somehow or another pales in comparison to the transgressions of the Marianas, of which I don't have a single case before me. That is the argument made to the chairman and why he wrote into the bill the exemption for American Samoa where they are paid $3.26 an hour, but in the Marianas, of course, they want to include them. Well the difference is they have Republicans in the Marianas, and they have Democrats in American Samoa. But the individual in American Samoa, the labor right's abuser's name is Lee Soo-Kil, he held more than 300 victims as forced laborers in involuntary servitude at his garment factory in American Samoa. He is accused of using arrests, forced deportations and brutal physical beatings to keep workers under control. The court was told, this is in the record of the court, that he ordered a worker to gouge the eye of another worker who dared to complain about her living and working conditions in the garment factory. That abuse would not be sufficient, apparently, in the judgment of the chairman to consider that it was something that should be brought underneath the minimum wage law and under some more scrutiny in American Samoa. It is certainly an act that would exempt you from the minimum wage. Democrats said that their reign in the House would usher in a new era of transparency. Yet with the second bill they bring to the floor, eyebrows are raised at the thought of a lucrative carveout from a company with a parent company headquartered in the hometown of our new Speaker. It didn't take very long for these things to start to pop up. Over and over again Democrats claim that the minimum wage needed to be raised as a matter of fairness and human decency. Yet, yet, apparently workers in American Samoa don't count in the Democrats' view. Mr. Faleomavaega, who is a representative of American Samoa, has said he doesn't believe his island's economy could handle the Federal minimum wage because of competition in the tuna industry from South America and Asian canning interests, a place where they are paying as low as $.66 to $.67 cents an hour. We are going to cater to and let competition be affected by that kind of sweatshop labor that is taking place in South America and Asian canneries. But apparently the Democrats are under the impression that the laws of economic competition are only applicable to American Samoa and have no bearing on the goods and the countless business manufacturers elsewhere in the United States, and that also includes the Marianas, which are geographically close, similarly situated, but not specifically exempted like American Samoa. The United States needs to be competitive and be able to sell abroad. But while the small businesses in my district, who often pay more than the federally mandated minimum page, I would say almost always pay more, they provide employment to countless hardworking Americans, and some of them struggle each month to make their payrolls. Democrats have allowed employers in American Samoa to avoid this burdensome Federal mandate, but not those in the Marianas, not those anywhere else in the American territories, not anywhere under the jurisdiction of the United States of America, except American Samoa, where you have two large tuna companies, and one of them's parent company is domiciled in San Francisco. I don't understand how Democrats see their economic principles make the minimum wage a bad idea for American Samoa, but not a bad thing for Main Street in small town USA. They pledge to bring transparency to the legislative process, and yet they refuse to submit their 100-hours legislation to the regular committee process. I may take that issue up a little bit later. What I would very much like to do at this point in this conversation with you and the American people would be to yield to my friend, the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. McHenry, for his remarks on whatever issue he might have come to the floor to address.

Mr. KING of Iowa. As I am listening to this dialogue that we have going on here and I start to think about, you know, a lot of us see this broader economy, we see this multi-trillion GDP that we have, and we see the components of small businesses, large businesses, family farms, and these operations that are going on, the interrelationships of them. Some families run more than one business. And I have taken the position, and many of us have, that whenever you raise the minimum wage, ultimately you will lose jobs. We understand this, and we have made this argument and this debate, and we will continue to make this argument and this debate. But I am going to say the people who voted for this minimum wage, at least the people who supported the idea of exempting American Samoa from the minimum wage, can only understand this law of supply and demand and this argument that is a fundamental, basic economic principle that when you mandate an increase in wages, the employer will have to make a decision as to whether to keep those employees or not or to lay them off and maybe move their operations elsewhere, or bring some machinery in to replace the labor. The inevitable result of raising a minimum wage is the loss of jobs. But I am going to speculate this, Mr. McHenry. I am going to speculate that when it is addressed within the microcosm of a single business on a single island, then the chairman of the committee actually understood that equation and decided that he would draft in an exemption for American Samoa for that fishy business that you addressed. Because when it is a microcosm of a single island and a single company, maybe it was comprehensible the impact of a minimum wage there.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I pose a question back, and that is a statement has been released by a spokeswoman for the Speaker with regard to this, because this has been something that has been published across the country. And it says that the Speaker has not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte. Now, not lobbied in any way. That is a broad statement that a lawyer probably couldn't write it any more broadly than that. It may well have been a lawyer who said it. And I reflected moments ago about, I couldn't make that statement about a single company no matter how small in my district, because they either talk to me or my staff or maybe sent me a letter or called on the phone or sent me an e-mail, or maybe called in on a telephone while I was doing a talk radio show and I didn't know who they were. How could one make a statement that she hadn't been lobbied in any way? Could you make that statement about a single business in your district?

Mr. KING of Iowa. I would ask the gentleman if he could repeat his question.

Mr. KING of Iowa. In response to the gentleman from New Jersey, I would have to say that there is no other way I can analyze that. There are actually only two arguments. One of them is the argument that is put forth by the representative from American Samoa who says that the tuna industry can't withstand the competition if they have to pay a minimum wage. So something more than $3.26 an hour would take those tuna companies out of business, and they would apparently leave the island. And they couldn't go to the Marianas because there is a minimum wage imposed there, so presumably they would go to South America or maybe Asia. The other argument of course is this exemption will let those tuna companies that are there continue to make a lot of money off of cheap labor that is imposed there in American Samoa where it is exempted from, the only location in all of American territories and jurisdictions that is exempted from Federal law. That is what is in this legislation that is before us.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time, I would take a stab at that and submit off of Mr. McHenry's remarks as well that when you have a closed process and in fact it is not necessarily a closed process; it is a no process, no process for hearings, no process for subcommittee, no process for full committee, no process for Rules Committee and no process on the floor that allows for any amendments, then there is no way to go back and really identify who is going to get the credit for this brilliant exemption that has been drafted into the minimum wage bill. So we can only then rely on the open press, the press accounts, and I am grateful that we do have a first amendment because they have gone back and reported and have publicly not been refuted remarks made by the chairman of the committee, who has gone to the Pacific and examined the labor circumstances there and found that the labor circumstances in American Samoa justify exemptions, but those in the Marianas do not justify exemptions, just to draw a real close comparison there, even though the worst example of a sweat shop that prosecutors had ever seen was the perpetrator that was sentenced to 40 years for abusing 300 employees in American Samoa. And so the exemption, then, is admitted publicly by the chairman of the committee as being drafted into the bill under his advice and his request, and that is the closest thing we have, but there is no opportunity to amend it in or out or to add to or detract from. And the people I feel the most sorry for are not Mr. Garrett from New Jersey or Mr. McHenry from North Carolina. My sympathy lies with the large number of freshmen Democrats who have arrived here in this Congress under the belief and having committed to their constituents that they are going to add to this cause, that they are going to add to this process, that their voice will be heard, that they will be bring representation from their district to Washington, D.C., where a lot of them allege they did not have representation, and they are the ones shut out of the process without a voice, without an opinion, without a forum, without an amendment, without any opportunity for amendment, after having made all those promises, shut out of this. All that wisdom shut out. A handful of people, maybe not even a handful of people, makes a decision like this. It is a closed process, and this is what you get with a closed process is an earmark, as Mr. McHenry said. And if the gentleman from New Jersey has more to say, I would be happy to yield.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. And it occurs to me that perhaps one's own house is not in order before the presentation of the legislation that seeks to put everyone else's house in order, and I am confident this will not be the last time that these circumstances are created here nor that they will exist when one finds themselves in a position of conflict of judgment. And these are the kinds of things that can be debated and discussed and deliberated if we have an open process. But I would point out to the gentleman from New Jersey that we are closing in perhaps, perhaps, on an open process. When we gaveled in here this morning, this 100 hours pledge was that this legislation, about six pieces of legislation, was to be passed in the first 100 hours, and that became the promise that trumped all other promises. The promises of an open system, bipartisanship, dialogue, the most open and the most ethical Congress in history, all of these things, many of them have been compromised already because you can't have an open Congress and get these things done, apparently, in the first 100 hours. So the 100-hour promise is the one that is sacrosanct, and the rest of their promises are being broken in an attempt to try to pass this legislation in the first 100 hours. Well, my report tonight, Mr. Speaker, is to bring everyone up to date on how far we are. And we have tried objectively to produce a legitimate 100-hour clock. And I know there is from, the other side of the aisle, a stopwatch put on that. Well, we don't want to count, after we gavel in for the 110th Congress, the time that it takes to swear in because that is not really legislative time, and we don't want to count the time it takes to vote for the Speaker, Mr. Speaker, because that takes also away from our legislative time. We really only want to start this 100-hour clock when it is convenient to do so, and we are going to count time in our own way, and the 100 hours is not going to be up until we get this legislation that we promised we would do in the 100 hours. That is the measure. So keep changing the definition on what the 100 hours is until you get things accomplished. Then you say, yes, we did. We kept our promise. Well, this was a promise that was purely a political promise. The American people have waited for this legislation for over 200 years. To hurry up and rush it through and set aside an open dialogue, set aside the amendment process, shut down and not allow subcommittee, committee or Rules Committee or floor amendments, do all of that so you can keep a 100-hours promise. So, anyway, the least we can do is have a legitimate clock on the 100 hours. I produced this legitimate clock, Mr. Speaker, and this morning when we gaveled in with an opening prayer and a pledge, when we did so this morning, we were sitting at 42 real hours. This is the hours here on the floor from the time we gavel in until the time we gavel out. How could anyone argue that that is not legitimate? We are not counting 24 hours a day. We are counting the real time that there is someone sitting in the Speaker's chair and the clock is ticking. So to bring you up to date, we are now at 52 hours when this began. It will be 53 hours here in about 18 minutes. Now we are halfway. We have been further than we have to go, and my recommendation would be just throw this idea away. Suspend this idea of 100 hours because it is what is usurping the open dialogue, the appropriate process, the most ethical Congress in history, the most sunlight on everything we are doing. As I listened to the news over the weekend, the gentleman from Tennessee, when asked the question, Mr. Speaker, about the 100 hours, he said: Well, no, we really can't comply with the open bipartisanship. Just give us a little break on that. Let us get our 100 hours done, and when the 100 hours is over, I believe we are going to go to this open process, this bipartisanship, and actually use the committees and the expertise of the Members here, hopefully the freshmen, especially the Democrat freshmen, giving them a chance, Mr. Speaker. So that was his plea. Give us a break and let us go ahead, and we will go, not in regular order, but we will go in a special order so that we can get done in the first 100 hours. Well, I do not agree with that. I think we ought to set this argument aside. But at least we can suspend, then, this suspension of open dialogue when the 100 hours is up. We are at 52. We will soon be at 53. It also says the cost to the country. Well, I have not done very well, Mr. Speaker, because I do not have a staff that can keep up with the cost to the country or maybe I do not have an adding machine that allows for that. And as I look at the legislation that has passed through piece after piece, some of it just can't be calculated. I didn't have a symbol on the word processor to go to infinity, so we just kind of stuck a bunch of dollar signs in here because the cost to the country is impossible to calculate. It is impossible to calculate when you pass legislation, for example, to inspect every piece of cargo that comes into our ports and the authorization becomes, and I quote from the legislation, ``such sums as may be necessary.'' Well, when we are doing legislation with authorization of ``such sums as may be necessary,'' that is more money than we can calculate. We can't put a dollar figure on that. That goes on piece after piece. How much does it cost to raise the minimum wage? How many jobs are lost? How much of our production goes oversees? What is the real effect on the American economy when and if that happens, when and if the Senate takes it up? It can't be calculated, but it is a lot of money. We will soon be at 53 hours and counting. That will take us down to 47. We have been further than we have to go. We are over the top. We are going to narrow this thing down. And when we get to the 100 hours, the real 100 hours, I am hopeful that this Congress will then wake up and say, we have another promise we want to keep rather than one we want to break, and that is going to be to bring the freshmen into this process. We will give the freshmen an opportunity to go to a subcommittee and sit down at a hearing and begin to get informed so they can make informed decisions on behalf of their constituents. We need that kind of process. The Constitution envisions that kind of process. In fact, it requires it. I am for an open system, and I am for sunlight on all of this. I am for sunlight even on StarKist, and even on Chicken of the Sea and even on San Francisco and even on American Samoa. And I am for sunlight on the Marianas as well. I am for sunlight on everything that we can provide, and I am for real-time reporting. Every American has access to the Internet today. Whether they own a computer at home or go to the library, they can sit down to a computer. And I believe all of the records, the records of the lobbyists' contributions to Members of Congress, maybe contributions that came from Del Monte or StarKist or Chicken of the Sea, we can look where those contributions went and be able to track that. If we had an open system here, if those Federal election campaign dollars were real-time reported and available on the Internet so that they were downloadable in a searchable and sortable format, we would have somebody right now sitting at home in America who would have flicked those keys and zeroed in on that and they would have by now probably e-mailed my office a summary of, a detailed list of all those campaign contributions. Probably the bloggers out there would have sleuthed out why it is that American Samoa is exempted from this minimum wage law. We know if you track the money, you can find a pretty good motivation. I didn't hear from Mr. McHenry that he could name a business in his district that had not lobbied him during his time here. I know that Mr. Garrett has been here a good 4 years and starting on the fifth year. I didn't ask that specific question, but I would ask you to respond. Mr. Garrett, is there a single business in your district that you could swear an oath had not lobbied you or your staff in any way, any form of communication that might have influenced your judgment or decision?

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. I wanted to make a few remarks about the minimum wage itself and just to go on record. We need to understand something. This is a free enterprise economy. What has made America great is because if you go back 150 years, we had a dream called manifest destiny. We had a continent that needed to be settled and developed. Individual personal capital was invested. Banks grew because they could make money off loaning, and entrepreneurs could borrow money. They were going into an environment within the continent, within the borders of the United States, in a low-tax and sometimes a no-tax environment and often no regulation, but certainly a low-regulation environment. So they invested their money. This country was settled and developed in lightning speed by historical standards because we had a very positive environment here for economic growth. Then as this society began to get a little older and began to develop, they began to take protection. So the older we get, someone would decide that they needed to have some influence and so they would want to advocate in Congress and in the State legislatures for taxes and more taxes and regulation and more regulations. That is how this has grown into this situation. But a prosperous, dynamic economy has got to be one with the least amount of regulations possible and the lowest amount of taxation necessary to keep a government functioning to provide the necessary services.

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman. As I listened to that discussion, it brings to mind some of my history. I recall I started back working for 75 cents an hour helping a farmer in the neighborhood. I think he would have paid me a dollar, but I didn't think I was worth more than 75 cents an hour. If you were to ask him today, he would probably say that would be right, you were not, Steve. I did that and I learned about machinery and the work that we were doing that was different from my home. After that I went to work in a grocery store, and there the wage was $1.20. And I stocked shelves and carried out groceries and learned about the grocery trade. So I worked there when school was out, and then it was summertime. I realized that the butcher was making pretty good money. That was before we had the kind of packing plants that we have today. So there was more demand for people who could cut meat. I thought I might as well learn a trade. First I talked to the butcher, and he said he would take me on. And then I went to the manager and asked the manager. The manager said, yes, you can work in the meat department but that is not where I need you, so I can't pay you. Well, I want to learn a trade. Fine, you can go back there and work. And so I agreed to work in the meat department for nothing. So I would work 40 hours a week in the grocery store, and then I would work 20 to 40 hours a week in the meat department with no pay. It would have been in violation of this minimum wage law, but I did it for no pay because I wanted to learn a trade. And I did learn a trade. It is not one I have ever been paid a dollar to do. In fact, it puts me into the business sometimes of being the one who does cut up the meat at whatever family gathering we have. But that is the kind of thing that used to happen on a regular basis. I am not an odd thing. I am not an anomaly when it comes to that. But it is a subject that each time the government interferes, whenever the government passes some of these child labor laws that say that, well, if you are 17 years and 364 days old and you would like to work in the gas station, you can run the cash register, but you cannot cut the grass on the riding lawn mower until you are 18. That is an example of a child labor law. Another example is you cannot wash the pizza dough maker or you can't make french fries. All of these things you can do at home, a lot of these things we allow younger people to do at home, a 17-year-364-day- old person cannot because of our child labor laws. You couple that with minimum wage laws and ask the question is there any place in your community where, let's just say an older lady who doesn't get around very well can pull her car into the gas station and be confident that the windshield will be washed and the oil will be checked and her gas tank will be filled, and somebody will bring her credit card in and out and make sure that all she has to do is sit there and wait for that service. Where does that happen in America? Some places, not many. And the biggest reasons are minimum wage laws and child labor laws. So instead, we give them the keys to a car that goes 140 miles an hour and they can drive on the highway. It is safe enough for them to drive a car at 16, 14 with an adult with them, but not safe enough for them to ride a riding lawn mower around a gas station. This is what happens when decisions don't get opened up to public scrutiny, and not opened up for debate and opportunity for amendments to be offered. So here we are with this fishy thing going on in American Samoa where they are the only territory in all of the territories of the United States of America by this legislation that has passed the House that would be exempted from minimum wage laws. And I have to believe that is not for the people of American Samoa; it is for the people making profit off the sweat of their brows. And if it is good enough for the goose for the rest of America, it is good enough for the gander in American Samoa. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. KING of Iowa. As I conclude here, Mr. Speaker, no one has come to the floor to defend a position like that. It was not part of the dialogue, the debate and the discussion. While we have taken the floor here an hour ago, there were 52 hours used up of the 110th Congress of the 100. Now 53 hours. So 47 hours are left, Mr. Speaker. And when that time comes, it will be time to open up so that we don't have these kinds of circumstances. It needs to be open to the public. I appreciate the privilege to address you tonight, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Tennessee for his commitment to this country and the passion that he brings to everything he does. I point out, that meeting in Africa, we arrived from different locations and almost by coincidence, by providence, we arrived at the same location to address the things we were concerned about in South Africa at the time. I also note that Mr. Wamp shows up to address these issues spontaneously on occasion. I very much appreciate your leadership, Zach. As we sit here tonight, I will review some of the things that Mr. Wamp addressed. He listed a number of books that he recommended that we read. Among them was the book ``While Europe Slept'' by Bruce Bawer, and that is, I think, one of the most profound reads I have ever gone through. It tells the story how the author has traveled from New York City into Holland to make his life there, and realized he could never become a Dutchman in Holland the same way you can become an American in the United States. So he moved to Norway to become a Norwegian and found out that although he could develop his language skills and understood the culture and history of Norway, he would never be a Norwegian because they don't have a system of assimilation that we have or at least had in the United States. So he traveled throughout the countries in Europe and gathered anecdotes and data and studies and compiled an understanding of what is happening with the ethnic enclaves that have been created in Europe, those enclaves that are Muslim enclaves. Our idea has been in this country to promote assimilation. Everybody can become an American. That, we have considered to be multiculturalism. But the multiculturalism in Europe is different. That is, let us create an ethnic enclave here, and look at us. We are no longer this blue-eyed, blond society, or whatever it happens to be in the Scandinavian north or whatever the complexion might be in some of the other areas in Europe. We now have multiculturalism by ethnic enclave, and the ethnic enclaves being primarily Muslim have not integrated into the rest of society, and they have brought more and more from their home country and grown their enclaves to the point where Bruce Bawer's analysis comes down to that skepticism that France will ever be French again within the next generation, and that the takeover that takes place without the assimilation by rejecting the host country's culture and importing the culture of the newly arriving immigrants transforms these countries and explains why you can see second generation British of Pakistani descent setting off bombs in the subways in London. It explains that, and it shows what is happening to the culture in Europe because they have opened up their borders and not promoted assimilation. When it is done, Bruce Bawer's analysis comes down to the choice for Europe will be either one of two things: total capitulation or mass expulsion. That is what Europe is faced with, and I am not optimistic that Europe will recover and come back to being a partner for the free world again because the people that are in those countries that are slowly by birth rate taking over don't believe in the freedoms that we believe in, Mr. Speaker. They reject them. They reject Western civilization and our Christian culture. The reject the Judeo-Christian belief system. The wahabists that Mr. Wamp talked about, they believe they have an obligation or at least a right to annihilate those who don't believe like they do. That is the enemy that we are up against. And this geopolitical dynamic needs to be understood by the Members of this Congress, and I am thinking the best way they can understand it is when the American people study it and get their voice into the ears of their representatives, the 435 here in the U.S. States House of Representatives. But to take on a little more of this, I would point out that a major question needs to be asked and answered, and I hope the President has asked the question and I hope he has answered the question, and that is: Can we live with, here in the United States, a nuclear armed Iran? That is part of this overall equation. It isn't just confined to Iraq. As I spoke earlier, Iran is conducting a proxy war against the United States in Iraq by training and funding and harboring terrorists and sending them munitions and equipping them and also making IEDs and other munitions that go into Iraq that are being used against Iraqis of all stripes and being used against Americans. That has to stop. But can we tolerate a nuclear-powered Iran, an irrational nuclear- powered Iran that has Ahmadinejad who is fuming and making allegations about the annihilation of Israel and the annihilation of the United States. All we have to do is listen to these tyrants and believe what they say. Every action that they make makes it clear that they will develop a nuclear bomb. They will develop more than one. They are developing the means to deliver it now, as they are developing a bomb now. Why would we disbelieve them? Why would we think that we could talk them out of it? When you go into negotiations, you never get something for nothing. You have to have something to offer. I ask the President, and I hope he will tell us tonight, that he has put the cross hairs on Iran, and directly on their nuclear capability and sent through a back-channel message to Ahmadinejad and the mullahs that run him that Iran's nuclear days are numbered and that there is a decision that has already been made that they will not have a nuclear capability. And if they cease and desist from their proxy war against the United States that they are conducting within Iraq, then they will be allowed, perhaps, enough negotiation time that they can save some face before they dismantle their nuclear endeavor. Should they proceed, then the decision needs to be made whether to take out Iran's nuclear capability. We saw 4 days ago, there was intelligence or I will say a press leak that came out of Israel that they have a contingency plan to take out Iran's nuclear capability with limited tactical nuclear weapons. If they have to do that, I am afraid there is an all-out conflagration in the Middle East, and all Arab countries will descend upon Israel. If somebody has to do it, it is better if we do it. It is better if Ahmadinejad dismantles his nuclear capability. That is where I would start: Cross hairs on Ahmadinejad, put the cross hairs on their nuclear capability, and then if they back out of Iraq, then we can have a peaceful Iraq. We still have to remove Muqtada al-Sadr and some other militia leaders. If those two things happen, that shuts off the money, the munitions and the operations of violence that are there. As long as there is money there, somebody is going to set an IED. I can see that. But most is controllable by the Iraqis. I have watched as thousands of Iraqi troops have been trained, lined up in ranks. I first saw them and reviewed those troops in October 2003. Those troops were trained by General David Petraeus. He headed up the Iraqi military training operations when he was over there during the last deployment, and now he has been appointed to command all military operations within Iraq. He is the most impressive military person I have met in my life. If anyone can run this operation in Iraq successfully, it is David Petraeus. He has the love and respect of many of the Iraqis, the Kurds and Sunnis and Shias. And in Mosul, where the 101st Airborne, which he commanded when they went in to liberate Iraq, there in Mosul, they went in and liberated Mosul in the latter part of March 2003. By the end of May 2003, General Petraeus had held open elections in Mosul in those three provinces there, and elected a governor and a vice governor, and I also recall a business representative at the table in those discussions that we had. That was an impressive means to win the hearts and minds of the people, and also from a military tactical perspective. But to give you an understanding of how effective General Petraeus has been, there is a sign, and I have a picture of it as a street sign on a broad street in the city of Mosul in Iraq, and it said: 101st Airborne Division. They misspelled ``airborne'' and ``division'' so I was pretty sure that it was a sign put up by the Iraqi people in appreciation for the 101st Airborne led then by General Petraeus who will be taking over and commanding all military forces within Iraq. We can win this. We must win this. We do not have a tactical threat against us. We can and will prevail. The American people need to stand together. Mr. Wamp said that, and I agree with him. We need to stand with our Commander in Chief. It isn't really up to the President to convince the American people that we should move forward on this, but it is up to us to support our military. And if we are going to support our military, we must support their mission, Mr. Speaker. So I look forward to the President's speech. It is a pleasure for me to have the honor and privilege to turn over, I will say this network, to the President of the United States as he lays out a plan for victory in the battlefield of Iraq, which will take us on to a final victory in the overall global war on terror. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), who was the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Hunter. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. KING of Iowa

Mr. KING of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.