Nick Lampson

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. LAMPSON. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I understand that that exactly happened. Supposedly, it was in San Antonio. Those are not things that should be happening in our government. If we learned anything from the Watergate era, it is that the government needs to be accountable for its actions. It cannot be held accountable if important documents are not available to journalists and Members of the United States Congress so they can review them. So we need to review these tapes to ensure that nothing improper happened and the Department of Homeland Security is working to protect us against terrorists and not members of the Texas House of Representatives.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, with all that has been happening in the State of Texas, the Texas 51, the turmoil with people feeling that there is not an open process in the Texas legislature and why the House members there chose to send a message that we must open up our government, we find it interesting now that there is a report that the Department of Homeland Security is refusing to turn loose tapes that gave an indication of who requested an effort on the part of the Homeland Security agency of the United States Government to track the plane of State Representative Pete Laney in Texas. We have got to have an open government, one that the people feel confident in and be able to know that we are not hiding something, not trying to keep secrets from the public. Let us open this process up and include all of the people in America so that they can have a voice not just here in the United States House of Representatives but in the State House of Representatives in Texas and every other State in our Union.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to follow my colleagues from the Texas congressional delegation who have just previously spoken and also prouder to stand up here and be able to speak in behalf of some of my colleagues who are serving in the Texas House of Representatives, my constituents in the Ninth Congressional District of Texas, people like Joe Deshotel, who is a former vice president of Lamar University in Beaumont; Allan Ritter, who owns a successful lumber company in Nederland, Texas; and Craig Eiland, who is a successful attorney on Galveston Island, all honorable members of the Texas legislature, which is a citizen legislature, not a full-time legislature like our Congress is. I am so proud of them. As we heard my colleagues say in the last few minutes, these ladies and gentlemen have stood up for principle, and it is magnificent to see their unity and their willingness to put their political lives on the line. They put Texans before their own personal political ambitions, and I am proud of them for doing the right thing. The real victims of this redistricting plan that is before Texas is not the members who hold those seats right now but it is the communities, certainly not the Members of Congress who may be here. The fight is not about Nick Lampson. It is not about the Democrats or the Republicans. It is about the people of Texas who deserve to be represented fairly and fully in Washington, D.C. Jefferson County, Chambers County, Galveston County, the areas that I represent along the upper Texas gulf coast, have been in the same congressional district for over 3 decades. They have in common the size of their communities, the large petrochemical industry, and interests which run throughout that area, coastal and water transportation industries and a whole lot more beyond that. Splitting these counties apart and even further splitting Jefferson County and my hometown of Beaumont itself dilutes the strength of the interests and the ability of the people who live there to be represented as those citizens want to be represented. Splitting these communities is in a sense a disenfranchisement of the people within those communities. This fight, however, is about more than redistricting. It is about the infusion of partisanship that exists in Washington, D.C., into the Texas legislature. I am absolutely astounded to learn of some of the things that I have heard in the last several days following the action of those brave Texas legislators who chose to go across the Texas border into Oklahoma. I am astounded at the fact that my friend Craig Eiland, that State representative that I just mentioned, his wife, Melissa, who has recently had twin babies who were born prematurely and are in the hospital in Galveston, knowing that State law enforcement officials were directed by the Governor of our State and by the Speaker of our House to go and question the nurses in that hospital, wanting to know the whereabouts of State Representative Craig Eiland. And even after it was published in the newspaper that our legislators were in Ardmore, Oklahoma, they went to Craig's wife's home where Craig was not there and harassed her about his whereabouts, when their babies are in the hospital being treated. We are seeing an abuse of power. We are seeing an abuse of Federal resources even. The fact that Federal resources, according to the newspapers in Texas, the homeland security agency had an airplane that was tracked. The airplane belonged to a cotton farmer/State legislator, citizen legislator, Pete Laney. It was through the information that our United States Federal homeland security agency gave to the State of Texas that led to the whereabouts of our legislators who were trying to send a message to the Speaker of the House and to the Governor of Texas. We used the wrong kind of resources because interestingly enough about 2 miles from here down the road stands a hotel called the Watergate, a place of historical significance and a symbol of the use of Federal law enforcement resources for private political gain. I am not sure where Tom DeLay stays when he is in Austin, but maybe someday that hotel will carry the same significance as Watergate. It might remind us all of the outrageous diversion of Federal law enforcement authorities to pursue Democratic legislators. I am proud of these folks who stood up in Texas. When we shut out the interests of the people because of partisan politics, it is the people who are the ultimate losers. The people of Texas are not losers. It might remind us all of the outrageous diversion of federal law enforcement authorities to pursue Democratic legislators who fled to Oklahoma In this current time when we face the threat of terrorism, asking the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the FBI to participate in personal politics is despicable When we shut out the interests of the people because of partisan politics, the people are the ultimate losers This is the people of Texas versus one man Lest someone think that all is well in the U.S. House of Representatives, please consider that the level of frustration has hit a new low. Long-serving members tell us story after story of their being shut out of the legislative process which in turn causes the loss of voices of millions of American citizens. We need real leadership here. People who will reach out and heal the divisiveness, people who are willing to change the direction that our legislative bodies are going. I repeat: When we shut out the interests of the people because of partisan politics, the people are ultimate losers. This is the people of Texas versus one man. Tom Delay's interests cannot and will not be allowed to win out over the interests of the good people of the great State of Texas.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I read a poignant article in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this morning. Mr. Sanders compares the legislative body in Texas and its lack of leadership to a runaway freight train that has been hijacked by a self-serving Congressman, Mr. Tom DeLay, who is willing to put his own agenda and the presumed agenda of the national Republican leadership ahead of the people of Texas. He describes the freight train as carrying redistricting, but that it is also carrying other important cargo like school finance and the CHIPS program, and that this train with DeLay and Craddick at the helm is headed for a wreck. Fifty-three House Members saw the wreck coming, did what they thought was best for the State of Texas, and hightailed to Oklahoma to prevent this train from slamming into the Texas House. It is a stand that I see as nothing short of heroic. They have put DeLay and Craddick, and in fact, the Nation, on notice that there are many of us out here who are willing to put it all on the line for what we think is right; that there are many of us who will not be threatened or bullied into an agenda that is bad for Texas. Joe Deshotel, Craig Eiland, and Alan Ritter, as well as their colleagues who have joined them, are risking everything for the people of Texas, not their party.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Before the gentleman concludes, if my colleague will yield for just a moment, I want to inject something here, because another statement was made that was offensive to me, and that was something that Tom DeLay said about the Democrats' behavior in Texas was ``so contrary to what Texas is all about, to turn tail and run and not to fight for what you believe in.'' Well, not to fight for what you believe in is the more correct part. He could not have missed that mark in a worse way. It is exactly what a Texan is all about, to stand there and fight in the face of knowing they may not be able to win when they are attacked. The backs of the Texas legislators were against the wall. They decided to make a stand for it for the people of Texas, and I am awfully proud of every member who chose to leave Austin, Texas, temporarily. And they do not want to be gone from there. They have their work to do. They know they do. And they are most anxious to return. But they want to do it in a way they know their voices are going to be heard and so the voices of the people they represent will indeed be heard.

Mr. LAMPSON. I am just curious in listening to this and knowing what kind of time and cost that that would be, when I know that many of our entities, ports along our coastline and many other places in the country, are strapped for money, is there any precedent in the history of the United States where something like this happened and what occurred following that incident?

Mr. LAMPSON. And not since the time of Richard Nixon when they interfered with a political activity using Federal funds, Federal people, Federal employees has something like that occurred until now?

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. LAMPSON. The gentleman spoke of Craig Eiland, who is one of my constituents, Craig and Melissa; and their prematurely born twins are doing well in the hospital, thank goodness, but the night that those Department of Public Safety officers showed up in the hospital questioning the nurses that were taking care of those babies concerned Melissa significantly so, and then following that they went to her home to question her when it had already been announced, as the gentleman said, that they knew Craig Eiland was in Ardmore, Oklahoma, as did the rest of the country. That is bordering on harassment, but it is also the use of public funds and public employees to perform tasks, as the gentleman says, reminiscent of a police state. But what about the work that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost) did recently on the AMBER Alert? I have done a lot of work in my 6 years here about the issue of missing and exploited children and worked diligently to pass legislation that would give our law enforcement capability to work with the public of this country to help find missing people. Interestingly enough, I understand that the State of Texas turned on the AMBER Alert system to try to find members of the Texas legislature. Can anybody answer that? Is that the truth, Mr. Frost? Do you know that? Or Mr. Sandlin?

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for putting together this Special Order and giving us the opportunity to come and express some of the concerns about what is happening in Texas with a number of issues, redistricting being one of them. We have heard a great deal about an abuse of power. But what was it all about? It was about someone who stepped in and tried to control Texas from outside of Texas, and that someone happened to be a Texan, but who holds a very high position as one of our colleagues here in this body, the majority leader of the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay). I find it absolutely amazing that our friends in Texas and some of our constituents in Texas who serve in the Texas House of Representatives have been able to choose to stand up in the manner in which they have; people like Craig Eiland, whose wife was harassed by the Texas troopers, and people like Alan Ritter and Joe Deshotel, who took time away from their families to go away to Ardmore, Oklahoma, and to exhibit a protest. And shame on those who have said that those people are turning their backs on their jobs and turning their backs on their constituents and not wanting to go back and address the problems of the State of Texas. That is nonsense, it is offending, because these people to want to go back, they do want to go back and do their jobs, and they do want to address the critical problems that face Texas today, whether it deals with financing of our education system, which is in dire straits, whether it is the health needs, or the significant deficit that Texas faces of $10 billion to $12 billion, and they will do so as soon as the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives agrees to get rid of these nonpriority, personal political agenda items so that we can address the real needs of the State of Texas. I had a newsperson ask me today, Mr. Speaker, whether or not the people of Texas could be controlled by one person, and whether the Texas House of Representatives could be controlled by one person. I am thrilled to be able to say no, that it cannot be. Yes, the Republicans may win on this issue in Austin, Texas, but we will raise every objection that we can possibly raise. And they may win in the Senate, and we will raise that objection again. And they may win in the courts, but we will be right there. And the sad part of it is that the people of Texas will pay over and over again with the costs that are going to be associated with legal assistance and defending this issue and the huge amount of time and effort that is going to be taken away from our need to address the real issues of Texas. God bless those Texas legislators. We are proud of every one of you, and know you are going to do the Lord's work for all of us in Texas, and we will get to the bottom of it, and the people of Texas in the end will win.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, my Governor, Rick Perry, called some Texas legislative members children, and Speaker Tom Craddick called them Chicken D's. Well, I am calling them heroes. Joe Deshotel, Allen Ritter, Dan Ellis, and Craig Eiland are heroes to the citizens throughout Texas because of their willingness to stand up against the heavy-handed tactics of personal politics. The Governor and Speaker sent Texas troopers to a hospital in Galveston where Craig Eiland's prematurely born children are being treated. And yesterday Tom DeLay said he was looking to get the FBI involved to arrest Texas Democrats because they refused to put his unconstitutional, gerrymandered restricting plan above an issue like school finance reform. When a man like Craig Eiland has to go to another State rather than being there for his children, we have gone too far. The sad thing is, Mr. DeLay, you do not need to use the State troopers or the FBI to get those brave Democrats back in Austin. All you need to do is start paying attention to the needs of Texans instead of your own personal political agenda. Mr. DeLay, do not mess with Texas.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I had prepared a little bit different remarks, but after listening to the last few speakers, particularly our good friend the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), who spoke earlier about the shape of some of the districts and some of what happened with the development of this redistricting plan in Texas, I thought it might be appropriate to show some of the comparisons. I also listened a few minutes ago to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner) talk about those wonderful people who spent so much time searching for the remains of the Columbia after its dissolution on its return from space. What a magnificent bunch of people who spent so much of their time and effort trying to pick up the pieces to that spacecraft and to find the heroes who died in that craft. It is interesting that some of what has transpired with this redistricting can be directly affected to my work that I have put forth in behalf of the Johnson Space Center and the magnificent people who live in that Clearlake area of southeast Houston and north Galveston County. Those are areas that, through this redistricting plan, all the work that I have done in working on the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics could very easily be moved away from the Ninth Congressional District, a part of an area that has been represented continuously for over three decades. The community of interest there could very likely be dissolved because of this. We have talked about gerrymandering. We have talked about the creation of congressional districts that split communities, that literally take away communities of influence, centers of influence, that communities have been together for a very, very long time. What it does do as an example in my home county of Jefferson in southeast Texas where recently we had a redistricting for the State senate, Jefferson County was split into two different parts for the first time in the history of that county, since 1835. What it does do is to take a part of the southern part of Jefferson County and connect it to a much larger population area in basically the city of Houston. It takes the northern part of that county and brings it over into another part of the city of Houston. The city of Houston is wonderful, and I represent part of it, but so is the city of Beaumont. What happens is that the people who live in Houston now can control the future of the city of Beaumont, because a large number of people in one part of that district will determine who the Representative will be, Democrat or Republican, and consequently a center that is completely different, a center of influence around Beaumont or Port Arthur, Texas, becomes watered down, and it does not matter whether they are represented by a Democrat or a Republican, they are going to not be able to express their interests in the same way, and they certainly will not be able to elect a Representative of either party that is going to be controlled by the larger area of population. The current districts of Texas look like this. This was a map that was drawn and approved by a Federal district court in Texas, made up of two Democrats and one Republican. The districts are reasonably compact. The Ninth Congressional District is one that also is reasonably compact, including all of Jefferson County, Chambers County, Galveston County and a part of Harris County over here where the Johnson Space Center is. We will see, potentially see, hopefully we will not see, but under this plan the State of Texas is proposing to change that district to look like this, where it splits this county, it splits this county, Chambers, and moves into Harris County in a very convoluted, gerrymandered area. The interesting thing about this particular map is that the center of influence changes away from all of this area, because over 400,000 people live in this squiggly little part of inner-city Houston over here, connected and controlling the interests of the people who live in this much larger area. That is not fair. That is not fair to the citizens who have a specific interest different than the interests of those folks over there. We will talk more about this. I hope that my colleagues and my friends across the country will also be looking at how this is developing and why it is unfair to the citizens, not to the elected officials.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Southeast Texas Community Development Corporation, Inc. (SETCDC) on the occasion of its 10th Anniversary. SETCDC which serves the Beaumont--Port Arthur area of Southeast Texas was founded and incorporated on May 20, 1993, by State Representative Al Price and received its tax-exempt status in January, 1994. SETCDC has contributed to neighborhood redevelopment and revitalization by eradicating blight and building new homes throughout Southeast Texas. During these ten years, the Southeast Texas CDC has constructed 73 new homes and 19 units of multi-family housing and rehabilitated 28 existing homes. With the support and cooperation of local officials it has had a significant and positive impact on the lives of children and families of the region. Mr. Speaker, SETCDC has had an economic and business impact of over $10 million in the local community through construction loans and mortgages, through purchase of construction materials and through contracts with local small businesses. I ask my colleagues to join me in sending congratulations to Representative Price and all those associated with the Southeast Texas Community Development Corporation as they celebrate ten years of outstanding service to the citizens of Southeast Texas.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 150, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. I want to rise in support of this conference report, and certainly to thank all of the people who have worked on it: the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Frost), for bringing the legislation; the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Dunn) on the AMBER Alert itself; and looking into the overall larger bill, which I became a cosponsor of early on, the work that the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) has done on the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, along with me and about 150 other Members of the House of Representatives, as we have worked diligently to try to make a difference in this issue that deals with child protection. I have spoken for 2 years on this issue and am thrilled to see the kind of interest that this has brought right now and the support it has brought from across our House of Representatives and the Senate. We all know about the AMBER Alert and what it is and why it is such a good thing. So right now I really do not want to talk so much about it, but to talk about the larger role of who is playing a role in this overall effort: the Members of the House, the Senate, their staffs. The work that has been done in the last several months, I think, is extremely impressive. Certainly, I would mention the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and what they have done since their involvement in this issue for the last more than 20 years. There is the FBI, the Customs Service, and local law enforcement officials, as well as the media who also are a big part of the AMBER Alert. I want to thank the families and friends of Laura Kate Smither, the little girl who was abducted and murdered in 1997, who actually was the inspiration for the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. I stand here today in honor of Laura and with the hopes that this important piece of legislation will prevent the abduction and exploitation of children across America. I also rise in support of this conference report, because it helps the Secret Service continue its work on behalf of missing children. Nearly a decade ago, Congress authorized the U.S. Secret Service to participate in a multi-agency task force with the purpose of providing resources, expertise, and other assistance to local law enforcement agencies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in cases involving missing and exploited children. This began a strong partnership between the Secret Service and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and resulted in the Secret Service providing critical forensic support, including polygraph examinations, handwriting examinations, fingerprint research and identification, age progressions and regressions, and audio and video enhancements to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and to local law enforcement in numerous missing children's cases. They have indeed made significant differences. However, there is a clear need to provide explicit statutory jurisdiction to the Secret Service to continue this forensic and investigative support upon request of local law enforcement or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Secret Service amendment, which was adopted and is part of the S. 151 conference report, will do just that. I want to conclude and say, support the conference report. With the help of the Secret Service, these organizations will be able to continue their work.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. It has been great working with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) on the Committee on Science. I want to commend the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) for the work she has done as chairman of the Subcommittee on Research, but also the gentleman from New York (Mr. Boehlert) on the full committee. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 6, the comprehensive energy bill, particularly the research and development title that is the product of the bipartisan efforts of this Committee on Science. With a major portion of our current oil supply coming from overseas, it is essential that we make significant national investments in Department of Energy research and development programs to give us greater control over our future national energy supply. I come from an area that is a significant producer, as well as a processor, of oil. There is no question but that we need to try our best to put more of the people who are out of work in that field, particularly in southeast Texas, in my district, back to work. But our efforts must be focused not just on fossil fuels, but across a broad spectrum of energy sources, including wind, solar, nuclear, hydroelectric, and others. Conservation energy-efficiency programs are also essential. H.R. 6 provides us with a balanced approach to address our future energy needs. The bill also includes two important amendments that I offered in the Committee on Science. The first would require the Department of Energy to complete a report that would lay out the design and cost of establishing a test center for the next-generation fuel cells. My second amendment requires the DOE to report back on efforts to increase collaboration between large and small institutions of higher education. Smaller minority-serving universities have so much to offer the Department of Energy through grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements. I believe DOE can do more to foster this type of collaboration. I support H.R. 6, and I encourage my colleagues to support this very important legislation.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, there are an awful lot of good people who want to leave some kind of employment into which they have been paying Social Security and go into the classroom, and our classrooms across the State of Texas and across this whole country are crying for good people to go into the classroom. My wife was one of those people who had a job that paid into Social Security for a long period of time. She is going to receive minimal, if anything, from the teacher retirement system. But upon her retirement is it right for her to have been discouraged, after being encouraged to come in, because she is not going to receive some of the benefits she thought she might be able to? That is not right. That is not what we are trying to do here. We want to be able to encourage good qualified people to go into our classrooms. This legislation is going to have broad implications for teachers in Texas and many other States. It is going to very likely force an exodus, a mass exodus of good experienced teachers from our public schools. What impetus does an experienced teacher have to stay in the classroom and continue teaching if the government is, in effect, going to significantly reduce his or her retirement payment potential after this year? Well, the bill also fails to address a larger issue for public servants in this country. The government pension offset unfairly penalizes teachers and government workers and the employees most likely to pay into a public pension plan. So how can we sit idly by while our public service employees are indeed being penalized for serving their communities? I think we really should show a different loyalty to our first responders, who we from this floor praise so very often. The government pension offset is a deterrent to public service across this Nation. There is a solution to this problem. We believe that we offered it and it has been turned down. If we are to attract the best and brightest in public service, such as our teachers, firefighters, and police officers, then we must repeal this unfair provision. I urge a vote for the Green amendment and I urge my colleagues to support the passage of legislation that would permanently repeal the government pension offset. Our public servants deserve our support.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding to me and giving me this opportunity to come up and join the Democratic members of the Homeland Security Committee, the select committee, on this amendment that they are trying to put together and that certainly needs consideration. I was somewhat astounded when I was given the summary of this amendment and found what was not included on the bill that was put forward by the majority party and became very pleased that we were asking for something from the Democratic side as an amendment to that bill. It certainly, certainly needs to be given consideration. If our recent experience with anthrax, for example, has taught us anything, it is that we need to make the necessary investments to better identify solutions to these problems and to prepare appropriate responses. This comes only after we make science and research investments a priority and boost our homeland security funding. I know that Dr. John Stobo at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston had a vision when they moved to establish a Biosafety Level 4 laboratory to do that kind of research. UTMB Galveston's vision was validated after the attacks of September 11 and the ensuing anthrax tragedy. When completed, that project is going to be one of five such laboratories in North America and the first full-size facility on a university campus in the United States. The research that they will perform in this laboratory will be absolutely invaluable as we continue to attempt to solve these problems, whether it be smallpox, anthrax, or the next bioterror act that we may not know. When I looked at this amendment, I found that there is zero money requested for this in the proposal tomorrow and that the Democratic amendment is requesting at least $150 million for these funds. Half of the funds would go to the CDC and the other half would go to the EPA. The funds would be used by agencies to help State health laboratories develop capacity to rapidly detect the presence of chemical terrorism agents. What a tremendous need we have within our communities, and it is astounding to me that we do not appear to be addressing this right now. Another point that I found in here that took my breath away, 20 percent of the petrochemical processing capacity of our country is in the Ninth Congressional District, immediately south of the district of my colleague, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Turner). We are surrounded by other petrochemical activity. The Houston Galveston ship channel has 150 petrochemical facilities up and down the channel, and all of the rest that is going on there. We understand from a GAO report that the Federal Government has not comprehensively assessed the chemical industry's vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks. This is one of the things I have talked about since 2 days after September 11 when I began to meet with the plant managers of the plants and our municipal leaders throughout. Certainly they have done a great deal of work. Certainly the communities have reached out and attempted to make improvements to our security. And I feel very good about the work that has been done. But in this bill for tomorrow we are not requesting any more money to give them help, and it does cost if we are going to address the problems that they are facing about that security. Water and chemical plant security. We are asking for $100 million. Again, I am astounded we do not have any request in the supplemental tomorrow that we will be considering. We know what happened in my district in 1947. The Monsanto chemical plant in Texas City had two freighters parked at a port when ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded and blew up both ships and half of the city of Texas City, killing over 600 people. It was the largest loss of life to firefighters until the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. So we know what can happen to these communities, and for us to not give every opportunity to address the problems that we are facing, I think is shortsighted. If I may ask my colleague, I just received a phone call a few minutes ago from my county judge and the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Texas, asking for the first responder equipment particularly dealing with inoperability of equipment. Am I to understand that there is not a request to fund the needs that they have for communications capability, to be able to communicate between agencies and among agencies when there is a disaster?

Mr. LAMPSON. The fact that the gentleman's committee, and under his leadership with the Homeland Security Committee, is asking for $350 million to help address that problem is most appreciated. And I want to assure him that not only will I pass this information on back to the people in my congressional district about the needs that they face and the effort that the gentleman is making, and all the members of that committee are making to change this, but I will work as hard as I possibly can in support of this amendment tomorrow. I hope that it will be considered and it will be passed into law. We need these funds. The lives of our citizens across this country depend on it, and I thank the gentleman for his work and commend him for it.

Mr. LAMPSON

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman, as the chairman and founder of the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, I am proud to be part of this overall issue of child abduction. Missing and exploited children is an issue that I became critically aware of within a few months after coming to Congress when, in 1997, Laura Kate Smither was abducted from her neighborhood, and 2\1/2\ weeks later her body was found in a drainage ditch. Following that, I came back here and met with my staff, and one of my staff had been a volunteer with an organization called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children during high school. I quickly went over to the center and met Ernie Allen and have become a good friend of Mr. Allen, who is the president and CEO of that wonderful organization. I think I have found more in that organization than what I ever dreamed of being able to find. It does some amazing work. They have helped raise the overall level of awareness, which is the goal of the congressional caucus since we have formed it in 1997, now with about 150 members. I am proud of the fact that there are bills, many different bills, plural, that are up on the floor and that are being discussed. Obviously, I too wish that we could take some of them separately. I think the AMBER Alert would instantly become law. We have had that debate; and now we are debating H.R. 1104, of which I am a cosponsor. And I do ask and urge the passage of H.R. 1104. The national center does so much varied work in providing their hotline, in providing assistance to communities, to families, to law enforcement, the magnificent work that it has done through its image enhancement activities that have helped find children years later after they were taken. There are a significant number of extremely dedicated, powerful people that they have put together and formed efforts to get information into our schools with curricula that will change the lives of children, with the law enforcement training through the Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Center, which offers free training activity to any chief executive of any law enforcement agency in the United States, a powerful organization. The $20 million that we are asking for in fiscal years 2004 and 2005 will be some of the best money that this Congress can possibly spend. I urge the passage of H.R. 1104.

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding to me to speak in favor of the amendment that the gentleman is offering. The gentleman's amendment is designed to enhance the AMBER Alert provisions contained in H.R. 1104. Specifically, the amendment provides an additional $5 million in grant funding to help States implement new technologies designed to improve the dissemination of AMBER alerts. Though the use of highway signs and media outlets is a start, we must begin to look at new technologies like the Internet and e-mail to get these important alerts out. The amendment will also require the new AMBER Alert coordinator to submit a report by March 1, 2005, to Congress on the effectiveness and status of the AMBER Alert plans in each State. This report will provide the information Congress needs to determine the progress that the national coordinator and the States are making toward statewide integrated AMBER Alert systems. AMBER Alert is one of the most effective tools that we have to bring kids home. I thank the gentleman for the work that he has done on this issue and for joining me as the cochair on the Congressional Caucus for Missing and Exploited Children, and I hope the Congress passes the AMBER Alert legislation immediately, and this amendment.

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. For 2\1/2\ years I have stood on this floor almost every day talking about the issue of missing and exploited children, encouraging our colleagues to join us in developing legislation to help raise the level of awareness of this horrendous issue across the United States of America to higher and higher heights, and I am proud of the fact that we are here today discussing the legislation that we are.

Mr. LAMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.