Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, for the first time, I am not alone in introducing a bill for a federal contribution to address the District's structural imbalance. I am grateful to my Republican and Democratic colleagues who, in generously joining me today, have made this the first structural imbalance bill to have critical bipartisan regional support. Their sponsorship is particularly valuable because these are the members of Congress who know the District best because they are from the region--Government Reform Chair Tom Davis, Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Frank Wolf, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Elijah Cummings and Representatives Jim Moran, Chris Van Hollen, and Albert Wynn. Montgomery County Council Executive Doug Duncan has authorized me to say that he supports the bill as well. These Members recognize the importance of federal support to compensate the District for federally imposed requirements in order to forestall another fiscal crisis in the nation's capital, while the District itself continues on the path of improvement of its finances and services that the Congress has acknowledged. This bill ranks as one of the most important I have introduced during my seven terms in Congress. Because of its significance, I have delayed introducing other bills this year until I achieved bipartisan support in order to make the Fair Federal Compensation Act my first bill of 2004. Without this bill, the long-term viability of the District of Columbia is at risk. This risk arises from a structural imbalance caused by expenditures rising faster than revenues. Notwithstanding this dangerous situation, the District is able to balance its budget every year and avoid operating deficits by maintaining tax rates and debt that are among the highest in the nation. District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi has issued forecasts that show that in the out years, the structural deficit will overtake the city's diminished and inadequate tax base, not because of overspending by the D.C. government but because of the cost of federal requirements and statutes imposed on the District. Today's bill is different from structural imbalance bills I have introduced in the past. This bill has as its predicate a May 2003 Government Accounting Office (GAO) report, which made three major findings--the first concerning the size of the imbalance, the second concerning its federal origin, and the third regarding the unavailability of options internal to the D.C. government. First, the GAO confirmed that the District has a structural imbalance that it found is between $470,000,000 and $1,100,000,000 annually, the first determination that is based on a precise methodology for valuing, documenting and calculating the imbalance. This congressional report confines two prior privately commissioned reports that arrived at similar conclusions, a 2002 McKenzie study commissioned by the Federal City Council (an organization of regional and local business leaders) and a Brookings Institution study under the leadership of former Congressional Budget Office Director, Alice Rivlin, who also served as a chair of the former D.C. Control Board (Financial Management and Assistance Authority). The GAO's second finding was that D.C.'s structural imbalance is caused by federal mandates and is therefore beyond the reach of D.C. government officials and taxpayers. The federal government retains 42 percent of real property, the most valuable in the city, for its own use; requires the city alone to provide costly state services, such as special education, although the District is not a state and lacks a broad state tax base; requires the District to provide services to more than 200,000 federal employees, who earn 66 percent of the income produced here; and prohibits taxation of federal workers to help pay for these services. These costs to the city trace directly to the federal government and only the federal government. The GAO's third finding is that the only two options available to the District government are raising taxes and cutting services, each of which the GAO said it could not recommend. Rather, the options are to ``change Federal procedures and expand the District's tax base or provide additional financial support and a greater role by the Federal government to help the District maintain fiscal balance,'' according to the GAO. The bill I introduce today is based on these three GAO findings. The bill offsets part, though not all, of the annual structural imbalance, by providing for an annual federal contribution of $800 million. These funds are to be deposited into a D.C. infrastructure support fund that cannot be used for operating expenses but only for the specifically stated infrastructure purposes. The bill removes some of the harm to the District's investment bond rating and the resulting high interest payments by requiring that federal contribution funds go only to the District Infrastructure Fund to be used exclusively for infrastructure and for debt service, most of which is debt from infrastructure costs. The focus on infrastructure is deliberate because the District's infrastructure is used by the entire region, where 80% of the vehicles originate and includes Metro, used overwhelmingly by regional residents. Regional complaints about the District's roads, bridges and tunnels are justified, but there is no reasonable hope of repair and maintenance if the District's taxpayer- raised budget is the only source. The focus on debt service is calculated to reduce the District's debt, the highest per capita in the country. With some relief from the structural imbalance through a federal contribution, the District will gradually be able not only to reduce its debt but also to lower the high tax rates that the imbalance forces on D.C. residents and businesses. This bill also takes into account past federal contribution failures. This bill does not allow the contribution to wither away by a failure to increase gradually with inflation but provides for annual increases tied to the Consumer Price Index. In 1995 Congress came to grips with the reality that a city whose structure assumes it is a state although it lacks a broad tax base can no longer be responsible for the full set of costs shouldered by states. However, Congress relieved the District of the cost of some but not all state functions and left the unique federal structural impediments described in the GAO report. The District has made remarkable progress by maintaining balanced budgets and surpluses every year despite adverse national economic conditions and by improving city services. It would be tragic for Congress to allow this progress to be retracted because of uncompensated federal burdens. This bill allows the District to avoid great risks and to continue to build fiscal strength.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time and for his work in bringing this bill forward and the gentleman on the other side as well. I strongly support this resolution. The first Federal bill for charter schools was a bill for the District of Columbia only. I worked with Newt Gingrich on this bill when he was Speaker and when he knew that the District of Columbia opposed vouchers. Instead, he worked with me on a charter school bill, and charter schools took off in the District of Columbia as they have in no other jurisdiction today. The District of Columbia has the largest number of charter schools. I could not be more proud of these schools. They are an alternative public school system. They are accountable to us in the same way that the District of Columbia public schools are. This morning in the other body in the Senate, a hearing was held on charter schools in our city as a part of the D.C. appropriation. The interesting thing about the voucher fight that took place just a few months ago is that my own constituents who came in to see me, who wanted vouchers, many of them said to me that the reason that they were supporting a voucher bill is that there was such a long line of backlog in the charter schools that they did not believe their children could get into the charter schools. I then begged the Congress to give any extra money it had to our charter schools since our council had passed a bill in favor of charter schools, our council was giving money to charter schools; and, instead, the Congress decided to make the District of Columbia the only jurisdiction in the United States to have vouchers imposed on it while the Congress itself has refused to impose private school vouchers on the country. I invite the Congress to visit the charter schools of the District of Columbia and come see what a public school system can do in addressing the need for alternatives to public schools, as I believe there are. There are people who oppose charter schools. I think that is an unacceptable position. If, in fact, the public school the child attends is not satisfactory to that parent, there should be a public school alternative for that parent. That is exactly what the District of Columbia has. A series of public school alternatives, side by side, are our public schools. I am proud of Arts and Technology, SEED, Friendship Edison, Cesar Chavez, Carlos Rosario, Tree of Life, Capital City, Howard Road, and KIPP to name just a few of the charter schools in the District of Columbia. We have almost 1,400 youngsters attending D.C. charter schools. The next time my colleagues want a voucher, if they come and see the charter schools in the District, they will get cured of that disease.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, there may be differences on this bill, but the issue I want to raise is one I am pleased to say there are no differences on. I appreciate this debate and the country appreciates it. I have already raised the matter with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner). I appreciate the way in which he received the fact that the District of Columbia and the four territories are technically not included in this bill because it authorizes the States to hold a special election. I come to the floor only before the local press and the national press raise it with me. The District of Columbia, of course, is likely to be a preeminent target. The other territories might well be. It might be easier to get to them than to us. I can understand how such an oversight would occur because we do not have the vote on the floor. We all have the vote in committee. In any case, I know the House would want everybody to be represented in case there was a catastrophe of any kind, and I want to give my thanks once again to the chairman, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) for receiving this issue which he has assured me will be corrected. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for his many interests here, in his district, and throughout the Nation. The fact is that people in the District are living with the aftermath of munitions that were buried after World War I, which is not very pleasant, particularly when they pay some of the highest taxes in the United States. I agree with the gentleman that if the Federal Government would simply set an example by cleaning up after itself, more of the rest of America would be likely to follow. One example I have been able to get into a recent bill which has passed the House is for the Federal Government to use solar energy in its own buildings. There is $60 million for 5 years for that to occur. I also see that the gentleman from Oregon has a bike pin in his lapel, and I must state what a wonderful steward of the environment the gentleman has been, how much his leadership is appreciated there, not only with his signature issue, livability, but the gentleman's across- the-board leadership on environmental issues. It stands to reason that the gentleman from Oregon would be leading this Special Order today. This is Earth Day, and we come to the floor today, as many of us do on many other occasions. It may be Earth Day, but part of talking about the Earth is talking about water, so I want to talk about the Safe Drinking Act and the Clean Water Act at a time when Members may be imbibing lead as they drink the water at their workplace, the Congress of the United States. The water that we drink, and we are served water where we eat, when we go into committee, there is always water there, and we drink some of that, that water comes right out of the faucet, and we have to think about what that means. If it were only a District of Columbia matter, I would not be raising it on Earth Day, but the Safe Drinking Water Act is being violated all across the United States. I want to alert Members on this Earth Day to what it seems to me each of us should be doing to ensure that we have safe drinking water. One of the great dividing lines between developing and advanced societies is safe drinking water. When you come to the District of Columbia, you should not have to ask: Is the water safe to drink here? I suggest anyone who comes in fact asks that question, and that is a question that needs to be asked in your own jurisdiction as well when you consider what has happened to the District of Columbia and what it has exposed about safe drinking water. I am not sure what side our country is on when it comes to the dividing line between countries with safe drinking water and countries without, but it was surely a wake-up call when we learned that there was lead in the water of the Nation's Capital. The reason this is a matter of national concern is because two Federal agencies control the water here. The Environmental Protection Agency does the same for the District of Columbia as it does for the Nation. If we want to talk about stewards of the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency would not be included there. Of course, it does double duty here since it acts as our State EPA as well as the watchdog Federal EPA. It gets worse. The water here is purified by the Washington Aqueduct. That is run by the Corps of Engineers, and that is because they built it more than 100 years ago. We have learned that the Environmental Protection Agency signed off on public notice that there was lead in the water a year after it was found, and so buried so nobody knew about it or could have discovered it. Can Members imagine how many pregnant women and small children at developmental ages have been drinking that water without knowing it? That is the kind of environmental crime that the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed to avoid. The EPA signed off on the public notice, or I should say the lack of public notice; but the problems are more fundamental. The problems are with the very basics themselves. All of the regulations that the EPA has us living under, any good on this Earth Day we should ask ourselves, and does the EPA enforce them? On the basic science, we do not know how much lead is harmful or not. Why are we this long in finding out? We know how much is harmful for young children, but public health officials tell us that lead is harmful for people as old as you and me, Mr. Speaker, but we do not know what the amount is, and nobody has funded the science to find out. When it comes to enforcement, what the Environmental Protection Agency tells us is they should test for lead, and if they find lead, they keep testing. So what they do is they keep testing until they dilute the findings, and then they do not have to clean up the water at all. This is a public health catastrophe. Every jurisdiction is supposed to be doing this. WASA kept testing, hoping to dilute the results it found so as not to have to remove lead pipes. It backfired on WASA because it found more, not less, lead. We are living with bad science, wrong assumptions. Even in the 19th century when the service pipes in the District of Columbia were built with lead, there was an outcry that it was unsafe to use lead service lines. That is more than 100 years ago. They knew that. That is what we have today. So we are told when you do find that there is lead in the water, you have to do partial replacement; that is to say replacement of the lead service lines in the public part of the area. We learned in hearings if you do this partial replacement, and the line on private property is left there, it can be worse because apparently the partial replacement acts as a battery to whatever remaining lead is there, and the problem worsens. They switched chemicals from chlorine to chloramine. We think that may have caused the corroding of lead into the water. Now, when we see problems like that, the people who purify the water may have made it worse by switching chemicals because they did not do the right tests, and the Environmental Protection Agency does not begin to know how much lead is bad or good and lets you keep testing until you do not have to, in fact, remove lead lines at all. I suggest that on this Earth Day we go back to basics when it comes to safe drinking water and start all over again and rebuild the regulatory basis of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Finally, let me say the Clean Water Act is another great achievement of this Congress. More than 30 years ago we cleaned up the Potomac, but there is another river that lies within 2,000 yards of the Capitol dome, the Anacostia River, which is utterly polluted. Some of that pollution comes from the fact that there was a naval gun factory; but today, more of it comes from underground sewage and storm water conveyance systems that are over 100 years old. I am trying to have that fixed. It will cost $1 billion, but if we get $100 million every year, we will clean up the Anacostia River, we will do a lot for the Chesapeake Bay, and do a lot for the drinking water here in this area. I am very pleased to name the cosponsors of this bill in this region. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), and others from this region are coming on, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah), for example. Virtually all of the Senators from this region are on this bill. It is time we stepped up and did for the Anacostia River what we did for the Potomac River 30 years ago. I appreciate the time the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) has given me to discuss water on this Earth Day, for it reminds us that Earth Day is about the entire environment. And when we say the Earth, we mean the Earth, we mean the water, and we mean the air. I thank him very much for his leadership once again.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), and I thank the Chair of our own Black Caucus for his leadership in coming forward. I will try to be as brief as possible so everyone can speak. I do want to say that as we reach more than 700 Americans now killed in Iraq, more than were killed in the taking of Iraq itself, we have the obligation to come to the floor as we have, even if the President did not fulfill his obligation to tell us what we need to know, because we have an obligation to ask the hard questions and to pose those questions for the American people. The largest question in my mind has to do with money. This President has said he will not come to the Congress for more money until January. Does something not seem strange about that date to you? As we are about to send more troops to Iraq, as we were told when the $87 billion was before us that this was all they would need, is it credible to say that we can go until January without any sense that there may be more money needed? Particularly since Members have gone to Iraq and told us that members in the service are wanting for equipment, the very equipment that could mean the difference between life and death. This is the question we should pose over and over again. Is there enough money? Are there enough troops? And this without saying, I told you so, because, indeed, we did tell him so; but it looks as though if these troops do not have what they need that we are going to be sacrificing the lives of troops that could have been spared had they been given what they were entitled to there. This is not a question that the Members on the floor are raising. No one who heard Mr. Lugar yesterday, a member of the President's own party, the Chair of the Foreign Relations committee, has ever heard sterner words from a member of his own party. The Congress is no better informed than the general public about where we are going and how we will get there because this President has refused to come forward. Mr. Wolfowitz came forward yesterday and his half-hour speech was about demonizing the demon, the demon that has a hundred percent demonization from all the American people without giving us any sense of what the President's plans were for stabilizing Iraq, for getting out of Iraq, for turning over power to somebody in Iraq. I have been asked recently by the press about these coffins that no one can see at Dover, Delaware. I think that is a matter for the family. If the family wants to be in Dover, the family should be in Dover. If the family wants the hometown newspaper to be in Dover, they should be in Dover. No one should be telling the people that you cannot come to Dover to get your own folks. What is happening is that the administration believes it can hide the policy by hiding coffins. It will not work. This administration was willing to embed photographers and reporters in the scenes of battle because they wanted the American people to be with them in battle. But they are not willing to let us see folks who want to be with their folks when they come home. They want us to see the mission, but they do not want to let us see the cost of the mission. It is very scary to hear these folks act as though this is a bunch of thugs. There have got to be thugs about them, but this is an uprising. When you see it here and everywhere, them fighting back the way you saw them fighting back in Vietnam and World War II, this is a battle. This means we do not have this place under control. We wake up each morning, and there is some new coordinated attack. This time, bomb attacks in three different places on no less than police stations. Ultimately, I am going to continue to look for ways that we can help our country, but if I were to be absolutely truthful, I would have to say that I do not think the United States is going to get back its credibility, is going to draw allies to us from NATO or anyplace else until we start with a new President of the United States.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, this Saturday, April 24th, marks the culmination of Youth Pride Week in Washington, DC with our Eighth Annual Youth Pride Day. Youth Pride Day occurs every April in Washington, DC. It is the annual celebration for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) young people, which has brought over 13,000 youth together since its start in 1997. The celebration has grown from just 900 participants in 1997 to over 2,500 young people last year. Youth Pride Day has evolved into Youth Pride Week, which comprises over a dozen events ranging from a conference, dances, and poetry readings, to Youth Pride Day on Saturday. The Youth Pride Alliance sponsors Youth Pride Day. The Alliance was founded in 1996, and its mission is to celebrate the dignity and courage of all young people as they discover their identities as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or straight. The Alliance challenges society to stop hate, violence, fear, isolation, and denial as it reminds us that LGBT youth in our nation's Armed Forces, do so under the policy of ``Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'' While they have sworn to defend the United States with their lives, they must suffer the hate, fear, isolation, and denial this demonstrably untenable policy engenders. We, who live in our nation's capital and are taxed without representation, feel a special affinity to any other group that has been denied the full rights and privileges, which most United States Citizens enjoy. I remind the House that Washingtonians are taxed without representation. I ask this House to join with me in welcoming all those attending Youth Pride Day.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, this Memorial Day Weekend, May 28-31, is the 14th Annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, DC. DC Black Pride is an exciting 4-day event complete with dynamic workshops, receptions, cultural arts activities, small and large nightclub events culminating with the world's largest Black Pride Festival at Washington, DC's new state-of-the-art Convention Center. It is considered one of the preeminent Black Pride celebrations in the world consistently drawing 30,000 people to the Nation's capital. Attendees come from every major urban area in the United States as well as from Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Caribbean and South Africa. The Black Pride Festival features activities for the entire family including a performance by national recording artist, Kelly Price, 200 exhibition booths, book signings from noted writers, participation from national and local health organizations, and arts and crafts. This year's DC Black Pride theme is, ``Honoring Our Sheroes and Heroes,'' to remember and honor African-American/Black--women and men, LGBT and straight, dead and alive, those who are famous and those who are known only to a few who have shown strength of character in order to make a difference in the lives of our people and our Nation. The event is coordinated by Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc (BLGPD), a nonprofit organization with a volunteer Board of Directors: Earlene Budd, Member-At-Large; Sterling A. Washington, Member-At-Large; Clarence J. Fluker, Secretary; Robert Jones, Vice President; Eric E. Richardson, Member-At-Large; B. Roland Edwards, Member-At-Large; Cheryl Dunn, Treasurer; Rayceen Pendevis, Member-At-Large; Toni Collins, Member-At-Large; Shanika Whitehurst, Member-At-Large; and Earl D. Fowlkes, Jr., President. BLGPD's mission is to build awareness of and pride in the diversity of the Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community as well as to create a funding source and support organizations that are addressing HIV/AIDS and other health issues adversely affecting our community. I ask the House to join me in welcoming all attending the 14th Annual DC Black Pride celebration in Washington, DC, and I take this opportunity to remind the attendees that United States Citizens who reside in Washington, DC are taxed without full voting representation in Congress.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a Washington, DC institution that has been in the forefront of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered civil rights movement, and that I have the distinct honor and pleasure of representing in this body: the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, D.C. (GLAA), the oldest continuously active gay and lesbian rights organization in the United States. Since its founding in April 1971, GLAA has been a respected and persistent advocate in District politics tirelessly asserting equal rights and social equality for lesbians and gay men living in the city through peaceful participation in the political process. GLAA has long fought to improve relations among the District's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered communities and the D.C. Government. GLAA has taken the lead in advocating better training for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and Fire and Emergency Medical Service employees. GLAA persuaded the D.C. Public Schools to implement and enforce an effective, antiharassment policy established to protect all students. GLAA advocated effective public health strategies in the fight against AIDS. GLAA fought to insure that treatments and medicine are available to those in need and that the District's spending on HIV/ AIDS services be both open and transparent. GLAA also has long been at the forefront of the efforts to strengthen enforcement of the D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977 by demanding all antidiscrimination policy statements in the D.C. Government reflect the full range of classes protected by that law. On April 20, GLAA held its 33rd Anniversary Reception honoring the 2004 recipients of its Distinguished Service Awards: Sarah Kellogg, Deacon MacCubbin, The Mautner Project, Cheryl Spector, and Nadine Chandler Wilburn. Sarah Kellogg is a director of D.C.'s Reel Affirmations film festival and a member of the board of its parent organization, One In Ten. For 35 years Deacon MacCubbin has been a model community activist and business leader. He created the first D.C. Gay Pride celebration, the gay switchboard, the first D.C. gay youth support group, and his bookstore, Lambda Rising, serves as a de facto community center. Since its founding in 1990, the Mautner Project has been the only national organization dedicated to lesbians with cancer, their partners and caregivers. Its mission is to improve the health and well-being of lesbians and their families by: delivering services and support to lesbians with cancer, their families and caregivers; educating lesbians about important health issues; educating healthcare providers about the needs and concerns of their lesbian clients; and promoting lesbian health through research, advocacy, and activism. For over two decades Cheryl Spector has been a community activist. She has documented gay and lesbian life in Washington with her still and video photography. Nadine Chandler Wilburn who performed excellent service to the LGBT community while she was interim director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights from 2002-2003. GLAA's thirty-three year fight to secure equal rights for the LGBT citizens of Washington, D.C. is more poignant as United States Citizens living in our nation's capital, who have fought in every American war, including the present war in Iraq, are taxed without representation. Furthermore, GLAA's open and forthright advocacy for rights reminds us that LGBT soldiers, who have sworn to protect our country with their lives, must serve in silence, without the open support of their chosen families and communities, neither asking nor telling. I ask the House to join me in congratulating the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance and its honorees.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with Congress that on Monday, April 19, 2004, District of Columbia Mayor Anthony A. Williams will publicly dedicate Epoch, a permanent monumental abstract steel sculpture by artist Albert Paley, which was recently installed in front of the PEPCO Headquarters at 9th and G Streets, NW. A poem by Dolores Kendrick, Poet Laureate of Washington, DC, is stamped into the metal structure of the sculpture. The genesis and placement of the text were determined through collaborative efforts between Ms. Kendrick and Mr. Paley. This project represents the second instance in which an African American woman has been honored by being prominently represented in a public artwork in the District of Columbia. The first African American woman was Mary McLeod Bethune, whose sculpture is in Lincoln Park. Epoch will serve as a major landmark in the heart of newly re- developed and revitalized downtown Washington, DC. Its location marks a major intersection for pedestrian and vehicular travel within the dynamic 7th Street Arts District, an area that is emerging as a hot and stylish destination for entertainment, retail, and culture. Epoch is installed across the street from the Smithsonian Museum of American Art/Portrait Gallery, the Gallery Place Metro Station, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, the main branch of the DC Public Library. This area also features the MCI Center Arena, the new Washington Convention Center, the City Museum of Washington, DC, the Washington Shakespeare Theatre, the Spy Museum, the National Mall, and a significant number of prominent art galleries, shops, and restaurants. Epoch measures 25 feet high by 12 feet wide by 10 feet deep, approximately one and a half stories tall, and is painted in a vibrant multicolored palette featuring blue, yellow, purple and red-orange. The design of the sculpture was recommended by a special selection committee for the project that included community representatives and was approved by Commissioners of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities (appointed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia) and the Commission of Fine Arts (appointed by the President of the U.S.A.).

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, as March slips away, a number of women in the House did not want to let the year go by without commemorating Women's History Month. We recognize this is April 1. This is no April fool's joke. Women are a very serious concern of the women who will come forward this evening. We note first the progress women around the world, our sisters in solidarity, are making; and then we compare that progress to the progress of American women who serve in the legislatures of their countries. According to the data used internationally, women are considered to be at an acceptable threshold when they are about 30 percent of their legislatures. There are only 14 countries that qualify. The United States of America is not one of them. We are pleased at the increase in women, especially in the House and in the Senate; but we are not where we should be, particularly given the ideals that our country professes. Interestingly, women made their greatest strides in Rwanda last year, and that may well be because there is a fixed percentage of women required in their legislature. But this should be said of Rwanda: This is one of the world's most tragic nations, which suffered from violence. Perhaps having women in the leadership will help send to that country the notion that violence, most of it perpetrated by men in that country in one of the worst cases of genocide in the 20th century, is no longer acceptable. Mr. Speaker, just a couple nights ago Women's Policy, Incorporated, celebrated its 10th anniversary. This is a privately financed organization from which many Members of the House and Senate gather the information that they need to keep track of women's issues and where women need to go as far as legislation and other progress is concerned. It was also the 27th anniversary of the Congressional Women's Caucus. It reminded us that it was in 1916 that the first woman came to serve in this House, the famed Jeannette Rankin. That was 4 years before women even got the right to vote. I believe that says something, Mr. Speaker, about the determination of women to exercise the vote, that before the Constitution of their country even gave them the vote, as a matter of State law they sent a representative to this body. Today, we have grown from one in 1916 to 76 in this House and 14 in the Senate, well below the 30 percent threshold that the world acknowledges as a decent percentage. We are still struggling. We are still determined to find our rightful place in this body and in our country. We certainly do not suffer, as many of our sisters do around the world. For example, in Kuwait, one of our allies, women cannot even stand for election to any office. Mr. Speaker, I was a Member of the House when the so-called ``Year of the Woman'' was informally proclaimed. That was the year when the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas brought women forward, given the controversy surrounding his nomination, that a man who had been accused of sexual harassment was nevertheless put on the bench. It sent a whole bunch of women to the House and to the Senate, more than before and more than since. Some of us, Mr. Speaker, I must say, are inclined to call 2004 the ``Year of the Forgotten Woman,'' and we say so because we look for concrete evidence of where women are going in our country today. And for that, I think the best place to look is in the President's budget. The budget document is the best evidence of the policy of the President in office. I think that the American people for whom women's rights, the progress of women and children means something would be absolutely astonished by what the President's 2005 proposed budget tells us about his priorities when it comes to women's concerns. So I want to start where the American people would start in evaluating where this President stands on matters affecting women and their children. They would start with where he puts his money. They would start with his budget. As I look at that budget, it seems as if the President went on a search-and-destroy mission, focused heavily on the programs that affect women most. I looked, because I saw many programs that might tell us something about where an elected official stands on a given subject. I looked at signature issues for women, issues that are particularly identified with women and their children, although I am sure my good friends and colleagues in this body who are men would be quick to step forward and say that these issues mean just as much to them. It is simply that women have been at the front of the line advocating the issues that I am speaking about at the moment. Let us take the child care and development block grant: frozen for the third year in a row. Children are not frozen. The numbers continue to come forward. They grow older. They need services. So that when we have a 3-year freeze, it means 3 years of cuts for child care and development. It, of course, means that we are leaving hundreds of thousands of women in line for child care, holding their kids' hands and wondering what in the world they are going to do, particularly if they are on TANF where the bill this House has passed says you have to work longer and have less child care. Or let us take another signature issue: the Violence Against Women Act. These programs are cut for next year $22 million over what was in the budget for this year. Mr. Speaker, I can only hope that these programs that I am going to go through get the attention of the Congress and the appropriators and that they come to their senses and put some of this money back. Republicans have been grandstanding about an important issue that concerns all of us. I say ``grandstanding'' because the way to indicate that it matters to you is, of course, to put just a little money in it. I am talking about trafficking in women and children, where women and children are essentially held virtually as slaves. Well, the Bush budget simply eliminates the program altogether. By now it is gospel that the best straight line for reducing juvenile crime is to give kids something to do after school. Well, the President's budget provides half of the promised funding for after- school programs. What about Head Start? Here is a program that is surely not one of the favorites of the President, even though children and education has been a signature issue for him. He has begun the gutting of the Head Start program by eliminating the health and nutritional aspects that is itself a signature of the program. We bring low-income children, we combine the services they need in preschool by the time they go to school, so that they are ready to learn. There will also be no educational services in Head Start. Just a moment. I thought this was the education President. I thought the whole point is to begin education and the most rigorous education that a child can take according to age as soon as possible, so that we meet this goal that by grade 4 every child can read. How are we going to do that if we do not begin educational services in Head Start, particularly for low-income children who, of course, are and continue to be the furthest behind? Speaking about behind, if the President had put just a little more money in Head Start, he might have given the best and biggest boost to his own Leave No Child Behind bill. Only 60 percent of the children who are eligible for Head Start are covered by Head Start. Put all of those children in there and we will begin to see some difference for low- income children in school, and No Child Left Behind can begin to take some of the credit for it, because it will pick them up, ready to learn. Speaking of No Child Left Behind, Mr. Speaker, once again the President has simply declined to fund the bill. This has been a huge disappointment for Democrats, because this bill was passed in a bipartisan fashion on the promise that a very difficult issue would have the prerequisite funding and, therefore, a chance to succeed. That issue is taking children who are not learning in school and somehow making it possible for them to learn; and not only that, Mr. Speaker, but indicating that they were not going to graduate unless they learned. Well, on the basis of that promise, this became a bipartisan bill. It overcame many doubts and much skepticism. Now the promise of funding has dropped out of the President's budget. It has caused consternation in the House and in the Senate. But if we think that is all it has caused, we need only go into our own States and hear the howls and the cries about No Child Left Behind, its broken promises and the difficulties that States are having in meeting its goals, precisely because the promise of funding has not been kept. Moving right along, Mr. Speaker, to Even Start. Now here we have not only a woman's program but a family values Congress program. Because, essentially, what the program does is to put adult literacy and childhood education and vital parental education all in the same package and say, if you put them all together, then we will get what children need to learn. They will have parents who know how to read and who have an appreciation for learning. That is the adult literacy part. They will have childhood education, which is focusing on the child itself. And, of course, the parental education is absolutely essential, because once you know how to parent, you recognize the value of education, and the rest is likely to take care of itself. Well, this program, Mr. Speaker, is eliminated, not cut, but eliminated in the President's budget. I do not see how we can go home and leave that zero on our record, even though the President has left it on his. Maternal and child health block grant, if ever there is funding that gets the motherhood award of agreement of everyone, it is that grant: frozen. Some of the freezes are just plain cruel. Why would we want to cut off hearing screening for newborns? This program was started because we learned that if you catch a newborn with hard of hearing very early, the chances of correcting it soars. Hearing screening for newborns wiped out. Can you hear us, Mr. President? This is not a program to eliminate. It is not very costly. It is very vital. Perhaps the greatest forgotten issue of the Bush administration is health care for the uninsured. Twenty million of them are women without health insurance. What does the President have to give to them? A $1,000 tax credit for individual coverage only. I hope you have a job so the tax credit can help you out. But even this $1,000 tax credit will cover only 5 percent of the uninsured. Women, of course, we are told in this House, particularly by our Republican good friends, are the fastest-growing small business people. Indeed, they are about half of the small business people now, they have grown so fast. Why, then, would the President want to say, well done, women. Let us cut $79 million from the Small Business Administration, the chief agency you turn to for help, assistance, and funding. We want the President to know that there are many of us in this Congress to remind him that 3.8 million women are looking for jobs and cannot find them. Nobody even talks about women's work anymore. We assume the obvious, that women must work; and indeed, Mr. Speaker, they must. And the fact that they cannot find work has a greater effect on children than any single group who cannot find work because of the disproportionate number of these women who are heads of household. Mr. Speaker, I have more to say about women, but I see that one of my distinguished colleagues has come to the floor and, therefore, I would like to yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for her comments on this vital subject.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, a previous speaker spoke of the March for Women's Lives that is coming forward on April 25 next month. That march is being sponsored by nonpartisan organizations, tax-exempt organizations. So they come forward not under any political banner, but they do carry a banner. They carry the banner of American women, and they fear for the right of choice that women won only in the last few decades. They fear about the Supreme Court and whether it will hold fast or whether it will overturn its own precedents quickly. Today, Mr. Speaker, the case on the partial birth abortion ban is being argued in three separate jurisdictions at the very same time. Here we have the determination of some in the Congress and some in the country to simply go back to where we were before Roe versus Wade, and it looks like they will not stop, no matter what the Supreme Court tells them. The Supreme Court settled this question in Stenberg versus Carhart, and when the Supreme Court speaks, we should usually respect the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court, under the Constitution of the United States, is the final arbiter of constitutional right. That is the difference between us and many other countries, because the Constitution says you must respect certain rights even if the majority does not agree, but of course, when it comes to choice, the majority does agree. Of course, late-term abortions are controversial, and this bill would not be controversial if it did not overstep. Under Roe versus Wade, of course, the State may regulate the third trimester, but that is not what is at issue in Stenberg versus Carhart. This law is worded, it would seem, deliberately to trap the second trimester as well, the trimester where, of course, women are freer than they would be in the final weeks. Under the wording of this law, it is as clear as day that beginning in the 13th week procedures that are the most commonly used could not be used without risking prosecution. The fatal flaw in the bill, of course, is that there is no health exception. So no matter how grave the risk to the health of the woman, a woman would not be allowed to have an abortion, as it turns out, under this bill, beginning with the 13th week, as it is worded and certainly not beyond. I think that the American people are depending on a Supreme Court that will, in fact, respect the constitutional rights the Court itself has indicated are there for women. I want to quote from what the Supreme Court indeed said in the Stenberg decision to indicate why I really do not fear that the law that has just been passed, and indeed I think was signed today by the President, I do not fear that that law will be overturned by this Court. I do fear we could get a different Court, and that is something that every woman in America, when she goes to the polls in November, should bear in mind. This Court has said the following, and I am quoting: ``Using this law some present prosecutors and future attorneys general may choose to pursue physicians who use the most commonly used method for performing previability, second trimester abortions. All those who perform abortion procedures using that method must fear prosecution, conviction and imprisonment. The result is an undue burden upon a woman's right to make an abortion decision. We must quickly find the statute unconstitutional.'' The court has spoken. Trying to overturn the Supreme Court does not work in our system. Let us hope that whatever the Court says this time is, in fact, respected. Equal Pay for Women

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee ) coming down to offer her comments on this important issue at this time, and I appreciate the quality of those comments. I am very pleased now to be joined by the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for whom these issues affecting women and children have been of priority and importance since she came to Congress.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am a former chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, so I cannot let this hour go by without saying a word about perhaps the right that most women depend upon today and recognize today and that is the right to equal pay. This Congress has not looked at the Equal Pay Act since it was passed 40 years ago in 1963, more than 40 years ago now, and yet we are in a different world, with women with different aspirations and jobs totally different from what they were at that time. To that effect, many women and men in this body are trying to update the Equal Pay Act with a Paycheck Fairness Act. The Paycheck Fairness Act is not a very radical piece of legislation. It would add national origin and race to the Equal Pay Act. The Equal Pay Act bars unequal pay on the basis of sex alone. It would seem that by now everybody would agree that it is time to make sure that the typical protections involving the groups that are most likely to experience discrimination would find their way into the Equal Pay Act. A very important part of the Act would keep a person from being punished or being fired for discussing her salary or his salary in the workplace with others. This is a favorite ruse of many employers. They do not want colleagues of one another to know what they make because, if they do, women might say, I do not know why this man is being paid more than I am. A woman should be protected. If she goes to a man who is doing a job like hers or unlike hers and says, could I ask you what is your wage, what is your salary, there is no such protection now, and a woman could be fired for discussing or inquiring of the wage of another colleague. Along with Senator Tom Harkin, I have introduced the Fair Pay Act. Just as the Paycheck Fairness Act updates the Equal Pay Act, our bill would update the equal employment opportunity, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, so that jobs that have the same skill, effort and responsibility would have to be paid the same. Today, there are women doing work of equal value to the work of men who are being paid grossly differential salaries. For example, a man and a woman both graduate from college at the same time. He becomes a probation officer. She becomes a social worker. Guess who makes the most money? It would be very difficult to make the case that his job as a probation officer is more difficult than her job as a social worker. The reason for the discrimination is that we still have sex segregation of jobs in our society, jobs that are essentially for women and jobs that are essentially for men, and the jobs that are for women are paid often according to gender, as opposed to the job to be done. Women work in essentially three fields: clerical, sales and factory jobs. You will find that where women are bunched together their salaries are lower than men who do comparable jobs. As a result, the society is flailing around looking for women in the traditional women's occupations: teaching, nursing, social work. Women are fleeing those occupations, for no reason other than they are going where the money is. Nurses are becoming doctors. Social workers are becoming lawyers. Heaven knows who is going into teaching today when we most need them. People who get educated are not going to continue to join professions that do not pay them according to what they are worth. Because women have filled very vital occupations in our society, this is dangerous indeed. One has only to go into the hospitals of America to understand what pressure we are under. We cannot get enough nurses. There are strikes at hospitals. Nurses have to work on weekends, do not enjoy holidays. It cannot go on this way forever. An easy way to right that wrong is raise the pay. I am an attorney. I have to tell you that this profession has been overpaid since it came into existence. Pay has nothing to do with the worth of lawyers. What it does have to do with is that it has been a male profession. I joke with my friends who are lawyers that as there are more women in the legal profession we are going to drive down the wage because it will be seen as a woman's occupation. Very seriously, the occupations that concern me most are occupations that the society perhaps most depends upon: people to teach our children, nurses who in a very real sense are more vital than doctors today because of the breadth and depth of the health care tasks they perform, social workers because there are so many parts of what the society needs that have now integrated their skills. We are in very deep trouble when people abandon these professions. We can recruit all we want to. We can preach all we want to. The way to get men and women into these professions is to pay these professions what they are worth. Under our bill, a person could sue if, in fact, in the same workplace somebody in a comparable job was not paid for reasons of sex the same as that person. You would have to prove it. The burden would be on you. This would not change our economic system in any way. It fits right into the way in which title 7 requires that you prove discrimination, and here you would have to prove that the difference in wage is based on discrimination. Because the difference in wage can be based on any number of factors, and the burden would be on the women. In case you think this is a far-out idea, let it be known that 20 States have already done wage studies and adjusted the wages of women State workers based on those wage studies that showed that the wages of women were out of whack because they were women. In these States all over the United States, not following any particular pattern, north, south, east, and west, the wages have been raised for women who were teachers, nurses, clerical workers, and librarians simply based on looking at the skill, effort, and responsibility of the jobs they perform. The evidence that women are continuing to be paid less is rampant in our society. The favorite I would cite is Wal-Mart, because it is the largest corporation and the most expanding corporation in our country and women there make $1.16 per hour less than men. Is that why the prices are so low? Are they saving on what we spend on the backs of their own women workers? That is worth finding out. Mr. Speaker, finally, I want to say a word about poor women, because there is so little discussion about women who do not work and want to work. I am very concerned about the TANF bill. About the most important thing that happens to a woman who becomes pregnant before marriage is that she wakes up and understands that there is somebody she is responsible for besides herself. It is an extraordinary awakening that occurs and maturity for such a woman. And I have seen what women are willing to do after the birth of such a child that they were not willing to do before, and one of those things is to go to school. I cannot for the life of me understand why the TANF bill that we passed would not allow a woman to work part time and go to college part time if she had the gumption and the energy to do so. I do not know what we expect. Should she go off TANF and work at a minimum-wage job, or one close to minimum wage for the rest of her natural life? How does that help the children? The whole point of this bill was to bring greater responsibility and to encourage people to take that responsibility or we were not going to pay for them. About the best way to take greater responsibility for yourself is to educate yourself and make sure you can support yourself decently, not just support yourself. What have we done? We have increased the work hour requirements to 40 hours per week and then limited what counts as work. It is penny-wise, pound-foolish, and cruel. And, Mr. Speaker, one thing we are not going to let this House forget is that the Republicans in this House killed the child care credit for poor women and poor families; that those families that earn between $10,000 and $26,000 a year, including military families, cannot get that child credit. That issue is not going away. We are going to carry it to the American people. We are not going to let this House forget it until we have made good for those who most need the child care credit. Mr. Speaker, I want to close simply by paying tribute once again to Dr. Dorothy Height and thanking the Congress of the United States for conferring on Dr. Height the Congressional Medal of Honor. Dr. Height was for many years a resident of the State of New York. It is my great good fortune that a few years ago she moved to the District of Columbia and has become my constituent. This is an American who richly deserved the honor she got last week. She has spent her whole life doing what many leaders have found difficult to do, fighting for a particular group while bringing people together. It is easy enough to fight for your own group. To a black woman, nothing is easier than for me to get up and talk about black women and what they need and what has been their history. As the president emeritus of the National Council of Negro Women, that of course is what Dr. Height has done for most of her life. She is now 92 years old. Why America was justified in awarding her the Congressional Medal of Honor is she has managed to fight with great strength for African American women while preaching the message of inclusion and brotherhood and sisterhood of all people at the same time. They are not contrary messages, but there are few who have been able to bring them forward and make them believable to those they reach. I am particularly grateful as a young woman when feminism emerged that Dr. Height was one of those feminists who made black people understand that as white women came forward and demanded their equal rights, that that took nothing from black people; that their own movement for full equality was a movement that called forth universal principles; that black women had much in common with white women; and that this was not a cause for the two to be in dispute, but rather to be in coalition. The world does not have enough leaders like Dorothy Height. That is why we extol them when we find them: the Mandrels of this world, the Martin Luther Kings of this world, and, yes, and the Dorothy Heights of this world. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that we have been granted this time so that American women understand that March would not go by, for those who expected women to come forward in this House and commemorate Women's History Month, that that month would not go by entirely without us remembering that this House, this Congress must never forget its women; that we must never forget the women of the world. And one way in which we indicate that women are always on our minds is to choose a month where we talk about them. We have been talking about women throughout this House. We have been talking about their issues. It was time to talk about women on the floor of the House of Representatives this very evening. General Leave

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, may I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for coming forward to inform the House of this intriguing study and for giving us I think some ammunition about what our responsibility is. Women, in fact, need to be asked. It seems to me there is some asking that we all need to do; and you consider that women are increasingly better qualified, by education, to hold office because they get more education. You wonder what more do they need. I guess it is important information for us all to have, and it is challenging information, and I thank the gentlewoman for staying this evening to come forward. Partial Birth Abortion

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order this evening.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. And I thank the so-called big four, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar), the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri), and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), who stood tall and strong for this bill. We do have a stripped-down bill fiscally. Although they took the number, the $375 million number, from the Department of Transportation which regarded it as the minimum number for our infrastructure this year. One would think that everybody would rush forward to embrace that number 2 years into a jobless recovery. Nevertheless, I strongly support this bill. It must, in fact, be passed. It is full of good provisions. I particularly commend the minority business section and the training to take advantage of minority businesses. There are many new sections as well. I want to concentrate on one issue, the issue that drove African Americans and people of color to the polls in 2000, and that was racial profiling on the roads of the United States bought and paid for by the U.S. Congress. It is the last remaining widespread, overt and intentional discrimination in our country. Racial profiling is a violation already of title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, because it means that the government is subsidizing discrimination. That is why there have been so many successful lawsuits in the States. It is an unconstitutional violation of the 14th amendment, because it is carried out by police officers. The President understood this. This is why he instructed his own Justice Department to issue guidance on racial profiling for Federal officers. It is excellent, tough guidance. I asked for the same in this bill. I regret we were not willing to do for the States what the President has done for the Federal service. I wrote a provision that would have been parallel to what we have done with speeding and drunk driving. Nevertheless, we have a grant provision that encourages the States to create racial profiling laws and allows the States that do so to get funded to develop and maintain data and do law enforcement training. This is a tough provision. States must show that they have tough racial profiling laws. It also is time that we had racial profiling as part and parcel of our civil rights laws. That is why I am a cosponsor of the bill introduced by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) that would do just that. (H.R. 3847) Meanwhile, this is the first racial profiling provision in Federal law. Every Member of this House should be proud we were willing to put it in this bill. It is an important start.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I thank my good friend, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Tom Davis), and my other colleagues who have exercised leadership on this resolution. This is an unusual procedure, because we are facing an unprecedented denial. In war and peace, there has always been pay parity. This is not the time to set up invidious comparisons between people who do the same kind of jobs, sometimes on the home front, sometimes overseas. It has never been considered a reflection on the military for there to be pay parity, and we ought not inject that into this debate now. We take nothing from their sacrifice now, as we have taken none in the past. We know we have a volunteer army. We know most of our troops are support troops. We know that almost all of them do the same things that we do in civilian life. There are very few, in fact, in combat. This is no time to break with pay parity, because if you think this will be remembered as the era of war, I tell you, this will always be remembered as the era of homeland security. This will be remembered as the era when we in fact called Federal employees to do what they have never had to do before, and that is to protect the homeland. The homeland is not being protected by the military. The homeland is being protected by civil servants here during alerts, by civil servants who in fact are taking care to see that we are not at risk right here. The last thing we need to do is to tell them that we are going to break pay parity, right when we expect more from them, right when we are counting on them to save us from risks that none of us know about today. Indeed, these employees are being asked to do much more. The great bulk of them who are in DOD and Homeland Security are having their lives turned upside down with all kinds of systems being proposed that are revolutionary in the way you would pay them, evaluate them, involve them in collective bargaining; and now we want to say we are going to deny you, as well, as the pay parity you were entitled to when none of this was going on. You want to do comparisons between Federal workers and the private sector? I do not think you want to go there. That has been one of the most controversial issues for decades, and we are still not at pay comparability. Indeed, for many years Federal service has been uncompetitive. Young people for many years now have been going far more into the private sector than the Federal sector, and the quality of the Federal workforce is going to suffer for it. Both the House and Senate have had hearings and joint hearings on, of all things, recruitment and retention in the Federal civil service, because half of these folks could go out the door tomorrow or shortly after tomorrow. They are greatly unappreciated as it is. Do not make it worse. Do not break the precedent of pay parity right when we are asking more from civilian employees of the civil service.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the American Legacy Foundation, a national organization dedicated to helping young people reject tobacco and Americans quit smoking. The foundation recently celebrated its fifth anniversary and I am proud that this organization has chosen our Nation's Capital as its home base. Forty-seven million Americans smoke, but tobacco is not an equal opportunity killer. Forty years ago, the well educated and affluent smoked more, but the 21st century smoker is typically lower income and less educated. Today, the negative impact of tobacco-related disease disproportionately affects the poor and ethnic or cultural minorities. For the last 2 fiscal years, the District of Columbia ranked last among the States in tobacco prevention spending. This is exactly why Congress must support the Metro D.C. Call Center, as well as innovative and results-oriented programs like the American Legacy Foundation's truth campaign, Circle of Friends and Great Start. The Metro D.C. Call Center and programs such as truth do help DC residents reject tobacco and pursue healthier lifestyles. The American Legacy Foundation was created out of the Master Settlement Agreement put forth by our Nation's attorneys general, but under the terms of the agreement, the American Legacy Foundation received its last payment earlier this year. This dramatic reduction of resources jeopardizes all of the successes the foundation has achieved. That's why I would like to ask my fellow colleagues to join me in recognizing the American Legacy Foundation and its groundbreaking programs, and pledge our continued support for this vital organization.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise against the Republican budget because the Republican budget virtually guarantees cuts in women's programs as the President's budget already does.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I am grateful to the gentleman from Massachusetts for his strong support and advocacy of this bill. May I offer my thanks as well to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), who has been with this bill since 1998 and was, from the moment that the territories and the District were not included, helpful throughout and insistent that we be included. Of course, the exclusion of the territories and the District was entirely inadvertent; and he comes once again full circle, because he was chairman at that time. Indeed, twice before, the House has passed a bill to afford the five insular areas and the District of Columbia a quarter coin bearing a design of their choice on the reverse side. Inadvertently, these Americans were excluded from the 50-State bill affording this same right to the States in 1998. We owe very special thanks to three successive committee chairs and ranking members of the Committee on Financial Services. It is one thing to ask a committee to come to the floor once with a bill; it is a burden to come three times, even on suspension. I would like to thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), who has chaired the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology during the 105th Congress, and worked with me and introduced legislation to allow the District and the insular areas to participate in this program. In the 106th Congress, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), as chair of the same subcommittee, introduced this bill and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), as ranking member of the subcommittee, cosponsored the legislation. Today, I would especially thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. King), who is chair of the subcommittee during the 107th and 108th Congress who introduced the bill and the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney), the ranking member, who sponsored the bill the last two sessions. May I also give special thanks to the chair of the full committee, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) for their support. I want to particularly thank the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), with whom I recently spoke concerning the bill and who kindly agreed to move it to suspension. To date, there have been over 21 billion State quarter coins minted; 26 States have had their State design on the reverse side of the quarter with four more States to be added before the end of this year. Five are added each year. All the coins are minted according to the year each State ratified the Constitution of the United States or were admitted into the Union. Although the States have appropriate latitude, there are limitations as to what can be used as a design. According to Public Law 105-124, the Secretary of the Treasury has the final approval of each design. The law gives clear guidance as to what is an acceptable design concept. Such suitable design concepts include State landmarks, landscapes, historically significant buildings, symbols of State resources or industries, official State flora and fauna, State icons and outlines of the States themselves. State flags and seals are not considered suitable. Among the examples of suitable coins already in circulation are New York's Statue of Liberty, Missouri's depiction of Lewis and Clark as they paddle down the Missouri River with the Gateway Arch in the background, and North Carolina's design depicting the first successful airplane flight. We look forward to the day when the residents of the District of Columbia and the insular areas can see similar symbols of their jurisdictions and of their American citizenship appear, as well. This bill points up the importance of including all Americans in the symbols of American citizenship. The residents of the District and the insular areas are full and equal American citizens. To leave them out of mere expressions of citizenship is to deny the citizenship they revere and share with other Americans. The Americans who live in these areas have fought and died in our country's wars and have extraordinary records of service in the Armed Forces in considerably larger numbers than other States. The District of Columbia alone has lost more service members in Afghanistan and Iraq than many States and lost more in Vietnam than 10 separate States. We in the Congress are proud to represent all Americans. There are, of course, significant differences between the States and the jurisdictions covered by this bill. However, qualification to be a part of a program of quarter coins to commemorate congressional districts is not one of them. Under the Constitution, all Americans are equal notwithstanding important differences in form, structure and other significant distinctions. Today, by including all Americans, Congress avoids any appearance of differential or discriminatory treatment and any implication that these areas are colonies as, of course, was never the intention when the five jurisdictions were not included in the original bill as the House has made clear by repeatedly bringing this bill to the floor. Today, when our country is at war and faces unparalleled dangers, this bill is yet another example of our unity as Americans and our indivisibility in honoring all of our country's citizens. By passing this measure, the House will make it abundantly clear that we are one country and that our hope is that the Senate will join us.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), the subcommittee chair, for yielding and for his very sensible approach to this issue. I do not know if my good friends on the other side of the aisle are trying to change their political identity, but I thought they stood for federalism and local control. They are, however, developing a pattern of coming to the floor in response to interest groups to knock out lawsuits even when they are winning in the courts. What a waste of time. Fast-food suits can hardly be the American answer to obesity, a public health problem; but they may be part of a revolution that is occurring in the fast-food industry. And I say to the fast-food industry, keep bringing on those changes at McDonald's and all the rest of these fast-food places that are hearing us one way or the other. We all believe you have to take responsibility for what goes into your own mouth. I come to the floor because I think there is a great audacity in coming to the floor, as the other side is, to talk about personal responsibility when we are talking about a public health problem for which our government has not taken responsibility. I worked with Chairman Porter, who, a couple years ago, retired from the House, on an appropriation that started at $125 million. He started with children. I had a bill called Lifetime Improvement in Food and Exercise, LIFE; and we joined forces. He came to the Congress to a reception just to press the notion once again last year. Secretary Thompson had the audacity to go on television yesterday talking about some penny ante things that the administration is going to do. After having reduced this amount from $125 million this year to $5 million, they tried in the last 2 years to get it to zero. This is money that was going into reducing obesity among children. In today's Washington Times, the front page says, and I quote, ``Inactive Americans are Eating Themselves to Death at an Alarming Rate. Their unhealthy habits are approaching tobacco as the top underlying preventable cause of death, a government study found.'' What is the government going to do about its government study? I hope it does more than stop the trial litigation in the States, obviously not the answer to this problem when 60 percent of our people are overweight or obese. An ad campaign as described by the Secretary himself consists of humor when they say you should get off your duff and walk your children around the block. Mr. Chairman, this is far more serious than that. This is the major health problem second only to smoking. I am grateful to the Committee on Appropriations that instead of zeroing out public health money for the last 2 years, the appropriation has put in money. We are going to be trying to get money again this year so we do more than talk about obesity or try to stop litigation. When you look at the amount of money that we have put into this problem ourselves, we started with a good Republican Chair of the HHS subcommittee, starting at $125 million. Then he retires and the administration, his administration tries to zero it out. This Congress says, no, we will not put 125. If the President wants it gone, we will put 68, then the third year 51, last year $35.8 million. Well, we are going down, not up; but people rush to the floor, the Committee on the Judiciary regards it as a priority to stop some lawsuits that are stopping themselves. That is my concern. My bill, Lifetime Improvement in Food and Exercise, which I joined with Chairman Porter in producing this first, first significant public health money, is now being eroded by the administration. And I now find myself with only $5 million in the administration's budget this time rather than zero; $5 million reduced from $125 million means they want public health money to combat obesity gone. I am going to ask the Members of this House to help me in restoring money to face this public health problem so that people who are bringing lawsuits out there know that we can do more than try to knock out lawsuits that are knocking themselves out, but that we are taking public health responsibility for a public health crisis, just as we expect them to take personal responsibility for what they eat every day.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from the gentleman from California (Mr. Honda), who is the author of this resolution.