Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman McKeon for his leadership and Mr. Miller for his leadership in working in a bipartisan effort with this. But I want to say, first off, that it affirms what career and technical educational programs in my district are already doing. They are ensuring that all current technical education programs include rigorous and challenging academic courses; offer career and technical programs of study known as career majors; offer dual enrollment in secondary and postsecondary courses; and permit private and home school students to participate in career and technical education programs. Additionally, I am pleased that the bill allows for increased funding flexibility at the State level, as well as the promotion of State incentive grants to programs with exemplary performance. It is a little unusual in the sense I represent a district that still makes things. In my congressional district, we have the highest percent manufacturing left in America as far as what people do. Other people can go on vacation in other places. They can get a service job in other places, run credit card companies in other places; but we still make things. Vocational education, if it is going to compete, I remember years ago, because I am old now, in the 1960s, my father at our small retail store always took students who they were afraid were going to drop out and started trying to teach them different crafts and trades and get them into the workforce. I know that when I was a student reporter in college and did some stories on local high schools even out in the ag communities, Woodland High School had a big area where they had a combine and other things so kids could get experience working in farming. But we are at a whole other technical level. Even at my rural high schools in Angola, Indiana, a small high school, they have worked with TriState College to hook up an ethernet-type of Internet connection so they can take courses after school, to get courses after school to work with the plastics industry, the largest employer in my district, so kids can go out and learn technical skills. If they are going to compete with China, if they are going to compete with India, if they are going to compete worldwide, they are not going to have the old things where my grandpa did it this way and my great- grandpa did it this way, and I am going to have pensions and health care forever. It is going to be a lot more competitive. It is going to take constant cross-training for advanced skills, for basic entry skills, and basic entry things in these manufacturing companies in my district. If they cannot figure out how to work a computer, if they cannot figure out how to multitask, if they cannot figure out how to be flexible when a contract changes just like that, that company is gone. It is not anymore just to Mexico. It is to China. So vocational education plays such a critical role at the college level, just like continuing education does, and this bill gives us more flexibility to work in this program, to adjust to the new technologies we are seeing, the online, the constant education, the interrelationship between industry and our universities and high schools. The one thing I would strongly urge, and I continue to urge, the NFIB; the NAM, the National Association of Manufacturing; the U.S. Chamber, that the retailers engage in their local schools. They always come to me and everybody comes and says we are worried about our workforce, we are worried that we cannot get the quality. Well, engage the schools, hire these kids, train these kids, take advantage of these programs, because that is the only way we are going to keep jobs in America. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of S. 250, the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act of 2006. I'd also like to thank the Chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee, Mr. McKeon, for his hard work on this legislation. S. 250 will help strengthen and improve career and technical education programs across the country by helping states better utilize federal funding, increasing accountability, emphasizing student academic and technical achievement, and improving coordination between secondary and postsecondary career and technical education. In today's world, career and technical education is an important component of most any student's education as it helps prepare high school students for either a transition to the workforce or a postsecondary degree. The programs help students begin thinking about different careers of interest, provide opportunities for exploring those career options, and start students down a path toward accomplishing their career goals. Moreover, the program helps students see a connection between the academic subjects in the classroom and the application of that knowledge in the working world. For many students, this connection is critical to their decision to stay in high school and graduate with a diploma. I am pleased today to support the conference report on S. 250 and urge my colleagues to vote in favor of its passage. While I would have liked to have seen additional reforms--particularly in the areas of private school and home school participation--this bill represents significant bipartisan agreement in how to strengthen the Perkins program. It affirms in many ways what career and technical education programs in my district are already doing: ensuring that all career and technical education programs include rigorous and challenging academic courses; offering career and technical programs of study--known as career majors; offering dual enrollment in secondary and postsecondary courses; and permitting private and home school students to participate in career and technical education programs. Additionally, I am pleased that the bill allows for increased funding flexibility at the state level as well as the promotion of state incentive grants to programs with exemplary performance, Career and technical education is an important part of America's K-12 education system, and I would urge my colleagues to vote in favor of S. 250 today. This legislation will help improve both our education system and our nation's ever-changing economy as students are more prepared to enter either the workforce or some form of post-secondary education following their graduation from a local career and technical education program. My congressional district has the highest percent manufacturing in America. But even manufacturing is changing. In order to compete with China, India and other worldwide nations the same old approach will not work. We need flexible and creative education programs to complete the needs.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise in support of this resolution so that we can honor the Veterans Administration. I have had an unusual several years in my congressional district. All of us work a lot with veterans casework; and certainly with the deaths and injuries that come in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have seen the rise in that kind of casework, as well as the aging veterans from World War II, the Korean War and many other people who have so bravely defended our Nation. But when the CARES Commission suggested closing inpatient services in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we saw an outpouring of veterans in our community who really made clear why they think that the veterans hospitals are so important and so important to their care. They don't want to go to other cities. They don't want to go to other hospitals. They very much appreciate the service they get at the hospitals. Even though we haven't allocated enough money to meet all the demands, we haven't modernized many of these hospitals as much as they should be given the service that these dedicated men and women have given in defense of freedom and defense of protecting the rest of us, the fact is they love their hospitals. They love their health care there. They love the fact that they are recognized as veterans when they come in; that they have the camaraderie that they can have with their fellow veterans and the shared experiences; that the people at those hospitals know what kind of sacrifice they have given. They aren't just another cipher as often happens when they go to an emergency room and then they argue about who is going to pay the bill. They know when they go into a veterans hospital and when they come into the Veterans Administration service that they are going to be recognized and treated with the dignity that they deserve. I want to commend the Veterans Administration. They have a very tough time, with being underfunded, trying to meet the increasing demands, the shifting of where the veterans retire; but we appreciate in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the CBOCs around the area, the dedicated staff that does the best they can to service the many needy veterans not only in my district but throughout the country. I enthusiastically support this resolution in favor of using the dome for their 75th anniversary.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5589) to direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to transfer to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement all functions of the Customs Patrol Officers unit operating on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation.

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, let me first explain a little bit about who the Shadow Wolves are. They are a specialized, all-Native American unit of the legacy U.S. Customs Service that were created by an act of Congress in 1972 to patrol the U.S.-Mexican land border within the Tohono O'odham Indian Nation in southern Arizona. If you kind of visualize the southwest border, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and then think of Phoenix and Tucson coming straight down, Nogales, and then go towards California going west, that area would be the Tohono O'odham Reservation. It is an artificially defined border with Mexico there, because, in fact, the Tohono O'odham are on both sides of that, and Congressman Hayworth here in Congress has a bill to try to address how they can move inside their reservation, particularly as we tighten our border. But it is a different challenge because, quite frankly, they were there before Mexico and the United States were there. So it is a different type of a challenge on the southwest border as to how we are going to provide security from terrorism, security from narcotics, from other types of items moving through, as well as illegal immigration. Now, many people don't necessarily know Tohono O'odham as a name right off the bat; it is the Papago Indian tribe is what we historically called them, both in the north up more towards Phoenix and down in the southwest. But the Tohono O'odham view themselves as that name, and now the Federal Government has recognized them by that. It is a relatively recent change, just like on our north border up by where the Mohawk reservation was; now they are called the Akwesasne Indian reservation, but we have a similar challenge on that side of the border. Now, the reason the Shadow Wolves were created is when you have a separate nation inside your Nation, one of the hardest things for our drug agents, for our historic INS agents and others to penetrate is inside an Indian Nation. They are very closed societies. They know who is going to be where inside that Nation. It is not easy to penetrate. And here we had one of the most successful tracking organizations, the Shadow Wolves have been featured in People Magazine, on television, all sorts of newspapers around the country for years because they combine modern technology with ancient tracking techniques, combined with being members inside that Nation to provide law and order inside that Nation. They arrested and pursued and identified narcotics smugglers along their 76 miles of border, and 2.8 million acres, and they would seize roughly 100,000 pounds of illegal narcotics every year. But when we created the Department of Homeland Security, we did something very unwise. We decided by splitting the CBP, the Customs and Border Protection, from the ICE agents, we left several agencies in the lurch. One is the Air and Marine Division that didn't either picket fence on the border or do investigations inside. So we are trying to work that out, which has been easier to do over in the water border on the Gulf of Mexico in the Caribbean Sea, but has been much tougher on the Mexican land border with the United States. But the other is, what do you do with a group like the Shadow Wolves? They don't fit in an ICE box. They have a border, which is where we try to protect the border, but they also do investigations inside. And the Department of Homeland Security, in trying to figure out how to deal with things that don't quite fit, square pegs in a round hole, jammed them in under CBP, and that meant several things. One is, the Shadow Wolves, a distinct entity, disappeared because they scattered them, along with CBP agents, all over the country because it did not fit the organization structure to say, oh, this is a unique thing on the southwest border, let's create a unique thing. So now inside the Tohono O'odham reservation, we have CBP agents that do not belong to that Nation. We have ICE agents that are not part of that Nation, and we have got Tohono O'odham Native Americans scattered all over the United States. It makes no sense. Needless to say, it is not working that great. As we look at Nogales and the traffic pouring through in Arizona and as it moves over to Douglas, as we build more fences, as we put more agents on the border, guess what happens? They move over to the open areas, the Barry Goldwater Air Force Range, Tohono O'odham Indian reservation, and the Fish and Wildlife area to the western part of Arizona. They are overrun now. Just in one hearing we had several years ago, during the time of the hearing, they had had 1,500 pounds of drugs moved through in the previous 3 months, then 1,500 pounds the previous month. During our hearing, with all of the different agents around, they snared something like 1,800 pounds, five different carloads, another group with seven SUVs going through. They put a Blackhawk on them. This has become a no- man's zone. You cannot break organizations if you do not have investigations within. Rather than breaking up the Shadow Wolves, we should have been doing a similar thing up in New York State. We need to be looking at similar things in Montana where the Black Feet are not quite on the reservation, but how to work with the tribal groups to create tracking organizations that can do both border and investigations. Now, this bill is an imperfect solution. It puts them over in ICE. They basically need to do both things, but since the government continues to stick with they have got to be either A or B, better be B than A, because making them scattered along like a picket fence and working with CBP, wherever they assign them, makes no sense. We need them back together. We need them as a tracking unit, more like a historic Customs ICE organization. What this bill does is transfers them, in fact, back to ICE. It moves their pay scale to be like ICE special agents. It grants the chief officer of the Shadow Wolves a rank equivalent to the resident agent in charge of the ICE investigations and authorizes similar units in areas such in the Akwesasne Reservation in upstate New York. That is the basic thrust of the bill. We know we need to work with the Appropriations Committee. We addressed this in the Homeland Security appropriations bill, but we just moved the dollars over. In fact, we will have to work out some kind of transition, because ICE agents make more than CBP. These people were trained trackers. Then all of a sudden we put them back on the border. It makes no sense. And we in Congress, who created this, need to make sure that we stand behind this great idea before all of them retire. Many already took early retirement or quit because they saw no commitment to keeping them together as a Native American organization. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 5589, which directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to transfer to United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement all functions of the Customs Patrol Officers unit operating on the Tohono O'odham Indian reservation. This legislation responds to an urgent national priority: regaining control of our borders and stopping the cross-border smuggling of people, narcotics, and other contraband. I'd like to thank Majority Leader Boehner, Mr. Shadegg, and Mr. King of Iowa for their leadership in bringing this joint legislation to the Floor. The Shadow Wolves are one of the last remaining Customs Patrol Officer (CPO) units in the country. Created by Congress in 1972, the Shadow Wolves operate on the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation in southern Arizona, which has 76 miles of the U.S.-Mexican border running through it. That reservation has historically been a major conduit for drug smuggling, and the Shadow Wolves--all of them Native Americans who combine modern technology with traditional, Indian tracking techniques--are responsible for stopping the smuggling of drugs, illegal aliens and other contraband between the ports of entry within the 2.8 million acres of the Tohono O'odham Nation. Just since January of this year, the Shadow Wolves have interdicted over 15,000 pounds of illegal drugs that otherwise would have been sold on the streets. The Shadow Wolves have also assisted numerous Federal law enforcement agencies with enforcement issues on the reservation. Despite being one of our most successful anti-smuggling investigative units, however, the Shadow Wolves are about to disappear altogether. After the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Shadow Wolves were taken out of their historic location at the Customs Office of Investigations and arbitrarily assigned to the Tucson Sector of the Border Patrol. This arrangement has been unworkable, because the mission and tactics of the Shadow Wolves (who are more like investigators than patrolmen) simply do not fit the organizational model of the Border Patrol. The Shadow Wolves have already lost nearly a quarter of their personnel due to attrition and to date there have been no qualified replacements. H.R. 5589 fixes this problem by transferring the Shadow Wolves back to the Office of Investigations, now located within ICE. Once again, the Shadow Wolves will be able to do what they do best: find, follow, and bust major drug and alien smuggling rings, in cooperation with their fellow Immigration and Customs investigators. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 5589, and help the Nation take yet another major step in regaining control of our borders. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, first, let me thank Chairman Pete King of the Homeland Security Committee and the ranking member, Mr. Thompson, for steadily standing behind this and also keeping the pressure on the administration to resolve these types of things, if they will not remix and back off from their determination to artificially divide this agency, at least to accommodate the things that do not quite fit the bureaucratic structure. I want to thank Chairman Lungren of the subcommittee, as well as Chairman Rogers of the Homeland Security Appropriations Committee for keeping the pressure on in spite of the administration's resistance. I appreciate the support in ICE of Director Myers, Julie Myers, for her support in trying to work out a compromise and backing off some of the resistance we have had over the last few years. Congressman John Shadegg of Arizona has been a leader on this, along with Congressman Grijalva for a number of years, and his staff has been down there many times. We have spent much time on the Arizona border. Congressman Steve King has become involved in this, as well, from Iowa. And without the persistence of all of the Members, in addition to the support of the chairman, we would never be at the stage we are tonight of actually recognizing that the Shadow Wolves should exist as a separate unit, of authorizing what we earlier did in the appropriations bill, and see if we cannot finally get this done. We thank the individual members of the Shadow Wolves who stayed, and their patience as we try to put this back together, because this is important to the reservation. I have talked to tribal leaders there and individual homeowners there, and they are so frustrated with all of the crime that is running through their Indian reservation. They so much want to have their destiny controlled by their own people, to the degree we can work this out. I appreciate their patience as we have done a very belabored, long conflict over how to do this inside Homeland Security. But I think we are finally nearing the final stages of at least getting them in ICE, holding them together as a unit, working with the administration, with the appropriators, with the authorizers. I thank once again Mr. Thompson, Chairman King and all of the relevant Members for moving this bill forward. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5589.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, regardless of how you have voted in the past, there are two critical developments since the last vote that make compelling arguments for a ``no'' vote on the Hinchey Amendment to the SSJC Appropriations bill. The Hinchey Amendment would deny law enforcement agencies Federal funds to enforce the Controlled Substances Act in those States where `medicinal' marijuana is legal under State law. First, the FDA in April of this year confirmed that there is no research to sustain the supposed ``medicinal value'' in smoked marijuana. On April 20, 2006, the FDA stated, ``A past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.'' Furthermore, the ``FDA has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease indication.'' Second, research from a 25-year longitudinal study by the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Services showed that regular or heavy marijuana use was linked to a wide range of other illicit drugs and to a dependence or abuse of these other illicit drugs. The research concluded that ``following tight statistical controls, there is a clear tendency for those using cannabis to have higher rates of usage of other illicit drugs. This tendency is most evident for regular users of cannabis, and is even more marked in adolescents than in young adults.'' These researchers, using the most robust longitudinal database in the world, show what we have long suspected-- marijuana is a gateway to even more dangerous drugs of abuse. A handful of states have legalized smoked marijuana for medical claims. Not only are patients being given an ineffective, unapproved, and even harmful drug, but also one that is illegal under Federal law. Time and time again, research has demonstrated the harmful effects of marijuana. According to Dr. Nora Volkow, the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), marijuana ``can produce adverse physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral changes, and--contrary to popular belief--it can be addictive. Marijuana smoke, like cigarette smoke, can harm the lungs. The use of marijuana can impair short-term memory, verbal skills, and judgment and distort perception. It also may weaken the immune system and possibly increase a user's likelihood of developing cancer. Finally, the increasing use of marijuana by very young teens may have a profoundly negative effect upon their development.'' It is of the utmost importance that law enforcement be able to protect this country from dangerous drug trafficking, including marijuana. Join us in opposing the Hinchey amendment.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Will the chairman yield?

Mr. SOUDER. My parliamentary inquiry is, the only way to have stopped this was to have objected to the unanimous consent agreement?

Mr. SOUDER. In the future, I will be objecting if that is going to be the order of the House.

Mr. SOUDER. First, I want to thank the chairman for upping up the administration's attempt to zero out the Byrne grants, but, in fact, they have gone down from $600 million to $400 million and some, this year to $371 million. It will gut so many of our drug task forces around the United States. But I also spent many years in my life here in Congress on the Census Subcommittee. Sometimes you have to prioritize. Right now, we need more help on the streets with crime than we do in the Census Bureau. The mandate for every 10 years is every 10 years. The Census Bureau has taken on all kinds of other tasks, which some of the private sector can, quite frankly, pay for if they need it, rather than shut down our drug task forces. Because this is roughly almost a 67 percent cut over the last 6 years, not based on inflation, a 60 percent cut. I know this chairman has fought to put this back in. This administration's drug enforcement budget is an abomination and embarrassment.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. SOUDER. Does our unanimous consent agreement give the majority subcommittee chairman the ability to speak for 5 minutes whenever he wants, plus the ranking member of the full Appropriations Committee, plus the subcommittee on any motion in front of the House, plus the 5 minutes to oppose an amendment?

Mr. SOUDER. So if I understand what the chairman said, the rest of the House only gets 5 minutes, even if it represents the majority position of the House, but the combined Appropriations Committee can take 25 minutes to oppose our amendment, and our only recourse is to object to unanimous consent agreements?

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, we were restricted to 50 seconds. Most people have gone through the process, but many Members did not come over who could have spoken. I have a general concern that the Appropriations Committee on all the amendments can gang up, as we saw here, on a 5-minute rule; and I have concern about these unanimous consent agreements. I do not think we need to hold the House further here. We already went through our different statements. I could debate for 30 minutes on the census and other things, but I think we should move to a vote at this point. But I have a real problem about this intimidation by the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. SOUDER. I object.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first, let me thank Chairman Davis and our majority whip, Congressman Blunt, for their leadership on this important legislation. I particularly want to thank the whip for making sure that this gets to the floor. Our chairman knows and is regularly hearing our frustrations at the subcommittee level in Government Reform and Oversight because it has been so hard to get information from this administration. It was not easy from the last administration, either; and this is basic information that is necessary to do oversight. So I rise in support of this bill and I thank the chairman for being persistent in backing up the subcommittee chairman in trying to receive this grant information in a searchable and user-friendly form. Let me illustrate why H.R. 5060 is necessary. We battled this with multiple agencies, whether it is the faith-based category as they give grants, National Parks, we have battled it in all kinds of narcotics oversight, but let me illustrate the specifics and detail in one of the most frustrating processes that I have ever dealt with that our majority whip just referred to in his statement. In my capacity as chairman of the Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources on October 6, 2005, I sent a letter to USAID seeking information about its funding of the pro-prostitution nongovernmental organization called SANGRAM in violation of Public Law 108-25, the United States Leadership Against HIV-DS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003. According to an unclassified State Department memorandum obtained by subcommittee staff, Restore International, an anti-trafficking NGO that works with law enforcement agencies in India, was confronted by an USAID-funded NGO, SANGRAM, while the former attempted to rescue and provide long-term care for child victims of sex trafficking. The confrontation led to the release of 17 minor girls, victims of trafficking, into the hands of traffickers and trafficking accomplices. Now get this, a tax-funded organization in violation of Federal law forced the release of girls who were being rescued from sex trafficking. They were victims of trafficking and they turned them back to the traffickers and trafficking accomplices. According to this memorandum, SANGRAM ``allowed a brothel keeper into a shelter to pressure the girls not to cooperate with counselors. The girls are now back in the brothels, being subjected to rape for profit.'' On November 16, 2005, a USAID briefer asserted to the Government Reform Committee staff that USAID had ``nothing to do with'' the grant to the pro-prostitution SANGRAM, and that the committee's inquiries were ``destructive.'' The subcommittee is now in possession of documents that demonstrate that USAID must provide a revised briefing to Congress on its true role. These documents prove that USAID money financed the pro-prostitution SANGRAM through a second organization named Avert, which was established with the assistance of four USAID employees as a pass- through entity. USAID has held the ex-officio vice chairmanship of Avert since inception. According to these documents, the USAID board member of Avert voted twice to award funding to SANGRAM, once on July 27, 2002, and again on December 3, 2004, the last time being some 18 months after the provisions of Public Law 108-25 prohibited taxpayer funding of pro- prostitution like SANGRAM. That SANGRAM was a high-risk candidate for not complying with Public Law 108-25 should have been no surprise to USAID. SANGRAM was a cosigner, along with many other high-risk candidates, of a May 18, 2005, letter to President Bush opposing the anti-prostitution pledge. Subcommittee staff found posted on a USAID-sponsored Web site a 5- year-old report from SANGRAM that states: ``We believe that when involuntary initiation into prostitution occurs, a process of socialization within the institution of prostitution exists, whereby the involuntary nature of the business changes increasingly into one of active acceptance, not necessarily with resignation. This is not a coercive process.'' I agree with President Bush that ``it takes a special kind of depravity to exploit and hurt the most vulnerable members of society. Human traffickers rob children of their innocence; they expose them to the worst of life before they have seen much of life. Traffickers tear families apart. They treat their victims as nothing more than goods and commodities for sale to the highest bidder.'' It is inconceivable that an organization like SANGRAM could have received funding from the American taxpayer had USAID put in place an adequate management system to carry out Public Law 108-25. On December 13, 2005, a large briefing team from the State Department and USAID met with staff from my subcommittee in order to demonstrate ownership of the problem and lay out corrective measures being taken. To my dismay and astonishment, the briefers were not prepared to discuss and exhibited little knowledge of the pass-through entity known as Avert that USAID has established and which served as the mechanism whereby NGOs in India were monitored and financed with American tax dollars. Subcommittee staff knew more than the State Department USAID briefing team about this matter, thanks to Google searches on the Web for critical documents that had not been provided to the subcommittee by the administration. At that meeting, USAID was requested by the subcommittee staff to establish an electronic registry for grantees and subgrantees to facilitate oversight by USAID Washington as well as by Congress and ensure compliance with the Federal law. That request has not been honored. In the months since that December 13 appeal was made for an electronic registry, the subcommittee request has inspired two pieces of legislation: First in the other body, and the second we are debating here today. This scandal of financing pro-prostitution groups by USAID was highlighted by the authors in both Chambers as illustrating the need for this legislation. On April 7, I asked USAID in writing to provide legal advice to make certain that all USAID grantees and subgrantees would be captured by H.R. 5060. That request, too, has not been honored. I, for one, am out of patience having to wait months for agencies to reluctantly produce documents to shed light on how questionable projects are funded. I ask my colleagues to support H.R. 5060 and begin the process of bringing sunshine on the processes of unelected bureaucrats doling out grants to questionable organizations.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the McGovern amendment. Not only will this amendment hurt kids and families in the United States, but it makes the futures of kids and families in Colombia less secure. Drug trafficking is a tough problem. I am not going to admit that it is not a tough problem. Rape is a tough problem. Child abuse is a tough problem. Spouse abuse is a tough problem, but we do not give up our efforts; we do not give in because we have not seen a drop in spouse abuse or child abuse. Just like the others, the drug trafficking problem is difficult. Our policies, however, have pushed the narcoterrorists out into the jungle, away from the streets of Bogota where they used to assassinate elected officials. Because of the steadfast assistance provided by the American people to the people of Colombia, we have seen a tremendous drop in kidnappings (down 51 percent last year) and a dramatic drop in murders (down 13 percent). Overall terrorist attacks were down by 21 percent. The number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) was down by 15 percent. The fact is that now, for the first time in modern history, every one of the 1,098 municipalities has an elected official. Why? Because they are not worried about being murdered anymore. Due to the improved security situation in Colombia, law enforcement and military personnel are able to broaden their reach in the country. This puts pressure on the operations of the narcotraffickers, exposing their operations and coca fields. Increasing the reach of law enforcement is part of the reason why we have a better understanding this year on the extent of coca cultivation. Cultivation declined 8% in those areas surveyed both in 2004 and 2005, from 114,100 hectares in 2004 to 105,400 in 2005. Cultivation fell in nearly all growing areas where aerial eradication was employed, Putumayo being a key exception. But in those areas where no spraying takes place, cultivation increased. Growers are reacting to intense spray operations and are moving to non-sprayed on low-spray areas. Critics of our drug policies in Colombia are correct in stating that the coca crop estimate is 26% higher than it was last year. True enough. But this was due to a substantial expansion of the survey area by 81%. As we expected, more fields were discovered in remote areas uncontrolled by the government or areas where spraying is prohibited (e.g. buffer zone along Ecuador border or national parks). The lesson, however, is that spraying works. Where there was not spraying there was an increase in coca; where spraying occurs, cultivation is declining. Let me conclude with this. This is not a Colombian problem; it is our problem. It is our addictions and Europe's addictions that have terrorized this 200-year-old democracy. Because drug abuse continues in America, Colombia has had 30,000 police killed. As our colleague Joe Crowley wrote to us earlier this year, ``Plan Colombia has been a foreign policy success for the USA and a domestic security success for Colombia. Started by President Clinton and continued by President Bush, Plan Colombia has made measurable progress in Colombia's security, as seen through decreases in violence, murders and kidnappings, as well as the eradication of drug crops.'' We need to stand behind the Colombia people. I ask, my colleagues to vote down the McGovern amendment.

Mr. SOUDER

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman, and I want to thank Chairman Rogers and the committee for being willing to hopefully support this amendment and continue to work in conference. This is a major breakthrough. This is something we have been working towards for years to keep this unit together. I want to thank Julie Miers and Deb Spiro of the CBP and the ICE assistant secretary, Chairman King and Chairman Lungren and the Homeland Security authorizing committee. This is something that is finally happening, and it is an exciting time for one of the most critical drug trafficking organizations in the sense of they break the drug trafficking, they break the smuggling and trafficking inside of the Native American reservation. It is something we ought to be working to preserve, and I want to thank the committee for working with us and all the others, as well as the agencies. This is a historic night that we have been working towards for 4 to 6 years. I thank you very much.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of a bill that would offer relief to Mennonite Mutual Aid, a organization affiliated with the Mennonite church based in Indiana that provides individuals with socially-conscious investment and retirement options. For more than 40 years Mennonite Mutual Aid has been offering defined benefits to its customers in the form of annuities paid directly from its 401(a) defined contribution church retirement plan, a process known as ``self- annuitization.'' However, regulations issued by the IRS in 2002 prohibited the practice of self-annuitization, although they allowed it for church retirement plans organized under section 403(b)(9). Instead, the IRS stated that plans must purchase annuities from commercial insurance companies. Mr. Speaker, there is no good policy reason for why the two types of church plans should be treated differently regarding self- annuitization. Furthermore, the Department of the Treasury has indicated they would not oppose a legislative change on this issue. Churches should have the right to invest for retirement in the ways they see fit, and commercial insurance companies cannot and do not manage their investments according to these high standards. Moreover, the ability to offer annuities is necessary to prevent the possibility of beneficiaries outliving their retirement funds under an alternative installment payment system. In order to prevent this unfairness, my bill would use a ``grandfather'' approach to grant the ability to self- annuitize only to those 401(a) plans that were in existence on the date the final IRS regulations were issued in 2002. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill so that the Mennonites can continue to offer annuities invested in the way they see fit.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5143, the H- Prize Act of 2006, a bill that represents a significant step towards our Country's energy independence. The recent rise in gas prices has only magnified the United States' overwhelming reliance on oil. We cannot allow our economy to be held captive by nations such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, whose manipulation of the world oil market can cause massive price disruptions at home. Obviously, we need another way. The forecasts of future high oil prices make possible other options, and to further transition our economy away from its dependence on foreign oil we must pursue all of them--nuclear, renewables such as ethanol and biodiesel, wind, solar--and expand our domestic oil supplies by drilling in ANWR and offshore. One of the most promising of these alternatives is hydrogen power. Hydrogen's huge advantage is that it can be created from virtually any energy source, both conventional or unconventional. Indeed, in my district a company is planning to build a ``green hydrogen'' plant that will use waste materials that often end up in landfills. Broadening the materials that can be used as primary energy sources increases our chances at reducing our energy imports from overseas. And furthermore, by lowering emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases, hydrogen power is good for the environment, too. By establishing a national prize competition for innovations in hydrogen power, the H-Prize Act will summon our Nation's best and brightest to the challenge of overcoming the technical hurdles that stand in the way of the hydrogen economy. Government initiatives are no match for the entrepreneurial power of the private sector to discover a way to make hydrogen a viable alternative to oil. Mr. Speaker, I commend Messrs. Inglis, Lipinski, and Boehlert for their hard work on this bill, and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. SOUDER

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Today I am offering an amendment with the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop) that will ensure students have greater access to information about a university's transfer-of-credit policies without placing new burdensome mandates on the institutions themselves. I would like to thank the chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, Chairman McKeon, for working with me and Mr. Bishop over the last day on a compromise that I believe accomplishes our shared goal of greater transparency with regard to an institution's transfer of credit policies. If a student plans on transferring from a community college to a 4-year institution or from a proprietary school to a community college, they should know before they apply which of their credits will transfer. The Souder-Bishop amendment will strengthen language in the underlying bill to ensure that all institutions of higher education publicly disclosed whether or not they deny credits based on the accreditation of the institution where the credits were earned. We do not mandate the kind of policy a school must have; we just require greater transparency. On principle, I believe it is not the role of the Federal Government to dictate what kind of transfer or credit policy an institution must have. In the interest of academic integrity, every college and university should be able to ensure that every graduate receiving a diploma from their institution has completed all of the required courses for a particular program at the level of rigor expected by that university. If a university decides that the best way it can ensure an appropriate level of academic rigor is to only accept credits from certain kinds of institutions, it should be that school's prerogative to do so. The alternative for many schools would be costly and time-intensive, requiring admissions counselors and professors to evaluate each of a transfer student's credits based on the quality of the sending institution, its professors, curricula, textbooks, materials, et cetera. I want to make it clear that this amendment is meant in no way to diminish the value of any particular kind of institution. All institutions have their appropriate place in the higher education community. I am supportive of all types of institutions and want to encourage their growth because it will mean more individuals will be empowered to be productive workers in our growing economy. They are a critical part of my district in particular because of its manufacturing, engineering and business background, and without the proprietary schools and community college specialized courses, we could not function. But it is my hope that as an alternative to Federal mandates, more colleges and universities will work out voluntary articulation agreements between schools to ensure a more seamless transition between institutions. This can be done quite effectively within a State or region where institutions can come together to agree upon which credits from one school are the equivalent of courses at another school. In my own home district in Northeast Indiana, Indiana University, Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) and Ivy Tech Community College have worked out an agreement for students to be able to transfer credits from a specified list of over 150 courses. Several years ago, this was not possible. Now it is, and many more institutions in Indiana are following suit. I hope this kind of voluntary agreement multiply across the country. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop).

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).