Ron Klein

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 634, the American Veterans Disabled for Life Commemorative Coin Act. This bipartisan legislation commemorates those veterans who have sacrificed so much to secure our freedom by requiring the Secretary of the Treasury to mint coins in their honor. The funding generated from the sale of these coins will be used to help build a memorial to disabled veterans on the grounds surrounding the U.S. Capitol. This memorial, which will sit within full view of the Capitol, will serve to remind us of those young men and women who put their lives on the line each day in defense of this great Nation. Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Walter Reed to meet some of the brave men and women that we seek to honor here today. I will never forget the faces of those warriors who proved that they would stop at nothing to fulfill the mission that this Nation has laid before them. Our military veterans have served honorably around the world, in many of the most hostile and dangerous conditions known to man. Whether it is in the fields of Europe, the jungles of Southeast Asia, or the deserts of the Middle East, the selfless actions of these men and women helps to preserve the liberty that we hold so dear. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines who voluntarily heeded the call to serve our Nation in combat, truly embody all that is great within our society. They have shown courage and valor, consistently performing with distinction on foreign battlefields. These honorable Americans have given us all that they have to offer. It is now time for us to show them how much we appreciate their great sacrifice.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, when the American people entrusted this House to a new Democratic majority, they wanted Congress to deliver tangible results. We are living up to that promise. In the first 100 hours, we passed rules to clean up the way that Congress operates. We implemented the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. We raised the minimum wage to expand economic prosperity to millions who have been left behind for too long, and we cut interest rates in half so college is more affordable to middle-class families in our country. We also repealed billions of dollars in tax breaks to big oil companies and instead are investing that in alternative fuels and energy-efficient technology. We hope this legislation will begin to wean our Nation off foreign oil because today customers are once again paying record prices at the pump, and that is simply wrong. This legislation is a first step in changing our Nation's energy policy. We also passed a budget that is actually balanced within the next 5 years, and we did it without raising taxes. Mr. Speaker, we are living up to our promise to move our Nation in a new and better direction.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to honor a special group of south Florida high school students for being selected to participate in a prestigious debate competition this weekend in New York City. The students, Zoe Friedland, Samuel Natale, Alexandre Pouille, Jemma Hinkly, Emily Deyes, Christopher Bahls-Mariles, and Rachael Mielke, hail from Dreyfoos High School in Palm Beach County, and will represent the school at the National Public Policy Forum debate championship this weekend I wish these students the best of luck. They are some of the best and brightest, and I know they will represent south Florida well. I commend them for their hard work, dedication and perseverance that got them to this level and qualified them for this competition. I also want to take this opportunity to express the condolences from my district to the family and friends of the Virginia Tech students who were tragically killed on Monday, and wish a speedy recovery to those who were injured. Our children are the future of our Nation and our greatest asset. I join my colleagues in the House of Representatives to express our grief and sympathy. Our thoughts and prayers are with their friends and families.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Well, that is an interesting question, and I think we should look back the last few years. The President in his State of the Union address about a year ago correctly said we are addicted to oil. I think everybody understood what he meant by that, and yet Congress, a number of months later, passed an energy bill which gave billions of dollars to energy companies and subsidized more oil drilling. Now, oil will always be a part of the energy policy of the United States, but this notion that oil is our way out, to me, is just ridiculous. This is interesting because when I have been speaking at schools back home, and I am sure you have been doing the same thing, and I want to talk to our young population, our students, as well as our adults. The calling of this generation is to move toward making this country energy independent. It goes right directly to what Representative Hodes was talking about, defend our country. The number one thing that we should do to ensure that we are defending our country is making sure that we are not continually dependent on importing oil from countries that are not reliable partners, and whether that is Middle East countries or Venezuela or any other country if you have been following around the world where we are daily bringing in 60 percent of our oil in the form of imports, that is a dangerous prospect and a dangerous policy. So what we can do about it? We can focus, just like in the past, the attention of the American people, our scientists, our public sector, our private entrepreneurs, our people that have great vision and say, what can we do to make ourselves energy independent? Is it solar, is it wind, is it wave, is it thermal, is it any combination of science that can go along with this? We put a man on the moon when said John F. Kennedy said, we are going to fight against the Sputnik, that little can that went up into space. We created the Manhattan project, that we knew it was a matter of our national security to make sure that we developed a nuclear weapon, it was an atomic weapon at that time, to make sure that we would end World War II successfully. That was a commitment that Americans, with our ingenuity and our science, put that all together. Well, I do not think there is anybody who is listening tonight does not believe that Americans, if they put their nose to the grindstone and we make our commitments as consumers, as scientists, as public and private people, that we cannot accomplish that same goal. It is a matter of national security. It is a matter of our environment. You already mentioned this, global warming, and the science, the carbon dioxide and all those things, and it is also a matter of a new economy. We think about jobs for the next generation, the science, that we can lead the world and export our technology and be successful. A new energy policy is the calling of our generation, and I hope and I believe, based on the freshman class, by the way, the freshman class of Democrats and Republicans coming in and listening very closely to the public, I think there is a great opportunity for us to all work together and change it from just an energy policy that is dependent on oil to one that will really improve our environment, create new jobs and really protect us in this next century.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for being here tonight. It has been a pleasure to be with this freshman class, I look forward to continuing to work on all these items and more, and look forward to working with our people back home and making sure we are listening to their ideas, as we have been, and just continuing to move our country forward.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Sure. I listened to Congressman Murphy, and I listened to veterans in my home district of Broward and Palm Beach Counties, and whether it was World War II, the Korean War or the most recent conflicts we are involved in, these are brave men and women that put their lives on the line, and they deserve to be supported, both on the ground and when they come home. I thank you for your service, and I certainly thank your colleagues over in Iraq and the men and women that are fighting and protecting our freedoms all over the world. You know, when I think about September 11, which was a dark day for our country, and what happened in our country with the failures that allowed these terrorists to attack us, and the deaths, the needless deaths that occurred in our major cities, it was an awakening for this country. But it was also a time when we had an opportunity to really take stock of where our shortcomings were. Where were the intelligence failures? Where were the communication failures? Where were the vulnerabilities in our airports and our seaports and all these other places where people came in from other countries to harm us and kill our people in this country? And there was a man named Osama bin Laden who is still out there. Hard to believe today. When you think about what our number one strategy should have been was to find the perpetrator and the perpetrators of this terrible, terrible tragedy, and he is still out there today. That needs to be rectified. But beyond that, I think we all recognize things that came together after that; and there was this 9/11 Commission report, which was probably one of the most prestigious, important, qualified incredible groups that came together, Democrats, Republicans, professionals which said, let's figure this out. This isn't a Democrat/Republican issue; it is an American issue, and protecting our territory, our homes, our streets. And they came up with this 9/11 report. Which, if you haven't had a chance to take a look at it, it is not just reading you read before you go to bed and it will put you to sleep. This is gripping. This is really a very thorough analysis of what we need to do. Unfortunately, it was a number of years that passed. Some things were adopted from that plan, but many were not. And I don't think it was anybody questioning the fact that this was a priority, but it wasn't passed. Many of the items weren't passed. So one of the things that we said in our campaigns and we took up right away, and we are still obviously waiting for the process in Washington to be finished, but the House quickly took up the rest of the 9/11 Commission report and passed it. And I just want to highlight a few key elements. We know that there were problems with aviation security. Those elements, those recommendations have been adopted. We know that there were port problems and port security issues. Most containers that come in, substantially most of the containers that come into our ports are not inspected. I come from southeast Florida. We have Port of Palm Beach and Port Everglades. Port Everglades is a main oil terminal among cargo and container in great bulk. Tremendous risk if you happen to be anywhere near those areas and something, God forbid, comes in in the form of nuclear materials or biohazardous materials or anything else that comes into those ports. And this is all over the United States. Ownership of the ports. We all know about the Dubai Port issue. That has been straightened out through our legislation. Certainly the idea of preventing terrorists from even getting into this country, visa changes, rules changes, all these things are so important. And not to mention the people that are on the ground fighting for us every day, our firefighters, our emergency responders, our police officers. Every one of us feels very strongly about them. And as we grew up and you wanted to be a fireman or you wanted to be a policeman, not everybody chose that profession, but, boy, on September 11 did we as Americans have a newfound respect for what they did for us. But what we needed to do that wasn't done was to give them the tools, the communications tools like they needed in New York and other places so they can make sure that they can communicate with each other, and that local and State and National Federal intelligence agencies can properly share that information. These things have now been passed by the House of Representatives, and it was one of the first things we did. And that is the right thing to do. And whatever it costs, that should be at the top of our budget. People say, well, it is expensive. You know something? You prioritize. You say, what is first? Homeland security, protecting our troops, making sure they are properly funded. And I know that Congressman Yarmuth is going to talk about the incredible great work we have done for our veterans. These are the things that are our Nation's priorities. These are American values and America's priorities. And I am very proud that we as the freshman class participated with the rest of the Congress, and mostly Democrats, and Republicans, came together that said, yes, we are going to take care of the American people first. So I just wanted to share those elements with you.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you very much, Congressman Ellison. It is a pleasure to be here once again with my freshman colleagues as we try to do this every Thursday evening and get together and speak about what's going on in the last couple of weeks and tell the American people and share with them some of the good things that we've been working on. We ran in elections this past November. And coming into the freshman class, we heard loud and clear from the American public that it was very, very important that we get this budget under control. One of the first things that we did, and I am very proud of it and Republicans joined with us on this so it was a bipartisan effort, is we passed the PAYGO principle. PAYGO is about as simple as you can imagine; it's pay- as-you-go. It's no different than the way I run my personal family budget with my kids and my wife; it's no different than most people run their small businesses or large businesses. It is the simple point of money comes in, and you can't spend more than is coming in. It is expenses versus revenues, or cash flow. I was very proud of that moment as one of the very first things that we did was to pass the PAYGO principle, and that was something that was, in the past, the Congress always followed that principle, but most recently, in the last number of years, it was thrown out. As a result of that, tax cuts, higher spending, and tax cuts are wonderful, we all want less taxes as long as there are corresponding spending cuts. Everything has to balance. I just want to reference that because to me that was a great start. I am very proud of the fact that everything we have passed since then, every bill that we have taken up has a component in it which says we cannot add new expenses, we cannot build more programs unless the money is in the budget. I think that is a principle that needs to be there forever, for that matter; and I think that is the first step in beginning this process of getting our fiscal house in order. So I am just going to highlight that for a minute and turn it back over to Congressman Ellison.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Madam Speaker, last weekend, I participated in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walk to Cure Diabetes in my hometown of Boca Raton, Florida. I participated in this walk to help bring attention to the urgent need for finding a cure for juvenile diabetes. I also walked in honor of two children in my district, Sydney Lubetkin and Nicky Pollack. Nicky was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes as an infant, and Sydney was diagnosed with the illness just this past year. Juvenile diabetes is a serious disease that inflicts tens of thousands of children across the United States. Not only does this illness cost us $100 billion in health care costs alone, but living with juvenile diabetes requires 24-7 care. Children must constantly take insulin shots and have their blood checked numerous times a day, and their diet and exercise regimen must always be under strict surveillance. In severe cases, juvenile diabetes can cause blindness, heart failure, stroke and, worst case, death. This is why I signed on as a sponsor of House Resolution 4 that urges Congress to appropriate $1.6 billion annually. I thank Members for their support.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize a special group of young people in Ft. Lauderdale, FL who are raising awareness about the important and urgent issue of human trafficking. As you may know, human trafficking and forced labor is one of the most prolific areas of international criminal activity and is of significant concern to the United States and the international community. The overwhelming majority of those trafficked are women and children. According to the most recent Department of State estimates, between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year. If trafficking within countries and forced labor are included in the total world figures, estimates rise to 4 to 27 million people. Human trafficking is now considered a leading source of profits for organized crime generating billions of dollars. Trafficking in persons affects virtually every country in the world. Traffickers exploit poverty, war, natural or man-made disasters, and ignorance. The students at the Ft. Lauderdale Prep School are raising money to combat global human trafficking and they have created a large mural to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans- Atlantic Sale, which occurred on Friday, March 25th. I commend these students on their efforts to raise awareness on this issue. The passion and motivation of these students are worthy of emulation.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. The examples obviously go right back to what I think we all believe in strongly as Americans: common sense. Use common sense when you do anything. When you make decisions, use common sense. When you follow up, use common sense. I mean, the examples that you have cited are so extraordinary, they defy common sense.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. And I think we have heard from some of our friends and we have a lot of others within the Democratic side of the freshmen class. There are 41 of us. It is a big class this year, along with the rest of them, Republicans as well. And I think the message is pretty clear, the things you are talking about, the checks and balances. And, by the way, we have our checks and balances with the President. There are also checks and balances with all the agencies. And those are some of the things we are talking about tonight, to be sure things are operating the way they should. A big budget. A lot of money. It has to be spent properly. We feel very committed to that. Mr. Hodes, I know you want to add another thought here.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Well said. I know that Mr. Ellison wanted to add something to that also.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Perlmutter is about to jump through the microphone.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Madam Speaker, we have one of our senior Members present, you can tell because the rest of us freshmen have dark hair, one of the senior Members who is a mentor to all of us. Mr. Larson of Connecticut is one of the people that truly all of us look up to. Please join us.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. We appreciate your guidance and counsel. As we are listening to many of the things, we are glad to add a new energy to the process here. You can see it here tonight. I want to bring Mr. Ellison back in. He was really making a passionate statement.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Obviously there are so many things to talk about in terms of the oversight and accountability. One of the things that I think really hit hard for a lot of the people, particularly if you served in the military, was the Walter Reed Hospital revelation. Many of us have not served in the military. We may have some family members that receive veterans benefits and things like that. We think of people we ask to serve our country or may have served in the past. They are American heroes on so many levels, and they deserve the highest level of care. So it was shocking, and then shocking even more so when we found out this has been going on for a while. I think this oversight we have been talking about, the accountability, the proper funding, the proper level of care, doctors, nurses, things like that, so many people in the system are doing good jobs, but there are clearly deficiencies. Mr. Welch, you have some thoughts on that.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I agree with that. Mr. Perlmutter, I think you wanted to add something to that as well.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ellison. Mr. Hodes.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I thank you, Mr. Hodes, for being part of our freshman class and our working group that is going to be here every week. The 110th Congress is strengthening oversight, and the proof is in the pudding. People can say, I have lost confidence in Congress, but look at what we are doing. We have had dozens of hearings in the Foreign Affairs Committee just on the ability of working with our diplomatic efforts and all of the strategies in dealing with Iraq on the nonmilitary side. In the past, there have not been enough opportunities to do that. We've had hearings on the veterans health care crisis and Walter Reed, the politicalization of the Justice Department and how wrong that is and that needs to be cleaned up, the Hurricane Katrina response and the things we are doing right now, passing legislation to truly get people back up on their feet. Global warming and energy independence was mentioned, and the fact is that we are getting down to the things we need to do as Americans to deal with our energy needs and the fact that there is an environmental impact. And, of course, upcoming hearings of oversight on everything from Valerie Plame to oil and gas royalties and National Guard and intelligence. This is part of the mandate of the last election. I look forward to working with our freshman class. We will be doing this every week. We certainly want input from our constituents back home. Tell us what you think we can be doing. We look forward to working with both Republicans and Democrats to build on this theme of accountability and oversight.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am Ron Klein, and I represent Florida's 22nd Congressional District in Congress, which is southeast Florida, Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach area, and I have the privilege of anchoring tonight's freshmen's Special Order. We decided as a group of freshman, and there was a large group of us that were elected this year, to meet on a regular basis and to discuss policy, those of us who had contested races, those of us who did not have contested races, but all of us new with this process coming in with a fresh perspective and the belief that hopefully we could influence the process in a way that would move things along, which is, I think, the loud message we heard from the people that elected all of us, both Democrats and Republicans this year. Tonight our Special Order is going to focus on the importance of accountability and oversight within our Nation's government. There is no question that the ability to exercise accountability and oversight among the executive and legislative branches, that is our branch and the President's branch, is vital to making sure that our government is operating and governing within the highest ethical and moral standards, and makes sense. It is also important to make sure our government is doing the right thing for our people. It seems that every time we are turning on the news lately or pick up the newspaper, there seems to be some story about where there is no accountability. And the oversight and lack of accountability seems to be the prime topic of conversation back home in our districts, in our offices, in our supermarkets, in our churches and synagogues. If you just think about the most recent one, the United States attorney scandal, where a number of U.S. attorneys were fired; and, of course, there is a question about for what purpose they were fired and whether there is a reason, and now there is a question of getting all the information out on the table. The ongoing concerns over Valerie Plame and the outing of Valerie Plame. And, of course, I think most of us as Americans understand, when someone works for this country as a member of our intelligence services, we owe that person the highest degree of respect and integrity and make sure that their position is held confidential. And certainly anybody who is responsible for outing that person should be held accountable and punished. Conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. And we are going to talk about that a little more tonight, and, unfortunately, other veterans hospitals. And I am happy to say that in my area and in many other parts of the country that there are some very good things going on in our veterans hospitals and our veterans outpatient clinics, but many times it is a matter of having the resources to have enough doctors in place. And I know I have heard from time to time about long waiting lines. But there are places like Walter Reed and other places that have now been identified where you had mold and you had ceilings falling in and lack of care, and people that were working there that were overworked and unfortunately not providing the type of treatment that should be awarded. The highest level of respect should be awarded to our men and women who are our heroes in this country. And, of course, the no-bid government contracts being awarded to companies doing business in Iraq to the tune of billions of dollars of waste, and certainly not accomplishing the major goals. One of the goals we went in there with, of course, was to take out Saddam Hussein, but I think everybody understood very quickly that if we were going to be successful in changing the hearts and minds, that some of the rebuilding activities, getting electricity on, getting hospitals up, creating jobs, those kinds of things would be very, very important to making the people of Iraq feel that this was a worthy cause to set up their own government. Unfortunately, we have spent billions of our money over there, and, unfortunately, the condition is in many ways worse today than it was with the fall of Saddam Hussein. The news on these subjects is everywhere. So tonight we are going to talk about accountability and oversight, and my colleagues who are going to join me tonight as freshman Members recently elected are going to be talking about how we are working to restore those features of accountability and oversight to Washington and our government. A couple things I just want to touch on before I turn over to my colleague Congressman Hodes. On November 7, which was last year's election, we believe that the American people, I know we all heard this as we walked door to door and heard from the American people, they wanted change. It wasn't necessarily Democrat or Republican; they wanted people to come together, find common ground, and move forward. And fortunately for this country, this House has, in fact, started that process. There were six items very quickly that were passed in the beginning called the 100 Hours, the Six for '06, everything from fixing the Medicare prescription drug program, which I know many of our seniors are concerned about making it easier to use, less costly to the taxpayers; minimum wage, making the minimum wage higher, of course, is a key issue; lower student loan rates; and a number of other issues like energy policy. These are the things that we came to work on and that were done. We also passed the lobbying reform bill and a full disclosure bill which has already significantly reduced the influence that lobbyists have on this legislative process. We need to do more, but we certainly took a lot of the right steps by not allowing lobbyists to take Members of Congress out to lunch. We had that in Florida, we changed that, and I am glad we changed that here, too. And, of course, the earmark process. And for those of you who don't know what earmark is, that is this idea: In the past, Congressmen, Members of the Senate and House, would go behind closed doors and add millions and tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds of millions in some cases, of special projects in the dark of night to the budget without any consideration by all the Members of Congress. And that needs to change, and I am very happy to say that with new earmark reforms in place, that will change. The way it is changing is very clear: Anything that is presented needs to be presented in the light of day. It needs to be publicly disclosed and laid out for the Members of the Congress so that a legitimate project in Alaska should be a legitimate project in Florida. Even though it may benefit one State, we all represent this country, but it has got to be done the right way. This week we passed important legislation which curbs waste in Federal contracting; strengthens protection for whistleblowers, and those are, of course, people that discover and come forward when there is waste and corruption in government; and also provides long overdue of the veterans health care crisis and other Federal issues. We are going to talk about accountability of tax dollars. We are going to talk about a number of other things. I am joined by some colleagues here, and I would like to introduce them. We have got Congressman Ellison, who is going to join us and talk to us a minute; Congressman Hodes. Congressman Welch is going to join us for a few minutes. You look like you are poised and ready to go, Congressman Hodes, so why don't you kick off and give us a little oversight on what you are going to talk about on oversight and accountability.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Hodes. I think you laid it out very well. I think the average American believes very strongly in accountability and oversight because they understand, that's how they live their lives. If you have a business, you can't do anything without keeping track of your books, keeping track of you inventory, keeping track of your personnel, your employees, and knowing that there is an end-point. And you will make money or not make money by running it efficiently with oversight. And I think that nobody is asking for any more than that in government. And, unfortunately, as you have pointed out very eloquently, that is exactly what has gone on without anybody looking after it. And many of the committees were either not operating or were abolished in the last number of years, and that just doesn't make any sense. So I think you pointed out very appropriately that we are glad I think in a way that the Democrats are leading, but I think the Republicans are now joining us. And, again, this is a bipartisan approach to fixing this. Mr. Ellison, I know that you have been leading and talking about this as well, so give us some of your thoughts, please.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ellison. I think that, again, the example you gave is something that is on our front pages. We are hearing about it and we are listening. Some people have said, well, what is the difference if someone is coming forward or if they are coming forward under oath. Well, I like to see, when someone comes forward, that they put their hand up and say, I swear to tell the whole truth. I can't imagine somebody wouldn't want to do that and what are they hiding if they are not prepared to do that. That seems to be a little battle going on between the Congress and its investigative authority and the President. But, again, I think you put your hand up, we are expecting the truth anyway, and I think that is an appropriate thing to do. Mr. Welch, our representative from Vermont in our class, why don't you share with us some of your thoughts on this.

Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I am glad to see, Mr. Welch, some of the legislation coming forward. Mr. Waxman and others have proposed eliminating or limiting no-bid contracts and putting all this out there. And I think this is a bipartisan issue. Nobody seems to have any problem with it. But I think, as you said, it is long overdue. Madam Speaker, we are joined by another Member of our freshmen group, and it is Mr. Perlmutter from Colorado. We are now geographically dispersed from the Southeast to the East to the Midwest and the West. So why don't you give us some of your thoughts from the Colorado perspective.