George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, my parliamentary inquiry is, the vote that is before us is the adjournment resolution. Does the passage of this resolution mean that we will not be able to address the school violence issue before we adjourn?

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) very much for his contribution. His remarks point out the urgency and the danger that these guns present to young people in this Nation. He has pointed out that 13 children under the age of 18 are killed each day because of guns. Guns cause one in every four deaths of teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19. Firearms are the fourth leading cause of accidental death among children five to 14. Clearly the easy availability and proximity of guns, handled in an irresponsible fashion, to young children is lethal to those children. We have an opportunity with the very common sense proposals that were presented in the Senate to address this matter and to address it now, with the same sense of urgency that parents are asking themselves about, whether or not they should send their children for the remainder of the school year, whether or not they should pull their children out of school before school closes, whether or not they should try to find another school that they might think will be more safe than the one they are in. But what we have learned over the last 18 months, we do not know what school that would be. We do not know where a troubled child has easy access to a gun and then acts out anger, frustration or problems that that child has by shooting their schoolmates. That is why we are asking the Republican leadership to schedule this debate, to schedule this vote this week before we go home for Memorial Day, Memorial Day, a rather significant day in the history of this country. But tragically now many will be celebrating Memorial Day at the loss of their children because of these tragic shootings. I think that is why we cannot play this by the ordinary rules of legislative procedure and process and jurisdiction and all of those arguments that are designed to keep these common sense approaches from coming to the floor of the House to be voted on. Why are they doing that? Because the people who oppose trigger locks on guns that are accessible to children, the people that are opposed to getting rid of the loophole for gun shows where one can buy guns and gun shows without a background check, that one would not be allowed to if one went into a gun shop, people who oppose limiting the high density ammunition clips, they want time to regroup, to rescramble, to put pressure on the Congress, to give campaign contributions, to lobby the Congress so that they can overwhelm the judgment and the determination of the American people. The Republican leadership ought not to become a tool for those interests, because it is those interests that are keeping guns in the presence of young children in an irresponsible fashion. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for his remarks, and he does point out the incredible inconsistency that we would put child-proof caps on aspirin, child-proof locks on gates and child-proof locks on car doors, and all of these efforts to save our most precious resources, the children of this Nation, but we would not think about doing it with respect to a lethal weapon like a gun that is unfortunately all too often left lying around the house. Fifty-five percent of the handgun owners keep their guns loaded in their homes, and 34 percent of them keep them loaded and unlocked, loaded and unlocked in their homes, and in many instances with very young children present; and tragically sometimes, as we know, children with a lot of difficult problems who end up then acting out in a fashion that is lethal to their friends and to their classmates. So I think that is why, as we see America starting to respond to the tragedies in Oregon and Colorado and Georgia and elsewhere, they start to say, why should people not have to be responsible in all the homes with locking the gun with the trigger lock, and the people who sell these guns be responsible for providing trigger locks with the sale of these guns so that their children can be safe, so that they can know that it is the denial of the easy and spontaneous access. That does not mean that somebody someday will not hammer the lock off of the gun or, as we saw tragically witnessed here recently, break off the locks on the cabinet, but it is the standard of care that we owe our children. I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for raising those points. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank very much the gentlewoman for her remarks. I want to thank my colleagues who joined me in this special order to try and urge the Republican leadership to pass this week the common sense gun safety provisions that have passed the Senate of the United States. We do so with the full understanding that the problems and the tragedies in Littleton or in Georgia or in Oregon or in Kentucky and other such States where young people have taken up guns and assaulted and killed their classmates and their friends, that that problem will not be addressed solely with the questions of gun safety legislation. But clearly in each of these cases or most of these cases, what we find is the easy access of young children, in some cases disturbed young children with the irresponsible possession of guns in the home. We believe that trigger locks will help increase the margin of safety in our communities. We believe that not letting young people go into gun shows or people go into gun shows on behalf of young people and with no questions asked be able to buy a gun, a gun they could not buy if they went into a gun shop. They could not do that. They would have to undergo that check. We urge the leadership to pass these common sense gun safety measures. I yield to the gentleman from Guam.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Guam. Finally, I just like to say, Mr. Speaker, that I had an opportunity to meet with a group of students at Pinole Valley High School in my district and had subsequent conversations with five of those students, Brian Davenport, Marcus Maxwell, Jamian Johnson, Kari Washington and Brett Parsons about Littleton, and those students and the students in the larger group had spent a great deal of time watching the news, listening to the news on the Internet, over the networks and elsewhere, acquiring information about what took place at Littleton. They clearly understood that this was about them, it was about their peers, it was about their generation, children of their same age, and they were terribly troubled about it, and they understood that this is not a problem that can be answered with one solution, that it is, in fact, very complex. I was also quite pleasantly surprised, the extent to which the students understood they clearly had a very strong role to play in the solution to these outbreaks of rage and the violence and the killing that have taken place in these schools, that they understood that maybe they should be nicer to some of their fellow students, that there were students who they knew were somewhat loners or did not feel a part of the student body, that they should extend themselves, they should go over and talk to them, that maybe they should stop making fun of students or characterizing students because of the way they dressed, whether they had the latest clothes or they did not have the latest clothes, or the latest sneakers, or the wrong color clothes or what have you; that they had to think about not doing that, that students should not be characterized and categorized whether or not they participate in a religious organization after school or the debate club or they were on the track team or the football team. All of these cliques that are natural, very, very natural during the adolescent years in schools, they understood that that was unfair to those students. They had formed, they had many celebrations of their differences at Pinole High School over the years. The day I was there, they decided to celebrate their unity, to celebrate their sameness, to celebrate the fact that they were part of one student body drawn from many different communities. It was a very exciting thing to see happen in response to Littleton. So while we are focused on guns this evening and while we are focused on the need of the Republican leadership to expedite the consideration of these common sense gun safety measures, we also appreciate the complexity and the magnitude of this problem. And let us not forget, let us not forget as we keep talking about children and schools and violence and killings, that 25 million teenagers are enrolled in 20,000 schools nationwide. Eight of those youths in six schools perpetrated the school killings of the last 8 months. Twenty-five million children came and went to school every day without being subjected to this danger or perpetrating this danger. We are talking about a handful of young children. Some people have suggested, and I think the minority whip said it this week in Salt Lake City: The problem is not guns; the problem is, we are raising children to kill children. No, we are not raising children to kill children. Twenty-five million teenagers went to school yesterday, the day before, and the day before Littleton and the day before all of these tragedies, and afterwards, and did not engage in the killing of their classmates or their friends. But a very small handful, because of the easy access and proximity and the irresponsible ownership of these guns and possession of these guns in their homes and the easy ability to purchase them through a loophole in the law at gun shows; that handful of students was able to perpetrate an incredible amount of violence and incredible amount of killing on their school friends and on their communities. So this is not to suggest that these are children of a generation of a culture of violence and killing because it is not true. Those kinds of generalizations will cause us to miss the problem, will cause us to miss the complexity of it. But what we do know in this particular case was these young people had relatively easy access to these guns, and what we do know is that we have that part, as my colleagues know, that part of the solution coming together in the passage of these measures that have passed the Senate. So I think we ought to keep and we ought to understand our children, and we should not, we should not paint them with the very broad brush of a relatively and, well, less than two handfuls of children that have perpetrated this kind of violence over the last 18 months. If this was the culture of violence in this young generation, as Michael Males, who is at the School for Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, points out, if this was a culture of violence, if we had raised children to kill children, then these killings would not be thousands of miles apart and months apart. This is what all children would be doing. But they are not doing it. Like all of the children before them, they are going to school to get an education, to socialize and become part of their community, to grow up and to mature and decide what they are going to do with the rest of their lives. And their parents did not raise them to kill children. But some parents unfortunately have been very irresponsible about leaving loaded guns and leaving firearms around, easily accessible to their children, apparently have not had the kind of communication or have not imposed upon their children the kind of discipline I grew up with about a gun. I hunted, my father hunted, my children hunt. We have very, very strict rules about when one can touch a gun and when they cannot touch a gun and what to do with a gun in the home and what to do with the gun in the field. Now some parents apparently have not been able to convey that or not willing to convey that or do not understand the kind of risk. We have got to deal with the questions of that kind of parental irresponsibility and with placing some responsibility and liability on those who fail to be the proper custodians of their children and of these firearms.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman very much for her remarks and thank her for the kind of vehicle she is going to provide the Congress to express its opinion to get this done now. As she points out, these are provisions, the safety locks on guns, the getting rid of the loophole provided by gun shows as opposed to gun shops, and multiple rounds, high-density ammunition clippings, these are very common-sense remedies and closure of loopholes that the American people understand and that they support. The Senators in the United States Senate have passed these provisions. They should be sent over here. We should pass a freestanding bill and make sure that we can have this become law before our children get back to school. I think it is important that we address it with that kind of urgency. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her remarks and urge that the Speaker make this in order this week before we leave town for the Memorial Day break. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, these three measures that have passed the Senate are the beginning step in that area, so I want to thank my colleagues who joined me in this special order. I plead with the American public to call their Member of Congress, to call the Republican leadership, ask them to schedule these gun safety measures as soon as possible, to do it this week. We have a relatively clear calendar. It can all be passed and wrapped up before we go home for the Memorial Day break.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentlewoman very much for her remarks and think she makes a very important point. It is highly unlikely that we will have this kind of common sense gun legislation to help protect our children, to help protect our communities from the easily accessible and irresponsible ownership of guns, if the American people do not call their Members of Congress and insist upon it. Over the last couple of weeks as I have been out in the public in my district and talking to groups and just being on the streets of my district, people have come to me and asked time and again: Why can you not do this and do it now? When they saw the Senate not do it, they were infuriated, and the Senate doubled back and took a new vote and then came in line with what the American people wanted. Then the Senate doubled back a second time and came in line with what the American people wanted. But apparently the Republican leadership in this House and the NRA are going to delay this legislation, fully understanding that delay is the enemy of legislation, that you get it jammed up at the end of the session against a recess, against the appropriations bills, and this starts to fall through the cracks, and it is nobody's fault and it is everybody's fault. We need the American people to call the Republican leadership, to call their Members of Congress and tell them that these three or four measures, very common sensical measures, should be passed and should be passed immediately. They could, if in fact the leadership wanted to do it, be passed before we leave for Memorial Day. They are having a hearing on the day we leave town, because then they are hoping for a week where there will not be any discussion of this measure and there will not be a sense of urgency about the American people to have Congress address this when we come back, and pretty soon we will find ourselves addressing it in September or October. It is the oldest legislative strategy in this town, just delay and delay. Already we see Members that are supporters of the NRA going around the floor with checklists from the NRA trying to line up their support, who they have given their contributions to, will they stand tough on this. That is why they want the time. They want the time to kill this bill, not to give it great general consideration but to kill these ideas that have passed overwhelmingly in the Senate of the United States. I would hope that people would heed your call for them to call Members of Congress and ask them to pass these child gun safety measures that have been passed by the Senate. I yield to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the purpose of my remarks is to try and gain support within the Republican leadership to move and to move in an urgent fashion with respect to the gun safety provisions that have passed the Senate. Mr. Speaker, this country has been shocked over the past 2 years as we have witnessed the shootings in Springfield, Oregon; Fayetteville, Tennessee; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; Jonesboro, Kansas; West Paducah, Kentucky; Pearl, Mississippi; and in Littleton, Colorado, as we have seen children take up arms against their schoolmates, against their friends, in school. And while we will be discussing these matters at great length for a long period of time in the Congress as the Nation and the Congress come to grips with what we might do to try and prevent these actions in the future, one thing seems to be very clear among the people in this country, and I would hope among the people in the Congress and certainly among the Republican leadership, and that is that keeping guns out of the hands of kids will help to ensure that the feelings of anger and hostility do not lead to fatal shooting sprees. We clearly need to listen to children and parents and make sure that school counseling and mental health resources are sufficient, and we must understand that the causes of youth violence are complicated and that the solutions must be broad-based, and we must strive to understand what brings children to this point where they would take up this violent action with guns against their schoolmates. It is urgent to the American public that the Congress be able to respond to the problems of children having guns, having easy access to guns, and the irresponsibility of some parents who make those guns available or negligently leave those guns lying around the house, in many instances loaded and unlocked, with easy access by these children. Last week the Senate passed several pieces of legislation designed to improve the margins of gun safety, if you will, requiring background checks for all gun sales, including gun shows. We have a companion bill here by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Blagojevich) requiring new handguns to be sold with safety locks. We have companion legislation here by the gentlewoman from Indiana (Ms. Carson) outlawing high density ammunition clips, so they will not be made available. I think that these are measures that the American public can understand, that the American public supports, that the American public, whatever their positions are with respect to gun control, understand that these are gun safety issues about the safety of our children. Our children are, in many instances, some of our most vulnerable citizens, who go to school with all the expectations that we all went to school with when we were growing up, only to find out that it can become a shooting gallery because of the easy access of a troubled teen or a troubled youngster to these kinds of guns. Yet what we see is an effort to somehow not address this legislation on a timely fashion, not to take that legislation from the Senate and to pass it, not to have a freestanding piece of legislation which we can pass and send to the Senate that is identical to that which they passed so that they might be able to put it on the President's desk before we leave for Memorial Day. No, what we see is, we are going to get one hearing this week, and then action perhaps in the committee sometime in June. Knowing the July schedule, knowing the August schedule. It is very likely, it is very likely, that America's schoolchildren will start the next school year without the Congress of the United States having addressed this issue. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the subject of my special order today.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and let me just say, as my colleagues know, it is with great pride that the American people point to their national park system, it is with great pride that the American people know that the Statue of Liberty stands in New York Harbor and sends a beacon to the world about the tenets and the values of this Nation, and it is a great pride that those assets, the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, the Statue of Liberty and others, when the rest of the world honors, honors the decision that people in this country made about setting aside those public lands for public use, and it is a great honor that the millions of Americans choose to visit those parks each year to enjoy them, to participate in them, to learn from them. But it is also a task of this Congress and of the world community to make sure that we learn more about those parks that we are able to maintain.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, we are able to maintain and protect those parks, and this Congress has a rather checkered past on that. But if we put it to the American people, they would vote to spend billions of dollars to maintain and protect the great parks of this Nation. It is an honor to this Nation that people come from all over the world to visit these parks, that nations come to us and send their representatives here to learn how to do the same thing in Asia and Africa and Europe, all over. All over the world people want to emulate what Theodore Roosevelt started and what we have protected on a bipartisan basis. Now we have a group of people who decided that they are going to roll that back, they are going to take away that designation, they are going to remove this honor from the American people. The pride of this Nation, the beacon we send to the rest of the world; they now have decided that they want to remove this honor and start that process of denigrating these most valuable and cherished public lands in our Nation. The pride of our Nation as we send out messages to the world about conservation, about the protection of public lands, about the values of this country. This legislation is absolutely looney, it is absolutely looney. It is based in some unknown conspiracy, unsubstantiated, based upon the fact that some people believe that day in and day out they see black helicopters swooping in to protect the national parks of the United States. No, Mr. Chairman, that is not how it is done in this country, it will never be done that way in this country, and this legislation should not try to validate those kinds of crazy conspiracy theories.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation and in support of the Vento and the Udall amendments that have been offered and against the Sweeney amendment that has been offered in the committee today. First and foremost, let me say that I think this is a very unfortunate piece of legislation. It plays into some conspiracy theories that somehow, when we receive the honor of the designation of World Heritage area or the Biosphere Reserve Program or were part of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, that somehow this is land use planning by the United Nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Chairman, there is nothing in these designations that changes any Federal, State, local laws or regulations pertaining to these lands or changes the manner in which private property owners can use their lands, but what it does do is it provides an honor for some of the great natural assets of the United States and some of the great historical assets of the United States that leads to increased tourism, improved economics, and recognition of what this Nation has done in setting aside some of the great national parks and public spaces in the entire world, and I think we ought to welcome that kind of designation. I also want to say that it is very clear when we consider the Vento amendment that much more harm has been done to public lands and done to private lands because of the acquisition of these lands by foreign entities that then come in here and take the resources from those lands, whether it is mining or whether it is timber or grazing or other proposals like this, where then we end up spending hundreds of millions if not billions of taxpayers' dollars cleaning up after these entities, making up for erosion, making up for the destruction and the deterioration of those natural assets. That is why I think that the Vento amendment is very, very important for its adoption today because we should not just have a willy-nilly process where people come in, buy these assets, exploit the resource and then leave it to the American citizens to pick up the cost of their bad policies, their bad management and mistakes in the use of those lands and those resources. So I would hope that Members would vote against this bill on passage, and I would hope that they would support the Udall and the Vento amendments, and I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento) very much for his managing this bill on the floor today, and his involvement in this issue over the last several years in trying to put this argument into perspective and show how foolish it is and how much it is based upon fallacy and misrepresentation of facts. Also, I think he said something in the Committee on Rules the other day that is very important, that success with this legislation is really about the first step in removing the designations from our great wilderness areas, from our parks areas, from our national monuments, because the same people who support this legislation in fact oppose the designation and the protection and the acquisition of these great lands for the use of the people of the United States, for all of the people of the United States. As much as those people support it, we have a small group of people in the Congress and in this country who insist that somehow these lands really do not belong in the public domain in spite of the fact that millions of Americans will pick up their families, their children, and they will travel across this country to visit the Statue of Liberty, to visit Liberty Hall, to visit the Grand Tetons, the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Yosemite and so many other great monuments and great natural assets in the national park systems of this country. There is still a few in this Congress who want to believe that we should roll back designations. This legislation is the first step in that process, and this Congress ought to reject that effort.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the supplemental spending bill. Mr. Speaker, as we prepare to vote on the Conference Report to provide spending for military aid and hurricane disaster relief, Members should be aware of a thus far successful effort by the mining industry and its supporters in the Other Body to include in the conference report yet another anti-environmental rider. This time, the rider would stop the Secretary of the Interior from properly carrying out his duties under the 1872 Mining Law by allowing mining companies to claim an unlimited number of acres of public land for waste disposal. The issue arose from a March 25, 1999, joint decision by the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture denying a large open-pit, cyanide-leach gold mine in eastern Washington State which had illegally claimed hundreds of acres of public land as ``millsites.'' Millsite claims were originally intended for structures to process the mined ore from the mineral claims; now they are usually used to dump waste rock and tailings (what's left after the mineral has been extracted). To be valid, millsites cannot contain a valuable mineral. The mining law holds that millsite claims are limited to 5 acres in size and allows only one 5-acre millsite claim per mineral claim. Before the March 25th decision mining companies were often permitted, albeit illegally, as many millsite claims as they needed, no matter how many mineral claims they had. And the modern mining industry generally needs many more millsite claims than mineral claims. Since this decision to fully and consistently enforce the law, 5 acres of millsite claim waste disposal space is all that is available per mineral claim. The decision by the Department of the Interior is significant because of the precedent it sets--enforcing a provision of the 1872 Mining Law that limits the amount of public land, adjacent to mines, which can be used to dump waste from mining. With enforcement, the decision gives federal land managers the right to deny mine permits that propose to dump excessive amounts of mine wastes on valuable public lands and it may make economically marginal ore deposits unprofitable to develop. The space required to dump the massive waste rock piles produced at many of today's mines exceeds the legal limits under the 1872 Mining Law which Congress should have reformed years ago. Mine waste dumps pollute surface and groundwater resources with acid mine drainage and heavy metals such as arsenic. Permitting more such waste to be dumped on public lands is simply not an acceptable solution. That's what the industry wants and that's what this rider would do. It would legalize waste-dumping that is now illegal. The 1872 mining law has given away billions of dollars of the nation's mineral wealth while paying taxpayers, who own the minerals, not one cent in royalties. And the law has only minimal limited environmental safeguards. Polls show that a significant majority of Americans continue to support strong mining law reform. But instead of an open debate on the mining law, the industry wants an exemption from this part of the law that they've discovered is no longer to their liking. Instead of engaging in back-room politics, the mining industry should engage in an open public debate about reforming all of the mining law, not just the part it doesn't like. And Congress should not permit a last-second, stealth rider to be added to a non-germane bill with no public debate.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of Mr. Hinchey's amendment to require a report to Congress on information held by the United States pertaining to human rights violations in Chile carried out by Gen. Augusto Pinochet and his forces. The 1973 military coup in Chile was a tragic interruption of Chile's proud democratic history. Thousands of innocent people were killed. Many more were tortured and imprisoned. American citizens are among the dead. The military coup in Chile also represents a tragic chapter in American history. It is now widely understood that the United States supported the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government. But the full details of U.S. support for the coup are still not known. We need to know the full details. In addition, the full details of U.S. information concerning the actions of the coup's leader, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, are not fully known. It is widely understood that Gen. Pinochet directed the coup and the mass killings and torture that occurred during his nearly two decade long reign. But the American people deserve to know and would be better off knowing the full details of Gen. Pinochet's actions. Only the United States at this point has the ability to fully inform its citizens of this ruthless dictator's actions. Along with my colleagues, I have been demanding that the United States supply information about Gen. Pinochet's murderous actions to a court in Spain that has brought charges against Gen. Pinochet for violations of international law, including torture, murder and kidnapping. The United States is believed to house records that would corroborate the charges against Gen. Pinochet. Those records should be reviewed, declassified and turned over to the court in Spain. Some information has been turned over and after much delay the United States has established a task force to oversee this request. It is a slow process and many believe that some in the Administration would prefer that the information never see the light of day. Without objection, I would like to submit into the Record a series of letters between myself, my colleague, John Conyers, and other members, including Mr. Hinchey, and the Administration. These letters explain the nature of the information we seek and the importance of providing the information to the Spanish court. The actions in the 1970s of the U.S. intelligence community and the then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, toward Chile and other dictators in the southern cone are a disgrace that should never be forgotten by American citizens who wish to think honorably about their country and their government. A journalist, Lucy Kosimar, recently uncovered a memo that describes how Secretary of State Kissinger coddled Pinochet after the coup. In a recent article, Kosimar wrote: The memo describes how Secretary of State Kissinger stroked and bolstered Pinochet, how--with hundreds of political prisoners still being jailed and tortured--Kissinger told Pinochet that the Ford Administration would not hold those human rights violations against him. At a time when Pinochet was the target of international censure for state-sponsored torture, disappearances, and murders, Kissinger assured him that he was a victim of communist propaganda and urged him not to pay too much attention to American critics. This is what Kissinger reportedly told Pinochet in a private meeting in 1976, according to Lucy Kosimar: In the United States, as you know,'' Kissinger told Pinochet, ``we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here. I think that the previous government was headed toward communism. We wish your government well. A little while later, Kissinger added: ``My evaluation is that you are a victim of all left wing groups around the world, and that your greatest sin was that you overthrew a government which was going Communist. Kissinger decided that the international fight against communism justified the rape and torture of Chilean women, justified their mutilation. Justified their execution. More than 20 years later new information about the U.S. role in the coup and U.S. knowledge about human rights violations by Pinochet are still coming to light. Clearly there is more information that is housed in the intelligence communities' warehouses and that information should be made public. In 1976, an American citizen, Ronnie Moffitt, was blown up on the streets of Washington with her Chilean colleague, Orlando Letelier. Pinochet is widely suspected of having personally ordered their deaths. This act of terrorism should never be forgotten, in the hopes that it will never be repeated. Pinochet is living in London right now, awaiting the fate of an extradition hearing for trial in Spain. Whatever information the United States can provide on the deaths of Ronnie Moffitt and Orlando Letelier in Washington should be made available so the truth can be known once and for all and justice can be rendered in this ugly, ugly chapter of American and Chilean history. Congressional Letters to the Clinton Administration on the Case Against Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1) November 23, 1998 Letter from Rep. George Miller to Attorney General Janet Reno. (2) October 21, 1998 Letter from 36 Members of Congress to President Clinton. (3) March 17, 1998 Letter from Reps. George Miller and John Conyers to President Clinton, and the President's June 3 response. (4) April 15, 1997 Letter from Reps. Miller and Conyers to Attorney General Reno and Mr. John Shattuck, Department of State, and the Justice Department's May 23, 1997 response. November 23, 1998. Hon. Janet Reno, U.S. Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC. Dear Attorney General: I am writing to follow up on our telephone conversation on the afternoon of Friday, November 13 concerning the United States response to the arrest of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. I sincerely appreciate your taking the time to speak with me about this issue. As you may recall, I raised three issues with you during our conversation. First, I expressed my belief that the United States still has not turned over to the judges in Spain all materials in its possession that are relevant to the cast against Gen. Pinochet. Second, I expressed my belief that the United States should make available to Spain Michael Townley for questioning, but that it had not yet done so. And finally, I asked if you would grant a request for a meeting that I understood was made by the widow and widower of the Letelier-Moffitt assassinations, and their attorney. With regard to the meeting request for Isabel Letelier, Michael Moffitt and their attorney, Sam Buffone, you informed me that you were seriously considering such a meeting. I sincerely appreciate your efforts in that regard. With regard to Michael Townley, you told me that you were looking into the status of the request to make him available. I wish to again urge that he be made available to the Spanish judges for the purposes of questioning him about Gen. Pinochet's association to criminal and terrorist activities. As you probably know, Michael Townley was formerly in the Witness Protection Program and his whereabouts are known to the F.B.I. I would also urge you to make available Fernandez Larios, a known terrorist who plead guilty to criminal charges in the United States and can provide important information about Gen. Pinochet. I would hope that the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice have kept track of Mr. Larios at least to the extent that he can be located for purposes of serving a subpoena. It is my understanding that Judge Garzon is prepared to come to the United States at any reasonable time upon notice that Mr. Larios and/or Mr. Townley are available. And finally, with regard to the materials requested by Spain, you asked me to provide you with information about any materials that may not yet already have been provided to the judges. I am providing to you in this letter details of materials that I believe are of interest to Spain and relevant to their investigation of Gen. Pinochet but that have not yet been made available. As you know, and as we discussed on the phone, the Spanish judges conducting the Pinochet investigation have made requests of the United States Government, through the Spanish Ministry of Justice, for the production of testimony and documents pursuant to the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Treaty between the Spanish and U.S. Governments. It is my understanding that a new request has just been made. While you and your staff are already familiar with the treaty, I thought it would be important to raise a number of points here to help clarify the responsibilities of the United States in this area. There are several important provisions in the MLAT that bear on the Spanish request for cooperation. First, under Article I, Section 3, assistance is to be provided without regard to whether the act giving rise to the request for assistance is a crime in the requested country. Accordingly, so long as the Spanish court has confirmed its jurisdiction to investigate the claims against Pinochet, it is irrelevant whether or not they would be valid claims under U.S. law. The only requirement under the MLAT for dual criminality is in cases of claims for forfeiture or restitution. Under Article IV, a request for documents requires only a generalized description of what is sought for production. Under Section 3 of Article IV, additional specificity should be provided to the extent necessary and where possible. These provisions require specificity regarding individuals to be questioned, but do not contain any additional requirement of specification as to the description of evidence or documents. Article V, Section 6, requires that the requested country respond to reasonable inquiries concerning the progress towards full compliance with the request. Confidentiality is governed in part by Article VII which would permit the U.S. to require that any information or evidence furnished under the Treaty be kept confidential or used only under specific terms and conditions by the Spanish court. Classification is further covered by Article IX which provides for the production of records of government agencies. Under Subsection 1, all publicly available documents must be provided. Subsection 2 permits the requested state to provide copies of any documents in its possession which are not publicly available to the same extent and under the same condition as copies would be made available in Spain to judicial authorities or in the United States ``to its own law enforcement and judicial authorities.'' The requested state is, however, permitted to deny a request pursuant to these provisions entirely or in part. Accordingly, while the Treaty does not deal directly with classified information, the U.S. is granted broad discretion to produce or withhold classification and should do so to the same extent that it would provide such information to domestic law enforcement or judicial authorities. Article XII requires that the U.S. use its best efforts to ascertain the location or identity of persons or items specified in a request. As I said on the phone, there are serious questions raised as to whether the U.S. has complied with both the spirit and letter of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. Despite the long pendency of several letters of request, it is my understanding that the U.S. has not discharged its obligations under Article XII to use its best efforts to ascertain the location of either persons or documents. The U.S. has failed to produce key individuals for testimony and has not conducted a complete search of documents in the possession of government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, and the FBI. Further, it is my understanding the U.S. has refused to produce classified documents when the letter and spirit of Article IX should permit, if not require, production to the same extent that documents were provided to the U.S. Attorneys Office during the initial Letelier-Moffitt investigation. The Justice Department, as the convening authority, should also reassess the extent and vigor of its effort to locate and produce documents. There are certain classes of identifiable records that should be searched for and if available, immediately produced: 1. Defense Intelligence Agency Reports, such as ``Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA) Expands Operations and Facilities,'' April 15, 1975 along with referenced ``IRs'' and all other cables and reports from the U.S. Defense Attache's office in Santiago during the mid- 1970's that relate to the Chilean Secret police, the chain of command, human rights abuses, and international terrorism. 2. Defense Intelligence Agency Biographic Data, the yearly commentary and career summaries on military commanders done by the DIA--in this case on General Pinochet and Col. Gen. Manual Contreras between 1974-78. 3. State and NSC Documents identified in ``Disarray in Chile Policy,'' July 1, 1975. This document states that ``a number of officers in the Embassy at Santiago have written a dissent'' cable arguing that all U.S. assistance to Chile be cut off ``until the human rights situation improved.'' This cable was discussed at a ``pre-IG (Interagency Group) meeting--presumably in June 1975. It was supported by the Policy Planning Office of the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. A specific paper trail can be ascertained, including but not limited to: a. the ``Dissent'' cable from the U.S. Embassy officers; b. minutes/notes/briefing papers for/of the ``pre-IG meeting;'' c. all position papers relating to this discussion prepared by the Policy Planning Office at the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. 4. Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State, reports, summaries, and briefing papers on the Chilean military, DINA, and human rights violations, 1973-80. 5. The Chile Files of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, Patricia Derian, 1977-80. These files, kept by Ms. Derian's Deputy Marc Schneider, likely contain a wealth of information on Chile's human rights atrocities, and also on the Letelier case and the issue of U.S. extradition of Chilean officials, and sanctions against Pinochet's government for lack of cooperation in the case. In addition to the above records and document groups identified by the Spanish court, U.S. cooperation under MLAT should include reviews of other relevant files. These include: 1. A critical document on General Pinochet's role in the Letelier bombing, read by Justice Department prosecutor Eugene Propper during the federal investigation into the crime. 2. CIA Reports between 1973 and 1979 by the Agency's Office of African and Latin American Affairs (A/LA) on Chile's military, chain of command, DINA, Operation Condor, General Pinochet and human rights violations, assassination of General Carlos Prats in September 1975, and Orlando Letelier in September 1976. 3. CIA Directorate of Operations cables and reports on Operation Condor--including Chile's attempt to establish an Operation Condor office in Miami in 1974; the assassination of Carlos Prats, and Orlando Letelier, and other human rights abuses. 4. A review by the Gerald Ford Presidential Library staff (Karen Holzhausen) of the still classified Kissinger- Scowcroft files relating to Chile, terrorism and human rights violations. 5. A review by the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library staff for the still classified Bzrezinski files on Chile, human rights violations, and sanctions against Chile for the Letelier assassination; and the files of National Security Council advisor on Latin America, Robert Pastor, for similar documentation. 6. A search by the CIA-FBI Center for Counter terrorism for files, including those of the predecessor to that agency, on Chilean involvement in international terrorism. 7. A re-review of heavily censored NSC and State Department documents released during legal discovery in the Letelier- Moffitt civil suit. A thorough review and collection of relevant U.S. documents is critical to the Spanish judges' investigation. But I hope you would agree that it is also critical for the United States to gather this material to help our own government decide whether it too should take legal action against Gen. Pincochet. As I expressed to you on the phone, I have a long history of involvement with Chile, beginning with my participation in a congressional investigation in Chile in 1976, prior to the assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffitt. In fact, Mr. Letelier had helped to facilitate the congressional trip to Chile. Chile has a long and proud history of democracy. Gen. Pinochet's military coup was an aberration in Chile's history. His rule was marked by extreme violence, total disregard for human and civil rights, and by international act of terrorism, including the assassination on U.S. soil of an American citizen and a Chilean exile. Given this Administration's stated commitment to promoting human rights and democracy and to curbing global terrorism, I consider the legal fate of Gen. Pincochet to be a matter of utmost concern for the United States Government. Again, I sincerely appreciate your time and attention to this matter and I will appreciate being appraised of the status of these requests. Sincerely, George Miller, M.C.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my colleagues the accomplishments of an extraordinary young woman, Sipfou Saechao, a senior at Richmond High School in Richmond, California. Feeling frustrated by the self-imposed racial segregation of her fellow classmates, Sipfou took it upon herself to improve race relations at Richmond High, a school as culturally diverse as any in California. Overcoming the initial pessimism of friends, students and faculty, Sipfou formed ACTION--All Colors Together In One Nation--a student organization which now boasts over 40 active members. ACTION has challenged the students and faculty of Richmond High to confront the often volatile issue of race, and to learn and grow from the experience. As described in the following article, Sipfou's activism has earned her the respect and admiration of her peers, and she serves as a model for young people throughout our country. I know that my fellow Members of the House of Representatives join me in recognizing Sipfou Saechao for her tremendous contribution to the health of her community, and congratulating her on receiving the 1999 Take Action Award. Student's Activism Helps Heal Race Rifts (By Tony Mercado) Richmond.--Somewhere between sips of cola and bites of a crumb doughnut, Richmond High's Sipfou Saechao decided to make a difference. It was lunch time when Saechao, then a sophomore, glanced around at the clusters of students and noticed something terribly wrong. For a school so rich in diversity, Asian, Latino and black teens kept to their own. ``That was so stupid,'' said Saechao, now an 18-year-old senior. ``They were excluding themselves from learning about people who could possibly make them a better person.'' Last school year, Saechao formed the student club All Colors Together in One Nation--ACTION--to help improve race relations at the school. Friends said it wouldn't work. But Saechao's drive has helped mend a racially split student body, and it has brought her acclaim as one of the country's top young activists. React Magazine, a teen news publication, has named the UC- Berkeley-bound student one of five grand-prize winners at the 1999 Take Action Awards in New York City. The honor carries a $20,000 scholarship--a prize sought by about 600 students across the country. Saechao, who immigrated from Laos at age 2 with her parents and brother, said the money brings her dream of becoming an English teacher closer to reality. ``I'm relieved,'' said Saechao. She was a semi-finalist for the same prize as a sophomore, for her work to educate Laotian immigrants about the hazards of washing clothes and growing vegetables in toxic soil and water. ``I was stressed about how I was going to be able to afford college,'' she said. ``This changes everything.'' The magazine, which reaches 3 million readers as a newspaper insert and through schools, also awarded Saechao $24,000 to give to the charity of her choice. Saechao, the school's Associated Student Body president, chose Richmond High. The school plans to buy supplies and encyclopedias. Dennie Hughes, React's senior editor, called Saechao a tireless worker who yearns to make things happen. ``She's one of those people who wants to see what else can become her project,'' said Hughes. ``She educated the Laotian community, it worked, and then she turned her attention to her school to see how she could help there.'' Richmond High has one of Contra Costa County's most diverse student bodies. Fifty percent of students are Latino and 25 percent are Asian. Blacks account for 20 percent. Whites and other ethnic groups account for 5 percent. The trick to fostering unity was getting classmates to focus on being proud of their school, Saechao said. Scars remained from the past, when tempers between ethnic groups would flare and fists would all too quickly fly. Some friends told her it would be a nearly impossible task. ``I thought she was crazy,'' said San Saephanh, an 18-year- old senior. ``Because of the violence we had a long time ago, everyone at the time was usually separated.'' Saechao helped create a forum where students for the first time could talk about what was on their minds. She began publishing a newsletter call ACTION, filled with students' concerns about the school. Many classmates wrote about pervasive gangs and violence, teen pregnancy and discrimination against girls by boys. Teachers also got into the act, writing about the frustration of getting students to do homework or bemoaning the lack of respect and communication between teens and adults. But they also wrote about encouraging students to stay in school and work together. ``I thought teachers would be the hardest to convince we could change,'' Saechao said. ``They see what we're like every day, so they have certain stereotypes.'' Club membership grew from six to 40, with students from varied backgrounds. The climate is still far from perfect, she said, but students and teachers said people tend to get along better now. Some even share the same picnic table at lunch. ``She gained a real reputation as someone who speaks up for what she thinks is right,'' said Nancy Ivey, Saechao's leadership class teacher. ``Her name comes up the most when kids are asked who they admire as a leader.'' The ACTION club is planning fund-raisers so it can provide a scholarship to a graduating senior next year. So far, it has raised about $1,000. Saechao said it just proves what can happen when there's unity. ``It was actually easy for us students to change,'' she said. ``Most were open-minded about the idea. Hopefully, I've shown that everyone on campus can work together.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation to make the academic performance of all students the top priority of federal education programs. This legislation would achieve that goal by taking four clear steps: strengthening accountability for student achievement; raising standards for teachers; rewarding successful schools and teachers; and providing better information to parents. For far too long, the educational system in this country has operated under a policy of ``acceptable losses.'' Too many children have simply been written off. They leave school--in many cases with a diploma--only to find out that they have not received the high-quality education that they need and to which every child in this country ought to be entitled. We must increase the opportunities for success. We can do better. In fact, there are successful schools all over the country, in every type of community, that are living proof that all children have the ability to achieve beyond our wildest expectations, no matter what their economic or social background. For example, according to data released recently by the Kentucky Association of School Councils, some of the schools achieving the highest scores on state exams in 1998 were high-poverty schools. In fact: five of the twenty elementary schools with the highest reading scores in the state were high-poverty schools; six of the twenty elementary schools with the highest mathematics scores in the state were high poverty; and thirteen of the twenty elementary schools with the highest writing scores in the state were high poverty schools. In all of these cases, high poverty schools out-performed much more affluent schools in order to reach the top twenty. The success in Kentucky is not isolated. There are schools in every part of the country doing the same thing everyday. Our job, in this Congress, is to help all parents and educators in every community apply these lessons and achieve, for their children, the same success that these Kentucky schools and other successful schools are achieving. The American public is leading the way on this issue. Our citizens are currently engaged in an inspiring, unprecedented effort to improve our public schools. Parents and taxpayers understand that all children need a world-class education if they are going to succeed in the global economy, be productive members of our society, and participate actively as responsible citizens. They have come to the conclusion that we, as a nation, have not asked enough of our children; that we have not set academic standards high enough; that we have not recognized the amazing things that our children can, in fact, achieve. In California we are seeing great enthusiasm for education reform at the local level. Parents are demanding better schools, and they are willing to invest the time and money needed to get them. At almost an unprecedented rate, education bond issues--that must be passed by a two-thirds vote--are passing in California because people have decided that they want to reinvest in the public schools. We are seeing similar things here at the federal level in support for increased education funding. This is a pivotal time in education policy. We have an unprecedented opportunity to work with parents, educators, and communities in their drive to fundamentally improve the quality of education for all children. The right way for Congress to help in this effort is to provide the necessary resources and set clear and rigorous standards for accountability. Now is the right time for Congress to act. This year we will be taking up the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, something we do once only every five or so years. We come to this reauthorization at a point where the federal government has spent roughly $120 billion over the last three decades on funding for the largest federal education program--the official title of which is ``Helping Disadvantaged Children Meet High Standards,'' but which is more widely known as ``Title I''--with uneven results. To be clear, there have been notable achievements. The achievement gap between low-income students and their more advantaged peers narrowed significantly from 1970 until the mid-1980's. Independent studies suggest the federal effort on Title I and other educational equity initiatives have played a key part in this success. Closing the achievement gap was a central goal of the title I program when it was enacted in 1965 and its accomplishments in this regard have been under-rated. But in recent years the nationwide trend in narrowing the achievement gap has stalled--and in a few cases, we have even lost ground. And yet the federal government has continued to send almost $8 billion a year in Title I funds to states and schools with few questions asked and no real demand for higher student achievement. As we look to reauthorize the Title I program under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for another five years, and invest somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 billion or more in the program, we need to make a choice. We can either learn from states like Kentucky, Texas, and North Carolina, and ask that all states, in return for billions in federal subsidies, set clear goals for student achievement and then hold them accountable for making progress toward those goals. Or we can continue writing checks and sending the message that we are happy with the status quo. We are entitled to ask the same questions and expect the same commitment and accountability as a financial partner would in providing capital for a loan. We don't want to micromanage your enterprise. States and localities have the primary responsibility for the day-to-day operation of schools. But we can, and should, ask that: (1) States lay out clear and measurable goals for the academic achievement of all students, including their goals for closing gaps in achievement between student subgroups, such as between economically disadvantaged students and their peers; (2) Children have access to the resources they need to meet these goals, especially high-quality instruction. The single most important factor in student achievement is a qualified teacher. Teachers need better training and stronger support, particularly in the early years of their careers. Aides have a role to play, but they must support, not replace, the classroom teacher; (3) Schools and teachers that show results should be financially rewarded for their success in improving student achievement. Particular attention must be paid to high-poverty schools in which students are showing academic gains; and, (4) Parents should be given better and clearer information about how their child is doing in school. And parents and other taxpayers deserve public report cards on the quality of their neighborhood schools and how they rank with others in their state. By taking these steps, my bill will recommit federal education programs to their core goal--ensuring that all students have the opportunity to achieve, regardless of racial, ethnic, or economic background. Here is how the bill would work specifically: I. Report Cards--Information to Parents and the Public Individual Report Cards: The bill requires Title I schools to issue report cards to all parents of Title I kids on the academic progress of their individual children, as well as their school, the school district, and the state overall. The report cards would be tied to the standards and the assessments used to evaluate the Title I program, and as such would complement report card grades on classwork. Statewide Report Cards: The bill also requires public dissemination of information on the performance of all Title I schools and districts. The reports must emphasize dissaggregation of data (e.g., by race, by economic status) to ensure better scrutiny on the progress of all at- risk groups. II. Teacher Quality Parent Right-to-Know: The bill requires school to provide information to parents of all Title I kids with regard to the qualifications of their child's teacher(s). It would require active notification in those cases in which teachers are not fully qualified (including emergency- certified). Qualifications of Title I Instructional Staff: The bill requires all Title I instructors to be qualified teachers (pass subject area tests or have an academic major and at least a B average in the subjects in which they are teaching). It would allow programs two years to ensure all Title I instructors are qualified. The bill would allow schools to use funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to create financial incentives to lure qualified teachers to teach in high-poverty schools and provide training to ``emergency certified'' teachers and teacher aides who are good candidates for full certification. III. Strengthen Accountability The bill would establish a more stringent definition of what constitutes ``adequate yearly progress'' for Title I programs. It would take into account the progress of each program in raising the performance of all students and set as a goal the closing of the gap between minorities and non-minorities and between more and less affluent students. It would require the federal Department of Education to re-review state plans under these new criteria and to solicit revisions from states whose systems do not conform. IV. Rewards for Successful Schools The bill would require states to set aside funds to financially reward schools and teachers whose students make significant academic progress. High-poverty Title I schools, and the teachers within them, that make significant progress would get special consideration. Over the coming weeks, I also plan to explore additional options to complement this legislation, particularly for providing financial incentives to teachers who choose to serve in high-need schools. It is time for Congress to stop sitting on the sidelines watching schools and students underachieve. We have an obligation to students, their parents and their teachers to do better. I look forward to working with my colleagues on this important legislation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of both of these resolutions. Unfortunately, I was detained and was not able to come over and speak on behalf of the full funding for IDEA. But first let me say, on the Pell Grants, I strongly support increasing the Pell Grant program. As outlined by a couple of the speakers already, clearly as the cost of college continues to accelerate, we find that we are covering a much smaller percentage of that with the existing Pell Grants than we had previously. Previously we covered about 72 percent of the average costs. Now we are in the position of covering about 34 percent of that. As a result of that, many young students from low-income families who have worked very hard in high school to get the grades in order to do the work required and to be accepted to college find out that economics now stand in the way of them achieving that education. We should not allow that to happen, because we obviously have an economy that needs the contributions of all of these young people to our economic system. For that reason, I join the bipartisan support for the increase in the Pell Grant. I am concerned, as the gentleman from California (Mr. Martinez) pointed out, exactly the meaning of those words at the end of the legislation, because we know that there is a great deal of concern that this would take precedence over the class size reduction money, since that in fact is not an authorized program and needs authorization. And if it were to take place after the passage of this resolution, would that knock it out of the box? We know that class size reduction, as we just found out last week with the Tennessee study, is starting to have some important positive impacts on young people, when coupled with qualified teachers. So I think the concern is quite proper that the gentleman from California (Mr. Martinez) has raised about that. But since I think we will get a second shot at that in our authorizations, I am prepared to support the full funding. On the question of the IDEA funding, I am deeply concerned about the suggestion that to be for full funding of education for individuals with disabilities, that therefore somehow we have to cut other worthy programs in the education field, because we know that it sets up a false choice between programs like Head Start or America Reads, all of which work to help kids become school-ready, to help them become ready to read and to participate in schools. While fully supporting the idea of full funding for IDEA, I wish that the Republicans had not tried to set it up so they could chase away Democratic sponsors of this legislation by suggesting that it has to be done by cutting these other programs. When we look at the Republican budget that cuts about $1.2 billion below a freeze compared to 1999 in the education field, if we were to fully fund this, we would be talking about a 40 percent cut below the President's education request to fully fund IDEA. It is interesting to note that the Committee on the Budget, when full funding of IDEA was offered, they voted in lockstep against it, and again in the Committee on Rules would not allow that amendment to be put into consideration, where we could have provided offsets or what have you within the budget resolution. So I am not sure that this resolution is exactly as it should be, but the fact is we should support the continued increase in appropriations of IDEA funds. Finally, let me say that time and again it is suggested that somehow the Federal Government is shirking its responsibility when it does not provide all of the funding for IDEA. When we passed that legislation, Republicans and Democrats said that the goal was to provide some 40 percent of the excess costs of providing education for individuals with disabilities. It continues to remain a goal. It is a goal that we have made great advancements on in the last couple of years. We ought to continue to go after it. But it is not a question of an unfunded Federal mandate. The fact is that this is there because of the United States Constitution. If we were to repeal IDEA, every State and local education authority would still have the obligation under the Constitution of the United States to educate these children in a free and appropriate education. They could end up picking up 100 percent of the cost. The Federal Government is trying to do the best it can to help districts with the cost of these educations, but the belief somehow is that this is our duty alone, and in fact the legislation passed last year would allow, unfortunately, schools to withdraw support for IDEA if we hit a Federal threshold, so the same schools who are saying they do not have enough money find out they can in fact withdraw support for this effort. I think the intent of these resolutions is good and is proper, and both of these programs need increases in funding. The Pell Grant needs an increase in the maximum grant. But I am concerned about some of the nuances that are suggested in these resolutions.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I clearly want to recognize the hard work that the subcommittee chair, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Roemer) put into this legislation, and I clearly want to state that I strongly support the concept of increased flexibility to improve educational programs at the local level, and I have voted for the original legislation, Goals 2000, which was to establish the Ed-Flex program, but I must say, after viewing the conference report, that I come at it from a different direction with respect to accountability. I think it is time that the Federal Government, in its use of the taxpayers' money to fund the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, start to hold the States and local districts accountable for the education of all children. We all know that public officials today are talking about holding people accountable but rarely do we, in fact, do it. Most recently, as we have started a program of high standards and assessment of how students are doing on those standards, we now see we are plagued with school districts all over the country that are taking poor performing students out of the testing pool so that it will look like they are doing better when they report to the parents in that school district. It will look like everybody achieved better. But what they did is they went around and took the tests of the kids that were not doing so well out of the pool. They rigged the results, and now they want to say that they are accountable. Just recently a prosecution was entered against a school district in Texas for tampering with the public evidence. That is why we need accountability. We need accountability because we must know how all of our children are doing, in rich school districts, in poor school districts, how minority children are doing, how poor children are doing, and others. Unfortunately, this legislation is weak on accountability. They have failed to require the States aggregate the data so that those States will be held responsible for all students. They give a passing notion that maybe they will look at it by groups, but even there the language has been weakened from what the House put in. In the committee and on the floor the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), and myself offered an amendment to try to hold school districts accountable, to try to make sure that we, in fact, knew how children were doing, because the time has come when we must, in fact, make sure. We have now invested over the last decade maybe $50, $60 billion in this program, and one of the great hallmarks was touted the other day when it was suggested that the reading scores have improved. Yes, they have. They have improved back to where they were in 1990. So we have invested $60 billion in a program and we are getting ready to invest another $60 billion in the program and yet we are unable as public stewards of public policy and of the taxpayers' money to ask the States what is it we can expect in the way of success 5 years from now? Because what we have gotten over the last decade is failure. If we are going to put the public's money back into this program, we want to know how are they going to measure and how are they going to tell how these students are doing. Unfortunately, that evidence failed, and that is why I must oppose this legislation. I think a number of States that have engaged in some of the provisions that are allowed under flexibility have done some very good things, and the committee heard testimony from States like Texas and Maryland and North Carolina that do not have it but are engaged in that kind of process, to rethink how they are delivering education. But flexibility cannot be an excuse for accountability. They must go hand- in-hand, and, unfortunately, the evidence we have to date through the GAO report, through the Inspector General's report tells us that the States have not done terribly well under the pilot program and, unfortunately, this legislation does not go far enough to hold them accountable. No longer can we as a society write children off. No longer can we accept the level of failures that we see today in our local school districts. The time has come to cut the mustard. The time has come to hold districts accountable, to hold States accountable for the uses of these dollars, and I do not think we can continue to accept a lot of rationales for why districts should not be held accountable. It is rather simple. We know there are proposals that have been submitted to the Federal Government to hold districts accountable in a very strict fashion. Then we would be able to tell how this Nation is doing in education. Today we cannot. Today, many of the States cannot put the data together to tell us how their schools are doing or, at best, they can tell us how the average student is doing but it does not tell us how the other students are doing. I urge a ``no'' vote on the conference report.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to build just for a minute on the remarks that he said. I do not know where this attack or the truth squad comes with respect to the Vice President, but clearly his record is unparalleled not only in getting our country to address and be aware of problems concerning the environment, but as a troubleshooter and as a problem solver. We all remember the Forest Summit. Prior to that in the previous administration all we had was a train wreck where nothing was being done, more and more people were losing their job, it looked like more and more endangered species were going to be threatened, and nothing was being done. And as a result of the Vice President and President Clinton's work and your work and others, we have started to work our way out of that problem. We have started to put new jobs back into the forest, we are starting to reconstruct some of the damage that has been done in the past, we have worked out habitat conservation areas. But that is true in the Everglades under the leadership of the Vice President. That is true on the Conference on the Oceans. That is true in Lake Tahoe. These huge natural assets, wonderful ecological environmental assets that are the jewels in this Nation, the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the Tongass, the rain forest in Alaska, the Everglades, the southern Utah wilderness areas, Lake Tahoe I have already mentioned, Monterey Bay Sanctuary; these are areas where we had nothing but controversy before, nothing but controversy and arguments and at the same time having the ecosystems deteriorate and go downhill. This administration, under the leadership of the Vice President, stepped in and started to get communities to work together so we see in the most recent and dramatic listing of the salmon, we see the City of Seattle, we see the Governor of Washington, the Governor of Oregon, the Mayor of Portland, people talking about making this an event that they can work with, that they can help bring economic activity to the area and save the environment at the same time. That has been the thinking of this Vice President, that the environment could be a win-win. He has also told America about the markets that are available in trade on environmental equipment to help clean up the environment in other countries. He has pushed to open those markets, billions of dollars in business that is available for companies in the United States. So I think that, as the gentleman points out, and I will have more to say about those who would attack them and what their record would be on the environment, but my colleague makes an incredibly important point, that he has been a troubleshooter and he has brought communities together, he has given people a seat at the table where they never had one before, and as a result of that in a number of these instances we are working out a consensus, we are working out a consensus on California water, a consensus on the Everglades, a consensus on the marine resources in this Nation because people have been given a stake in the outcomes of those arrangements. So I think you have raised a very, very important point about his role and his effectiveness over the last several years.

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