Tom Osborne

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, at the present time we are conducting some talks, WTO negotiations, involving the European Union. I would like to call attention to some figures that I think most people are not totally aware of. First of all, if you compare the United States economy with the European Union, the United States economy is $11.7 trillion annually and the European Union is $9.4 trillion. So they are pretty comparable. The import tariffs we have on goods coming from the European Union into the U.S. are 12 percent, and tariffs on U.S. goods going into the European Union are 30 percent. So we have comparable economies and yet a tremendous disparity in tariffs. This led to an agricultural trade deficit of minus $6.3 billion last year, which was the biggest deficit that we had with any entity that we were trading with for agriculture. On export subsidies, the European Union provides $3 billion and we provide $31.5 million, so they are roughly 100 to 1 on money they spend on subsidizing their exports to other countries. As far as farm subsidies per acre are concerned, the United States subsidizes agriculture at $38 per acre with the European Union at $295 an acre. So this is a tremendous discrepancy. One other set of data I wish to point out is that we have had two cases of BSE, or mad cow disease, in the United States. The European Union has had 189,102 in the European Union in the last 10, 15 years. Yet the European Union excludes our exports of beef into the European Union, our pork, our genetically modified crops, such as corn, and also poultry. So we are really having a very difficult time with the European Union when you look at all these figures. Currently, we are having some preliminary WTO talks where we are looking at some ways to try to fix world trade, and I want to point out a couple of things. First of all, we are proposing that the United States reduce farm subsidies 60 percent, which would mean that we would drop our subsidies from $19 billion a year to roughly $17.5 billion a year, and at the same time we are proposing that the European Union reduce agricultural subsidies to 83 percent, which would be a decrease from $80 billion down to $15 billion. That is a big drop, but still the European Union would be subsidizing double what the United States does. The European Union has rejected this offer at the present time. I think it is important that people realize what happens in the next round of WTO talks will have great implications for the next farm bill which will be written in 2007 and go into effect in 2008. We are apt to see a move toward conservation types of payments, away from traditional types of payment. We will have to be concerned about developing countries like Brazil. Brazil has land valued at $250 to $500 an acre. They have enough rain and topsoil to produce two crops a year. Their labor is 50 cents an hour. They can pretty well bury us if we do not provide some subsidy for our agriculture. Lastly, I would like to issue a warning. We saw what happened to our petroleum industry. We found we could buy a barrel of oil from OPEC a few years ago for $10 a barrel. We began to get more and more from OPEC. Finally, we are pretty well dependent on foreign sources of oil. We cannot afford to let this happen to our agricultural economy. Certainly changes are in order, but I think it is important we proceed cautiously because we do not lose our food supply to foreign sources, which would be even more devastating than losing our oil supply to sources abroad.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, as I travel my district in Nebraska, the number one concern is high fuel prices, and I would assume that is true for a great many Members in this Chamber. The reasons are somewhat obvious. Worldwide demand for petroleum has increased. China and India are using more oil than ever before. We are nearly 60 percent dependent on foreign oil at the present time. OPEC can, to some degree, set oil prices because of that. And of course more recently the hurricanes have shut down some of our refineries. So we took a good first step last July in passing the energy bill. The renewable fuel standards require 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol or biodiesel by 2012, which nearly doubles the amount of renewable fuels. Also the energy bill expedites access to 2 trillion barrels of oil in U.S. oil shale deposits. And also it promotes an initiative for the production of hydrogen fuel cells, which I think in 15 to 20 years can pretty much remove demand for petroleum fuel products. However, we do need some immediate relief, something quicker than the energy bill passed in July can provide. We have had no new refineries built since 1976. It is almost impossible to get a building permit for a new refinery, and so as a result our refineries are operating at roughly 95 percent of full capacity, whereas most in the industry operate somewhere around 75 percent to 80 percent of capacity. So any slight disruption in the process can put us right over the edge, as happened with the hurricanes. Many Americans are currently spending 10 percent of their income on gasoline, particularly low-income Americans. The agriculture profits have been eaten up by high fuel costs, so many farmers in my area are losing money because of the high fuel costs. The Gasoline for Americas Security Act of 2005 will be introduced tomorrow, and we will vote on it. I think there are some tremendous aspects of this bill. Number one, it encourages increased refinery capacity by removing regulatory and permitting roadblocks. We have not been able to build one because of all of the environmental concerns. Number two, it reduces the boutique fuels from somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to six. Every time you switch from one type of fuel to another, you shut down the refinery, clean out all of the pipes, very time-consuming and very expensive; and this reduces that process to about six types of fuel. It also removes red tape from pipeline construction. Above all, one of the most important things, it removes the loan guarantees on the Alaska pipeline unless that pipeline is started within the next 2 years. So far we need that pipeline badly because we need the gas that comes from Canada and Alaska, and that pipeline would provide a very valuable source. Fourth, it promotes carpooling through education and incentives which will save petroleum. And last, it prevents price gouging and requires the Federal Trade Commission to draft a standard definition of price gouging, because right now everybody has their own definition, and it will provide some enforcement guidelines. Mr. Speaker, I think it is a good bill. I am looking forward to it. I think it can provide some immediate relief in this country in an area where we can stand some help.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, I serve a very rural district, a lot of landowners. Currently, a landowner with an endangered species on his land often sees the species as a threat to his survival. That is not good for the species, and it is certainly not good for the landowner. It is not working. It is largely adversarial. H.R. 3824 provides incentives for landowners to preserve endangered species, and this will help the species, and it will help people as well. In 1978, 50 miles of the Central Platte River in Nebraska was designated as critical habitat for whooping cranes. Only 3 to 4 percent of the whooping cranes visit the Platte River annually. The great majority of whooping cranes never see the Platte River, never visit it at all; and so many have questioned this designation because this designation has led to a cooperative agreement between Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming involving thousands of acres of lands, hundreds of thousands of feet of water to support critical habitat; and it is still not complete after 8 years of spending millions of dollars. So we have case after case after case like this where this thing simply is not working well. Hopefully, applying the best available current science required by this legislation will improve this process. I think it will. I thank the gentleman from California (Chairman Pombo) for his efforts, as well as the gentleman from California (Mr. Cardoza), and ask support for H.R. 3824.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, later this year, another round of World Trade Organization talks will be held. Those talks will be pivotal for the United States economy, especially for our agriculture sector. Of critical importance will be the role the European Union plays in these negotiations along with the United States. I would like to point out some things, Mr. Speaker, regarding our situation with the European Union. First of all, as far as the economy of both the United States and the European Union is concerned, they are fairly equal. We have an economy of $11.7 trillion, European Union is $9.4 trillion. And in spite of that equality, our tariffs are very different. Those commodities from the European Union coming into the United States are tariffed at 12 percent. Our commodities going into the European Union are tariffed at 30 percent. So it is more than double. It is hard to understand why with roughly equivalent economies, we have this disparity. The agriculture trade deficit, partly because of this and some other things I am going to discuss in a minute, for the United States last year was a minus $6.3 billion. The European Union obviously benefited to the tune of $6.3 billion in trade. Now, the interesting thing is that the European Union provides $3 billion in export subsidies. The United States provides $31.5 million. These are subsidies that enhance the opportunity to trade with other countries. So that difference is 90 to 1. They spend 90 times more money to export subsidies than we do, and of course this apparently is allowed under WTO rules. This is one of the major complaints that other countries have about the whole trade situation internationally. Another issue that is of some interest to those of us in the United States is the fact that we subsidize our agriculture to the tune of $38 per acre. By contrast, the European Union subsidizes their agriculture $295 per acre. Now, the reason this is important is that within the next year, we are going to start rewriting the farm bill and we will have tremendous pressure, particularly from the European Union, to do away with these subsidies here that amount to $38 an acre, even though they are providing $295 an acre. The reason for that is they are priding themselves on the fact that they have gone with what they call decoupled payments in the past year. This means their payment is not linked to production. It is simply a payment to the farmers. Our payments are largely linked to production. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on our farm bill because we may be forced to some degree to go away from some of our subsidies as we now provide them, even though they are much less than what the European Union provides. Another issue that is rather interesting is that the United States has had a total of two cases of BSE, or what is commonly referred to as ``mad cow disease.'' In contrast, the European Union has 189,102 cases of BSE. Now the reason that is interesting is they have effectively eliminated our beef exports into the European Union even though we have demonstrated that we have probably the safest beef supply in the world. You say, how in the world can they do this? Last year in 2004, they had 756 cases of BSE where we had one this last year. And so the reason is that they simply have said, Well, you are using hormones with your beef and, therefore, it is unsafe. And, of course, the WTO has filed a suit against them and they are paying a fine, but it is just the cost of doing business. In addition to this, they are also disallowing our imports of pork, our imports of poultry and also genetically modified corn and genetically modified soybeans. So in every one of these cases, they have used various means and methods to keep our products out. So what we are seeing here is in this next round of talks, if the European Union is not brought around to the point where our farmers feel they are being fairly treated, we are going to have a hard time getting any kind of a trade agreement through this body. You often hear our farmers say, we like free trade, but we especially want fair trade. I would say right now the biggest obstacle to what appears to be fair trade within the WTO framework is our relationship with the European Union. So we certainly think that these things need to be pointed out. We would like to see those things addressed in the next round of talks.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. These arguments are well rehearsed. We seem to go through these on a regular basis, and I certainly admire the tenacity with which the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) and others defend their position. However, as has already been stated, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I believe, does explicitly protect the rights of faith-based organizations to exercise their civil liberties and take religion into account in their hiring practices, and I do not know why we seem to continually have trouble assimilating that into our collective body of knowledge here. When faith-based groups hire employees on a religious basis, they are exercising their civil liberties. The Civil Rights Act made clear when faith-based groups hire employees on a religious basis, it is an exercise of the groups' civil liberties. It does not constitute discrimination under Federal law. I believe one of the major issues here is that faith-based organizations are allowed to maintain and sustain their mission. It does not mean that the people that they hire are discriminated against on the basis of what religion they have, what their ethnicity might be; but rather simply the ability to hire people who share their common beliefs, who share their sense of mission. We certainly saw this in the recent rescue mission and aid issues down with Hurricane Katrina, where a great number of faith-based groups were the most efficient groups that we saw on the ground there. And, certainly, they should have the right to bring those people in who share their beliefs, even though they may have been receiving in some ways Federal dollars. The same thing is true with Head Start. People must be hired in a way that they do share a common sense of mission, a common sense of purpose. Otherwise, these organizations would be totally disrupted in what they are trying to get done.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, I do not know how much clearer this can be made. We keep having this circular debate on so many issues. I will just go back to the law one more time. We have mentioned over and over, title VII, Civil Rights Act, 1964, states specifically, and this is the verbiage, ``This subchapter shall not apply to an employer with respect to the employment of aliens outside any State, or to a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society, with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities.'' There is no way we can change this. This is the verbiage. This is the language. What we are saying here is that a faith-based organization cannot be expected to sustain their religious mission if we do not uphold this statute. It is very plain. If a choir director or a youth director also serves as a Head Start employee, you certainly should not have to hire somebody that does not sustain the mission of the church.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I am pleased to speak in support of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students, or HEROS, Act. As has been stated, this was enacted September 12 of 2001, somewhat in response to events of 9/11; and it provides relief from student loan debt for Reservists and National Guardsmen called to active duty while still in college. This bill expires in about 2 weeks, September 30, 2005; so it is only appropriate that the gentleman from Minnesota has introduced H.R. 2132, which extends the law for another 2 years. We currently have many Guardsmen and Reservists who are still being called up out of college, some to battle Hurricane Katrina; but many more are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Members of Congress, myself included, have been to Iraq and Afghanistan many times, and I continue to be amazed at their competence and their willingness to sacrifice; and I guess this is the least that we can do to help them understand how much they are appreciated. This bill also encourages colleges and universities to provide a full tuition refund for students called up during a semester. It does not mandate it, but I think this is an important provision of the bill. As mentioned by the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen), in addition I have worked with the chairman, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), and the gentleman from Maryland to insert language in the higher education bill, which recently passed out of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, which would extend relief from interest on student loan payments for active duty soldiers called to active duty after leaving college; and of course the HEROS Act would not cover those because it refers only to those who are in college. So I look forward to working with the chairman on implementation of this provision as we further consider the higher ed bill at a future date, and again I wish to thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline) for his provision here and the chairman for his work.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I am certainly a great supporter of the ethanol industry. Ethanol does a great many good things. It reduces our dependence on foreign oil. It reduces the trade deficit, which is certainly a very difficult problem for our economy. It reduces the cost of the farm bill. And it helps the economy, creates roughly 200,000 jobs. And, of course, it also produces more energy than it consumes. Mr. Speaker, this is something that is widely misunderstood. And I would like to show the chart here, Mr. Speaker, that I think illustrates something that many people do not realize. For every BTU of energy that goes into the process of making ethanol, you get roughly 1.4 BTUs of energy back. On the other hand, with gasoline, for every BTU that you put into the input cost into the manufacturing, you get eight-tenths of a BTU back. An MTBE which, of course, is a fuel additive, for every one unit of energy you get sixty-seven hundredths back. Now the reason for that is that ethanol harnesses the energy of the sun, as corn grows. And so it is a net savings. And so a lot of good things about ethanol, a lot of things that are positive. However, there are some things that have occurred here recently that are rather disturbing at the present time, and I think that this following chart pretty well illustrates this. We had assumed that since ethanol is made from corn, corn prices are low. In Nebraska recently, the price of a bushel of corn was $1.54. And a good price would be maybe $3 a bushel. So corn is very, very low right now. That is the primary ingredient to make ethanol. We have heard about the refinery capacity being reduced. And that has been a problem that has caused gasoline prices to spike. But ethanol is not dependent, largely, upon the refinery industry. Fifteen percent of E85 is gasoline. The other 85 percent is ethanol, which is made at an ethanol plant, which is really distributed mostly across the Midwest. So the hurricane had absolutely no effect on most of the cost of ethanol, and yet we find these things to be true. On August 1 of 2005, in North Platte, Nebraska, the cost of E85, 85 percent ethanol, was just slightly under $2; $1.99 a gallon. In Lincoln, Nebraska it was $2.04. So, pretty close; just a 5 cent spread. However, by September 19, yesterday, that price had risen dramatically. North Platte was $2.69 a gallon, which was a 70 cent increase. Lincoln, Nebraska was $3.09, which was $1.05. Again, we understand that there is a shortage of fuel. We realize there are refinery problems. But ethanol should be pretty much insulated from those problems. So it is very difficult for those of us who are fairly close to that industry to understand how in the world we could see those kinds of increases in such a short period of time. By the same token, the cost of unleaded fuel, with no ethanol in it, actually was cheaper in North Platte and Lincoln by 10 cents and 40 cents a gallon, and this is unheard of, because normally E85 should run 30, 40, 50, even 60 cents a gallon cheaper, because there is a 51-cent tax credit for ethanol because of the fact that it does rely primarily on corn, which is a domestically produced commodity. So anyway, we are quite concerned about this. We have asked people to look into this. I believe that the Energy and Commerce Committee is willing to take a look at it, the volatility of fuel prices and the fact that this is really very damaging to our economy. It is very damaging to our farm economy, particularly, and they are the ones that produce the ethanol. So this is really something that is very puzzling and something that we are hoping that Congress, particularly the Energy and Commerce Committee, can get to the bottom of.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I was privileged to hear British Prime Minister Tony Blair speak in this Chamber some time ago, and one comment he made particularly caught my attention, and this is what he said. He said, ``As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible but, in fact, it is transitory.'' I believe he was referring to the fact that nothing lasts forever, particularly in regards to civilizations; nations eventually decline and they fall. History teaches that most of the world's great powers are not overcome by external force, but rather disintegrate internally. Let us examine three such cases. First of all, you might hearken back to Rome 2,000 years ago. It ruled the entire civilized world. At that time it appeared to be invincible, and eventually it fell from preeminence; and the reasons that historians give for Rome's fall, and I am abbreviating somewhat, was a general decline in morality, increasing corruption and instability in leadership, and increasing public addiction to ever more violent public spectacles. And all of us, I think, can remember some of the stories about the Roman mob and their insatiable desire to be entertained, an increase in crime and prostitution, a populace that became more self-absorbed, apathetic and unwilling to sacrifice for the common good. The second case would be that of Great Britain itself, which maybe Tony Blair was referring to. Certainly, Great Britain has not gone into tremendous decline, but it was once a global power and was certainly the strongest, most predominant nation in the world for a period of 100, 150 years, and of course, that has changed. That empire slowly crumbled during the mid- 1800s, and the reasons given for that decline were, A, that they lost national resolve to maintain their territory. It was far flung; and, of course, it was very difficult to maintain all of those colonies. The values that led to ascendency were eventually eroded, and spiritual underpinnings certainly shifted in the country. A third example would be that of Russia; and, of course, Russia, up until just 20, 25 years ago, was one of the world's two great superpowers. In a matter of months, Russia disintegrated before our very eyes. It was startling how quickly it happened. Alexander Solzehenitsyn reflected on this fall when he observed, and this is what he said, Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall a number of older people offering the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia, and he quoted them. He said, Men have forgotten God; that is why all of this has happened. Marx and Lenin over time had dismantled Russia's religious heritage. Its value system and Russia's foundation, even though it did well for a period of 60, 70 years, was fundamentally flawed. Eventually, Russia collapsed like a house of cards with nothing to sustain it. There was some common themes on these historical collapses. Number one, the people became less willing to sacrifice for others and for their country; citizens became more self-absorbed; greater desire for the State to provide for them; weakening of commonly-held values; and, generally, a decline in spiritual commitment. What does all this have to do with the United States and our present situation? We have the most powerful military, the strongest economy, the most stable government of any nation in the world at the present time. It is very easy to think that we are invincible, but I would like to remind those who are watching that, as Tony Blair stated, as Britain knows, all predominant power for a time seems invincible, but, in fact, it is transitory. The reason I am speaking tonight, Mr. Speaker, is that my experience over a considerable time of working with young people, 36 years in the coaching profession, I witnessed some things that were somewhat disturbing and somewhat concerning. The young men that I worked with were more talented each year; and yet they showed more signs of stress, more personal struggles, less moral clarity. They were more troubled as time went on, and I think some of this struggle can be reflected on the chart that we see here. What this indicates is the juvenile court caseload from roughly 1960 up until about 2000, and we see the trend line is ever upward, and the caseload went up by 400 percent. Obviously, something was going on with our young people during that period of time. Some of the things that I witnessed that I think were contributing to this issue was the fact that, number one, there were changes in the family. The family is the basic social unit in our culture. In 1960, the out-of-wedlock birth rate was 5 percent. Today, it hovers at around 33 percent, an increase of 600 percent over those years of roughly 45 years. In 1960, the great majority of children lived with both of their parents. Today, nearly one-half of our young people grow up without both biological parents. Roughly one-half of our young people have endured some type of significant trauma in their lives early on, and sometimes this leaves some scars that are irreparable. Only 7 percent of today's families are traditional families, meaning that we have both a father and a mother and one parent or the other, usually the mother but sometimes the father, is at home full-time. In our culture today, ofttimes after 3 p.m. there is nobody home. The traditional family is no longer traditional anymore. Parents today spend 40 percent less time with their children than they did a generation ago. The divorce rate has increased roughly 300 percent since 1960, and 24 million children live without their biological father. If your father bails out on you, sometimes even before he has even seen you or even knows you, it leaves some scars, and these wounds are difficult to heal; you are always trying to fill that psyche with all the wrong things. Fatherless children are more likely to be abused, more likely to have mental and emotional problems. They are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, commit suicide, commit a crime and be promiscuous. A greeting card company a few years ago had an experiment. It was Mother's Day, and they went to a prison. They said, we will offer a free Mother's Day card for any prisoner who would like to have one and would like to write to his mother. They had just about 100 percent takers. Almost every prisoner got a card and sent it to his mother, and so they were somewhat encouraged by that success. They decided they would try the same thing on Father's Day. The interesting thing was, as they offered those cards, they had not one taker in that whole prison. That indicates the power of fatherlessness and the fact that it is so prevalent and the damage that it does to so many of our young people. The family certainly in our culture still has some strength, but it is not as stable overall as it was 30, 40 years ago. We have taken these young people with a launching pad, the family has maybe not broken but it is cracked to some degree, and we thrust them into an environment that has changed dramatically over the years. In 1960, drug abuse was almost unheard of. I remember when I first started coaching I think I had heard of marijuana. I had never known of anyone that had used it. Methamphetamine was something I had never heard of. Cocaine I had never heard of. Heroin was something that was maybe used in Eastern countries, but, again, I had never seen it. Things have changed certainly in our culture. Alcohol abuse involving underage drinkers has certainly exploded, and there is a developmental aspect to underage drinking that many people in our culture are just beginning to discover. I think I can show you rather graphically here an example of how this works. This is a brain scan of two 15-year olds. The one on the left is someone who does not use alcohol. The brain scan on the right is a 15- year old binge drinker, someone who drinks regularly at a very young age. They were both sober at the time they were given a math problem to solve; and, as they worked on the problem, a brain scan was taken. You can see here the brain cells that are firing in this brain. You know there is certainly a good deal of cognitive activity that is occurring; and, on the other hand, in the brain of the binge drinker we see a rather graphic difference. Many of our young people are starting to use alcohol at age 11, 12, 13, 14; and it is a whole different ball game when you start using it at that early age than if you start drinking when you are 21, 22, 23 because of the developmental aspect. This is something that many people in our culture do not realize. Many high school dropouts, many people who are doing very poorly in school, very poor academic performance are related in many ways to underage drinking and alcohol consumption at an early age. A National Academy of Science study shows that alcohol kills roughly 6\1/2\ times more children than all other drugs combined; 6\1/2\ times more is due to alcohol abuse. Alcohol and underage drinking costs the United States $53 billion annually. In my home State of Nebraska, that figure is roughly $435 million a year, according to a Pacific Institute study that was done in 2001. We have roughly 3 million teenage alcoholics in our country today; and, obviously, this is by far our biggest drug problem. The alarming thing that has happened is we have seen a tremendous increase in alcoholism and drinking problems on the part of young women. At one time, most of the drinking problem was centered in young men; and now we find that young women are drinking as much and, in some cases, even more than young men. We also find that young people tend to binge drink. They drink to get drunk. They, on the average, will consume twice as much alcohol at a sitting as an adult will. Of course, this leads to all kinds of problems. Twenty percent of our eighth graders drink regularly, and children who drink before age 15, and the average young person who starts to drink does start drinking before age 15, is four times more likely to become an alcoholic than someone who starts using alcohol at age 21. Certainly, early alcohol usage leads directly to marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy and so on. The other thing that is of some concern, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that we inundate our young people with alcohol advertising. Our young people see 96 ads promoting alcohol use, ofttimes with young people in the advertising itself, 96 ads for every one that they see that might discourage underage drinking. The predominant attitude in this country is that underage drinking is something that is reasonably acceptable. We have not done a good job of advertising and trying to alleviate this problem. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent to fight drug production in Afghanistan, in Colombia, around the world; and a fraction of that money that would be spent on underage drinking would be much more cost- effective because we spend very, very little in that regard. We have got a bill here in Congress called the Stop Underage Drinking Act, which we think will be very helpful. It would provide $51 million on a national advertising campaign, much like we have used to try to curb tobacco use on the part of young people. We think this would be very helpful. Anyway, we have obviously got a problem with underage drinking, and the next issue is something I would like to visit about a little bit, and that is a problem that is threatening to overcome and overwhelm our country. In 1990, these two red States, Texas and California, each had 20 meth labs. All the rest of the States did not have that many. Methamphetamine was a problem primarily in Texas and California in 1990. Then we see the change that begins to occur. By 1998, in 8 years, we see that about 50 percent, or a little bit more of the country, was now subject to a great many methamphetamine labs. Certainly, meth labs are not only the indicator. Because maybe 80 percent, 70 percent of meth that comes into our country comes from superlabs, mostly from down in Mexico, but the existence of these labs shows the scope and the influence of methamphetamine. More recently, in 2004, we now see that almost every State, with the exception of just a few States in the Northeast, had at least 20 meth labs or more. Some of these, for instance, Missouri, I believe, had something like 2,700 meth labs, Iowa had 1,300, Nebraska had 300, Oklahoma had several hundred, and on and on and on. This has become a very, very powerful, very addictive drug that is really affecting our whole population but particularly our young people. This series of pictures here shows rather graphically the influence of methamphetamine. This was a young woman who was first arrested, and her family gave these pictures to authorities hoping that they would be shown, and she was arrested every year for a period of 10 years. Here she may have been around 30 years of age, fairly attractive, very young, and you see the changes each successive year. Then it looks like maybe about here she may have begun to inject methamphetamine because you see a rather marked change in her appearance. This is the final picture in the 10th year, and this picture was taken in the morgue. She lasted 10 years, which many people do not. It is very graphic, but it shows the devastating effect of methamphetamine and what it is doing to our population. So I present this, Mr. Speaker, by way of simply indicating that there are some things in our culture that are disturbing, some things that we certainly need to address as directly as we can. One thing we are really concerned about is that the Byrne funding, which helps fight methamphetamine at the local level, has been drastically reduced. We cut it in half this year in the House. This was done primarily because of budget cuts, and this is absolutely something that cannot be ignored. This problem must be addressed, and we are hoping that that funding might be restored as we go to conference with the Senate, because they have included many of these funds. We also find that the United States is a very violent Nation, currently the most violent Nation in the world for young people. We have the highest homicide rate, the highest teen suicide rate, and the most assaults. So rather a difficult, discouraging picture as far as some of our young people. Also, pornography has exploded. I remember Senator Jim Exon from Nebraska, when the Internet was first coming into its prominence, began to think about the fact that pornography could be a major problem on the Internet; and he introduced legislation in the Senate to try to control the effect of pornography on the Internet. I remember some people laughed at his efforts. Some people made fun of him at the time. But he obviously was ahead of his time, because at the present time there are over 1 million porn sites on the Internet. Not 100,000, not 1,000, but 1 million. So nine out of 10 children ages 9 to 16 have viewed pornography on the Internet, and most of this viewing has been unintentional. They have simply run into it. This was according to a study done by the London School of Economics in January of 2002. Some of our leading corporations, such as AT&T, have been involved in the marketing of hard-core pornography. At one time AT&T was kind of the gold standard as far as our corporate clients were concerned. I am not sure they are still doing this, but there was a time where they actually were doing some marketing of this type of pornography. Search words on the Internet, such as Barbie, Disney, ESPN, and even at one time my name, if a young person was going to do a research article on his Congressman and looked up my name, it brought up a porn site. So this shows the pernicious effect and the somewhat deviant attitude of some people in that business, because these are all search words that are very innocent, and a young person would have no way of knowing when they type those words in that they would see something of a hard-core pornographic nature. A poll in 2004 found that 82 percent of adult Americans surveyed said that the Federal laws against Internet obscenity should be vigorously enforced. And I think most Americans would agree they are really concerned about what is happening. There are some safeguards; but they are very, very difficult sometimes to implement. Video games have certainly been a problem as well. Eight- to 18-year- old young people average 40 minutes per day playing video games; and of course some of these video games, not all of them, some are very good and some are wholesome, but they have become increasingly more violent. Some teach stalking and killing of victims similar to military training video games. In one, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, a person who does a particularly good job of shooting people is rewarded by pornography. Now, fortunately, some stores voluntarily began to pull this off the shelves, but the rating system that is currently used by the video games is so flawed that a parent has almost no way of knowing when they purchase that game exactly what they are getting for their young person. And many parents, unfortunately, do not sit there and watch exactly what is going on in those games, because embedded in them sometimes is some very pernicious material. Some of the music, some television, many movies are very graphic; and certainly that content would have been impossible to present 20 or 30 years ago in our country. It simply would not have been tolerated. So I am concerned because I have some grandchildren ages 6 through 12, and many people I think are concerned about their children. So, number one, the family has certainly changed. It is less stable. The environment is more hostile that we thrust these young people into. And, third, the value system in our country seems to have shifted. Many people are aware of Stephen Covey's book ``The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People.'' In the early parts of that book, he did a survey of the literature that had to do with success, since he was writing a book about success. He surveyed all the literature in the history of our Nation that had to do with success, and what he found was something that was rather interesting. He said during the first 150-odd years of our Nation's history success was defined primarily in terms of character traits. A successful person was honest. A successful person was trustworthy. A successful person was hard working. A successful person was generous, and on and on and on. Then he said about 50 or 60 years ago a definite shift began to appear in the literature, and success was no longer defined in terms of character traits, but success began to be defined primarily in terms of financial acumen. If you had a lot of wealth, you were considered successful. If you had celebrity and people wanted to be around you and wanted your autograph, you were successful. If you had power, you were successful. So you may not have had very good character; but if you had those other things, you were defined as being successful. So there was a definite shift in terms of what we saw as being valued in terms of our value system. So it is no wonder that young people are somewhat confused as they encounter all of these things that are facing them. We have also certainly in our culture seen a breakdown of integrity in the business community to some degree; in athletics; even some people in the press have not behaved well; in the church; in politics. In all segments of our society there are those who have not behaved in ways that are very admirable. So the predominant world view today, and certainly that on the college campus, is something called post- modernism. Now, post-modernism basically adheres to the idea that there are no moral absolutes. There is no absolute truth. And therefore what is true for you may not be true for me, or may not be true for somebody else. So we kind of define our own sense of right or wrong. So adultery, murder, even child abuse may not be absolutely wrong. There may be circumstances where this can be approved and understood. The only absolute wrong according to post-modernism is if you declare that something is absolutely wrong, then I guess that would be absolutely wrong, because there are no moral absolutes. So in view of the family breakdown, a decline of the culture and shifting of values, it is an extremely difficult time for our children. We are asking them to weave their way through a mine field littered with alcohol, drug abuse, harmful video games, some music, television and movies that are not very wholesome, promiscuity, gangs, violent behavior, and broken homes. And we are asking most of them to weave their way through with less parental guidance and an ever-shifting value system. So I have been rather hard, I guess, on some aspects of our culture; yet I do not want to leave this without talking about some of the things that we might begin to be proud of as well. D'Toqueville, the Frenchman who came here and examined our culture about a century ago, said this: ``America is great because America is good.'' And we have seen some of that with Hurricane Katrina. We have seen an outpouring. We saw it when the Twin Towers came down. We have seen it with the tsunami. So we still are a generous, caring people. There are many great things about America, but there are some things we certainly need to look at. So D'Toqueville wrote this 200 years ago, and I guess the question is, are his observations still true today. I think to some degree they are, but there are still some disturbing signs of change, and those are the things I have tried to enumerate. So the question is, what can be done? We do have some difficult situations, particularly involving our young people; and so one thing that appears to me to work very well is mentoring, which is something I have been really interested in, my wife and I both. Basically, mentoring is simply providing an adult who, number one, cares in the life of a young person. I will tell you a quick story. We had a mentor in Omaha, Nebraska, who had a young man who was his mentee. And the young man, who was 14 at the time, had a cerebral hemorrhage and was partially paralyzed. At that time, I think many mentors would have said, well, I probably need to find another mentee because the young man was not able to go to school, was not able to speak very well, and could not move around. But what this mentor did was he stayed with that young man. He even drove him daily, for a period of time, 60 miles to get rehabilitation. And, basically, through the efforts of that mentor, this young man today is going to school and will graduate from school and is doing well. So a mentor is someone who cares and someone who cares in a way that is consistent. There is a commitment there that goes beyond a warm and fuzzy feeling. The second thing that a mentor does is a mentor affirms a young person. As a coach, I saw that so clearly. If you told a young person that you were not sure he could play for you, that you were not sure he had a future, it would not be long before he would begin to play down to that expectation and often would not stay with it. On the other hand, if you told him you believed in him, you thought he was going to be a great player, that he had a future, ofttimes he would grow into that which he did not even know he was capable of becoming. I remember in 1994, we had a great quarterback named Tommy Fraser who went down with an injury. And the young man who was number two on the depth chart, was from a small school in western Kansas. He had athletic talent. He had not had great success on his football team in high school. His team had not done all that well. They had been okay. And all of a sudden he was going to be thrust into this situation. I remember we told him, Brook, we believe in you. We think you will be a great player. Brook grew before our very eyes and took us to an undefeated season. So affirmation is critical, and it is something that a mentor can provide. Because so many young people in our culture today simply do not have anyone who says to them on a regular basis, you know, way to go, I believe in you, or I know you can do this, or you can do it. So affirmation is critical. The last thing I think a mentor does, and of course there are many things they can do, but one thing that is important is to provide a vision. So many of our young people today have really not witnessed somebody in their immediate vicinity or in their immediate life who gets up and maybe goes to work every day, or someone who has graduated from high school, and certainly not one who has gone to college. I will tell you a story about a young man who lived out in western Nebraska about 1895, and this young guy was the son of a Civil War veteran. The Civil War veteran had a drinking problem, and he had four children. He had a very little homestead, and the future did not look very good. There was a traveling preacher out there that got hold of this young guy and saw something in him that he liked, and he began to affirm him and he began to say, you know, I think you could go to college. Now, the odds of that young man going to college were probably one in a thousand from that circumstance at that particular time in history. And on top of that, he said, I think you could be a great preacher. He said I think you have a real future. So lo and behold, this young guy began to believe it and began to accept that vision, and he got on a train and went about 300 miles and went to college and played football and became a preacher, and a very distinguished preacher. Now, the reason that that was so interesting was that that guy, that person who mentored him, who began to provide that vision made a huge difference in that person's life, and that person was my grandfather. I am sure that my life is different today because of the influence of that itinerant preacher on my grandfather. So mentoring has a ripple effect. It affects one generation and then the next generation and the next. So there is an eternal quality about investing in the life of another person. Mentoring does work. It reduces dropout rates, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, violence, absenteeism from school; and it improves graduation rates and also improves relationships between peers and the relationship between the mentored child and parents. So it is a win-win situation. Congress has provided $184 million over the past 5 years for mentoring of young people which has reached hundreds of thousands of young people around the country. This is a good thing, and we think this is something that is certainly appropriate for Congress to do. But, right now, we have roughly 18 million children in our country who badly need a mentor; and yet we have only about 2 to 2.5 million actually being mentored. So only one out of nine children who needs a mentor has one. We feel America is great, America is good, but we have so many retired people, so many people who could spare one or two hours a week to make a difference in the life of a young person. We really need to grasp hold of this idea of mentoring. In addition to mentoring, something that can be done certainly is legislation. I think that the Congress, particularly this House, in many cases has attempted to address some of the ills that are befalling our young people. Certainly some of the problems that we are seeing with gambling on the Internet is something that this House has attempted to deal with, with very limited success. A piece of legislation that I have been involved with with the gentleman from California (Mr. Baca), the Software Accuracy and Fraud Evaluation Rating Act, or SAFE Rating Act, is an important piece of legislation because it would require the Federal Trade Commission to study the voluntary rating system of the video game system to determine if its practices are unfair or deceptive. There is no question that video games currently are not being accurately rated and in many cases are very misleading. So we think that this is a piece of legislation that could be addressed and would make a difference. Another thing that certainly could help our culture at the present time is a fundamental shift in many of the court decisions regarding the first amendment. I do not mean to imply that the first amendment is not important, that the first amendment should not be upheld, but some of the interpretations that have revolved around the first amendment have led our Nation in a direction that may not be the way our Founders originally thought it should go. I will show a chart that depicts some of these court decisions. We can see in 1997 the Supreme Court ruled that indecent speech is protect by the first amendment and overturned the Communications Decency Act. This was a bill passed by Congress regarding indecent speech, and the Supreme Court basically ruled that indecent speech is protected by the first amendment. This was a fairly important decision. In 1998, the Supreme Court refused to rule decisively on the Child Online Protection Act, thereby allowing the legislation to remain law while preventing it from taking effect. This particular bill provided protection against obscenity on the Internet, and yet it was never enacted into law because of the Supreme Court ruling. In 2002, the Supreme Court overturned the Child Pornography Prevention Act, ruling that child pornography must involve minors engaged in sexual activity to meet the legal definition of obscenity to lose first amendment protection. So what this means is if there was a cyber simulation of child pornography, that it was legal. Of course, it is impossible to distinguish if something is done well using electronic means, whether they are using actual children or not. So this was a blow to the people trying to control indecency on the Internet. And, in 2002, a three-judge Federal court declared the Children Internet Protection Act requirement that all schools and libraries receiving Federal funds use Internet filtering material to protect minors from harmful materials on the Internet unconstitutional. So even in a public funded library children are not necessarily protected from obscenity. All of these things would lead one to believe that certainly some of the court rules have not been friendly toward our young people, particularly with regard to the issues of pornography. Some people say pornography is not really a problem because it is harmless, it does not really hurt anybody, and it does not really affect anything. But if Members think about it, we spend billions and billions of dollars on advertising. If that advertising did not change behavior, I am sure that money would not be spent. Advertising absolutely does change behavior. What you see, think and read about changes the way you perceive things and the way you act. That is true very much also with pornography. As a result, we have a great many women and children in our country who are suffering because of this and because of the fact that we have been either unwilling or unable to control something that we think has been very pernicious in our society. The other thing that I would like to visit about briefly tonight is the issue of school prayer. I am not somebody that is off the charts in this regard. I certainly do not believe that a teacher should be allowed to proselytize in the classroom. I do not believe that the principal should get on the intercom every morning and lead a prayer, but I would say that the pendulum has swung awfully far. In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled the following prayer unconstitutional, and this is what the prayer was. ``Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.'' This is fairly innocuous. It does not seem terribly threatening, and yet I can see where possibly this is something that the court would get involved with, and they did rule this unconstitutional, and that started the ball rolling down the hill. So it would appear that many of the court rulings have been contrary to the thinking of many of our Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin said, ``We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in the political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a byword down to future ages. ``I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business.'' Because of Franklin's speech in this Chamber, of course, this Chamber has been built since Franklin, but in the House and in the Congress every morning there are prayers that are held. Yet we are really restricting prayer in so many other arenas. George Washington said, ``The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a Nation that disregards the internal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.'' David Barton said, ``Franklin had warned that `forgetting God' and imagining that we no longer needed his `concurring aid' would result in internal disputes that decay the Nation's prestige and reputation, and a diminished national success. Washington had warned that if religious principles were excluded, the Nation's morality and political prosperity would suffer. Yet despite such clear words, in cases beginning in 1962, the court offered rulings which eventually divorced the Nation, its schools and its public affairs from more than three centuries of its heritage; America is now learning experientially what both Washington and Franklin knew to be true; we are suffering in the very areas that they predicted.'' Barton's warnings may be somewhat dire, but I do believe there is something to what he says. We certainly have disregarded some of the warnings of the early framers of the Constitution, and we have strayed far afield from what the original intent of those who wrote the Constitution appeared to be. So despite the fact that the Constitution does not contain a separation of church and State clause, that phrase is not in the Constitution, in 1992 the Supreme Court declared an invocation and benediction at a graduation ceremony unconstitutional. So at a graduation ceremony you could not have an opening prayer or a benediction. Of course, as I said earlier, we begin the legislative day in this House with prayer every day. The court held that a minute of silence in a school was unconstitutional. This seems a little bit beyond the pale to me that students could not have a minute of silence. They could think about history, they could pray, look out the window, but this was ruled as unconstitutional. The court also ruled that a student-led prayer at a football game was unconstitutional. This was a prayer that the students had voted to have, and it was led by a student, it was outside the school building, and yet the court said the football players had to be there and the cheerleaders had to be there, and they might hear a prayer that was offensive to them. Therefore, you could not have a prayer. Again, that seems a little bit far afield. As many of us know, the words ``under God'' were struck from the Pledge of Allegiance by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and that was thrown out by the Supreme Court because they said the parent bringing the case had no legal standing. In other words, the father was not the legal guardian of the young woman, the young girl that he was providing in the case. So the court did not rule it out. They did not throw out the ruling by the Ninth Circuit based on its merits but rather because of no legal standing, and I am sure we will see that reintroduced in the court again in some fairly recent date. The Constitution is increasingly being interpreted as a ``living document'' and legal decisions increasingly come down based not on what the law states but rather based upon the personal ideology of the jurist. So the philosophical bent of the Supreme Court justices and district court justices determines very largely the course of this Nation in many important areas. So we are now faced with the confirmation of Judge Roberts, and it is a very serious business. And we have one other vacancy on the Supreme Court, the first time in a long time we have had a situation like this. The direction that the court goes is going to be very important. I know of nothing personally regarding Judge Roberts that would lead me to believe that he would not try to be a strict constructionist, that he would not try to interpret the Constitution as it is written, and I do not believe he would be a biased person. I am sure there would be those that disagree, but these are critical sometimes, Mr. Speaker, and these decisions will be very important. So the makeup of the courts and the will of Congress will greatly influence whether we continue to drift further from our heritage or draw closer to those values upon which our Nation was founded. The willingness of Congress to focus on the pernicious influences impacting our children, the willingness of the American people to demand that those profiteering at the expense of our culture and our young people be reined in, will largely shape the future of our Nation. Terrorism is an ever-present threat, the economy is of concern, and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina are a tremendous threat to us. However, terrorism, economic distress and natural disasters will not prevail as long as our national character is sound. We are engaged in a cultural and spiritual struggle of huge proportions, and I can only hope that the principles upon which this Nation was founded remain preeminent. As Congress addresses important issues such as those that I have mentioned, it is critical that we not lose sight of the fact that our Nation's survival is directly linked to the character of our people; and I would urge Congress to think about these things and particularly to try to guard the future for our young people, because the future of this Nation is our young people. If we continue to let some of these pernicious influences that we now see impacting them so greatly continue, it may certainly render us one of those nations that become somewhat like Rome, like Great Britain, and also like we have seen with the Soviet Union. So it is important that we be vigilant.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that most Members spent time touring their districts in August, and I did as well. The major complaint that I heard was what probably most Members heard. That was concern about high fuel prices. We all know that fuel for automobiles, trucks, and airplanes have simply gone out of sight. One thing that we are not probably quite as aware of as a Nation is what it has done to agriculture, particularly where irrigation is concerned. I talked to one Member of Congress who does some farming and irrigating. He was telling me that he had one center pivot that was powered by electricity; it cost him $1,000. He had one center pivot that was powered by either diesel or propane; that was $4,000. Same pivot, same size, and normally electricity would be higher than diesel or propane. So fuel has really eaten into the farm profits this year, and it is going to make farming very unprofitable for many people. What has happened? Obviously, one major issue has been that global demand has increased. We realize that China, India, countries like these, have been industrialized, and over the last 4, 5, 6 years have been using much more fuel. Number two, exploration has been curtailed. A 1998 executive order extended a moratorium on offshore drilling for 10 years. It is assumed that these areas would contain 75 billion barrels of oil and 362 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but they are off limits. Federal law restricts access to resources in the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling in ANWR has not been allowed; and so whichever side of the environmental fence you are on, whether you agree or disagree, it certainly has made it more difficult to meet our fuel demands. Natural gas prices have increased 83 percent over the last 3 years, and this will cost our economy roughly $111 billion, and a lot of this is simply because of a shortage of natural gas, at least that is available to us; and we have a tremendous amount of it in Alaska and other places we are not able to get to. Number three, refinery capacity has been reduced due to obsolescence. As a refinery gets old and equipment begins to go downhill, rather than being replaced, it simply is retired; and we have lost 30 percent of our refinery capacity since 1976. For the last 30 years, we have been steadily losing capacity; and this, again, is mostly due to environmental regulation. We have mandated also 13 blends of gasoline. These are called boutique fuels, which add expense and time to fuel refining; and of course, in many cities, like Chicago, you may have to have three or four different fuel blends in a year. Every time you change a blend, you shut down the refinery, you clean the pipes and you start over again; and, again, that adds to expense. Katrina's destruction of refineries has pushed us over the brink. Obviously, just losing 5 or 10 percent, with such a thin margin, has made it somewhat inoperable. Four, we have increased reliance on foreign oil, which everybody realizes. We are nearly 60 percent dependent on foreign oil at the present time. Much of this is from OPEC. So they can simply have a meeting, tighten the screws and prices go up. This contributes greatly, this dependence on foreign oil, to a $670 billion annual trade deficit, which this country simply cannot continue to sustain. We have to get more energy-independent, obviously. I guess fifth, something that is in everybody's mind, is has price gouging occurred? To be honest with you, I do not know. I do not think anybody at this point knows, but I do know this: E85, that is 85 percent ethanol, was $1.60 in my State of Nebraska 4 weeks ago. Today, it is $2.75, an increase of $1.15 in 4 weeks. Katrina did not have anything to do with that because the cost of corn has remained low. All of the ethanol manufacturing is done in the Midwest, and so the hurricane had nothing to do with this issue. I think these are things that have to be looked into, probably by Congress. The solution eventually, I hope, will be, what we have in our energy bill, will eventually provide relief, ethanol, biodiesel, solar, wind energy, nuclear, hydrogen fuel cells, and I think some additional refinery capacity; but it is all going to take time. This will be a difficult time, and I think Congress probably really needs to do some soul searching and look at some of the regulations we have placed upon ourselves.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 383 encourages the transitional assembly of Iraq to adopt a constitution that grants women equal rights. It was authored by the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger) and also the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Tauscher) and myself, who are cochairs of the Iraqi Women's Caucus. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say just a word about the Iraqi Women's Caucus. This was formed a couple of years ago by former Representative Jennifer Dunn and myself, with the belief that Iraqi women are critical to holding the social fabric of Iraq together and bringing Sunnis and Kurds and Shias together. And as we have talked to them, we found that this is the case, that this is true. Because many of them are married. Sunnis are married to Shias and they have other sects within their families. And they consistently tell us that the divisions are not what people think in the United States. But we think that women are the key and probably as important as guns and bullets and tanks and helicopters to achieving a peaceful resolution in Iraq. Some of us visited Jordan in March. And we met with 150 Iraqi women near the Dead Sea. These women drove from many points within Iraq. Two groups were shot at on the way, which shows you the resolution that they had, because they continued on their journey. We visited with many women's groups from Iraq, in the United States and Iraq, as we have traveled. I visited with prime minister al-Jaafari in Iraq in March. And I asked him this question: I said, will you give Iraqi women a prominent role in the government? And the answer that he gave me was, yes, that he would do that, that he would ensure that. So as many people are aware, one-third of the 275 seats in the transitional national assembly have been given to women, which is a very good thing. But on May 10 of this year, 55 members of the national assembly were chosen to draft a permanent constitution for Iraq by August 15. Of that 55, approximately 10 or 11 were women, which again does not sound too bad. But as we met with Iraqi women last week, they said the women that were chosen were among the most conservative, among the most fundamentalist group within the national assembly, and therefore they were really concerned about what was happening in regard to Sharia. And so as everyone knows, Sharia is Islamic law, and this was what was written in a draft of the constitution that was given to us by these women. And in the eighth article this is what it says: ``The government vouches for women's duties toward family and their work in the society, equalizing her to men in all political, educational, social and economic fields.'' So far so good. All sounds good. But then there is this last phrase, without infracting Islam, which means that whatever rights a women has cannot be in contradiction to Islamic law. This was the thing that concerned these women so much. As was mentioned earlier, one of those women who came here was a judge, who had been installed on the court, but was removed from her judgeship because of Sharia. There is great concern at this point. So this resolution urges Iraqi leaders to accord Iraqi women equal rights under the Constitution. Let me just close, Mr. Speaker, by saying this: Iraqi women as we meet with them are really concerned about security. We do not want to minimize that. We do not want to pretend that Iraq is a real safe place. They are really concerned about the infrastructure, and there are some problems in the infrastructure. But when asked if they would prefer life under Saddam or if they would prefer that the United States pull out, they will almost unanimously say things like this: Things are better now. We see help for the future. We have a hope. We see a brighter future. Please do not leave now. Thank you for removing Saddam. So even though things are difficult, there is hope. And as long as you have hope, we think that there is a brighter future. And I think that women are truly a major part of whatever resolution we may receive in Iraq that would be of an optimistic nature.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on behalf of the rule and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, I would like to just mention a personal story. I have a son-in-law who manages 150 stores. They are part of a franchise and are spread across 40 different States. If they have to purchase health care store by store, it is prohibitively expensive. Their costs are going up 10 to 20 percent a year. One of the previous speakers said it may not add a whole lot of people, but what is happening is we are losing more and more people out of health care plans each year because small businesses simply cannot afford it. If they can band together, those 150 stores, and pool their resources and have 500 employees in a pool, they have a chance to keep their health care. I think it is critical. Mr. Speaker, 60 percent of all Americans work for small businesses, and this is key to this legislation. Small businesses are particularly important to rural areas like Nebraska. The measure would do three things: one, increase small business' bargaining power with health care providers; number two, give them freedom from costly state-mandated benefit packages. In many cases, the State regulations simply stifle the health care packages. And, number three, lower their overhead cost by as much as 30 percent. Republicans and Democrats alike have joined together in each of the last two Congresses to pass this legislation. I urge support of the underlying rule and the bill.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I am here this evening to speak about the Federal Youth Coordination Act. This act was written in response to a report issued by the White House Task Force on Disadvantaged Youth in 2003. This task force report indicated that 25 percent of U.S. teens are at risk of not having productive lives, not growing up to be people who can hold a job, who are free of substance abuse, and are able to contribute to the society. The estimate is that roughly 10 million young people fall into this category. This is a very difficult time to be a young person. As almost anyone in our culture knows, we have drug and alcohol abuse, we are the most violent Nation in the world for young people in terms of homicide and suicide, and roughly one-half of the young people growing up in our country today are going to be growing up without both biological parents, so they have undergone a significant amount of dysfunction at some point in their lives. In response, the Congress, being generous and compassionate, has devised 339 Federal programs which serve youth and their families. There are 339 of these programs. These programs are disbursed over 12 different agencies. The greatest number are in the Department of Education, Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice. Some are in the Department of Labor, some are in the Department of Agriculture, and so on; and so they are spread all over. The cost of all of these programs was $223.5 billion in 2003. So it is a huge part of the Federal budget. Now, the problem is that these programs are not coordinated in any way at all. They have kind of grown like Topsy. In many cases, they have no measurable quantifiable goals; and in many more cases, no one really knows whether they even serve the purpose which they were first intended to serve. So we have a very confused picture as far as these programs are concerned. The General Accounting Office refers to this confused government response to troubled youth as a perfect example of ``mission fragmentation.'' The GAO recommends that programs with similar goals, target populations, and services be coordinated, consolidated and streamlined. As a result of this report and the GAO commentary on it, the Federal Youth Coordination Act was written. It was written in response to the White House Task Force, and it creates a Federal Youth Coordinating Council. Now, this council is designed to do several things. First of all, it is composed of members from each of the 12 agencies that have these youth-serving agencies. Also included on the council are some young people who actually have been in dysfunctional situations, young people who have been in foster care, and young people who have been through the system and have seen some of the problems. So what this council will do is to meet regularly, at least four times a year; and they are charged with these different responsibilities: First of all, evaluate youth-serving programs. Does each program really serve any good objective? What programs are duplication? What programs could be combined; what programs could be eliminated? Secondly, coordinate among Federal agencies with programs serving youth. There may be a program in Health and Human Services that mirrors a program in the Department of Education. Why have that duplication? Why is there no coordination or even communication across agency lines? Improve Federal programs that serve at-risk youth. What works; what does not work? What types of programs should we be promoting? What should we be putting more money into and what should we be defunding, and so on? Fourthly, recommend improvements in an annual report. The commission has to file a report with Congress which examines exactly what they have been doing and what they have accomplished. And then probably most important of all, set and meet quantifiable goals and objectives. In other words, each program has to have a measurable quantifiable goal, a series of goals and benchmarks as to whether they are accomplishing anything or not. We think this is critical in any type of program that is going to move forward. Lastly, hold Federal agencies accountable for achieving results. Of course, accountability in government sometimes is lacking. So I urge support of this bill. We think it is very important.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, methamphetamine abuse has become the Nation's leading drug problem, according to a survey of 500 sheriff's departments in 45 States. Meth is cheap to buy, it is easy to make, it is available everywhere, it is highly addictive, and often causes addiction after just one use. It is sweeping across the Nation replacing cocaine and heroin as the drug of choice for so many people. This is where we were in 1990 in terms of drug labs, and this is where we are currently in this country in 2004, where at least 20 or more clandestine drug labs have been shown in those counties. But, of course, those small drug labs are not the main problem, it is mostly drugs coming out of Mexico through the superlabs, which have been replacing cocaine and heroin. This drug has led to an increase in crime, child abuse, and prison and jail populations are soaring. Sixty to 85 percent of the meth used in this country comes from the superlabs in Mexico. Pseudoephedrine or ephedrine is the one ingredient necessary for the manufacture of meth. It is manufactured, as said earlier, in six or seven locations around the world. The Kennedy-Hooley-Osborne-Souder amendment attempts to keep pseudoephedrine from meth manufacturers. It identifies and publicizes the five export countries and the five import countries which have the highest rate of diversion of pseudoephedrine to manufacturers of methamphetamine. The Department of State could then use its existing authority to reduce or eliminate U.S. foreign aid to those countries which are most contributing to the meth problem. It is a good amendment. It gets to the source of the problem, and I urge support of the amendment because this is something that is critical to the welfare of our Nation.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time, and I support the underlying bill, which is of great importance to U.S. commerce. The upper Mississippi and Illinois waterway project contained in the bill is critical to U.S. agriculture. It is my understanding that an amendment will be offered that will cripple the modernization of the lock and dam system on the Mississippi River. Due to an increase in unscheduled maintenance closures, shippers have been forced to choose other higher-priced modes of transportation for their goods, resulting in less barge traffic and more cost for producers. The upper Mississippi and Illinois river system is critically important to grain producers across the Nation because the price of grain nationwide is largely based on the price of grain that moves on the Mississippi River to our export markets. Over 1 billion bushels of grain, which is about 60 percent of all grain exports, move to export markets each year via the Mississippi River. According to the National Corn Growers Association, the failure to build the seven new 1,200 foot locks will result in a $562 million loss in farm income annually by 2020. Of that amount, $264 million will be lost to exports and $316 million will be from lower prices and decreased domestic demand. In addition to the economic impact on our country's farmers, shipping using waterways is one of the cheapest, safest, and most environmentally friendly ways to ship goods. The lock and dam system benefits the environment by creating backwaters and side channels that support habitat, recreation areas, and municipal water supplies. The backwaters created by the lock and dam system are estimated to support over 40 percent of the migratory waterfowl and fish breeding grounds and are home to over 500 miles of wildlife refuge. So I certainly hope we will support the lock and dam system as part of the bill. It is a good bill, and I urge support.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, as many Americans are aware, the Senate has passed a version of the energy bill, the House has passed their version of the energy bill, and, as often happens, the two versions are not the same. So, at the present time, the energy bill is in conference. One major difference between the House version and the Senate version is in the renewable fuels section. In the House, we mandate 5 billion gallons of ethanol be produced in this country by 2012. The Senate version requires 8 billion gallons rather than 5 billion. So there is a substantial difference. In 2004, the United States produced 3.6 billion gallons; this year, 4.5 billion gallons of ethanol. And we should reach the 5 billion gallon standard by 2006. So the House version is relatively meaningless, because by saying that we want 5 billion gallons in 2012, we will have already reached that by 2006. So we are obviously very supportive, many of us, of the 8 billion gallon standard, and I rise tonight to encourage that that be what is included in the conference report. Currently, ethanol is produced in 20 States, including California and Kentucky. At one time, it was assumed that ethanol was something that was only produced in five or six midwestern states. Ethanol could be made from almost any type of biomass, and I think eventually we will see ethanol production in all 50 States. The ethanol industry benefits all Americans, not just those in the corn-producing States of the Midwest. Currently, ethanol reduces the price of an average gallon of gasoline by roughly 29 cents, so if we are paying $2.20 a gallon at the pump today, if it were not for the ethanol industry, it would be $2.50, $2.51, something in that rage. E- 85, with 85 percent ethanol, at the present time is roughly 60 cents cheaper than regular gasoline. So in many areas of the country, E-85 is selling for $1.60 a gallon as opposed to $2.20 or $2.25. Ethanol creates more energy than it consumes. This is something lots of people are not aware of. For instance, for every one Btu of energy, ethanol produces 1.389 Btu of energy. So by the time you have planted the crop, you have harvested it, you have processed it, you have refined it, you gain almost four- tenths of a Btu. The reason for that is that we are harnessing the energy of the sun in making ethanol. Conversely, gasoline, for every 1 Btu of energy used, produces eight- tenths of a Btu of energy once it is refined. MTBE produces 6.675 Btus. So there is a considerable energy loss in these areas. Again, this is a misconception that many people have that ethanol uses more energy than it really produces. This is not true. As MTBE is phased out due to groundwater contamination, ethanol is the primary remaining eliminator of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2004, ethanol reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 7 million tons in the United States, which was a huge environmental benefit. The ethanol industry added $25 billion to the U.S. economy in 2004. The ethanol industry has added 243,000 jobs to our economy, and above all, it has moved us away from dependence on foreign oil. There are just a couple of other things I would like to mention that we have on the following chart. You will notice that, currently, ethanol adds $51 billion to farm income over 10 years. The reason for this is that ethanol increases the price of a bushel of corn by 25 to 50 cents a bushel. It reduces government farm payments by $5.9 billion over 10 years. The reason for that is it raises the price of corn. Therefore, there are fewer farm bill payments that drain money from the taxpayers, so this is a good thing for the average taxpayer in the country. It also reduces the U.S. trade deficit by roughly $34 billion, and this is huge, because what is eating our economy alive is a huge trade deficit at the present time. As we remove ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, which is the main cause of the trade deficit, we begin to see things turn around because of ethanol. And as I mentioned earlier, it does significantly reduce air pollution. So we think this is a win-win for the American economy, for the American people; and I urge my colleagues to support the higher level of 8 billion gallons of ethanol that is currently in the Senate version of the energy bill.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time. We have actually done some good things for veterans over the last 4 years. I would like to point those out. We have passed concurrent receipt legislation which we have been trying to get done for a period of time. Death and survivor benefits have certainly been very helpful to servicemembers over the past 4 years. The VA budget has been increased from $48 billion to $68 billion, a 42 percent increase; and nearly 5 million veterans receive health care benefit services this year, which is about 1 million more than 4 years ago. So many good things have happened. I realize that the current shortfall is really unacceptable and would like to comment that even though this was due to an actuarial miscalculation, certainly was unintentional and certainly is fixable, we do find that some of our rural veterans are really struggling for health care. Many of these people have to travel long distances; and the older they get and the sicker they get, the more difficult it is to get them health care. They often have to have a friend, a child, drive them down one day. The next day they come back, and it may be for very routine issues such as blood pressure, adjustment of medications and so on. What I am saying here at this particular time is that this seems to be a neglected group, and ofttimes our rural veterans are the people who really serve our country in the highest number, highest percentages. What we would like to propose is that legislation that I have introduced, H.R. 1741, the Rural Veterans Access to Care Act, would establish a pilot program to assist highly rural or geographically remote veterans who are enrolled in the VA and are obtaining primary health care at a medical facility closer to home, in other words, their local hospital. If they need to adjust their medications, they can go and check there, and VA reimburses them for that. This would, I think, in some cases save money. It certainly would provide a lot more services for those who badly need the health care. I would just like to make that comment, and I thank the gentleman for his time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, this is what the methamphetamine epidemic looked like in 1990. These two States had 20 or more meth labs at that time. This is what the methamphetamine epidemic looked like in 1998. This is what it looked like in 2004. So we can see the spread of meth. I think it is the biggest threat to the United States other than possibly terrorism today. We have heard statements on the floor tonight that education does not work, advertising does not work. This is a picture of a young lady who started taking meth at age 30. She was arrested every year for 10 years. This is the last picture, and she is in the morgue. She lasted 10 years. This is unusually long on meth. But when we show these pictures to kids, when we get in the schools; in my district, there are 200 schools. We have been in 100 schools in the last 5 months. When we show this kind of Power Point, it does affect them. We have kids every time come up and say, my folks have been picked up, my folks ran a meth lab; this has affected me. So I realize that where we are taking the money from is not popular. I hope that in some way we can get this advertising money out there because it does make a difference. This is a critical problem. I appreciate what the gentleman from Indiana is doing and the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen) and I would really urge, Mr. Chairman, that some way we get some of this money restored to this program because it is so critical to this Nation at this time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of debate on this House floor recently about the war in Iraq and not so much about Afghanistan, interestingly, but certainly about Iraq. Some in Congress are clamoring for us to pull out of Iraq immediately. Some want a timetable indicating a date certain when we will withdraw. Some say there is no plan concerning postwar Iraq, no exit strategy. I would like to address each of these points just briefly. Number 1, we promised the Iraqi people that we would not pull out prematurely. Remember that back in the Gulf War in the early 1990s, we made a similar promise. We did pull out, and thousands of Iraqis died. We have had a very difficult time regaining their trust since. I think to this point we may have regained some of that status and some of that trust. A date certain on which we will leave Iraq will encourage insurgents to hang on until that date and then intensify the attacks. I think the date certain of withdrawal will certainly be looked upon by many insurgents as a sign that they were winning, a sign of victory. I am sure they would claim victory at that point. Also, I think it is important that a withdrawal without victory will dishonor the memories of those who have died and sacrificed, and I, for one, would very much hate to go back and face some of those parents and some of those husbands and wives who have lost soldiers in the war and try to tell them that basically their son, their daughter, their husband, or their wife died for no cause at all. That would be very, very difficult for them to swallow. Then I think most of us who have been overseas, and a great many Members of Congress have, have been to Iraq and Afghanistan and Kuwait, and Landstuhl in Germany to the hospital, and up to Walter Reed, and one thing that we found almost universally is that our soldiers have tremendous morale. They have a very strong sense of mission, and they have a real sense of purpose. Almost to a person the military personnel that I have talked to would tell you that they absolutely do not want to leave this thing undone. They want to make sure there is a sense of accomplishment and a sense of purpose. Finally, let us address the issue of no plan, that there is no strategy, no exit plan at all. We might refer to this chart here. One year ago, there was one Iraqi military battalion that was trained and equipped. Now there are more than 100 battalions trained and equipped, and those are reflected over here on this 75,791 total of Ministry of Defense forces. Also, in addition, there are 90,883 policemen and other patrol and security guards that have been trained. So it is a total of 170,000 Iraqis who are currently trained and equipped. I have been to Iraq where I have seen some of this training occur. I have been to Amman, Jordan, where a lot of the police academies are held. So at the present time we are aiming for 270,000, and we are most of the way there. We still have 100,000 to go, and we are training about 10,000 a month. So that means in about 10 months we will be at roughly 270,000. General Petraeus says there is no shortage of volunteers; we have more people applying for this position than we have slots to fill them at the present time. So I think we are in reasonably good shape. The exit strategy is obviously to draw down our forces as the Iraqis are able to take control of the situation, and currently, in almost every military action, Iraqis are out in front. There are many areas of Iraq at the present time where there are no U.S. forces. Iraqi forces are totally in control, not a whole lot of those areas, but there are some. So the Iraqis are assuming more and more responsibility for their own protection. At the present time, there are 21,000 fewer Americans in Iraq than there were in January. So there has been some drawdown at the present time. One of the wild card situations is the Sunnis. Recently, the Sunnis, it was reported, reached a resolution with the Shias and the Kurds as to their role in government. I think if that can be accomplished, then we are in reasonably good shape for a resolution. A constitution will be written by August 15. It will be approved by October 15, and a new government will be elected on December 15. So there is a strategy. Progress is being made. It is a very difficult situation. I really, truly believe all Members, both sides of the aisle, are very much in support of our troops. I think it is important that we support them with our votes, with money, with equipment, and also with our words, because our words that are spoken on this House floor and in the press certainly reverberate around the world and al Jazeera. So I know our troops very much are hoping that we will show unqualified and tremendous resolution in resolving this issue.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Community Service Block Grant and in opposition to the cuts to this program. The Community Services Block Grant program distributes Federal money to more than 1,100 community action agencies nationwide that use those funds to lessen the effects of poverty. In my Congressional District, there are six Community Action Agencies: Blue Valley Community Action, Central Nebraska Community Services, Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska, Kearney, Goldenrod Hills Community Services, Northwest Community Action, and Panhandle Community Services. Each of these agencies provide invaluable services to the citizens of Nebraska. Many people have asked about what CSBG funds do. In short, CSBG funds provide the glue that help Community Action Agencies coordinate funding and services across the spectrum of what families might need. An example of the success of CSBG was shared with me by Shelley Mayhew of the Blue Valley Crisis Intervention. Shelley worked with a young mother with a 5-year-old child who was abandoned, with no money or car, by her abusive and violent fiance. Unable to search for a job because of her inability to pay for childcare, lack of extended family support, lack of domestic violence services, and her lack of a car, since in rural Nebraska we have no mass transit system, this young mother was referred to Blue Valley Community Action Crisis Intervention. There, through the actions of staff at Blue Valley, the child was enrolled in school, the family received domestic violence counseling and found affordable housing, and the mother found a job that allows her to support her family. Today, this young mother is even enrolled in a program to help her prepare for homeownership. Shelly's caseworker says, ``I watched a family struggling and hopeless become self-sufficient and optimistic about the future. I feel very fortunate to be part of an agency that makes a difference in so many people's lives.'' This is just one story from my Congressional District. CSBG is a true State block grant program that allows States to establish and operate anti-poverty programs that meet the unique needs of their low-income communities. In Nebraska, it is critically important. I hope that the funding for this important program can be restored during the Conference Committee.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and I thank him for his work on this bill. Mr. Chairman, over 36 years of dealing with young people as a coach, recruiting, and as a teacher, I have witnessed an unraveling of our Nation's families. Young people in America currently face more overwhelming obstacles than ever before. Nearly one half of all children grow up without one biological parent or are in some difficult home environment. The main value of this program, as I see it, Mr. Chairman, is that it does give some very needy children on a college campus great supervision and through the vehicle of sports encourages them to do well in school, provides some character-building experiences. I have experienced personally these programs. I have participated in them; so I see great value and really appreciate the chairman's willingness to at least consider our proposal.