George Miller

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to recommit, and every Member of the House who is concerned about runaway spending should join me in this vote. The motion seeks to delete just one feature of this bill: The so- called ``preauthorization of future California water projects'' that ends a century of congressional review and design of massive, costly, and sometimes controversial water projects. Passing this bill without deleting the so-called preauthorization provision grants a blank check to bureaucrats and Federal agencies to spend billions of dollars on dams, conveyance facilities, and other potentially controversial water projects in California without any further authorization by Congress. This provision grants special privileges to California projects. They alone, not projects in Arizona, Colorado, or New Mexico, or anywhere else in the reclamation west, would be cleared for construction based upon a study done by the planners in the Department of the Interior. A study might reveal serious fiscal, legal, or environmental problems. But the project goes ahead anyway unless Congress passes a bill to stop it. If that bill is not brought to the floor of the House, the project goes forward. So as projects in other States are forced to wait for bills to pass authorizing their construction, California moves to the front of the line, awaiting no authorization, freed from the scrutiny that will be imposed on projects in every other State. Those of you who have been here for a while know that water projects typically move in packages so that no State is left behind. Well, say goodbye to that process if this bill passes with the California preauthorization process, because many of the biggest, most expensive, most controversial projects will be off and running while you are still in the paddock. Now, some may ask, why would I, as a Californian, raise this concern? Because I am a strong supporter of CALFED, I am a strong supporter of the record of decision, and I would like to support this legislation. But as the former chairman of both the Subcommittee on Water and Power and the full Committee on Resources, I know that a project that bypasses the authorization process is going to face withering opposition in the appropriations process and in the regulatory and judicial process and among the voters back at home, and that is why I offer this motion to recommit. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Sanders amendment. Let me say that the problem of 9/11 was not with what Americans were reading in the libraries. It is what the intelligence community and the FBI were not reading from its regional offices.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, in 1990, in response to more than 100,000 dolphins killed each year by the tuna fishermen, Congress passed legislation that my colleague, Barbara Boxer, and I authored, creating the popular ``dolphin safe'' label on cans of tuna. For over a decade, this label gave consumers the option to purchase tuna with the confidence that the dolphins were not being chased, netted, and killed along with the tuna. The dolphin-safe label has been a huge success. Since passage of the label, dolphin mortality decreased by 98 percent, to fewer than 2,000 kills each year. But despite the success of this program, the Bush Commerce Department issued a finding in 2002 that allowed dolphin-safe labels to be placed on tuna harvested through the chase and encirclement method, a manner that kills dolphins. With this shift in policy, the Commerce Department ignored its own scientific information showing the high dolphin mortalities caused by this harvest technique. Indeed, this change completely undermined the integrity of the dolphin-safe label. Now, thanks to evidence uncovered by a lawsuit filed against the change, we learn that while the Bush administration was weakening the dolphin-safe label, it knew, it knew that observers from the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission on Mexican tuna-fishing vessels were being bribed to misreport tuna as dolphin-safe. An internal NOAA e-mail states that it ``was common knowledge throughout the fleet that the observers were regularly paid off to misreport what happened during the cruise.'' Yet the Commerce Department argues that these allegations are irrelevant to its decision to relax restrictions on foreign-caught tuna. And the Commerce Department has not provided an explanation for its modification of the scientific data, nor has Commerce taken the steps that we are aware of to address the bribery issues. Meanwhile, the U.S. pays much more for its fair share to the Inter- American Tropical Tuna Commission, the body allegedly being bribed to look the other way during dolphin kills. The appropriations bill that we are considering today provides nearly a 40 percent increase for the Tropical Tuna Commission. Yet, the Commerce Department is apparently doing nothing to ensure that the Tropical Tuna Commission is doing its job. Without an investigation into these allegations of bribery, and until the Commerce Department decides what science will guide its decisions, we should not be subsidizing foreign fishing practices that damage the dolphin-safe label. The dolphin-safe label was created at the urging of hundreds of thousands of students from across this country; hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren participated in the process and saw the suggested improvements to protect dolphins enacted into law. What message is this administration sending to those very same children and to the committed scientists at NOAA by cynically undermining the dolphin-safe label and failing to investigate the allegations of bribery by those who are entrusted to protect the dolphins during the harvest of the tuna, and to make sure that the consumers are aware that, in fact, this is dolphin-free tuna. Mr. Chairman, I am deeply concerned that we have failed to address these issues while, at the same time, dramatically increasing the funding for the Tropical Tuna Commission.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today I am joining with 25 of my colleagues to introduce the Jobs for America Act--legislation that will help protect American workers who face job outsourcing. Every day, more Americans watch their jobs get shipped overseas. Jobs are disappearing from every sector of the economy--from high tech call centers to health care workers--leaving hundreds of thousands of families and their communities in the lurch. According to some estimates, 40 percent of Fortune 1000 companies are currently using some form of overseas outsourcing, and as many as 3.3 million jobs may be offshored in the next 15 years. The latest study from Forrester Research finds that offshoring of white-collar jobs is accelerating, with the number of U.S. business service and software jobs moving overseas reaching 588,000 in 2005, up from 315,000 in 2003. By 2005, the total loss of software programming, customer call-center, and legal paperwork positions will hit 830,000 jobs--an increase of 40 percent from this year. The Jobs for America Act amends the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act to require companies to disclose and report whenever they lay off workers to send jobs overseas. It would require that when a company plans to lay off 15 or more workers and send those jobs overseas, it must: Inform affected workers, the Department of Labor, State agencies responsible for helping laid off employees, and local government officials; Disclose how many jobs are affected, where the jobs are going, and why they are being offshored; and Provide employees at least 3 months advance notice. Also, the Jobs for America Act strengthens the WARN Act by: Requiring the Department of Labor to compile statistics of offshored jobs and report them on an annual basis to the Congress and the public; Clarifying that WARN Act protections, including the 3 months advance notice, apply to all cases where 50 or more workers are laid off, regardless of the reason for the layoff; and. Ensuring effective remedies for workers who are injured by a company's violation of the WARN Act. While companies export jobs overseas for cheap labor, American workers deserve--at an absolute minimum--the earliest warning of a job loss. In today's economy, with massive longterm unemployment, workers need as much time as possible to begin looking for a new job or begin retraining for a new career. This bill will expand the amount of time available to workers to adjust to the loss of a job. It will also increase penalties on employers who choose to ignore these simple requirements, providing real make-whole remedies for workers who are injured by WARN violations, including consequential damages. Moreover, for the first time, the Secretary of Labor will be collecting and reporting large-scale data on offshore outsourcing. Such data collection will help us to better understand the scope and dynamics of this phenomenon and its threat to our standard of living, enabling us to craft more comprehensive solutions to the problem. While this bill will not by itself solve the outsourcing problem, it does provide critical tools--such as time and information--which will benefit both workers and Congress in their efforts to stem the hemorrhaging of jobs from this country.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

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

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I thank the gentleman for his work. But as the gentleman knows, we have been working on some of those solutions. As the gentleman knows, I have been involved in the plants in Yolo County and Solano County and Contra Costa County where we have brought on new generation, clean generation, site-based generation, replacing old, inefficient production of energy. We are working on a cable system now to go under the bay to put power from the East Bay into the South Bay, into San Francisco. We are working on more efficient pipelines to move fuel around Northern California. So I mean I think clearly those are there. This amendment is a little different. This is about people who stole money. This is not about people who are building power plants. This is about people who took power out of service. Knowing that if they removed 1 or 2 percent of the power, they would drive up their revenues by hundreds of percent.

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 rise in support of the Eshoo, DeFazio, Inslee amendment, and I want to thank the committee for agreeing to accept that amendment later, and to thank the committee for their consideration of the economic development projects for shipping in the San Francisco Bay area. I rise in support of the amendment. Nearly four years ago, energy companies led by Enron purposefully manipulated consumer markets and ruthlessly price gouged California consumers. Recently publicized tapes and financial records from Enron's West Coast trading desk provide the proof. On the tapes, Enron traders can be heard bragging about how they were taking the California utilities--the ``grandmothers''--to the ``tune of a million bucks or two a day.'' Just last week, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that the market manipulation and the Enron tapes are a ``display of arrogance and abuse that . . . argue powerfully for the need for government to maintain a level of oversight on energy markets.'' California consumers have a right to recover the billions of energy overcharges that resulted from this widespread illegal behavior. Yet nearly 4 years after the fact, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has simply failed to deliver justice to California's energy consumers. Instead of providing timely refunds for the unreasonable rates California consumers were forced to pay, FERC has ignored court orders to give the parties representing the people of California the opportunity to gather new evidence concerning energy market manipulation during the summer of 2000. As a result, FERC has been able to minimize the amount that energy wholesalers and marketers will be required to pay back. Instead, FERC has initiated a slew of largely closed door investigations against individual generators. Settlements in these dockets represent only a fraction of the billions taken from California consumers and industry during the energy crisis. In Rules Committee, we offered an amendment to help move the process forward fairly by requiring the Commission to publicly disclose all the documents and evidence obtained in its legal proceedings; by allowing the states, like California, affected by market manipulation to fully participate in any and all settlement negotiations; and by adjusting the timeline for the investigation to adequately reflect the period of suspected criminal behavior. That amendment was ruled out of order. Mr. Chairman, it's time for the Bush Administration to stop dragging its heels and deliver real justice to the people of Calfornia--and all up and down the West coast--who were bilked by the bigwigs at Enron out of their hard earned paychecks. Since the broader amendment was not made in order, we are instead offering an amendment to ensure that none of the money appropriated under this act can be used to circumvent the court order to shine some sunlight into this process by making public the evidence attained through the investigations.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, last month, Vice President Dick Cheney visited the corporate headquarters of Wal-Mart and praised the company for the example it is setting for American business. Here is the example that Wal-Mart has set for American business: If you violate workers' organizing rights, you can get away with it, receiving just a slap on the wrist from weak and ineffective federal labor laws. If you shift the cost of health care onto workers who cannot afford it, you can increase your profits and have taxpayer-funded programs like SCHIP pick up the tab. If you distrust your own workforce enough to disregard their safety, you can lock them inside your store overnight without a key. If you want to increase the wealth of one of the wealthiest families in the world, you can maintain the lowest wages in the industry, laying off your most senior and loyal employees and replacing them with lower- paid entry-level workers. If you want to eliminate competition in your industry by lowering your wages and prices, you can force U.S. suppliers to outsource their manufacturing jobs, so that you can reap the benefit of cheap labor from countries with even worse workers' rights records than our own. All of these reprehensible labor practices are detailed in the February 2004 report which I commissioned, ``Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart.'' I urge Vice President Cheney to read it. Today I submit to you, contrary to the Vice President's remarks, that the employees of Wal-Mart are beginning to set an example for American workers--by fighting back on behalf of themselves and others who are unfairly treated by their employer. This week, as the attached L.A. Times article explains, a judge in California certified the largest employment-discrimination class action in history. A class of 1.5 million women who have worked at Wal-Mart are suing the retail giant for sex discrimination. According to papers submitted in court, female employees are paid less than their male counterparts, promoted less frequently than their male counterparts, and retaliated against when they complain. In today's workplace--all too often rife with employer threats and intimidation--it takes a great deal of courage from workers to stand up for their rights. So I rise to salute one of those workers, a brave woman from my home district, Betty Dukes of Pittsburg, California, one of the lead plaintiffs in this historic lawsuit. She has worked at Wal-Mart for ten years and simply wants a fair opportunity to succeed. She is now standing up for over a million other women who have punched the cash registers, stocked the shelves, and greeted customers for years without that opportunity. Her courage is to be commended. And I hail her as an American hero. [From the LA Times, June 24, 2004] Wal-Mart Plaintiff Still Loves the Store: Worker Who Is Spearheading a Landmark Gender Bias Suit Says She Just Wants a Chance To Advance (By Donna Horowitz, Eric Slater and Lee Romney) Pittsburg, CA.--Less than 24 hours after a federal judge ruled that 1.5 million women who have worked for Wal-Mart could pursue a class-action gender discrimination suit, the lead plaintiff in the case was back on the job here Wednesday nattily dressed, quick with a smile and talking about how much she likes the company she's suing. All Betty Dukes wanted, the 10-year veteran of the company said, was ``the opportunity to advance myself with Wal- Mart.'' On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Martin J. Jenkins in San Francisco ruled that the suit originally filed by Dukes and five other women could be expanded to virtually every woman who has worked at the world's largest company since late 1998. The suit alleges that Wal-Mart pays women less than men for performing the same job, passes over women to promote less-qualified men and retaliates against women who complain. The judge's ruling set the stage for what could be the giant retailer's greatest test ever. The sheer number of plaintiffs means that a loss or even a settlement could cost the company billions of dollars. As Dukes was receiving minor-celebrity treatment from customers and co-workers--``Did you see my story in the paper today?'' she asked customers, holding up a copy of a local newspaper--officials from the Arkansas retail colossus emphasized that Tuesday's ruling did not address the merits of the case and said it would do nothing to influence the company's plans to expand in California and elsewhere. ``It really doesn't change anything,'' said Robert McAdam, the firm's vice president for state and local government relations. ``Nothing is different as it relates to our development plans or our prospects for growth in the state.'' The company has weathered a series of high-profile tests, most recently in Inglewood, where Wal-Mart went so far as to ask voters to allow a Supercenter in their community only to be rejected. At the same time, other communities in the state have actively courted the retailer. As Dukes smiled and welcomed customers to the store in this town of 48,000 about 40 miles northeast of San Francisco, many of the mixed emotions that Wal-Mart tends to evoke were in evidence around her. Lorell Belarde, 39, seemed to embody the dichotomy of some customers. ``I really don't even like the store,'' said the property manager after a short shopping spree. ``I don't like the company. They don't treat their employees right. They don't even treat the customer right. ``But,'' she added, ``the price is reasonable.'' Holly Hamilton pushed her shopping cart through the parking lot looking not unlike an ad for Wal-Mart. In her cart was almost everything the 27-year-old nurse would need for an upcoming camping trip: a fishing pole, beach towels, food and bottled water, all gathered at a single store for hard-to- beat prices. Like many customers outside the Pittsburg store Wednesday, Hamilton did not know about Tuesday's ruling, but when told, she expressed some concern and said she might consider shopping elsewhere if a court determined the company discriminated against women. During an afternoon break, Dukes, dressed in a black and tan outfit with a billowing red scarf, turned an upside down shopping cart into an impromptu chair. ``Wish you the best of luck, sweetie,'' a male customer called to Dukes in the store parking lot. Dukes was hired at Wal-Mart a decade ago, with grand plans for a quick move up the ladder into management. Instead, she says, she was passed over for promotions repeatedly, as men with less experience landed the job. But she makes $12.53 an hour--an increase of more than 25% in the three years since the lawsuit was filed, thanks to generous raises. A volunteer minister, Dukes likes most of her co-workers and bosses, who ``respect my right to pursue this matter.'' She likes most of the customers, most parts of the job. She works at Wal-Mart and shops at Wal-Mart, and loves the prices. ``All we're asking for is our day in court, and to let the evidence speak for itself.'' The ruling, in which Jenkins said the ``evidence raises an inference that Wal-Mart engages in discriminatory practices in compensation and promotion that affect all plaintiffs in a common manner,'' however, is by no means the company's first considerable trial. And even as the number of Wal-Mart critics appears to be growing, so does the number of its defenders--and so does the company's reach. One of the company's previous blows came in April, when Inglewood voters soundly defeated a sweeping initiative that would have allowed the company to build a Supercenter the size of 17 football fields without going through the traditional layers of city bureaucracy. The company spent more than $1 million in its failed effort to pass the initiative, buying television commercials and handing out doughnuts, all for an election that drew just 12,000 voters. Opponents spent a fraction of that amount and won the contest, about 7,000 casting ballots against the proposal and 4,500 in favor. The contest's David vs. Goliath overtones rippled across the country. On paper, however, the defeat cost the company but a single Supercenter. And the company, which opened its first Supercenter in the state this spring in La Quinta, southeast of Palm Springs, has plans for 40 more across California, including stores in Stockton and Hemet expected to open this year. The Supercenters are the company's most controversial because of their size, averaging 200,000 square feet, and the fact that they stock groceries. Wal-Mart pays its employees, male and female, less than many other similar retail outlets as well as grocery stores. The so-called Wal-Mart effect--the company's ability to undercut competitors with its lower wages and prices--helped trigger the longest grocery store strike in Southern California last year as some grocers sought wage and benefit concessions they said were needed to compete with the Supercenters. Although the company lost its Inglewood battle, and as many California cities, including Los Angeles, have passed ordinances that effectively ban such massive ``box stores,'' the company has found open arms in many other parts of the state. Some describe the Inglewood opposition, the lawsuit and other attacks on the company as knee-jerk bashing of a successful corporation. In Gilroy, where the City Council voted 5 to 2 in March to approve a Supercenter, Wal-Mart proponents wrote off the news of the lawsuit ruling as legal hullabaloo. ``Certification of a class-action suit is easy to do,'' said Bill Lindsteadt, executive director of the Gilroy Economic Development Corp., which embraces the new center. ``It's frivolous. It's another ploy by the unions to force Wal-Mart to become union.'' While heated fights over proposed Supercenters are playing out across the state, some observers say the company is facing increasing difficulties as it moves from rural and suburban markets into urban areas--and that Tuesday's ruling may increase opposition. As Wal-Mart moves ``from the suburban fringe and really starts to look more in urban areas . . . they're encountering a different level of concern and opposition than they were when they were building out amid the strip malls,'' said Amaha Kassa, co-director of the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. ``These kinds of issues of pay equity and disparate treatment are very much going to be issues of concern for urban voters.''

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his explanation. Continuing under my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey), ranking member of the committee.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation of objection, I thank the gentlewoman for her comments and participation in the resolution of the issue concerning the WIC-only stores. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I thank the gentleman for his comments. Mr. Speaker, I again want to support this legislation. I want to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner); the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle); and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) for all of their work and cooperation. I know it continues to mystify some people in the House how the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) and I can continue to work together, and that the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) can come to these bipartisan agreements with the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) on my side. We have serious philosophical differences on many issues, but we have been able to put them aside from time to time on behalf of the children of this Nation, and here I think we have made major improvements in this legislation to the benefit of the 27 million children who participate in this program every school day, to the 2 million children who will participate in the summer feeding and the child care programs in this country, and nearly 7.5 million poor women and children who participate in the Women, Infants and Children program, a program that has demonstrated that we get many, many, many times the return on the money we invest in the WIC program in the reduction of health care costs to the mother and the newborn child because we are able to interact with them and give them good advice about their pregnancy, about the birth of their child and about the care of their child in the early moments of life. It was almost 30 years ago this year in this Congress when I stood here on a similar unanimous consent request to extend and make permanent the Women, Infants and Children program. It has returned billions of dollars in savings to this country, and, more importantly, it has provided for millions of newborn babies to be born healthy, to avoid the problems of low birth weight and their mothers the problems of troubled pregnancies and premature births. For that, we are very grateful to the people who work so hard in this program to develop its nutritional benefits and its healthcare benefits. I also want to thank my colleagues for working so hard to try to expand the efforts to eliminate and reduce paperwork and to make sure that we are coordinating these programs with other programs, such as the Medicaid agencies and food stamp offices, to make sure they know of the accessibility to these programs, to remove the barriers to migrant children and homeless and runaway youth and to expand the opportunities to military families. It is unfortunate that in this country we have so many people in poverty or have such low wages, many of whom work the year-round, that are eligible for this program, but it is also very fortunate for those individuals and good for our country that we have this program to extend these nutritional and health benefits to them. I wish we would have been able to make a better statement, a greater statement, and a better direction for this country on the problems of childhood obesity. These rates have doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the last two decades. We cannot ignore the opportunity we have to work with these children on a whole range of solutions to the problems of obesity while we have them in school. One which is very important to be transmitted to them is the benefit of a good and healthy diet. This program should be compatible with those goals. I hope we have sent a message to the program that we want them to develop a healthier diet, a better diet, but we also want to send the message of exercise, of healthy living outside of school by those young people. Finally, we have all thanked one another, but this is a rare moment in this session of Congress, in these 2 years, that stand here reporting under unanimous consent a bipartisan piece of legislation of this significance. So I do want to thank again the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Boehner) for all of his cooperation in moving this legislation in a timely fashion, so we would have an opportunity to work with the Senate; to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) for developing the substance of this legislation, the changes in this legislation, the reforms in this legislation and the expansion of opportunity for these children and for their families. I certainly want to thank Senator Harkin, who I came to Congress with, for all of his hard and continuing work on child nutrition and food programs in this Nation and internationally, and Chairman Cochran, who I have had an opportunity to work with on so many programs affecting children in literacy and nutrition and other benefits such as that. Finally, I want to thank the staff members of our committee. On our side of the aisle, Lynda Theil, Denise Forte and Joe Novotny; the people from CRS, Joe Richardson and Donna Porter, who provided us so much technical assistance and expertise; to Tyson Redpath on the staff of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), and Sarah Rittling on the staff of the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle); and the Republican staff in the House, Kate Houston, Stephanie Milburn, Sally Lovejoy, Krisann Pearce and Julian Baer, for all of their work, for their consistence. The fact of the matter is, it was the cooperation among the staffs that allowed this bill to be reported on a timely basis as we come toward the end of this session of Congress. I would also like to thank Derek Miller of Senator Harkin's staff and Dave Johnson of Senator Cochran's staff. Mr. Speaker, I think the House and the Senate can be very proud of this legislation, and I know that those individuals, the American School Food Service Association, the Food Research and Action Center, the WIC directors, the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, and so many others that I will submit for the Record, were great advocates of the improvements made in this legislation and the expansion of nutritional and health opportunities for the participants. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the list of supporters of this legislation. American Association of School Administrators. American Commodity Distribution Association. American Dietetic Association. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). American School Food Service Association (ASFSA). America's Second Harvest. Anti Hunger Action Committee. Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs. Bread for the World. Catholic Charities USA. Central Coast Hunger Coalition. Chicago Jobs Council. Children's Defense Fund. Children's Foundation. Coalition of Labor Union Women. Coalition of Religious Communities (Utah). Coalition on Human Needs. Colorado Anti-Hunger Network. Colorado Center on Law and Policy. Community Food Security Coalition. Congressional Hunger Center. Connecticut Association for Human Services. Crossroads Urban Center. Denver Urban Ministries. EBT Industry Council of the Electronic Funds Transfer Association. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Food and Allied Service Trades Department (FAST), AFL-CIO. Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). FOOD Share, Inc. Greater Upstate Law Project, NY. Green Consulting Services, Miami, FL. Hudson Valley Poverty Law Center, NY. Human Services Coalition of Dade County. Hunger Action Network of New York State. I Am Your Child Foundation. Indiana Coalition on Housing and Homeless Issues, Inc. Institute Justice Team, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Just Harvest, Pittsburgh, PA. Lutheran Advocacy Ministry--Colorado. Migrant Legal Action Program. Monterey County Farm to School Partnership. National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). National Association of Protection and Advocacy Systems. National Association of State Boards of Education. National Coalition for the Homeless. National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. National Council of Jewish Women. National Farmers Union. National Grange. National Head Start Association. National Priorities Project. National PTA. National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness. National WIC Association (NWA). National Women's Law Center. Northeast Missouri Client Council for Human Needs, Inc. Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office. Public Children Services Association of Ohio. Public Interest Law Office of Rochester, NY. Public Justice Center.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation of objection.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, although I do not intend to object, I ask the gentleman to offer an explanation of his request.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Delaware for his explanation. I also want to thank him for all of his work and his participation. He is one of those individuals in this institution that makes a bipartisan agreement like this able to be brought up on unanimous consent because of his cooperation and his advocacy on behalf of our children. So I thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle). Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews), a member of the committee.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, continuing my reservation, I thank the gentleman for his remarks. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee), and thank her for her participation in this legislation.

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

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, continuing to reserve the right to object, I thank the gentlewoman for her remarks. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Los Angeles, California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her explanation. And also I want to thank her for all of her hard work and her advocacy on behalf of children in this program and families in this program. She has very much made a difference in the outcome of this legislation by her efforts. Mr. Speaker, continuing under my reservation of objection, I yield to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) for his remarks.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that we are forced to debate these very important topics within a nonbinding resolution, but the public ought to know that we are forced to debate these topics within a nonbinding resolution because of the corruption of the process by the Republican leadership in this House where we cannot debate these same items in the budget resolution. Yesterday we saw that they would not face up to the debt limit extension, so they had to hide it in the defense bill to be added someday in the dark of night in some conference committee in the future. We have seen the corruption of legitimate debate and the exchange of ideas on the floor of the House. I do not know if the Republicans would really want the American public to know that over the last 10 years, the House Republicans have voted for $20 billion less in education spending than was finally appropriated by the Congress of the United States. I do not know if the Republicans really want in real debate the public to know that the House Republicans have decided that we will never have full funding of special education, special education that is very expensive for the school districts of this Nation, where school boards and superintendents and parents and children have come and lobbied this Congress and we have a bipartisan coalition to vote for full funding of special education. But the Republicans will never get there. They have turned back the promises, they have turned back their votes of the past, they have decided they will add $1 billion a year to special education, and that means we will never get to the promise we made to this country of full funding. The gentleman from Wisconsin adds another $1.2 billion to that and in 6 years we would achieve the goal of full funding and take the pressure off those school districts to increase taxes at the lower level, but more importantly to be able to provide them the resources necessary for the education of those children with special needs. I do not think the Republicans want to have a real debate about their position on the Pell grants that they have frozen over the last 3 years after the President of the United States promised that these young people would have access to a Pell grant to help them achieve their college education. But the Republicans do not really want to have a real up or down vote on increasing the Pell grants. Once again, they have promised to do that, they simply do not want to get caught voting against that promise, so they have us in a nonbinding resolution. I do not think the Republicans want to get in a real vote on whether or not they are going to fully fund No Child Left Behind, where currently they are $29 billion behind the curve that they have promised America's schoolchildren, their parents, their families that they would provide because we have provided the most significant reforms in the last 35 years in Federal education policy. What does that mean? That means that if they do not adopt this resolution, and it is nonbinding, that means that 500,000 low-income children will not get the academic assistance that they need. That means that over 350,000 children will not have access to afterschool care that they need where they get tutored and they get mentored and they get academic help. That means that thousands of teachers will not complete the process by which they become highly qualified teachers in the classrooms of our children. So another year goes by and thousands of more teachers enter the classroom without the professional development, without the credentials, without the certifications necessary to provide a first-class education to America's children. The Republicans have so corrupted the process that they can continue to make the promises to the public that they are for full funding of No Child Left Behind, they are for increasing the Pell grants to $5,100, they are for full funding of special education, but they do not have to deliver on them because they hide their budget in a conference committee. It was due out here weeks, months ago, it has not been passed, so they deemed a budget, not a budget that they voted on, they just deemed a budget. What incredible dishonesty in the face of the needs of America's families and children to acquire a good education to participate to the full extent of their potential in the American society and in the American economy. What corruption. What dishonesty by the Republican leadership.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the House for considering the John Muir National Historic Site Boundary Adjustment Act today. My district is home to the residence of John Muir, his orchards, and Mt. Wanda, named for his daughter. Without John Muir's efforts, Yosemite National Park would not exist, and as first president of the Sierra Club, he helped sharpen Californians' appreciation for the Sierra Mountains, which he called ``The Range of Light.'' In addition to its historical significance, the former Muir estate provides valuable open space in the rapidly growing Bay Area. In 1988, we enacted legislation to expand the John Muir Historic Site. Following a survey conducted as part of the development of the General Management Plan, the Park Service discovered that a .2 acre triangle adjacent to the newly acquired parcel did not belong to the City of Martinez. In fact, it did not belong to anyone. In order to meet the growing needs of site users, the Park Service would greatly benefit from a boundary adjustment to finally put to rest the question of property title to this small triangle of land. This bill will allow the Park Service to either acquire the land if an heir or former owner is identified, or condemn the property if an heir is not found. Once the title to the land is clear, the Park Service would be free to begin construction on a 32 vehicle parking area that would utilize the .2 acre parcel. This will allow greater access for schools, seniors groups, and everyone else interested in wilderness conservation, and the history of modern environmentalism. This boundary adjustment is supported by Contra Costa County and the City of Martinez. Enactment of this legislation allows the Park Service to enhance public understanding of John Muir's contributions, while also facilitating access to an important recreation area in my district. I thank my colleagues for their support of this legislation.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Speaker, to listen to the other side, you would think that the margin between chaos and a healthy economy is 7 percent in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The matter is the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) has a very rational amendment. You have a time when families are being stretched by high oil prices, much of it I guess because of the war in Iraq, at a time when people when we are trying to get the economy moving again, we are trying to hire people, we have industries under incredible pressure because of high energy prices, the transportation industry and the trucking industry and the airline industry. It has been estimated that of the middle class tax cuts, half of it has been taken back in higher energy prices. The gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) says just take the artificial customer out of the marketplace, which is the Government of the United States. We have filled about 93 percent of the SPRO. We are going to pause right now because there is turmoil in these markets and we are going to give the American economy and American families a break, a breather from $2.50, $2.70 gasoline that we are paying in the San Francisco Bay area. I represent five major oil refineries. Yes, they are working to capacity. But the fact of the matter is, many economists have suggested that if this amendment would pass, people would get a reduction of 10, 15, or 20 cents. Maybe that is not a lot to Members of Congress, but it is an awful lot to people who are driving long distances in northern California to commute to work. The cost of going to work has increased dramatically for families in this country. This amendment says this is just one of the few things that we can do. There is a lot of discussion that somehow if we had the energy policy that the Republicans were pushing last year and could not get passed, although they controlled the Senate, they controlled the House, they controlled the White House, they could not get it passed. Why could they not get it passed? Because when the day came to pass it finally at the end of the session in the Senate, they realized it was not an energy policy. It was a tax giveaway for a lot of old, tired ideas about the petroleum economy of the past and had very little about the future. Then they decided, and the majority leader here decided, he was going to protect MTBE, the polluters that are poisoning the wells of small communities all over the country, all over the country. He has decided that those companies are going to be protected from lawsuits from communities that are trying to clean up and recover their domestic drinking water supply, that that was part of the energy bill. Had that not happened, you would have had an energy bill last year, but you thought the MTBE polluters were more important than an energy policy. It is also interesting when the Senate took a second look at it, they said these $35 billion in tax bills that are paid for by the deficit, we cannot afford it; and they started ripping them out, and they reduced it to 14 billion. And now there is a lot of people on the other side that are upset because they lost their tax cuts in that legislation. It was never about energy. It was about paying old debts to people that were very supportive in the campaign and had some old, tired ideas that they should not have to pay royalties and they should not have to pay taxes on their earnings in the energy industry. It was not going to produce any new oil. It was not going to produce any new energy. Yes, we are dependent on foreign oil, and we will continue to be dependent on foreign oil for as far as we can see because we cannot produce our way out of that problem. We simply cannot produce our way out either by natural gas or by oil or even by coal for the needs that we have for that energy. Now we can change our usage. We can engage in conservation renewables, but that is not what that energy bill was about, and that energy bill did not pass. So we have an option here, to do the one thing that we can do and we can do it immediately, and it is under our control and that is to simply stop filling the SPR, go back to the March levels when these energy prices started running up, and give the American people and businesses a break, and let them recover and to assimilate these costs. Yes, we would love it that it would drop by 25 cents, but if it only drops 12 cents or 10 cents or 15 cents, that is important. It is certainly important to the business in this country and to the families we have kept our faith with the idea of filling the SPR because we are at the 93 percent level. So I would urge that people would consider supporting this amendment. I think it is important for our constituents, it is important for their families, it is important for their budgets. We are talking about people in the middle class who are being squeezed. This is not the only place. It is not only high energy costs. They have seen their deductibles and copayments on health care go up. They have seen their cable rates go up, their utility rates go up, the cost of their kids' college education. This middle class is being squeezed. We can provide some relief here with the Sanders amendment and lower the energy costs to these families in America, and we ought do it.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. I rise in support of the amendment. This has been an interesting discussion about the difference between two-cycle and four-cycle engines, and that is very important because the industry has made remarkable improvements in snowmobiles, in the skidoos and the watercraft industry and the motorcycle industry and the off-the-road vehicles of all different types because they recognize that people were having a very serious problem with the invasive nature of these vehicles but also recognizing that this is a very large economy. Many, many people use and enjoy, as family recreation, off-the-road biking, off-the-road vehicle travel, snowmobiling, skidooing, and the rest of that. But because we can do that does not mean we can do it everywhere we can do it. There are some places in this country that are in fact very special. And there are places that do not necessarily need to be invaded by a snowmobile whether it is two-cycle or four-cycle. One can use their cell phone almost every place but there are places we would prefer they not do it. They can but we choose to say no. The gentleman just asked the question about Yosemite. In the wintertime, one could take a snowmobile and go out to the end of Glacier Point. It would be a beautiful, marvelous trip. In a full moon people go out and they travel on skis and they go out. It is one of the great pleasures in Yosemite National Park in the wintertime. Would people want to run a snowmobile out to the end of Glacier Point? It is a paved road. It is covered with snow in the wintertime. It is not plowed. The answer is probably not because it is a very special place, and I do not think one would want to be out there listening to two- cycle or four-cycle engines for that matter. Yellowstone is one of those very special places, and we should not be taking this very special place and submitting it to this pollution and to the noise factor in this park. Its impact on the people who have to work there, its impact on the wildlife have been well documented in the reports. Some people say, well, then we should not allow the snowcoaches in. No. The snowcoaches should continue to strive to be better, to improve their efficiencies, their pollution, and the rest of that. I am not for banning people in Yellowstone in the wintertime. But to have 750 people zipping around on snowmobiles recognizing that they are on the paved road, and that has been a big victory to get them out of the back country, to get them out of the nonpaved areas, but the fact of the matter is that this park should not be invaded in that fashion. I have been to West Yellowstone. I have talked to the snowmobilers. They are having a great time and I understand all of that. But I think there are many miles of trail that they can ride adjacent to the park in the area and across this country. There are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of miles of trails that people can use that are official and unofficial trails that they use in the various States and the various regions where they can snowmobile. But we recognize, as the previous Congresses did when they set aside these great natural assets for this country, there are a lot of things we could do in the Grand Canyon but we would not. There are a lot of things we could do in Canyon Lands, but we would not because we recognize the integrity and the struggle that we have to maintain the integrity of these national parks. And in this particular one we are trying to make a decision that snowmobiling will not be allowed. The gentleman from Minnesota who spoke said we can ride them in Voyagers. That is fine. Maybe that works in Voyagers. But we do not think it works, and it is incompatible with the protection and the use and enjoyment of Yellowstone National Park, and for that reason I would hope that people would support the Holt amendment.

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California

Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his handling of this bill for the minority on the floor and his work on it in the committee. And the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) is quite right. We should oppose this bill. I have to say that I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are simply describing a bill that is not before us, because they talk about this as being supplemental and providing flexibility to the unemployed worker. Now, clearly, we would like to do that, because we have 8 million unemployed individuals in this country. We have 90,000 people who are exhausting their unemployment benefits a week in this country who still have not been unable to find employment, who are in desperate straits. So, clearly, there is a need for what they are describing. But let us understand something. What they are describing in terms of flexibility is already available in the law under the WIA bill that we are in the process of reauthorizing. They can provide you child care stipends if it helps you take advantage of a computer training program or a program at the community college or a program of a collaborative in your community. They can provide you a transportation voucher to get to that program if that is what is necessary. That is why we designed the law that way, because we know that the unemployed come to these programs, and their needs are varied. Some people have automobiles, and some people do not. Some people have access to transportation, and some people do not. Their child care came with the job, and now they have lost it. That is why we built in that flexibility in the current program. What this says is if you go for the bait on the hook, which is a grant, that could be up to $3,000, you are then prohibited from participating in those programs unless you take the $3,000 or the $500 or the $700. Because at $3,000 you are only going to take care of 16,000 people. We have 90,000 people who are losing their unemployment benefits a week. But if you take the $500, you then have to pay for the programs that are currently available to you in your community under the WIA act for free. What is the deal here, folks? You are no better off. It is not supplemental. You have just lost your eligibility to what may be very good, comprehensive training programs. In my community, industry is coming to community colleges and to the work incentive force all of the time to say we would like to structure a program in the community to provide us X number of people in biotechnology and high technology and refining business, whatever it is. That is the needs in our community. You take this $500 voucher, you lose the eligibility to go to those programs. This is neither flexible nor supplemental. It takes away what people now have available to them. And if you took this $50 million, which obviously, given the President's memo on 2006, is going to be cut from other job training programs, if you added $50 million, you could provide much more child care to those individuals who need that to participate in retraining and to get ready for the next employment opportunity or need transportation costs covered so they can get to the community college or they can get to the training program or to the licensure program, whatever it is they choose. That is all available in law today. The Republicans have said this is Career Week. This is Career Week in the United States House of Representatives. The only career we keep dealing with is legislation that doesn't do anything. We are making a career out of providing answers that do not answer the questions that workers are asking. We have got to stop this. We ought to get on with the WIA bill. We ought to get it reauthorized. We ought to make sure that the funding is there so that all of the flexibility that is in that law can be utilized by the 8 million American workers who are looking for jobs in this economy and have been unable to find them. So I would hope that my colleagues would join the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) and vote against this legislation, understanding that this is harmful and, in fact, it will subtract from the total job training package that this government is making available to those unemployed and to their families.