Ed Markey

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today I am joined by 14 of my colleagues in introducing the ``Crosby-Puller Combat Wounds Compensation Act,'' a bill to remedy the lapse in support that a wounded soldier experiences from the moment he/she is evacuated from the combat zone for medical treatment. Although some of that support can eventually be restored if a soldier is discharged and applies under certain VA programs, this bill deals with the immediate burden placed on soldiers like James Crosby, a Marine who was seriously wounded while fighting for his country in Iraq. The bill has been named after James Crosby and, at his request, Lt. General Lewis ``Chesty'' Puller, USMC, the most decorated Marine in the history of the Corps. Lance Corporal James Crosby of Winthrop, Massachusetts enlisted in the United States Marine Corps when he was 17 years old. He is married to Angela and was living in California before his service and his injury. On March 18, 2004, James was wounded by enemy fire while riding on the back of a U.S. military vehicle in Iraq. A rocket fired at the vehicle killed the driver and injured two Marines including James. A piece of shrapnel pierced James' side and penetrated his intestines and spine. James was taken immediately to a hospital in Kuwait. He had his first operation there, was stabilized and finally flown to a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. In Germany, James underwent several surgeries to remove shrapnel and repair wounds. James's wife, Angela, was flown to Germany to be with him during these difficult times. James was flown to Bethesda military hospital in Maryland in late March. Congressman Markey visited James in April at which time he received the Purple Heart. James eventually returned to Massachusetts and continued to receive care at the West Roxbury Veterans Hospital in Boston. He has lost over 50 pounds since his injury and requires a colostomy bag at all times. He has undergone 14 surgeries thus far, but remains paralyzed from the waist down. The Boston Red Sox honored James on June 25, 2004 as he threw out the first pitch before a Red Sox-Phillies game at Fenway Park. James's pay was immediately cut when he was transported out of the combat zone in Iraq. While serving the U.S. Marine Corps in Iraq, James received his base pay as well as Combat Zone Tax Exclusion (CZTE), Imminent Danger Pay (IDP), Hardship Duty pay (HDP), Per Diem and Flight Pay. He also lost his Family Separation Allowance (FSA) once he returned to the United States for medical care. The tax exclusion and pays amounted to more than $1,000 per month. James is now still a member of the Marine Corps and has not yet been discharged. He is not entitled to Veterans benefits until he is officially discharged. James was being paid about $2,500 a month while serving in Iraq, but now is only receiving $1,300 a month. He has relied on family and friends to help him pay for a handicapped accessible apartment as well as daily expenses, because his current military pay of $1,300 a month does not cover all of his expenses. James has also been helped by the Shutt Detachment, an association of former Marines, which held a fundraiser for him on August 19 at the Rack in Boston. Without the help of family, friends, and former Marines, James and his young wife would not be able to afford an apartment in the Greater Boston Area and cover expenses. James eagerly wants to work to help other members of our nation's armed services that are in a similar situation. He and his family have worked with my office to address in this legislation the problems that they have experienced, first hand, in coping with wounds incurred in James's service to his country. I urge my colleagues to join us in ensuring that members of the Armed Forces that are wounded while serving in a combat zone will continue to receive certain special pays, tax exclusions and allowances associated with such service until the member recovers from the wound or injury.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, this week the price of oil rose to more than $53 a barrel, a record that will translate into higher home heating oil prices this winter and higher gasoline prices at the pump. Last night, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives responded to this news by passing a tax bill that renews an expiring tax loophole for small businesses to buy huge, gas-guzzling SUVs, like the Hummer. Our tax code should offer incentives for people to conserve energy. Unfortunately, the SUV tax loophole does just the opposite. The Republican Hummer tax loophole entices Americans to buy the biggest, heaviest, and least fuel efficient vehicles on the market. Under this loophole, a small business that purchases a large SUV, such as a Hummer or Cadillac Escalade, can deduct up to $25,000 of the vehicle's cost. In contrast, citizens who purchase a fuel efficient hybrid vehicle this year will be entitled to just $2,000; starting in 2006, the hybrid vehicle tax deduction will shrink even further until it disappears entirely by 2009. In 2003, nearly 1,000,000 large SUVs were sold in the US, outnumbering the number of hybrid vehicles sold by a ratio of 23 to 1. The best-selling hybrid vehicle, the Toyota Prius, achieves an estimated 55 miles per gallon. In contrast, the Hummer H2, Ford Excursion, and Land Rover Range Rover all achieve less than 15 miles per gallon. The Toyota Prius emits 3.5 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually; the annual greenhouse gas emissions for the Hummer H2, Ford Excursion, and Land Rover Range Rover each emit more than 4 times the amount of greenhouse gases than the Prius. Instead of working towards independence from Middle East oil, the Republicans have voted to extend tax loopholes that will only help make us even more dependent. So far, we have had 1,066 American soldiers die in a misdirected, misguided attempt to stabilize the government holding the world's second largest oil supply. The war in Iraq has made our country more vulnerable to the extremists of the Middle East. Instead of making our air cleaner and protecting our environment, the Republican Hummer tax loophole is making our air dirtier, making our planet warmer, and contributing to the pressure to drill for oil in one of the last pristine ecosystems remaining in not only America but on the planet. Large SUVs are extremely polluting, particularly in regards to greenhouse gases. Due in part to the oil wasted by large SUVs, the Administration would like to open the ecologically pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling in order to extract a total of 6 months worth of oil--oil that would be pumped right into the tanks of Hummers and other SUV gas guzzlers. Instead of working to pay down the nation's debt, the Republican Hummer tax loophole is digging our children's financial hole even deeper. For every 100,000 taxpayers that drive through the Hummer loophole, the Treasury is denied almost $900 million. Instead of helping the poor, the tax loophole is once again aiding the wealthy. Because Hummers and other large SUVs use an inordinate amount of fuel, they increase the demand for gasoline, which in turn causes the price of gasoline to rise. The price of gasoline in Massachusetts currently is $1.93 a gallon. The price of oil is almost $53 a barrel. These price increases make a disproportionately higher impact on the bank accounts of the nation's poorest households. In addition, because the SUV tax poolhole is designed for type-S corporations, the beneficiaries include lawyers, doctors, and real estate agents. Clearly, something needs to be done to help wean the United States off of oil and free ourselves from the chains of OPEC. A step in the right direction would be for the United States to promote the use of high fuel economy hybrid vehicles. This problem could be solved easily if we only had the willpower to do so. By changing one sentence in the tax code, we could preserve the tax deduction to small businesses owners, such as farmers, who were intended to benefit, and eliminate the benefit to those who abuse it. In the current version, some long overdue language was added to distinguish between large SUVs and industrial vehicles. That change somewhat improved the situation, dropping the deductible amount for large SUVs from a ridiculous $100,000 to a sublime $25,000; however, the fact that $25,000 deductions for large SUVs are being extended until 2008 while the already minuscule deductions for hybrid vehicles are disappearing is ludicrous. By not extending the SUV tax loophole and not eliminating the deductions for hybrid vehicles, we can help to increase our nation's security, protect our environment, reduce the national debt, and ease the financial burdens of the poor. It is time for the majority in the Congress to steer our nation in the right direction by saying no to the special interests who are working to keep this loophole open. The House vote last night to approve the Republican tax bill represents a failure of vision. We can only hope now that the Senate will block this legislation to extend the Republican Hummer loophole from 2006 until 2008. Last year when we tried to get rid of this loophole during the energy conference, I resorted to bad poetry as a way of prying my colleagues free of this obscene subsidy. It didn't work. But I am told by people in the business of psychological operations that you can sometimes free a hostage by playing the same thing over and over again until the hostage-taker comes screaming out of the house saying ``Stop It! I Can't Take It Anymore!'' So, for the sake of good policy, I am resorting once again to the same bad poetry. ``A Taxpayer's Lament,'' or ``Why Am I Paying for Other People's Humvees?'' I don't mind paying taxes, for energy and such As long as I don't have to pay very much, And as long as I don't end up subsidizing trucks Called ``Humvee Ones'' and ``Humvee 2s'' for 25,000 bucks! They don't fit in a parking space; they guzzle gas like a hog, And they leave our children gasping for air turned in to smog. I'm not for banning Humvees--some people think they're cool. But subsidizing this luxury treats taxpayers like a fool. With our soldiers now in Baghdad fighting for the oil Wasting gasoline this way just makes my blood boil. Voting for this subsidy is impossible to defend. All we want to know out here is when will this end?

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the Honorable Judge Learned Hand once said: . . . Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. These famous words emphasize the fact that civic participation is vital to the maintenance of a healthy democracy. A national effort is currently underway to promote the civic engagement of our citizens by focusing on the youth of our nation. By creating effective civic education programs in our elementary and secondary schools, we can educate kids at an early age and encourage them to become active in local politics. In September of last year, the First Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education was launched to begin a national conversation about how to encourage civic participation. One of the positive outcomes of the congressional conference was the establishment of state delegations that would enact specific policies designed to restore the civic mission of our schools. I would like to recognize Diane N. Palmer, the facilitator, and the whole Massachusetts delegation for their leadership in working to design a strategy to improve civic education in our State. These Massachusetts activities include: Holding a statewide conference on civic education for new teachers; creating a commission to plan better civic education; and conducting a survey to determine what civic education programs are already used in high schools. I look forward to seeing the accomplishments of the Massachusetts civic education delegation and their participation at the Second Annual Congressional Conference on Civic Education on December 4-6 of this year.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Fair Access to Clinical Trials (FACT) Act. This bill is designed to ensure that the public has complete and accurate information about the drugs and devices they use. Recent revelations in the press and in the oversight hearings conducted by the Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee have raised serious concerns that some companies in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries have failed to properly disclosed important information from the public about the safety of certain drugs or medical devices. For example, there is now evidence that several pediatric anti-depressant trials that produced important new adverse information about the safety of certain drugs were not released to the public. The public is now demanding to know why these trials never saw the light of day. Although much attention has focused on disclosure problems involving the effects of certain anti-depressants on young people, the problem of selective disclosure and publication is not limited to a specific type of drug or scenario--the same concerns exist whether we are talking about drugs to treat depression, heart disease or arthritis, or even a medical device that would be implanted into the human body. I am sure that some clinical trials do not become part of the medical literature for innocent reasons. But we cannot ignore the possibility that some studies were and continue to be intentionally buried by companies who are worried about the impact of a negative trial on their bottom line. Regardless of the motivation, however, the fact remains that we don't know what trials are currently being conducted, so it is impossible to determine whether the companies and researchers are actually telling us the whole truth about their drugs and devices or whether they are painting a distorted picture of their products by picking and choosing which trials they want to reveal. This creates two huge problems. The first is that in order for doctors to make good medical decisions and provide their patients with the best possible care, they need to have access to complete and sound scientific data. The second is that when people enroll in clinical trials they give up a certain control of their own personal medical decisions, willingly taking experimental drugs and subjecting themselves to potential harm in the belief that their participation in the studies will add to the advancement of medical knowledge and potentially unlock the secrets of disease. But if a researcher or a company that sponsors a trial does not publicize the results, the knowledge gained from putting those participants at risk remains forever buried in some researcher's computer. That information will not be available to doctors, or to other medical researchers, who could use it. In order to ensure that clinicians have all the information they need in order to make sound medical decisions, uphold the ethical responsibility to patients and protect public health, I am proud to join with the gentleman from California, Mr. Waxman, to introduce the Fair Access to Clinical Trials (The FACT Act) a bill to create a mandatory, public, federal registry of all clinical trials. The FACT act will require researchers to register their clinical trials in a federal registry before starting them and report the results of those trials at the conclusion. The federal database will include both federal-funded and privately-funded clinical trials so that clinicians, patients and researchers will be able to know the universe of clinical trials on a particular drug and have access to the results of those trials. Our bill also establishes strong enforcement mechanisms, including monetary penalties of up to $10,000 per day for manufacturers who refuse to comply. The registry established under the bill is intended to meet all of the minimum criteria for a trial registry set out by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, and will satisfy the American Medical Association's call for the results of all clinical trials to be publicly available to doctors and patients. Our legislation has been endorsed by the New England Journal of Medicine and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation. The FACT act will ensure that patients have the tools they need to make informed decisions, maintain the integrity of the medical community, and protect the health of their patients and our families. I look forward to working with everyone concerned about this important issue so that we end up with a system that preserves a robust system of research and ensures robust system of disclosure.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my strong concerns about the lack of adequate patient privacy protections in H.R. 3015, the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2004. H.R. 3015 is intended to support states' efforts to prevent the abuse of certain controlled substances through the provision of federal grants to the states for the purpose of establishing and implementing controlled substance monitoring programs. States would use the grants to develop and maintain an electronic database containing information about the type of medication prescribed, quantity dispensed, number of refills, and similar product information. The database also would collect personal information about each patient receiving prescriptions of the covered controlled substances, such as the patient's name, address and telephone number. The abuse of controlled substances such as oxycontin and amphetamines is a serious problem that plagues many Americans. In response to the seriousness of the problem of prescription drug abuse, more than 20 states, including Massachusetts, have taken steps to prevent such abuse through the establishment of reporting requirements on pharmacists and the creation of drug monitoring databases similar to those contemplated by H.R. 3015. In Massachusetts, for example, pharmacies are required to report the prescriptions they fill for substances in Schedules I and II to the state's department of Public Health. The problem is that H.R. 3015 does not provide the safeguards that are required to shield patients--the vast majority of whom will be law- abiding citizens receiving medications as part of a legitimate plan of care--from unauthorized disclosure of their personal medical information. Instead, the legislation provides the states broad leeway to establish databases of patients' private medical records with little guidance on the privacy protections that must be in place in order to qualify for the grants. For example, H.R. 3015 does not require states to limit access to the database information to a finite and identifiable number of individuals. Instead, the bill permits disclosure of individually- identifiable patient information in the database to a wide range of professionals in addition to practitioners and law enforcement personnel, including any local, state or federal ``narcotics control, licensure, disciplinary or program authority'' who can make specific certifications as to the need for access to the information. Any ``agent of another state'' with a monitoring program approved by the bill also could gain access to patient records in the database, provided that the purpose of the access is for ``implementing the state's controlled substance monitoring program.'' Such easy access puts the privacy of potentially hundreds of thousands of law-abiding citizens at risk of unauthorized disclosure. Additional privacy protections that are missing from H.R. 3015 include: a requirement that states receiving grants under the terms of the bill periodically purge the database of information about any particular prescription after a limited amount of time; unambiguous language stipulating that the bill does not override established standards of medical ethics relating to privacy; establishment of specific penalties for unauthorized access and redisclosure; and a provision making clear that the term ``minimum necessary'' as it relates to the limitation of information to the ``minimum necessary'' needed to comply with a request for patient data be interpreted as defined under the Amended Privacy Rule. While I strongly support efforts to prevent the abuse of controlled substances, H.R. 3015 does not contain sufficient guidance to the states on the level of privacy protections that they must provide in the creation and maintenance of the databases authorized under the legislation. The potential for the invasion of patient privacy resulting from such databases is not merely theoretical. The New York Times reported on October 1, 2004 that confidential records of nearly 4,000 abused and foster children in Central Florida were available to the public on the Internet for at least four months because of a security breach in a child welfare computer system. The records included the children's names, photographs, Social Security numbers, case histories and locations of the foster homes they were in, and were accessible on a Web site of a private children's agency under contract with the Department of Children and Families. I am including a copy of this article for inclusion in the Record. Now that H.R. 3015 has been approved by the House, I urge the Senate to strengthen the privacy provisions in the legislation so that the important goal of preventing prescription drug abuse can be advanced without sacrificing the privacy of law-abiding patients. [From the New York Times, Oct. 1, 2004] Confidentiality for Foster Children Is Broken (By Terry Aguayo) Miami, Sept. 30.--Confidential records of nearly 4,000 abused and foster children in Central Florida were available to the public on the Internet for at least four months because of a security breach in a child welfare computer system, the Department of Children and Families said on Thursday. The records included the children's names, photographs, Social Security numbers, case histories and locations of the foster homes they were in, and were accessible on the Web site of Kids Central, a private children's agency under contract with the Department of Children and Families, the state's child welfare agency. In April or May, Kids Central began using a computer system designed to let private caseworkers review state child welfare records through the Internet, said to Janice Johnson, chief executive of Kids Central in Ocala. Although a user name and a password were needed to reach the records, some passwords and user names became available online in unrestricted files created when caseworkers sought technical help with the system. ``Confidentiality is critical,'' said Don Thomas, district administrator for the Department of Children and Families in Central Florida. ``If these kids are in the child welfare system to begin with, they have a far from ideal life, and if their personal information is available to those who don't have to know, it violates their privacy.'' Department administrators ordered the Web site shut down on Wednesday after a reporter for The Miami Herald, which first reported the problem, informed them of the flaw. It was back up Thursday morning after the security issues were resolved, Mr. Thomas said. Mr. Thomas said he knew of no one, other than the reporter, who gained access to the records because of the flaw. ``A child's case record is a child's life. It should be treated as sacred,'' said Richard Wexler, executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform and a strong critic of the department. ``Given the kind of information, I think there is a clear danger, particularly since the locations of these children were made available to anyone.'' The Department of Children and Families has been afflicted by numerous problems that surfaced after it lost track of a 4-year-old foster child, Rilya Wilson, and did not notice she was missing until 15 months later, in April 2002. She remains unaccounted for. Jerry Regier, the department's secretary, resigned in August as a result of accusations that he and two top aides took favors from contractors.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in strong opposition to the Hostettler amendment. The Hostettler amendment amends the ill-considered and counterproductive torture provisions in H.R. 10 in a way that still allows foreigners to be subjected to torture. How does it do this? The Hostettler amendment gives the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to detain certain foreigners that, ``in the Secretary's unreviewable discretion,'' the Secretary has determined to be a specially dangerous alien that should be detained until removed. Such persons would be held behind bars indefinitely with no recourse to a court or another independent fact finder empowered to review the basis for the Secretary's decision. Any foreign person that the Secretary of Homeland Security decides is ``especially dangerous'' can just be locked up forever with no trial or just deported. And the Hostettler amendment stipulates that the ``Secretary of State shall seek diplomatic assurances that such alien shall be protected if removed from the United States.'' That means that the State Department is supposed to seek diplomatic assurances from a country that it will not torture somebody after a U.S. judge already has found that this country likely would, in fact, torture that person. Are we really going to trust the assurances of the countries that our own State Department says torture detainees? Mr. Chairman, we should really call this the ``In Syria we trust'' amendment or perhaps the ``In Sudan we trust'' amendment. The assurances that these countries have provided that they would not torture have proved completely unreliable in practice. In 2002, Maher Arar, a Syrian-born citizen, was intercepted at New York's JFK Airport and deported to Syria, where he was detained and reportedly tortured. The Washington Post has reported that while Syria provided ``diplomatic assurances'' that Arar would not be mistreated, these assurances proved worthless. Maher Arar was tortured anyway. America should not be outsourcing torture to countries like Syria and the Sudan. America should be relying not on diplomatic assurances from countries that we already know practice torture, particularly when a U.S. judge has already found that it is more likely than not that the deported person would be tortured if they were sent there. We as America cannot preach temperance from a bar stool. If we want to protect our own Marines and soldiers from torture, we must have the same standard for protecting prisoners that we have under our control from torture. We cannot build a new generation of nuclear bunker busters and then tell the Muslim nations they should not want nuclear weapons, and we cannot tell the Muslim world not to torture American prisoners at the same time we are sending Muslim detainees to countries that we know are going to torture those prisoners. We cannot exist in a world where the United States is not the moral leader. This amendment must be defeated.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 10. This bill is nothing more than a cynical sham masquerading as reform. It purports to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, but it actually implements only 11 of the Commission's 41 recommendations. What was left off the table? The bill on the House Floor today: Fails to strengthen our efforts to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons; fails to give the National Intelligence Director sufficient authority over the budget and personnel of the intelligence agencies; and fails to secure U.S. borders by integrating disparate screening systems. H.R. 10 has numerous additional flaws: There is no requirement to screen all cargo being placed on airplanes to ensure they do not contain explosives. There are NO whistleblower protections for TSA baggage screeners or employees of the FBI and the CIA who are retaliated against for disclosing security problems to their supervisors. Any reorganization of the intelligence community is rendered meaningless by the failure to protect modern day Paul Reveres like Coleen Rowley and Sibel Edmonds when they blow the whistle. An amendment offered by Mr. Nadler to increase the security of nuclear facilities and shipments of extremely hazardous materials that was actually ACCEPTED during the Judiciary Committee markup was inexplicably removed by the Rules Committee. What was added to the bill? Dozens of pages of extraneous material that have nothing to do with anything that the 9/11 Commission recommended. The underlying bill actually contains a provision that would authorize the outsourcing of torture and limit any judicial review of this process! That's right--in this bill--H.R. 10--the House Republican leadership would actually make it easier for certain foreign persons to be sent to countries where they would be tortured in interrogations. I call this the Abu Ghraib-by-Proxy provision. It's outrageous that these provisions have been snuck into the 9/11 bill behind closed doors when the 9/11 Commission specifically called for the United States to ``offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the law. . .'' Nothing could be farther from the 9/11 Commission's intent when it issued this recommendation. Where does the Bush Administration stand on this Abu Ghraib? The White House's Legal Counsel sent a letter to the Washington Post saying that the Administration does not support these provisions in this bill. Earlier this year I introduced H.R. 4674, a bill that would explicitly bar the U.S. from deporting, extraditing, or otherwise rendering persons to foreign nations known to engage in the practice of torture. If we really want to implement the 9/11 commission recommendations, we would be including this type of proposal in the bill before us today. I asked the Rules Committee to approve an open Rule that would allow me to do this, but they refused. What the Rules Committee did approve was a Rule that makes in order an amendment by the Gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hostettler). What does the Hostettler amendment do? It would rely on ``diplomatic assurances'' that detainees would not be tortured. We should not be trusting ``diplomatic assurances'' from torturers that they won't engage in torture. Both H.R. 10 and the proposed Hostettler amendment would legitimize the practice of sending suspected terrorists to other countries to be tortured. That is wrong. I urge a ``no'' vote on H.R. 10, and a NO vote on the Hostettler amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of a friend and former colleague, Jack Fields of Texas. Today the House has designated a post office in Jack's home state of Texas the ``Congressman Jack Fields Post Office.'' On the House Floor this afternoon, we're naming a post office for a man who always knew how to deliver for his constituents. This is a fitting tribute to a gifted legislator who represented the 8th Congressional District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1980 to 1996. I was proud to serve with Jack on the Committee on Commerce from 1982 to 1996. In 1995, Jack became the Chairman of the Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance. As the Subcommittee's Ranking Member, I worked closely with Jack on the first comprehensive reform of the Communications Act of 1934--The Telecommunications Act of 1996--which was designed to encourage competition in all telecommunications-related industries and create an environment in which new telecommunications technologies could thrive. President Clinton signed the bill into law in February 1996. Jack was a trusted colleague. More importantly, he was, and is, one of my best friends. He was a master legislator and a master basketball player. On the House Floor or on the basketball floor, he was always an MVP. He worked across party lines to move legislation forward that benefited the American people. He has retired from Congress, but his distinguished legacy remains.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, oil prices are approaching $50 a barrel, more than 1,000 young American men and women dead in Iraq, 6,000 wounded. What are we debating here on the floor of Congress? We are talking up a bill to inject discrimination into the Constitution of the United States of America. Apparently, the Republican Congress believes that the fact that some States want to recognize the loving relationships of gay and lesbian couples is such a threat to our country that they are prepared to take the extreme measure of amending the Constitution. Conservative activist Paul Weyrich shed some light on the current thinking in Republican circles which explains why this bill is really on the floor today. Here is what Mr. Weyrich had to say: The President has bet the farm on Iraq. Right or wrong, he has done it. Even if you disagree with the decision, you have to admire the President for putting it on the line and staying the course despite overwhelmingly bad news for months now. Therefore, Iraq will be an unavoidable topic of discussion in this campaign. The problem is that events in Iraq are out of the control of the President. Mr. Weyrich writes, ``There is only one alternative to this situation: Change the subject.'' He dismisses the option of taking up oil prices or the economy. Apparently, even he does not think those are winners for the President. ``No,'' he concludes, ``what I have in mind to change the subject is a winner for the President. The Federal Marriage Amendment.'' The gay marriage issue, he gleefully advises, ``will cause Senator Kerry no end of problems.'' So that is what it is really all about. Republican leaders in Washington are running scared. They look at the polls on Iraq, on the economy, on jobs and they fear that the voters are going to rise up in November and toss them out of office, and as a result they bring up a resolution to alter the most sacred document in the land. The Constitution was written to ensure that all Americans are treated equally. This provision will undermine that principle and tarnish the Constitution. I believe that any State should have the right, if it so chooses, to grant same-sex couples or unmarried couples the same legal rights as those conferred to heterosexual couples. This is the same policy supported by Vice President Dick Cheney who stated during the 2000 Presidential election that same-sex marriages should remain a State issue and the Federal Government should recognize those State laws. Vote ``no'' on this bill. It is a disgrace against the United States Constitution.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, just think for a second what is going on in the world this week. The assault weapons ban expired yesterday, freeing the way for an assault weapons buying frenzy. The Republican Congress refuses to allow a vote on extending the ban on the sale of assault weapons. Companies all over America continue to offshore American jobs to foreign countries with tax breaks as incentives that the Republicans refuse to take off the books. Oil prices remain sky high, with analysts expecting them to stay sky high for the foreseeable future, but the Republicans have no plan to protect American consumers from being tipped upside down as they pay gasoline prices and home heating oil prices. The 9/11 Commission has come back with recommendations that they insist that Congress pass to make sure there is not a repetition of 9/ 11. The Republican Party refuses to bring those bills out here on the floor. Osama bin Laden is still at large, and just last week, we had a videotape from his top deputy threatening further attacks on the United States. We have 1,000 troops who have died in Iraq. We have suffered 5,000 wounded in Iraq, and no end in sight. North Korea may have exploded a nuclear bomb this week. South Korea is now enriching uranium and plutonium. So what has the Republican United States Congress decided to do this week? What important issue are we debating? Will it be Iraq? Will it be terrorism? Will it be oil prices? Will it be a stagnant economy? No. The Republicans have decided that this week, 3 weeks before we adjourn, is lawsuit abuse week, so that we can deny families in our country that have been injured by large corporations from being able to sue those corporations for the damage they did to the children, to the families. And the centerpiece is this Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act that really should be called the Legislative Abuse Expansion Act. This bill contains unconstitutional provisions that would force every State court to implement entirely new court rules and procedures. The bill contains unfunded mandates that would force States to conduct an inquiry about what the outcome of the case will be before discovery and trial have even taken place. How is the court supposed to know that? If a case is not lucky enough to be brought before Judge Carnac, the court may have to subpoena witnesses, hold evidentiary hearings and ask the individuals involved to the litigation proceeding to spend time and money on the new ``pretrial trial'' mandated by this bill to block individuals from suing corporations who have hurt American families. The simple fact is that the amount of civil litigation in this country is not expanding. The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and National Center for State Courts track civil cases and verdicts in the Nation's 75 largest counties. They reported in April that, in the last decade, the number of cases has gone down, not up. The bureau reported that the number of general civil cases disposed of by trial in the Nation's largest counties declined from 22,000 in 1992 to 11,000 in 2001, a 47 percent decline. There is no urgency on this issue. There has been a 47 percent decline in these kind of cases. The plaintiffs won about half the time. And the overall median award was $37,000 in 2001, down from $65,000 in 1992. Why are we taking these bills up when there is no litigation explosion? Why are we running roughshod over the rights of the States to set rules? Why are we restricting the flexibility of judges to protect ordinary families in our country? There is only one reason why, because the Republican Party wants to shut down the access that every citizen currently has to our legal system to seek justice and compensation when they have been harmed by the actions of a wealthy corporation. That is what this is all about. Vote ``no'' on this legislation.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this important amendment, which I am pleased to join in cosponsoring. This amendment would provide a modest boost to the funding levels for these two programs--$11 million more for LIHEAP and $11 million more for Weatherization. This additional funding is desperately needed, but it would still leave many needs unmet. LIHEAP alone needs $1 billion above the $1.9 billion level in this bill to simply maintain the purchasing power it enjoyed in 1982. Meanwhile, we are seeing greatly increased volatility in oil and natural gas markets which threaten consumers with higher home heating prices this winter. The Department of Energy reports that consumers are expected to pay 55 percent more for natural gas; 45 percent more for heating oil; and 41 percent more for propane than they did in the years between 1998 and 2000. As a result, heating a home with natural gas will cost an average of $1,049 this winter; heating with fuel oil will cost $1,094; and, heating with propane will cost $1,361. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 36 million Americans-- including almost 13 million children--now live in poverty. That is an increase of over a million people in the last year alone. Faced with a growing number of families in poverty, the Republican leadership has brought to the floor an appropriations bill that does little to help those Americans who have fallen below the poverty line. It seems the Republican leadership would rather protect President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans than lend a helping hand to the poorest Americans. For the low income families and seniors of Massachusetts and the rest of New England, winter--and increased utility bills--will be here too soon. Many families and seniors will once again be faced with the difficult decision between heating and eating. Two crucial programs that help low-income families and seniors deal with the high cost of heating their homes in the winter are the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Weatherization Assistance Program. This appropriations bill's funding levels for these two crucial programs are inadequate to meet the current and growing needs of low-income Americans. There is bipartisan support from legislators representing warm and cold climates to raise LIHEAP's funding to $3 billion, but this appropriations bill is nowhere near that level of funding. I urge my colleagues to pass this amendment today as a first step to meeting LIHEAP needs in the very near future. We owe the low-income families that rely on this program no less. I urge adoption of the amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, oil prices at $40 a barrel, nearly 1,000 young American men and women dead in Iraq, 6,000 wounded. What are we debating here on the floor of Congress? We are taking up a bill to strip the Federal courts of the power to hear cases challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Apparently, the Republican Congress is so concerned that a gay or lesbian couple might someday have their marriage in one State recognized in another that they are prepared to take the extreme measure of preventing judges from interpreting the law. While every other American will continue to enjoy the checks and balances that come from three branches of government, the Republicans have decided that if you are gay you should be able to get along with just two branches of government. Why are they doing this? Conservative activist Paul Weyrich shed some light on the current thinking in Republican circles which explains why this bill is really on the floor today. Here is what Mr. Weyrich had to say: ``The President has bet the farm on Iraq. Right or wrong, he has done it. Even if you disagree with the decision, you have to admire the President for putting it on the line and staying the course despite overwhelmingly bad news for months now. ``Therefore, Iraq will be an unavoidable topic of discussion in this campaign. The problem is that events in Iraq are out of the control of the President.'' Mr. Weyrich writes, ``There is only one alternative to this situation: Change the subject.'' He dismisses the option of taking up oil prices or the economy. Apparently, even he does not think those are winners for the President. ``No,'' he concludes, ``what I have in mind to change the subject is a winner for the President. The Federal Marriage Amendment.'' The gay marriage issue, he gleefully advises, ``will cause Senator Kerry no end of problems.'' So that is what it is really all about. Republican leaders in Washington are running scared. They look at the polls on Iraq, on the economy, on jobs and they fear that the voters are going do rise up in November, and as a result they bring an unconstitutional act out on the floor that will strip gays and lesbians of their rights to be able to go to the Federal courts. Vote ``no'' on this bill. It is a disgrace against the United States Constitution.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Gateway to Democracy Act, a bill designed to increase young voter registration and participation. As we enter another presidential election season we are once again reminded that in order for our democracy to function properly, people need to exercise their right to vote. Unfortunately, young people consistently fail to turn out to the polls on voting day. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in the 2000 general election only 45.4 percent of 18 to 24 year olds were registered to vote and only 32.3 percent voted. The statistics for the 1998 general election were even more dismal, as 39.2 percent of such individuals were registered and a mere 16.6 percent actually went to the polls. Studies have shown that people establish their voting behavior early in life. People who start voting between the ages of 18-24 are more likely to consistently participate in the election process for the rest of their lives. Thus it is in the best interest of the country to make it as easy as possible for the youth of our nation to go to the polls for the first time. Young adults often fail to turn out on their first Election Day simply because, for the first time, they realize they have not registered to vote. Most states require registration prior to the election itself, so that it is too late to establish voter eligibility on Election Day. The Gateway to Democracy Act seeks to increase the number of young people who are eligible to vote as soon as they reach voting age. In 1993, we passed The National Voter Registration Act so that people could register to vote when they applied for their motor vehicle driver's licenses. This law has increased voter registration and according to studies appears to increase youth voting. However, many states allow individuals to get their licenses years before they meet the age requirement for registration, but few states allow registration at that time if the person is not eighteen years old. Since 53.7 percent of seventeen year olds already had their motor vehicle licenses in 2002, we missed a valuable opportunity to register more than half of the people in that age group. The Gateway to Democracy is a very simple idea. If you're 18 or older and you apply for a driver's license, you can also register to vote. But in most states, if you are under 18, you do not have the same opportunity to register to vote at the same time that you apply for a drivers license. Thus, a 16 or 17 year old typically must make a second trip to register after that person reaches the eligible age to vote. Often these young people don't bother to make this second trip until it is too late for them to participate in the first election for which they are eligible. This bill will allow people who are too young to vote to fill out all the paperwork necessary to register to vote when they get their drivers license. However, they won't be eligible to go to the polls until they reach the legal minimum voting age. Some states already have successful pre-registration programs. For example, Connecticut, Florida and Maine allow people to pre-register to vote at age 17, Georgia, Missouri, and Iowa allow people to pre- register at age 17 and a half and Hawaii allows people to preregister at age 16. These programs prove that pre-registration programs are simple and effective. The Gateway to Democracy is a commonsense solution to the problem of getting young people registered in time for their first election. It allows young people to take care of the paperwork ahead of time so that they don't have anything standing in their way on Election Day.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and it is to make this point: That the majority worked very well with the minority on this issue. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) and I and all the Members on our side want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) for their cooperation on this legislation. I was the principal House sponsor of the original junk fax bill back in 1991. That bill worked quite well, but we need to update it, and this legislation will help to give the additional protections to American consumers so that they can protect themselves against the tsunami of unwanted junk faxes which go into their homes. After all, what could be worse than to have something come into your home, consume paper in your fax machine that you have to pay for, and then not have an ability to be able to stop that person from sending any more junk faxes into your home? That is what this bill will help to ensure does not occur in our country. The provisions in it, I think, are solid, they are sound, and they are the product of a bipartisan bill. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. This legislation reflects a compromise that was negotiated out between both Democratic and Republican Members over a number of weeks and I encourage Members to support this legislation today. First, let me state that I was the principal House sponsor of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991, which contained the original junk fax prohibition. Congress endorsed my call in 1991 for a general prohibition against junk faxes because of the intrusive nature of that form of advertising. Junk faxes represent a form of advertising in which the ad is essentially paid for by the recipient. The recipient of a junk fax pays for the fax paper and printer costs, pays in the form of precious lost time as the machine is tied up, and also in the form of the clutter in which important faxes are lost in the midst of a pile of junk faxes. I think it is important to emphasize that the bill we bring to the House floor today retains the general prohibition against sending junk faxes. In other words, sending an unsolicited facsimile advertisement is against the law. We are not changing the law or the policy with respect to this--sending a junk fax was illegal and remains illegal under this bill. Neither are we changing any of the statutory enforcement mechanisms available to the FCC or consumers in this bill. The legislation we are proposing will address certain provisions affecting an exception to the general prohibition against sending junk faxes and will improve the bill in these areas. Since the FCC originally implemented the 1991 junk fax provisions of the TCPA, Commission regulations contained an exception for faxes that were sent because an ``established business relationship'' existed between the sender and the recipient. These regulations were in place and the ability to send junk faxes based upon the exception was permitted by the Commission for over a decade. This concept of an ``established business relationship'' permitted a commercial entity to invoke its ability to prove such a relationship with a consumer in order to contact that consumer in spite of the general prohibitions of the law. The FCC has more recently determined that the term ``established business relationship'' was not specifically included in the provisions addressing junk faxes in the TCPA and therefore changed its regulations. The new rules require ``written'' permission from consumers and these new rules have been stayed from going into effect until January of 2005. The legislation before us is designed to put specific language into the statute permitting an ``established business relationship'' exception to the general prohibition against junk faxes. Many businesses have complained that written permission is too onerous a regulatory requirement for many of the faxes that they stipulate are routinely sent in the ordinary course of business, presumably without complaints from the recipients of such faxes. The draft bill is responsive to these complaints. We must recognize, however, that many small businesses and residential consumers find many of these unsolicited faxes, including those faxes sent because a valid claim of an ``established business relationship'' was being asserted in order to send them, to be a considerable irritant and strongly object to receiving them. The legislation, therefore, addresses additional issues, including putting into the statute an ``opt-out'' ability for consumers to object to receiving junk faxes, even when such faxes are sent to them based on an established business relationship. For the decade that the original FCC regulations were in place, many consumers simply were not aware of the FCC's established business relationship exception, nor did very many know they had an ability to stop these faxes or any clear way in which to effectuate such a request. The bill the House is considering includes new provisions requiring an ``opt-out'' notice and policy that we will add to the statute. The bill requires junk faxes to include, on the first page, a clear and conspicuous notice to consumers that they have the right not to receive future junk faxes from the sender. Second, the notice must include a domestic contact telephone number an fax number for consumers to transmit a request not to receive future faxes. Third, the bill stipulates that consumers must be able to make such requests during normal business hours. Fourth, the bill requires the notice to conform with the Commission's technical and procedural standards for sending faxes under Section 227(d) of the law, which include the requirement to identify the entity sending the facsimile advertisement. This is an important provision because one of the biggest complains from the FCC at the hearing, and with other law enforcement entities and aggrieved consumers, is that they have had difficulty legally identifying the source of many of the unsolicited faxes. In addition, there were some senders of junk faxes who evidently and falsely believed that simply because they were sending an unsolicited fax based upon their ability to prove they had a ``established business relationship'' with a consumer, and thus did not have to abide by the general prohibition against such faxes, that this also meant they did not have to abide by the other FCC and statutory technical rules. These statutory and regulatory rules include requirements that junk fax senders identify themselves in such faxes. Law enforcement entities and consumers need to be able to find the legal business name or widely recognized trade name of the entity sending a junk fax in violation of the rules in order to pursue enforcement actions. Fifth, this bill makes it clear that a consumer can ``opt-out'' of receiving faxes to multiple machines, if they have more than one, rather than opting out solely for the particular machine that received the junk fax. Sixth, in this legislation the Commission is tasked with exploring additional mechanisms by which a consumer might opt-out, such as in person or by e-mail or regular mail, and also requests that the Commission established cost-free ways by which consumers can opt-out. These notice and opt-out requirements all represent new provisions to the law for which existing enforcement remedies will apply. This legislation also includes the ability for the FCC to limit the duration of an established business relationship notwithstanding the fact that the law would include an opt-out notice and ability which avails consumers of the right to opt-out of receiving faxes at any point in time. I believe this is an important concept and one which deals with the legitimate expectations of consumers. If a consumer buys something from a store, consumers might expect to hear from that store within a reasonable period of time under the notion that they have an established business relationship and the store was sending an unsolicited fax based upon that fact. Over time however, a consumer's expectation changes and there is a time after which the established business relationship can be said to have lapsed. There are some who believe that no time limit is necessary, in light of the fact that we are now adding a clear way by which consumers may opt-out of receiving junk faxes at any time. There are others who believe that a time limit is necessary for consumer protection, and many of us have different views over what period of time is reasonable. While it is not the preferred resolution for any of us, the bill contains a new provision which tries to bridge the gap between our different perspectives on this issue. The legislation will permit the Commission to put in place a sunset of the established business relationship, after the FCC implements the new opt-out policy and it gets a track record on what is happening in the marketplace. In particular, the Commission will examine consumer complaints to the agency during this period with an analysis as to whether junk faxes from entities with whom consumers have an established business relationship constitute a significant number of complaints. If so, the Commission may establish a limit, between 5 and 7 years, for the duration of an established business relationship. If it does so, then after the limit, entities would not be able to send junk faxes because they can prove an established business relationship with a consumer. In other words, the relationship would end for purposes of the exception and the policy would revert back to the general prohibition against sending the junk fax for that consumer. Finally, I think it is important to take a comprehensive look at overall enforcement of the junk fax law. I am concerned that some of the most egregious junk fax operations, the entities that broadcast such faxes to millions, often escape enforcement. They may be found guilty, cited by the FCC and sometimes fined--but often it appears as if they either ignore the fines, skip town, or live overseas. For these reasons the bill includes provisions that will give us an annual accounting of the FCC's enforcement activities as well as a GAO analysis of what additional enforcement tools may be necessary to provide sufficient deterrent, especially to the most egregious and abusive junk fax senders. Again, I want to commend Chairman Upton and Chairman Barton for their work on this bill, and in particular for their willingness and openness in working with me and Mr. Dingell in crafting the compromises needed to achieve consensus. I encourage all the members to support it.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. The problem with this bill is that it has so many flaws in it that it just would not work in the real world. How can there possibly be an argument made that the four highest paid executives, plus the chief executive of a company, their stock options would be counted one way and all the other stock options of the other employees would be counted another way inside of the same company? It makes no sense at all. But the biggest detour into accounting Never-Never Land that the bill provides is when a company is calculating the expense of the options to these five executives, it must assume that the stock price has zero volatility. That is right, zero. So let me read the language, which appears on page 4 of the bill. ``To the extent that an option pricing model is used to determine the fair value of an option, the assumed volatility of the underlying stock shall be zero.'' It will be zero. Volatility for stocks is zero. We are legislating that here on the floor of Congress today. Now, there are lots of assumptions, which this Congress could actually begin to write right into the law, and I am sure the Republicans would like to do that. When it comes to the budget, the Republican Party is a great proponent of dynamic scoring as a way of getting the numbers to come out right. Here is an alternative, static scoring, no volatility whatsoever. Let us just legislate that. How about the cost of the war in Iraq? We could assume that the volatility is zero. It would be zero, after all, if we simply assumed that we have already won the war, transformed Iraq into a pluralistic, secular, capitalistic democracy. So easy, we just declare the war won and we go home. No messy occupation, no truck bombs, no terrorism. Just hold a big parade to celebrate. Hey, I have got an idea for the banner too. It could just read, ``Mission Accomplished.'' No volatility in Iraq. Let us just legislate that out here on the floor as well. Al Qaeda, pay no attention to Al-Jazeera broadcast. We just assume that terrorism has ended as well. We will just legislate. No volatility in terrorism. And while we are at it, let us just legislate that if we have a couple of hot fudge sundaes every day, it will have no impact on our weight, no volatility in our weight. We will just legislate it down here. Let us just legislate. That is what they are saying today, that stocks have no volatility. Tell them who tune into CNBC and Bloomberg all day long with their eyes glued to the set, no volatility. What are we doing here in Congress? We have no right, we have no right, ladies and gentlemen, in making that assumption for all of the investors in our country.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to a treasured institution in the Armenian-American community and in my Congressional District, the ``Armenian Weekly Newspaper'' which is celebrating its 70th Anniversary of publication this year. Since 1934, the English-language Armenian Weekly has been published by the Hairenik Association of Watertown, Massachusetts, located in my district. The Association also publishes the Armenian Weekly's parent publication, ``The Hairenik,'' which is the longest running Armenian- language newspaper in the world. Mr. Speaker, this past April we gathered to commemorate the Armenian Genocide, one of the darkest chapters of World War I, and what is sometimes called the ``Forgotten Genocide.'' The Armenian Weekly plays an invaluable role in helping all of us to remember that tragic period, but more importantly, to celebrate the lives of the survivors and their wonderful and enduring culture. In September of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson spoke of his vision of a future Armenia. He said, ``Armenia is to be redeemed . . . So that at last this great people, struggling through night after night of terror, knowing not when they may come out into a time when they can enjoy their rights as free people that they never dreamed they would be able to exercise.'' Since the rebirth of the Armenian national following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the Armenian Weekly has run numerous stories on issues and events affecting the politics and economy of the Republic of Armenia, and the efforts of the Armenian- American community to support its struggle to survive and prosper. Mr. Speaker, two of our most cherished freedoms in the United States are freedom of speech and freedom of the press. For seventy years now, Armenian-Americans have been celebrating those freedoms through the Armenian Weekly Newspaper. In addition to its extensive coverage of news events of interest to the Armenian-American community, over the years, the paper has printed numerous short stories, essays and poems. For example, the stories that initially brought noted Armenian-American writer and playwright William Saroyan to national attention were first published in the Armenian Weekly. I congratulate Editor Jason Sohigian and everyone associated with this remarkable publication and I wish the Armenian Weekly Newspaper many more years of service and success.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. This amendment does not cut aid for Egypt. What it does is, it cuts aid for Egypt's military; and it takes the same amount of money and gives that money to the civilian economy in Egypt, to help the citizens of Egypt. And it is to send a signal to the Egyptian leaders and to the Egyptian military that it is unacceptable for the United States people to give money to the Egyptian military, even as a sieve has been created which allows for the transfer, the smuggling of guns and other weapons, explosives from Egypt into the Gaza, which is being used by Palestinian radicals to kill Israeli civilians. That is the signal that we are sending, not to the Egyptian people, they can keep the money; but to the Egyptian military that they must do their job to secure their borders so that there is peace in Gaza, so that Israelis are not made victims of a trusting relationship between the United States and the Egyptian government and military. That is the signal which we are sending, and that is hopefully what will happen as we renew, through Egypt and its leaders, the commitment to the principles embraced by former President Anwar Sadat who, in his 1988 address to the Israeli Knesset, said, What is peace for Israel? It means Israel lives in the region with her Arab neighbors in security and safety. Is that logical? I say yes. It means that Israel lives within its borders secure against any aggression. Is that logical? And I say yes. It means that Israel abates all kinds of guarantees that will ensure these two factors. To this demand, I say yes. We need Anwar Sadat's kind of leadership in Israel today. Vote ``yes'' on the Lantos amendment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the ``Extremely Hazardous Materials Transportation Security Act of 2004'', a bill to improve safety within our system of transporting dangerous chemicals by rail, truck or other vehicle as part of daily commerce in the United States. The bill is cosponsored by Reps. McCarthy of Missouri, Rep. Grijalva of Arizona, Rep. Case of Hawaii, Rep. Owens of New York, Rep. Lee of California, Rep. Tierney of Massachusetts, and Reps. Jackson-Lee and Gonzalez of Texas. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, have led to significant changes in the level of attention paid to safety and to anti-terrorist measures in this country. Nevertheless, every day tank cars pass through our urban centers that carry enough chlorine to kill 100,000 people in half an hour. Although some of these shipments must travel the routes they are currently using, others could easily be safely re- routed. We already know that these shipments are attractive terrorist targets. An Ohio-based Al Qaeda operative has already been arrested and pled guilty for plotting to collapse a bridge in New York City or derail a train in DC. And in April, just north of downtown Boston, a railroad tank car carrying 20,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid started to leak close to the Sullivan rapid transit station and just yards away from I-93, causing major chaos to the morning commute. Had that incident been a successful terrorist attack rather than an accident that harmed no one, many lives could have been lost. The bill we are introducing today would require additional security measures for all shipments of extremely hazardous materials, and also calls for the re-routing of extremely hazardous materials shipments going through areas of concern if there is a safer route available, and if the shipment's origination or destination is not located within the area of concern. Specifically, it would require: physical security measures surrounding shipments of EHM such as extra security guards and surveillance technologies pre-notification of EHM shipments for law enforcement authorities coordination between Federal, State and local authorities to create a response plan for a terrorist attack on an EHM shipment the use of currently available technologies to ensure effective and immediate communication between shippers of EHM, law enforcement authorities and first responders re-routing of shipments of EHM that currently travel through areas of concern (as defined by the Secretary) only if there is a safer route available, and only if the shipment's origination or destination is not located within the area of concern training for employees who work with EHM shipments whistleblower protections for those disclosing violations of security rules or regulations civil and administrative penalties for those who fail to comply with the regulations I am attaching a letter of support for this bill from Chief Carter of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Police. While this letter addresses a particular hydrochloric acid spill that occurred April 14 in the Boston area, it is indicative of the difficulty and danger that extremely hazardous chemical shipments can pose to our first responder community wherever they live and work. It has also been endorsed by Greenpeace, Clean Water Action, Friends of the Earth, National Environmental Trust, the Public Interest Research Group, and 14 chemical companies. I urge my colleagues to join me in seeking to upgrade our defenses in this area so that none of our constituents are ever exposed to a catastrophic chemical release simply because we failed to take these simple steps. MBTA Police, Boston, MA, July 12, 2004. Re H.R. ___, A Bill to Direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to Issue Ragulations Concerning the Shipping of Hazardous Material Within, Through, or Near Regions Designated by the Secretary as Areas of Concern Hon. Edward Markey, House of Representatives, Rayburn House Office Bldg., Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Markey: Thank you for inviting me to review and comment upon the proposed H.R. ___ which would direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to draft regulations concerning transportation of hazardous materials through or near geographic areas of concern. I offer my full support for the bill. The proposed bill provides a critical framework to strengthen the security of the now extremely vulnerable hazardous material shipment process. Its passage would create reasonable regulation over who is transporting dangerous shipments. how they are transported, and where they are allowed to travel. This bill is but one part of a larger, ever developing process of securing the safety of our citizens and protecting our municipalities. Public mass transit and cargo transport are the most critical systems of commerce in the United States of America. In Boston, Massachusetts alone, every day, over six hundred thousand persons utilize the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's (MBTA) system of buses, subways, commuter rail, water shuttles, and para transit services. Each of those persons, and many who do not use mass transit, live, work and travel in close proximity to modalities which constitute hazardous material transport in the form of freight trains, rail tankers, tractor trailers, and harbor bound ships. Each of those forms of transport poses a unique and disturbing challenge to public safety agencies in preventing either an accidental or intentional discharge of dangerous cargo into the local environment. For example, on April 14, 2004, a railroad tanker car carrying twenty thousand (20,000) gallons of hydrochloric acid developed a leak while passing quite literally within yards of the Sullivan Square MBTA subway station. This accident required the immediate response of virtually the entire resources of the MBTA Police Department's working officers to monitor pedestrian and vehicle traffic in and around the station. Also, the resources of the Boston Police Department, Fire Department, and Emergency Medical Services were put to the test in managing traffic, containing the leak, off-loading the remaining cargo, and identifying persons who may have been injured by exposure. For virtually the entire day, the transit infrastructure and most critical city services were critically impeded. Perhaps the most troubling part of that incident is that every day similar cargo is transported on the same rail cargo line, immediately adjacent to commuter rail lines and roadways with no regulation or prior warning of the potential hazard. Amazingly, no one was injured or killed as a result of the April 14 leak, but the incident pointed to a threat to the safety and lives of our citizens. Every day, across our nation, local residents are exposed to potential harm by passage through their communities of unknown and unregulateq cargo, chemicals, and hazardous materials. Mass transit modalities share rail lines with dangerous cargo trains; highways and urban centers routinely see cargo trucks and tankers alongside cars, school buses, and public buildings; and working harbors, like Boston and New York, receive huge tankers of liquefied natural gas or similarly volatile cargo. There is, however, no framework to uniformly identify and secure the extremely vulnerable hazardous material shipment process. In the shadow of the events of September 11, 2001, we in the law enforcement professions have had to refocus our efforts from crime prevention to include identification of weaknesses in local infrastructure that lends itself to either accidental or intentional harm. Part of the difficulty is that we are hardly ever forewarned, nor do we have the authority to control the hazardous substances that travel though our communities. In closing, thank you for inviting my comments on this important issue. Please be assured of my continued support for your efforts on behalf of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the United States of America. Sincerely, Joseph C. Carter, Chief.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will observe the seventh International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. The date June 26 is no accident: it was on June 26, 1987 that the International Convention Against Torture came into effect, and on June 26, 1945 the United Nations Charter was signed. Tragically, torture and other severe human rights abuses continue in many countries around the globe to this day. Even more tragically, the world has seen in the past few months that the United States is not as firmly placed as it should be among those nations that abhor and fully reject torture. The prison abuses at Abu Ghraib have disappointed all Americans. Although President Bush has asserted that ``the values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being'' much of the world remains skeptical about the Bush administration's commitment to repudiation of torture in light of the recent revelations about internal administration legal memoranda which attempted to carve out broad exemptions from domestic and international prohibitions on torture based on the Presidential power as Commander-in-Chief. While the Abu Ghraib revelations were appalling, there is another practice going on right now which merits equal attention, and that is the outsourcing of torture by this administration. Under a practice known as ``extraordinary rendition,'' the CIA delivers terrorism suspects in U.S. custody both domestically and abroad to foreign governments known to use torture for the purpose of interrogation. This extra judicial practice has received little attention because of the great secrecy with which it occurs. Attention was drawn to the practice in September 2002 when Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was seized while in transit to Canada through JFK airport, and sent to Jordan and later Syria at the request of the CIA. While in Syria, Arar was tortured and held in a dark, 3-by-6-foot cell for nearly a year. He was ultimately released and detailed his story to the media upon his return to Canada. In October 2002, outgoing CIA director George Tenet testified to the 9/11 Commission that over 70 people had been subject to extraordinary rendition before September 11, 2001. The numbers since then are classified. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU have detailed numerous cases of extraordinary rendition and are pursuing litigation in some of them. On June 21, the Canadian government launched an investigation into Arar's case. This practice is inconsistent with U.S. and international law and is a moral outrage. It must be stopped. If the Bush administration continues to permit this sort of outsourced, third-party torture, it is more likely that our own troops in Iraq could be subject to the same type of brutal treatment. I have recently introduced legislation, H.R. 4674, that directs the State Department to compile a list of countries that commonly practice torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment during detention and interrogation, and prohibits rendition to any nation on this list, unless the Secretary of State certifies that the nation has made significant progress in human rights. The bill explicitly permits legal, treaty-based extradition, in which suspects have the right to appeal in a U.S. court to block the proposed transfer based on the likelihood that they would be subjected to torture or other inhumane treatment. Extraordinary rendition to countries known to practice torture amounts to outsourcing torture. It is morally repugnant to allow such a practice to continue. H.R. 4674 is designed to ensure that we not only ban torture conducted by our own forces but we also stop the practice of contracting out torture to other nations. Torture enabled by extraordinary rendition is outrageous and could expose our own forces to the same type of treatment. It is also deeply foolish of the Bush administration to allow any questions to be raised as to America's rejection of torture. Quite simply, actions such as those at Abu Ghraib and the ongoing practice of extraordinary rendition endanger American soldiers and civilians who may be captured in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. By failing to firmly bar methods of torture with U.S. detainees, the Bush administration has increased the likelihood that Americans overseas will be tortured or subjected to inhumane treatment.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, before I speak in support of the Sanders amendment, I would like to applaud the Chairman, Ranking Member and all the members of the subcommittee for their wise decision to eliminate all funding for new nuclear weapons initiatives, including the nuclear bunker buster, mini-nukes, the Modern Pit Facility, and accelerated nuclear test readiness. The committee has taken a farsighted and courageous step toward nuclear sanity by eliminating funding for these wasteful, dangerous and entirely unnecessary programs, and this action will help restore America's nonproliferation credibility around the world. The Sanders amendment would inject some of that same farsightedness into our allocation of funding for energy research and development by increasing funding for solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen and geothermal renewable energy technology. President Bush's Fiscal Year 2005 budget request and this legislation take us backward, not forward, in our national investment in the clean, renewable technologies that will power us safely and reliably in the 21st century. In this legislation, renewable energy research and development programs are either cut or flat funded from last year. Mr. Sanders' amendment would ensure that we increase funding for each of the renewable energy programs next year, not cut them. The amendment would shift $30 million from ``Advanced Simulation and Computing'' in the nuclear weapons activities program to five renewable energy programs. This cut of $30 million represents less than a five percent of the total $633 million budget for advanced simulation and computing and would leave the program with almost twice as much funding as the total funding for solar and renewable energy research and development. Renewable energy is good for America. It creates jobs. It lowers electricity prices. It eliminates pollution and waste. It increases our national energy security. But the appropriation levels in front of us suggest that Congress does not consider renewable energy important. If my colleagues believe that renewable energy is important, I urge them to support the Sanders amendment so that funding for renewable energy programs can be increased, not cut, next year.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib were a national disgrace and have rightly been the subject of anger and condemnation. But another torture practice continues to go on without any public attention. Under the name ``extraordinary rendition'', the CIA reportedly sends terrorism suspects, sometimes on the flimsiest of evidence, to foreign countries that are known to employ torture in prisoner interrogation. This practice is against all U.S. and international law and is a moral outrage, and it must be stopped. The practice of extraordinary rendition, the extra-judicial removal of people in U.S. custody both domestically and abroad to foreign governments that are known to use torture, has received little attention because of the degree of secrecy with which it occurs. Attention was drawn to the practice in September 2002 when Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was seized while in transit to Canada through JFK airport, and sent to Jordan and later Syria at the request of the CIA. While in Syria, Arar was tortured and held in a dark, 3-by-6-foot cell for nearly a year. He was ultimately released and detailed his story to the media upon his return to Canada. Although the more recent numbers have not been made public, outgoing CIA director George Tenet testified to the 9/11 Commission in October 2002 that over 70 people had been subject to rendition before September 11, 2001. Human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU have detailed numerous other cases and are pursuing litigation in some of them. On June 21, the Canadian government launched an investigation into Arar's case. My bill directs the State Department to compile a list of countries that commonly practice torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during detention and interrogation, and prohibits rendition to any nation on this list, unless the Secretary of State certifies that the nation has made significant progress in human rights. It also specifies that written or verbal assurances from a foreign government that a person will not be tortured are not sufficient basis to override this prohibition. The bill explicitly permits legal, treaty-based extradition, in which suspects have the right to appeal in a U.S. court to block the proposed transfer based on the likelihood that they would be subjected to torture or other inhumane treatment. Extraordinary rendition is outsourcing torture, and it is morally repugnant to allow such a practice to continue. President Bush has asserted that `the values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being.' The legislation I am introducing today is designed to ensure that we not only ban torture conducted by our own forces but we also stop the practice of contracting out torture to other nations. Torture enabled by extraordinary rendition is outrageous and must be stopped.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 460, which endorses President Bush's April 14, 2004 letter embracing the disengagement plan proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank. Critics have expressed concern that President Bush's letter prejudges the final outcome of negotiations on sensitive issues like borders and refugees. However, the President and Secretary of State have indicated that it does not undermine the fundamental requirement that all issues be mutually agreed upon in final status negotiations. The problem right now is that Israel has no reliable Palestinian partner capable of negotiating a final status agreement. Israel's disengagement plan responds to the void left by the failure of the current Palestinian leadership to lead. I would also suggest that the Israeli disengagement initiative is in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians alike. It will help Palestinians to take concrete moves to establish a democratic state, and it will help preserve both the Jewish and democratic character of Israel over the long term while contributing to its security. It is also important to remember that policy articulated in the President's letter is consistent with the peace negotiations initiated by President Clinton at Camp David. Those negotiations took into account the fact that the Palestinian claim to an open-ended right of return would be demographically untenable for Israel's future as a Jewish state. The Clinton negotiations also operated on the premise that the final settlement negotiated in accordance with UN Resolutions 242 and 338 would involve mutually agreed-upon adjustments to the 1949 armistice lines to provide Israel with secure, recognized, and defensible borders that reflect demographic realities and to provide the Palestinians with territory for their own state. By passing this resolution today and expressing its support for the April 14 letter and the disengagement plan, I believe Congress can help show its support for an enduring and sustainable peace settlement in the Middle East. Months of cooperation and shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Jerusalem led to a White House meeting on April 14th, 2004 and an historic agreement between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon on some of the most important issues in the conflict. That agreement was included in a letter the President sent to Prime Minister Sharon, enunciating a number of principles that are specifically referenced in the resolution before this House today, among them: The need for Israel to have defensible borders that reflect demographic realities; the need for Palestinian refugees to understand that they will not be returning to Israel; the need for Palestinians to end their campaign of terror and for Israel to have the ability to defend itself against that terror. H. Con. Res. 460 strongly endorses the principles articulated in the April 14th letter and sends a strong, bipartisan show of support for that agreement. These principles are clearly framed as subject to future negotiations between the parties. They lay out basic parameters that reflect the reality of the Middle East today and, as such, could play a useful role in helping promote realistic peace negotiations. The resolution also expresses support for ``efforts to continue working with others in the international community to build the capacity and will of the Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat to the security of Israel.'' Such efforts are desperately needed, as it will not be possible to reach a comprehensive solution to the conflict in the Middle East until the Palestinians renounce the use of terror and return to the negotiating table. Today, for example, we know that Palestinian terrorists are continuing to smuggle guns and explosives from Egypt into Gaza. Recent press reports indicated that the terrorists are now using an elaborate network of tunnels to carry out such smuggling. For example, a May 16, 2004 article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post reported that: A short list of items smuggled via the tunnels to terrorists in the Gaza Strip includes Katyusha rockets, mortars, shoulder-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, antitank grenades, large amounts of explosives, ammunition, and rifles. The arms come from Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, and Libya. The underground smuggling is necessary because the navy has successfully blocked attempts by Palestinians to smuggle weapons into Gaza via the sea. The army frequently conducts operations along the Philadelphi Route and in the outskirts of Rafah in an attempt to uncover and destroy the tunnels. One of the painstaking tasks is similar to that in which the five soldiers died on Wednesday evening: boring holes meters under the ground, placing explosives to blow up tunnels. The IDF has uncovered and destroyed 11 tunnels this year-- and close to 100 during the past three and a half years. As Israel proceeds to withdraw from Gaza, the Bush Administration needs to put pressure on the Egyptian government to shut down these terrorist smuggling tunnels. Egypt is a substantial recipient of U.S. economic aid and an ally of the U.S., and it has a responsibility to ensure that its borders are not being used by terrorist organizations seeking to smuggle weapons into Gaza for use in terrorist attacks against Israel. The President and Secretary of State Colin Powell need to take forceful action now to convince Egypt to shut down all of these smuggling tunnels at once. In closing, I believe that this resolution reflects the strong bipartisan support which exists in the Congress for Israel's security, and for the conclusion of a Middle East Peace agreement that is consistent with the protection of Israel's security and self determination for the Palestinian people, including a Palestinian state. I urge adoption of the resolution.

Mr. MARKEY

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, let me begin by saying that Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie did go down, but it went down because a package this size was not screened in the baggage. We now mandate that all baggage be screened. We closed that loophole, but the reason the Pan Am 103 families endorse the Markey-Shays amendment and have sent a letter to Congress endorsing it is because they know that this same package in the cargo is not screened on passenger planes. The Pan Am 103 families endorse this amendment. Secondly, the technology already exists. The Israelis screen cargo. The United Kingdom screens cargo. The Netherlands screens cargo. Australia, Singapore, Spain, Hong Kong, Italy, they already screen the cargo which goes onto passenger planes; and there are American companies lined up to do the job. American Science and Engineering, Incorporated, L3 Security and Detection Systems, Raytheon Cargo Screen, they all say they are ready to go to deploy the technology today. It is not a question of technology. It is a question of money. The same argument was made right after September 11: we do not have enough money to screen the bags of every passenger going on planes. Well, we do not have enough money not to do it, because the next plane that goes down is going to cripple the American economy. That is the price of leaving a loophole that could lead to an explosion on a plane. That is the price our country is going to pay, and it is going to look like one cent on a hundred dollars if it happens. We cannot afford to allow this kind of loophole to exist. This known- shipper program, it is not even certified by the Federal Government. The Federal Government lets the airlines decide who these shippers are, who put these packages on without even screening. It is not even a Federal Government program; it is an airline program. That is no security for the American flying public. These people who fly into Washington as tourists, people going on vacations, they should not have to be putting their families on planes with cargo this size or this size, that has not been screened, even as they have been forced to take their nail clippers out and have them confiscated. It is wrong. The Markey-Shays amendment should pass. If you want to see security on the airlines of our country, if you want to avoid another airline disaster in our country that will cause an economic catastrophe, vote ``aye'' on the Markey-Shays amendment.