John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of both H.R. 3127, the Darfur Peace Accountability Act of 2006, which was debated earlier, and of H. Res. 723, the bill presently before us. But even stronger steps must be taken if we hope to save the people of Darfur. Lack of decisive action and follow-through by the international community has made it possible for the genocide in Darfur to continue unabated. The government-backed Janjaweed militia continues to terrorize the Darfurees on the ground while the Sudanese Government itself wages an aerial assault on the region. Officials in Khartoum have been allowed to deflect the clear urgent need for U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur by raising sovereignty claims. We should commend the African Union for extending its mission in Darfur through the end of the year and for announcing plans to increase the number of troops in Darfur. However, without international support, the African Union will remain powerless to stop the slaughter. For months, the poorly trained and underequipped African Union force has operated without mandate or means to protect the civilians in Darfur from the ongoing slaughter. Because of its ineffectiveness up to now, the Sudanese Government clearly wants the African Union to remain in place, but, equally clearly, not if they have the mandate or the means to be effective. President Bush, working with our allies, must take the lead in holding the Sudanese accountable for their actions and send a clear message to the Sudanese Government that it will not be allowed to systematically and indiscriminately kill its own citizens using tactics of terror. If the Sudanese Government does not withdraw all military aircraft from the region, as this resolution requires, then NATO should immediately coordinate and enforce a no-fly zone over Darfur. Ultimately, the Sudanese Government must agree as U.N. peacekeepers as authorized by the Security Council, or have them imposed. Appeasing the officials has not worked and will not work. It is time for a stronger approach in Darfur, an approach with resolve and the means to finally stop the killing.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and on the rule. Mr. Speaker, America needs comprehensive immigration reform. I think every American who is paying any attention agrees we need comprehensive immigration reform. Everybody in this people's House, Democrats, Republicans, and even the Independent, understands that we need comprehensive immigration reform, and every Member of the other body, every Republican, every Democrat, and their Independent, understands that America needs comprehensive immigration reform. Now every Member of this body, Republican and Democrat and Independent, every Member understands that in order to get a reform bill passed and signed by the President, that one has to have a single piece of legislation that is agreed to by both of the bodies. So everyone knows that for immigration reform of a comprehensive form to become law, that that must pass both bodies in exactly the same form and be signed by the President or passed over with the President's veto. Now, the process of doing that is not understood by everybody in this country, but in general form much of the country understands that. And I am not sure whether the majority party here believes that people in this country are not knowledgeable, ignorant of those processes, so much that they think that this kind of a sham that we are going through can be carried out. The majority party in the House of Representatives is the Republican Party. The majority party in the other body is also the Republican Party. This process that we are engaged in today is a sham. It is meant to mislead people that something is actually being done about immigration before we go home for the elections in November, before we recess for those elections, when, in fact, nothing really is being accomplished. In our people's House on the 16th of December last year, the Border Protection Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Act passed by 239-182, a margin much larger than is the margin by which the majority party holds the majority. So it was a bipartisan bill in part. In the other body on the 25th day of May of this year, 4 months ago, their Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act was passed by a vote of 62- 36, again by a margin much larger than the margin by which their majority party, also the Republican Party, passed the bill. It is again a comprehensive and bipartisan bill. So this process where we have legislation where two of the bills are in large part within the legislation that is being put forward today, and also is part of the bill that passed back in December by this body, by this people's body, and the other one has been passed in a different form by the other body, all one has to do is go to conference. It would be possible to go to conference and work out the differences between those two pieces of legislation so a single bill could go to the President and be signed and provide what everyone in America, everyone in this body and everyone in the other body would call comprehensive immigration reform. That is the way that this ought to be done. The process that we are involved in today is a sham, and we should defeat the previous question and defeat the rule and go to comprehensive immigration reform by going to conference and doing it the way it has to be done in order to have a law be passed in this country.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to plead for the survival of the people of Darfur. Despite a peace agreement signed in May and the U.N. Security Council's approval for a peacekeeping force of 20,000 last month, Darfur is descending into chaos. Twelve years ago the world stood by as ethnic war erupted in nearby Rwanda. One hundred days later, 800,000 bodies, hacked to death by machetes, had piled up in the streets and rivers. Without swift intervention, Darfur may soon erupt into a scene as deadly. Today's poorly trained and equipped African Union Force can only watch the chaos unfold. When they leave in a week, they must be replaced by a U.N. force that can protect the Darfuri people from slaughter. Sudan must allow the U.N. peacekeepers to end the government- sponsored genocide. President Bush must decisively lead the international community for this effort to succeed. The U.N. force must have the training, the equipment and the mandate to stop the slaughter and punish the slaughterers. The world must not deploy another force that will simply bear witness to the slaughter of innocents.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this rule because it precludes the consideration of an increase in the minimum wage which has not been increased in 8 years. In regard to the underlying bill, I do appreciate the work of the chairman and the ranking member in funding valuable programs within this year's utterly inadequate allocation. I am pleased that this bill contains funding for SBA's Microloan program. For the past 3 years, the President has recommended eliminating this program, but this Congress has funded SBA Microloans every year since the program was established in 1992 by the first President Brush. Last week, on a bipartisan basis, the Appropriations Committee restored funding for SBA's Microloan program for fiscal year 2007. These Microloans go to people with viable businesses who have limited credit history, limited collateral, and limited or no business experience. They go to low-income individuals, women and minority owners that have faced obstacles in securing capital, and they are a significant source of new jobs in rural areas. Through the Microloan program, intermediaries have provided 23,500 loans totaling more than $282 million, averaging only $12,500 per loan, a small amount of funding each year. This program has created over 64,000 jobs during its existence. In my district, the Western Massachusetts Enterprise Fund has issued 92 loans, for a total of $1.5 million and created 180 jobs. Businesses that use the Microloan program receive more than just financial backing. Lender intermediaries offer technical assistance and support to these small business owners as their companies develop. The assistance component of the program lasts throughout the life of the loan and ensures a high success rate. Intermediaries like the Western Mass Enterprise Fund respond to the needs of owners at each step in the business growth. As we all know, small businesses are the lifeblood of the American economy. The greatest job growth in the economy comes from the growth of successful small businesses. With that, I again, Madam Speaker, urge, in spite of good features in the underlying bill, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the resolution before us. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 861 is a whitewash justification of every erroneous action of the Bush-Cheney administration in their war of choice on Iraq. It's no surprise that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld seek this late coating of whitewash that this resolution attempts to provide. The war on Iraq was unjustified, has been egregiously mismanaged, and has made all Americans less safe. Americans were told repeatedly by President Bush and Vice President Cheney that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found. President Bush and Vice President Cheney repeatedly implied that Iraq was involved in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The preponderance of intelligence before the attack on Iraq contradicted that and no such evidence has been found. The conduct of President Bush's war of choice has been plagued with incompetent civilian leadership decisions that have cost many lives and rendered the war on and occupation of Iraq a strategic policy disaster for the United States. The incompetence and corruption involved in the reconstruction have rendered that expensive effort largely ineffective. The most critical, much-cited incompetent decision on the part of the Bush administration was to commit far too small a force for the huge, dangerous and multifaceted tasks at hand. Because of that egregious blunder in judgment and planning by the Bush administration, our severely overextended troops took many more casualties than necessary, and they could not: Stop the looting of the treasures of Iraq's ancient culture and the public institutions of present day Iraq--its schools, universities and hospitals; Seize control of Saddam's huge conventional weapons depots which have been used to kill our service men and women throughout the insurgency; Control the borders against the influx into Iraq of senior terrorists from Bin Laden's international network who wanted to be part of killing Americans; Provide the Iraqi civilian population security from the Sunni- Baathist insurgency as it grew in strength; and Hold the ground fought over with insurgents in search and destroy missions which left whole cities in ruins and whatever remained of the civilian population a fertile recruiting ground for more insurgents. The incompetence regarding body and vehicle armor rises almost to a level of criminal negligence. The military's own report says that one-third of deaths and casualties could have been avoided if proper body armor and vehicle armor had been provided from the start of the war. Our soldiers' civilian leaders did not follow a first maxim of war: protect your troops. American service men and women deserved better, and the civilian leaders who failed them should be held accountable. But instead of honoring our soldiers now with an honest debate about the war, its conduct and its prospects, we are presented today with a thick coating of whitewash. This resolution is dishonest on its very face. Even though there was no connection between Afghanistan and Iraq, H. Res. 861 seeks desperately to make that false connection. It seeks to transform the bad decision to wage war on Iraq as a valid component of the global war on terror. It seeks to cast the missteps and incompetence in Iraq as progress in the global war on terror. Even though there was never any philosophical or operational connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the President and his Republican allies in Congress seek by this resolution to re-write history and re- cast the war on Iraq as having positive implications in the war on terrorism. Exactly the opposite is true. After 9/11, in part because so many nations lost citizens in the World Trade Center, America enjoyed virtually total global support and willingness to collaboratively destroy the Bin Laden Al Qaeda network. The opportunity was there to work carefully with the entire world, including almost all Muslim nations, to make Americans and the whole world safer by isolating and shutting down Al Qaeda. Did we complete that mission? No; Bin Laden is still at large and the conditions in Afghanistan are deteriorating. Instead, President Bush started a second war unrelated to 9/11 and the hunt for Bin Laden's networks and his followers. We've now spent well over $350 billion on an effort that has not achieved its own goals and, due to its astronomical cost and resource drain, has severely undercut our ability to pursue and destroy Bin Laden's international terrorist network with its many cells that existed in 2002, continue to exist today and certainly will exist into the future. Twenty-five hundred fine young American men and women have lost their lives, 95 percent of whom have been killed since President Bush declared ``Mission Accomplished'' more than 3 years ago. America has also forever lost the service of thousands of good soldiers who are now disabled as a result of battle wounds in Iraq. Many others will need mental and emotional rehabilitation before they can return to normal life. The multiple re-deployments of Guard and Reserve troops have severely undercut the retention and recruitment prospects for the fighting force we depend upon to protect us. President Bush and his administration have defended torture and rendition and ignored the Geneva Conventions. America has lost the moral high ground with the rest of the world, and we have fewer allies as a result. President Bush and his administration have undermined the war on terror by using tactics outlawed by international treaty and condemned by even our closest friends. And, finally, President Bush's war on Iraq has provided Al Qaeda a training and recruitdlent ground that it could not have hoped for in its wildest dreams, as well as a golden opportunity to target Americans right in the unprotected center of the Middle East. President Bush's war on Iraq is viewed broadly in Islamic communities as an attack on Islam, and thus the President has alienated a large part of one fifth of the world's population. The most extreme individuals and factions in Islamic countries are now more motivated than ever to kill Americans, and the number of potential terrorists has greatly expanded. So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades. Bad decisions and incompetence have achieved a vast determination in countless desperate, impoverished, disaffected and oppressed young Muslim men and women to take out their anger and express their fundamentalism and radicalism by attacking Americans and American interests. We are far less safe as a nation and will remain so throughout our lifetimes and our children's lifetimes. Clearly, a stable, unified and democratic Iraq cannot be achieved militarily by the U.S. Our servicemen and women have done the best job that can be done in the situation into which their civilian leaders have placed them, and they deserve the highest level of gratitude from all Americans. They have already taken too many casualties--too many dead, too many wounded--because they were too few and too poorly provided with the armor they needed to succeed safely. If a unified and stable Iraq is to emerge out of the ethnic and sectarian violence that is so perilously close to civil war, the Iraqi people and their government must make the political compromises necessary to secure a successful democracy. They must find in themselves a new nation. We cannot do that for them; we can only give them the opportunity to do it. Nor should we accept the President's mantra, ``When the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.'' A nice slogan, but that is simply a recipe for an unlimited occupation. We need to make it clear that we will withdraw from Iraq within 6 to 9 months--so that the Iraqis will know that they must stand up and defend the opportunity given to them. We should immediately state that we will seek no permanent military bases in Iraq. In the remaining months, we should focus on achieving more robust international involvement in training of Iraqi soldiers, police officers, judges, teachers, and doctors--all key elements needed to end the sectarian and civil conflict and build Iraq's future. And we should prepare for the safe and orderly withdrawal of our troops. The Bush administration has made many grievous and costly errors in Iraq over the past 3\1/2\ years and made little, if any, progress in the war on terrorism thereby. It is time to bring our young people home.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, at the outset here I want to say that this is a worthy program. However, the President's request this year for budgeting under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee was at least $3 billion below the enacted levels for the same functions in the previous year's bill, in the 2006 bill. During every stage of this process, I have pointed out that we had that set of holes, serious holes in the budget that had to be filled, that we needed to try to fill. There is a further problem that under the authorizing legislation there are guarantees for funding for transportation items in highways, in FTA, in FAA, which the President's request was also below. We had to meet those guarantees in order to be able to bring the bill to the floor for debate at all. Otherwise, the point of order would lay against the whole TTHUD bill that we are debating today. So here we have an amendment which proposes to put money in an item in transportation where there are already heavy guarantees that we have to meet and proposes to take money from another section of the bill, one section of the bill which is about one-sixth as large in total as the transportation portion, and takes money from that where there are no guarantees whatsoever. This is something which I must oppose. We cannot have this situation where money is being taken from other parts of this legislation, making them even worse off than they were under the President's request and whatever the chairman and his staff have been able to figure out how, as best they could, to fund the issue, and to take it for other items in transportation. We cannot do this at this time in the process, and I must oppose the gentleman's amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I really want to point out that yesterday we had a huge amendment to add funding to Amtrak, an amendment that involved over $200 million of additional budget outlay for Amtrak. I supported that amendment, and I supported that amendment because in that amendment all of the offsets came out of the transportation area or other areas that were within the authorizing committee's jurisdiction. It was the authorizing committee that offered the amendment, and all of the offsets came out of their jurisdiction. In this case, this amendment takes money completely outside the authorizing committee's area. We have now heard from the chairwoman, and the ranking member of the authorizing subcommittee for rail, and takes the money out of one of the much smaller segments of this bill. That is why I oppose the amendment, and I will continue to oppose those kinds of amendments which take money out of the smaller areas of this legislation, all of which are equally cut short in a budget which is well below, at least under the President's recommendations, well below the present year's enacted legislation. So I will oppose those kinds of amendments consistently where they take money out of the smaller areas of the bill to move them to the area of the legislation, namely transportation, which lives under guarantees of minimum funding from the authorizing committee.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. To continue this intellectual discussion between Florida and California, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. OLVER. I cannot yield any time?

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that since these colloquies, at least when they start over on the other side, remain on the other side, I would just like to point out that this is an issue that I have already indicated my very strong interest in. So I would be very happy to work with my chairman in trying to find the funding to be able to do what the gentleman wants, because it has been a matter of very high priority for me and for our side of the aisle as well. Amendment Offered by Ms. DeLauro

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I now yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gene Green).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Berry).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I now yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the clarification. I apologize for being a little bit off base there. I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut the remainder of the time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Corrine Brown), who is, by the way, the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Rail on the authorizing committee.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I also accept the amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment, however well- intentioned it may be. Mr. Chairman, the amendment strikes one item in the Economic Development Initiative under Housing and Urban Development. And I would say that this item is totally consistent with the purpose of the Economic Development Initiative in the first place. As the gentleman from Mississippi pointed out, William Faulkner is one of our preeminent authors, surely one of the 10 most famous authors of the 20th century here in America. And having William Faulkner's home and museum in honor of him and showing his legacy is certainly an enormous boon to tourism and, more broadly, to tourism generally, but particularly let's say to American authors and English students. People will flock to that place because of the fame of William Faulkner. And so I would say that Mr. Wicker, the gentleman from Mississippi, knows his district very well and also knows what it is that will have a serious impact on economic impact in his district. And this one is one of those, as so many of them are under this particular initiative, which involves a partnership between the Federal Government, in a relatively small way, very small way in its totality, and the State Government, and local government, and private investment, private donations that will go and have gone to the home and the museum. I oppose this amendment. I think this is a very, very appropriate expenditure of money.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I am intending to speak for a few minutes and then I will yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Florida to finish the remarks that he wishes to make. Mr. Chairman, and Members, this is a simple limitation of funds amendment. It would prohibit the use of funds in this appropriation bill for the 2007 fiscal year from being used to eliminate, consolidate, collocate or plan for the consolidation or collocation of a Terminal Radar Approach Control, TRACON, all of them all over the country. That sounds like a fairly strong piece of medicine. On the other hand, we have seen no plan that I know of. There are very few people who know how many TRACONs there are, though I am sure the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) would be able to tell that exactly. If there are benefits, we have not actually seen what those are. I have not seen them, as the ranking member of this subcommittee with jurisdiction, and I am concerned when a Member from a growing State, growing fast, but a spread out State like Idaho comes and says there will be no TRACON there. That doesn't surprise me particularly. There will be some other States that will not have TRACONs, and if there is low air traffic that may be appropriate. But I have seen no plan justifying what is being planned to be done. We have not been told, and I am concerned in particularly in relatively urban areas about consolidation of these, though that may be exactly where they should be done. So with the limitation that has been proposed, I am going to support the gentleman's amendment at this time, and hope that that might make certain that I am informed by the bureaucracy at FAA of exactly what their plans are by the next time we end up with this kind of effort on their part. So with that, I yield the remainder of my time to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I had the impression that the gentleman from Arizona is now switching off the issue that we are talking on and raised a whole bunch of others to try to create some sort of a category. I want to go back to this particular one. No State in our great country has over the past at least two generations, and probably more than that, suffered greater economic distress and greater job loss than West Virginia. Thousands and thousands of families have migrated to other States, to West Virginia's great loss and to the gain of those other States. Now, Weirton, West Virginia is one of those places that has been right on the point of the sphere of this economic distress and job loss. As the gentleman from West Virginia pointed out, it has had serious losses of jobs in the steel industry, and its population has declined precipitously. Precipitously. It is very difficult to bring back distressed communities in situations like that, and it is a hard effort to do the planning and to figure out what are the projects that are the greatest chance of success to bring back jobs. And there can be no greater purpose, it seems to me under the Economic Development Initiative under HUD, than to provide help in communities exactly like that. This project, because of the breadth of it and the need in the area, meets all the criteria that HUD has set, and it is totally consistent with the purposes of the Economic Development Initiative program under HUD. So I rise in strong opposition to the amendment that has been offered by the gentleman, however well intentioned it may be. I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment and hope that that will prevail.