Ed Royce

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, this program, Radio Free Asia, was due to expire, under existing law, in September. And I am delighted here, for several reasons, that the legislation is before us. One is because, on a strategic level, if you have this sunset and you have authoritarian regimes presuming that at the end of the year RFA's broadcasts are going to be discontinued, it implies that it does not have the full support of the U.S. Government or our people here in the United States. And in some countries there's even been talk of RFA going out of business. This sends the message that that just isn't so because now RFA will permanently be in business. And from a practical standpoint, what does that mean? If you're running a station, it means that you've got the ability now to contract effectively in long-range leases. You get the capital agreements that you need. You are better able, less expensively, to run these operations. It's not that these operations are expensive. As my friend, John Kasich, former chairman of the Budget Committee once said, the price of this is the price of a fuel cap on a B-52. But, oh, how effective, oh, how effective this strategy has been over the years, because what we provide here is surrogate news. We provide the kind of information that people would be hearing if they actually had a free radio station, if they could actually listen to the voice of a news reporter on issues such as the corruption of a local official, let's say, or what is actually happening in their city, what is happening in their country. That is provided now through RFA. And I wanted to share with you just a couple of observations. Many of us have heard the words of Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, Eastern Europeans who were very moved by the broadcasts into their own countries by Radio Free Europe. And whether it's a crackdown on workers at a local factory or news and information about ideas like tolerance, political pluralism, the fact is these messages were heard. And I remember in the former Yugoslavia talking to a Croatian journalist who had tears in his eyes, and he said there was one country in Eastern Europe where we did not broadcast with Radio Free Europe. That was Yugoslavia. And as a result, he told me, we watched what happened in Czechoslovakia as Vaclav Havel was able to do a plebiscite, and the Czech Republic went one way and Slovakia went the other. And the reason he was crying was because he said not one human life was lost in that, and Vaclav Havel had said he had listened to those broadcasts about the importance of political pluralism and self-determination and tolerance, whereas he as a Croatian was listening to Croatian hate radio and Serbian hate radio, and indeed hate radio from every single ethnic group in that country. And during his time as a reporter covering those wars, he watched the war with Slovenia spin out of control, and then Croatia, and Bosnia, and the Kosovo war. He watched each of these tragedies, with their tens of thousands of human lives lost. And he said to me something I will never forget. ``If only we had had the broadcasts here to better prepare us for what was to come.'' That is why this work is so important. And today we do this work in Burma, we do this work in North Korea, in Vietnam, and in China, in all the major dialects. And many of these governments actively work, of course, to try to block RFA transmissions and information into their society. But still the information manages to get in. Maybe not into the main cities at times, but into the rural areas and into the suburban areas. And frankly, Freedom House, which ranks all of these countries not free, attests to the ability of this information to get through. As one observer has noted, this type of broadcasting irritates authoritarian regimes, inspires democrats, and creates greater space for civil society. So it's no wonder that China attempts to block RFA transmissions, or that Vietnam has heavily jammed the station since its first day. But RFA has been chipping away at authoritarian regimes. And I will just mention Kim Jong Il and his grip on information in North Korea. I mention it because Congresswoman Diane Watson and I went into North Korea. And according to experts today, that grip is not as strong as it once was. And this is one of the reasons. The information cordon that once encircled North Korea, I am going to quote this observer, is now in tatters as information is getting in. And that is backed up by a survey by a prominent think tank which interviews hundreds of North Korean refugees every year. And it finds an ever-increasing percentage, now more than half who fled since 2006, had listened to foreign news regularly, including RFA. I remember a report we had of one of the Politburo members who said in debate, ``If you are not listening to the radio broadcasts, you are like a frog in the well who does not know what is going on in the outside world.'' And so the harsher the regime, the more the attempt to control information, the more diligent we find our reporters and stringers are at RFA in trying to counter the propaganda that comes from the state. And with this legislation, Radio Free Asia can better focus its long- term mission of bringing its message of some modicum of humanity, freedom, democracy, respect for the rule of law, creating a space for civil society where it can flourish under the Asian continent's oppressive regimes such as China. And I think if we continue this good effort, and I have listened in and participated in some of the broadcasts into China, we have a tremendous opportunity to reach a young generation of people who are in desperate need of another side of the story. And those reporters are providing it with RFA.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Now, what we do with this legislation is we make the largest institutions too big to fail, and we do so by putting in a provision that is going to allow them to borrow at a lower cost than their smaller competitors, who I guess we would say are too small to save. Right. They are going to borrow at a hundred basis points less because of the government backstop you're putting in place and because you're not allowing them to go through a regular bankruptcy process. We would like to see enhanced bankruptcy on the Republican side. We'd like to see firms actually fail. Instead, we're going to have a process here where creditors are going to get a hundred cents on the dollar, potentially. They are going to loan to big firms; these big firms are going to become overleveraged. You did the same thing here that you did with the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie and Freddie, that then forced their competition out of the market. And as a consequence of that, they became duopolies and then failed. So this is what we're trying to get across to our friends on the other side of the aisle. This is why we oppose your approach. We've seen where it's headed from before.

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I don't know why it should be a surprise to the Left that this financial system collapsed. The reason I say that is because in 1992, the GSE Act passed this Congress, under a Democratic majority passed this Congress. And the GSE Act specifically was an attempt to get every American into a home. I understand the thought behind it. But the irrationality behind it, in terms of creating these mandates on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the GSEs, mandates that 50 percent of their portfolio of $1.7 trillion be in subprime and Alt-A loans. What did they expect would happen? The leverage, the political pull that went into getting the down payments down from 20 percent to 3 percent to zero. And now we have the very result that the Federal Reserve warned us about when they came to Congress in 2003 and 2004 and 2005 and warned us that if we did not take corrective action, if we did not allow the regulators to have the ability to deregulate or to regulate and deleverage these portfolios, that we were going to create systemic risk and the financial collapse could be a consequence of this. And blocking repeatedly the efforts in the Senate, which the Democrats did, to address this issue. And then in 2007, finally in 2007 the Democratic majority here brought to the floor a bill which they say attempted to address this issue. But, again, in that legislation it tied the hands of the regulators so that they could not deleverage the portfolios, so that they could not put it into receivership, so that they couldn't regulate for systemic risk. The other reason they brought the bill to the floor was because it had a $300 billion provision in it for affordable housing. That's why the bill got out of here; but it was opposed by the Treasury, and it was opposed by the Fed. So the point I want to make is after all of that history, and after watching the collapse--which we were warned about by the regulators-- and albeit, with good intentions because I know the thought was everybody would be able to have a house if you could get down to zero down payment loans and if you could force the GSEs to buy that junk that was sold by Countrywide, who do you think created the market? It was 70 percent of the market. It was because there was an intention here to circumvent the rules of economics. And now in this legislation, what is not addressed? This very duopoly Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. When you say we address the problems, no we don't. We compound the problems in this legislation.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. I would like to thank the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Chris Smith, for all that he has attempted to do to bring this resolution before us and also for bringing this issue into the international community. And Congresswoman Diane Watson, we appreciate your leadership on this as well. I think for any of us who try to contemplate the impact of modern-day slavery--I was thinking, I was just talking to Congressman Smith about the movie ``Amazing Grace'' about William Wilberforce and the attempt in Britain so long ago to try to eliminate the slave trade. And when we think about the fact that in this century this type of slavery still exists, I think that when we consider the magnitude of it, the misery of the people, especially the children that are subjected to this, we think about this range of sexual servitude across this planet affecting some 12 million adults but also millions of children. And this is what is happening every day. People are trafficked into this type of servitude. You think about the fact that many of these children are 6, 7 years old. And, sadly, as the State Department tells us in this report that was just released, the majority of transnational trafficking, the majority of these victims are being trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. So that is the reality that the world faces today. Now, importantly, this resolution commends the Government of South Africa for taking some steps because it has tried to combat this problem. It has brought to justice, it has successfully convicted its human traffickers here in a trial that has gotten some attention. So it is important to note such improvements. But at the same time, it's important for us to realize how much remains to be done, how much the international community needs to work and come together to go after these criminal syndicates that are involved in this kind of activity. And I only wish we could be celebrating the achievement of countries like Vietnam; but, unfortunately, we've read the report. Some countries are actually being downgraded in this report. In Vietnam, women and children are routinely misled by fraudulent job opportunities where they find themselves, instead, sold into brothels. Sadly, while some conditions are improving, other states, like Vietnam, are falling far, far behind. And it is also our hope that the release of this report will do much in the international community, along with the help by NGOs that have come forward, in order to try to put a spotlight on this issue, in order to try to get every government involved and moving in the correct direction and prosecuting those who are involved in the criminal syndicates for trying to advance this kind of inhumanity across this planet. I again commend all of the cosponsors of this legislation, including my colleague, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, yesterday a small community banker in Ohio by the name of Sarah Wallace wrote a letter. She wrote about what she believed will be the end of community banking as we know it. And Sarah Wallace notes, in her words: ``Going forward, we will no longer be able to evaluate loan applications based solely on the creditworthiness of the borrower. We will be making regulation compliance decisions instead of credit decisions.'' And this gets to the heart of the issue with the underlying legislation that we're discussing. Despite the fact that every failed financial firm had some type of Federal regulator overseeing it, the answer put forward in this bill is to give broad, largely undefined powers to those regulators and not, by the way, in the interest of safety and soundness. If the objective was safety and soundness, the amendment that I put forward to allow the safety and soundness regulator to overrule the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in cases where safety and soundness was at stake, that would have been upheld. No, that's not the goal here. And to get back to the point that Sarah Wallace makes, her observation is that instead of focusing on providing credit and providing the best possible service to the customers in these small towns that need that credit, these institutions will instead focus their efforts on appeasing the Federal Government and on appeasing their allies in Congress. Well, why should that give us concern? It should worry us because whether it is striving toward another altruistic goal, such as Congress' interest in subsidizing housing--and by the way, that's what happened during the housing crisis--or whether it's funneling cash into friendly community activist organizations, like ACORN, the fact is, the closer big government gets to business, the more likely these favors will become the rule instead of the exception. What I don't like about this is the political pull that comes out of it. What I don't like about it is the market discipline being replaced. And I think on a massive scale, this bill replaces objectivity with subjectivity. It replaces the market discipline on Main Street with political pull in Washington, and regulators will now decide which firms will be treated differently and, therefore, moved through the resolution process and which firms should be left to the bankruptcy courts. Why would we care about that in terms of these big firms having this ability now to have this alternative means of resolution? Well, once in the resolution process, the government will have the authority to provide a 100 percent bailout to whichever creditor it favors while imposing severe losses on other institutions who bought the exact same bonds. Should we be concerned about abuse in this respect? I think so, because this type of bureaucratic discretion has led to abuse in the past. We have already seen that abuse in the Obama administration's handling of the Chrysler bankruptcy last year. Secured creditors, typically entitled to first priority payment under the absolute priority rule, ended up receiving less than the union allies of the administration who held junior creditor claims. The fact that the regulatory reform approach injects politics into the process ensures this kind of favoritism in the future.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in opposition to this rule and to the underlying legislation. I rise because reform is desperately needed, but the reforms needed most are not in this bill. For example, this legislation fails to reform the government- sponsored enterprises, and when you think about it, the housing crisis and the meltdown that we saw in that sector, and most of the losses, were in the government-sponsored enterprises. That was not caused by a lack of government intervention. Each of those failed institutions had a regulator overseeing it, but it was Congress, especially with the GSE Act, actively tying the hands of those regulators in what amounted to a failed attempt, maybe for a good social end, the idea was to get everybody into a home. But to do that by putting these mandates on the GSEs that 50 percent of the portfolios that they held, 50 percent of that $1.7 trillion in portfolios that they held be in subprime and Alt-A, obviously, obviously created very real problems. The political intervention to get the 20 percent down payment down to 3 percent and then down to zero obviously had an effect. These institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were at the center of the housing market, and they were largely responsible for some 70 percent of subprime and Alt-A mortgages throughout our financial system. In order to reach the affordable housing mandates that Congress enacted in 1992, Fannie and Freddie became the largest purchasers of these junk loans, ending up with $1.8 trillion. In essence, they made the junk loan market. Knowing of the systemic threat posed by these institutions, the Federal Reserve actually came to Congress, came to us a number of times, over a dozen times, and asked us to rein in their excessive risk taking. And when you hear the arguments back and forth about, well, at one point or another we tried to have legislation to address this, ask yourself this. I will remind you of this. What the Fed wanted was the ability to deleverage these portfolios. What the Fed wanted was the ability to control Fannie and Freddie for systemic risk, and that is a responsibility that Congress would not give them. In 2005, that debate came to a head, and under the leadership of Chuck Hagel and Richard Shelby, Senate Republicans moved a bill, supported by the Fed, through the Banking Committee that attacked the heart of the problem, the excessive buildup of leverage and risk within the mortgage portfolios. And, as the Wall Street Journal said, the White House, Treasury Department and Federal Reserve lined up behind Mr. Shelby. But he was never able to bring his bill to the floor because of opposition from Democrats. Both in the House and Senate, Democrats were aggressively trying to defeat our efforts under the guise of protecting affordable housing. Mr. Dodd and Mr. Sarbanes blocked those reforms in the Senate. Luckily, some Members from the other side have noted this failure. In 2008, President Clinton said, ``I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress, or by me when I was President, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.'' It is unfortunate that we lost that battle. Our housing market, our financial sector and the broader economy are dealing with the consequences of that very systemic shock that the Fed had anticipated and warned us about. Today, despite what some may claim, we are not advocating for the elimination of the GSEs tomorrow, but we want them addressed in this legislation.

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am ready to recognize, Chairman Frank, that you were successful in defeating that amendment. You were successful, and certainly a majority of this body, including many Republicans, joined you, and I think in 2003 you stated it well in terms of this perspective. You said, ``I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC and OTS. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.'' This was an argument that gained ground on both of sides of the aisle, there is no doubt about it, but at the same time, it was the Fed that supported my amendment that I brought before this body in order to try to give the Federal Reserve the ability to deleverage these portfolios in the interest of safety and soundness. This is a debate we have had many times. We had a different perspective. But today going forward, we are expanding systemic risk in many ways in this legislation.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. And in response to the previous speaker, I will remind my colleagues that sanctions did work in South Africa, and that South Africa gave up its atomic weapons program. The threat, my friends, in Iran is crystal clear, and its regime closes in on a nuclear weapon. So a crystal clear response by us is urgent. While I support this bill, much of this legislation, unfortunately, is a muddle. Good sanctions, good sanctions in this bill are weakened by delays and by the possibility of waiver after waiver. For this, the Obama administration gets the main blame. From the beginning, it has insisted on excessive leeway to implement new sanctions. It doesn't want to be forced into dramatic action. So, yes, we do provide the tools with this bill. They're in there. But there is little guarantee that those tools will be used. For example, the House-passed bill aimed to target Iran's energy sector. Yet with this conference report, a foreign oil company assisting Iran's petroleum sector could avoid even the investigation required to sanction it for at least 1 year. And the many companies from China and elsewhere rapidly building Iran's energy facilities today will be surely exempted from these sanctions. This report's aggressive financial sanctions rightly aim at Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. While important, they too can be waived. The so-called ``mandatory financial sanctions'' aren't even mandatory. This report does require a barrage of reports, certifications and other executive branch paper. Meanwhile, in the real world, Iran marches on. I would be less critical if the Obama administration, or if previous administrations, had applied a single sanction using existing Iran sanctions legislation. Instead, the Obama administration has naively given Iran time with its ``engagement policy.'' I'll be supporting this bill because it does give the administration the tools should it wish to use those tools. More likely, it will have to be pressured into action. Mr. Speaker, even robust sanctions might not deter Iran from nuclear weapons. We need to give the intelligence community what it needs, strengthen our missile defense, target Iran's human rights abusers, and bolster its opposition movement. The clock is ticking.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 86, Recognizing the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War and reaffirming the United States-Korea alliance. On June 25, 1950, the Korean War started and was halted three years later by an armistice that is still in place today. It involved 22 nations fighting together in defense of the Republic of Korea. More than 5.7 million Americans served during the conflict. Some 33,600 were killed in action, including about 8,200 listed as missing and presumed dead. Another 21,400 died of non-battle causes and more than 103,000 Americans were wounded during the three years of war. Some have called this the Forgotten War, but were here today remembering. I should point out that this resolution was introduced by Mr. Rangel, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Conyers, and Mr. Coble--men who were there 60 years ago. We honor their service here today, as well. Nearly 140,000 South Koreans were killed on the battle field, many of whom fought side-by-side with American forces for the cause of preserving freedom. The heroic deeds of these servicemen laid the foundation for an alliance between the U.S. and South Korea that has lasted over 60 years, bringing stability to Northeast Asia. As this resolution rightly notes, the ``Republic of Korea is among the closest allies of the United States.'' In no small part this is because of the sacrifices made by the brave Korean and American soldiers that fought valiantly together. We've worked hard over the years to keep this relationship on solid footing. I've chaired several exchange meetings with our counterparts in the National Assembly. A few years ago (2008), legislation I authored was signed into law to treat South Korea just the same as NATO and other top allies when it comes to defense sales. Unfortunately, we have been reminded of the importance of this relationship by the sinking of the Cheonan and by the loss of the 46 South Korean sailors who were killed by a North Korean torpedo attack. Our sympathies and condolences are with their families and the South Korean people. The House passed a resolution to this effect the other week. Last month, South Korea unveiled the results of a methodical international investigation into the cause of the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel. The evidence--overwhelming--showed what many were all but certain occurred on March 26th--the ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo attack, in clear violation of the Korean War Armistice. This is the same regime that caused so much death and suffering in the early 1950s--the regime brave American servicemen defended against back then, and continue to defend against today.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Yes, let's look at those facts, because it is not 1\1/2\ years, it is 3\1/2\ years; 3\1/2\ years since Nancy Pelosi became the Speaker of this House. In case the American public has forgotten it, every single spending bill originates in this House, and for 3\1/2\ years, we have a situation, oh, were the deficits bad? Yes, they were. In 2006, I remember that deficit was $161 billion, and I spoke against that deficit. Today, after 3\1/2\ years of Democratic control of the House and the Senate, that deficit is ten times what it was. And if we think for a minute about some of the orchestration, of some of the schemes with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which were authored on the Democratic side of the aisle to force those institutions into purchasing subprime loans, over $1 trillion in subprime loans, and for us that protested that, to watch the impact that it had on housing in the United States as housing collapsed, and now today to see not even a budget submitted by the other side of the aisle going forward, spending upon spending upon spending with no budget even put before this institution.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, which expresses condolences to the families of the 46 South Korean sailors who recently lost their lives to a North Korea torpedo attack. And this resolution appropriately stands in solidarity with our South Korean ally in the wake of this assault. Last week, South Korea unveiled the results of an international investigation, a quite methodical one, into the cause of the sinking of this South Korean naval vessel; and the evidence overwhelmingly showed what many were all but certain occurred on March 26. It showed that the ship was indeed sunk by a North Korean torpedo attack, in clear violation of the Korean war armistice. Madam Speaker, this incident is offering at long last clarity across Asia, after years of delusions about North Korea. Reality is now setting in. In Seoul, it is offering clarity about the brutal nature of the Stalinist regime that operates in the north. Earlier today, South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak addressed the nation, and he announced that North Korean vessels will be blocked from South Korean waters. He announced also the resumption of radio broadcasts into the north, and he announced that cooperative activity with North Korea is meaningless. Importantly, he recognized that now is the time for the North Korean regime to change. Seoul is coming to grips with a failed sunshine policy of previous administrations that hoped against hope that North Korea could be dealt with as a normal state. In Tokyo, the attack is offering clarity about the role of U.S. forces in the region. Largely because of North Korea's provocation, Japan's new government seems poised to accept a relocation of U.S. forces on Okinawa. This isn't just an issue for the U.S. and Japan but has regional implications as U.S. forces there provide breathing space for others in the region, including South Korea, which has been alarmed by the dispute. This crisis is also offering clarity about Beijing's role in northeast Asia and beyond because, despite an international investigation which included cooperation from Australian and British and Swedish and U.S. investigators working with their South Korean counterparts, China has now announced that it will complete its own assessment of the sinking of the ship. Beijing merely called the murder of these 46 sailors ``unfortunate.'' Beijing's meek reply came days after it rolled out the red carpet for Kim Jung Il and reportedly showered him with 100,000 tons of food and 100 million in other aid. Today, with senior U.S. officials in China for talks, there are reports that China and the U.S. still are not on the same page with respect to U.N. sanctions on Iran. So much for a responsible China. The U.S. should support the efforts of South Korea to take their evidence to the U.N. Security Council. That should be the next step. I had the opportunity to read accounts in which some have said, well, this might be futile, given the fact that Beijing could veto such an act. Well, why not press and make them show the world where Beijing stands? Does Beijing stand with Kim Jung Il and his recklessness or with order and peace, not to mention standing with the grieving families of the victims of Kim Jung Il in this case? This House is right to stand in solidarity with our South Korean ally. This torpedo attack should offer clarity for U.S. policy toward North Korea as well. It should wake us up to the nature of the North Korean regime and the possibility of dealing diplomatically with that government in North Korea. This morning, Secretary of State Clinton offered a statement that ``we ask North Korea to stop its provocative behavior . . . take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments and comply with international law.'' Well, Madam Speaker, anyone who has been watching North Korea over the last 2 months, or the last 2 years, knows that statement has no bearing on reality. U.S. officials have said that it can no longer be business as usual with respect to North Korea, but that statement is business as usual. North Korea won't take such steps until there is a fundamental change in the government there. And those who have pushed fruitless nuclear negotiations with North Korea in this administration and in the last administration and ignored the type of regime we're dealing with have to ask themselves why North Korea's only definitive response to that engagement has come on top of a torpedo. Madam Speaker, today we rightly condemn this attack and show solidarity with our South Korean allies, but we can and should be doing more in the days and weeks ahead to show resolve in the face of North Korean aggression. There is a long list of steps that Washington and Seoul can and should take in lockstep to strengthen deterrence in the region and to show that 46 deaths will not go unanswered. We could be relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. We could be speeding defense sales and targeting North Korea's illicit activities, like counterfeiting of hundred-dollar U.S. bills and drug running. Congress could also pass the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, demonstrating that there will be no retreat by the U.S. from northeast Asia. I look forward to working with my colleagues to strengthen the U.S.- South Korean alliance, which has been a vital anchor for security in Asia for more than 50 years, and I look forward to hopefully doing that in the immediate weeks to come. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE. I concur, and with Adlai Stevenson, we took that tack with our Ambassador to the United Nations during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was able to show the hard evidence. South Korea can take these same steps, show that hard evidence. I'm in agreement. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation, which expresses condolences to the families of the 46 South Korean sailors who recently lost their lives to a North Korea torpedo attack. And this resolution appropriately stands in solidarity with our South Korean ally in the wake of this assault. Last week, South Korea unveiled the results of an international investigation, a quite methodical one, into the cause of the sinking of this South Korean naval vessel; and the evidence overwhelmingly showed what many were all but certain occurred on March 26. It showed that the ship was indeed sunk by a North Korean torpedo attack, in clear violation of the Korean war armistice. Madam Speaker, this incident is offering at long last clarity across Asia, after years of delusions about North Korea. Reality is now setting in. In Seoul, it is offering clarity about the brutal nature of the Stalinist regime that operates in the north. Earlier today, South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak addressed the nation, and he announced that North Korean vessels will be blocked from South Korean waters. He announced also the resumption of radio broadcasts into the north, and he announced that cooperative activity with North Korea is meaningless. Importantly, he recognized that now is the time for the North Korean regime to change. Seoul is coming to grips with a failed sunshine policy of previous administrations that hoped against hope that North Korea could be dealt with as a normal state. In Tokyo, the attack is offering clarity about the role of U.S. forces in the region. Largely because of North Korea's provocation, Japan's new government seems poised to accept a relocation of U.S. forces on Okinawa. This isn't just an issue for the U.S. and Japan but has regional implications as U.S. forces there provide breathing space for others in the region, including South Korea, which has been alarmed by the dispute. This crisis is also offering clarity about Beijing's role in northeast Asia and beyond because, despite an international investigation which included cooperation from Australian and British and Swedish and U.S. investigators working with their South Korean counterparts, China has now announced that it will complete its own assessment of the sinking of the ship. Beijing merely called the murder of these 46 sailors ``unfortunate.'' Beijing's meek reply came days after it rolled out the red carpet for Kim Jung Il and reportedly showered him with 100,000 tons of food and 100 million in other aid. Today, with senior U.S. officials in China for talks, there are reports that China and the U.S. still are not on the same page with respect to U.N. sanctions on Iran. So much for a responsible China. The U.S. should support the efforts of South Korea to take their evidence to the U.N. Security Council. That should be the next step. I had the opportunity to read accounts in which some have said, well, this might be futile, given the fact that Beijing could veto such an act. Well, why not press and make them show the world where Beijing stands? Does Beijing stand with Kim Jung Il and his recklessness or with order and peace, not to mention standing with the grieving families of the victims of Kim Jung Il in this case? This House is right to stand in solidarity with our South Korean ally. This torpedo attack should offer clarity for U.S. policy toward North Korea as well. It should wake us up to the nature of the North Korean regime and the possibility of dealing diplomatically with that government in North Korea. This morning, Secretary of State Clinton offered a statement that ``we ask North Korea to stop its provocative behavior . . . take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments and comply with international law.'' Well, Madam Speaker, anyone who has been watching North Korea over the last 2 months, or the last 2 years, knows that statement has no bearing on reality. U.S. officials have said that it can no longer be business as usual with respect to North Korea, but that statement is business as usual. North Korea won't take such steps until there is a fundamental change in the government there. And those who have pushed fruitless nuclear negotiations with North Korea in this administration and in the last administration and ignored the type of regime we're dealing with have to ask themselves why North Korea's only definitive response to that engagement has come on top of a torpedo. Madam Speaker, today we rightly condemn this attack and show solidarity with our South Korean allies, but we can and should be doing more in the days and weeks ahead to show resolve in the face of North Korean aggression. There is a long list of steps that Washington and Seoul can and should take in lockstep to strengthen deterrence in the region and to show that 46 deaths will not go unanswered. We could be relisting North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. We could be speeding defense sales and targeting North Korea's illicit activities, like counterfeiting of hundred-dollar U.S. bills and drug running. Congress could also pass the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, demonstrating that there will be no retreat by the U.S. from northeast Asia. I look forward to working with my colleagues to strengthen the U.S.- South Korean alliance, which has been a vital anchor for security in Asia for more than 50 years, and I look forward to hopefully doing that in the immediate weeks to come. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE. I concur, and with Adlai Stevenson, we took that tack with our Ambassador to the United Nations during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was able to show the hard evidence. South Korea can take these same steps, show that hard evidence. I'm in agreement. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation to end the atrocities of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, and I am an original cosponsor of the House version of this legislation. From my view, with the passage of this bill, which now goes to the President's desk, we now are in a situation where I think Kony's removal won't guarantee peace, but it certainly will make it possible in the region. I would also just add that the fact that this legislation has made it this far is really a tribute to a group of young people, young professionals who have come up here on their own time and gone to the universities around this country to organize in order to make people aware of the plight of these children in Africa. I really thank them for that work. Mr. Speaker, Joseph Kony is perhaps the most wanted man in Africa. He is an indicted war criminal. He is a designated terrorist. Many Americans don't know his name but the children of Uganda and Central East Africa certainly do. He is a very sadistic figure. He has a charismatic appeal to some. He heads a group called the Lord's Resistance Army, and under his two decades of tyrannical leadership that group has conscripted some 30,000 children into this killing squad. I can tell you as the former chairman of the Africa Subcommittee, if you talk to parents in Uganda or the Congo or South Sudan or the Central African Republic, the fear they have is the fear inspired by what he has been able to do. Human rights groups report that this LRA remains powerful. It has still the ability to kill and to capture children. It may be even accelerating its program of fear and mind control over children. I'm reminded of the words of a recent researcher who interviewed a boy who escaped from the group. He reported that he was forced to kill eight other children who disobeyed Kony's rules in a 5-week time span. Those victims were surrounded in a circle. Children were forced to take turns bashing them with a bat in a ``collective kill.'' That's eight times in 5 weeks. The LRA's objective remains the same as it's been for a couple generations now: kill, capture, and resupply for its next pillage. There is no other reason for its being. Most experts agree that the removal of Kony and his top leadership would decapitate this group. Kony has long fought the government of Uganda. He has had the support of the Islamist government in Sudan for that war, which wanted to hit back at Uganda's leader for his support of Christians and animists in southern Sudan. Former LRA commanders report that Khartoum, Sudan, has provided ``ammunition'' and provides ``intelligence training'' for Kony's group. More recently, there have been credible reports of the LRA gaining sanctuary in Darfur. A referendum on Southern Sudan is looming next year. Unless the LRA is permanently dealt with now, you can bet that Khartoum will put this killing squad back to use again next year in Southern Sudan. Mr. Speaker, this civil war, originally contained within Uganda's borders, is now a regional crisis in four countries. This bipartisan legislation aims to spur the administration into devising a strategy to remove Joseph Kony and remove his top commanders from the battlefield. Some targeted assistance from the U.S. could make a world of difference.

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentlelady. The world's problems can seem overwhelming at times. It is fashionable to blame conflict in Africa on poverty and other environmental factors. But sometimes just getting rid of one person does make a big difference. History is full of captivating leaders with bad ideas who do great damage. It's a lesson I learned as chairman of the Africa Subcommittee, when Liberian president Charles Taylor ran a gangster regime in West Africa that brought havoc to neighboring Sierra Leone, where he pioneered this idea of using child soldiers and using amputations and using the techniques that Joseph Kony does now. After the hard-fought removal of Charles Taylor, and after his imprisonment, that region is peaceful. Mr. Speaker, it isn't an exaggeration to say that the fate of hundreds of thousands of people--certainly of 30,000 children--rests in the hands of a few men. Kony's removal won't guarantee peace, but it will make it possible. I urge the passage of this legislation.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, as we watch the Senate move on legislation yet again toward a cloture vote on Senator Dodd's legislation, I think it is worth noting some of the concerns that many of us have and that many economists have with the Dodd-Frank approach on the legislation. I begin with focusing on a past occurrence, the rescue of investment bank Bear Stearns in the spring of 2008. The Federal Government has committed trillions of taxpayer dollars to institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America out of fear that the demise of any of these too-big-to-fail institutions would trigger a systemic crisis and collapse of the global financial system. For my own part, I'd make the observation that I thought--I voted against those bailouts with the presumption that if we move to enhance bankruptcy, it would be preferable to setting up a system which would bring the moral hazard and the eventual evolution into a system where the Federal Government was guaranteeing institutions that were too big to fail. But that is currently the concern I have about this legislation, even though the public has rejected this approach to financial regulation, the bailouts that we have seen, and abhor bailouts of financial institutions. If you have a town hall meeting, I guarantee you, you will sense the rejection of the Dodd-Frank approach. Still, this approach, endorsed by the administration, would guarantee the bailout authority remains a powerful tool in the government's arsenal. Now, the President is hoping to use the tactic employed in the health care debate by dismissing legitimate concerns with rhetoric but not with facts. And I would take the comments he made in New York where he said, ``What is not legitimate is to suggest that we're enabling or encouraging future taxpayer bailouts, as some have claimed. That may make for a good sound bite, but it's not factually accurate.'' Well, actually it is accurate. And let us look at the bailout fund in the House-passed bill. On the House side, H.R. 4173, subsection 1609(o), it provides authority for the government to borrow up to $200 billion that can be used by the government for its bailout actions. In the Senate bill, Senate bill 3217, subsection 210(n), it creates a special $50 billion fund to resolve big financial institutions, to resolve those institutions when they've failed. Behind that fund is the ability to issue government debt--in other words, to issue taxpayer obligations. It is no wonder why our colleague on the other side of the aisle from California (Mr. Sherman) recently said of the Dodd bill, ``There are serious problems with the Dodd bill. The Dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. That's something Wall Street desperately wants but doesn't dare ask for. The bill contains permanent, unlimited bailout authority,'' as my colleague on the other side of the aisle mentioned, and I agree with his assessment. There is another piece of this in the broad expansion of open bank assistance authority granted to the FDIC. The House bill, section 1109, provides the FDIC authority to ``avoid or mitigate adverse effects on systemic economic conditions or financial stability by guaranteeing obligations of solvent'' financial institutions. The FDIC's guarantees can be up to $500 billion and may be expanded an additional $500 billion with permission from Congress. That is $500 billion in potential taxpayer liabilities to solvent companies. This is not the death panel that Chairman Frank so often claimed. This is not an ``enhanced bankruptcy process'' or an ``expedited bankruptcy'' that the administration wants people to believe. It is, in fact, a codification of the current ad hoc approach to bailouts. As Mr. Sherman has noted in the past, this amounts to TARP on steroids. We are handing over the keys to the Treasury to unelected bureaucrats. If TARP was any indicator, regulators will always err on the side of doling out too many Federal dollars under the guise of preventing a systemic shock. If the letter of the law allows for them to guarantee $500 billion of debt for solvent companies, they will do just that. And this is simply the wrong approach. Regulatory discretion armed with a large pool of taxpayer money will inevitably lead to political abuse. Under the Dodd-Frank approach, government will determine which firms are too big to fail and which are too small to save. Under this bill, the government will determine which creditors and which counterparties of a failed firm should be bailed out and those that should not. And government will dismantle a healthy institution that they believe may pose a risk under the wording of the legislation. This type of power will lead to a hyperpolitical environment where political pull will replace market discipline. Subjectivity will replace objectivity and the clearly defined rules of the road that have been a cornerstone of our capital markets. We need to expand the bankruptcy process and the clearly defined rules of the road that come with it, and we need to take out the ability for political manipulation in the process. There are other concerns that I have with the approach in this legislation, in the Dodd-Frank approach, and one of the concerns I have is that it fails wholly to address one of the major root causes of the crisis. It is important to remember that one of the root causes of the crisis was in the junk mortgage market, subprime and Alt-A loans. Federal Government policies were responsible for the buildup of these loans. There were 27 million subprime and Alt-A loans in our economy in 2008 before the financial crisis. That's about half of all mortgages. Of those, 12 million were held or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored enterprises; $5.4 billion of FHA and about 2 million as a result of the largest banks making CRA commitments in order to get approval for mergers and expansions. One of the other factors, of course, in the economic contraction that we've faced was the fact that the Fed set negative real interest rates; in other words, they set the interest rates that were measured against inflation at a negative sum, and when our Federal Reserve put that in place for 4 years running, it was followed by central banks in Europe that did the same thing. So central banks all over the world for 4 years set those interest rates at a negative rate. Virtually every economist will tell you that this played a significant role in the crisis; and we're not looking at the fact that we have not addressed this issue either because, in essence, the Federal and the central banks threw fuel on the fire. These unusually low rates incentivized the financial sector to take excessive risk and they exacerbate the normal business cycle. Dr. Friedrich Hayek won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1974 for explaining this phenomenon on how this causes booms and busts in the cycle. And, of course, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the easy money policy at the Fed were central to the housing boom and bust, and they are left unaddressed in the Dodd-Frank approach. When you add things in like excessive leverage in the financial sector and the overreliance on the failed rating agencies, you have a recipe for disaster. And I will add that the Fed came to the Congress and suggested to us in 2004 and 2005 that there was systemic risk with Fannie and Freddie, and what they asked for was an amendment to deleverage these portfolios that were being built up in Fannie and Freddie, in our GSEs, our government-sponsored enterprises. The leveraging was in excess of 100:1. These institutions were involved in arbitrage, and it was Congress that gave them the wherewithal to do this and prevented the regulators from going in and forcing these institutions, these government-sponsored enterprises, to deleverage the size of these portfolios. You can imagine the reaction from officials at the Fed when we turned a deaf ear in Congress. As a matter of fact, I want to point out that in the Senate, we had legislation from Senator Hagel written by the Fed that would allow that authority to regulate for systemic risk, to give the regulators the ability to deregulate these portfolios. That bill went out of committee, but Senator Chris Dodd opposed it on the floor, opposed it coming to the floor, and, as a consequence, the bill never came up; although it passed committee, it never came up in the Senate. On this side of the House, the House of Representatives, there was a bill that came to the floor, and I put in the amendment that Chuck Hagel had carried in the Senate. Again, the amendment that I introduced was written by the Federal Reserve in an attempt to give them the ability to regulate for systemic risk in Fannie and Freddie because they had warned that the consequence we faced was a systemic economic collapse. And certainly that's exactly where this collapse began. It was in the housing market. It was with the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, the loss of about $1 trillion in value. Now I'm going to bring up one other issue that's missing on the Senate side that really gives me pause in terms of the way this is approached. Let me just make the point that the FDIC has no experience with these types of institutions. As I've said before, I have opposed the bailouts. I, instead, wanted to see a system devised. We have companies, major firms go bankrupt in the United States--airlines, railroads. These are handled instead by an expedited bankruptcy process through the courts, and that's what I wanted to see beefed up. Let's go to the Senate bill. A major premise upon which the resolution authority was based is the notion that the FDIC uses a similar tool to unwind small commercial banks. In fact, last week before the Financial Services Committee, Secretary Geithner again reiterated this point. But this is like comparing apples to oranges, and I will share with you why. The FDIC is liquidating very simple institutions primarily made up of insured deposits and made up of small straightforward loans. In fact, 98 percent of the liabilities of banks and thrifts unwound by the FDIC in the last 2 years were insured deposits. This is in stark contrast to the nondeposit-taking institutions likely to be covered under the resolution authority, which is going to end up creating this permanent bailout authority. And I would just give you some examples from the past. Take Lehman Brothers, take AIG. Neither of these firms had insured depositors or depositors of any kind, and their complex assets and liabilities did not look anything like the simple small loans and residential and commercial mortgages that the FDIC deals with. The sheer size of these institutions trump anything the FDIC has touched. The $639 billion in Lehman was nearly 15 times bigger than the largest bank ever resolved by the FDIC, and AIG was over $1 trillion in assets. This is another problem with this approach. Since nearly all of the liabilities of banks and thrifts unwound by the FDIC are insured deposits, there is a strong presumption of government backing behind these ``too big to fail'' institutions; and, by applying this model to the largest of our financial institutions, the legislation will signal that the government-provided safety net now extends to a much wider portion of our capital market. And think for a minute what that means to the competitors of these large firms, for the smaller firms that are too small to save. Suddenly they face a differential in their borrowing costs that can reach up to 100 basis points. Some studies show 78 basis-point costs, some show 100 basis-point costs. That's the costs that small institutions have currently that is higher than the borrowing costs of institutions that face this implied government bailout or have been bailed out by the government. You saw it with respect to the government-sponsored enterprises, how much lower their cost of borrowing was and how they were able to over leverage, and how on top of all of this, they could become a duopoly and put their competitors out of business because people presumed that the government was behind these institutions. These are some of my concerns, and I know these concerns are shared by a colleague of mine on the committee, Mr. Scott Garrett. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentlelady for yielding time. As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, I strongly support this motion to instruct. I think it is important for all of us to realize that right now Iran is at its weakest point in terms of its capacity to manufacture enough refined petroleum. It has to, at this point for its gasoline, import that into the nation. Already the impact, the effect of this legislation even coming up on the floor has been effective in backing companies away from doing business with Iran. Imagine what the effect will be if we pass this legislation. Imagine the impact it will have and the pressure that it will bring to bear because the threat of this legislation has already produced a situation in Iran that is very, very difficult for civil society and is making people understand the cost and the consequences for Iran to continue down this road. Now, this morning the GAO will release a report that shows that foreign commercial activity in Iran's energy sector is going to begin to increase, and that will provide cash for Iran's nuclear program. That is why this bill is so important. A similar report 3 years ago showed half as many companies involved in this sector; now it is on the increase. The usual way of doing business of not standing up to the Russians and the Chinese and to others cannot continue; we have to take action. Time is not on our side. Enrichment capability, the key aspect of a nuclear weapons program, is being mastered by that government. Not so long ago, I remember talking here on the floor about Iran's 164 centrifuges, and now the progress is measured in thousands and thousands of centrifuges. It is working on a weapon design, my colleagues, and may have a missile to carry that warhead to the United States within 5 years' time. Today, the world's top terrorist state has its tentacles throughout the region.

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentlelady. For those of us who have engaged in this region and have watched neighboring countries to Iran, watched their propensity to react as Iran has sped up its development, each of those countries is now looking at going nuclear. I would ask my colleagues to think about those neighbors of Iran that would create a heavily nuclearized Middle East should Iran succeed in this and what the impact would be. We can only imagine the turmoil and the tensions that will come to the Middle East should we not succeed in this effort to prevent Iran from developing these nuclear weapons. Tomorrow's nuclear Iran would thus have a compounding effect with severe consequences for regional security and, as I pointed out earlier, for U.S. security. So the time for action has long passed. This bill will greatly help because it targets Iran's Achilles' heel at perhaps the only time that we can effectively do that.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding. When we talk about the 5 million violent crimes that occur in this country every year, we should be mindful of what that means in terms of the shattered lives of the victims, those who survive and those who don't survive; their families are shattered by this experience. I want to take a moment and recognize someone who did a lot in California to help change many of the laws in our State, and that is Colleen Thompson Campbell, who lost not only her son to violent crime, but also, in a separate case, lost her brother and sister-in-law to murder as well. I have had the opportunity to work with Colleen over the years. She formed an organization called MOVE, Memories of Victims Everywhere. One of the concepts that she had was to try, in State law, to overturn some of the worst decisions made by the then Rose Bird Court, which we did with Proposition 115. I was the author of that legislation. We could not get that legislation to try to restore rights between the victims of crime and the accused through the State legislature, so she went out and pounded the pavement with victims' rights groups across the State. And after gaining 1 million signatures, on the third try we were able to pass it overwhelmingly in the State of California. But that proposition, the Crime Victims/Speedy Trial Initiative, gave victims the right to a speedy trial, it gave those victims an opportunity to testify, it increased sentences, it increased punishment, it required reciprocal discovery of evidence, tried to right that balance, it allowed the family members of those victims to stay in the courtroom and follow these proceedings and not be dismissed, and allowed them also to go to the sentencing. I testified before the House Constitution Subcommittee here some years later when we had an opportunity to mold legislation based on what we had done in California, the victims' rights bill that became law, codifying crime victims' rights here at the Federal level. I would also just like to recognize another individual who was affected by crime, Kathleen Baty. She never even knew that the man stalking her really had existed when she was in high school and went to UCLA. She was running on campus, she was participating in sports. She did not know that this individual--who she had never met--had become obsessed with her and would take it upon himself over the next 10 years to follow her and stalk her relentlessly and threaten her and attempt to abduct her. It is phenomenal that it took legislation to actually prevent this crime of stalking, but that's where the concept came from, from this case and the case of four young women in my county of Orange County who all died within a span of 6 weeks. Everyone had gone to law enforcement and been told there is nothing we can do despite you being stalked until you are attacked physically. So we passed the Anti- Stalker law--with her testifying--at the State level, and later she came back here and helped us with the Federal law as well. Why with the Federal law? Because the first thing we tell victims is to get away from your stalker. And when he gets out, or slips--as with the case of her stalker, he cut off his ankle bracelet after he was finally apprehended. By the way, he was apprehended on her doorstep after a 10-hour standoff with a knife to her throat, but he had not dragged her more than the required 1,000 feet, so it was not kidnapping. This is why we needed the Anti-Stalker Act, why we passed it at the Federal level, why we have to be aware of the rights and the needs and the concerns of victims of crime because these are the types of laws that now we have been able to pass, as I say, in Japan and overseas as well, in Europe. But if we look at the effect on these lives--and I remember Kathleen Baty coming back here to tell me about how she was never able to shake this individual--now we have the Federal law so that if the victim crosses State lines, the perpetrator cannot cross those State lines to pursue them.

Mr. ROYCE. I will also mention the legislation that I authored in California to put fines on those who are convicted of crimes and fund programs in the State for victims, and we have done this at the Federal level as well. We need to do more to right the scales of justice; we need to do more to balance the rights of crime victims; and lastly, what this particular resolution here today does, we need to do more to make the public aware of just how out of balance these scales are to the 5 million victims of crime every year in the United States.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, I rise in recognition of Lady Betty Griffiths, a resident of Laguna Niguel, California, who recently passed away. Lady Betty was the daughter of a Dutch farmer who supplied essential agricultural products to Great Britain during the German blockade. She loved farm life, especially riding horses. She worked for the BBC in London. While living in England, Lady Betty was Director of the U.K. chapter of the Special Olympics, which brought her to many regions of the United States as she helped give these athletes tremendous opportunities. Lady Betty later came to the United States for good, with her husband, Sir Eldon Griffiths, a former long-serving member of the British Parliament. Like him, Lady Betty greatly admired America. She loved California's natural beauty and vibrant people. Soon after settling in her new home, she began her many successful efforts to link the Netherlands and Great Britain with Orange County, California. An outstanding organizer and promoter of Orange County's World Affairs Council programs, Lady Betty was a most distinguished hostess to numerous Asian, European and Middle Eastern diplomats during their visits to southern California. Lady Betty brought her Old World charm to the Council, and people enjoyed that. Working with Sir Eldon, she made the Council thrive, helping educate many of us on a wide range of critical world issues. Lady Betty was active in civic life in Orange County and became an American citizen in 1998. She brought the best of Holland and England to California, and for that we are thankful and today give her a well- deserved recognition for her rich community life. Lady Betty will be missed by her many, many friends in Orange County and far beyond.

Mr. ROYCE

Mr. ROYCE. Madam Speaker, on the evening of March 17, 2010, the Nowruz Commission held its inaugural event at the Library of Congress. Nowruz is recognized by many people around the world who celebrate the exact moment of Vernal Equinox as the beginning of a New Year. Mr. Nasser Kazeminy and Ms. Gissou R. Kian, serve as Chairman and President of the Nowruz Commission, respectively. Ambassadors and senior diplomats of eight nations serve on the Commission. Dr. Kamran Khavarani, the creator of ``Abstract Romanticism'' presented a special painting entitled ``The Bird of Freedom'' to the spirit of Thomas Jefferson. The painting was accepted by Dr. James Hadley Billington, the Librarian of Congress. This was witnessed by nearly 400 people of Iranian, Iraqi, Turkish, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Russian, Ukrainian and Kurdish origins at the Coolidge Auditorium. This is the first time in history that an Iranian American artist has presented a painting to the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, the man whose gift of books provided the beginning for the Library of Congress. Dr. Kamran Khavarani deserves to be recognized for his unique gift. The Nowruz Commission, whose mission of bringing diverse people together in search of peace and friendship, deserves special recognition on the first day of spring, Nowruz, March 20, 2010.