John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman from Ohio has offered an amendment which is a 4.3 percent across-the-board cut, across all of the agencies here in this bill. And that is about the final desperate or thoughtless way of balancing a budget or of approaching the process of budgeting. After all, the amendments that we have been debating for the last day have been defeated, to throw up your hands, but I suppose that is really progress. At least it is better than trying to reduce the budget down to the level of the President's request in the first place, which was hundreds of millions of dollars even below what the last year's budget was. But I think you need to look at the core programs. The core programs here are the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service. Those are the major programs in this budget. The budget for 2007 was a very small increase but not as much as an increase up to the inflationary amount from the previous year's budget, the 2006 budget. So we would have had at least 3 years of budgeting below the inflationary level. The gentleman's amendment would force all those agencies that cover Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, which are the places where our Park Service and Fish and Wildlife Service serve most of the public, the millions of people of this country who use those facilities, and it would force them to eat the inflation of that, as of now, over a 2-year period, 2006, 2007, and 2008. What really is happening is that we are having to try to cover for the enormous reductions in the budget from fiscal 2004 to 2005 and from fiscal 2005 to 2006. That is where the major budget cuts have occurred over the last several years. And this budget only partially, partially, replaces for that enormous cut that occurred in those 2 years, way below inflation, serious, real cuts in dollars way below inflation. Now, I just want to look at a couple of other things not just 3 or 4 years back but a little bit farther. When President Carter left office, the debt of this country was $1 trillion. Twelve years later, after the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the debt of the country was $4.3 trillion, $3.3 trillion more. When President Clinton left office 8 years later, it was $1.2 trillion above that. Now, in only 6 years, with you folks on the other side having been in the majority throughout those 6 years, the debt is now up to $8.8 trillion, another $3.5 trillion. Think of it. Under 8 years of President Clinton, the total debt increase was $1.2 trillion, about one-third of the debt increase in just 6 years under the present President and all of that coming under your leadership. The debt increased to that time is all under your majority's leadership. So I just want to say in the final analysis when you take into account inflation, with this bill, the Department of Interior would still be 11 percent below what the budget was in 2001, when President Bush took office. For the EPA, it would be 16 percent, still below the 2001 budget. And for the Forest Service, it would still be 19 percent below. Those key core programs would still be 19 percent below the budget in 2001. I oppose this amendment and hope it will not be adopted.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I hope that this amendment, obviously, will not pass. In our subcommittee earlier this year, in testimony on the hearings that were held in relation to the park service and the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Forest Service and EPA, people spoke of the challenges to their stewardship, of our lands, basically our public lands, that were caused by climate change. Then toward the end of our hearing's process, we held a hearing specifically on the issue of climate change and had witnesses who were experts in that field to speak to the issues there, and they testified describing, for instance, how permanent ice coverage in the Arctic has shrunk dramatically at an ever-increasing rate. It's at an ever-increasing rate because, first of all, because ice coverage reflects sun's heat back to the atmosphere, back to space, whereas water and land absorbed that heat, so that heats, that raises the temperature. Because methane is released from permafrost, as you take the ice cover off, and the land heats up, ends up expanding the greenhouse gas blanket that is the very cause of global warming. So they are telling us by the year 2050, we will have no ice over a substantial piece of the north polar region that is then contributing to ever more greater global warming. They tell us that the Everglades National Park is at risk from rising sea levels and more intense hurricanes. They tell us that the changing climate has allowed invasive species to move into new ecosystems where they have no predators and they can expand explosively, which they're doing, for example, the northern pine beetle in huge portions of the northern forests in the northern U.S. and in Canada over much of the central part of the continent, and increasing severity of droughts that will make our lands more vulnerable to forest fires and such. In any case, regardless of one's opinion on the need to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, it is irresponsible to ignore the impacts that we are witnessing. For the record, this commission that the amendment would eliminate does not create any new regulations with regard to carbon dioxide emissions or any other greenhouse gas emission. What the commission does would be to review and assess the scientific challenges to the available adaptation and mitigation strategies necessitated by the climate change and simply provide recommendations to the various Federal agencies on how to proceed. It seems to me that with the importance of this issue of global warming and the climate change that comes with that global warming, that it would be irresponsible for us not to look at those things that are particularly within the jurisdiction of our subcommittee and to seek the ways that we might adapt and mitigate those climate changes. And so I hope that we will not be tempted here to take a shortcut that will cost us deeply in the future, and I hope this amendment will not be adopted.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word. First I want to commend the chairman and the ranking member for bringing forward a very good bill. And I want to also commend the chairman and the ranking member for agreeing to the amendment that has just been adopted. But I want to put that a little bit in context here. I have to say that I was surprised and somewhat chagrinned by the characterization of the ranking member of the full committee when he described this legislation, this whole legislation, as having an excessive and overgenerous allocation. I don't really think that that is the case, and the Park Service programs within this bill are a perfect example of that. We are coming up on the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service and have a lot of work to do to bring that up to a state of good repair, the facilities of the National Park Service up to a state of good repair. The Park Service embarked on a program to try to repair some damage that has been done, particularly in the fiscal years 2005 and 2006. The reduction in budget compared with what would be, including inflation, the necessary funding to keep the maintenance of service in the Park Service programs is close to 20 percent in those two fiscal years. And in fiscal year 2007, we were able to virtually level fund the budget for programs within the Department of the Interior and the Park Service at just no increase. But now this year, with this legislation, there is an additional $105 million in the legislation for the increase in the Park Service's base funding which should allow them to begin to make some additions in the maintenance, the backlog of maintenance, which is so well described in the previous amendment, and the need at one of our greatest, most important national monuments, the Statue of Liberty, to make that available to the public. We have hundreds of millions of people in total that visit our national parks, our national monuments, our historic sites, our fish and wildlife refuges, and the maintenance backlog is in the billions of dollars level, of which $105 million to deal with the backlog needs in the Park Service's accounts is only a small portion of what is needed to bring up our facilities that serve those hundreds of millions of the public who visit at all these variation locations each year, to bring them up to a state of good repair. So I think that it is important that we provide those monies. I know there will be other amendments. I will be supportive of those amendments, which also increase the amounts that can go, reasonably, into state of good repair for our facilities under the Park Service for those national parks, historic sites and national monuments that we so badly need in good repair for the visitation and for the education of the public. The Park Service system is a national treasure, and it must be preserved and valued for our future generations. Amendment Offered by Mr. King of Iowa

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, the research is valuable to regional professionals and policy makers who are involved in the management of sport and commercial fisheries and are attempting to stop and reverse declines in those commercial fish populations across the country. By the way, the $150,000 that is involved in this amendment is for the acquisition of scientific equipment necessary to this research, which has impacts up and down the eastern coast of the United States for all of the anadromous fisheries. But it was centered in the Atlantic salmon by Congressman Conte. So I urge the rejection of the amendment by the gentleman from California.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment by the gentleman from California that would cut valuable research at the Silvio Conte Anadromous Fisheries Laboratory. It is a Federal fisheries laboratory now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Geological Survey, though when it was built a couple of decades ago, it was under the aegis of the Fish and Wildlife Service. So it is a Federal function in the first place. This research benefits commercial fisheries and sports fishermen across the Nation. As we now know, the word ``anadromous'' describes any fish species, such as the Atlantic salmon, that is spawned in fresh water but spends the majority of its adult life in salt water before returning to fresh water streams or lakes to spawn and then die. In the Northeast, as in many other areas of the United States, during the 1800s, dams which altered the stream flow sometimes completely stopped the process of spawning, and pollution degraded the water quality and ended up virtually destroying this fish species that must navigate hundreds of miles of man-made obstructions in order to reach their spawning grounds. That is exactly what happened to the Atlantic salmon, which was a major sports fishery and commercial fishery in Colonial times in all of the rivers from the Hudson River northward along the coast which included the Housatonic, the Connecticut, the Kennebunk, the Androscoggin and the Merrimac Rivers, those being probably the more major rivers up that way. Ironically, the Silvio Conte Anadromous Fish Research Lab was established by Congressman Silvio Conte. For those who served with Congressman Conte, he was a Republican ranking member of the Appropriations Committee for all of the years of the 1980s and well into the 1990s, at least a couple of years into the 1990s. He was remembered as quite a remarkable gentleman and quite a remarkable and colorful figure within the Republican Party. This fisheries research laboratory was created in response to the disappearance of the Atlantic salmon in these Northeastern rivers and the strong regional desire to see a restoration of those salmon runs as a great sports fishery. The premier laboratory for research on Atlantic salmon and other anadromous fish in the eastern part of this country, at least, I am not sure how one deals with that on the western coast, but on the eastern coast, has been this laboratory in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. The lab performed the basic and applied research for the improvement of fish passages, for the health and preservation of endangered fish species, and ultimately for the economy and the environment of the Connecticut River watershed, and by connection to the other watersheds where the restoration of the Atlantic salmon has been attempted. It has been somewhat successful, not wholly successful. The salmon runs are not what they were. A few hundred salmon return to each of these rivers each year. But that is how the thing got started. The research at the Silvio Conte Fisheries Laboratory improves the understanding of the impact of dams, the effect of the altered flows in the water quality, the various effects of pollution, contaminants on the ecology and migration success of anadromous fish species, and also on the genetics of all those species. The research includes testing of fish passage designs to facilitate the movement of migratory fish over major dams. And the research is valuable to the region.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I am sure that the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) would remember that Silvio Conte has a very plush hunting lodge named for him somewhere in the Kodiak, I think it is, that I am sure you have visited, Mr. Young.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank first of all Chairwoman Lowey and Ranking Member Wolf for their good work in bringing this good bill to the floor. But I rise today particularly to commend Chairwoman Lowey, Ranking Member Wolf, and the subcommittee for their efforts to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. By providing over $200 million for peacekeeping and humanitarian aid to Darfur, this bill will provide desperately needed support for the 2.5 million people driven from Darfur or displaced within Darfur by the Sudanese's deliberate actions. Yet even as I acknowledge the significant resources that have been included in this bill, I cannot contain my outrage and frustration that the genocide in Darfur continues. Hundreds of villages and small towns have been razed, burned to the ground, and obliterated, the men killed, the women systematically raped, children slaughtered as if they were vermin, survivors fleeing for their lives into the squalor of refugee camps. A common tactic of this horror has been to stuff the villages' water wells with the bodies of the dead so there will be no water for people who try to return to their ancestral homes. Just last week, Sudanese President Omar Bashir agreed, yet again, to the deployment of a joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur. This proposal calls for 20,000 African Union peacekeepers to be led and paid for by the United Nations. President Bashir has apparently offered his unconditional acceptance to the plan. But do we have any reason to believe that this latest agreement is anything but one more delaying tactic? After all, President Bashir already agreed to a joint U.N.-A.U. peacekeeping force in November only to renege a couple of months later. Each time the international community moves even timidly towards imposing punitive measures against Sudan, President Bashir briefly acquiesces and then promptly resumes his unconscionable obstruction of peacekeeping efforts. How are we to know if this latest concession is any different? Just last week, activists representing 36 organizations addressed a letter to the U.N. Security General, Ban Ki-moon, decrying the escalating attacks in Darfur and documenting the flight of aid organizations from the region. The conference on Darfur to occur next week in Paris will provide one more opportunity for the United States, France and other nations to join together in outlining tough consequences for Sudanese failure to accept prompt deployment of the twice-agreed-upon U.N.-A.U. peacekeeping force. We know that the Sudanese Government responds to international pressure, but it must be fierce and sustained if it is to finally end the vicious and senseless slaughter of the people of Darfur. I would like to ask simply five questions, Mr. Chairman. How many times in this Congress have we and will we congratulate ourselves for passing virtually unanimously powerless resolutions condemning the Bashir regime's actions in Darfur? Second, Will President Bush build on the study provision in the House-passed Armed Services authorization for fiscal year 2008 to develop a robust base in Chad for the deployment of peacekeeping forces and for the delivery of food and services to the millions of refugees? Or three, Is this administration so committed to other dealings with Sudan that all of President Bush's statements about the genocide in Darfur are just words? Four, Why should America participate in the 2008 Olympic Games in China when China repeatedly obstructs U.N. action on Darfur? Finally, When will America's 4-year demonstrated impotence be perceived as complicity in the horror of Darfur? It is time to stop the shilly-shallying, stop the attacks on civilians, and bring peace to Darfur. Today as we again provide funding for humanitarian assistance, let us remember that our lack of more effective action will be judged harshly by future generations who will wonder why we didn't act decisively to stop the genocide in Darfur.

Mr. OLVER. I understand and applaud you and the ranking member for that $100 million above the President's request. That is very commendable, but the atrocity and the genocide continue.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, but he shouldn't really yield me all the time that I might consume because I might consume it all. So please inform me when I have used about 4 minutes, and then I might use an additional 1. Mr. Chairman, each of the people who have already spoken in favor of this piece of legislation, which would take $1.3 billion or $1.8 billion, whichever it is, I don't remember precisely, out of the recommended budget, the budget that has been recommended by the chairman and ranking member with a unanimous vote out of the Appropriations Committee, each of the people who had spoken in favor of this amendment has made the comment that the budget resolution has raised taxes by the largest amount ever in the history of this country. Each of the Members has made that allegation. Each of the Members knows perfectly well that you cannot raise taxes, you cannot raise taxes by that mechanism; that any raise in taxes has to be passed by the House and the Senate in exactly the same form and then signed by the President of the United States. So it is simply incorrect, and each and every Member knows that it is incorrect that the budget raises taxes, raises the largest tax increase in the history of the country. The last gentleman who spoke pointed out that the adoption of this amendment, which would reduce this particular bill, recommended by both the chairman and the ranking member, by $1.3 billion, that that would be a $1.3 billion tax reduction. The gentleman who made that comment also knows that no reduction in taxes can occur except by legislation that is passed by both Houses and signed by the President. So, again, it is totally incorrect to make that allegation. Now, the first speaker, who has offered this amendment, has said that this bill spends too much. Well, I think the measure of whether a bill spends too much is whether we are doing what is necessary for the security of this country and for the well-being of the people of America. And I think what has been done by the chairman and ranking member falls very much in the point of providing for the security of the country and also for the well-being of the American citizens. I would point out that the chairman and the ranking member and the full subcommittee that brings forward this legislation has reduced by over $800 million the President's request, actually $900 million over the President's request, in programs that have been terminated or reduced, in all of those that have been terminated and reduced. Now, what they have done, after making those reductions from the President's request and in their responsibility to provide for the budget for the country, they have then added moneys. They have added about $400 million in the provisions for renewable energy, which have to deal with solar energy, biofuel energy, nuclear energy and geothermal, wind, and all the other good renewable energy sources which we need desperately for our national security to remove ourselves from the heavy dependence that we have on foreign oil. So that is a place where if this amendment were adopted and we were to go back to the 2007 numbers, then we would lose that increase, that very important increase of $400 billion.

Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We would lose that $400 million of very important investments for the security and well-being of this country. And I would just also like to point out that there are substantial increases, which the ranking member has pointed out, that deal with the deficits, the deficits in investments in our water infrastructure under the Corps of Engineers and also under the Bureau of Reclamation, those places where we have dams that are in need of investment that has not been done over recent years and investments that should be done in our ports in order to make our commerce go better, a whole series of things which the ranking member had laid out very carefully in his initial remarks in relation to this legislation. All of those things which are increases that are in this legislation, part of that $1.3 billion, which would be removed, then those pieces of investments would thereby become unnecessary. So I think this legislation is right on target for securing this Nation and for securing the well-being of the people of America. And I hope that the gentleman's amendment will be rejected.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I am willing to accept for the majority the amendment offered by the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from Texas (Mr. Green).

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman of the subcommittee for yielding me time. I will try to cover my points in those 3 minutes. I just want to remind the members of the committee, of the Congress, of the body, that this bill came from the subcommittee with full support of the subcommittee members, with the ranking member and the chairman in strong support, with a very good and thoughtful look at what energy and water expenditures ought to be. There are increases in moneys that are investments in flood control, in dam safety, in putting money into dealing with our ports which need dredging, things of that sort. There are substantial increases, that is true, in renewable energy, which is the one place where we can really get at our dependence upon oil that comes from very unstable parts of this world. There were some wonderful recommendations that in large part are a balance between nuclear nonproliferation, so important, because that is where our real danger is to the security of this country in the future, our major danger, versus some unnecessary expenditures in nuclear weapons development, nuclear weaponry development. That recommendation is here. We have had about 12 hours now of debate in this committee with 50 amendments, with offers of amendments to cut and reduce, offers of amendments to increase expenditures, to shift expenditures. There are some that have been adopted. Most of them have been refused. But everybody has had a chance. And the basic body of the bill remains as it was, as it was recommended by the chairman and the ranking member of the committee with the support of the subcommittee and the Appropriations Committee. Here now we have a 1 percent reduction which attempts at this late date, after all those amendments have been dealt with one by one, increases and decreases, and the issues have been discussed, then to reduce by 1 percent, $300-plus million, which then has an effect on all those earlier decisions that have been made by this committee as a whole. So I would hope that this amendment would not be adopted. I think that this is a basically irresponsible way of going about budgeting. If you can't deal with the issues and then come to a conclusion on the budget that you have adopted in that process, then one should not do what is being proposed here. I hope that the amendment will be resoundingly defeated.

Mr. OLVER. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. OLVER. I am certainly not going to use my time in this instance. I, for the majority, am willing to accept the gentlewoman and gentleman's amendment.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. First of all, I want to commend the chairman and the ranking member and all of the staff on both sides of the aisle for this excellent bill. I hope that all of the Members on both sides will find it is something that they can support. Particularly I want to commend the chairman, this chairman and his ranking member, for the very amicable and nonpartisan way that they have conducted the work of the subcommittee. I think that is a wonderful picture for all of us as chairs and ranking members for the way that they have done this. A great deal has been said about energy independence for this country, and I would say, I would assert that it is truly a matter of national security that we maximize the efficiency and conservation of energy in this country. We use 100 quads of energy; 100 quads is 100 quadrillion Btus of energy in this country for 5 percent of the world's population. The world as a whole uses about 400 quads of energy. So we, for 5 percent of the population, are using 25 percent of the whole world's energy usage. Early in our hearings process this year we had a series of theme hearings, and we had many expert witnesses. The most dramatic testimony that I heard there that is easily conveyable is that we could save of our energy usage some 50 percent; all across all of our uses of energy, 50 percent of what we presently use. That same testimony indicated that since 1973 when the first oil crisis hit, we had saved already some 47 quads of energy in that roughly 40 years since the first energy crisis, a little less than 40 years. So we could save a huge amount more. I just want to make three points about this very good bill. The bill recognizes that energy efficiency is one of the Nation's largest underutilized energy sources. It provides $146 million more for building technologies which is an increase of $60 million above the President's request; this, in an area where 40 percent of all of the energy we use is related to our buildings, our industrial, our commercial and our residential buildings. So there alone we can save a huge amount of energy, and the bill recognizes that and puts money where it will do the most good to try to improve our energy efficiency in our buildings. But it also provides $23 million to address the backlog of equipment standards and analysis, $10 million above the President's request, which goes to accelerate the approval and the updating of appliance and equipment efficiency standards which we know that the Department of Energy is very much behind on. They are behind on at least 20 different standards related to appliance and equipment that we could be saving a lot more energy if those standards were brought up to date. And the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories estimates that the administration's negligence will cost an estimated $28 billion in foregone savings.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment offered by the gentleman from California. I note that this amendment is offered to the section of the bill on energy efficiency and renewable energy, and I would note first that the President's request for this year is more than 10 percent below on every one of the renewable energy accounts in the budget. Those are cuts below the 2007 enacted amount, and it covers biomass, which leads to the biomass accounts, which include biodiesel, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which, of course, is the area that so many people believe is going to be a major saver in the future. It includes solar energy, wind energy, geothermal technology, hydropower, vehicle technologies, where 30 percent of all of our energy is used, building technologies, where 40 percent of all of our energy is used, industrial technologies, where 20 percent of all of our energy is used. And the President proposes in those areas 10 percent reductions below the enacted, whereas the subcommittee, in its wisdom, and apparently agreed to certainly by me and certainly apparently agreed by the gentleman from California, the committee has added moneys over the enacted number for 2007. So we apparently agree on that. But then, oddly enough, the gentleman from California chooses to attack the one program that gives direct help to low-income households in this country. It is the one program, the weatherization program, where low-income households can get assistance to install energy-saving technologies and measures in their homes. Well, it turns out there are something like 14 million households in this country that have incomes of less than 50 percent of the median income in various areas around the country. Half of them live in homes. Most of those homes are very inefficient users of energy. So the Low Income Weatherization Program is a program that would help those homes be more efficient in the use of energy. The President's request for this year is in fact below the enacted 2007 number actually by more than 30 percent below what the enacted 2007 number was. Enacted 2006 number was even higher than the 2007 number. So the committee, in its wisdom, has instead recommended raising the number to the 2006 level, to the levels expended in fiscal year 2006, and the gentleman from California wants to take it back from the committee's number by this time 45 percent or something like that, the exact number I haven't quite calculated. Those moneys are well invested in those homes which low-income households are using, where energy is so inefficiently used, where we can save a substantial amount of energy every year, thereby reducing greenhouse gases that are produced in the production of the energy that would otherwise be wasted in those homes. And where one would say far beyond the cost of the energy-saving measures that would be part of the weatherization program, far beyond the cost. In such situations, you are saving the amount of the cost within a 3 or 4 or 5-year period when the savings go on long into the future, year after year after year, saving energy and reducing greenhouse gases and saving dollars. Perhaps most important for those people, it is the savings of the dollars that they otherwise would spend in those low-income households where the amount of money spent on housing per se in low-income households tends to be up in the two-thirds to three-quarters of the total household income. So I think the weatherization program is a very useful program, a very effective program for saving money for people at the lowest levels of income. I hope we will soundly defeat this amendment by the gentleman from California.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 422 to call on the People's Republic of China to use its unique influence and economic leverage to halt the ongoing genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. As hundreds of thousands have died at the hands of government-backed militias in Darfur, China, and Sudan have cultivated a mutually beneficial relationship that provides crucial energy resources to China in return for thwarting international efforts to sanction the Khartoum government and deploy a United Nations peacekeeping force in Darfur. China and Sudan have extensive economic, political, and military ties. China is Sudan's largest foreign investor and purchases two- thirds of Sudanese oil exports. China has sold arms to the Sudanese military and in February cancelled $80 million in Sudanese debt. While it can do much more, China has taken some steps to alleviate the suffering in Darfur. Last November, China helped negotiate the agreement at Addis Abba which called for the deployment of a joint United Nations/African Union peacekeeping force. In May, China appointed a Special Envoy to Sudan and pledged $5.1 million in humanitarian aid to Darfur. Yet these positive steps are far outweighed by China's continuing support for the genocidal regime in Khartoum. Unless China acts to pressure the Khartoum government into accepting a U.N. peacekeeping force, China risks having the 2008 Beijing Olympics forever known as the genocide Olympics. China must condemn the violence taking place in Darfur, halt all military arms sales to Sudan, and suspend economic ties to Sudan until the Government of Sudan stops attacking civilians, complies with U.N. Security Council resolutions, and enters into peace negotiations with rebel groups. As China rises as a power in the 21st century, it must realize that with its increased power comes a greater responsibility to take action to stop genocide.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Madam Speaker, I support the resolution before us today. In clear and succinct language it says what I believe must be said regarding the war in Iraq that America is engaged in by the choice of President Bush. I support our men and women on the front line with all the training, the body and vehicle armor and the equipment they need to be successful at the task that they have been given, and I support them as they return, whether safe and sound or scarred by grievous wounds. Almost 24,000 have been wounded, and many returned broken in body or spirit. Many have suffered permanently disabling wounds. Thousands of others, not physically wounded, suffer severe traumatic stress disorders. And all will need and must be given the care and rehabilitation they have been promised. America mourns the loss of more than 3,000 of our soldiers since that fateful first day of May in 2003 when President George W. Bush triumphantly proclaimed ``Mission Accomplished.'' At no time in the 220 years since the founding of our Nation has America suffered such casualties during an occupation following war. This occupation has been spectacularly mismanaged, yet Americans are asked to suspend doubt and support an already used tactic, placing almost 20,000 additional troops on the ground around the clock, with our young men and women caught between the combatants in the civil war raging in Baghdad's urban streets and neighborhoods. I oppose this escalation. It is 4 years too late and more than 100,000 troops too few. The tactic itself has been used repeatedly over the last 4 years, with dangerously counterproductive results. Each time this tactic has been used, it has left behind greater hatred for the occupation and the occupiers, as well as thousands of new recruits for the insurgency or al Qaeda. I believe that this escalation will be remembered for the deaths of many more American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. President George W. Bush has repeatedly cited the 300,000 strong Iraqi army and police force which we have spent billions of dollars to train and equip. They should be pacifying their capital city. As dysfunctional as it is, the Iraqi government which we created must decide whether they want all-out civil war or a stable, unified Iraq, with oil revenues fairly distributed and with changes to their Constitution to assure the rights of 40 percent of the population who are not Shia Muslims. We cannot decide that for them. The civil war will continue and our casualties will continue to mount until we disengage our forces from a direct military role, except to deny haven to al Qaeda. We must place responsibility directly on the Iraqi government. At this very late date, virtually everyone agrees that peace and stability for Iraq cannot be secured militarily, but only politically. Our best chance for a positive outcome to this tragic and unnecessary war is outlined and unanimously recommended by the Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. We should substitute a robust, multifaceted diplomatic campaign to discourage all of Iraq's neighbors from engagement in the growing civil war and to gain support and assistance for a stable, unified Iraq. That diplomatic campaign must involve major powers and regional groups like the European Union and the Arab league, along with all of Iraq's neighbors, without exception or precondition. The U.S. should always be willing to talk. In every way, talk is far less costly than war. In a month, the war in Iraq will have gone on 4 years, well beyond our participation in World War II. It is time to begin bringing our troops home.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for organizing this tribute, and I am grateful for the opportunity to add a few thoughts to the eloquent comments of my colleagues in celebration of the life of Father Robert Drinan. Priest, lawyer, teacher, author, law school dean, Congressman and international statesman, Father Robert Frederick Drinan was an amazing individual who touched the lives of thousands. More than 100,000 of my current constituents in the northern part of Worcester County, Massachusetts, were fortunate enough to have been represented by Father Drinan during his time in Congress, and they were served extremely well by his unique brand of politics and conscience. Father Drinan was elected to this House by what was essentially an anti-Vietnam War platform. He was the first to call for the impeachment of President Nixon but not on Watergate grounds. Father Drinan's cause was the President's illegal bombing of Cambodia. He was a passionate supporter of international human rights. Father Drinan spoke out against injustice wherever he saw it. He even privately funded several humanitarian missions to Chile, El Salvador, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other developing countries torn apart by violence and oppression. He repeatedly urged the President and Congress to do more to restore religious and social freedom to the people of Russia, Bolivia, and Iran. While he served in the Congress, he uniquely balanced matters of faith with matters of state. Although he opposed abortion on moral grounds, he held that particular religious belief as separate from the issue of the legality of reproductive rights and thus was a fervent supporter of those constitutionally protected rights. In his district, Father Drinan worked to increase affordable housing in older cities like Fitchburg and Gardner, both of which are in my current district. He was also instrumental in securing funding to begin the cleanup of the Nashua River in north Worcester County. Twenty-five years later, his efforts are the foundation on which we build today. Later in his life, Father Drinan continued his crusade for international human rights by teaching that subject at Georgetown University and by lending his expertise to numerous international justice organizations here in Washington. For his distinguished career in public service, the American Bar Association and later this House of Representatives awarded him official honors. Father Drinan's life's work is an enduring example of public and humanitarian service that few will ever equal, but we should all aspire to follow his example. He led with superior conviction, and he lived his life with universal compassion. He will be remembered for many, many years to come.