Eleanor Norton

Ms. NORTON

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

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce). (Mr. LaFALCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 4006 is a bill to designate the new Federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York in honor of former Senator Alfonse D'Amato. Alfonse D'Amato was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1937. He graduated from Syracuse University and Syracuse Law School in 1961 and 1962 and was admitted to the New York Bar. From 1965 to 1968, he served the public as the Public Administrator in Nassau County. His public service also included positions as Town Supervisor, Tax Assessor, and the Nassau County Board of Supervisors. In 1980, he was elected to the United States Senate and served until 1998. While in the Senate, Senator D'Amato was a tireless advocate for New York and the State's vital interests. He championed inner city economic redevelopment, transit funding, and small business programs. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, he worked on tax relief initiatives for working and middle class families. He also championed the fight to restore assets from Swiss banks to holocaust survivors and victim heirs. It is fitting and proper to honor this public servant with this designation. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

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

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 4028 is a bill to designate the courthouse located at 600 West Capitol Avenue in Little Rock, Arkansas as the Richard S. Arnold United States Courthouse. Judge Arnold's career in public service spans over four decades. He was born in Texas and educated in New England. Richard Arnold attended high school at Phillips Exeter Academy, undergraduate studies at Yale, and law school at Harvard. He was a superior student and scholar. While at Yale he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was president of the Yale Debating Society. Harvard Law School awarded him the Sears Prize for the best grades, and the Fay Diploma for graduating first in his class. He clerked for Justice William Brennan and worked for our former colleague, Dale Bumpers, when Bumpers was governor and U.S. Senator. Judge Arnold's resume is filled with awards and honors, including receiving honorary law degrees from the University of Arkansas and the University of Richmond. He was the Madison lecturer at New York University Law School in 1996. In 1999 he received the Meador-Rosenberg Award given by the American Bar Association. Judge Arnold is a prolific writer. His publications are included in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, Arkansas Law Review, Washington University Law Quarterly, St. Louis University Law Journal, and the New York University Law Review. President Carter appointed Judge Arnold to the Federal bench in 1978 and 2 years later he rose to the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Judge Arnold is beloved, respected, and honored by his colleagues and friends. He is a brilliant jurist and his legal opinions are noted for their clarity of thought and expression. He is known for his unfailing courtesy, charity, and good cheer. It is most fitting that we honor the outstanding career and public service of Judge Richard Arnold with this designation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I introduce the Nationwide Gun Buyback Act of 2002 (NGBA) to mark Mother's Day, in recognition of the strong support mothers across the nation have demonstrated for gun safety, and in light of continued gun violence in our communities. The NGBA would provide $100 million in federal funds to local jurisdictions to hold gun buyback programs similar to the successful programs conducted by the District of Columbia and other cities over the last three years. Under the bill, funds would be distributed through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and, after evaluation of proposals, added weight would be given to jurisdictions with the greatest incidence of gun violence. The NGBA would require that a jurisdiction certify that it is capable of destroying the guns within 30 days, that it can conduct the program safely, and that an amnesty appropriate for the jurisdiction will be offered. Not only individuals, but groups such as gangs could take advantage of the buyback provisions to bring in guns and encourage street gangs to disarm themselves. Families, and especially mothers, fear guns in their homes, but have not known how to get rid of them. In many jurisdictions, a grandmother, father or other family member may be petrified that there is a gun in the house but cannot turn it in without subjecting the family member or her grandson to possible prosecution. This unintended result of gun safety legislation is reason enough for the amnesty achieved through gun buyback efforts. This bill is necessary because, despite the extraordinary demonstrated success of the gun buyback program in the District, in which over $528,000 was spent to recover 6,250 firearms in three buybacks, local jurisdictions lack readily available funds for similar programs. The experience of the District of Columbia is instructive. The District was forced to find money on an ad hoc basis and ran out of funds despite indications that there were many residents who still desired to turn in guns. Initially, the District conducted a pilot program using funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The response of the public was so strong, with residents standing in long lines, that the Police Department took the program citywide, using drug asset forfeiture funds. Even so, after using $290,000, the city ran out of funds, but not of guns that could have been collected. The guns were considered a ``good buy'' because they were unlicensed and illegally possessed, but hard-pressed jurisdictions, especially big cities, should not have to rob Peter to pay Paul when it comes to public safety. The federal government can play a unique and noncontroversial role in reducing gun violence by providing the small amount authorized by my bill, $100 million, to encourage buybacks efforts where they can be helpful. With this bill, we are taking the gun buyback leadership of the District and other cities nationwide. We have demonstrated a faster and easier way to get guns where criminals cannot use them and children and adults cannot misuse them. Gun buyback efforts are not new, but the recent, dramatic impact of the program of the District and other jurisdictions have special bipartisan and natural appeal today because the program is voluntary and requires no change in local laws. My bill has the added feature of skirting the present stalemate in the Congress, where we have yet to pass a gun safety bill. A gun buyback bill is no substitute for gun safety legislation, but my bill is based on demonstrated and successful experience in a number of cities that have achieved voluntary compliance by citizens with local laws. Two years ago this weekend, almost a million mothers and their families gathered on the Mall to demand that Congress heed their call to enact strong gun safety legislation. These families believed that the federal government has an obligation to help protect our children and all our citizens. It is time that we fulfill that obligation by at least passing a bill that takes guns out of unauthorized hands. I urge my colleagues to support this vital legislation.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I appreciate all of his work on this issue. He has been one of the movers and shakers for charter schools in this Congress. This is only one of the reasons I am in mourning that he is leaving the Congress. I want to thank the author of the resolution, H. Con. Res. 386, as well. Mr. Speaker, the District of Columbia, our Nation's Capital, is supporting charter schools in a way that counts with the largest number of charter schools per capita in the United States. Fourteen percent of our youngsters go to charter schools, more than in any other State. We have 2 chartering authorities, including one that was authorized by this Congress pursuant to a bill I sponsored in 1995 with the agreement of the District of Columbia. All of our charter schools are public, nonsectarian schools. There are 13 elementary schools, 11 middle schools, and 16 high schools. I want to draw attention to one in particular, the Seed School, which is the first inner city charter boarder school in the United States. Yes, that is right. A boarding school of 14 children in a classroom, and it has attracted all kinds of private funds. We can imagine how surrounding these children with what such a school has to offer, what it means in terms of their career opportunities and their ability to get into top-flight schools. We think our charter school movement here is a model for how to promote competition to the traditional public schools. This House may recall that there was fierce opposition in the District which this Congress tried to impose on the District vouchers, fierce opposition, rage, and yet the District has embraced charter schools like its second skin. They have proven to be better than vouchers because they are far less controversial and have a far greater variety of schools than we could ever have gotten with vouchers. These schools are very independent. They are not tied to the bureaucracy of the public schools of the District of Columbia at all. For those who say that the public schools need competition, they are right. Boy, have they been competition for our public schools. I think they have made our public schools better. The scores in the public schools are better than the scores in the charter schools, but at the very bottom, the very bottom, the charter schools are doing better, and that may be because of the teacher-student ratio, because there are a smaller number of students in those schools. The competition is good, but it has been publicly accountable competition. What the charter schools and the public schools do is really enable us to compare schools that are apples and apples, because there is an even playing field here. Both of them get public money; both of them must take every student; none of them can cream off the top; none of them can discriminate based on where they come from or what their parents are or what the test scores are; and they all have the same health, safety, financial, and reporting regulations. So we are probably going to be the first jurisdiction with a critical mass that is able to compare how students do in charter schools with how students do in traditional public schools. In some jurisdictions, I want to caution the Congress that charter schools have become more controversial. They are seen less as competition and more as a distraction. I regret that. That has not yet happened in the District of Columbia. But caution has to be taken to make sure that where a critical mass of money is necessary to run a public school system, that that remains intact, and that the number of charter schools relative to the number of traditional public schools remains in some kind of balance, and people do not go off chartering, catch-as-catch-can, charter schools. In any case, the District, its parents, its students, are embracing charter schools. What is happening in the District of Columbia, in the Nation's capital, there is a real, live, thriving charter school movement helping to improve educational opportunity by providing a variety of public school vehicles from which our public school children, indeed any child in the District of Columbia, can choose. I urge Members to look at this model to see what it may have to offer for their own jurisdiction. I thank the gentleman for his work on this issue.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I want to congratulate the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) for her continuing work as chair of the CBC Brain Trust and for bringing her practice of medicine, which she had to leave in order to become a Member of the House, right into this House in the way in which she fastens our attention on health care, and particularly for improved health care for minorities. But I have to say, Mr. Speaker, when they give you a whole month, it is because of what you do not have. And what minorities in this country do not have is health. And that is like saying what you do not have is the difference between life and death. The racial and ethnic disparities are quite intolerable. About 10 percent of whites in this country do not have health care; three times as many Hispanics; twice as many blacks. The fact is minorities have to do for themselves, because we know that a lot of health care is related to life-style. And I am a strong proponent, for example, of harnessing overweight and obesity. I am a race walker. You have to do what you can do to deal with your health care. But obesity and overweight is a national problem, and yet there are some folks who have some health care to get them some advice as to what to do about it. The current recession and the consequences of September 11 and anthrax have simply exacerbated the health care crisis in our country. And we are not close to closing this intolerable gap with placebos like tax credits. Let me tell my colleagues something: Low-income people do not pay a lot of taxes because they do not have a lot of money. So tax credits, for example, is like throwing crumbs at people who are very hungry. But let me tell my colleagues something else. The American middle class has a very sensitive barometer to health care. In the early 1990s, there were Members who lost their seats in this House and in the Senate over the single issue of health care. And the reason is that health care is always a sleeper issue. And when we have the volatile mix of a recession and people losing their health care, watch out, Congress of the United States. But we deserve to be called to account. The permanently uninsured are unable to raise the issue because they are the least powerful people in the society. It is only when there is a recession, when people who have a little bit of clout, the middle class, who lose their health care, that health care then rises to the top of the agenda. It is close to being there now. In the 1990s, we were kind of creeping up on universal health care, going toward universal health care for children. And of course, there is universal health care for the very poor. But what about the working poor? What about the disincentive to go to work when you lose your health care? What about saying to welfare mothers you better go to work, and yet in the long run, lose your health care? Poor health care in the United States has a disproportionately black and brown face, and yet in countries where there are nothing but black and brown faces, in many Third World countries, there is universal health care. Hey, what happened to the United States of America? Some minimum of health care is what everybody deserves simply for being human. It is time we met that minimum standard in our own great country.

Ms. NORTON

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

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to join the sponsor in supporting H. Con. Res. 356 and acknowledging the efforts of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), who has been such a great champion for his constituents for this event. As usual, this event has bipartisan support with co-sponsors including the gentlewoman from Maryland (Mrs. Morella), the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran), the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Wynn), and myself. H. Con. Res. 356 authorizes use of the Capitol grounds for the Greater Washington Soap Box Derby. Youngsters ages 9 through 16 construct and operate their own soap box vehicles. On June 22, 2002, these youngsters of the greater Washington area race down Constitution Avenue to test the principles of aerodynamics in hand-designed and - constructed soap box vehicles. Many hundreds of volunteers donate considerable time supporting the events and providing families with a fun-filled day. The event has grown in popularity and Washington is now known as one of the outstanding race cities. In keeping with standard procedures, the event is conducted under conditions prescribed by the Architect of the Capitol and the Police Board. It is free and open to the public. Mr. Speaker, I support H. Con. Res. 356 and thank the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for his work in originating this resolution.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I join the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito) in support of House Concurrent Resolution 348, to authorize using the Capitol Grounds on September 21 for the National Book Festival. The event, jointly hosted by the Library of Congress and First Lady Laura Bush, is intended to promote the Nation's libraries and celebrate the joys of reading. The book festival, held in September of 2001, was a huge success, drawing approximately 30,000 people to Capitol Hill to enjoy public readings and listen to poetry and music. The book signings by the festival's invited authors proved to be so popular that the authors had to be moved out of doors to deal with the long lines of loyal fans, leaving many of them to comment that they felt like rock stars. The book festival 2002 is also expected to be as successful, with prominent authors, music, and other activities throughout the day. As with all events on the Capitol grounds, it is open to the public and is free of charge, and has the support of the Joint Committee on the Library. The sponsors of this event will coordinate with the Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Police. Mr. Speaker, cities all over the United States, localities of every kind, are choosing books for the entire locality to read to once again promote the joy of reading in our society. I can think of no more worthwhile on-site activity for this Congress to authorize than promoting the reading of books and the joy of reading itself for adults and children alike. The book festival is a very worthwhile endeavor, and I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, House Concurrent Resolution 347 authorizes the use of the Capitol Grounds for the 21st Annual National Peace Officers' Memorial Service, a most solemn and respectful public event honoring our Nation's brave civil servants. The event, scheduled for May 15, will be coordinated with the Office of the Architect of the Capitol and the Capitol Hill Police. I strongly support this tribute to Federal, State, and local police who gave their lives in the daily work of protecting our families, our homes, our places of work, and us. Over 230 brave men and women were killed in the line of duty during 2001. Included in that number are the 72 officers who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. On average, one officer is killed in this country every other day, approximately 23,000 are injured every year, and thousands are assaulted going about their daily routines. During 2001, 219 policemen and 11 policewomen were killed. The average age of those killed was 38 years, and they had an average of 11.7 years of service. The youngest was 21 years old and the oldest was 78 years. Their years of service range from being a rookie to 38 years. Today, peace officers often must keep the peace even in the homeland, as we saw on September 11, especially here in the District of Columbia. They must be prepared for the unimagined, not only to prevent crime but to prevent disaster, biological and terror. Mr. Speaker, the ceremony to be held on May 15 is the 21st anniversary of this memorial service. Consistent with all Capitol Hill events, the memorial service will be free and open to the public. I support the resolution, and I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this tribute to our fallen peace officers.

Mrs. NORTON

Mrs. 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 myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this event needs little introduction. 2002 marks the 34th anniversary of the D.C. Special Olympics. The torch relay event is a traditional part of the opening ceremony for the Special Olympics, which takes place at the Gallaudet University here in the District of Columbia. Each year, approximately 2,500 Special Olympians compete in over a dozen events and over one million children and adults with special needs participate in the Special Olympic worldwide programs. The event is supported by literally thousands of volunteers. The goal of the games is to help bring mentally handicapped individuals into the larger society under conditions whereby they are accepted and respected. Confidence and self-esteem are the building blocks of these Olympic games. I enthusiastically support this resolution and the very worthwhile endeavor of the Special Olympics. I urge passage of H. Con. Res. 354. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a bill to eliminate the discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia under the federal Hatch Act. This bill would reverse the undemocratic and discriminatory inclusion of the District of Columbia, including its teachers, in the federal Hatch Act. The introduction of this bill today follows the recent announcement by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel that the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (Board) had granted its petition for the removal of Mr. Tom Briggs, a D.C. public school teacher at Dunbar Senior High School. Mr. Briggs lost his job after the Board found that he had violated provisions of the federal Hatch Act that apply only to the District of Columbia and no other local jurisdiction. These provisions prohibit D.C. public school teachers and other D.C. government employees from being candidates for partisan political office, despite the fact that teachers in the 50 states are exempt from the Act, and despite the fact that the District of Columbia is the only local jurisdiction in the Act treated as if it were a federal agency. In 2000, Mr. Briggs ran as the Statehood Green party candidate for Ward 2 Council Member. My bill would remove discriminatory provisions in the federal Hatch Act that apply only to the District of Columbia and would exempt D.C. teachers, like the teachers from the 50 states, from the federal Hatch Act prohibition against seeking partisan elective office. The effective date of the bill is the year 2000, in order to remove Mr. Briggs' apparent violation of an antiquated, anti-home rule law that cannot be justified today. The Briggs case is particularly harmful because the victims of this inequity are not D.C. employees but the children in Mr. Briggs' class, who will face severe disruption to the continuity of their learning by having their popular and energetic teacher removed prior to the close of the school year. My bill would leave the District to craft its own local laws in accordance with local needs and norms. It is certain that the D.C. City Council would enact its own local law to avoid any gap, and I have secured the commitment of the appropriate members of the Council to introduce and guide the local law to passage. This is not the first time I have objected to discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia under the federal Hatch Act. Nearly a decade ago, Congress passed the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993, a bill which ended most of the limitations on political rights of federal employees. However, the bill contained perverse provisions that leave D.C. government employees alone among employees of the 50 states and the four territories under the federal Hatch Act. Although I was successful in keeping the District of Columbia language out of the House version of the 1993 amendments, the Senate included the language. Opponents of Hatch Act reform blocked a conference on the House and Senate versions of the bill, where I had intended to press for the Senate to recede to the House's position. Consequently, the 1993 reform law passed ironically benefiting 62,000 federal employees who lived in the District and, if they taught at Dunbar could seek public office, yet punishing the 40,000 District employees targeted by the law. In my comments on the floor prior to passage of the 1993 bill, I said: ``I serve notice now that I am not through today. I will not be through until, with the help of others in this House, I succeed in making District employees the equal of the employees of other state and local jurisdictions. Today, we must blush as we try to conceive of any justification for such disparate treatment. I pledge to work to eliminate the shameful distinction we create today.'' After the 1993 fight, I subsequently introduced legislation in 1996 to free the District from discriminatory treatment under the federal Hatch Act. It has not been possible to move appropriate legislation since, largely because no overall review of the Hatch Act, where such changes are generally made, has occurred. However, in light of the Briggs termination, I am asking the House to pass a stand alone bill. The case of Mr. Briggs simply brings home the sad fact that the District of Columbia, and particularly its school teachers, have been singled out in a manner that is a complete affront to fairness, democratic principles, and self government. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to eliminate the discriminatory treatment of the District of Columbia under the federal Hatch Act in order to remove this unjust anomaly without delay.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, as we continue this week of emphasis on preserving and restoring the nation's environment, I am pleased to introduce the National Urban Watershed Model Restoration Act, a bill to establish a new approach to restoring urban waters. This pilot program, to be administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), will serve as a national model for the restoration of urban watersheds and community environments. The Anacostia River has been chosen as the pilot river because it is located in the nation's capital and much of its waste and pollution is from federal sources. The Anacostia has drawn national attention and thus can lead the way for community- involved cleanup approaches that can be modeled and taken up nationally. To achieve more focused and rapid action, the new program will integrate the various regulatory and non-regulatory programs of the EPA with other federal, state, and local programs to restore and protect the Anacostia River and promote community risk reduction. The EPA is to coordinate its efforts with other federal partners, particularly the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to addressing a major local environmental concern, this model program will provide a framework for urban communities around the nation to work towards sustainable community redevelopment and to meet national environmental goals. Under the new program, the EPA shall allocate a total of $1,000,000 per year over the next 4 fiscal years to implement the provisions of the Model Program. The EPA may authorize no less than $500,000 annually in the form of grants, which are to be matched on a 75-25 basis with other federal funds and state, local, and private contributions. Community involvement is a centerpiece of this bill. The EPA must develop and coordinate consensus strategies for the restoration and protection of urban watersheds in cooperation with not only federal and state officials, but also local groups, who are often in the best position to shape solutions to critical issues and needs facing urban rivers. The bill mandates that the Administrator of the EPA provide grants to local community groups and non-profit organizations to foster community involvement in the decision making process, environmental educational goals, and restoration strategies for urban watersheds. The Administrator must also provide opportunities for the education of school children and community groups on local environmental resources and on what individuals can do to reduce environmental risks. The Anacostia River has been my top environmental priority since coming to Congress in 1991. In the 104th Congress, I worked through the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment to authorize $12 million of construction projects to help clean up and restore wetlands along the Anacostia watershed. I am pleased that Congress has appropriated the full $12 million for Anacostia projects since 1999. 1 am committed to whatever effort it takes to restore the river that runs through the neighborhoods and parks of the nation's capital. The bill that I introduce today marks a renewed effort, to use innovative approaches to advancing this top local environmental priority.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, we are at the end of Earth Day week. I have always felt that if one is a Member of Congress, the best way to celebrate Earth Day and the week in which it occurs is to legislate. After all, we are Members of Congress. We can do more than hug trees and go to river sites. Congress is now all entangled in the energy bill and the ANWR controversy, but there are many noncontroversial matters that need to be taken up in legislation. I invite Members to go on to two bills I introduced this week. One is called the Academic Excellence In Environmental Sciences Act of 2002. It aims to make environmentalists and scientists of young people. We have a real dearth of scientists today. More and more of our kids are going off and doing other things. Yet, in a very real sense, these youngsters are the best messengers for the environment, especially since they are going to inherit whatever environment we leave them. This bill would encourage hands-on recycling to help children cultivate habits that conserve our resources. While they are at school they learn how to do recycling. My aim is also to help them concretize their interest in science and their understanding of scientific concepts, so as they learn about recycling, science comes alive for them, and they are encouraged to study math and science, to get interested in science earlier, and to maintain that scientific interest. I see the need for it. I just nominated five of my youngsters to the academies, and I am encouraging my school systems to do more with science and math in order that I will have more youngsters to nominate to the academies. Getting them involved in recycling helps them to understand science better. Second bill is called the National Urban Watershed Model Restoration Act. It is aimed at the problem of urban watershed. We all know and love watersheds in the great blue yonder, but the fact is our great cities are often located right in the center of watersheds, terribly polluted. I use my own river, the Anacostia River, which runs through our neighborhoods, as a model for the country so that this notion of working with the EPA, with the Corps of Engineers, and importantly involving the community in clean ups and in preservation of the watershed is what I seek to accomplish. This would not be cleanup activity. It would be scientific. It would not only clean up communities; it would be a scientific watershed clean up, but done in collaboration with the community so that when it is cleaned up it stays cleaned up. We are located right here on the banks of Anacostia, but my folks cannot get to the Anacostia. We are about to develop the waterfronts; and when, in fact, the waterfronts get opened up, what they will see is a river polluted by the national government, the Government of the United States of America. That is why I think we ought to begin here with the Anacostia and then go to the great watersheds. They are in New York. They are in L.A. They are in Baltimore. They are across the United States. Because they have been in cities, people have not paid much attention to them. They have been polluted industrially or, in our case, by the Federal Government. This would be on a 75/25 percent basis use Federal, State, and local funds to begin the cleanup of urban watersheds. You cannot revitalize a community without revitalizing its river. When you do both, you transform an entire city and an entire area. We would never allow such polluted rivers to be in our countrysides. We must not allow them to encroach on our large cities, especially since these cities are now beginning to develop along the waterway. We are doing that in the District of Columbia, our Nation's capital. The one difference between us and you is the Federal Government is responsible for our pollution. We are going to begin here and spread this idea throughout the country. I would like my colleagues to go to both of these bills and look for their ``Dear Colleague'' letters soon.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. Led by President Bush, there has been new appreciation for civil servants, Mr. Chairman. This is a brazen attack on merit hiring and promotion. When I came to chair the EEOC, I found the same thing; everybody blamed the employees. It turned out what they needed was a new management system. That is what we need here. Let us deal first with the management of the agency. We will know if the agency is well managed if it can hire and keep good employees.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, Monday was Earth Day, marking the 32nd anniversary of an annual commemoration that has served a very useful purpose. I have chosen to commemorate Earth Day Week by encouraging this Congress to do more to protect the earth every day. I am introducing the Academic Excellence and Environmental Sciences Act. My bill seeks to encourage academic rigor in scientific education by beginning at the lower grades through the study of the environmental sciences and the use of hands-on recycling. The bill would provide grants to local school systems to encourage them to include in their curricula scientific ideas based on conserving the natural resources children see around them and hands on recycling to make vital connections between knowledge and practice. This bill has two important goals. The first comes from the difficulty of imparting and explaining scientific ideas and concepts, some of them fairly abstract, to elementary school children, and holding their interest. As a result of this difficulty, in the elementary grades, children are often relegated to ``play science'' that does not prepare them for later scientific learning. Second, I believe that hands-on recycling will help children cultivate habits that conserve our resources at the same time that it will help concretize their interest in science and their understanding of scientific concepts. By the time many youngsters are exposed to science in high schools, large numbers of them have lost interest or simply are unready for the rigors that are necessary to become proficient. We are starting too late to capture and hold the interest of our children in science. The country loses because of the reduced pool of scientists and scientific experts. Increasingly, many of the places for science study in our colleges and universities are occupied by young people from abroad, who come here to study science because this country has the best science in the world. Part of the impetus for my bill comes from my experience in recruiting our own D.C. youngsters to the U.S. military academies. I am pressing my own school system, the D.C. public schools, to begin science and math at earlier years so that children acquire a lasting interest in science and become prepared for the rigors of the military academies and other colleges. Although the major emphasis of my bill is scientific education for young children, I also hope to encourage recycling approaches. I believe that recycling techniques involving children--saving papers and crushing cans and discussing where these materials come from and why they degrade, etc.--will help give meaning to the teaching underlying scientific ideas. Children may be the best messengers for recycling and for saving the environment for future generations. They are the real environmentalists in this society. They have the greatest stake. If we want scientists, we had best get them before they are turned off, even before junior high school; otherwise they are off to computer games or cable and other interests. If we want to save the environment, we had best begin with our children.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I first thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding me this time. He knows, I am sure, what it means to me and to the residents of the District of Columbia that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ney) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) have provided such thoughtful leadership in bringing forward this resolution in honor of our D.C. National Guard, the Guard Bureau, and the Defense Department, and I want to focus in on the 131 members of the D.C. National Guard whose sacrifice of time spent with their families and of career advancement was so important to us for the last 5 months. I do not think anybody will ever call them weekend warriors again, not considering the hours they put in for us. And who were they? It is very hard to somehow make us all understand precisely who these young men and women were. I went to a ceremony in honor of them on their last day, but think of their representatives as being Sergeant Charles McMillian, who lives in Esther Place, Southeast, has one daughter; or Specialist Elizabeth Coates, who has served for 17 years, is married, and lives in Northeast Washington; or of Sergeant Trina Washington, with 20 years of service, two children, and who lives in Northeast Washington. When you have been in the service that long and you have a life, you are certainly not prepared for what we called upon these Guards people to do. What you are prepared for is what they do or have done for us in the District of Columbia. They are much revered and honored in our city. They were there during the civil defense operations as a part of the 2001 IMF World Bank demonstration. They expect that kind of duty. They expected to be on duty during the Y2K transition. They knew they would be called in the blizzard of 1996. But they could never have dreamed that they would be helping in round-the-clock service to the Capitol of the United States. Our Capitol Police were working 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. Murderous hours. We have heard the Chair and the ranking member speak about how we are going to do something about that, but could not do something about it right away. There was no place to turn, no place to go; and so we turned to the National Guard, who in the history of this country have probably never had anything like this kind of duty. Their presence was so important. Their presence, along with that of the Capitol Police, restored a sense of calm and confidence in this place, especially to staff. Members had no reason, they are elected, they are supposed to have a sense of calm and confidence no matter what happens to this place, but the many number of people who serve us as staff I do not think their parents sent them here to see them panicked about whether or not this place would be safe. Nothing, in fact, was more reassuring than coming to work and being greeted by the Capitol Police and the D.C. National Guard. Somehow you thought everything was going to be all right when you saw them there. I want us to remember that these people had a life, had full-time careers, some were very young, many were at the height of their careers; and not only were their careers put on hold but their lives were put on hold. When the Capitol Police did the very same thing, this Congress came forward with a concurrent resolution. The Capitol Police are favorites of mine. I live with them 7 days a week, and I know what they do for this place; but I must say that I think it is especially appropriate for the Congress today to do for the Guard what we have already done in expressing our appreciation for the Capitol Police. It is difficult to know how 440 Members of the House and 100 Members of the Senate can say thank you. I think that a concurrent resolution, always reserved for extraordinary performance, is an appropriate way; and that is the kind of thank you that we give the National Guard today.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, Tuesday was Equal Pay Day. That is the day when women rise to say they are not being equally paid. A year and 4 months into the next year is how long women had to wait this year in order to earn what the average man earned. I feel Equal Pay Day, I suppose, stronger than most. I feel like I have been working for equal pay for women at least half of my life. I am a former Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where I administered the Equal Pay Act. It is amazing to see that this act has not been touched in 40 years. It was the first of the great civil rights acts to be passed. It obviously needs to be revised because it is a very different world with a very different economy from the 1963 economy. There is a bill here pending, the Paycheck Fairness Act, that would modestly revise this bill. Did we know, for example, that if women and men discuss their wages against the wishes of the employer in the workplace, he can sanction them? The Paycheck Fairness Act would bar that. And did we realize that class actions under the Equal Pay Act are much harder to obtain because the act was passed so early? So it is an unequal civil rights law. Actually there are two kinds of equal pay. One kind was violated right under our nose. A couple of months ago I went to the Ford Building to see the women who clean the House receive their checks from a class action they won against the Congress of the United States because women who clean our offices were paid a dollar less than men who clean our offices. And they won. This was the first class action brought under the Congressional Accountability Act. All I can say is the women who clean this House and this Senate held us accountable. But then there is another kind of equal pay, and that is the kind that affects the average woman. Senator Tom Harkin and I have a bill to go at that pay. It goes at jobs that are underpaid because they are stereotyped as female jobs. Women work in only three sectors: factory, service, and clerical. Those jobs are often paid according to the gender and not the sex. The Fair Pay Act would allow women to sue when the job she is doing is equal in responsibility and in content to the job a man is doing even though that job is not the very same job. It is interesting when you poll, you find that equal pay is among the top one or two issues for the American public. Why is that? Because equal pay is no longer a woman's issue. Equal pay has become one of the great family issues of our time. If there is a working woman in your family, you lose $4,000 annually because one of the breadwinners, or in some cases the only breadwinner, is a woman. It is time we fixed the Equal Pay Act. It was a great breakthrough in 1963. Almost 40 years later it needs the kind of repair that you would need if you were 40 years old and had not seen a doctor since you were born. The EPA has not seen a doctor. It has not had us tend to it for 40 years. The Paycheck Fairness Act is certainly the place to begin; 194 Democrats have signed on. I am sure many Republicans also agree that this is the year to tell America that we understand that women and men work, that they are in the same families, that when they have been doing the same jobs, similar jobs or comparable jobs, they should be paid equally. If we did not learn anything else on Equal Pay Day, I hope that is the message we sent. I certainly hope that before this session is out, this Congress will do more than rhetorically recognize the notion of equal pay. Let us pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Ms. NORTON

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today, during Tax Week in the Congress, I am introducing the District of Columbia Tax Incentives Improvement Act of 2002. The legislation builds on and adds to federal tax incentives I first pressed through Congress in 1997 in order to help produce market- based residential and business stability and growth. I believe the bill has a good chance of passage. This bill is necessary to assure even the sustained stability, let alone real economic growth, that still eludes the District economy and the city government. The bill is essential if the District is to become more economically diverse so that it is not overly dependent on just two sectors--tourism and federal offices. This federal tax package gives the city the tools it needs to begin to produce a self-sufficient economy. After the financial collapse of the 1990s, and after the sunset of the control board last year, Congress has an obligation to help the city do what is necessary to increase its own residential and commercial economic output and independence. The city does not have that capacity today. Ominously, the District lacks the essential safety valve of other large cities--a state to fall back on in times of economic downturn and distress. The economic forecasters agree that because of congressionally imposed impediments to collecting the natural revenue available to states, including the inability to levy a tax on commuters, no matter how much the District reduces spending, expenditures will continue to grow faster than revenues for the foreseeable future. This trend places the District on a collision course, at worse to insolvency, at best to instability, if the Congress does not assist the District with economic tools to help the city capture its own, natural, steady revenue stream in the marketplace. The surpluses that brightened the city's hopes are trending toward a decline: $185 million surplus in 1997 to a $77.6 million in 2001. Because of congressional constraints on the ability of the District to collect revenue, the District faces an annual structural deficit of $400 million, a figure projected to rise every year. The city's unemployment rate is 6.9% compared with 4.5% in Maryland and 4.1% in Virginia. This picture resembles other large cities in the United States. However, none of these cities survives on city-generated revenues alone, nor could it do so. State assistance is necessary not only to meet current expenses, but also to make up for sharply diminished tax bases in every other major American city. Fortunately, the federal tax credit incentive approach already approved by Congress is having extraordinary success in promoting economic growth here. My bill will improve upon D.C.-only tax credits that leverage the private sector rather than the government to do the job of growing the economy and will return many times the small tax revenue foregone by the federal government. The District of Columbia Tax Incentives Improvement Act of 2002 that I introduce today has six important components: first and most important, treatment of the entire District of Columbia as an enterprise zone, to spread to all neighborhoods and businesses tax incentives that have brought substantial benefits to many communities but with the unintended effect of affording an unfair and arbitrary advantage to some businesses and neighborhoods over their competitors; (2) assuring that the tax benefits do not expire before their job is done by extending these D.C.-only federal enterprise zone benefits, to match other jurisdictions with similar benefits; (3) improvements to capital gains provisions, including zero capital gains taxation for businesses holding intangibles; (4) making the $5000 homebuyer credit permanent, to ensure continuation of the tax incentive that is largely responsible for new homebuyers and for maintaining and attracting taxpayers to the city, and that is critical to helping the District achieve the 100,000 new residents necessary to sustain its stability; (5) releasing tax exempt bonds from the private activity bond limit in order to lift the constraints of a valuable tool for attracting businesses to build here; and (6) enacting triple tax exemption for D.C. securities, to put the District on par with the territories who do not pay taxes on their securities. 1. District of Columbia City-Wide Enterprise Zone Several extraordinarily valuable enterprise zone tax benefits constitute the major financial tools that have been used for business revival and new commercial and office construction in the city. Among the most successful have been the wage tax credit allowing an employer a 20% credit for the first $15,000 ($3000) of an employee's income if that employee is a D.C. resident. This credit not only helps attract and retain businesses, it also helps to correct the severe imbalance that allows two-thirds of the jobs in the city to go to commuters. Another tax benefit, the elimination of capital gains altogether, is expanding and creating businesses in many city neighborhoods and downtown. A third tax incentive, tax exemption for up to $15 million in bonds, is fueling much of the city's construction boom, and construction alone accounts for the major portion of the increased economic output of the District today. However, because the District is small and compact, multiple enterprise zones have had unintended, discriminatory effects. High income university students with little personal income have brought Georgetown and Foggy Bottom businesses within the zone, but some businesses in struggling areas of Ward 5 do not qualify. The Willard Hotel can get $3,000 off the first $15,000 it pays any employee, but competitors such as the Hay Adams and the Washington Hilton, cannot. The Hay Adams, one of D.C.'s oldest and most distinguished hotels recently completed renovation of its facilities and helped return tourists to D.C. without the benefit of the $15 million tax exempt bonds because it is not in the zone. These new provisions would eliminate an unearned advantage that forces competition among our already depleted pool of businesses instead of between those in and outside of the District. The solution is to designate the District of Columbia itself an enterprise zone. Only this solution will erase indefensible distinctions that tear neighborhoods apart and help some D.C. businesses, neighborhoods and residents over others that are similarly situated. We are simply asking the Congress to do for the business tax breaks what it has already done for the Homebuyer credit: make it available in all parts of the city. The $5,000 Homebuyer Tax Credit has always been citywide, and the success of its citywide approach shows that effective tax breaks can and should be used to encourage the economy throughout the city. 2. Extending the Life of the D.C. Enterprise Zone Benefits Currently, the District of Columbia Enterprise Zone Benefits (including the $3,000 wage credit, zero percent capital gains taxation, tax exempt bonds) expire at the end of 2003. Last Congress, other jurisdictions which enjoy similar tax incentives, had their benefits extended until 2009. The Tax Incentives Improvement Act would extend the life of the D.C. Enterprise Zone Benefits to 2009 to match those of other states. Since 1997, the economic impact of these valuable tax incentives have been felt across the city, and the evidence of their clear success has enabled me to renew these benefits several times. The evidence is now so convincing that I am seeking not only to renew but to enhance and improve the benefits. In return for hiring D.C. residents, local businesses have claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in $3,000 employment tax credits which has resulted in the hiring of D.C. residents as required to receive any tax breaks. Representative D.C. businesses that have claimed wage credits include hotels and restaurants, retailers (such as Safeway Foods, CVS Drugs, and Subway Restaurants), offices, janitorial and maintenance services, parking facilities, and telephone, electric, and gas utilities. Although the Internal Revenue Service does not have a mechanism that captures the amount of wage credits claimed, there are thousands of representative examples throughout the city: an accounting firm with 15 District clients that documented claims of $1.9 million over three years; a D.C. manufacturer that claimed tax credits of $400,000 over the same period; a partnership that owns a D.C. hotel that claimed credits of more than $500,000 each year since 1998; and one of the District's largest hotel operators, for tax year 2001, will claim employment tax credits of more than $1.7 million. In addition, more than $150 million in tax exempt bonds have been issued on behalf of new and expanding for-profit businesses, including such neighborhood retail businesses as K-Mart and CVS Drugs; tourist destinations such as the new International Spy Museum; commercial parking facilities, and social service providers such as the United Planning Organization. Specific amounts include: $11.3 million in tax exempt bonds for the Arnold and Porter law firm; $13 million for a subsidiary of Pepco; $9 million for the Crowell and Moring law firm; and $4.5 million for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The current pipeline consists of projects valued at over $150 million. 3. Improvements to Capital Gains Provision The District seeks the high technology and computer companies that have made the rest of the region rich and that can help diversify the city's economy. Under current federal enterprise zone law, elimination of taxes on capital gains (such as increases in the value of investments in stock or property), does not apply to earnings to D.C. companies and entrepreneurs whose assets consist substantially of so- called ``intangible'' assets (those assets which do not have a physical substance). The most common types of businesses that deal principally in intangibles are information-based technology companies, including those that develop software or maintain Internet sites. Recently, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that businesses in the District holding intangibles could not receive the zero percent capital gains taxation allowed in many neighborhoods in the D.C. enterprise zone. My bill allows technology and other companies to receive the special capital gains treatment subject to appropriate safeguards to ensure that D.C. is not used by such companies as a tax haven. My bill also makes other important improvements to the capital gains provisions in the D.C. enterprise zone law, including reducing the holding period for assets from five years to two years to help spur investment and growth and reducing the amount of business that must be derived from the zone to receive the special capital gains treatment. Currently, District businesses must derive 80% of their business from the enterprise zone while other jurisdictions only have to derive 50%. My bill corrects this inequity. 4. Making the District of Columbia a Permanent $5,000 Homebuyer Credit Jurisdiction This provision would make permanent the $5,000 Homebuyer Credit, perhaps the most successful economic stimulus in the city's history. It is chiefly responsible for stemming the flight that almost destroyed the city's tax base during the 1980s and during the financial crisis and insolvency of the 1990s. The credit offers significant evidence that a tightly targeted tax incentive can have a major turnaround effect on a major problem confronting a city. The credit has been so successful that we have recommended that states do the same for the many large cities that are rapidly losing taxpayers. In 1998, its first full year, despite the city's financial problems and damaged reputation, the credit made the District first in home sales increases in the United States. According to an independent study by the Greater Washington Research Center covering a portion of 1997 and all of 1998, 70% of D.C. homebuyers have used the credit, and 51% purchased homes because of the credit. In 1999 alone, single family home sales have risen in the District by over 10,000 homes. Fannie Mae has converted the $5,000 credit into up-front money towards the purchase of a home, affording the credit significantly greater value to the individual. The $5,000 homebuyer credit proved itself so quickly and so well that I have been able to get it repeatedly extended by Congress. The credit is minimally necessary if the city is to have any chance of increasing its still small and depleted tax base, an urgent necessity for self- sufficiency. The credit has proved itself so definitively that to get the full effect, it should be enacted permanently. 5. Exempt Enterprise Zone Bonds from Private Activity Bond Limit Under legislation recently enacted by the Congress, Enterprise Zone bonds issued to finance commercial development projects in Empowerment Zones and Renewal Communities are exempt from the federal Private Activity Bond Limit or PAB. The PAB is the state's annual authorized limit for total tax-exempt bonds projects. Currently, that limit is $150 million per year in the District. The failure to apply this exclusion to the District places the city at a competitive disadvantage with the states, particularly with respect to housing and retail projects. My bill levels the playing field and exempts the District from the $150 million limit, as well as from the $15 million per project limit, to give the District the tools to attract economic development projects to the city. 6. Triple Tax Exemption for District Securities Generally, local jurisdictions that issue securities, such as bonds and notes, are subjected to three different levels of taxation-- federal, state, and local. Unlike these jurisdictions, the District is the only local government in the continental United States that does not have a state to assist it in supporting basic goverment functions and services. Although Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa do not have state support either, they have been granted an exemption of federal, state, and local taxes (or triple tax exemption) on their securities (bonds and notes issued by the Council) to help make up for this deficiency. My bill ends the District's inequitable treatment and exempts District securities, like those in the territories without state aid, from federal, state, and local taxation.