George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Those of us from the urban and the suburban areas ought to understand the nature of doing that. I think it is an important decision for a society like ours to make, the commitment of keeping families on the farm. But apparently we have not been able to do it as we have just shoveled the subsidies to the largest of the farmers or the largest of the commodity brokers. Something has gone wrong in this policy. This is a chance to rework it and see if there is a way to get other resources to those family farms. You already made the decision, you would not make this in any part of the economy, that half of the income is coming from the government. So the question is what is the benefit for the other half of America? We appreciate the crops and the foods. We all know the fact that we pay less than almost any other country in the world. But I think this is really about the future compact. I think this is about the future of farming. I think this is about the sustainability of that farming, and I think it is about forging a political alliance between urban, suburban and rural communities, about the importance of making sure that we maintain the family farmer on the family farm. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of the Boehlert-Kind amendment. This amendment would improve the way the Federal Government helps farmers and the way we conserve valuable American farmland. At issue today is whether we are going to continue a farm program that favors certain agricultural users over others or whether we will spread that significant Federal farm subsidies more equitably throughout the farming community. The Boehlert-Kind amendment will benefit more farmers by shifting nearly $2 billion a year in traditional Federal commodity crop subsidies to conservation programs that benefit farmers and the environment. We all recognize that the farm bill before us today, like the farm program that it seeks to change, significantly rewards the producers of commodity corps--corn, cotton, soybeans, wheat, sorghum, rice, barley and oats--to the exclusion of non-commodity crop producers. That hurts a lot of farmers, and a lot of states. Take California, for example. While California generates one-eighth of the country's agricultural production, it gets very little Federal agricultural assistance-- primarily because we grow specialty crops and not commodity crops. California farmers receive just 2 cents in subsidies on every dollar of production. Meanwhile, farmers in the major commodity producing states receive at least 17 cents in subsidies on the dollar for their agricultural production. The status quo is not equitable and needs to be changed. This serious inequity must be addressed. But it is not the only reason to vote for the Boehlert-Kind amendment. Voting for this amendment is also a vote to protect America's precious open spaces and environment. I applaud Chairman Combest and Ranking Member Stenholm for recognizing the importance of conservation programs and increasing funding levels for these programs. Unfortunately, I strongly believe that conservation and environmental programs need funding over and above what the Agriculture Committee has approved. The Boehlert-Kind amendment increases the overall level for conservation funding while better defining the conservation programs. For example, the Boehlert-Kind amendment improves the Committee's Conservation Reserve Program by preventing the loss of over 30 million acres of tall grasslands. As many of my friends that hunt know, tall grasses are needed for ducks, pheasants, and other wildlife to nest and hide. This important change to the Conservation Reserve Program is why the National Wildlife Federation and Ducks Unlimited support this amendment. The Boehlert-Kind amendment also ensures that lands chosen for conservation programs are selected because they will actually improve environmental quality. Unfortunately, the Committee bill weakens the use of environmental merit for selecting lands in conservation programs. The Committee bill provides no new money for technical assistance, even while promising new technical staff to help the country's largest animal feedlots. The Boehlert-Kind amendment provides funding for technical assistance, which is why the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts support the Kind amendment. In California, increased funding and reformed environmental programs will make a big difference to our communities. The California Farmland Conservancy Program can begin to address the 3,500 acre backlog of land farmers want to enroll in the Farmland Protection Program. California water quality will improve by increased funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) which helps California farmers adopt practices to reduce the level of sedimentation, nitrogen and phosphorous runoff into California waters. Currently, the EQUIP program has a $35 million backlog. Food control and wildlife population will improve by increased funding to the Conservation Reserve and Wetlands Reserve Programs, which faces an $85 million backlog. In addition to support from the conservation community, the Boehlert- Kind amendment is also supported by the California Winegrowers, San Diego and Riverside County, Association of California Water Districts and California Irrigation Association. The status quo has to change. Our best chance for reform is with the amendment my colleagues Mr. Boehlert, Mr. Kind, Mr. Gilchrest, and Mr. Dingell are offering today. Support the Boehlert-Kind amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this amendment to reform the outdated sugar program. This amendment is supported by Republicans, it is supported by Democrats, it is supported by conservatives, liberals, Easterners, Westerners and all those in between. Three former Secretaries of the Department of Agriculture also support this amendment. In a recent letter, which I will submit for the Record, former Agriculture Secretaries Block, Yeutter, and Glickman say, ``The sugar program no longer serves the intended public policy goals.'' And they continue on by saying, ``The reform of the sugar program is long overdue.'' That is what this amendment does. It provides for long overdue reform. I have joined with my colleagues, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis), in support of this amendment. We have joined together to support the reform of the sugar program for several clear and convincing reasons. The sugar program costs the taxpayers money. In fact, real money. In fact, a lot of money: $465 million last year alone. The sugar program costs consumers money. In fact, real money and a lot of money: $2 billion in higher prices, according to the General Accounting Office. The sugar program takes away good paying jobs from the American workers. Hundreds of jobs have been lost at the C&H sugar refinery in California in my congressional district, and thousands of candy jobs in the district of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis). The sugar program concentrates its rewards on a small number of wealthy farmers. In fact, the General Accounting Office reported that the largest 1 percent of the growers get 40 percent of the sugar program's benefits. The sugar program hurts the environment. In fact, the overproduction of sugar caused by the program is one of the main factors behind the tragic pollution of the Everglades in Florida. The Miller-Miller amendment is reasonable, and it provides the kind of reform we need. It does not end the sugar support program, but it does make the program less generous to the sugar growers and thereby makes sugar farming more of a market-based decision rather than a decision on how big the Federal subsidy will be. The effect is to control the overproduction, which has caused so many of these fiscal and environmental problems. The Miller-Miller amendment would save taxpayers money by reducing the direct purchases of excess sugar, putting those savings into agriculture conservation programs in desperate need of our support.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I hope that we pass the Boehlert - Kind - Gilchrest - Dingell amendment. I think this is the most important amendment because I think this is really an amendment about the compact that will be forged in this country, about the future of farming in this country. We used to have a colleague in this Congress from Minnesota, and he used to get up and talk about the farm bill. He was on the Committee on Agriculture, and he would say we have doubled the productivity of the American farmer every 10 years. And he would say the way we did it was we put half of them out of work during that 10-year period so there are only half as many left. We have had farm bill after farm bill after farm bill, and year after year what we hear about is the distress in farm country and the plight of the family farmer, about the people moving to the cities, and the people who cannot leave their farms to their children and cannot produce and make a living, and somebody else in the family has to take a job. My colleague stood up earlier and said this is not an environmental bill, this is a farm bill. Well, America has gotten a lot smaller, a lot more crowded. Farmers cannot farm in isolation any longer. The problems in the Chesapeake Bay, the problems in the San Francisco Bay, the problems in the Gulf of Mexico, the problems in Santa Monica Bay and Puget Sound, many of them start hundreds of miles away on farmlands where farmers do not have the capability, the resources, the wherewithal to protect the runoffs, to protect the offsite impacts of their work. This committee has struggled with that, and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) have addressed that; but this amendment has made the determination it has been insufficient. The problems in San Francisco Bay are created by huge dairies in the Central Valley, huge cattle feeding yards in the Central Valley. For years, the runoff ran into the creek; from the creek it ran into the San Joaquin River; from the San Joaquin River it went to the Sacramento River; from the Sacramento River it went into the San Pablo Bay; and from the San Pablo Bay it went into the San Francisco Bay. Farmers cannot farm in isolation any longer. The connections to our commercial fishery on the Pacific Coast, the problems that we have, many of them start on the farmlands many, many miles away. The protection of habitat, the protection of riparian areas, absolutely crucial to one of the great delta regions in the world, is about the effort and giving the resources and the ability of small farmers and ranchers and others to farm their land in an environmentally sound way and continue to make a living doing so. This is not a great contest between the environmentalists and the farmers. In fact, if there had not been so much resistance to this amendment, I suspect it could have been incorporated, and for many of the things that people are criticizing it about, they are criticizing because it was not worked out in the committee. But the fact of the matter is we need this amendment. We need this amendment. After the next reapportionment, there will be fewer people representing rural America. We need a compact that brings America together around farming. There is no shortage of production in the world. We know that soybeans are being produced at much lower prices and the cost of production in Brazil is threatening our industry in this country. The question is under what arrangements and what contracts and what agreements will we make sure that that production takes place in America? And so you have to deal with the externalities, just as Dupont has to deal with the externalities of their business in their chemical plant or Chevron in their refineries or any other business has to deal with the externalities. We have become a very crowded country on the coast, if you will, for the most part. And the people down in the dead zone, in the Gulf of Mexico are very interested in the farming practices up north. That is what this amendment is about. That is why it has such overwhelming and such an incredible diverse support of interest groups supporting it. It is about the stewardship in this millennium of America's lands, of America's crops, America's habitat, America's wildlife, America's fisheries and America's family farmers. It is about sharing the effort that we make in this country to keep family farms on the farm. We have not had a great deal of success. We have not had a great deal of success. We have had a lot of farm bills, but we have not had a lot of success. So maybe we ought to just broaden our thinking and understand that this is one more tool. Many people fought the alternative energy and wind energy. Now we are seeing the farmers are turning to that because it can lend income to their land. With maybe less than the use of 5, 6 percent of their land, they can develop substantial resources and they can stay on the land and they can continue to farm. I thought that was our interest. I thought that was our interest, was keeping families on the farms. It is an important part of our society.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. (Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the committee, in particular the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for deleting from this legislation a very unjust restriction on the limit of legal rights of parents of special-needs children. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the Committee, and particularly the gentlemen from Michigan (Mr. Knollenberg), from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) and Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) for deleting from this legislation very unjust restrictions that limit the legal rights of parents of special needs children. The DC appropriations law over the past several years has placed a very restricted ceiling on the legal awards to parents who successfully litigate to win special education benefits for their children. As the author of those due process provisions in the 1975 Education of All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94-142), now knows as IDEA, and the senior Democratic Member of the authorizing Committee, I greatly appreciate the Appropriations Committee's decision to delete this punitive and discriminatory provision. The Congress included attorney fees in the 1975 law specifically because we anticipated that some states would be reluctant to provide children with the special education service the Supreme Court and the Congress declared they have a right to receive. Particularly in the case of low income parents who might be unable to otherwise secure legal representation to challenge Board of Education decisions to refuse to provide special education services, the possibility of receiving reasonable attorney fees is all that gives these parents a hope of securing a lawyer to win educational services for their children. It is disgraceful that the Congress chose to deprive only the poorer parents of special needs children in the District of Columbia of these rights. The only entity in the continental United States that lacks voting rights. The only entity with a majority minority population. Yes, some fees awarded to some lawyers were excessive; that is why the law allows for reasonable fees. And high fees occurred in states other than the District of Columbia; but interestingly, no one suggested that their constituents be denied access to attorneys to secure special education services. We just decided to impose that restriction on parents--and generally, poor and minority parents--in D.C. These legal fees can run $40,000 or more in Maryland and Virginia. yet the Congress has limited D.C. parents to a fraction of that amount. In effect, that means D.C. parents cannot find lawyers to represent them in cases against a Board of Education that has run a dreadful special education program for many years. The law granted parents the remedy of attorney fees specifically so that could pressure recalcitrant education officials to providing the services that special needs children require. Instead, the Congress has insulated the D.C. Board of Education at the expense of students who need special ED services. The D.C. City Council and the Mayor have rightly opposed such a cap and I am delighted that this legislation before us today treats D.C. like every other jurisdiction in the country. It comes as no surprise that some in the education bureaucracy favor retaining a cap; they are the ones being sued. We should not be swayed by the cynical argument that money allocated to lawyers could otherwise go towards educating special needs children. If the D.C. schools were educating these children, there would be no need for suits, and the suits would not be successful and thereby generating attorney fees. If anyone has been misusing the attorney fees section of IDEA, that is a subject to be addressed in the reauthorization of the IDEA law, and it would be raised with respect to all jurisdictions that fall under the law, not just the residents of the District of Columbia who happen to have no vote here in the Congress. I will wait to see who appear before our Committee to recommend that residents of their district or state be denied access to attorneys to protect their child's right to special education services. In the meantime, I congratulate the Committee for treating D.C. fairly and for allowing parents of special needs children in this city the same rights that all other parents in this country have to seek appropriate education services for their children.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, no one is suggesting that we not help those airlines who as a result incurred costs and expenses of being ordered down by the Federal Government; but this legislation goes beyond that because it reimburses them for more than that cost, and that may turn out to be true in the future, but that is not true today in terms of what has been proven up. Mr. Speaker, it does not deal with executive compensation. It allows people to continue on while workers are being laid off, while workers are losing their health insurance and wages. The President talked to us about shared sacrifice, and that is not what this legislation is about. It is about the few and the powerful getting their hands on the $5 billion and on the loan agreements and not providing for the workers and for the families that are devastated by the loss and tragedies that have taken place. I think at a minimum we could have provided the coverage for these individuals. The language was ready; it was simply not agreed to. It is not about time. We could have also made very sure that we directed the Federal agency to take over and federalize the safety of these airplanes. People are not avoiding airplanes because of the financial conditions of the airlines; they are not flying because they do not feel safe on airplanes.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit does two things: It deals with the health security of those workers who have been laid off, who are traumatized by the collateral damage through the horror we have witnessed. Secondly, it deals with what the American public wants us to deal. They are not flying those planes to Las Vegas, Florida, Minneapolis or anyplace else because they do not believe they are safe. They want this system federalized. They have had enough of the people sleeping at the security machines. They have had enough of people sneaking by them. They have had enough of the Federal agents going by the system all of the time. They want it federalized, they want law enforcement officials there, and we ought to direct the FAA tonight to do it. Then we will start to see people get back on the airplanes. We can talk about it. We can have commissions. We can have studies. This Congress ought to direct the FAA to do this, to federalize this air safety system in this country. Then people will fly again.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, last night we heard from our President about what this Nation needs to do to come together in the face of the challenge and the crises and the dangers that we face. Yet today the first thing we do is bring out legislation that is very narrow in its focus. It only takes care of the solvency of the airlines to the exclusion of everyone else; to the exclusion of the workers who have lost their jobs, who are directly related to this, to their families, the problems they are suffering now as a result of that. We take care of airline executive compensation. They are guaranteed in this bill they can make somewhere between 5 and 35, and, if they bail out of this industry in the next few months, they can make up to $70 million. They are taken care of. But the people who have lost their health care coverage, the people who have lost their income, they are not taken care of. This is about a Nation going forward together. But in this legislation, we left the workers behind. This legislation is based upon the premise that somehow if we give the airlines a bailout, that people will fly again. But this legislation does not deal with the problems that the American public is concerned about. They are not concerned about whether or not their airline is solvent, they are concerned about whether or not it is safe. We failed to address, as we have for over a decade, the federalization of the law enforcement powers given to the people who are screening the bags and providing security. The fact of the matter is we have heard from so many people in the airline industry that people are only marginally better off, if any better off, since September 11 in the airline industry. That is why they are not flying. This legislation should direct this administration and this government to federalize those systems. No, we are going to debate it. We are going to debate, and the airlines are going to come back and tell us that airline traffic cannot stand this fee, they cannot stand this fee so we cannot federalize this system. We had better do this, but we do not do it in this legislation. Why? Because we had to rush home last weekend. Why? Because we have to rush home this weekend. Supposedly we are in a setting here where we have to take these extraordinary measures to deal with the Nation's business, and all the Congress can think about is getting out of town. We ought to take care of the American people. We ought to take care of the American people who lost their jobs.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the leadership for bringing this bill to the floor today. As the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) earlier said, in the wake of the tragedies in New York, Pennsylvania and here at the Pentagon, our concentration on our children and those children who are so desperately in need of services and at risk is a nice tribute to America's families. I also want to join those who have already expressed their thanks to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) for their diligence on this matter. I cannot think of two people in the Congress who have worked harder to try to bring about a resolution of what was a very contentious issue over the last several years to make sure that we move forward in the protection and the service of our children; in making sure that we, in fact, develop those kinds of programs that have the best opportunity at reducing juvenile crime, at reducing juvenile delinquency and making sure that our children, in fact, get into programs of opportunity and programs that will help them to sort out their lives and lead productive lives in America. I want to thank them very, very much for all their effort, all their time to bring this legislation to the floor in the form that it is now in. While we have seen a decrease in juvenile crime over the last couple of years, we also see some disturbing factors, that many of the perpetrators of that crime are younger and younger. We see the inclusion of more and more young girls in the perpetration of these crimes, and these are reasons for concern. It is a reason we need to take new approaches and new choices. This legislation is really about prevention and about accountability and about focusing our efforts on the early part of a child's life because, again, the scientific-based research, the peer-reviewed research tells us that this is our best opportunity to intervene on behalf of these children, to intervene in their dysfunctional families. I want to commend those who supported the previous bill on the floor today dealing with the D.C. court system and the foster care system in the District of Columbia. Understanding the need to intervene early, to save these children and to give them an opportunity, where they are caught up in a family that is so clearly dysfunctional that it now becomes a threat to those children in the immediate sense, but the long-term ramifications and impact on the kinds of lives those children will lead in terms of their involvement in the juvenile justice system or the adult criminal system makes it all the more important. I believe that H.R. 1900 does this by providing the recognition of early intervention and accountability and providing the guidelines to make sure that we, in fact, protect these children at the same time that we are dealing with their transgressions, so that we do not send them off to schools that improve their ability to commit a crime but do not improve their ability to extract themselves from that life of crime. I also want to quickly mention the parts of this legislation dealing with the question about the needs, and the support for the needs of these services. According to a report produced by the Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services, an audit of cases in California found that few children are ever receiving case planning and family permanency planning systems. What does that mean? That means that these children are really never given the tools, or the caseworkers are not given the tools to get these children out of the situation that they are in. And without family permanency or planning permanency, the children find themselves continually swirling around the system from one foster care, one institution, over and over again, because we have not taken the time as the law in fact requires, to develop planning for these children's futures, so that we can make sure that they have the absolute best opportunity at success. I also want to draw attention to the fact that this legislation deals with the children who are sent to boot camps, and recognizing that the New York Times recently reported that since 1980 there have been over 31 children who have died in these boot camps and numerous other children have been subjected to sexual abuse and assault while they are in these camps. In July, a child who was voluntarily placed in a wilderness camp in Arizona died as a result of abuse and negligence of the camp operators. The autopsy revealed that he drowned in a hotel shower where the camp staff had left him after he had collapsed. He had collapsed after being punished for bad behavior. What was his bad behavior? He complained that the program was too hard. What was his punishment for that bad behavior? They made him eat dirt and he subsequently died. That kind of punishment, if it had been meted out by a parent or a relative, would have been child abuse. We have got to make sure that child abuse laws protect these children in this kind of custody. And I believe that this legislation, in fact, does that in a manner in which we know that you cannot delegate, you cannot delegate the right to abuse a child to another factor. H.R. 1900 requires that any residence program receiving funds under this act must be licensed by State and must have standards of discipline to prohibit abuse and neglect as defined by State law. What the State standard is will apply to those operations within that State. I think this is the minimum that we can do for these children. Let me close again by just thanking the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) for all of the time. I think very often the public does not understand the kind of effort or the kind of time that individual Members or legislators put into subjects like this, where there is not a lot of attention given except when things go terribly wrong. These are children that, in many instances, are seriously disenfranchised from the system; that, in many instances, through no fault of their own, found themselves caught up in dysfunctional institutions, dysfunctional families. And this is an effort, and the time that these two gentlemen have spent, this is an effort to throw them, if you will, a life preserver to see that if we can bring them back, we can provide the services, provide the accountability for those rendering the services and see whether or not we can give these children an opportunity at success rather than almost a condemnation to failure under the existing system.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the other night I had the honor of joining you at the prayer service in the rotunda of this great building, this great monument, this beacon of our democracy and our freedoms to the world. As I sat there, I thought about the fact that this building may very well have been a target on that sad day. As I looked around, I thought what a tragedy it would be if this building had been leveled by that terrorist act. Then I thought more as I listened to those who spoke so eloquently from both sides of the aisle and our religious leaders. I thought it is really not about buildings. It is really not about monuments. It is about the American people. The action that was taken by these terrorists against the American people must be responded to and it must be responded to with resolution in a most comprehensive fashion. It cannot be a symbolic act. It cannot be a one-time action. It must be comprehensive. We must be diligent and the American people must be patient. This is very difficult and it is very different than the forces of power we have authorized in the past where many times enemies were clear. Here there are subtleties and complexities and organizational complexes that defy much of our thinking. We will have some successes and we will have some failures. But we must do this because we must understand that the enemy here made a conscious and intentional decision to slaughter innocent people. They put people randomly, randomly in harm's way and killed them in a most arbitrary of fashions, in a manner which overwhelmed our senses and stunned our Nation. We must understand we have an obligation to the American people to take that action. I would hope as we do that, the people in this country would have patience with one another; that they would recognize that when the airplane slammed into those buildings, it killed Muslims and Christians and Jews and Asians and Italians and Irish and all the rest. It killed the landscape of the American society. When we do this, we must understand that we cannot lose that national character, which is truly our liberties and freedoms that are the beacon, the light that goes out from this building to those people in those nations that yearn for them and do not have them. I wish our President well. I wish our armed services well in this effort, and I ask the American people for their understanding in the complex nature of the force we are authorizing here today.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House to vote for this legislation. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House to vote for this legislation to establish a bilateral trade relationship with Vietnam. This legislation is the product of long negotiations between our governments, and builds on the trade relationship we have been developing over the past decade. Just a few weeks ago, this House again voted by an overwhelming vote against imposing trade restrictions on Vietnam; now, we should pass this BTA by just as overwhelming a vote. We all recognize the sensitivity of any legislation involving Vietnam because of our nation's past history. But we in the House have begun a healthy, expanding and maturing relationship with this country of nearly 80 million people. And this legislation is not about the past; it is about the future relations of our governments and our economies. I have had the opportunity to visit Vietnam, to meet with government leaders and private citizens, and to talk at length with our former ambassador, Pete Peterson, who has been one of the most passionate supporters of improved political and economic relations with Vietnam. Ambassador Peterson has devoted countless hours during his years of service to developing improved economic and political relationships between Washington and Hanoi, and between the American and Vietnamese people. Our vote today is, in no small way, a testament to the success of his efforts and a credit to his hard work. Vietnam is a large and changing country. There are multinationals involved in production of oil and gas and the manufacture of sportswear; Vietnam is also a country where most people labor in rice paddies and start businesses with micro-loans of less than $100. It is a country of educated, industrious people that will continue to play a key role in the future of Southeast Asia. We should not cut ourselves off from that nation, but rather work closely to help it advance and to encourage moves towards a more open economy. We are building a new and positive relationship with Vietnam, which is the 12th largest population in the world and plays a key role in the political and economic security of Southeast Asia. Last year, the Congress enacted legislation I helped to write creating a program to promote higher education exchanges between our countries. We should continue to build on these efforts, because they are in the best interests of both nations. Some may wish to turn this debate into one over sensitive issues between the United States and Vietnam. That strategy is inappropriate here, and should be rejected. Vietnam, as illustrated by our annual Jackson-Vanik votes, has made great strides on immigration and is a full partner in the effort to locate remaining American soldiers missing in action. Negative and unjustified attacks on Vietnam's efforts at cooperation can only injure future efforts, and have no place in this debate. However, let us note that this BTA does not end our review of Vietnam's moves towards openness and transparency. We will still engage in annual reviews of its practices. Nor does this BTA or the memorandum of understanding concerning labor standards adequately address concerns I have, along with many others, about the need for a free labor movement in Vietnam that allows workers to organize and collectively bargain with their employers. As we move towards the next stages of trade agreements, we will continue to press for assurances that the working men and women of Vietnam will enjoy the basic rights to free association recognized by the International Labor Organization. Free trade unionism, improved environmental policies, expanded political and religious rights for all Vietnamese: these are, and should be, legitimate factors for securing improved and lasting trade relations with the United States and other democracies. We will continue to work with the Vietnamese to assure that these goals are achieved. Those are issues that remain to be discussed in the course of future negotiations. For today, we should move ahead and pass this Bilateral Trade Agreement which sets the stage for those future discussions, while helping to bring our countries and our people together.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to call attention to the recent vote of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) in support of Operation Respect, which works with school administrators, teachers, legislators and others to promote character education and social-emotional learning in our nation's schools. The resolution was unanimously endorsed by the NCSL convention in August and marks a strong commitment on the part of lawmakers throughout this country to ending taunting, bullying and violence in our schools. This is an enormously important initiative. Our nation has been naturally shocked each time a brutal act of violence has occurred at a school and we are all committed to eliminating such dangerous behavior. We also have to be better attuned to the acts of taunting, violence and bullying that precede many such acts, and that are, unfortunately, far more common on campuses daily. A Little Hoover Commission report in California earlier this year found that ``alienated and disaffected young people are escaping the attention of families, friends and teachers until they explode into violence.'' A recent survey of more than 2,000 students in grades 8-11 nationwide found that 80 percent said that they had experienced physical or verbal sexual harassment at school. Parents and teachers cannot allow this situation to continue and neither can legislators. Sound program models like ``Don't Laugh At Me,'' developed by Operation Respect, are being utilized in many classrooms throughout the nation, and we need to give strong federal support for their expansion and integration into the school curricula as local educators see fit. Earlier this year, Peter Yarrow came to both the Democratic Caucus and the Republican Conference of the House of Representatives to explain the urgent need for programs like ``Don't Laugh at Me,'' and he received a vigorous, bipartisan response. Now is the time for us to follow up on the strong feelings and pledges of support Mr. Yarrow generated by casting our votes in favor of adequate funding for character education and social-emotional learning programs and teacher training both in upcoming appropriations legislation and in the pending education bill. In the meantime, I want to share with my colleagues in the House the text of the resolution just adopted by the National Conference of State Legislatures in support of this important initiative. National Conference of State Legislatures Resolution in Support of the Efforts of Operation Respect Inc Whereas, NCSL joins the National Association of Secondary School Principals, American Association of School Administrators, Council of Great City Colleges of Education, National Education Association, Council of the Great City Schools, American School Counselors Association, National School Boards Association, National Middle School Association, and American Federation of Teachers in Supporting efforts to ``Meet the crisis of violence head-on, while simultaneously addressing the academic needs of students, giving them the tools to become whole, productive human beings; responsible, humane, ethical, participating members of our democracy and our society;'' and Whereas, NCSL applauds the goals of Operation Respect and its efforts to work with state legislatures to ensure the health and well-being of the next generation of children: Therefore, be it Resolved, That, NCSL forwards Operation Respect's proposals for state legislative action for review and consideration where appropriate by the 50 state legislatures, territories and commonwealths of the United States.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think also if you read the language that they borrowed from the ERISA statute, they now have taken the determination that it is not a standard of medical care no matter how flawed the process is, no matter how egregious the medical malpractice is. The question will be not with the medical professionalism, but it will be whether it passes the review of an insurance industry muster of the acceptable standard of claims. It is very clever what you have done here, but you have moved from a medical standard to an insurance claims processor on whether or not I have had medical malpractice. You do not get to review the medical standard.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Something very terrible happened last night. Up until last night, we had a competing contest over the question of protection of patients' rights when they engage their HMOs, when they were denied service and in that effort they were harmed, they were injured or they died and whether or not somebody would have to accept responsibility for that. Then last night at the White House, negotiations took place and we went from a patients' protection bill to an insurance company protection bill. We changed the standard of care within an HMO from that of what a doctor, a medical professional, owes you to now a standard of care that an insurance claims processor owes you. A doctor can make a horrible mistake, an HMO can make a horrible mistake, an HMO can make a callous indecision about your care and their standard is that of an insurance claims processor. When people pay their insurance premiums, when people go to an HMO, when they engage their medical expertise, they do not believe they are engaging an insurance processor. But the insurance companies, the HMOs, have rigged this bill and rigged this language so that is now the standard of care. Next time you go to visit your HMO, tell them you only want to pay them what you would pay an insurance claims processor because that is the standard of care. This bill and the Norwood amendment shows such insensitivity to families that have to try and negotiate, negotiate to get care, to get satisfaction, to get treatment for their family members. Maybe too many Members of Congress have not done this. I know what it looks like up close and personal when you are trying to negotiate with these people and you are denied care and you are delayed care. This amendment is like some medical Bull Connor that is going to keep families from having access to care, from access to justice. It is unbelievable. It is unbelievable that we would do this to America's families at the end of this debate and we would so enhance the insurance companies to damage families and damage the people we love.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I think it is a very important point the gentleman is making, and that is that what we are doing here is without consultation, but one session at the White House, decisions made in the dark of night, we are overturning, as they point out, 200 years, 200 years, of a standard of care that individuals and their families knew they had when they engaged the medical profession, a hospital, the health care organization, the standards of a medical professional. If your doctor, your health care provider, violated that standard, you could get redress. Now we are moving from that standard to the standard of a health insurance claims processor in the review. So no matter how flawed, no matter how flawed this review is, if it passes insurance company tests, it is fine; not the standard of care of the medical profession that we have had for 200 years protecting families in this country.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, a few hours ago we rejected the amendment to improve the CAFE standards, the mileage standards for automobiles. At that moment, this amendment ceased to be about America's energy supplies, America's energy independence, and America's national security, because at that moment, this House made a decision that it was going to continue to waste the oil products of this Nation, the finds of this Nation, the treasures of this Nation, to waste it on automobiles. Even though we have not made an improvement in 13 years, we voted to cave in to the automobile industry and not make those improvements. This is not about our national security or our national energy; this is about a value. This is about a value, whether we are going to invade one of the most pristine and magnificent areas on the face of the Earth so that we can put it in automobiles to waste it. The American public rejects that value and so should the Congress.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. Mr. Chairman, this legislation is really not about increasing America's energy independence. This legislation is about whether or not the automobile companies can continue to fail to meet their obligations to American society to improve the mileage standards in our automobiles. It is about whether or not the oil companies can find more money by drilling the American Treasury than they can find for drilling oil. This legislation in the heart of it has a terrible trade-off. It suggests that we go to the Arctic and that we drill in ANWR, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and then we take that oil and we put it into automobiles in this country to continue to waste it. Seventy percent of our energy in this country, our oil in this country, is used for transportation. Yet the Republicans have continued to put riders on appropriations bills so that we can continue to refuse to improve those automobile CAFE standards, the mileage per gallon standards that can save the American consumer, the American family billions of dollars over the coming years. Yet at the same time this bill is a raid on the Treasury. We are going to have a royalty holiday for those who drill in the deepwater on the theory that this will get them to drill. Ladies and gentlemen, read the oil and gas journals, read Forbes, read Fortune magazine, read the business journals, read the Wall Street Journal. The Gulf of Mexico is the hottest oil play in the world today. Yet you are going to give them an incentive to go there. You are going to give them an incentive to go there. And you are going to rave about the $5 billion in bonus royalties and bonus bids that you got as a result of this. Yet CBO tells us it is going to cost us $7 billion to get $5 billion. And the losses continue over time. Keep doing that and you end up with a deficit. Keep doing that and you end up socializing an industry from doing what it is already supposed to be doing and what it is already doing in the marketplace. This is a very bad bill.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I certainly want to join my colleagues on this side of the aisle who have spoken in support of the gentleman's amendment to preclude this administration from weakening the arsenic standard. The chairman of the subcommittee suggested that if this amendment passes, nothing changes. Oh, yes, something changes. What changes is we will stop seeing the EPA administrator, as she did yesterday, suggesting that she may weaken the standard; because if Congress overwhelmingly supports this amendment, the message will come from the House of Representatives that we want the standard to go forward, we want a standard to go forward that protects the American people from increased arsenic in their water supply, and we want the administration to quit fooling around with the special interests for the purposes of weakening this standard. Because that is what the EPA administrator, Ms. Whitman, said yesterday in the newspaper, that quite possibly this standard will be weakened. That is exactly what the National Academy of Sciences suggested we not do. What the National Academy of Sciences suggested we do is the arsenic had to be reduced, and it had to be reduced as promptly as possible. Now what we see after years of work, after years of scientific study, after years of public comment, after years of the process going forward as it should, now the suggestion is somehow that we need good science. Nobody has suggested that this is bad science. Nobody has suggested that. But the offering is now somehow we need good science so we can further delay this activity. The suggestion is somehow this amendment should not go forward because it would be a rider. Well, let me say, it would be nice to have a rider once in the public interest, because what we spend most of our time doing around here is fighting off riders that are added on to appropriations bills that are there for the special interests, that attack the environment, that attack the kind of regulation to protect the health and safety of the American people and their families in this country. So, yes, I would hope finally we support a rider that defends the public interest and seeks to protect children and to protect families from increased arsenic in the water supply.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to remove my name as cosponsor of H.R. 1745. My name is mistakenly added as a cosponsor.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I rise in opposition to this resolution and urge Members to continue the MFN status for Vietnam, as we have done in the past with an overwhelming and bipartisan majority. I, like many Members of Congress, have had an opportunity to travel to Vietnam and to visit with governmental leaders and with private citizens there, and with workers and others that are a part of that community, and with our former ambassador, Pete Peterson, who has been one of the most passionate supporters of improved political and economic relations with Vietnam. He has devoted countless hours to improving these relationships and to addressing the key issues that are before us today, and I think we ought to salute his tenure as our first ambassador to Hanoi. I think we have to understand that, in fact, progress has been made. Many of my colleagues have raised a number of troubling subjects to us that I think we have to continue to bear down on and understand that problems do exist, but I think also in my discussions with Ambassador Peterson and with people in Vietnam, improvements, in fact, I believe, have been made. Enough? No, not at all. Do we need further progress? Clearly we do on the issues of emigration. I also have had an opportunity to witness the Joint Task Force's efforts to locate and identify and to recover the remains of our many missing soldiers and airmen and see this extraordinary effort that is taking place. We are, hopefully, building a new and a positive relationship with Vietnam, which is the 12th largest population in the world and plays a key role in political and economic security in Southeast Asia. Last year, Congress enacted legislation that I helped write creating a program to promote higher education exchanges between our countries. We should continue to build on these efforts because they are in the best interests of both nations. At the same time, we must be very clear, and many of our colleagues have touched upon these subjects here today, we must continue to work with this government and to include this government to assure the rights of all working people to form independent unions and engage in collective bargaining as provided under the rules of the International Labor Organization. Vietnam clearly must accelerate its policies to ensure freedom of religion and political expression. We need to continue to work with several local and international environmental organizations to reduce the water pollution and protect the threatened species and generally ensure that economic development is not undertaken at the expense of the Nation's natural resources, which not only affects Vietnam but the entire region. Free trade unionism, improved environmental policies, expanded political religious rights for all Vietnamese. These are all legitimate factors for securing improved and lasting trade relations with the United States and other democracies, and we should continue to work for those in Vietnam. But we must understand that this is a step that allows us to continue to engage with the Vietnamese on these matters, and we also know that there are other instruments that are waiting in terms of trade agreements, bilateral agreements, and, obviously, at some point, Vietnam's seeking, down the road, to engage with the WTO. Clearly, these thresholds must be continued to be raised as we grant those other relations. So I think it is incumbent upon all of us to understand here and in Vietnam that this debate is about an evolving relationship, not about an acceptance of the status quo that we have today.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, years have passed since the Departments of Labor-Interior-Justice and INS first documented widespread sweatshop conditions under the American Flag in the U.S. territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (US/ CNMI). Years have passed since national media such as ABC's 20/20 first reported that thousands of young, Asian women in the US/CNMI toil as many as 12 hours a day at sub-minimum wages under dangerous and unhealthy conditions. And years have passed since U.S. Congress first had the chance to protect those who work on American soil by finally ending the exemption that has allowed this U.S. territory from following U.S. labor and immigration laws. Yet the Congress has turned a blind eye and allowed this exploitation to continue. Too many US/CNMI clothing manufacturers continue to show complete disregard for U.S. laws. During the three-year period that ended on June 1, 2001, nearly 60% of the factories inspected by the Wage and Hour division of the Department of Labor had wage violations, and in one case, a single US/CNMI corporation owed more than $1 million in back-wages to its employees. The Congress is partly responsible for the conditions that led to these labor violations. As you may be aware, federal immigration and minimum wage laws were not immediately extended to the territory when the Congress first established the US/CNMI. The temporary exemption was intended to help the territory develop its economy with local workers while responding to local concerns that U.S. immigration laws were too lax. However, the opposite has turned out to be the case. The local government has used its local control over its own lax immigration procedures to create a caste system that relegates disenfranchised foreign workers to the most abusive labor conditions and lowest wages. According to 1999 statistics, foreign workers held more than 85% of all private sector jobs, where they worked for sub-minimum wages, while nearly 50% of local residents held government jobs, where starting salaries are more than seven times that of the private sector. For many years, the US/CNMI has aggressively developed an economy based on the importation of tens of thousands of desperately poor foreign workers from Asia who pay between $3,000-$7,000 for what they are told are good jobs in ``America.'' Instead these workers are surrounded by barbed wire as the toil under the same dangerous unhealthy working conditions that are far too common in many of the countries from which they came. This practice of shipping indebted women from their native countries to sweatshops on American soil continues today, and Many of our constituents would be surprised to learn that the garments manufactured in the US/CNMI--in foreign owned factories with foreign labor and foreign fabric--are awarded use of the ``Made in USA'' label and enter the states both quota and duty free. In 2000, over $1 billion worth of garments came to the states, depriving the U.S. taxpayers of more than $200 million in duty fees. We are allowing US/CNMI garment manufacturers to deceive American consumers with the use of this label, and we are providing them with an enormous subsidy as they do it. This cannot continue. We must only offer the benefits of the ``Made in the USA'' label and duty free importing to those U.S. territories that agree to follow U.S. laws. While the House Republicans have refused to even hold a hearing on the exploitation of workers in the US/CNMI, I am glad to report that we are beginning to win support from other places. On May 15, 2001, the Bush Administration endorsed the idea of federalizing immigration policy in the US/CNMI in the form of a letter from John Ashcroft's Assistant Attorney General. The Bush Administration endorsement argued that extending Federal rules to the territory: . . . would improve immigration policy by guarding against the exploitation and abuse of individuals, by helping ensure that the United States adheres to its international treaty obligation to protect refugees, and by further hindering the entry into United States territory of aliens engaged in international organized crime, terrorism, or other such activities. Congress cannot continue to stand by and allow these labor abuses to continue on American soil. Today, I am joined by more than 40 co- sponsors as we introduce the ``CNMI Human Dignity Act,'' which would require that the Americans living in the US/CNMI live under the same laws as all of our constituents in our home districts. This legislation would extend U.S. immigration and minimum wage laws to the US/CNMI. This legislation also includes a provision to preserve the integrity of the ``Made in USA'' label by requiring that this benefit only be allowed for garments made in compliance with U.S. immigration and labor practices. It also conditions duty-free and quota-free imports from the US/CNMI upon compliance with U.S. laws. In addition, the legislation creates a one-time grandfather provision that allows non-resident individuals who have been long-term employees in the US/CNMI on the date of enactment to apply for permanent residence. Lastly, this legislation would assure that U.S. Customs agents have the authority to board and inspect ships in US/CNMI waters to address the numerous allegations of illegal transhipment of fully completed garments from Asia. No member of the House of Representatives would tolerate sub-minimum wages and other severe forms of labor exploitation in his or her home district, and we should not tolerate those conditions in the American territories either. I urge you to join me in supporting the CNMI Human Dignity Act.