Tom Osborne

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, underage drinking currently costs the United States $53 billion annually, according to one study. According to the American Medical Association that figure should be $61 billion. And in the State of Nebraska, which I represent, that translates to over $2,000 per youth in the State of Nebraska, is what the cost to the United States is. But the cost is really counted in more than financial aspects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates the number of underage deaths due to excessive alcohol is roughly $4,500 a year, which is six times the death rate that we are experiencing annually in Iraq. An estimated 3 million teenagers are full-blown alcoholics and several million more have severe drinking problems. Alcohol kills six times more young people than all other illegal drugs combined. Let me say that again: it kills six times what cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana does combined. And yet the Federal Government considerably underfunds the efforts to combat underage drinking. We currently spend $1.8 billion on hard drugs and only $71 million on underage drinking. That is a ratio of 25 to 1. That needs to be corrected. Recent studies have found that heavy exposure to the adolescent brain to alcohol may interfere with brain development. One study found that young alcohol-dependent 15 and 16 year olds who drank heavily in early and middle adolescents performed worse on both verbal and nonverbal memory tasks, and I think it has a tremendous impact on the dropout rate in this country, which is about 30 percent. So this is certainly an educational academic problem as well. According to an analysis performed in 2004, the average age at which 12- to 17-year-old young people begin drinking is age 13. Young people binge drink. Ninety-two percent of the alcohol consumed by 12 to 14 year olds is consumed when they are having five or more drinks on a single occasion. And on and on. So the scope of the problem is truly massive. And the current bill, the STOP Underage Drinking bill, has been sponsored by Congresswoman Roybal-Allard, Congressmen Wamp, Wolf, Rosa DeLauro, and myself, and then Senators DeWine and Dodd in the Senate. And I am sure that there will be others who will explain, but there have been some minor technical changes. There has been an offset provided so that those who had some heartburn over the funding aspects of it should be satisfied at this point. But basically it does three or four things. It creates an Interagency Coordinating Committee to coordinate underage drinking programs, which now are kind of growing like Topsy. It also provides a national media campaign against underage drinking which is aimed at parents. The fundamental fact as to whether a young person decides to use alcohol early in their life is parental attitudes. And so many parents think, well, if my young person is only using alcohol, then they will be protected from heroin and methamphetamine. And the research is exactly the opposite. It simply is a gateway drug. The bill also does a number of other things. It provides some grants, particularly at the college campus. The number one cause of death on the college campus is underage drinking: 1,700 deaths each year. So we feel this is a good bill. It was passed before. We think the Senate has improved it. I would like to thank those who have worked on it for a long period of time. We appreciate the bipartisan support.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of today, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago I visited Israel, spent about 12 days there, and traveled the whole country. We started in the northern part, up around Caesaria Phillipi, went down to Elat on the Red Sea, went to Jerusalem, went to Tel Aviv, talked to the people, and had a very good feel for what actually is going on there. So often on CODELs we are in a country for 24 hours, 36 hours, and we move on. And this was a little different. And so at the present time, obviously, people know that Israel is in a very difficult spot. Recently they had a war involving Hezbollah on their northern border. And the Hezbollah was located in Lebanon, southern part of it, and fired hundreds, if not thousands, of Katyusha missiles into Israel, particularly the northern part of Israel. And yet, as we visited that part of the country, it was almost untouched, it seemed. They had repaired, they had restored, and life was going on as usual only a couple, 3 weeks after the conflict had ended. As many people know, Hamas is very powerful in Gaza and in the West Bank and has tremendous influence in the Palestinian areas. At the present time, there are rockets being fired by the Hamas people down in Gaza, into Israel. So as we watch this and as we watch the continual conflict with the Palestinians and the desire for the Palestinians to have a unified state, unifying the West Bank, on the west bank of the Jordan and in the Gaza Strip down in the southwestern part of the country, you can see that Israel is under tremendous pressure. Yet, the thing that was rather impressive was the staying power, the resolve, the willingness of the Israelis to try to see this through. I guess the lessons that I took away from this, and the concerns, were that, obviously, it is important that the United States have that same staying power, that same will to pull together, that same willingness to survive in the face of adversity. Because even though we are protected by two great oceans, the world has shrunk. Today we are not as secure as we once were. We face a true global conflict over the horizon. Many of the things that we observed in Israel, I think, apply to us, even though sometimes we are not aware of it. Tony Blair made an interesting observation here recently. He stated that peace in the Middle East will be hard to come by unless Israel and the Palestinians and Hamas and Hezbollah can somehow resolve their differences. I believe that is very true. Our focus is on Iraq here in the United States, sometimes on Afghanistan. But at the heart of much of the conflict and much of the turmoil in the Middle East is the conflict that involves terrorist organizations and Israel. I am not here to be partisan and take Israel's side versus another nation's side. I am simply pointing these issues out that I think are very important. The things that I mentioned that particularly impressed me about the Israelis were, number one, a willingness to persevere in the face of great adversity, and people realize what the terrorists are attempting to do. But also not far away is Iran, and the Iranian president has basically said that he would like to destroy Israel, and everyone knows that at the present time it does appear that Iran is trying to build nuclear capabilities. This is a very tenuous situation as far as Israel is concerned. Despite these threats, as I mentioned, Israel seems to be staying the course, seems to have great resolve, and I would hope that we would have the same resolve in our country in terms of persevering in the face of adversity. The second thing that I took away from that trip to Israel that I think is important, that may have some applicability to our situation here in the United States, is a sense on the part of the Israelis of having great unity of purpose, a willingness to pull together, a willingness to avoid all fragmentation. I guess when your back is to the wall and you are not very big, you realize that unity of purpose is critical. So we certainly detected that. I guess I can relate a little bit to my previous experience in the athletic arena in regard to the importance of unity of purpose. A team of great athletes which was polarized and which was divided was not able to accomplish a great deal; and yet a team with less talent which had unity of purpose would usually prevail over a superior team physically that was divided almost every time. So the analogy that I would like to draw at this present time are some things that I have observed, as I leave this body, and this has to do really with the recent election. We certainly experienced a very contentious election. We saw a great deal of partisanship; accusations were numerous and sometimes very destructive. There were deep divisions that were very apparent between the two parties. The general public, at least the public that I dealt with in rural and central parts of America, watched the acrimony and the name-calling with a great deal of dismay and sometimes disgust. And to a significant degree, I believe, the political process and Congress in particular is viewed with a great deal of mistrust and skepticism at the present time. At the root of that, I think, was some of the dialogue that they saw occur in the last several months. It seems to me, as I talked to my constituents, and people around the country, that the public is counting on us to lead, to unite, to serve the best interests of the country, rather than to point fingers and to seek to destroy the opposition. I think that from this election some lessons can be drawn. Which way this Congress goes, I am not certain, but I at least have some wishes, I have some desires, which I will try to convey. I guess the majority in the House and the Senate now has changed. It definitely has. This presents two opportunities: number one, an opportunity for the new majority to pay back those who were in the majority for either real or perceived slights and offenses. But the second approach can be something that I think would be more constructive, is a chance to change the political climate, to foster a more cooperative governing style and certainly something that would restore a good deal of confidence on the part of the American people. I think there are three major factors that people continually point to in regard to the last election, and the two, the first two, have been given preeminence. First of all, Iraq, the conflict over there, the fact that many Americans have grown weary of it; many Americans have decided that we are on the wrong course. To be honest about it, I don't think that the Congress has a tremendous amount of control over what is happening in Iraq. We have some. We can control funding, and we can make comments here, but we really aren't the generals on the ground. So that really may be a little bit out of our element to some degree. The second area is the area of ethics, and the fact that many people were very upset with corrupt practices that had occurred on the part of a small number of people but still a number of our Members, and that this is something that Congress definitely does have directly in its purview. We did some reforms, but not enough, I don't believe, in the last few months. And I believe that Congress, Members of Congress, members of the Senate, have to be above reproach. As Joe Paterno one time said, we cannot only be fair; we have to appear to be fair. We cannot have the perception even of wrong-doing. As I sat in meeting after meeting after meeting over 6 years, I can't really remember anyone getting up and really addressing the issue of ethics and how important this is in preserving the trust of the American people. It is something that this body obviously has to do a better job with, and I hope that it will become a major priority here. Then the third thing, which many of the pundits have not referred to very often, has simply been the issue of partisan bickering, which I think would serve us very well to get over to some degree, and it will be interesting to see how that develops as time goes on. The most hopeful time that I had during my 6 years in Congress was also maybe the worst time, and that was the 3 or 4 months right after 9/11, and almost everyone here can remember those times. We can remember the horror that we felt as we saw the Pentagon destroyed, the Twin Towers go down, the plane crash over Pennsylvania, and the fact that we realized all of a sudden that as a Nation we were vulnerable. That was a terrible time, and there was a lot of rebuilding to do. At the same time, it was a very hopeful time, because, for 3 months, maybe 4 months, here in this Chamber and over in the Senate, we saw Congress work together, pull together to display a unity of purpose that I had not seen before or since. It showed what we were capable of doing as a body, as a unified organization. So, as time goes by and as that memory of 9/11 begins to fade, it is easy to begin to become complacent again and decide that the most important thing is party supremacy. So I would hope that people would realize that even though we have not been attacked for the last 5 years, that attack is still on the horizon; that this is still a world that is very, very combustible at the present time. We really do need to pull together in a way that we have not done for the last 5 years. Cervantes once said something that was rather important to me in my outlook on life. He said, ``The journey is more important than the end.'' A very brief statement. He said, ``The journey is more important than the end.'' What he was saying is that the process that we go through, the way we do things, how we do things, why we do things, is really more important than the end result. Sometimes that is easy to say, but it is really hard to live with, because losing an election is very difficult. I have experienced that. Losing a football game is very difficult. Losing a business is very difficult. But what he was saying is, you know, the process is more important than all of that. The process is more important than whether you win or whether you lose. You do things in a certain way, and you do them every time, and in the long run, that will be the most important thing. That is why I point to the fact that doing things the right way here and unity of purpose is going to be very important. This week there will be a big football game; Ohio State is going to play Michigan. One team will prevail. They are both undefeated. I don't know which team is going to win. But I do know this: The deciding factor will probably be something that was overlooked in the preparation, something that has been laying there for the last 9 or 10 weeks unaddressed. It may be a fumble. The back doesn't carry the ball high and tight. He flags the ball, something that should have been addressed. It may be an extra point where a guy isn't stepping with his right foot. And all of a sudden, he gets blown off the ball, and somebody blocks an extra point or somebody blocks a punt. It may be fatigue in the fourth quarter; conditioning that wasn't undertaken that should have been done. Often, that which is ignored which does not seem to be very important or very apparent all of a sudden, in a crisis, becomes critical. That is the way it is with our country at the present time. I feel that there is something that we really are not paying adequate attention to. It is like how you carry the football. It is like blocking. It is like punt protection. Those kinds of things that are little don't seem to make a lot of difference, but all of sudden it jumps up and bites you. The greatest threat facing the United States as I see it at the present time is something that we need to pay attention to, and that is our young people, because young people are the future. There was a study that was released today by America's Promise, the organization that was headed up for many years by Colin Powell, still very active, and his wife. They did a research report which released some information that I thought was very revealing. It said, there are really five things that a young person needs to have to grow up and be productive and to be healthy and to help make this country work. They said, these five promises are: number one, caring adults in that young person's life, and 40 percent of our young people indicated at the present time that they either don't have any or don't have enough. One out of five young people indicate that they do not have a single caring adult in their life, somebody that really cares for them as they are. Number two, a safe place and a constructive use of time. And a tremendous number of our kids go home to homes that are not safe because of abuse. They live in neighborhoods that, because of gangs or violence or whatever, are not safe. Again, that is a major problem: a healthy start and healthy development. Many of our young people grow up without adequate medical care, medical attention, and as a result, they don't in the first 3 or 4 or 5 years of life have an even start, and this, again, is a tremendous handicap. Effective education; 25 percent of our young people don't complete high school. Many of them who do complete high school are not adequately prepared for the world of work, and we are falling behind in many areas internationally in terms of our education. Then, opportunity to serve other people, to give something of themselves. So the interesting thrust of this whole research study, it was interesting, indicated that 31 percent of our children have either four or five of these essential ingredients, and the conclusion of the study is that these 31 percent will be pretty well prepared. These 31 percent will do pretty well with the rest of their lives. But then they said, you know, 48 percent have only two or three of these factors, and they have a chance, but they are kind of on the bubble. If you only have two or three of those five ingredients going in your life, you are somewhat crippled, and you may be fortunate and you may make it, but you may be less than fortunate and you may not make it. Then the critical thing was, they said 21 percent have only one of those factors, or they have zero, so 21 percent, one out of every five, of our children is at tremendous risk of not being a productive adult, of having a life that is certainly not what it could be. So it is important that we focus on this and understand how important this is. One in 12 of our young people today attempts suicide. So there is a certain desperation out there. I would like to now turn to something that Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain said on this floor about 3 years ago, which I think is somewhat germane, that relates to what I have been talking about with our young people, with our divisions in Congress and so on. He said, ``As Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible, but in fact it is transient.'' So what he was saying is that every great nation for a period of time has assumed that it was going to live forever, that things were not going to change, that it would be preeminent forever, and then eventually realized that this power that they had, this aura of invincibility, all of a sudden was not there anymore. So I think that there is no question as we look at history that what he said is very true. I would like to just take a quick cursory look at three nations that certainly would have fit that category he was talking about, nations that were invincible at the time. Certainly Rome 2,000 years ago ruled the entire civilized world, appeared to be invincible, but eventually fell from preeminence. The reasons historians have given that they fell were, number one, a general decline in morality; an increase in corruption and instability in leadership; an increasing public addiction to ever-more-violent public spectacles; an increase in crime and prostitution; and above all, a population that became more self- absorbed, apathetic and unwilling to sacrifice for the common good. Does that fit any of our parameters here? I don't know, but it certainly is something we need to be aware of and we need to think about to some degree. Great Britain 150 years ago dominated the world, had a colonial empire that dominated the world from the late 1600s through much of the 1800s, yet this British Empire eventually slowly crumbled. The reasons given by historians are as follows: Number one, they lost the national resolve to maintain their territory. It takes a lot of energy and commitment to maintain far-flung colonies around the world. Next, values that led to ascendency were eroded. The integrity, the character of the people, somehow was no longer what it once had been. Spiritual underpinnings began to shift. Some the spiritual values were no longer there. Russia, 20 years ago one of the great nations of the world, one of the two superpowers at that time, in a matter of months disintegrated before our eyes. Alexander Solzhenitzen reflected on this fall when he observed this. He said, ``Over a half century ago while I was still a child, I recall a number of older people offered the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia.'' Then he quotes. ``Men have forgotten God. That is why all of this has happened.'' That is what he found many people in Russia saying. Marx and Lenin had dismantled Russia's religious heritage, values had fallen, Russia's foundation was broken, and eventually it collapsed like a house of cards with nothing to sustain it. So if you look at these three nations, which I just picked out randomly, there are really some common themes of historical collapse. Number one, citizens are less willing to sacrifice for other people and for their country; number two, citizens become more self-absorbed, they have a greater desire for the state to take care of them; number three, a weakening of commonly held values; and number four, the decline of spiritual commitment. I think there are some warnings here, some things we might think about, some things that may be applicable to our country and to this body here. We currently have the most powerful military, the strongest economy, the most stable government of any nation in the world, and so it is easy at times to think that we are invincible, that this will go on forever. But as Tony Blair stated, ``As Britain knows, all predominant power for a time seems invincible, but in fact it is transient.'' I think it is our job here in this body and in this country to see to it that it doesn't become transient, at least not real soon; that we are able to preserve the integrity and identity of our country that has been so important. In over 36 years of coaching, I witnessed firsthand some trends that were concerning to me. I noticed over that 36 years that the young men who came into the program became, over time, more troubled. They were people who showed more stress. They had less moral clarity as time passed. When I started coaching in 1962, I think most of the players I dealt with knew that it was wrong to tell a lie. They knew that stealing something was wrong; it was just something that was a given. And yet, as time goes on, we ran into something called postmodernism, the idea that everything is relative, there are no moral absolutes. As a result, if you can get away with something, it may be okay. That has become a rather pervasive theme in our country and particularly in our institutions of higher education, the idea of postmodernism. As a result, I saw young men who were a little more troubled, a little less stable, and I think there are really two major factors behind this. First of all, family stability has certainly eroded. I saw that because when I first recruited players and went into their homes in the 1960s and the early 1970s, it was rather rare to see a young person who did not have both parents, and if you saw somebody with only one parent, it was usually because one parent or the other was deceased. But as time went on and as I wrapped up my coaching career in the late 1990s, roughly one-half of the young people that we were dealing with had grown up without both biological parents. One parent or other had simply taken off, a divorce or something had occurred; so that certainly left some tremendous scars. In 1960, the out-of-wedlock birthrate was 5 percent. Today, it is around 36 percent. About one out of every three children is born outside of marriage. Less than a quarter of families with children under the age of 6 have a parent staying home with them full-time. One- third of all school-age children come home to an empty house for at least part of the week, and the hours between 3 and 6 p.m., of course, are the greatest hours of risk for young children. Then, the last thing I will mention here, 24 million children in the United States live without their real father. So being fatherless is a huge problem in our country today, and those young people who are fatherless are two to three more times likely to be abused, have emotional behavior problems, abuse drugs and alcohol, commit a crime and so on. There is a greeting card company that went to a prison on Mother's Day and offered to give free greeting cards to every inmate who would want one to send to his mother. They had almost 100 percent participation. Almost every inmate of that prison decided that they wanted to send a Mother's Day card to their mother. They had so much success, the greeting card company came back on Father's Day and they made the same offer. They had practically zero participation. You say, well, what in the world happened here? The thing was that the great majority, almost all of the men in that prison, did not have a father. Their father had simply abandoned them, probably early in life, and as a result they were not interested at all in sending them a card. Certainly the family structure has changed in our country, and I think we have to pay attention to that. We have to buttress it as much as we can. We can't legislate a lot of these things, but we can certainly attempt to do something about it. The second thing that I will address, and this will be the last thing I will talk about, is the fact that the environment that our young people are now growing up in has certainly changed as well. The family, the launching pad, has changed, has become less stable, and the environment into which we are thrusting our young people has certainly become more difficult, has become more challenging, has become more dangerous, and, as a result, we have seen some major changes. One thing that I was very proud to see this House address yesterday was the matter of underage drinking. This has become a huge problem in our Nation, and we did pass the STOP bill yesterday. I don't know if we will get if done in the Senate or not. I hope we will. It simply made an attempt to do something about the ravages of underage drinking. I will just present a few interesting details regarding underage drinking. A recent National Academy of Sciences study showed that alcohol kills six-and-a-half times more children than all other drugs combined. So if you look at cocaine, if you look at heroin, marijuana and on and on, and you combine all of those, alcohol kills six-and-a-half times more children, more than 4,000 a year, which is a huge number. It costs the United States $53 billion annually. There are currently 3 million teenage alcoholics. So it is by far the biggest drug problem we have. The average age for the first drink of a young person who decides to use alcohol before age 21 is 12.8 years of age. When you start using alcohol that young, that early in your life, it makes a huge difference because of your psychological and your physiological immaturity. A young person who starts drinking before age 15 is five times more likely to become an alcoholic than one who waits until they are 21 years of age. Anyway, this body has done something about this, not probably enough, but at least it is a good start, and I was proud to see that happen yesterday. Another drug that is particularly pernicious and is spreading like wildfire across the country is methamphetamine. Many places will find that the rates of use of heroin and cocaine are going down rather dramatically, and the reason for that is methamphetamine is moving in. Methamphetamine is cheaper and methamphetamine is much more addictive, so it is sweeping across the country. It started in California and has slowly moved across, and now there is a pocket up in the northeastern part of the country where we don't see much of it, but through the Midwest, through the South, through most of the rest of the country, it has become pretty much a tidal wave. So we have been very concerned about this. We find that in Nebraska roughly 22,000 people, according to a recent report, are addicted in a State of only 1.7 million. The average meth addict will cost society about $50,000 a year, so in Nebraska it is about a $1 billion a year problem, and nationally it is huge. It is eating up a huge amount of our money at the present time. So we did again make some attempt to address that here, the Combat Meth Act was important, and I think maybe the most important part of that bill was that we did something to try to regulate sudafedrine, which absolutely is necessary in order to produce methamphetamine. There are only about six or seven countries in the world that produce sudafedrine, and so what we did in that bill was, we said those countries that produce sudafedrine and ship it to other countries will need to give the United States invoices of where those shipments of sudafedrine are going, which enables us then to track the sudafedrine to the ``superlabs,'' which are mostly in Mexico; and we think that is the most helpful way we have of getting at some of those superlabs that are shipping about 80 to 90 percent of the methamphetamine into the United States. These are some things that have been done. Of course, we realize that we have a huge problem with pornography and some of video games that are affecting our young people and so on. I will not try to outline all of these, but I just want to mention the fact that I believe that it is important that we, as a body, as a Congress, pay attention to what is going on with our young people, because if we don't, if we fail to address those issues, it is a little bit like a football team ignoring something that eventually will catch up with you. As Tony Blair mentioned, ``The long-term well-being of a nation is served well only when you pay attention to the next generation.'' And we have a lot of warning signs out there that we are beginning to slip, that we have not paid adequate attention, that the next generation coming up may not be able to carry the ball, so to speak. So I hope that that will be a major concern and a major thrust in this body as we move forward. It has been a pleasure for me to be here for the last 6 years. A lot of great friends, both sides of the aisle. It has been very challenging at times, and I see great potential. I do hope that we will pull together and hope that we will serve the Nation as best we can as time moves forward.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. I would like to thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 864. As many have pointed out, underage drinking certainly flies under the radar screen, because alcohol is legal, and it is widely accepted. I understand the objection to new spending, a so-called new program. I think it is important to realize that many programs involving alcohol abuse are already ongoing, and they are funded, but they are not authorized, and there is no oversight. That is what this bill does. We are not talking about completely new spending on every issue. We are simply trying to rein in and control and to better channel the spending on underage drinking. Underage drinking costs the citizens of Nebraska $435 million a year. The United States estimate is $53 billion a year. AMA estimates $61 billion. If you can cut that by 10 percent, you are talking about a $5 billion savings. We can do that. So let us not be a penny wise and a pound foolish on this, which is what I think we may be talking about here. But the cost is measured in more than money. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated the number of underage deaths due to excessive alcohol use at 4,554 a year. That is more than six times the rate of death in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have agonized on this floor over that death rate, and yet we are having six times more young people die every year, and it is sort of something that doesn't capture our attention. An estimated 3 million teenagers are full-blown alcoholics, and several million more have serious drinking problems. Alcohol kills six times more young people than all other illegal drugs combined. So the Federal Government, in response, spends 25 times more annually to combat youth drug use, which would be cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, than it does to prevent underage alcohol use, which is $1.8 billion on the drug side versus $71 million on the alcohol side. That doesn't make sense. It is tremendously imbalanced. This is the biggest problem we have as far as our young people, and yet we are spending a drop in the bucket compared to what we are spending on other drugs. Recent studies have found that heavy exposure of the adolescent brain to alcohol interferes with brain development, which is a real problem, and this is something that has really come to light only in the last 2 or 3 years. It was assumed for a long time that drinking with a 12-year old is the same as drinking if you are 30 years old, but it really is not in terms of what it does to the adolescent brain or the adolescent body, and we need to focus on that. According to an analysis performed in 2004, the average age in which 12- to 17-year-olds begin drinking is age 13. Now when you start at age 13, that does some stuff to you. Young people tend to binge drink; 92 percent of the alcohol consumed by 12- to 14-year olds is consumed when they are having five or more drinks upon a single occasion; 12- to 14- year-olds, 92 percent of them are binge drinking. They do not drink socially, they drink to get drunk, in most cases. That, again, of course, is a huge problem with our young people. Young people who began drinking before age 15 are four times more likely to develop alcohol dependence. The STOP Act, which we are talking about here today, includes four major areas of policy development. The first creates an interagency coordinating committee, and that is something that I want to address to Mr. Flake, because these programs that he cited, and I agree with him, there are some things that are out there, but they are not coordinated, and as a result we are spending money here and there, but it is not channeled, it is not funneled in the direction that it has to be. So what we need to do is have this report filed with Congress so we know what works and what doesn't work. What are we spending money on that is not effective. What are we spending money on that is effective. That is the important distinction here. The STOP Act would authorize a national media campaign against underage drinking, which would be directed at adults. Now, this is important, because the biggest single determinant as to what young people do with underage drinking is the attitude of their parents, and we totally missed that point. So whatever advertising we do is aimed at kids, it is not at the adults who influence their thinking. So we think that this is a critical component. The bill would also provide additional resources to prevent underage drinking, including alcohol specific grants through the drug-free communities program, and competitive grants that would create statewide coalitions to prevent underage drinking and alcohol abuse by college and university students. Currently, we are losing 1,700 college students a year to underage drinking, 1,700. There are roughly 70,000 date rapes in this regard as well. So I would like to thank Jeremiah Blake on my staff, Ms. Roybal- Allard, Mr. Wamp, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Wolf and Senator DeWine and Senator Dodd. I appreciate their hard work and urge passage.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for those kind words, and thank you so much for your assistance in this matter. I would like to also thank Subcommittee Chairman Tiberi and Mr. Hinojosa for their work. I would like to particularly address title VIII of the Older Americans Act, entitled ``The Federal Youth Coordination Act,'' which has been referred to previously. I, along with Pete Hoekstra, Mr. Payne and Mr. Ford, introduced the Federal Youth Coordination Act at the request of many organizations such as America's Promise, American Youth Policy Forum, Campfire USA, Learn and Serve America, Volunteers of America, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and the Child Welfare League of America. These groups were united in feeling that something needed to be done concerning the large number of youth-serving programs in the Federal Government. So these groups believe that young people could be better served if Federal youth-serving programs were coordinated, better targeted and streamlined; and we really appreciated their help. The Federal Youth Coordination Act establishes a council chaired by the Secretary of Health and Human Services composed of representatives of youth-serving agencies within the Federal Government. These 150-odd youth serving programs are spread over 12 agencies, so as you might suppose, they have kind of grown like Topsy. Sometimes they duplicate. Sometimes they are not very efficient; sometimes they are. So this council simply tries to coordinate these different programs. The purpose is, number one, to eliminate duplication and waste, which sometimes we have in government. Second is to ensure that each program has measurable, quantifiable goals. When appropriators or other people evaluate a program, how do they know it is accomplishing what it was designed to do? So often there is something called ``mission creep,'' where a program is established to serve one particular program, and it isn't long before it is off in another direction. Third, to verify that each program serves the purpose for which it was intended. Fourth, to ensure communication between agencies regarding youth- serving programs. The council must meet quarterly and file an interim and a final report with congressional committees with jurisdiction over youth- serving programs. The report will provide critical information about programs in order to serve more children more effectively. The council will also provide help to States that request aid in coordinating youth-serving programs at the State level. I would especially like to thank Majority Mr. Leader Boehner, Chairman McKeon, and Ranking Member Miller for all of their help; also members of the staff, Whitney Rhoades, Kate Houston, Rich Stombres, Susan Ross, Denise Forte and Brady Young; also over in the Senate side, Norm Coleman, Debbie Stabenow and their Senate staffers. And especially I would like to mention Erin Duncan on my staff, who spent the better part of 2 years working on this legislation. So, again, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for your help. I think this will be a great program for so many young people, and we appreciate all that you have done.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. I thank the gentleman. We share a strong interest in young people, and we are often together on bills. And I would like to thank Mr. Davis for all that he does. I would also like to thank Mr. Porter for authoring this resolution.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1009) supporting efforts to promote greater public awareness of effective runaway youth prevention programs and the need for safe and productive alternatives, resources, and supports for homeless youth and youth in other high-risk situations.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1009.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in support of H. Res. 1009, which seeks to promote greater public awareness of effective runaway youth prevention programs and the need for safe and productive alternatives, resources, and supports for youth in high-risk situations. I would like to thank the leadership for allowing this resolution to come to the House floor, as it highlights a very tragic and important issue. Runaway episodes among our Nation's youth are serious and widespread, with one of every seven children and youth in the United States running away or being turned out of the home before the age of 18. That constitutes roughly 15 to 17 percent of our young people. A recent study by the Federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention estimates that nearly 1.7 million youth experienced a runaway or thrown-away episode in a single year. The prevalence of runaway and homeless youth in the Nation is astounding, with studies suggesting that between 1.6 million and 2.8 million young people live on the streets of the United States each year. The primary factors of running away or being turned out of a home are severe family conflict, abuse and neglect, and parental abuse of alcohol and drugs. And parenthetically I might add, Mr. Speaker, that I coached some young men, one of whom I remember very vividly who was turned out of his home at age 11 because the boyfriend who was living with that young man's mother and the young guy couldn't get along; so the young guy went and spent 2 or 3 years living on the streets. And that certainly left an impression and scarring on that young man that I do not think he ever completely overcame. Many of the conditions that lead young people to leave or be turned out of their homes are preventable through interventions that can strengthen families and support youth in high-risk situations. Successful interventions are grounded in partnerships among families, community-based human service agencies, law enforcement agencies, schools, faith-based organizations, and even businesses. The National Network for Youth and the National Runaway Switchboard have collaborated since 2002 in cosponsoring the National Runaway Prevention Month during the month of November. National Runaway Prevention Month is a public education initiative aimed at increasing the awareness of issues facing runaways as well as making the public aware of the role they play in preventing youth from running away. As a result of this collaboration, communities across the country have undertaken a range of activities to commemorate National Runaway Prevention Month. Preventing young people from running away and supporting youth in high-risk situations is a family, community, and national concern. Please join us in encouraging all Americans to play a role in supporting the millions of young people who have run away and who are at risk of doing so each year. H. Res. 1009 supports efforts to promote greater public awareness of effective runaway youth prevention programs and the need for safe and productive alternatives, resources, and supports for youth in high-risk situations. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Gilchrest).

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

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico for yielding me time and bringing this forward, and for the rapidity with which we are moving through the bills tonight. We are sorry to slow you down. But the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) and I would like to say a few words about this bill. He was a co-author with me. As you mentioned, H.R. 4750 is a study as to how to more efficiently utilize water between Harlan County Dam in Nebraska and Milford Reservoir in Kansas. The reason this is so important is that Nebraska and Kansas signed a compact in 2002, which means that a lot of Nebraska water goes down the Republican River into Kansas, and Nebraska so far has been short. We are 100,000 acre feet short, as a matter of fact, over the last 3 years. And this has been exacerbated by an extreme drought which we have had for the last 6 years. So this water shortage has made for a very critical situation. So if we can, through this study, allocate water more effectively, save some water, it will help farmers, ranchers, municipalities both in Nebraska and Kansas. We want to thank you. We want to thank Mr. Pombo and the resources staff for bringing forth this bill on short notice. We think it is very important. We urge its passage. We appreciation the cooperation on both sides of the aisle on this bill.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to show three drought monitors that have occurred in recent years. The first one actually is a drought monitor for August of 2002, and of course the brown and the red areas show extreme drought; yellow is fairly severe. You see most of the western United States was engulfed in a drought in 2002. Now we look fast forward to September of 2006, this month, and we see much the same picture: many of the same States, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, New Mexico, Arizona on up into North Dakota. So, Mr. Speaker, what we are looking at now is the sixth year of severe drought in essentially the same parts of the United States. So this cumulative drought, in many cases by most estimates surpasses the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s in terms of its severity. We don't have top soil blowing away like we had in 1930s because we put in some conservation practices, we don't have as much exposed ground. But by the same token, the impact on agriculture has been much the same as it was during that devastating period in the 1930s. The precipitation levels over the last several years have been remarkable. These are some cities in the State of Nebraska, and the precipitation you see here, Grand Island, Nebraska minus 27 inches, Hastings minus 27, Carney minus 27, and on and on. And this is true not just of Nebraska, but all of the cities and communities in this area. So we have seen the ground water levels in many cases declining. Reservoirs are now 15 to 25 percent full where they normally would be this time of year 50, 60, 70, sometimes 80 times full. Our pastures are burned up, so right now in the feed lots we have 15 to 20 percent more cattle than we normally would have at this time of year because there are no pastures to graze so the ranchers have had to put their cattle in feed lots so they can be fed and not have to graze out on those pastures already burned up. Many would say, well, you have crop insurance, so why don't you rely on that? Well, the problem is that for each year of drought, it reduces the amount of production that a farmer has, and each year that production goes down means that they can purchase less crop insurance. So after 5 or 6 straight years, you are now able to purchase much less crop insurance than you could 5 or 6 years ago. So as a result, the insurance is not adequate. And of course everyone understands, most people know that most livestock producers have no crop insurance, they have no safety net. So the livestock people are truly suffering at this point. So we had some drought assistance in the years 2002, 2004, we had some offsets, we were able to get it from the Conservation Security Program. That offset is no longer available. So we are in really tough shape. We are scratching and looking for someplace to get some drought assistance. Mr. Speaker, I think everyone realizes that for natural disasters, whether it be a wildfire, whether it be a Hurricane Katrina, hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars actually, floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, we as a Nation respond very quickly. But a drought is something that is ongoing. It is slow, it is assumed that it is not quite a natural disaster, and yet these people are suffering every bit as much as those who have suffered an earthquake, a fire, a flood. So we urge that the House take a look at this. We think that this is important, we think that time is running out, and we urge close scrutiny by Members of the House and the Senate as well to see if we can't do something before this year is out to help this situation that is in extremely severe drought.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and pay tribute to a great American patriot, COL Mike DeYoung, who is retiring with over 27 years of honorable service in the United States Army. Colonel DeYoung was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Then, as he says, he was given not only the normal baby inoculations of vitamin B, but also vitamin C for ``Cornhusker'' which began a lifelong passion for Nebraska football. He is well known to many Members of Congress in that for the last 4 years he has served as the chief of the House Liaison Division for the Army. In that time, many of us have had the privilege of working with Colonel DeYoung on a wide variety of legislative initiatives, programs and congressional travel. I can personally attest to his professionalism as it was Mike who escorted the delegations that I led to Iraq and other stops in the Middle East in the spring of 2005 and again in December last year. Thus, it is my distinct honor to recognize his many accomplishments over the course of a distinguished career and I commend his superb service to the United States Army and this great Nation. Colonel De Young is an Army ``brat'' as they say, the son of retired COL Dee De Young and Anne DeYoung. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Defense Artillery after graduating from the College of William and Mary. He began his military career with the 4th Infantry Division, serving as a platoon leader and later battery executive officer in the 4th Battalion, 71st Air Defense Artillery. Over the course of the next two decades, Colonel DeYoung served in a variety of command and staff assignments, with increasing levels of responsibility. Highlights during this period include commanding companies both here in the United States and in Europe at the height of the cold war, chief of the Joint Intelligence Center's Crisis Action Support Center in the Pacific region and then again commanding a battalion in Germany. There are few officers who could even begin to rival Colonel DeYoung's expertise and experience in working with the United States Congress. He was selected as an American Political Science Association Foreign Affairs Fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and then served as a fellow in the office of former Senator Richard Bryan of Nevada, with subsequent assignments in the legislation liaison arena working for the Secretary of the Army and as a military assistant for the Secretary of Defense. Colonel DeYoung has played a significant role shaping the greatest Army on the planet. Upon graduating from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Mike expanded his legislative resume serving as the chief of the Congressional Inquiries Division for the Army and then finally, as was stated previously, the chief of Army Liaison to the House of Representatives. While Colonel DeYoung's duty titles and assignments sound impressive, what is far more impressive and more relevant is the character of this selfless soldier and the thousands of young men and women whose lives have been enriched by crossing paths with Mike DeYoung. This is his greatest legacy. Years after Colonel DeYoung is only a memory to the United States Army, the values that he imparted on those that he has served with will live on. These same values are what make our Army the most formidable military force on earth--loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. Mr. Speaker, as this great American patriot moves on, and as this invaluable friend of the House of Representatives begins the next chapter in his life, I know I speak for all the Members of the House, in thanking Colonel DeYoung for his many years of service to our Nation and extend my best wishes to him, his wife Deborah and their wonderful children Alex and Denia.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman. In Nebraska, we have a great many horses that are used for roping, cutting horses, riding horses and quarter horses. Not many racehorses. These horses are primarily for a function, and when a horse can no longer fulfill that function, something has to happen to the horse. Now, you can retire the horse and pay $2,000, $3,000 a year to house it, to feed it and to take care of it, but some people that own 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 horses simply cannot afford to do that. So I have been hearing from a great many horse owners, and these are people who care about horses, who love horses and who are concerned about horses, who have working ranches, and they say this is a bill that they cannot live with because of the cost. So I think we have to look at that. I certainly don't tolerate and don't condone any shipment that is, as has been mentioned, injurious. We don't want to see that. But we have to have some way, because this will decrease the value of the average horse about $300 simply because of the burial fees and the extra costs of taking care of horses. So this is not a solution to the problem. The people in my area oppose it, and I would strongly urge we defeat the bill.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to assume the 5 minutes of the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad) and address the House for 5 minutes.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, I attended a funeral of the Staff Sergeant Jeff Hanson from my district in Nebraska who was killed in Iraq last week. His death was the 29th soldier from Nebraska and the 14th from my district. My district is largely rural. We find that people from small towns and farms tend to volunteer, enlist at a higher rate, tend to be rather patriotic. Therefore, districts like mine have assumed a disproportionate load of the war in the Middle East. One of the things that struck me about the funeral was that I visited with his father, Robert, and also with his wife, Jennie. Robert had one request of me, and he said, please do not let them pull out prematurely. He said that his son saw progress in Iraq, and he felt that little of that progress was being translated to the American people. Robert said this, and I think it is very true, he said, freedom is costly and always has been. Like the Civil War, we go back to World War I, World War II, there has always been a great price that has been exacted. He said that there was no doubt in his mind that we needed to stay the course and see things through. But this is just the story of one soldier, one wife, and does it reflect the thinking of a lot of people? I guess, as I thought about Robert's comments, I reflected on the fact that I have talked to almost all of the parents and spouses of those 14 soldiers who have died in Iraq, and I cannot recall one of them saying, get us out of this. I have seen time after time comments very similar to Robert's saying, we saw meaning, we saw purpose; we saw progress; we think we need to stay the course. Jeff Hanson was a young person, well-educated, was an excellent leader. He served in Kosovo previously, was a Federal police officer. His wife, Jennie, indicated that Jeff was not only committed to fighting terrorism but also giving everyone in the world, including Iraqis, a chance at freedom. He felt that was really an important part of his mission. She, also like Robert, felt that we should continue until we had had some measure of finality to the struggle. So I guess, as the funeral concluded, I was reminded of the words of a young captain that I met over in Kuwait in 2002. This captain had been in Iraq for a year, and he said this; he said, if we pull out prematurely, three things will happen: Number one, those who have died will have died in vain, and that is very true. I think that is one of the things that the family of Jeff were trying to get across. Secondly, he said, we will have gone back on our word to the Iraqis, and you may recall that that happened in the first Gulf War. We cannot afford to do that. Then, thirdly, we will have indicated to terrorists everywhere that terrorism works, it is effective, and if they hang in there long enough, eventually, we will back down, and terrorism will only multiply. I believe that strongly, and I think the family of Jeff Hanson feels that very strongly. I know we are involved in a great debate. There are many people who do not agree with that point of view. So, before long, we will have 300,000 Iraqis trained and equipped sometime late this fall, and that has been the target. At some point, we obviously have to turn it over to them and say, it is your ball, you run with it, now let us see what you can get done with it. So we do not know how it is going to end up, but I do feel that we need to honor the feelings of so many who have sacrificed so greatly and think this national debate through very carefully before we make any preemptive or presumptive move that may be contrary to the wishes of so many who have suffered. I thank the Speaker for this opportunity to reflect on the life of Jeff Hanson and his family, and we hope that Jeff and his fellow soldiers can see this through to a successful solution.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Subcommittee Chairman Castle and Mr. Miller and Ms. Woolsey and Chairman McKeon for their work on this bill and rise in support of it. I am especially pleased that Congress has shown such strong support for the Perkins program in view of the fact that it has been zeroed out on successive years by the administration, and it seems that people in this body understand the importance of a vocational technical education, particularly important in my State of Nebraska which is largely rural. In rural America, if you do not have vocational technical education you have real problems. So this has been critical. Also, we currently lack the skilled workforce in our country to maintain our economy; and a big key to this, of course, is vocational training. This bill improves vocational technical education in several key areas. As has been mentioned, it requires greater academic rigor, especially in math and science. I think a few years ago I read someplace where the United States ranked 19th out of 21 nations in advanced math and science. This is an area we cannot afford to continue to fall behind in. So this academic rigor will certainly help. As has been mentioned, it requires greater coordination between high school and postsecondary courses in vocational and technical education. So often in high school someone will take a vocational course and then go to community college; it would be the same course or there would be no coordination between the two. This allows for a smooth transition from high school into community colleges and 4-year colleges in the vocational technical area which we think is important. Greater accountability is critical, and a new use we were able to put in this bill which is something I was really in favor of was an allowable use as entrepreneurial education as part of the Perkins grants. So in the areas that I focus on right now in rural America, we are losing our young people at a rapid rate. If you teach them entrepreneurial skills, how to write a grant, how to write a business plan, how to market, particularly how to market using the Internet, and you give them those skills, sometimes they can find a way to stay in a small town and make a living. So we think that entrepreneurial skills are going to be critical as a part of this program. As has already been mentioned, the flexibility is critical at the State and local levels because what constitutes vocational education in one State or one region may not be similar to what another region needs, and that flexibility is critical. So, again, I just want to express strong support. I think it is a very good bill, very good conference report and want to thank Mr. Castle and all those involved again, and the staff particularly.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 384) recognizing and honoring the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on H. Con. Res. 384.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 384 offered by my colleague, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey). House Concurrent Resolution 384 honors the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. The Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was founded in 1904 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York by seven young men who recognized the need to fill the void of social and cultural interaction on an Ivy League campus left behind by segregation. These founders, who came to be known as the Seven Jewels, were no ordinary achievers, for they had founded the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African Americans, no small feat given the racial attitudes of the time. For 100 years, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity has initiated more than 175,000 men. The goals of the fraternity are manly deeds, scholarship, and love for all mankind. I might add parenthetically that several of my student athletes over a number of years joined this fraternity. The successes of the fraternity have continued through the establishment of 700 collegiate and alumni chapters in 44 States, the District of Columbia, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Europe. Moreover, aside from being the first African American Greek-letter organization for college men, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity was the first to integrate its membership in 1945. By doing so, they proved to the world that people of different ethnic backgrounds could effectively work together in peace. In addition, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity has implemented a number of national programs which have benefited the African-American community and all communities as a whole. The programs include, ``A Voteless People is a Hopeless People,'' which concentrates on voter registration and awareness, and the ``Go to High School, Go to College'' program, which focuses on the educational enrichment of African American youth. The fraternity also jointly leads programming initiatives with March of Dimes, Head Start, Boy Scouts of America, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America. Lastly, the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity has played a fundamental role in the positive development in the character and education of these young men that has served as a foundation for success and achievements in all fields of endeavor, from the sciences, to education, to business, to professional athletics, and to public service. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to recognize and honor the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity for the celebration of its 100th anniversary, and commends all Alpha Phi Alpha brothers, past and present, for their bond of friendship, common ideals and beliefs, and service to community. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.

Mr. OSBORNE

Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.