John Shadegg

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Two of our colleagues have already commented on it.

Mr. SHADEGG. I could not agree with the gentleman more. Certainly I think it is helpful to hear those kinds of comments. And understand when I said at the outset of this special order that we want to discuss securing the peace, maybe that confuses people, but for the average American what I mean is, we are in a war, a war on terrorism; and the battleground of that war is a war to win the hearts and minds right now, first and foremost, of the Iraqi people. We cannot win their hearts and minds if, for example, they do not have electricity to cool or air-condition their homes and it is 140 degrees out. We cannot win their hearts and minds and tell them we have a better system for them if, for example, they cannot get gasoline to run their cars. There has been some complaining about the President wanting to send refined fuels into Iraq. Why do we need to do that? They do not have gasoline to run their automobiles to conduct their business lives. We saw that great progress has been made, but the aid the President is seeking now is so that more progress can be made. I commend the gentleman for his thoughts.

Mr. SHADEGG. I am thrilled to see so many of them here. I have got to get them all on.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman points out this is not partisan. This is largely a divide on who has been there and who has not been there, but I want to compliment the gentleman on one particular point, and that is I have been saying now for lo these many weeks that this has been on the discussion table, America, that the $20.3 billion for so-called reconstruction is as important to our military's success as the $60-some billion for the military side, but the gentleman said it so eloquently. The real reason is, as the gentleman explained, and it certainly comes from his background having been in Vietnam. People, and that is if the Iraqi people are on our side, if they believe in us, if they want to help us, they are a resource that is absolutely invaluable. It is a resource that is worth ten times, in my opinion, $20 billion, if they come forward and say, ``There is an improvised explosive device right over here, and you need to go get it and get it out of there before it kills an American.''

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, in the dialogue format, I just want to make one point. The gentleman points out the consequences in human lives, and I think he has spoken eloquently upon that topic. I just want to throw it back to him. I think he has made the point very clear that if we back away from Iraq right now, all those people in the country who are helping us right now, their lives will not be worth a penny, and I would like the gentleman to make a quick comment on that.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to open an important discussion before the Congress on the topic of securing the peace in Iraq. I am going to be brief in my opening remarks, Mr. Speaker, because we have some colleagues here who want to participate in this debate and who have other obligations. But let me simply start by saying that I believe it is absolutely essential for this Nation, now that we have deposed Saddam Hussein, to rebuild that country and to secure for them the peace. And what I mean by that is that it is simply not adequate in this world we live in today to get rid of a dictator like Saddam Hussein and then walk away. Tragically, America has done that all too often in its foreign policy, with disastrous consequences. There will be discussion on the floor here tonight in the course of this debate of how we did that after World War I. We not only walked away, but we demanded reparations. The result was the rise of an atrocious dictatorship in Germany and another world war. I want to point to another example just briefly here at the outset of this debate. When we helped the people of Afghanistan fight off the Russian invaders, the Soviet invaders in their country, we did the right thing. But sadly, tragically, when that effort ended, and the Soviet Union retreated from Afghanistan and turned it back over to the people of Afghanistan, we simply walked away and we did not help them rebuild their nation. We did not help them set up an economy. The result was absolutely disastrous. It was the Taliban regime that we have now deposed. I know firsthand the situation in Afghanistan today. I was there a year ago August. I know firsthand the situation in Iraq, because I spent 3 days inside Iraq just this last August, and I learned a great deal. I went to several different parts of the country. And it is absolutely critical that we not just depose Saddam Hussein but that we help the people of Iraq to structure a functioning government. That will pay dividends for years to come. I want to not only talk in this hour about the importance of having deposed Saddam Hussein and now securing the peace by aiding the people of Iraq, but why it is a bad idea to demand that this be repaid out of oil proceeds or to demand that this be a loan from the American Government. There may be times when we need to make loans. I think right now the aid that the President has asked for should be given as a grant, because I think it is critical for us to demonstrate not just to the people of Iraq, but to all of the people of the Middle East, indeed the Muslim world, that when the United States injects itself as we did in Iraq and deposes a terrible leader like Saddam Hussein, the United States then follows through with its commitment and keeps its word. Mr. Speaker, with that as kind of an introduction, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Schrock).

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his thoughtful comments and I appreciate the gentleman participating in this discussion tonight. I know that the gentleman has family obligations, but his attendance here speaks to how important he thinks this topic is. I also thank the gentleman for pointing out that only $20.3 billion, not the entire $87 billion, is dedicated to reconstructing Iraq. And I also think it is important that we listen to his comments about the Interim Governing Council and the fact that they are making progress, but this money is going to be spent by Americans right now, and I think to assert that although Americans are spending this money, the Iraqis ought to repay it seems unfair. I also commend the gentleman about Iraqi involvement and responsibility. At the end of the day, this is an Iraqi responsibility and ultimately we have to get those people involved in recreating their nation, and I very much appreciate the gentleman's comments. I also appreciate him pointing out that this is a bipartisan discussion; and our colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall) has written and spoken on this topic, and I think he will join us in this discussion. Mr. Speaker, I went to Iraq this August and spent time there. Interesting in this debate, people who have been to Iraq and seen what is on the ground tend to support the President's position. Those who are critical tend to be those who have not been there. Ambassador Bremer, I think, laid the groundwork by these remarks in a hearing just last month. He said the $20.3 billion in grants to Iraq the President is seeking as part of this $57 billion supplemental speed the grandeur of vision equal to the one which created the free world at the end of World War II. What he is referring to is the Marshall Plan, and I think for Americans to understand this discussion, they need to understand this aid, put in perspective. As I mentioned earlier, at the end of World War I, we walked away. Indeed, we demanded reparations. We did not help Europe rebuild. That resulted in Hitler and another world war following that. But following World War II, we changed our policy rather dramatically, and we understood that rebuilding Europe was critically important. That was the Marshall Plan. This second graph shows in current dollars that the Marshall Plan was dramatically more expensive than we are talking about in the President's request here. I think it is vitally important for the people of America to understand that if we are being asked to put up this money to rebuild Iraq, how does that compare to our prior experiences. And with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra).

Mr. SHADEGG. Not just their quality, their enthusiasm. They are committed to this task. They can see in the faces of the Iraqi people that they are trying to help every day what it is doing for that country and for their people. Quite frankly, I think if every Member of Congress were to go to Iraq, and for that matter, I urge the administration to take business leaders, take average Americans over there, let them see when we help the Iraqis by fixing a well that is no longer working or by opening a school that is no longer functioning, and we will discuss education later in this Special Order, when we do that, the faces of those people light up. And these are people embracing the concept of freedom and democracy for the first time. When we look into the eyes of our troops and soldiers, they know we are enabling these people to be free for the first time and to understand prosperity for the first time. I could not agree more with the gentleman's comments.

Mr. SHADEGG. Absolutely.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. It is clear to me that we need to win over the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. As our colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall), said from the other side of the aisle here tonight, we absolutely must have them on our side. This is the way to do it. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting the President's full request.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in strong support of this carefully balanced legislation. I want to compliment the authors and the committee chairman for doing what I think is a superb bill that will in fact help consumers across America. Indeed, I think this is a key component in protecting our credit structure and enabling Americans to get the credit that they need. I am very pleased that the legislation does what it does. Importantly, as the author of our Nation's first identity theft legislation, I am very pleased with the provisions in this bill that deal with identity theft. It makes some important strides in improving our fight against identity theft. For example, the bill requires that anytime a transaction is made and information is transmitted using a credit card number, that number has to be truncated so that someone who wants to steal your identity by grabbing ahold of your credit card number will not have the full number. While some companies currently do that, not all do. This will protect them very much. There are a number of other key provisions dealing with the issue of identity theft, and that is a critical issue because, for example, it was just reported last week that in America last year, 10 million people became the victims of identity theft. Those individuals themselves, as individuals, suffered $5 billion in damages. But on top of that, businesses in America sustained $47 billion of losses as a result of identity theft. And so the ID theft provisions in this bill I think are very, very important. But it could go further. The General Accounting Office testified in July of this year that Social Security numbers are often the identifier of choice among individuals seeking false identities; and perhaps to the shock and amazement of people in this room and across the country, just last month, an organization engaged in consumer advocacy, to prove that Social Security numbers are too available, purchased the Social Security number of Attorney General John Ashcroft and CIA Director George Tenet off the Internet for a mere $26. The problem is that Social Security numbers are too available. In 2002, the FBI testified that possession of someone else's Social Security number is key to laying the groundwork to take over that individual's identity and obtain a driver's license, loans, credit cards, and merchandise. It is also key to taking over an individual's existing account and wiring money from the account, charging expenses to an existing credit line, writing checks on the account or simply withdrawing money. It is absolutely critical that this Congress this year enact legislation to prohibit the purchase and sale of Social Security numbers in a fashion that allows identity thieves to get ahold of those numbers. This legislation does not yet do that. Hopefully, either in an amendment yet offered this afternoon or in the conference committee, we can do that. There is bipartisan support for this idea. I know the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) on the other side supports doing it as well as a number of others. I have been helped by many, including the gentleman from Massachusetts. We can deal with this problem, but we must do so in legislation that will pass this year. Anyone who blocks that legislation or seeks to keep it from happening and happening very, very quickly, I think, is doing a disservice to the victims of identity theft across this country. It is important to note that the second greatest concern of Americans when it comes to privacy is that their identity might be stolen by an identity thief and that they might be victimized by that and undergo that pain. Again, I would reiterate that this is very important legislation. It goes a long way toward stopping identity theft. It can go a little further if we prohibit the purchase and sale of Social Security numbers. I urge my colleagues to vote for the legislation.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to instruct. The reality is that the motion to instruct will in fact stop all of the other reforms in this bill, in H.R. 6, that we have worked on so hard through the years to get to this point and focus the entire issue on reliability. That might be important if we had reached a point where the conference was not resolving the issues. If this conference had met for months and had not been able to resolve the other provisions in the bill, perhaps we would have to say we have to focus on one issue that we can pass. But the conference committee has not even met yet. I want to comment on another issue of this debate. The point here is what we are being urged to do is to focus only on reliability because that is the crisis of the moment. Again as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden) pointed out, if we only legislate on the emergency of the moment, that is a poor way to construct public policy, and it is the way to create the precise kind of circumstance that led to the blackout we just experienced. The reality is it requires forethought, and the reality is reliability is a problem, but it is not the only problem. If this legislation did not include reliability provisions, perhaps it would make some sense to focus on that issue; but no one here, no one is arguing that we should not deal with reliability. Indeed, the bill does deal with reliability. What is being argued is if we adopt this motion to instruct, we drop everything else. Well, I have a flash for my colleagues on the other side: In Arizona the crisis is not a blackout. That blackout did not strike my State. The crisis in my State of Arizona is gasoline. We had gasoline prices spike 2 weeks ago in Arizona to over $3.99 a gallon. We had people sitting in lines to buy gasoline because they could not get gasoline because a pipeline broke. There are other issues involved in the energy issue than simply reliability, and my constituents in Arizona absolutely do not want us at this early stage in the process to throw out all of the important reforms in the legislation. They are concerned about the natural gas shortage, and they are happy that H.R. 6 will encourage natural gas supplies. They recognize that we are more and more reliant upon natural gas. Indeed, many more new natural gas plants have been built in Arizona, and more and more of our energy is coming from natural gas. We had better do something about the production of natural gas. That would be thrown out with this motion to instruct. My colleagues are deeply concerned about renewable fuels and improving energy conservation. They want to promote renewable energy and alternative energy. They do not want that thrown out. One of the interesting things in this debate is that it was hydropower that enabled the blackout to end in less time than it otherwise would have. If we focus solely on reliability issues, we will throw out the important provisions in this legislation that deal with hydropower. It simply is pennywise and pound foolish not to deal with a comprehensive energy bill. I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to instruct.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Pharmaceutical Access Act against protectionism and in favor of a free market. I want our pharmaceutical companies to be profitable. I particularly want them to have the funds they need to do the research and development they must do. I just do not want them to take that money from Americans and only Americans and to impose the burden of that R&D on our seniors only. It simply is not fair to impose the entire cost of the phenomenally expensive research and development on just America's seniors and to allow the rest of the world to profit from that. Over and over again, we hear the issue is safety, safety, safety, and yet there are thousands of counterfeit drugs in the market today precisely because we do not have a free market, precisely because we do not allow reimportation. The minute you allow reimportation, a system similar to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval or the Underwriters Laboratory will arise and that system will advertise, If you buy our drug, we have inspected the plants where they came from; we have certified the shipping of that drug; and we certify it safe. Americans will buy those drugs and those drugs only. Trust the market. End protectionism. Americans cannot afford to pay protectionist prices for our drugs any longer. Fix this market. Allow a free market to work.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time, and I rise in strong opposition to the amendment and in very strong disagreement with the last speaker. The reality is his point would be well taken if indeed there were medical evidence that medicinal marijuana helped people, but there is none. In his entire testimony there was not a single citation to a study that showed medical marijuana, in fact, helps, as my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), pointed out earlier where indeed the medical evidence is to the contrary. And that leads me to an important part of the case against this amendment I think it is very important for people to understand, and that is, how did we get where we are? We got to this position because in a handful of States across the country, valiant initiatives have been raised to legalize medical marijuana. My State happens to be one of those States, but let me make it clear to my colleagues what happened in those campaigns in those States. First, make no mistake about it, law enforcement agents in every single one of those States opposed the medical marijuana initiative. They did so for good and solid reasons: number one, there is no medical benefit; but, number two, marijuana is a precursor drug. Make no mistake about it, today's marijuana is not the marijuana that we had 40 or 30 or 20 or even 10 years ago. The potency of today's marijuana is dramatically higher, shockingly higher than the marijuana that existed and was around in the 1960s. But what else happened in those campaigns? The other important thing that happened in those campaigns is that the people were led astray by massive spending. My colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), pointed out that some proponents of this idea, including one who happens to be a resident of my State, have spent many millions of dollars advocating the legalization of marijuana; and they have outspent the opponents of these measures by two, three, four, five, 10 times. In my State of Arizona in two different campaigns the proponents of legalizing medical marijuana outspent the opponents by a dramatic amount of money. When we stack the debate, when only one side of the argument gets out, of course they are going to win. Let us talk about what happens with this marijuana, and I disagree so strongly with my colleague who spoke just a moment ago. The reality is that in this Nation we have a serious drug problem confronting our youth, and why do we have that drug problem? We have that drug problem because of this very debate, because as a Nation we have not decided that drugs, illegal drugs, marijuana for one and many others, are bad. Indeed, we have leaders of the Nation saying, oh, it is all right, we are not really going to go against it; we are not really going to enforce these laws; we do not care about these laws. How do my colleagues think kids react to that? I will tell my colleagues how I raised my kids. I raised my kids to see these are the rules, you violate these rules, you will be punished. You know what? My kids understood the rules because when they violated them, we punished them. That is not what we do with drugs in America. We say if it is a drug we will look the other way; we will let it go; we are not really committed to enforcing our Nation's drugs law. Now look at the hypocrisy, the outrageous hypocrisy of this proposal. Now we are going to say, yeah, we have Federal laws against these drugs; we have Federal laws against marijuana; we believe that those laws are valid and good and appropriate, but you know what, in some States we will not enforce them because in some States we do not want to enforce them. So if the FBI is dealing with a person and they happen to be in Maryland, they get one set of rules; but if they happen to be in Arizona, they get another set of rules. What about those States that border each other? What about New Jersey right next to New York? What about Arizona right next to California? What about all kinds of other border jurisdictions? We want the laws of this Nation to say that in this State the Federal antidrug laws on marijuana will be enforced, but right across the river in Kansas City, Missouri, versus Kansas City, Kansas, we are not going to enforce that law? Do my colleagues not think that will send a confused message to our kids about our Nation's policy on illegal drugs? Do my colleagues not think that will lead to more kids getting involved in drugs? The most outrageous statement made on this floor on this House tonight was the statement that sending the message to our kids that some drugs are okay will not lead them to use those drugs or other drugs and will not lead to an increase in the use of illegal drugs. That is the most outrageous and absurd concept we can possibly embrace, and I hope this House will reject it. We cannot afford to confuse our Nation's children. We cannot afford to tell them that marijuana is okay. We cannot afford to let them begin to use the dramatically more potent marijuana that is on the streets today and coming through my State of Arizona, to your State and your district by some confused policy that says, well, we think it is bad in some States, but we do not think it is bad in others. The truth is, the gentleman who spoke before me believes we should legalize all drugs, and that is a valid and fair position; but take that issue directly to the substance of this Congress, propose it as a law, propose to amend the Federal laws that prohibit the possession and the use and the sale of marijuana and talk that debate straight up. Do not do it by subterfuge. Do not do it under the table. Do not do it by saying in one State we are going to enforce the Federal law and in another State we are not, because if we want to confuse a generation of America's children, that is the way to do it.

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, I again reiterate my opposition to this amendment. I would agree with the gentlewoman who just spoke that each side has an argument of merit in this debate. I compliment her for standing up and speaking out her views. But I would say I strongly disagree. Let us start with this whole issue of States' rights. I yield to no one on the issue of States' rights. I have a piece of legislation I have introduced every year in this Congress which would have required every Member of Congress to cite in each bill they introduce the constitutional authority, the provision of the U.S. Constitution that gives the Congress the right to act in this area. The gentlewoman would suggest that medical marijuana is not an area in which the Federal Government has the right to legislate. The implication there is that the Federal Government does not have the right to legislate in the area of drug policy. I would suggest that our Nation's civil rights laws, which I strongly support, are based on the issue of interstate commerce and that discrimination affects interstate commerce, and therefore it is appropriate for the Federal Government to pass laws prohibiting civil rights conduct that is offensive, including discrimination. By the same token, clearly our Nation's laws against drugs, marijuana and all of the others, are based on the same premise, and that is that they do affect interstate commerce. Indeed, drug use, illegal drug use by American workers, imposes a tremendous burden on our workforce and on our productivity. But let us go beyond that. The argument I believe she tried to make was there is a distinction because these laws that do not have any negative effect, they do not do harm. I would suggest that even if medicinal marijuana did not harm anyone other than its user, an argument I will refute in just a moment, that premise would be wrong. But let us look at the case cited earlier in this debate. There is a doctor in California who has taken advantage of that State's medical marijuana law to write 7,500 prescriptions for medical marijuana and has conducted in doing that not a single medical exam. The reality is, this is a fraud. The medical marijuana prescriptions which that doctor and other doctors have written are not written for medicinal reasons. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) gave, I thought, eloquent testimony here on this floor just a few moments ago in which he made it very clear that there are drugs available to doctors today with the exact same medical and medicinal properties as marijuana, that will relieve the pain or that will deal with the lack of hunger or appetite, that will deal with those issues. I want to make another point. It was interesting that in this debate one of my colleagues on the other side said, Look, we already recognize certain painkilling drugs and we allow them to be legal in our system, and he cited a couple of those painkilling drugs. Why do we not allow marijuana? The answer is, there is sound evidence behind allowing certain drugs and there is no sound evidence behind allowing marijuana to be used for the reasons for which it is argued. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. It will, in fact, send an inconsistent signal to our children and do grave damage to the children of America.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the efforts of the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), and I appreciate the gentleman clarifying that those funds can be used where most needed. Amendment Offered by Mr. Hefley

Mr. SHADEGG. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, on the issue of hazardous fuels reduction activities, as the gentleman from North Carolina knows, many of our national forestlands are covered with unnaturally dense vegetation. This unnaturally dense condition has contributed immensely to the devastating wildfires which the western United States is experiencing right now and which it has experienced for the last several years. My own State of Arizona is experiencing the most severe wildfires of the entire West right now and is being devastated by those fires. Scientific research has shown that unnaturally dense vegetation not only leads to an extreme risk of catastrophic wildfire, such as the Rodeo-Chediski fire we had in Arizona last year and the Aspen fire we are having this year, but also that overgrowth in and of itself is extremely damaging to the health of the forest ecosystem. One example is the bark beetle infestation, which is currently affecting over 800,000 acres of forest in Arizona, and whose outbreak was directly tied to the overdense tree growth in our forests. Insect infestation not only kill and weaken the vegetation but also increase the threat of fire. Hazardous fuels reduction treatments which are narrowly confined to the wildland-urban interface are simply ineffective to reducing the risk posed by catastrophic wildfire both to communities, watersheds and to the overall forest ecosystem. During the Rodeo-Chediski fire, which destroyed almost 1.5 million acres in Arizona, that fire jumped on some occasions more than 3 miles ahead of the main fire line. As a result of that, it is obviously futile to confine hazardous fuel treatment activities to just the narrow wildland-urban interface, a ban often defined as half a mile wide. If the fire can jump 3 miles, thinning and protecting a half mile will not protect the forest or the communities. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your efforts on this issue and I would like to clarify that the Forest Service hazardous fuels and authorities in this legislation are not limited to that narrowly defined wildland- urban interface but may be used in those areas of the forest where hazardous fuels reduction activity is needed the most, not just to protect homes and structures in communities but also to protect the forest itself and the overall forest ecosystem.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I appreciate the supportive remarks of my colleagues on the opposite side of this issue. I simply believe this is critical. The issue I raised a year ago was additional funds for firefighting. The issue I am raising, however, this year has to do with hazardous fuels reduction. I believe that this committee has done a superb job in fighting to get the funds to fight fires, but we must reduce the fuel load in our forests. In Arizona alone, the Rodeo Chedeski fire last year consumed 469,000 acres. This year's Aspen fire has already consumed 80,000 acres. In my State alone, this year, we have lost 140,000 acres. And in the Nation we have lost 1 million acres. I am not fighting for funds to fight fires. I agree with the gentleman and will support efforts for funding to fight fires. I am talking about fuels reduction. We have millions of acres, tens of millions of acres of overgrown forests in this country due to mistaken policies of the past. We need to thin those forests, to treat those forests. The Governor of Arizona has asked for emergency funding to treat the forests in Arizona. She says the urgent need is $116 million. The need to treat all of the forests in just my State of Arizona is $700 million. There are 32 large fires burning in the West as we speak. Seven of those fires are burning in the State of Arizona, and over 20,000 acres in my State are burning as we debate this issue right now. The issue is not fighting fires. I already referred to the $1.6 billion we spent last year to fight fires. We do not have enough money to fight all these fires. We must treat these forests so that we do not have the fires to fight. And the only way we can treat these forests is to move dollars into the fund that allows the treatment of forests, and that is the fund I have sought to move them into. We must have hazardous fuels reduction. This is a mere $19 million, but it will help in the effort. And with those who are concerned about land acquisition, I want to make it very clear that we have left a substantial amount of money, millions of dollars, in the land acquisition fund, because I understand there are important land acquisitions and inholdings, as the chairman talked about. I intentionally did not gut that fund or leave it empty. We did, however, say that we must recognize the catastrophe that our Nation faces. If we do not reduce the fuel load in these forests, if we do not make it so these fires do not burn so intensely, and if we do not treat them, and there is a debate over whether we should treat just the wildland urban interface or the inner part of the forest itself, that debate is beyond the issue of my amendment, my amendment says we have a crying need across America. I would suggests that the statistics tell us that with 39 million acres at high-risk, and burning 6.9 million acres per year, as we did last year, in 5 years there will be no forests left to debate. Those 39 million acres will be gone. It seems to me that this is a modest effort to look at the critical need of treating hazardous fuels reduction in our forests. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by commending the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), the chairman of the Interior Committee on Appropriations, for his superb work in increasing funding for Forest Service wildland fire management by $82 million more than the budget request and for his advocacy for the use of those funds for hazardous fuels reduction. I also want to commend him for reducing at this point in time funding for Forest Service land acquisition. He has done an excellent job, and I commend him for the product he has produced. I want to carry that one step further, and I want to carry it one step further because we face a crisis in this Nation. America's forests are burning to the ground, and they are burning to the ground because they are occupied by excessive vegetation. They are, according to every knowledgeable expert in the country, grossly overgrown, too dense; and that is leading to a condition not only of wildfires but of disease that is destroying those forests. In my State of Arizona, we are losing 800,000 acres of land to disease because of this overgrown condition. My amendment is simple and straightforward. It takes $19 million from the Department of Agriculture Lands Acquisition Fund, and it transfers that $19 million to the Department of Agriculture Wildland Fire Management Fund, and it makes that money available for hazardous fuels reduction activities, that $19 million dollar. Mr. Chairman, we are in dire straits. A report by the GAO in 1999 predicted that we have 39 million acres at high risk. Last year alone, 6.9 million acres of those forests burned to the ground at a firefighting cost of $1.6 billion. The experts tell us that the 10-year average of forests burned to the ground is 4.2 million acres per year. Dr. Wally Covington of Northern Arizona University has predicted that if we do not do something to treat these forests, an additional 5 to 10 million acres will burn every single year. This condition cannot continue.

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. As a member of both the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the Committee on Energy Commerce, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2122, the Project BioShield Act. Mr. Speaker, today, the House takes an important step toward preparing our Nation for the threat of bioterrorism. Clearly, we are living in a transformational era. Thirty years ago, none of us knew what biotechnology or genomics were, but, today, combined with our country's unparalleled leadership in semiconductors and computing power, we are on the verge of breathtaking breakthroughs in the field of bioscience. Congress has played an important role not only by doubling the funding for the National Institutes of Health, but also by committing $6 billion in fiscal year 2003 to develop strategies and countermeasures to protect the American public from bioterror attacks. Even though we are in a better position in terms of preparedness than we were just a few months ago prior to the anthrax attacks here on Capitol Hill, we have much more to do. Project BioShield is a critically important step in that process. In many ways, it will serve as our Nation's primary response to bioterror. Mr. Speaker, the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness and Response of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, which I chair, held several hearings on this issue; and, during that process, we learned that having measures to counter bioterror threats will actually serve as a deterrent to those threats, as would-be terrorists see that America can be protected against bioagents which al Qaeda or other terrorists would use against us. By providing a steady stream of funding for countermeasures, increased research capability at NIH, and expedited distribution during emergencies, project BioShield is a forward-thinking solution to bioterrorism. Mr. Speaker, our subcommittee worked hard on this legislation. I believe it takes an important step in the right direction. I commend the full committee chairman and the other committees for their work on it, and I urge my colleagues to support the Project BioShield Act and to support H.R. 2122.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, last Friday the Nation lost a distinguished public servant. Bob Stump humbly and admirably served his country and represented Arizona for nearly 60 years. His service began as a Navy medic during World War II and continued in Arizona in the State legislature and then here in the United States House of Representatives. From his Stetson hat down to his dusty leather boots, Bob personified the independence and western congeniality of Arizona. The soft-spoken conservative was true to his beliefs and always represented his constituents with integrity and determination. Like so many courageous young men of his time, Bob enlisted in the Navy at the age of 16, too young to legally do so, in the midst of the second world war. He was elected to Congress in 1976 and, drawing on his military experience, Bob established himself as the preeminent champion for active military personnel and veterans. His insight and knowledge on issues landed him the chairmanship of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs in 1995, and then in 2000, the chairmanship of the House Committee on Armed Services. Even still, he never let the power go to his head. He was one of the few Congressman, indeed probably the only committee chairman, to personally answer his office telephone. I looked to Bob Stump on so many issues. His advise was always thoughtful, solid, and consistent. He was the dean of our delegation, and I will sorely miss his leadership and friendship. Mr. Speaker, for more than 25 years, he served this body with dignity and earned the admiration of not only myself, but of every Member of this House. He possessed the unwavering reliability and good judgment not commonly found in the politics of today. Bob remains with us in spirit as a model of devoted service to Arizona and the Nation. He is and always will be missed.

Mr. SHADEGG

Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I rise in strong support of H.R. 1416, the Homeland Security Technical Corrections Act. Today's bill represents our committee's first adjustment of the Homeland Security Act. As we have been examining some of the issues pertinent to homeland security, it will be necessary to make other changes to the act in order to provide clearer counsel to the Department as it undertakes its massive new responsibilities. For example, on my Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness and Response, we have discovered that while the Department's main mission is to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States, the law fails to rest the specific responsibility for preventing such attacks with any one of the four directorates; and therefore it is unclear which of those directorates is in charge of this most critical mission. Other examples of how and where fine tuning of the statute is needed will arise as we do our work, and we will act to improve the law. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Homeland Security became a reality just in March. It represents the largest reorganization of the Federal Government since World War II. This is truly a herculean task, but the Department has taken some important steps to assist our Nation's readiness for emergencies. $566 million has been made available to the States and the cities from the fiscal year 2003 budget to assist first responders in the form of funding for equipment, training, planning and exercises. $750 million has been made available for firefighter assistance grants from the fiscal year 2003 budget to help rural, urban and suburban fire departments better train, prepare and equip themselves. On April 30, $1.5 billion was made available to States and localities from the fiscal year 2003 supplemental budget to help State and local law enforcement personnel pay for equipment, training and exercises and to offset the costs associated with enhanced security measures deployed during heightened periods of threat. On May 14, $700 million was allocated from the fiscal year 2003 supplemental budget as part of the urban area security initiative for 30 cities and their contiguous counties and mutual aid partners to enhance the security of urban areas with high-density populations. I rise in strong support of this legislation. I thank the chairman for bringing it forward. I look forward to working to make our Nation more secure.