Major Owens

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, together Americans can do better in showing Iraq and the rest of the world how true democracy will not tolerate corruption. We must set better examples than the Bush administration has set. One glaring example of Bush corruption came when President Bush nominated a former lobbyist, David Safavian, as the Chief Procurement Officer for the Federal Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Safavian had limited experience with procurement when President Bush chose him for that powerful position. What he did have, however, were strong connections to powerful Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The two lobbyists, Safavian and Abramoff, shared clients at the firm where they worked in the early 1990s. Later, through his position at the GSA, Safavian helped Abramoff lease Federal property for office space. In exchange, Abramoff took Safavian on an expensive golf trip to Scotland. Not surprisingly, Mr. Speaker, David Safavian was arrested last month for obstructing a Federal examination into Jack Abramoff's questionable business dealings with Washington Republicans. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Safavian was a multibillion-dollar Hurricane Katrina contract awardee. Together, America, we can do better.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the betrayal of working-class families and the people on the bottom who need the safety net most. In this year of disaster, in this time of disaster, the people who need the help the most and who are the weakest in our society have been betrayed by the leadership. Involved in this matter is the recent set of decisions made by the President to suspend Davis-Bacon in Louisiana where on the gulf coast we have a tremendous amount of construction work going on, opportunities for jobs to be created for those people who have been thrown out of work and have no income, no homes, no reasonable future. It is an opportunity for them to be employed. And yet interference by the White House has cut the wages there by suspending Davis-Bacon. And I will explain more about Davis-Bacon in a few minutes. They have also suspended any Federal regulations on affirmative action. And that, of course, will hit hard because evacuees, the people who had to leave New Orleans and who are expecting to come back, 60 percent of them were African Americans; and their opportunities to get those jobs that are going to be created in the process of rebuilding the reconstruction are lessened by the fact that the contractors are not required to follow Federal regulations and affirmative action. Those are just two of the things I would like to discuss. There is a broader range of issues related to leadership, competency in leadership, preparedness in terms of the huge amount of money we have invested in our armed services and our military apparatus and why we cannot have the dual preparation of the same body of people who are prepared to fight wars also be trained to take care of natural disasters of any kind. However, before I commence to discuss this betrayal of the people on the bottom, people from working families by our leadership, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Detroit, Michigan (Mr. Conyers), who has a set of items that he would like to discuss on his own.

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I would just like to note that on today's front page of The New York Times, today, Thursday, October 20, there is an article which talks about, and the gentleman mentioned patching up, we should no longer try to patch up the system. There is an article which says that Jeb Bush, the President's brother, who is the Governor of Florida, has been given a waiver to revamp the Florida health care system, the Medicaid system. The essence of what Jeb Bush is proposing is that they will establish a certain amount of money to be spent on each Medicaid patient, and when that runs out, that is it. They die. By implication, they will spend that amount of money on the health care of that person and when that amount of money runs out, then they are on their own. And if it is some procedure, of course, which they cannot afford, they would have died. Would the gentleman care to comment on that?

Mr. OWENS. I thank the gentleman and would like to say that the remarks I am going to continue making are very much in concert with the general theme of what the gentleman has said. Every American, every human being, certainly every American citizen deserves to have the entire society involved and engaged in trying to guarantee that they get the best health care possible. There can be no second class, bargain basement health care. Our leaders have failed us by making us believe that it is impossible, and these proposals that are being made today on the front page of The New York Times about Jeb Bush in the State of Florida are just beginning, but Kentucky is in line and a couple of other States want to do the same thing, which is to put a price on health care. You get $1,000 a year for your medication, for your examination, or for whatever, and after that you are on your own. Now, the $1,000 is hypothetical. They do not quote a figure. But they are saying there should be a figure for each individual, and after you run out of money in your account you are on your own, that the State will only go so far and that is it. I think that is cruel and unnecessary. We are the richest Nation that ever existed in the history of the world. If Canada, Germany, Spain, France, and all kinds of nations can have a decent health care system with a volume of income much less than that of the United States, we certainly can afford to provide health care for every individual. The attitude regarding people on the bottom is what I am talking about. The attitude about the folks left in New Orleans to float and drown in the water, that attitude, and I know some people are saying we are beating that to death and let us get off of it, but it is so symbolic. It was visual. You could see it. When a set of leaders and a Nation decides that people are expendable, that they are not worth it anymore, they are not important, you can lead to that kind of cruel and inhuman neglect. Too much of that mindset of cruel and inhuman neglect permeates the present administration. It manifests itself in so many different ways. Not that it is only this administration. There are other parts of the world where you have cruel and inhuman treatment by leaders also. Pakistan now has a serious problem with an earthquake. And I am going to try to limit my remarks because I want to go to a meeting with the ambassador from Pakistan to talk about what we can do to help deal with the suffering that is going on there. But one of their big worries in Pakistan, the worries of ordinary people, is that their leaders are so corrupt that they will never get the money that is being donated. It will not be used properly. They will never buy the medicines or buy the cots and the equipment. Large parts of it will be drained off. The great fear there is corruption. And, of course, Third World countries, developing countries have a major problem with corruption. We talk about it here in the United States all the time. We talk about denying the World Bank resources to certain nations because of the fact that they have corrupt governments, corrupt leaders. But the corruption goes on here also. In Katrina we have a graphic example of how that corruption can be cruel and inhuman and get out of hand. Just two quick actions by the White House show the point that I am trying to drive home. They failed to properly provide for the people of New Orleans, and large numbers have suffered needlessly. Large numbers have died needlessly. Large numbers were trapped in a situation which was quite inhuman. They were in a dome, a huge dome, a sports dome with 20,000, 30,000 people. Imagine being in a convention center, a huge convention center and to have the lights out for two or three nights. Remember, it is summertime and it is smoldering in the heat, plus the darkness. The fact that those people did not go mad, that more of them just did not go out of their minds is a miracle unto itself. They all deserve to be awarded medals as heroes. Anybody who could come out of there and just keep their sanity deserves to be saluted as a hero. And if you doubt that, why not experiment at the next basketball game we go to. Ask the managers and those in charge of the arena to turn off the lights for 2 or 3 minutes and have a moment of silence to meditate on what it would feel like if you were in the dark with people you do not know, in large numbers, for a whole night, say for three or four nights. What would it feel like? I think we ought to experiment with that and let Americans across the country have the lights turned off at the next basketball game and just sit there. Of course, they would know there is no flood outside, that nature is not running wild, but that you are just in the dark. You are in the dark with strangers for 2 or 3 minutes. Now try to project that on spending two or three nights in the dark like that. Those people, the fact they did not lose their minds shows that they were quite strong and deserve to be awarded medals and not be looked upon as some people have chosen now already to look upon them; that they are now problems; that they are unworthy; that they should have known how to get out of the city and out of the flood on their own. They are now a burden on the government because they have nowhere to go. They have been housed in shelters, and now we need to find trailers and shelter for them. Our leaders let them down because the flood should never have happened in New Orleans. The flood was not a natural disaster. The hurricane was over when the levees broke. The fact that those levees had not been taken care of is just one more example of how the leadership of this Nation, people on the top, are corrupted where they do not deal with problems as they should, and therefore they make the people on the bottom suffer unnecessarily. As I have said on several occasions, the Netherlands, the Dutch, are a whole nation below sea level. As a nation, they have been contending with the same problem New Orleans has. They know how to hold the sea back; they know how to manage floods. They know how to deal with water. They have never been called upon to revamp the levees and deal with the situation in New Orleans. It would have been easy to get that kind of expertise. If you cared about the people of Louisiana, they could have solved the problem. The technology and the know-how is there. They had scenarios in New Orleans which showed that terrible things would happen if the problem was not taken care of. Nevertheless, our leadership refused to appropriate the money. Our leadership refused to allow the engineers to deal with the problem or come up with people competent to deal with it. Or they could have called upon the Netherlands to provide experts. That is one solution. We lean on other nations when we need their technology in other areas, so why not call upon the people of the Netherlands to help New Orleans protect itself from the sea. But getting back to the most outrageous actions by the White House, once we have gone through the problem of failing to protect the people of New Orleans from the flood, failing to protect a large portion of the population from unnecessary suffering and in some cases death, senior citizens dying in large numbers in hospitals and nursing homes, we have all heard the litany of personal disasters and family disasters that were suffered as a result of our failed leadership. The Congress of the United States appropriates. It stands up and shows it is up to the task. It does not hesitate. It appropriates $60 billion to deal with the problem right away. We are into removing the rubbish, cleaning up the problem of the floods, providing the necessary temporary shelters, and preparing to reconstruct. All of that will require money and we are spending the money. It requires the money to be utilized to hire contractors. We have hired the contractors. The private sector will make some profits. That is the way it is in capitalism. We do not want to see anybody gouging and making unnecessary profits, but they probably will. That is a fact of the way the world operates. In the meantime, work that has to be done, that work should be done by the people who need to earn an income rebuilding the place destroyed because of the failure of our leadership. But they get right away a terrible blow from the White House. Right away the White House acts with great speed, and we know there was no great speed with respect to meeting the rescue needs of the people of New Orleans; but in the process of granting contracts and beginning the cleanup and the restoration, the White House orders that Davis-Bacon should be suspended. Davis-Bacon is a regulation in existence since 1933, which requires whenever Federal money is utilized in any project, that project must pay wages to the people who are carrying out that task, pay wages which are consistent with the wages of that area. If you are in New Orleans, whatever they used to pay plumbers in New Orleans, pay the plumber that amount. Whatever they pay the electricians, the bricklayers, in the process of cleaning up and restoring, they should pay the same wages. Having looked at the amounts, they were not high at all compared to average wages across the country. Electricians, bricklayers, plumbers, everybody in New Orleans is at the lower end of the scale in terms of prevailing wages. The average wage for most people in construction jobs is higher in the rest of the country than it is in the southern part of the country and in New Orleans. So why the President rushed to remove Davis-Bacon cannot be explained rationally because they already had a situation where wages were very low. But once you remove the requirement of Davis-Bacon, then contractors can pay less than prevailing wages. If the wages are low already, where are you going to find people who will work for less than they do in the average situation across the country. You find them among illegal immigrants; you find them among people who must have a job and cannot complain if the working and safety conditions are bad. You find them among people who are frightened, can be pushed around, not paid when they are supposed to be paid, and jilted out of part of their paycheck. People who will never have any vacation leave or fringe benefits, any health care. That is what the contractors will find once Davis-Bacon is removed, you do not have to pay prevailing wages; you can go under that scale and get the cheapest people and make the biggest possible profit off the misery of people who suffered in this natural disaster. President Bush and key cabinet members were all excruciatingly slow in responding to Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects. The televised images of thousands of African Americans marooned without food or water in the New Orleans Convention Center and Superdome shocked the world, yet the President was slow to return to Washington, D.C. and was slow to respond to take charge in response to the disaster. The one fast action taken by President Bush was when he moved to suspend Davis-Bacon. In other words, the President acted as speedily as possible to cut workers' wages on all federally funded recovery and reconstruction projects throughout the gulf coast States. The President himself said in New Orleans that rebuilding the city of New Orleans alone will constitute the biggest reconstruction project in the history of the Nation. It will cost many billions of dollars. Congress has already appropriated some $60 billion towards this end. And in the corrupt tradition exploited by the Bush administration already in the Iraq war, the President then proceeded to no-bid and cost-plus contracts for billions of dollars, and they have been granted to a favorite set of contractors, which includes Vice President Cheney's former employer, Halliburton, and its branch subsidiaries such as Kellogg, Brown & Root. Halliburton has not been told to watch its spending carefully or restrain its profiteering because in a cost-plus contract, it is designed to give the contractor every leeway and maximizes opportunities for making extraordinary profits. But the Bush administration, hiding behind a fig leaf, asserts they had to suspend Davis-Bacon, which provides a modicum of protection for workers on these Federal projects. They said they had to suspend it because it requires paperwork and that will cost the contractor money and waste time. But the people on the bottom, the people cleaning up the rubbish and the hard carriers and the bricklayers and those folks, their income and protection for them, the provision of decent wages for them was of no concern. Now the prevailing wages in the Hurricane Katrina-affected regions are lower than ever before. They were never that high by national standards. Under Davis-Bacon, a pipe layer in Mississippi would earn $7.45 an hour. I cannot imagine, given what a pipe layer earns in New York City, how you could find anybody to do that job for $7.45. A pipe layer in Alabama would earn $8.21 an hour. A pipe layer in Louisiana would earn $9.84. All of those are very low wages for those jobs if you know anything about plumbing and the high cost of it across the Nation. Such wage rates are hardly earth-shattering by anyone's standards; but under the Bush plan, skilled workers, many of whom lost their homes and all their belongings in Hurricane Katrina, will only be paid the Federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. We hope that they will be paid the Federal minimum wage, because as I said before, the only workers that you are going to get to work for such low salaries are usually illegal immigrants, people who cannot fight back, who cannot report you when you fail to live up to the requirements of the wage and hour act, and who are at your mercy. That is the pattern where we are finding large numbers of illegal immigrants are being used. The question of illegal immigrants is certainly one that I do not want to be recorded as being backwards and not sympathetic on. I favor what was proposed by the AFL-CIO last year. Let us look at all of the immigrants who are in the country now who are undocumented and who have been here for a while, who pay their taxes and are working, and through an amnesty create a situation where they may begin the process of becoming citizens. They can then begin the process to become citizens. They can join unions or associations. Or if they want to stand as an individual, they know they have rights and cannot be intimidated or cowed by an employer. They will help to raise the standards by working for decent wages, wages consistent with the cost of living in this country. I do not like the exploitation of illegal immigrants. I do not blame the illegal immigrants for being exploited, and we can get out of this situation and allow them the opportunity to work without being exploited if we will act on amnesty as soon as possible. As we have discussed at length on this side of the aisle, certainly with Democrats' policies, the Federal minimum wage also at present will not allow anyone to climb out of poverty. That $5.15 an hour, assuming that the contractors will at least pay that and that they will not go below the national minimum wage, that Federal wage will not allow anyone to climb out of poverty. A person working full time year-round at the rate of $5.15 an hour will merely earn $10,400 a year. If that is a parent with two children, he or she will earn $4,500 below the poverty line designated for a family of four. This suspension of Davis-Bacon protections, especially for those who have lost everything in the wake of Katrina, is an utter disgrace. The White House is not through with the people on the bottom. They are not through with working families. They decided to go further; and through the Department of Labor, they also suspended the affirmative action guidelines. The affirmative action requirements are quite simple. They do not have much enforcement mechanism in terms of making employers or contractors hire a diverse group of workers. They do require that they report what efforts they make toward diversity. There are a few pieces of papers that say in the process of hiring people, you should take certain steps. But even that, the Bush administration decided that should be thrown overboard. And as I mentioned earlier, in the process of doing that, large numbers of people who lived in New Orleans, 60 percent of whom were African American, were denied priority in seeking the jobs that would allow them to return and start rebuilding their lives since they, as minorities, would have had to have some consideration made by the contractors; they would have a greater possibility of getting a job if they returned to New Orleans and tried to work there. The message that was sent by that affirmative action suspension was do not come home. Go somewhere else and look for a job because you do not even have the protection of the simple weak affirmative action laws of the Federal Government that we had before. It was a message that sets up a situation which I hope is not true. Many of us, a lot of people, fear that we may have what was called in the 1960s Negro removal on a massive scale and that New Orleans will never be the same. The black population, the African American population, will never be allowed to return to New Orleans. They are spread throughout the whole Nation now in shelters. Most soon will be out of shelters, but they will not be in one place anywhere. There are 2,500 in New York City. I think another 2,500 are coming in to be put up in hotels and various places. There are some in Utah, some in Idaho, lots in Texas. All over they are spread. They have been removed. During the 1960s, there were accusations that the big developers, the people who wanted to make a lot of money in the middle of the cities would come in with plans to redevelop the city, and the oldest parts of the city, although they were centrally located, would be the poorest parts in terms of buildings, so they would have tenants in them who were very poor tenants. In many cases in many cities, these people were people who were minorities, and the process of removing them made great profits for the developers. If they got them out, the new buildings that they built would not be for them. It would be for people with high incomes who could afford the kind of higher priced housing that was being built. Here we have a situation where an act of nature is the beginning of the process. I said the flood in New Orleans was not caused by nature, by the hurricane. It was caused by poor leadership which had not maintained the levees and the dikes and the pumping stations, and that is the problem there. But, anyway, by that act we have had massive removal of people and now with the policies of this administration suspending Davis-Bacon, suspending affirmative action, making it clear that people are not welcome back, we will have permanent removal of a whole population. Unprecedented in the history of the Nation. Of about 400,000 people, at least 200,000 of those people lived in the section that was heavily flooded. They will be there no more. It will change the politics of New Orleans. It will change the culture of New Orleans. Some people say, well, Disney can move in and they do not want to rebuild houses in the places that were flooded before because there may be another flood, but if they built an amusement park and they built it high up off the ground, it would not matter if it was flooded or not. And some folks said that is probably what is going to happen, that Disney will come in and try to take over. Well, Disney did not come in and try to take over. The Mayor of New Orleans announced that we have got to move our casinos off the river and move them inland. Where are they going to put the casinos? I guess they were going put them in the same places where the poor people lived before. It would not be Disney, but it would be ``casinoland.'' So it is not exaggerating to talk about massive Negro removal, black removal, African American removal, massive removal of a population that was considered undesirable in order to give the marketplace the opportunity to really make tremendous profits. One can imagine how the ancient Israelites felt when the Romans decided to do one of the most brutal and cruel things ever done. That is, they took the whole nation and moved them out, spread them out over the world, and there were 12 tribes. They broke it up into 12 tribes and moved them off their homeland, massive removal. We have something similar to that taking place in New Orleans. A whole mass of people is now in a situation spread out over the entire United States and not ever likely to be back in their home unless we have different policies by a different kind of leadership. I want to yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) for her comments. I want to point out, while she is taking the mike, that we had a massive earthquake in California during the Clinton administration. Nine billion dollars was appropriated by the Federal Government to rebuild the bridges and the highways that were destroyed by that earthquake. The President did not suspend Davis-Bacon. He did not suspend affirmative action, and the contractors completed that job 3 months ahead of time. We do not need to do those cruel things that have been done by this administration in order to guarantee that we are going to have the most effective production. I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson).

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her comments. The broad, overarching message today is the betrayal. We are protesting the betrayal of working families and poor people on the bottom by our leadership, and the health care crisis that was cited by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Watson) is part of that whole process. I want to thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for sharing this Special Order that he had reserved for a discussion of health care with me in making the broader case that working families, people on the bottom, are being betrayed. At this very moment, as I said before, there is a meeting of the Pakistani Caucus of the House of Representatives to discuss the disaster in Pakistan, the earthquake there which killed more than 40,000 people already and millions have been left homeless, and they are homeless in the mountainous region where the snow and the ice is now beginning; so millions will die as a result of not having the equipment and the materials that they need as fast as possible. One of the big fears there is that their leadership has let them down and they are not prepared for this. Another big problem, of course, is the rest of the world, nations like the United States of America, should rally to their defense and provide faster and more aid. But disasters, natural disasters, are not quite as frequent in most years as they are this year. We have another hurricane on the Florida coast right now. They seem to have gotten suddenly stronger, the hurricanes and storms, earthquakes, tsunamis. This has been a very disastrous year. As I said previously on this floor, these disasters are not so great that we do not have the capacity to deal with them as the world. Certainly this Nation could do so much more to help. If they really care about the people who are suffering, if our leadership really cared, these disasters can be handled rapidly with minimum loss of life. We have $500 billion we spend on our military apparatus. That is without adding the extra money to fight the war in Iraq. A military of that size should be capable of dealing with disasters of any kind as well as fighting wars. The same is true of the army in Pakistan. One of the things that some Pakistani citizens were complaining about was that army people arrived and were standing around doing nothing and, when they were questioned about why do they not help more, they said, We are waiting for our orders. They need specific orders how to help out in a disaster. They have been trained to aim, ready, fire, shoot and kill. Why can all the armies in the world not be trained to take care of these natural disasters as well as to provide defense for nations? Why can we not have leadership which ahead of time assumes that it is going to be our responsibility? It is the duty of a government, the duty of leadership, to take care of people in times of natural disasters. And our government apparatus in its entirety, including the military, should be available to do that. Certainly, that did not happen in New Orleans, and we are very much aware of what the consequences can be when we have this huge rich nation with all of these possibilities and all the material and personnel available but we have no leadership at the top that can do the job. Our leadership let us down. The gentlewoman from California, I said before she spoke, is from a State which suffered a huge earthquake a little more than 10 years ago, in 1994. The Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles caused a tremendous amount of damage. Congress appropriated money, and as I said before, there are some lessons to be learned from what happened in that disaster. I am talking about a government in power, a regime in power, a White House leadership that seems to persecute those at the bottom at a time like this. Or, as this particular paper which is called: Lessons for Post Katrina Reconstruction, A high-road versus a low-road recovery, this paper talks about what happened in California at the time of the Northridge earthquake. It is written by Peter Philips and was published by the Economic Policy Institute. Foremost among those lessons is that competitive bidding and enforcement of labor standards such as the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law can help ensure that work is done expeditiously, safely, cost effectively, and with maximum benefit to the local population. That is one of the lessons that this study points out that we learned at the time of that huge earthquake in California. President Bill Clinton refused to suspend the Davis-Bacon Act in 1994, yet the Los Angeles highways were rebuilt at lightning speed. In particular, the Santa Monica Freeway was rebuilt in only 66 days, less than half the time that had been stipulated by the State of California. The need to rebuild quickly is no excuse for suspending the Davis- Bacon Act or affirmative action requirements as President Bush has done. The lessons we have already learned are not being applied by this White House regime, because this White House regime governs for a few and cares very little about those on the very bottom. The few at the top are the preoccupation of the present administration, and that leads to great cruel and inhuman treatment to the people at the bottom. We had a resolution that we proposed in the House Education and Workforce Committee this morning. It was a resolution requesting that the President transmit to the House of Representatives information in his possession relating to contracts for services or construction relating to Hurricane Katrina recovery that relate to wages and benefits to be paid to workers. We want the President to explain why he suspended Davis-Bacon. One of the explanations that was given by people in the committee who supported the President was that it had been suspended before by other Presidents. President Roosevelt once suspended, I think it was for about 30 days that President Roosevelt suspended it on the conditions which are very different. We are requesting that the President transmit to the House this information. And of course we had a lengthy discussion in the committee, and then the majority Republicans took a vote that they would report it to the House only with a recommendation that the House consider it unfavorably, and they voted to do that. So the report comes to the House with a recommendation that the majority, the Republican majority, the President's party considers the request that he provide information to Congress about why he suspended Davis-Bacon, they consider that report, that request to be a nuisance request. It is most unfortunate that we cannot have information, simple information provided to the Members of Congress. After all, we are all elected under the same conditions and we come here. We want to do a job for our constituency. Why can we not at least have information? We gather information from other sources. Immigrant workers exploited in the gulf coast are talking to newspapers. I have a report here which says that Gulfport, Mississippi you had a report from several immigrant workers that, first, of all, you have 32 immigrants housed in three mobile homes and they were being paid $8 an hour to tear sheet rock for 10 hours a day. They were among hundreds of illegal immigrants who entered the United States hoping to find work in the aftermath of the hurricane. One of the big complaints that they have is that they were promised $8 an hour, but they were not paid. They were not paid on time. And they were not paid in some cases at all, and other conditions in terms of they were told that they would get food and shelter but the food is quite sparse and, as I said before, shelter means they are putting 32 immigrants in three mobile homes in one case. And on and on it goes with respect to the kinds of conditions that contractors are taking advantage of in the gulf coast reconstruction. Many of the same contractors in the gulf coast reconstruction are also the American contractors who operate in Iraq. In Iraq, they found that they could make high profits on the no-bid contracts, billions of dollars have been spent that we cannot even tell where it went. There is a $9 billion question around money that was appropriated to reconstruct, and nobody is even asking questions in this administration about where the money went. We know it is missing, but nobody wants to deal with a hearing or an investigation to tell us exactly where that money went. So they certainly have made a lot of money in Iraq, but even with the tremendous profits they were making the security question is such that they made less than they perhaps wanted to, less than they agreed, told them they should be making. So the same contractors have come back, and in the domestic situation of the gulf coast, of course, they do not have to pay for security. They do not have to worry about contractors being shot, bombs blowing up. So now they are poised to make all the money they could not make in Iraq in the gulf coast area by taking the contracts, hiring illegal immigrants at the lowest possible rates, and making off with the taxpayers' money. One of the side products of this process is that experience has shown and several studies have shown that when you do not use Davis-Bacon you get workers who are less skilled, you get workers who care less about what they are doing, and you get an inferior product. Buildings have collapsed that have been built by workers who were not workers who were Davis-Bacon workers because they were not the usual workers that did that kind of construction in that locale. Buildings have collapsed and all kinds of projects have suffered as a result of shoddy work done by people who were being exploited by the contractors. We would like to see not only Davis-Bacon, the President should restore Davis-Bacon requirements so that we have prevailing wages throughout the gulf coast region. We would also like to see that the President say that: Look, even when you have Davis-Bacon, you have low wages which are very difficult for people to live on, and beyond that you have a minimum wage which is the Federal Government's minimum wage which is also almost impossible for people to live on. So along with restoring Davis-Bacon, along with restoring affirmative action regulations, we would like to see the President allow us and encourage his party to let us bring to the floor of the House the proposal that we have to increase the minimum wage. We want to increase the minimum wage as a way of demonstrating to the people who are on the bottom, to the working families of America that they have a leadership that cares about them. This leadership does not hesitate to demand that the sons and daughters of working families leave their last full measure of devotion on the battlefields in Afghanistan, in Iraq, or wherever else they may be needed. Next, we demand that they do that, and they are doing that, and yet we do not want to give them a piece of our prosperity in our economy, not even $5.15 an hour worth. Despite huge improvements in the average educational level of our workforce, most American workers today still do not have jobs that pay decent wages and provide health care as we were talking about before and a pension. Only 25.2 percent of American workers have a job that pays at least $16 per hour and provides health insurance and a pension, according to a new study done by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. That is the level. $16 an hour is the level you need in order to have a decent wage, and you must have that accompanied by a health insurance benefits program and a pension if you want to be called a person of sharing in the American economy as would be appropriate. So I close with my opening statement: We need leadership at the top, in the White House, in this Congress that cares about working families, leadership that cares about the people at the bottom. Disasters come as a result of a plan by God that none of us may understand, and we should not trying to spend time trying to figure out what God is doing. What we should do is do what man does best, and that is have the most competent and most caring and compassionate people that we can in the leadership to take care of the needs of the people who are suffering on the bottom.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the recently reported unprecedented two percent approval rating of President Bush's overall performance shows that the wisdom of African American voters is escalating. To save our republic, mainstream American voters should follow this enlightened leadership. The smoke and mirrors, Disney World fantasy of Bush policies is hypnotizing only two percent of the Black voters. This emperor has no clothes on and we'll all catch pneumonia if we follow him. Where, in domestic or international history, has any group reached more insightful political conclusions and made more sophisticated democratic choices? In the street language of my youth, the ``trick bags'' and ``okie doke'' of every day living causes a lot of suffering in Black communities. Forced to be perpetual victims African Americans have developed a greater immunity to the glitter of the phony and the fraudulent. Lessons like New Orleans are not forgotten after the media grows weary of spotlighting the truth. Blacks understand why Bush and the American majority that elected him refused to acknowledge the heroism of the thousands who spent several nights smothering under a blanket of heat and darkness in the dome and the convention center. To make the world understand better the credit these evacuees deserve for not going mad under those conditions, every basketball game this season should begin with a few minutes of silence after all of the lights in the arena have been shut off. ``Shoot to kill'' was the earliest and strongest clear message to emerge ftom the babbling public officials responsible for the New Orleans debacle. Branding the hero victims as undesirable, provided the perfect setup for their later mistreatment by a ``reformed'' FEMA. The presidential executive order suspending the Davis-Bacon law and the nullification of all affirmative action regulations sent further messages informing the storm wracked Blacks that they had been permanently profiled as unworthy of the regular protections and benefits of their government. Ninety-eight percent of Blacks understand what most Americans refuse to acknowledge: That the truly dangerous and costly corruption was not exposed by the looting of the New Orleans supermarkets. No, the massive, systematic no bidding contract process now underway on the Gulf Coast for Halliburton and other Bush crony entrepreneurs is crime running rampant. Third World citizens are not the only populations endangered by the corrupt behavior of their leaders. Decision making, driven by the criminal upward distribution of wealth by our greedy Republican rulers has made America a nation at great risk. Massacres from General Nathan Bedford Forrest at Fort Pillow, to New York's ``Black Monday,'' to the Charleston, South Carolina and the Tulsa, Oklahoma violent Black community destructions combined with the petty racism of everyday life; all of this never ending pressure has probably permanently altered the group political consciousness DNA of African-Americans. The new 98 percent disapproval rate for George Bush is a high point for a trend of consistent African-American voting for Presidents. Why can't more gullible mainstream Americans acquire similar insights? Why does the average American still want a President that they can feel comfortable with schmoozing over a beer in a bar? African-Americans want a President who through his policies will guarantee that they can afford to purchase that bottle of beer. Using a label that is meant to be a demeaning slur, the media frequently refers to Blacks as ``bread and butter voters''. But in truth most voters are concerned first about economic issues. Certainly, the most influential and richest Republicans are concerned about tax cuts, insider trading opportunities, no bid contracts, earmarked legislative favors, etc. Concern for individual or group economic well- being is an appropriate position. But it is the obsession with maximizing advantages and the perks of ``white privilege'' that creates the venomous political poison threatening the survival of American democracy as it should be. African Americans see a White House regime which maximizes already excessive ``white privileges'' at their expense. To force taxes lower the privileged have abandoned urban public schools all over America. The revenue starved New Orleans has produced the worst school system in America. The lack of arrangements for the transport of the poor out of the flood was just one of many examples of deadly public sector neglect. Is it absurd to ask the question; are we the only developed nation without a publicly financed universal health care program because whites don't want to see minorities getting more free services? Is it possible that this drop of the President's approval among African Americans rating to two percent will become a bonus for the Republican Southern strategy advocates who have been recently overshadowed by moderate ``apologizing'' Republicans? Will there be a new right-wing battle cry to just write off the African American vote? This 98 percent disapproval rate is a landmark in polling statistics. Democrats must monitor the fallout diligently.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this very appropriate resolution. I think that beyond the spirit of this resolution there must be immediate response from the entire apparatus of the United States Government and from the United States people. Madam Speaker, we are weary, maybe, of disasters. When you add up the tsunami and Katrina and Rita, and now in Pakistan 55,000 have already died, and in the mountains they are freezing cold, without any shelter, twice that number may die before it is over, and one might say, well, we just cannot keep going on. We are donor weary, we are disaster weary. That is ridiculous. When we add up all of these people, maybe we will get 100,000 victims, but the world consists of 6 billion people and more than 200 nations. We can take care of all of these disasters if we put our mind to it. The United States must provide the leadership. $50 million is not enough. Speed is very important here. The formalities of waiting will mean that thousands and thousands of people will die unnecessarily. Madam Speaker, I hope that we will use as many of the helicopters in Afghanistan as we can, send them across the border to Pakistan. Eight helicopters is not enough. That is the only way these areas can be reached in the mountains. The roads are not passable. There are no places to land other kinds of aircraft. Only helicopters can land. I have one of the largest Pakistani communities in America in my district, and I visited Pakistan 4 years ago. I went to a school, several schools in Kashmir. One of the schools, an all-girls school that was having a test, an eighth grade test, I could see that eighth grade girls were studying quadratic equations. That is one of the schools that was crushed in the earthquake. I hope that the students were not in there. But I saw school after school of eager young people, anxious to learn, in those mountain schools. I went on those roads. Madam Speaker, if not in humanitarian terms alone, let us stop and think about the diplomacy issues here. Pakistan has long been our ally. Throughout the whole Cold War, they were our ally. We could not have driven the Russians from Afghanistan. We did not have a single soldier involved, but we were behind the sting of missiles and the whole strategy that drove the Russians out of Afghanistan and led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but they were disappointed we did not honor them more for that. That is in the past. Right now, they are helping us in the war against terrorism. Their government is at risk because of their position with the United States on terrorism. What we do now with this earthquake, how we respond to this earthquake can determine the nature of our relationship with Pakistan forever. We have an opportunity, it is tragic, but an opportunity to demonstrate how we operate, how we react to help our friends. If they are really a friend, we can do so much more, and I hope that this resolution is just the beginning. I hope all Members will become sensitive to the fact that we can do more. We must do more. God expects us to do more.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the nation of Pakistan is experiencing the greatest natural disaster of all time. There is no recorded disaster with the dimensions that the earthquake in Pakistan has produced. Forty thousand at least are already dead. Forty thousand at least are dead already, and with the freezing weather coming and the inaccessibility of the people in the mountains, another 40,000 could easily die, being frozen to death or starved because they cannot be reached. Millions are homeless. Now is the time for America to come to the aid of this nation in great distress. These are people, first of all; and for humanitarian reasons, we certainly should come to their aid. They are also citizens of Pakistan, a major ally of the United States, a major ally which has done a great deal in the fight against terrorism. I know disaster fatigue has set in with a lot of Americans and certainly our media. We had the tsunami, an overwhelming disaster. We had Katrina, Rita. In Central America they had Hurricane Stan. Unfortunately, the media has reached the point of exhaustion too early. Not enough is being said about the great tragedy in Pakistan because I think they just do not want to deal with another great disaster with the kind of coverage it needs. It does not have it. When we add up all these disasters, the tsunami, Katrina, Rita, and Pakistan, the tragic numbers should not overwhelm us. We should not throw up our hands and say it is just too much, we cannot deal with it. It is the most massive disaster in history, the Pakistani earthquake; but yet 40,000, though it may seem like a lot, and in the case of Katrina we do not know whether it is going to be 10,000 or not, and in the case of the tsunami, if we add them all up, still relative to the population of the world, it is a very small number of people. We have almost 6 billion people in the world. Surely 6 billion people in the world and almost 200 nations in the world can come to the aid of people who have experienced these disasters this year, can come to the aid of those in Katrina, those in the tsunami, and those in Pakistan. Surely we should not get weary of being weary of disasters so early. We must go to the aid of Pakistan and not write it off because we have had enough disasters. We need more attention paid to this. When we look at numbers, we lost 600,000 people in the Civil War in America. 600,000. We lost 400,000 or 500,000 in World War II. The Russians lost 18 million people in World War II. Those are numbers which can really overwhelm us. Surely we have dealt with problems on that scale. In World War II we mobilized, and in terms of men and materiel and the effort to win World War II, it was overwhelming. But it would not take even one-tenth of that effort to go to the aid of Pakistan at this point and deal with getting the practical things that they need. They need helicopters because those mountains cannot be reached any other way. They have got to have helicopters to transport whatever they are going to transport. They need it, and they need it right away. The people are freezing in the mountains. They need food. The U.S. must lead the way. I do not want to get into any discussion of competition, what nation is doing what and are we doing less than any other nations. I do not think that is the kind of discussion we ought to have. We ought to just understand we should come to the aid of Pakistan to the extent that we can. We are the greatest. We are the most resourceful. We are the richest Nation that ever existed on the face of the Earth. We should not hesitate to lead on this matter. We should step out there and not yield leadership and wait for someone else. We have made past mistakes with Pakistan. Pakistan was our ally during the Cold War, and yet we treated them very poorly, and we did not take care of the needs of Pakistan once the war in Afghanistan was over and they had helped us to win the war against the Russians in Afghanistan originally. Now Pakistan has come to our aid in the war against terrorism. The Government of Pakistan teeters on the brink of rebellion because of the fact that large numbers of the Muslim population do not approve of the close friendship of Pakistan with the United States, the alliance with the United States against terrorism. Let us come to the aid of our friends and make up for past errors. And here is a time when they have this great calamity that we can act and wipe out any harsh feelings about the past. Now is the time to act. For the future, as long as we can see it, I assure the Members that the Pakistani people will be grateful for what we have done. We ought to seal the alliance and make certain that they understand that we are their friends in every way possible. We do not want to just use them to fight the war on terrorism. We do not want to just use them to hunt for Osama bin Laden. We do not want to just use them in a critical time when we are threatened by terrorism. We care about them; and when they need help, we will be there. Practical help is needed right now. We need cargo planes. At Kennedy Airport they have cargo-loads of material to go to Pakistan. They have no planes to send them there. They need the practical help. We need helicopters in Pakistan right now. Across the border in Afghanistan, we have hundreds of helicopters. We should give up the hunt for Osama bin Laden for a little while if necessary, and those helicopters should go to Pakistan. They need food. They need tents. They need attention from the whole world. We need our caucus here, Members of Congress. We have a Pakistan Caucus. The Pakistan Caucus needs to meet as soon as possible. I call on the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), who are co-chairs, to call to meet as soon as possible. And let us, as Members of Congress, see what we can do to come to the aid of our friends, to come to the aid of millions of people who are in great distress and they look to the United States for leadership. We should follow that leadership. God expects us to provide leadership to help the people of Pakistan.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the indefinite suspension of Davis-Bacon by President Bush has destroyed the hopes of local residents in the Gulf region--many of whom had already lost everything in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Now Gulf residents who work in construction have to contend with wages even lower than those normally prevailing in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and several counties in Florida. As documented by an article which appeared in today's Washington Post, the President's suspension of Davis-Bacon and clear preference for political cronies also appears to make Gulf residents last on the list for Katrina reconstruction jobs. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the President's actions will prove just as devastating to workers in the Gulf region as the destruction wrought by the hurricanes. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that this Post article be printed in the Record in its entirety. [From the Washington Post, Oct. 7, 2005] Small Businesses Lose Katrina Cleanup Contracts to Large Firms (By Jonathan Weisman) When Al Knight received notice Friday that his small company's contract to help wire Louisiana's storm-damaged Alvin Callendar Naval Air Station had been abruptly canceled, he could not have known the reverberations would reach Washington within days. But the plight of little Knight Enterprises LLP has several compelling factors: a minority owned small business in New Orleans losing out to a big, national firm; local workers, mainly African American, first devastated by Hurricane Katrina and then supplanted by out-of-state, low-wage replacements; questions over White House wage policies; and a name that has haunted the Bush administration since the invasion of Iraq--Halliburton. Little wonder that Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) highlighted it yesterday as he grilled the Federal Emergency Management Agency's acting director, R. David Paulison, on the Bush administration's hurricane recovery contracts. After Katrina hit, most of Knight's electricians found themselves with nothing: homeless, jobless and broke. But when Alabama-based BE&K landed a subcontract to help rebuild the naval air station, it turned to Knight for electricians-- he says 75, BE&K says 59 at the peak of work. BE&K was working for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co., Vice President Cheney's former company. When BE&K came to him, Knight said he was told his work would run well into the millions of dollars and stretch out as long as 20 months. His men would be paid the prevailing union wage of $22.09 an hour, plus health benefits. After three weeks, the initial work was 60 percent completed. Then, on Friday, Knight received a letter informing him that BE&K workers--largely from out of state and, according to Knight, earning $14 to $15 an hour without benefits--could take over from there. Susan Wasley, a BE&K spokeswoman, said Knight's crew was always there merely to augment the company's own staff of 45 electricians. Knight Enterprises was let go because its work was done. Knight did not blame BE&K for his disappointment. Instead, he pointed to President Bush's decision last month to suspend the so-called Davis-Bacon federal law that mandates that workers on federal projects be paid the average wage of an area, often the union wage. Once BE&K was forced to compete with nonunion companies for KBR contracts, they could not afford the union electricians that dominate Louisiana, he said. ``I can tell you this for sure,'' Knight said. ``If Davis-Bacon wage rates were left alone, then you'd have local Louisiana people working on local projects, and we would be working today.''

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about a number of pressing issues. As we enter the final stages of this 109th session of Congress, we are confronted with some dire emergencies and challenges and I prefer to place all of the things I have to say under the big umbrella title ``The Nation is At Risk.'' The Nation is at risk. We need an administration at this point in the history of the Nation that governs for all, not just for a few. We need an administration that cares about everybody, not just a few. We have an incompetent blundering administration. Iraq showed us how serious the consequences of such blundering could be. If we did not understand because of Iraq, and some of us understood what we were getting into. I voted against going to war in Iraq. I think it is very important as a Member of this Congress, as a major policymaker for the United States of America, it is very important never to place young people, our soldiers, military personnel, in a situation where they may die in vain or they may die for no good reason. For that reason, I voted against the war in Iraq. But we went ahead and we kept going right through an election and refused to recognize. And when I say we, the majority as a Nation, did not recognize the dangers of the Iraq blunder. Some of my religious friends say that God wanted us to open our eyes and give us a wake-up call so he sent Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina is on a smaller scale than the catastrophe of Iraq. Hurricane Katrina is at home. Hurricane Katrina was on our television cameras as it was unfolding. The question is will the next high level set of blunders by this administration lead us into something even more devastating. The failure to respond properly to the Hurricane Katrina, it showed us we have an incompetent blundering administration. If we did not understand with what happened in Iraq, we certainly can understand it now. Our Nation is at risk. It is very serious to have a Nation of this size with its power, its position in the world, unable to cope with catastrophes like Katrina, unable to make decisions about major international policy matters like Iraq. Yes, Saddam Hussein was an evil man. Saddam Hussein was highly undesirable and somebody needed to help get rid of Saddam Hussein, but so was Joseph Stalin and so was the Soviet Union for years. Before the Soviet Union acquired the nuclear bomb, there were people who urged President Truman and some subsequent Presidents to attack. Let us have a preventive war before they got the nuclear bomb. After they got the nuclear bomb and they did not have the hydrogen bomb, people were urging it was even more important to attack. They said let us make certain they do not get the hydrogen bomb. After they got the hydrogen bomb, of course, at least we were willing to say let us have a balance of power. Even during that balance of power, we had the missile crisis in Cuba and some people were urging then, let us get it over with and strike first with our atomic weapons. We did not. The Soviet Union was a far greater power, was a far greater threat to us than Saddam Hussein could ever be. We managed to live with it until they fell under their own weight. The Soviet Union collapsed because it also had a group of blundering leaders who would not accept the complexities of modern society until it was at the brink of economic disaster. The Soviet Union was quite fortunate that they happened to produce a genius with a heart, with compassion at just the right time. Gorbachev is a genius, and he saw the only way he could save the Soviet Union was to go to war, and he refused to do. He had a heart. He had compassion, and that combination saved the world from a conflagration. The Soviet Union's leaders realized their way of life was doomed. Instead, they surrendered ideologically, so what seemed impossible over the years, to bring down that evil empire, to go to war, was not necessary. I assure Members that Saddam Hussein would not have lasted for many more years without us having to go to war and get involved in the quagmire we are involved in there, but we did it. We did it because I am afraid we are led by some old men who have juvenile minds. We are led by some old men who play war like little children and they could not resist the temptation to go to war and display our shock and awe and all our modern weapons and bring Iraq to its knees overnight. They could not resist the possibility of being able to ride through the streets and have people wave flowers at them and welcome them. They had all kinds of dreams that were not realistic and they led us into a quagmire. I am not certain how we are going to get out of that quagmire, but at least we ought to begin to recognize it. The polls show us the majority of American people say we should get out of Iraq, bring our troops home as soon as possible. Those who do not understand still and did not understand before, Hurricane Katrina should show us, Hurricane Katrina should finish the job of awakening us to the fact that we have incompetent, blundering people in the leadership. We have the results of a situation that has built up over the years where the primary requirement for getting into government was to be able to raise large sums of money or a group of people who could raise large sums of money began to dominate the decisionmaking, what I call the ``donocracy.'' The ``donocracy'' has pushed up people in power who do not necessarily have competence in terms of the background, the training, the experience, to govern. Those who do rise to power and are elected are surrounded by a group of people who are primarily great fund-raisers. Those who do rise to the top are maybe even great friends of great fund-raisers and great donors. And you get people appointed to positions, like Mr. Brown of FEMA, people appointed to positions where they should not be. It is patronage on a grand scale. It used to be that if you had to have someone pushed forward by the partisan political process, then you made sure that the top guy, if he was the guy that was the partisan candidate, you had to have the second guy be competent and could run the situation, or vice versa. If the top guy was competent, then your partisan appointee could be the second guy. But there arose a situation where we lost touched with reality, and FEMA represents that. Not only the top officer in FEMA, Mr. Brown, but we are told by people who are professionals, who worked in FEMA over the years, people who came out of the Clinton administration. And by the way, President Clinton made a great effort to professionalize FEMA. It was one of those places for too many years where political hacks had been appointed. He tried to professionalize, and he succeeded. But all of that was wiped away by a new administration that had no respect for competence. In fact, I would say has contempt for competence, as too many elected officials in Washington have. So we are in a situation where one great blunder is draining billions of dollars out of our coffers halfway across the world in Iraq, and also thousands of our young people have died. Our standing in the world has gone down. There are many consequences of the blundering in Iraq. The Hurricane Katrina blunder showed us that even on a smaller scale if you have contempt for competence, if you do not really care about all of the people, if you are going to govern for just a few, you are going to be preoccupied with big tax cuts while you cut agencies like FEMA, and other agencies that serve people on the bottom, you could do not care about safety nets and an education system that is going to produce the best we can from every human being who has the potential, you do not care about all of that, well, FEMA brought it home. It brought it home in a very dramatic way in terms of the combination of poverty and race. Poverty and race happens to be a very dramatic way the presentation came out in New Orleans. I assure Members if those had been white poor people in the areas flooded, they would have suffered the same fate from an administration that does not care about all of the people, it cares about just a few. These blunders will lead us into a situation where we will not survive. The Roman Empire survived a lot of blunders. They had Julius Caesar and many other emperors with various degrees of competence. Some were complete maniacs like Nero. They survived some maniacs and fools at the top. They basically survived because the Roman Empire was unchallenged in the known world. There was nothing to compete with the Roman Empire. They could make blunders for decades and centuries and recover. The United States of America cannot have more blunders one on top of another and survive as a leading Nation in the world in terms of values, in terms of its democratic system, and in terms of its economic system. I happen to believe that it would not be just a disaster for Americans, for us who live here, we citizens who love this country, it would be a disaster for the whole world if our leadership position is lost. I do not see a rival. Among the rivals, I do not see anyone more capable of leading in the world in the direction we would like to see it go, where more people can enjoy the fruits of the earth, where more people can develop their potential. The Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution prevails. There is no Nation on earth that can do a better job. I do not want our Nation to collapse, not only for my own grandchildren and great grandchildren and those who survive me, I want the whole world to benefit from continued leadership by the United States of America. We should not allow a handful to throw away what so many have labored for so long to create. We should not let a blundering group of fund- raisers, a blundering group of fund-raisers, a blundering group of people who have contempt for competence, who laugh at wisdom, who ridicule experience, we should not let them dominate our government any longer. I think the problems of New Orleans and the problems of the other sectors hit by Hurricane Katrina are problems we should begin to examine as possible new opportunities. In the process of rebuilding, let us not rush to spend billions of dollars. Dollars are very important. I do not like those who insist when helping the poor, if you throw dollars at them, you will hurt them. Throwing dollars do not solve problems. Dollars are the beginning of a solution to the problem. It does not solve the problem, but at least no solution begins unless you have resources, unless you have dollars. So it is good we have as Congress taken the first steps and appropriated $60 billion already to move the process. Much more will be necessary and it should be appropriated, but if we do not have the wisdom and the competence and we do not have the experience, if we do not have an administration that cares about governing for all of people, not just for a few, then those dollars are going to be wasted. Lives that could be redeemed are going to be forever lost. There will be no comeback. New Orleans will not be rebuilt in a way that is productive and a signpost for the future. In the rebuilding of New Orleans, we should build a city of the future. New Orleans is a great resource. The whole world will always look at New Orleans as a place, a colorful attraction that they want to go to. Its traditions with jazz, that is a vital part of it. It is also located in a place where it will always attract a great deal of attention. So instead of condemning New Orleans and following the leadership of some people who say why rebuild it, it is too expensive, the next hurricane may wipe it out, we should look to rebuilding it as a city of the future, rebuilding it as a hurricane-proof city. There is such a thing as a city that could withstand a hurricane. There is such a thing as planning that could take into consideration all the things that went wrong and deal with the problems that have been revealed. I think that the challenge of rebuilding New Orleans, the challenge of recovering from Katrina along the whole path, Mississippi, Alabama, wherever it hit, that challenge could show us the way to create a world-class, first-class, adequate homeland security system. Natural disaster relief merges now with homeland security concerns. Concerns of recouping from terrorism, of fighting terrorism, coping with terrorism, now merge with the concerns of natural disaster. Why not have them merge? It is a way to approach the problem in a very economical way, it seems, if we are going to in anticipation of terrorism. And we know very well that it is going to strike only in a few places because we now are alerted. We have all kinds of mechanisms to thwart it, but still terrorism may get through; it may strike someplace. But in order to be prepared, we have got to be prepared everywhere. If we have got to be prepared everywhere for terrorism, why not the combination of preparation for terrorism and preparation for natural disaster be combined, be combined? Why not deal with the problem revealed in New Orleans of abject poverty at the same time we deal with how to show that New Orleans can be prepared not only for future natural disasters but also for any terrorism threat? Why not show how the residents can be involved in the process of rebuilding and be involved in the process of creating a new economy and capitalizing on the fact that the whole world knows New Orleans and with the exploding world where the middle class is creating more and more tourists all the time, there will be always enough tourists to help bolster the economy of New Orleans. There will always be a fascination with the location of New Orleans and the river and the various environmental things along that coast. It is a matter of how do we preserve what is good there and how do we handle it so that future problems are not there to dwarf the redevelopment, that business people are not afraid to go back to New Orleans, that the population itself is not afraid. It is a great pity that we did not have the foresight the last few decades to prepare New Orleans properly. We have had experts on top of experts. We have done studies that showed us the dangers. It is quite an excellent example, unfortunately, of how our blundering administration in power and some other administrations in the past have had contempt for science, contempt for wisdom. The science was there. The preparations were there. Just last year they ran scenarios of hurricane level five. All these things have been done, but the willpower was not there. The wisdom was not there. The competence was not there to take steps to cope with the problem. And over the years, we have spent billions of dollars in Iraq and billions of dollars on other projects, rockets, anti-missile systems; and there were numerous projects that were great failures and a great waste of taxpayers' money that could have been jettisoned in order to provide the money to build decent levees and waterworks of New Orleans. ``Who lost New Orleans?'' And I am reading a few quotes from a piece that I submitted to the Huffington Post. ``Who lost New Orleans? Our cities are the greatest treasures of our civilization. So why were the levees and the pumping stations emplaced to protect New Orleans from the sea so technologically obsolete?'' The Dutch, the Netherlands have been controlling the sea for a long time in a much wider area. They have the expertise. Why did we not bring the Dutch in to do the job that had to be done if we did not have Americans in the Army Corps, the engineers, the technological know-how did not exist? We could have in the world found the people that could do it, and we did not have to go any further than the Netherlands. ``If the descendants of the American geniuses who built large artificial ports at Normandy on D-Day could not design adequate protection, then why didn't we ask the Netherlands to outsource their expert sea management engineers to us long ago?'' And when we look at what happened on D-Day, we begin to have the benefit of history in the reruns of movies and the documentaries; and we see that D-Day was more than about the courage of American soldiers. That was the critical piece. If there had been no courage, if they had not kept going forward, all would have been for naught. But if they had courage and kept going forward and they were not backed up by a tremendous set of technological innovations, all would have been lost. They built a port, artificial port, at Normandy, a port big enough to take trucks and tanks; and it was built in a very short period of time. If the people who designed that could not provide adequate protection for New Orleans, or the descendants of the people who designed that, then we should have gone to the Netherlands and outsourced their expert sea management engineers to come back to do it for us. But I suspect that if the will had been there, if we wanted to do it, just as we did the impossible on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, we could have done over a period of time what was necessary to save New Orleans. ``New Orleans will be lost only for a short period of time.'' As I just said, it is going to make a comeback. ``In spite of the paucity of spirit and imagination among our ruling decision-makers, cities will continue to resurrect themselves and survive. But Americans must learn from the lesson of an almost drowned New Orleans. No great American city should be needlessly placed at risk. The rural-centered congressional policies of the last 2 decades must be radically reversed. The power of Senators, in a Chamber not based on one man, one vote representation, deal-making for small population interests must be curbed.'' Taxpayer dollars must not be spent for projects and programs located where people do not live. They should be spent in places where people live in large numbers. That should be the priority. ``Who is served by expensive bridges in Alaska? ``Examine the last omnibus budget bill passed by Congress and signed by the President or review the items listed in the recently signed Surface Transportation Act. For even a high school sophomore, one fact will be immediately revealed: the per capita expenditure is far greater in sparsely populated States than it is in the densely populated States where the big cities are located.'' This is a leaning, a direction, a trend that has gotten out of hand in American policy-making and expenditures of taxpayers' dollars over the last 30 years. We are spending far more per capita in rural and suburban areas than we are in cities where the people are concentrated. ``Each Senator from a rural State has many more allies than the Senators from States with big cities. In other words, Senators who represent urban Americans have less influence. ``Review the scenario of last year's Senate deliberations on the provision of emergency hurricane relief aid.'' We voted money for the Florida hurricanes, remember, last year. We started at $6 billion. I do not know how far it went finally; but I know at the last minute, and I am not going to read this in great detail, but at the last minute there was a sudden request in the Senate by people who represented certain western States that drought relief had to be attached to the hurricane relief bill. Suddenly, they produced drought relief; and I think $2 billion, an extra $2 billion, was added. It was kind of blackmail, if one asks me. It was added to the hurricane money in order to take care of drought relief that suddenly appeared. The power was there and it was used, unfortunately, to benefit too few. It was used in a way which was wasteful. ``With billions readily available to make war or implement any other deadly or wasteful priority our leaders deem necessary, why haven't we appropriated the funds needed to save, to maintain, to expand, to glorify our cities? That which is urban is almost synonymous with that which is civilized. Jefferson notwithstanding, the agrarian life permitted the flowering of only a few. In the rural domain, nature is to be placed on a much-deserved pedestal to be observed and admired. But'' big cities ``keep man's feet on the ground where life can be hugged and kissed and ravished, where culture is a unique product of imaginations interacting. Jazz could never have been born in the countryside, and between rows of corn and cotton, Satchmo could never have strutted and marched,'' as he did to put New Orleans on the map. ``New Orleans will not be lost forever like Atlantis. Salvaging New Orleans could prove to be a process which fuels the revamping of the corrupted Washington decision-making process.'' Salvaging New Orleans ``could spur the salvation of all cities which collectively constitute the core of our modern American civilization. The process must begin with less focus on bread and water looters,'' which got a lot of publicity and we are learning that that was greatly exaggerated, ``and more'' focus should be made on the ``looting of the Federal Treasury which has enriched a small percentage of the population'' to the detriment of cities. Cities have not been properly funded because there were administrations like the present one that were not concerned about legislating for all the people, but were content to legislate just for a few. ``New Orleans has presented us with a hysterical profile which shows that in many vital ways, despite our impressive skyscrapers, we are an underdeveloped Nation. Our masses live in our cities, or the dependant exurbias and suburbs'' that surround our cities. ``To foster our Nation's security, prosperity and greatness, we must expend taxpayer resources on planning, programs, and projects which provide the greatest benefits for the greatest numbers. The Washington looting mentality must be replaced with a new Washington creative leadership imperative.'' A creative leadership imperative which governs for all and not just for the few. I summed it all up in a short wrap point called ``The Washington Looting of New Orleans.'' ``Washington looters still running loose Abusers of New Orleans Embezzlers of canal repair dollars Big shot necks too big for a noose. For the Mardi Gras Neo-con domestic shock and awe Bush budget blunders trapped in the crayfish claw Grandmothers and babies cry Urban peasant victims die; Oh, when the Saints come marching in Judgment will fall on merciless men. Put street looting logs away Only political atrocities on the dock today. Washington looters still running loose Big shot necks too big for a noose.'' Mr. Speaker, I will include in the Record this piece that appeared in the Huffington Post on September 1, 2005. Mr. Speaker, we need to combine our concern with homeland security with our concern with the poor and our concern with the maintenance of our cities. I am going to propose, for the benefit of the Congressional Black Caucus, an omnibus bill to deal with all the various problems relating to New Orleans. The problems are legion. They are problems of all kinds that have grown out of the crisis in New Orleans. And every Member of Congress is concerned. Many suggestions are being made, and they are not partisan necessarily. There is a great deal of concern on both sides of the aisle. My problem is that we have authorized $60 billion without any omnibus bill to go with it, without any legislation to go with it; so these ideas out there percolating all around, everybody wanting to do the right thing, they do not get institutionalized in the proper way. We need legislation which definitely institutionalizes and codifies and makes it clear in legislation what it is we are going to do. There are complaints and there are articles being written, exposes already about the contracting process, that no-bid contracts are being spread all over the place and the usual problems we have with large contractors not honoring subcontractors who are minority. All of those problems are resulting. The President did not want us to take time to debate the legislation and write instructions as to how the money should be spent. But the President acted immediately in a very partisan way. He intervened into this process by first declaring that Davis-Bacon regulations should be suspended. What are Davis-Bacon regulations? Why did the President rush into this process and say right away that Davis-Bacon regulations should be suspended. The President hesitated, was tardy in responding to the Katrina disaster. His administration was tardy. All of a sudden, they rushed in and said Davis-Bacon requirements should be suspended, that all contractors are not obligated to abide by Davis-Bacon regulations. What is Davis-Bacon? It is a long-time regulation that says when the Federal Government is financing a program, building a building, a road, or whatever, when the Federal Government is concerned, contractors must pay the local prevailing wages. It is as simple as that. Contractors must pay the local prevailing wages. Why would anyone not want contractors to pay local prevailing wages? As you move southward in this country, I know, because I sit on the committee which is responsible for Davis-Bacon legislation, I know the charges and how they stack up, the wages that prevail in New Orleans and many of the southern States are far lower than the wages in any other part of the country. So they already are low. Why do we have to rush to intervene and say you do not have to pay prevailing wages? The problem is they are going to run into situations where they are going to be paying wages higher than prevailing, because in order to get people to come in who have the expertise to do some of the construction, they are going to have to pay higher wages. But the intervention of the White House immediately to suspend Davis- Bacon was a blow to a principal that they had enunciated, and we all agreed with, that priority would be given to the people of New Orleans, the workers of New Orleans who returned to rebuild their city. If they are given priority, but you say to the contractors, you do not have to pay them the wages they are used to getting for carpentry, for plastering, for operating machinery, you do not have to pay that, you are undercutting the economy by not paying the citizens the wages that they were receiving before. So the suspension of Davis-Bacon was an unfortunate rush of a partisan nature, because the present administration and the majority party have relentlessly pursued an effort to sabotage and destroy Davis-Bacon over the last 4 years. To seize the opportunity for a partisan thrust like that was most unfortunate. Then, a few days later, there is an order coming out of the Department of Labor which says we suspend all affirmative action rules. Any regulation relating to affirmative action that you have to comply with, forget about it. There are not many affirmative action rules that apply to contractors, but even those small numbers that there are, some kind of little report you have to write to show you have diversity, et cetera, the nature of it, that is suspended. This is a second blow to the people of New Orleans since most of them, as you saw on television, the city was 67 percent African American, 67 percent. So if you suspend any requirements that contractors have diversity in their hiring, then you are certainly not helping to guarantee that those people who lived there before, who suffered through the hurricane, who suffered through relocation, can come back and expect to get jobs. You are encouraging the contractors to ignore that, if it suits their purpose, and it will suit their purpose if they can get cheap labor from illegal immigrants, which is one of the problems that we are going to be confronted with as a result of not having any oversight on Davis- Bacon or on the affirmative action requirements. So we are not taking advantage of this catastrophe and making it an opportunity. It could be an opportunity to show how well the Federal Government operates to protect the interests of workers, how well we operate to bring back and guarantee that the people who have suffered through this are part of the rebuilding process. I hear that the mayor of New Orleans is creating a commission to come up with plans to restore and rebuild New Orleans. That is fine. That is wonderful, and such commissions should exist. But I think it is a commission that is going to be at the local level, the State and the city level. They need that. But we also need another commission, which is made up of national people, people from the Nation, to participate and help to plan the rebuilding of New Orleans. We need to look at it as an opportunity for showing how an ideal city could be structured to better meet the needs of all the people. We need to take on the challenge of a location which is hazardous under normal conditions. How do you make it less hazardous, is the question. What can you do? I have a statement I made over the weekend at the Congressional Black Caucus Education Brain Trust, where I was focusing on the Katrina challenge in terms of education. I said that faith-based and community- based organizations could be involved in a very constructive way in the rebuilding of New Orleans. It is just one of the many ideas that need to be put into the hopper and made available to those people who could help oversee a national effort to support the rebuilding of New Orleans. Of course, the Congressional Black Caucus, as I said before, has prepared omnibus legislation to express the ideas that have been put forward by the leadership of the African American community. Several meetings have been held. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read from that statement that I read to the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus Education Brain Trust about Katrina and how education initiatives could be important. The Katrina hurricane disaster has highlighted the continuing permanent disaster of national and local policies which neglect the basic needs of poor Americans. To focus specifically on education, please be advised that the New Orleans school system is rated presently as the very worst among numerous struggling urban systems. From this current tragedy, there is a challenge for all Americans. In concert with the citizens of New Orleans and Louisiana, there should be a multi-level effort to redesign and rebuild a 21st century model education system. In concert with the citizens of New Orleans and Louisiana, there should be a national effort, a multi-level effort, to redesign and rebuild a 21st century model education system in New Orleans. New standards would could be set for physical facilities constructed to serve as emergency centers as well as schools. Now, every school, whenever there is a natural disaster, the first facility utilized, if nearby, is a school. Why do we not better equip schools to handle emergencies? Why do we not recognize in the building of schools that they should be built so that they are adaptable for disasters, whether they are natural or man-made? Why can schools not be built so there are storage places for extra equipment and supplies and beds? Why can schools not be built so they have the best of modern communications equipment, so they will not be isolated, so they can communicate with the police and the National Guard, et cetera? Why can we not have that all built into the system? It would not cost very much more. It is a way to combine the homeland security dollars with the rebuilding dollars for New Orleans. New standards could be set for physical facilities constructed to serve as emergency centers as well as schools. In my district, I had an organization come and ask for help with the funding for a new visitors center. It is the botanical garden. They are building a huge new visitors center. They wanted help from the Federal Government. I said, why the Federal Government? They said well, it is a major economic facility, et cetera. I said maybe in the construction of your visitors center, you are in the center of Brooklyn, with a large population. Brooklyn has 2.7 million people. You are a public facility. You could be one of the places we could depend on in case of a disaster. New York, as a city, is considered a high-risk city, so we are in a high risk area. Why not build in your new center some extras which can be used in the case of an emergency, a natural disaster or a terrorism attack? They accepted that. The architects went to work. They have their proposal and are proposing and begging for funding to help them with that process. I am asking for money from the Committee on Homeland Security. It could be a good model, because every new public facility should take into consideration the fact that it may be needed in the future to help respond to an emergency, and in the process of its construction it would not be exceptionally unusually expensive to build in some extras. All of the equipment for electrical wiring and communication services automatically would be placed at a higher level in such a new building, on roofs. One of the problems that flooding does is when you have electricity hooked up in the basement, along with connections to gas, is that the natural disasters result in impairing electricity early in the process. Why do we not put our electrical wiring and switches and facilities higher in our buildings? Schools could lead the way. In addition to regular phone, computer and fire alarm communications, every school should be equipped with a shortwave radio or whatever is necessary to establish communications with various other entities in homeland security. Of equal importance to the physical features, funding should be provided for the guarantee of the opportunity to learn for every student, using the standards that already are in place in numerous suburban school districts across the country. You get in a big debate when you say we are going to establish some standards so every student has an opportunity to learn. How much is that going to cost and how can the Federal Government afford that and what is it? If you go to most suburban schools, it is already in existence. They provide the money necessary to guarantee the opportunity to learn for all their students. The decent libraries are there, with the right number of books, current and useful books. The laboratories for science teachers are there. The physical education facilities are there. So we should build into the new schools what New Orleans schools have not had, all of those opportunities to learn. If necessary, a program of aid to families with children in schools could supplement the education funding in order to systematically attack the problem of inadequate home and family support. In addition to the problems of poverty and weak home structures, the students who go back to school in New Orleans are going to be victims of trauma. They have had experiences which are very traumatic. They are going to have numerous problems that deserve some extra support, and we should build that in. It may come from the Department of Health and Human Services, which has a program called Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Why not Aid to Families With Children in School as another separate program related to the experience of a child in school? Attendance and the regularity of parents going to meetings, a number of things could be done which would encourage a new mindset among family members and community members regarding education. That is not a physical feature, but it is an important opportunity-to-learn feature. The greatest benefit to the people that the government can provide to the survivors of Katrina is a comprehensive support program which educates a generation of children to take new positions in their new City of New Orleans and the Nation, because, I repeat, it is to the Nation's advantage to have as many of its human beings educated as best as possible. It is part of the competition we face again. Again, we are not like the Roman Empire. We cannot blunder on and on and expect to maintain leadership in the world. We cannot blunder on and on without being overrun, and I do not mean overrun militarily. We will be overrun culturally and economically. Our standard of living will be greatly changed if some of the great powers that are maneuvering, not maneuvering. I congratulate the government of India for providing a first-rate education program so that they are producing large numbers of scientists and technologists and they are taking over large swaths of the information industry from the United States. I congratulate the small Asian countries that are taking some medical business, opening their own hospitals over there where they provide much better care than we provide here at cheaper rates. I congratulate them for educating their population for being able to do that. I congratulate the government of China. They are graduating 600,000 scientists and engineers every year. That is a marvelous thing to do for human beings. Their nation, their leadership is not blundering; they are doing the right thing. We should stop blundering on matters related to education and understand that that is where the world is going. If we are going to survive and outlast the Roman Empire, which is highly desirable, we should be in the leadership of the world for as long as possible and stay there. We are going to have to stop the incompetence and the blundering that exists presently. Mr. Speaker, let me just take a minute to be very practical about the coming omnibus bill that the Congressional Black Caucus is preparing. There are some other groups here on the Hill preparing bills; I am sure Republican and Democratic groups are preparing some legislation. But by omnibus bill, we mean we want to take into consideration all of the various problems that do exist. We do not want the blundering to go any further. The blundering that existed in the response to Katrina could be far more destructive as we prepare for a rebuilding of New Orleans and the coast, which is going to last for years and years. If we do it wrong, the effects will be there forever, probably. We will never have another opportunity like this. Just as with the war in Iraq, we have done it wrong; we lost an opportunity, as I said before. Instead of following history, understanding the implications of history, understanding how much we have learned by waiting out the Soviet Union, waiting for it to fall; despite its terrible leaders like Stalin, and despite its advances with nuclear weapons, we waited, and we won. But in the case of Iraq, the blunder has cost us a great deal. I am not submitting this for inclusion in the Record at this point, because I have not found a way to do that, but I want to call everybody's attention to the fact that USA Today, the national newspaper USA Today on Thursday, September 22 of this year, had an ad in its paper which tells the story dramatically about blunders and what the results can be. On one side it has a picture of all the people who led us into the Iraq war, and it says, ``They lied.'' On the other side, it has the listing of all of the people who died in the Iraq war, and at the bottom it says, ``They died.'' They lied, they died. I will not submit it for the Record today, but I urge everybody to look up September 22 USA Today and get a feel for where we are on our way to. They have all the names listed of all of those who died, just as we have them listed on the Vietnam Memorial. Mr. Speaker, 58,000 died in Vietnam. We know we never want to do that again. But 58,000 died. They are all heroes. In fact, every American who puts on a uniform, whether he gets killed or wounded or comes back alive and healthy, is a hero. The minute you put on the uniform of your Nation, you are at the command, beck and call of our Nation. You go where you are sent. It is just sometimes luck that you are sent to a place where you are able to survive. You are a hero, and everybody should be looked upon, who goes out to serve their country and puts themselves at risk, as heroes, and we should be heroes in making certain that we never do it unnecessarily, that they are never put in situations which do not require those kinds of risks. Those that give their all should do it for something worthwhile. We do not want that kind of blunder to ever affect us again. We do not want to blunder now as we go forward in the peaceful process of rebuilding New Orleans. There are several groups who listed things that we should look for as we rebuild New Orleans and the gulf coast region. This one comes from Policy Link, but it happens to dovetail and sound very much like what the Congressional Black Caucus omnibus bill is proposing also, will be proposing. One, rebuilding New Orleans and other devastated areas so that all communities are mixed income communities. Let us not rebuild ghettos which we have in the low-lying areas where the greatest amount of flooding took place; you had the poorest people. Probably because years and years ago, the realtors and the people who did the planning understood those areas were in danger, were at risk. The land was cheaper there, so the poor people are all there. The poor people who service the hotels and the industries, they all live there. Why not, understanding that we are never going to be totally immune, no matter how we build the buildings, why not move the population so that they are on higher ground. Why not mix downtown, higher ground, why not have moderate-income and low-income housing mixed in among the hotels, mixed in in areas of high ground, the scenic parts of New Orleans which have been reserved for the old aristocracy. Why not guarantee that there are places to live for those New Orleans evacuees who want to come back, so that they do not have to live in danger anymore. Or if you are going to build in the low-lying areas where the greatest risk is, build buildings which are flood-proof, on stilts. There are various ways we can have large buildings which are not subject to flooding and buildings that hurricanes cannot blow down too. It is possible to do that. Beyond that, I would recommend that there would be fewer, and other people have recommended, that there be fewer residences, but build institutions in those places. If you have to evacuate or something happens, the colleges like Dillard University, Xavier University, Southern University, all of those were inundated with the flood, they were put out of business for this semester and maybe next semester, and some may never recover. Those kinds of institutions could be rebuilt in that area and built with the flood-proofing and hurricane-proofing. But if something does go wrong, you do not have to evacuate large numbers of individuals, because institutions have fewer human beings that have to be dealt with. Number two, let us have equitable distribution of the amenities and the infrastructure investments that make all communities livable, so that parks and schools and so forth are structured so that they encourage people to live in the neighborhoods and are designated as the places which are most habitable, less dangerous. Number three, prioritize health and safety concerns. Let us not ignore the lessons of 9/11. We cannot ignore the fact that toxins, pollution, those things are going to kill people later on if we do not deal with them now. We had problems in New York when large numbers of our firemen were heroes and went into 9/11 searching for people under the rubbish, were there for the first few days. They are now coming down with serious diseases, a few have died, and much of it was caused by the fact that they went in with no protection. That is very heroic, but it was not necessary. We should have provided the protection, the masks, and a few other things that were necessary. So the people who come back to live there certainly should not be forced to live in situations which are not thoroughly cleansed of all of these toxins. Number four, we should ensure responsible resettlement and relocation for the people who have been displaced. There should be a guarantee. Here is where the Federal Government must come in and make it right, if the State and the city does not do it, a right to return, a right to resettlement in New Orleans, with the accompanying bonuses, whatever is necessary to entice people and get them to return. All of those things should be there, and we should play a major role in guaranteeing that they are there. We should not discourage people to go from New Orleans to Idaho permanently, from New Orleans to San Francisco, New Orleans to Memphis, et cetera, and stay there. They have gone to these places that reached out and assured some shelter for the evacuees; they should not be forced to remain scattered. They should have a right to resettle. Point five, we should restore and build a capacity of community-based organizations in the gulf coast region. As I said before, a program which involves all of the people there ought to be put forward so the capacity of community-based organizations should be a part of the way we guarantee some employment to people who live there in the area. Number six, create wealth-building opportunities to effectively address poverty. Number seven, strengthen the political voice of dispersed residents. We do not want any party to take advantage of the fact that we have residents dispersed now. It changes the voting patterns; it changes the political clout of New Orleans. We do not want any party to try to take advantage of that by leaving the residents dispersed so that they have no voting power. Point eight, create a system for meaningful, sustained resident oversight. They should participate in the $200 billion investment that is predicted the American taxpayer is going to make. Certainly the residents of the gulf coast and of New Orleans should be able to have some voice in the way money is spent. Point nine, leverage the rebuilding expenditures to create jobs and liveable wages that go first to local residents. I talked about Davis- Bacon and the suspension of affirmative action. Both of those do not help to create the jobs for local residents. We should reverse those policies as soon as possible. And finally, number ten, develop a communication and technology infrastructure that provides residents with the means to receive and share information related to community-building, support services, access, et cetera, and for communications to be provided for future emergencies. I would propose a homeland security faith and community-based organization neighborhood mobilization program, on top of whatever else we do, and this kind of program would provide a defined set of community services. Each organization would be responsible for, and it would maintain, a homeland security fail-safe, volunteer committee that each group would have to maintain; and that volunteer, fail-safe committee would be laymen who would be first responders, lay people who could be first responders in case of emergency. Special homeland security training would be provided for these fail- safe committees. Establish disaster relief and shelter sites ahead of time so that these laymen who are part of the process know where to go and what to do. Increases in auxiliary policemen, increases in volunteer firemen, all of those kinds of things we can put on the agenda as part of using the New Orleans and gulf coast experience as a model for what has to happen in large populations across the country. Mr. Speaker, I would like to close with a request to submit for the Record an item entitled ``Fact Sheet.'' This deals with community-based and faith-based institutions being involved in this process, and one is called ``Models for Combination Church and School-based Projects for Possible Funding,'' along with my previous statements for the Record. [From the Huffington Post] The Washington Looting of New Orleans (By Representative Major R. Owens) Who lost New Orleans? Our cities are the greatest treasures of our civilization. So why were the levees and the pumping stations emplaced to protect New Orleans from the sea so technologically obsolete? If the descendants of the American geniuses who built large artificial ports at Normandy on D-Day could not design adequate protection, then why didn't we ask the Netherlands to outsource their expert sea management engineers to us long ago? New Orleans will be lost only for a short period. In spite of the paucity of spirit and imagination among our ruling decision-makers, cities will continue to resurrect themselves and survive. But Americans must learn from the lesson of an almost drowned New Orleans. No great American city should be needlessly placed at risk. The rural-centered congressional policies of the last two decades must be radically reversed. The power of senators (in a chamber not based on one man, one vote representation) deal making for small population interests must be curbed. Taxpayer dollars must be spent for projects and programs located where people live. Who is served by expensive bridges in Alaska? Examine the last omnibus budget bill passed by Congress and signed by the president; or review the items listed in the recently signed Surface Transportation Act. For even a high school sophomore one fact will be immediately revealed: the per capita expenditure is far greater in sparsely populated states than it is in the densely populated states where the big cities are located. Each senator from a rural state has many more allies than the senators from states with big cities. In other words, senators who represent urban Americans have less influence. Review the scenario of last year's Senate deliberations on the provision of emergency hurricane relief aid and the power of the states with less people becomes apparent. During the negotiations the Senate rural raiders held the bill hostage until they could extort an extra two billion dollars for a sudden need for drought relief. At the end of this extortion orgy there was no money left for New Orleans where, in 2004, government officials had conducted a training exercise, pinpointed the same water control problems which have now emerged, and accurately predicted the number of casualties we see occurring today. The knowledge was available but the sympathy and sensitivity to cities was smothered. In Washington, particularly the undemocratic Senate, village mind-sets unwilling and/or unable to manage modern complexities are firmly in charge. With billions readily available to make war or implement any other deadly or wasteful priority our leaders deem necessary, why haven't we appropriated the funds needed to save, to maintain, to expand, to glorify our cities? That which is urban is almost synonymous with that which is civilized. Jefferson notwithstanding, the agrarian life permitted the flowering of only a few. In the rural domain nature is to be placed on a much deserved pedestal to be observed and admired. But a city keeps man's feet on the ground where life can be hugged and kissed and ravished; where culture is the unique product of imaginations interacting. Jazz could never have been born in the countryside; and between rows of corn and cotton Satchmo could never have strutted and marched. Ted Koppel wants fervently to lash the New Orleans lawless looters looking for food and bottled water in the sacred supermarkets. Where are the commentators with the guts to go bounty hunting for the government treasury looters who for decades devoured all of the appropriations that should have been saved for our needy cities. Throwing dollars at problems never automatically solves them but in New Orleans there could have been more planning on how to spray the rapidly breeding mosquitoes; how to manage the evacuation of the refugees from the Superdome; how to keep intact a fail-safe system far repairing a breech in the wall around Lake Ponchartrain; how to guarantee at vital installations the necessary auxiliary generating power; how to achieve the immediate deployment of massive numbers of U.S. military helicopters and naval small boats to speedily rescue all stranded inhabitants instead of waiting for the conventional sluggish National Guard and Red Cross buggies to roll out. New Orleans will not be lost forever like Atlantis. Salvaging New Orleans could prove to be a process which fuels the revamping of the corrupted Washington decision-making process. It could spur the salvation of all cities which collectively constitute the core of our modern American civilization. The process must begin with less focus on bread and water looters and more scrutiny of the Washington leadership which has for decades allowed the continuous looting of the federal treasury to enrich the small percentage of the population not dependent on cities. New Orleans has presented us with a hysterical profile which shows that in many vital ways, despite our impressive skyscrapers, we are an underdeveloped civilization. Our masses live in our cities (or the dependent exurbias and suburbs). To foster our nation's security, prosperity and greatness we must expend taxpayer resources on planning, programs and projects which provide the greatest benefits for the greatest numbers. The Washington looting mentality must be replaced with a new Washington creative leadership. the washington looting of new orleans Washington looters still running loose Abusers of New Orleans Embezzlers of canal repair dollars Big shot necks too big for a noose. For the Mardi Gras Neo-con domestic shock and awe Bush budget blunders trapped in the crayfish claw. Grandmothers and babies cry Urban peasant victims die; Oh when the Saints come marching in Judgement will fall on merciless men. Put street looting logs away Only political atrocities on the dock today. Washington looters still running loose Big shot necks too big for a noose.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 3824.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, as a result of recent events related to the E-Rate the education community pauses to honor Dr. Mary Cross for her unwavering commitment to the development and implementation of the E- Rate program, which is making the most advanced communications technologies available to children and adults across the nation, regardless of their race, ethnicity, social or economic status. Before the E-Rate program was implemented in 1997, very few American classrooms had the necessary wiring to connect many children and educators to the world of information outside textbooks and small school library collections. As a result community libraries lacked much of this needed infrastructure to serve the needs of but a few patrons at a time. The role played by Dr. Cross in the early fights to establish the E- Rate was a critical one which established Dr. Mary M. Cross as a Point- of-Light for all Americans. After Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the E-Rate program started to help schools and libraries install and pay for advanced telecommunications resources, giving greatest priority for funding to economically disadvantaged schools. As a result of persistent advocacy and commitment over its 8-year life, the program has provided over $2 billion annually to districts. This has meant accelerating the pace at which technological innovations have entered America's classrooms, a pace that was unimaginable before the E-Rate program. Unfortunately, some corporate giants tried to kill the E-Rate program by trying to cut services. In addition, many education groups were not in total agreement about key issues, which resulted in the E-Rate wars. We appreciate Dr. Cross's work at the American Federation of Teachers, as she fought vigorously in establishing and implementing this vital program by working tirelessly with her education group colleagues, the administration, the Congress, and friendly business interests. We are equally thankful for her responsiveness by giving updates at several Education Braintrust meetings over the years. Her work assured that African American leadership and the community at-large were aware of and engaged in the advocacy needed to launch this program. Mary Cross was born and raised in my hometown of Memphis, TN during the overt and brutal era of legal segregation in America. By tackling racial and gender barriers, she was part of the third class of women ever admitted to Lincoln University (PA) and later went on to graduate school at Princeton University. She became the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton in 1976, where she studied the psychology of learning. Dr. Cross now serves in the AFT's Human Rights and Community Relations Department where she does research, member education, advocacy, and coalition-building on civil and human rights issues. It is clear that the efforts of Dr. Cross and her colleagues paid off, as the E-Rate program has become a $10 billion investment in our schools and libraries. Although the battles for the E-Rate program are by no means over, we stop to take a moment to recognize Mary M. Cross as a tireless Champion for Education and Technology. Dr. Cross is a Point-of-Light for all Americans.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I was absent on Tuesday September 13, 2005 due to a unavoidable circumstances in my Congressional District. Had I been present, I would have voted: ``Yea'' to S. Con Res. 26--Honoring and memorializing the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93; ``Yea'' to H.R. 3649--the Sportfishing and Recreational Boating Safety Amendments Act and ``Yea'' to S. 276--the Wind Cave National Park Boundary Revision Act.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of those who demand a more detailed legislative effort. Official criminal neglect is the crime of New Orleans. First response neglect is the immediate and short-term crime. Our government should've responded faster with more. Long-term crime caused by partisan politics, the greed of powerful selfish legislators who lack compassion, the looting of billions from the Federal treasury for the wrong reasons, the institutionalized prejudices against big cities; all of these evils have festered over the years to produce the highly visible, horrifying gangrene of the New Orleans disaster. Congress and the President deserve high praise for the emergency appropriations. But this allotment is for the weeks and months ahead. On day one of this disaster the U.S. already had all of the resources necessary to achieve the safer, faster and more thorough rescue of the desperate population of New Orleans. Criminal incompetence and some contempt for the stranded population blocked the perceptions of how to speedily mobilize resources. In 1940 at Dunkirk, under heavy fire from German forces, more than 300,000 British troops were rescued and ferried back to England. Success was achieved because Winston Churchill immediately understood the gravity of the situation and called for the mobilization of every vehicle that could float. The crime and the pity is that all of the helicopter and naval craft marvels of our military were not immediately ordered to blanket the flooded neighborhoods of New Orleans. Decades of debate and refusals to seriously address an obviously dangerous set of circumstances facing one of America's great cities is the long-term crime at the heart of this involuntary manslaughter. For decades Washington refused to finance state of the art technology to lessen the dangers of flooding in New Orleans. In recent years the Bush administration has compounded the problem by cutting already inadequate budgets. Since we refused to shield this crime victim from the life- threatening assault that has now been perpetrated, the bleeding New Orleans deserves maximum compensation. The Hurricane Katrina emergency appropriation is a promising beginning. To accomplish its purpose the provisions of the legislation must be expanded to include the following: The establishment of a Right of Resettlement for all who want to return. The immediate establishment of an Emergency Free Communications Network with cell phones for all refugee families. The establishment of a Job Corps for able bodied refugees which mandates their priority hiring for jobs related to the cleanup and rebuilding. The establishment of Faith and Community Based Family Resettlement Projects to assist in the relocation of refugee families. The establishment of Family Resettlement Accounts for families who wish to relocate to some other part of the country. The establishment of an Emergency College Student Temporary Resettlement Program utilizing Colleges that volunteer to receive students, faculty and administrators. The provision of Impact School Aid for school districts where large numbers of refugee families are located. A mandatory review and revamping of the Corps of Army Engineers Master Plan for New Orleans. A federally funded initiative to establish ``Fail Safe'' Committees in local communities. In summary, Congress must act immediately to specify how the Hurricane Katrina appropriation will be spent. There is a clear and present danger that billions will be contracted out to Haliburton type corporations and refugees will receive only a very meager benefit. We members of Congress must remain vigilant to guarantee that no more official crimes will be perpetrated against New Orleans.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to have my name removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 1295.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) profoundly improved the lives of approximately 54 million people with disabilities. Before the ADA, employers routinely denied promotions and jobs to individuals based not on skill, but on discriminatory stereotypes about disabilities. The lack of accommodations in the workplace shut people with disabilities out of the job force, resulting in astounding poverty rates. People with disabilities did not even have the legal tools to fight back because no law recognized their grievances. On July 26, 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the ADA, transforming America into a more accessible country. The ADA gave people with disabilities the right to be accommodated in the workplace, a fair grievance process for discrimination suits, equal access to public services, transportation and telecommunications. People with disabilities are no longer unnecessarily shut away; they have the ability to counteract discriminatory practices and have a fair chance to become productive members of society. I enthusiastically support the Hoyer Resolution commemorating the 15th Anniversary of the ADA, the largest civil rights achievement since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By celebrating and recognizing the 15th Anniversary of the ADA, Congress honors the United States' commitment to equality and justice. I hope that by recommitting Congress to the full enforcement and support of the ADA, all members will work harder to reduce the still-high unemployment rate among people with disabilities with the capacity to work. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution that recognizes the enormous potential impact of this untapped workforce in our global economy.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, In politics apologies are always important. We need more apologies and less fiction among nations and groups. We need apologies that help to avoid wars. Apologies can never be adequate substitutions for restitution or reparations; however, apologies offer their own alternative satisfaction. The present German nation has apologized for the Nazi German Holocaust. But the Koreans and Chinese are not happy with the rather muddled apologies of the Japanese for the atrocities of World War II. And, of course, no one has ever apologized for the Atlantic Slave Trade and two hundred and fifty years of slavery in America. Despite the fact that there is still a huge apology gap in our civilization, we must applaud small apologies wherever they occur. We applaud Republican National Committee Chairman Mehlman for his recent statement to the NAACP apologizing for the ``Republican Southern Strategy''. This speech was given still more credibility when House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner, at that same NAACP Conference, pledged to lead the fight for the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. Mehlman's apology appears to perhaps be a sparkplug for the launching of a new Republican offensive to capture more Black votes. A suffering Black community challenges the Party of Lincoln to show us some concrete policy and program deeds to match the apologies. Listen to the plea of the following RAP poem: Apologies Are Real Cool To apologize Is real cool But don't play The Black agenda For no eager fool. Don't rush to play, Delay thumping your chest, Push your words Into the action test: Jobs right now we need, Hungry mouths we have to feed, Lots of ills But can't buy pills. Prison terms often repeat Homeless shelters Are never neat. Tax cuts we can't eat, Iraq war dollars wasted Spell school repair defeat. Right now! Take the action test. Show us the Bush best. For any apology We grant a pat On the Republican back; From Democrats The slavery apology We desperately lack. To apologize Is real cool But don't play The Black agenda For no eager fool.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate my colleague from California (Ms. Woolsey) on the 100th occasion of speaking on this very important subject. The gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) has maintained a drumbeat of truth on one of the most important issues, probably the most important issue, facing our Nation. It is a most important moral issue. It is the most important political issue also. It is moral because human life is sacred, and too many souls have already been destroyed in this war on both sides, on all sides. The insurgent fanatics who seem to be growing unlimited are not really that powerful. Insurgent fanatics do not have the support of the majority of the people. A clearly articulated plan for withdrawal will drastically decrease the clusters of support that the fanatic killers have. If people could see the movement towards some progress in resolving this problem, they would abandon the fanatics at a faster rate. Let us propose a plan. And I do not disagree with any of the plans and proposals that have been made by my colleague, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) in her 100 presentations, or plans that have been made by my other colleagues. I think that we have enough brainpower in America with our think tanks and our various academic circles, et cetera, to come up with a plan which really can work. I want to just add that in that plan should be some more open discussion and honest discussion of oil, the oil wealth of Iraq. Too little is being said about the oil wealth of Iraq and what is going to happen to the oil wealth of Iraq. The people of Iraq, the different factions, I think, would begin to react differently if they heard from America a clear statement of how we propose to fairly divide the oil wealth of Iraq. First, they will want to hear that we are not going to take a disproportionate amount in investment returns and technical assistance fees, et cetera. That is the first thing they want to hear. But the biggest things for the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Shiites is how will the oil well be divided as they draw boundaries for sectors or provinces or states or whatever they are going to do in their constitution to divide up the nation. I think we ought to put on the table, tell the Sunnis, the Kurds, and the Shiites that the oil wells will be fairly shared by all revenue benefits being assigned on a per capita basis, regardless of ethnicity or geographic location; that the revenue, the profits, are going to be divided equally on a per capita basis. So if one area of the country occupied by the Kurds has a certain population, they will get according to the population their share of the oil no matter where the wells are located. No matter where the oil wells are located, those who live in Baghdad, whether Shiite or Sunnis, their particular sector would get a share of the oil revenues also. I think it is also important because it is necessary to draw some boundaries in this constitutional process, and they will be drawing boundaries. Whether by state or by provinces or whatever, there are going to be boundaries; and there is a need to have some kind of understanding that concentrations of ethnic groups or concentrations of religious affiliations need to be respected. So there will be a necessity to draw some sectors that have a majority of Sunnis, necessity to draw boundaries which have a majority of Shiites, et cetera with the Kurds. This nation was held together, I think, partially due to the principle that it was divided up into states so that many different kinds of personalities and groups could express themselves through a state process when the states were more independent and the national government was less of an entity. I think the same process would hold in the case of Iraq. We should have a chance for groups to express themselves for local decision-making to be maximized in those areas, in those sectors. But, overall, they should understand they are not going to be starved for revenue, that the riches underneath the Earth in Iraq are going to be available to every group no matter where they are located. I think it is up to us to have that kind of honest discussion. There is too little talk about exactly what we are going to do about the oil in Iraq, and too many whispers and too many rumors about our having some kind of hidden agenda that is not to the benefit of Iraq. Let us tell the people of Iraq what we are going to do with the oil.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Speaker, none of us could be against removing barriers. However, the definition of barriers allows room for a lot of disagreement. It is very interesting that the thrust of this resolution is that regulations in the United States are barriers to competitiveness, and yet our economy is linked to a nation which has the maximum number of barriers in terms of regulatory procedures, the economy of China. China is still a communist government. China is still an economy ruled by a communist government, which means they can set up regulations as they see fit and change the rules as they see fit, and yet we are linking our economic fate to China. Our industries have moved on a wholesale basis to China. Obviously, regulation is not ruining the situation in the Chinese economy, and our propensity for dealing with this communist/capitalist country, this mongrel, whatever economy we want to call it, our greedy manufacturing industry has gone there. Retail and wholesale industries are bringing back the consumer goods. We just love China. Wall Street loves China, and China is a very tightly regulated economy. The greatest barrier one can imagine is there, and yet they thrive. I want to run through a few of the whereases in this very interesting resolution which covers a lot of territory. One cannot disagree with some of the whereases: Whereas our technology is driving economic growth around the world, as shown by the fact that the global market for high-technology goods is growing at a faster rate than the rate for other manufactured goods. I agree with that whereas. Whereas more than 1 million American jobs are dependent upon research and development; whereas the cost of medical care in the United States regularly outpaces general inflation. How can I disagree with that? That is a fact. Whereas 90 percent of Americans who are under age 65 and covered by health insurance currently obtain that insurance through employers. Maybe that is a barrier we want to remove by having a national health care plan which takes some of the burden off employers. I would be in favor of that, certainly. Whereas 85 percent of the jobs are classified as skilled jobs, and in 1950, only 20 percent were so classified. That is a fact. Whereas 80 percent of the 50 fastest-growing occupations require education beyond high school. Let us pause there. Is that fact going to lead to a recommendation that we expend more money to improve our education system, that we catch up with some of the nations in the world? Do Members know that the richest nation in Europe now is Ireland? Ireland. Ireland is the richest nation in Europe. In terms of per capita income, Ireland has the highest per capita income. Why, because the Irish decided a couple of decades ago to invest wholeheartedly into a state-of-the-art public school system. Now they have moved beyond that, and they are providing free higher education. So an Irish youngster can develop in the free system right up to the end of his higher education. So that is a barrier that we would like to remove. So we agree that this is significant, that 80 percent of the 50 fastest-growing occupations require higher education beyond high school, and yet we are shortchanging our education. No Child Left Behind has been shortchanged by $20-some billion over the last few years. Whereas, despite spending $60 billion per year on training, 60 percent of the United States companies are prevented from upgrading technologically by the low education and technical skills level of their workforce. That is a fact. We can agree with that. Our public school system ought to be doing a better job. Whereas, in 2002, trial lawyers received approximately $40 billion from litigation, more than the annual revenues of Microsoft and Intel, and twice the revenue of Coca-Cola. What does that have to do with anything? Why did they take a swipe at the trial lawyers in the midst of the whereases? The money received by the trial lawyers was money used to defend ordinary Americans. How about the corporate lawyers? You do not have a whereas about the corporate lawyers, or a whereas about the tremendous amount of corruption in corporate America that the Republican Party refuses to even hold hearings about. Enron, WorldCom, a whole series of criminal activities that have been unveiled by the attorney general of New York State, nobody wants to deal with that corruption. That is a barrier to our success and our competitiveness. I hope that you will address some of these whereases that I have just mentioned in terms of some answers as to why we do not pursue the obvious, commonsense solutions.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, as an original cosponsor of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2005, I urge the Members to defeat the previous question on the rule and to allow a vote on raising the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is a very important matter for working families in America. The four bills we will have before us today are packaged and they are designed to try to trivialize one aspect of the government's relationship with working families: their safety. We want to trivialize workers it seems, and working families in every way possible. In fact, the gentleman just before said unless you have created a job, you do not deserve the right to speak on policy. Only those who have created jobs. Well, one might take the attitude that unless you have fought in combat on the front lines in America, you do not deserve to make policy. Working families provide the soldiers who defend this Nation. In all the wars, 90 percent of the people who die are from working families. In Iraq, the people on the front lines are from working families. Working families deserve the protection of their government on the job through OSHA and any other device we can use. They also deserve an increase in the minimum wage. Let us take a look at the scandal of the minimum wage. Let us stop for a moment and consider the fact that Members of Congress have had several increases in their wages in the past 8 years. Members of Congress will have raised their own pay seven times by $28,500. Let me repeat, in the past 8 years, Members of Congress have raised their own pay seven times by $28,500. In those same 8 years, minimum-wage workers have not increased their wage by a single penny. They continue to earn $10,700 a year, $5.15 an hour. All we are saying is, please, Members of Congress who have gotten a $28,500 raise in the last 8 years, let us all together sponsor a very moderate, conservative bill, it is far too conservative for me, but where we would raise minimum wage to $7.25 an hour in three steps. Our bill only proposes that we raise it to $5.85 an hour 60 days after the enactment of the legislation. We raise it to $6.05, 1 year later, and 1 year after that, we raise it to $7.25. That is what we are proposing. Who can disagree with that? Today, the real value of minimum wage is more than $3 below what it was in 1968. To have the purchasing power it had in 1968, the minimum wage would need to be more than $8.50 today. I strongly urge that we consider this amendment. Working families in America deserve some of the fruits of the Nation's prosperity. They deserve to have their government not only call upon them to defend the country in times of war and to die, they deserve to have their government look out for their interests all of the time. Giving them a way to earn a living is a good beginning. The neglect that we have experienced on the battlefield of Iraq with combat soldiers not being properly outfitted is a reflection of the way we feel about working families. Working families deserve our attention. I urge Members to defeat the previous question.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, we are here again. We went through this marathon a year ago. We have had several sets of hearings and markups on these four bills, and one would think they are very important. They are important, but in the reverse way. They are not important to protect the health and safety of working families in America. They are important because they are trying to trivialize the whole safety component of the Department of Labor and the whole safety responsibility of the government. They want to trivialize it and make it seem insignificant and unimportant. I understand each of the four bills amending the Occupational Safety and Health Act now on the floor will be considered individually, and I would therefore save my comments on the specifics of the other three bills until the appropriate time. When you consider these four bills as an entire package, however, it becomes very clear that they will seriously erode the enforcement of U.S. safety standards, they will undermine the ability of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to enforce on-the-job safety standards, and will only add to more worker deaths and more serious injuries. It will not only lead to the Department of Labor becoming more and more the department against laborers, the department against working people; by bringing these bills to the House floor, the Republican leadership shows yet again just how out of step it is with the American people. In this case, the House Republican leadership is backing four bills to weaken OSHA at the very time that the American public is demanding the exact opposite be done. According to a recent poll sponsored by the Wall Street Journal, eight out of every ten Americans believe Congress should be passing legislation to ensure greater health and safety in the workplace. Let me repeat that: The Wall Street Journal, which is hardly a liberal publication, they sponsored a poll in April 2005 revealing that 84 percent of those surveyed want lawmakers to pass bills ensuring safer workplaces in America. That is 84 percent. Parade Magazine, another mainstream publication, tells us the same story. An article published in the April 10 issue of Parade Magazine assessed our national priorities based on 2005 dollar allocations for government programs. The article juxtaposed business versus safety, pointing out that this year's funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission is $888 million and the Small Business Administration, which is $580 million, far exceeds that for OSHA, which is $464 million, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission which is $63 million. The amount dedicated to business, Parade Magazine concludes, is close to $1 billion more than that dedicated to safety in this simple comparison. The OSHA bills being voted on today will only serve to exacerbate this huge divide between Federal investments in business versus safety. One of the bills, H.R. 742, will even require OSHA to spend part of its meager budget rewarding certain employers who are repeat safety violators. This bill would reimburse firms that are repeat safety offenders for attorneys' fees whenever OSHA citations are downgraded on a technicality during administrative or court proceedings. The American people are serious about seeing tougher laws enacted to improve safety on the job, and their concerns are well founded. In a hearing last month, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board underscored the fact that chemical dust explosions represent a serious industrial hazard in this country. Since 1980, 200-plus explosions and dust fires in U.S. plants caused the deaths of 100 workers and significant injuries to 600 others. Even though the Chemical Safety Board chair stresses that these industrial explosions are clearly preventable, no comprehensive Federal effort has yet been established to address these clearly preventable explosions. As recent headlines about worker deaths in Texas, New York and Ohio have revealed, American workers are far too often killed or severely injured as a result of safety violations by employers who have lengthy histories of similar offenses. In March 2005, 15 workers were killed and more than a hundred injured in a massive British Petroleum refinery blast. A preliminary Chemical Safety Board investigation indicates that faulty equipment was a key factor in this terrible explosion which also destroyed buildings and cars. Yet OSHA had already fined the same British Petroleum plant $100,000 in September 2004 for safety violations that at that time had killed two workers. In fact, OSHA had previously cited and issued a fine of $63,000 in March 2004 to that British Petroleum plant for 14 safety violations. Even though the Texas City British Petroleum Plant is clearly a repeat safety offender, OSHA routinely reduces penalties and downgrades violation findings as a means of encouraging correction of the problem. I suppose that is what is alluded to by this voluntary compliance. They are going to voluntarily comply one day, but in the meantime, many more workers will be killed. A newly released analysis of 2,500 inspections of New York construction sites reveal similar patterns of serious and frequent violations of OSHA safety standards. Nearly two-thirds of all violations in 2003 involved faulty scaffoldings and/or the failure to provide fall protection equipment. Scaffolding collapses and falls are the most common cause of construction worker hospitalizations and deaths of three or more workers. Sponsored by the New York Committee on Safety and Health, this report recommended more vigorous OSHA enforcement and the hiring of more OSHA inspection officers, among other remedies. Under its current staffing, it would take OSHA 108 years to inspect all of the workplaces in the United States. Yet this administration has proposed that we hire 41 new auditors to audit organized labor records. If we have the money for 41 new auditors to audit the petty cash records of labor unions, surely we ought to be able to find the money to hire more inspectors and have those inspectors be inspectors not on a voluntary compliance basis but on a serious basis to save lives and injuries. OSHA also lacks adequate safety standards to cope with globalization. Four ironworkers killed last year by a massive crane collapse near Toledo, Ohio, were working for a contractor with a history of repeated safety violations. Moreover, OSHA has yet to release a standard an advisory committee drafted a year ago to govern inspection of cranes manufactured in Europe, as the crane in the Ohio fatalities had been. In closing, the American people are watching us. By an overwhelming majority, the public wants to pass bills to strengthen OSHA, not to weaken OSHA. They want safer workplaces in America. The bills before us now do just the opposite. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting ``no'' on these bills. Madam Speaker, I include for the Record letters from the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the UAW, AFSCME, as well the United Steelworkers in opposition to these bills. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Washington, DC, July 11, 2005. Dear Representative: I am writing to express the strong opposition of the AFL-CIO to H.R. 739, H.R. 740, H.R. 741 and H.R. 742, four bills that would erode worker protections under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. These bills, which are scheduled for a floor vote the week of July 11, 2005, would change established law and procedures to benefit employers and stifle OSHA enforcement. They would do nothing to enhance workers' safety and health protection, while weakening the OSHAct. We are particularly concerned about H.R. 742 and H.R. 741, because these two bills would significantly undermine OSHA's ability to carry out its core mission. H.R. 742. Occupational Safety and Health Small Employer Access to Justice Act--This bill requires taxpayers to pay the legal costs of small employers who prevail in any administrative or enforcement case brought by OSHA regardless of whether the action was substantially justified. The language expands provisions of the current Equal Access to Justice Act, which already permits small businesses to recover litigation costs where the government position was not substantially justified. H.R. 742 will have a chilling effect on both OSHA enforcement and OSHA standard setting. OSHA will be hesitant to cite employers for violations of the OSHAct unless there is absolute certainty that the enforcement action will not be challenged, will be upheld or there will be no modification in the terms of action. Similarly, unless OSHA is certain that a standard will not be challenged (which they are routinely for any number of reasons), it would not dare begin the rulemaking process on any hazard no matter how grave the threat of the hazard to workers. No rational public policy would be furthered by discouraging OSHA from issuing citations that are substantially justified, but as to which the government ultimately is unable to carry its burden of proof. Rather, the inevitable result of such a rule, which would penalize the government every time it loses, would be to chill the issuance of meritorious citations in close cases on behalf of employees exposed to unsafe working conditions. This bill would further weaken OSHA enforcement efforts and standard setting to the detriment of American workers. Across all industries, establishments with fewer than 100 employees (which in 2000 made up 97.7 percent of all private sector establishments) have a higher rate of fatal occupational injury than do establishments with 100 or more workers. Effectively hampering OSHA's enforcement ability in these establishments would be devastating to workers, resulting in even higher rates of worker fatalities, injury and illness. The number of OSHA enforcement actions that involve contested adjudications is fairly small, the penalties are generally modest, and the substantive and procedural standards already accommodate the interests of small-business litigants. To be clear, there is no evidence that this legislation is necessary. The result of H.R. 742 will be a skewed set of enforcement priorities and a risk of injury, illness and even death to workers. H.R. 741. Occupational Safety and Health Independent Review of OSHA Citations Act--This bill would change the Act to give deference to the Commission regarding the interpretation of OSHA standards. The bill seeks to overturn a 1991 decision by the Supreme Court that found that deference should be given to the Secretary of Labor as the official responsible for enforcing the OSHAct. The Secretary of Labor has much greater experience and expertise regarding the interpretation of safety and health standards and regulations than the Commission. The Secretary develops the rules and is responsible for their broad application. In contrast, the Commission only reviews the application of standards in those few cases that are contested and come before the Commission. Giving deference to the Commission would create an incentive for challenges to the Secretary's rules and interpretations, undermining the Secretary's policymaking and enforcement functions. H.R. 740. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission Efficiency Act--The bill requires that the number of members on the Commission be increased from three to five and that all members must be attorneys. It also seeks to allow members whose terms have expired to continue serving on the Commission for an additional 365 days in cases where no successor has been confirmed by the Senate. The Review Commission has operated with three Commissioners since it was first formed in 1970. Increasing the size of the Commission from three to five members is not necessary and would enable the Bush Administration to stack the review commission with business-friendly appointees. The requirement that the Commissioners be lawyers would exclude a large pool of talented persons from service. Allowing members whose terms have expired to continue serving on the Commission for an additional 365 days unless a new appointee is confirmed by the Senate may mean a sitting member could have a de facto seven year term, dending on the political makeup of the Senate and White House. The current requirement that a member step down at the expiration of his or her term is appropriate and maintains pressure on all parties to work together to select a qualified person for the Commission. Under this legislation, rather than having two members for a working quorum, three will be needed. However due to the way the language is crafted a minority of the Commission and fewer than a quorum could take action. This makes no sense and opens the door to abuses of power. Moreover, there is not enough enforcement activity at OSHA to warrant five commissioners. H.R. 739. Occupational Safety and Health Small Business Day in Court Act--This bill seeks to excuse employers who miss the fifteen-day timeframe to contest citations and failure to abate notices. Its practical effect would be to make numerous excuses into legal reasons for missing the fifteen-day timeframe in which employers currently must respond to OSHA citations. This action will only encourage more litigation. The idea of the fifteen-day requirement is to give all parties a reasonable timeframe in which to take action, and to ensure that the case is moved along as quickly as possible so the hazards cited will be addressed in as timely a manner as is possible. The Commission should be able to review any missed deadlines on a case-by-case basis, as is currently the practice. The one case being held up to demonstrate an insurmountable obstacle for employers is just that--one case. No legitimate reason has been presented as to the need for this bill. As demonstrated above, these bills undermine the intent of the Congress when it enacted the OSHAct more than 30 years ago. Generally speaking, these policies and procedures have been serving workers well for over 30 years. American workers deserve a safe and healthy workplace and the full protection the OSHAct can offer. These bills would surely diminish the protections provided to workers by the OSHAct. For these reasons, the AFL-CIO opposes these four bills, and we strongly urge you to vote against each of them. Sincerely, William Samuel, Director, Department of Legislation.

Mr. OWENS

Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I want to sum up and repeat, because I think it deserves repeating. First and most importantly, no one has really shown a need to increase the size of the commission from three to five members. We find it very unusual that the majority party with great emphasis on saving dollars on education and a number of much needed programs, wants to waste a little money on two additional members, create a little bit more of a bureaucracy by having two more members to make a decision. Instead of five people, three people can make this decision. They have been functioning with three members since the creation in 1970. Why should it be any different now? Given the enormous deficit spending promoted by this Republican majority, there is no real purpose in adding members and swelling the ranks. Last but not least, I find it quite ironic also that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to tack on the requirement that the commission members have legal training. I think you have heard the expression that our colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood), often makes about the government being over burdened with lawyers. So I am surprised to hear that the leaning of this bill as we read it would certainly require more appointment of lawyers or somebody similar to lawyers. There is no demonstrated need for such a requirement. There is no demonstrated need for this particular addition to the bill. The capacity of OSHA to produce cases is steadily shrinking as a result of the steady chip-away strategy of the Republican majority. They have chipped away at the budget every year. OSHA is far smaller and far less effective than it was when the Republican majority took power in the House. Certainly that was accelerated when the Republicans took control of the White House as well as the House. So OSHA is under attack in a way which produces less work for such a commission. Why should we increase the size of the commission when there is less work for it? It is part of the pattern to chip away in every little way and trivialize what OSHA is all about. At the same time, the only parts of the Department of Labor that are being increased are those parts that are aimed at attacking organized labor, the organizations that represent working families. We happen to know there is a great push on to drive the unions into the ground with trivial audits, financial audits mostly, of petty cash, the receipts for cab fare and receipts for lunch. Various efforts are underway at this point to force labor unions to defend themselves from bookkeeping errors. The same kind of zeal needs to be expressed in the way that OSHA is staffed and manned to provide the basic necessities to keep our workplace safe for our workers. Let us just discuss for a moment the 2,578 OSHA violations in Georgia in 2002. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration in 2002 issued an average of seven citations a day to Georgia businesses that year. OSHA found 2,578 violations of its rules during 1,481 inspections of companies operating in Georgia and documented more than 50 workplace deaths in that year. In 2001, OSHA issued 2,962 citations, more than eight a day, and 1,596 inspections in Georgia. So 2002 had improved a bit from 2001. But I think it would be good if Members got in touch with what is happening in their States and in their districts. The Atlanta Business Chronicle documented this information in an article published March 23, 2003. At that time, the Atlanta Business Chronicle had documented safety concerns in three of Georgia's largest companies, the Home Depot Incorporated, the Georgia Pacific Corporation, and United Parcel Service Incorporated. But as OSHA records show, safety is a widespread concern among many Georgia companies. On February 24, OSHA issued a list of 14,200 U.S. facilities that had accident and illness rates at twice the national average. The national average is about three illnesses or injuries for every 100 workers that are serious enough to cause employees to lose time from work. Included in OSHA's list were 563 workplaces in Georgia, and more than 200 of them were in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Wal-Mart stores, the Nation's largest retailer, had the largest single number of Georgia facilities on the list, 11. Of the companies based in Georgia, United Parcel Service had the most facilities on the list with 174 nationwide. Out of all the Georgia companies during 2003, Durango-Georgia Paper Company in St. Mary's was fined the most by OSHA. OSHA assessed Durango-Georgia $258,000 after an August 19 boiler explosion that killed two workers and injured one. OSHA found 48 violations during an investigation of that accident. In addition to the safety violations that contributed to that explosion, OSHA cited the company for allowing employees to work at heights of up to 50 feet without fall protection and for requiring employees to stand on a conveyor belt to remove jammed logs without adequate protection against being caught in a machine. It was not the first large fine against that paper manufacturer. OSHA fined the company $157,000 after an accident had resulted in the double amputation of a worker. In 2000, the company had paid $220,250 for 12 citations. The pattern goes on and on. The American workplace is not a safe place. It becomes more complicated all the time. The new chemicals, new machines, and new challenges, the building of houses, buildings and facilities at higher heights, for example all lead to complications. We talk about small businesses, and it is true that a large number of construction businesses are small businesses. That does not make the work that their workers do any less dangerous. The fact that they are a small business does not remove the fact that their workers must use scaffolding. Small business workers have trenches that they dig. They are doing work that is very dirty and very dangerous. The workers in small constructin firms deserve protection. Small contractors are also the ones who are most likely to disobey immigration laws and have large numbers of people who are illegal immigrants working in their facilities. And therefore, I have noted before we have a noticeable large number of deaths of immigrants in the construction industry. And this is not confined to Georgia or any one State. This spreads right across the country. The employers of construction companies know that they can save money by disobeying the law and using illegal immigrants. So it has become a major problem. Again, the working families of America deserve better. We have come to the point where our economy is compared to other economies in our global partnerships around the world. We compare ourselves and say, Oh, it is awful that we cannot compete better with China. Well, China was organized as a country which has dictatorship of the proletariat. Dictatorship of the proletariat meant workers were going to be charge. All of the unions in China are collapsing to the government. China produces a large part of its consumer goods in prisons. They produce a large part of their consumer goods in factories where workers are paid less than a dollar a day. It is not useful for us to invoke the third world countries, the developing countries and China--I do not know what China would be categorized as--with exploiting companies and decide that we ought to be more like that so we can be more competitive. Some allege that one way we can be more competitive is to make the workplace less safe, by providing employers with a situation where they do not have to worry about workers' safety. China--as a dictatorship--can do what they want to with their workers. They can continue, as I pointed out, pay workers the lowest possible wages, and they can also not spend any money on guaranteeing worker safety. So given the fact that we are on the floor for the second time in 2 years with these four bills, it is an opportunity for us to educate our colleagues as to the seriousness of the current situation in the American workplace today. We must be more sensitive to the fact that our working families are out there suffering. Our health care situation does not get any better. We need to come to the rescue of private enterprise in terms of their pension funds collapsing. And their health care systems are so expensive that they are now calling for help from the government. All of this is part of a threatening and more intimidating atmosphere that mushrooms all the time against the interests of working families. And the attack on OSHA, which is consistent, the harassment of OSHA, the downgrading of OSHA, the chip-away erosive effect of OSHA is all part of that pattern. A Department of Labor which declares it has no money to really have an OSHA that functions appropriately is the Department of Labor which has managed to spend a great deal of money on the faith-based initiative. We noticed that large amounts of money from the Department of Labor have gone to faith-based initiatives over the last few years, and that is a great mystery as to how that money was doled out, under what criteria was it given to certain faith-based organizations. I think one got more than $1 million. It was on the front page of the New York Times. The Department of Labor had given a grant to one faith- based group for more than $1 million, and we do not know what it is the DOL is doing here. This all happened right before the November 2004 election. So the Department of Labor is being used for some good purpose for some group or some persons, but it is certainly not being used as the advocate for working families. And today's exercise is just one more example of how the drum beat goes on. The effort continues to minimize and trivialize that which is most important for working families in this country. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca). (Mr. BACA asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)