Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of interesting things about this substitute. One is that, as we just heard from Subcommittee Chairman Keller, it is apparently a guideline of the House that when the Democrats do cuts, and they are real cuts in education, it is not a cut. But when the Republicans actually increase, it is somehow a cut. And apparently the reason is because they are pro-education and we are anti-education. So if we increase the money, it is still a cut. But if when they were in power they cut the money, it is not a cut. And it becomes very confusing to the American people because they thought the way you measure a cut is if the spending goes down like it did under Democrat control. And they thought the way you measure an increase is when the spending goes up, not just based on a claim that you are more pro-education or anti-education. Another interesting thing here is that when the Republicans float out things for 1 year, as 1-year proposals, we hear it is a gimmick, it is a gimmick, they are merely trying to posture for the election. But when the Democrats roll out a 1-year rollback, apparently that is not posturing for an election. That is real serious policy trying to benefit the students of America because there is a terrible raid on the student loan system. But a 1-year moratorium from the other side couldn't possibly be a gimmick because Democrats don't do gimmicks. Only Republicans do gimmicks. Democrats don't do cuts in education because only Republicans do cuts in education. Now, fundamentally, we have had a lot of misinformation and struggling about this student loan question. At least we aren't hearing about the failed policies of direct lending. We are now arguing how you do this in the domestic market because, in fact, the private sector market showed you could more efficiently do student loans and you could manage student loans better and have fewer bad debts and get the rates down for students. And that is why we are not arguing direct lending today; we are arguing, in fact, a process of what happened in the budgetary accounting of when we went to a fixed rate versus a variable rate. In fact, the rate for student loans is higher right now than it is in the bill, 6.8. But because of the variable rate that was left in the previous bill, it was scored differently. Now, in fact, the government has to pick up the difference. If the rate goes higher, we fix the students at 6.8. Now, if there is a criticism to be made of the Republicans, it is that the alleged savings may not be real if the interest rates go up. But there is no cut to student loans to students. It is cheaper for students, and we have guaranteed now a fixed rate so they don't have this bubble that hits. And just because there is a lot of confusion, because of the accounting of how you do student lending doesn't mean that you can come to the House floor and demagogue like we have cut student loans, that we have taken the money out. Furthermore, there is no offset to this. To the degree that we are going to give them a 1-year gimmick loan, how are we going to pay for it? My friend and colleague who I have known for many years and I know he is very passionately in favor of education, the only thing he mentioned as an offset are tax cuts for the rich, which apparently we have different definitions of rich, but apparently this means, as we have battled on this House floor, increasing the taxes again on families who have the child credit, because that is what we are trying to extend and which is being blocked. And you can't give a 1-year bonus to a family by subsidizing at the Federal level the student loan and then take it back by taking away their child credit. What does that do? That is more than the loan. And it is not 1 year; it is for multiple years. Furthermore, they favor taking away the dividend and capital gains credits. Well, how do people get jobs? So if you don't grow jobs in Indiana and the rest of the country and then you say good luck getting a student loan, to work where? If we don't keep the economy growing, if we tax the economy to fund a temporary 1-year gimmick in the student loan and kill the economy, why do we need to go to college? Now, we all know that, as Mr. Miller said, everybody is going to need a college degree if you are going to compete in the world economy; and a graduate degree is going to be like the old days of the college degree. And we have to tackle this spending question. Every time we reduce student loans, tuition goes up. And quite frankly, in Indiana and elsewhere, we have increased money dramatically in Washington. Where are the States? Individuals have a responsibility too. It isn't just the Federal Government that has to meet this challenge in funding it; but the States need to, endowments need to, and the private sector needs to. We have a share of that. We are guaranteeing most of these loans. We have increased the Pell Grants. We have increased the pool. We have made a stable interest rate now. We have lowered the cost of education and increased the Federal funding. And I urge a strong ``no'' to this Democrat substitute amendment.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I mistakenly cast my vote against tabling the privileged motion offered by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. In fact, I intended to vote in favor of tabling the motion and would like my intentions to be reflected in the Record.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, the last speaker, I realize he is not on the Education Committee, but stated an appalling misrepresentation of what has happened on two different fronts. First off, as he probably realizes, or should, this is not an appropriations bill, this is an authorizing bill. Secondly, what cuts? We readjusted the student loan rates, made them more fair. We went through committee, watched the misrepresentations of how this proceeded, and it continues today. There are fixed rates now that as the interest rates go up, students around America are actually going to save tremendous amounts of money. Where this cut language comes from is baffling. As a budgeting technique, the exposed risk of the Federal Government, because we are on fixed versus variable, budgets as a cut, but in reality could have saved the government and saved the students in the long run here if you believe interest rates are going to rise, which most people believe they are going to. It is just an appalling misrepresentation to walk down to Congress and say that we have been cutting education when, if anything, education has been the fastest growing discretionary part of our budget. We have steadily increased funding for education, and now we have an authorizing bill, not a spending bill, an authorizing bill, and any number in there is funny money. What really matters is what you appropriate in education. The bottom line is this: at two ends we have a problem. One is higher education is changing in America as we go to more online, more lifelong learning; and this bill attempts to accommodate the diversity in the changing nature of higher education. But I wanted to particularly talk about one subsection that is important because, as we are moving in international competition, we can't leave people behind. I first came into Congress in 1995 and worked with my friend, Congressman Fattah on the other side, with the program he had called High Hopes that turned into GEAR UP, which said to kids in the eighth grade who were disadvantaged that we are not going to leave you behind. In Indiana, it is called the 21st Century Scholars Program. And then Governor Evan Bayh worked with this to say that if you got your Indiana degree from a high school, kept a GPA of 2, stayed clean of drugs and alcohol and didn't commit another crime, went to an Indiana college and applied for Federal aid, we were going to guarantee that you could get some sort of Federal aid or Pell Grant with the State scholarship program. Here we are continuing GEAR UP. I have been frustrated every year for the past few that the President of the United States has zeroed it out in his budget proposals, but the House has put it back in and gone along with the Senate to keep this program funded. It gives kids an opportunity to say, many kids who thought they would never get a chance to go to college, to say, if you do your part, we will do our part in the government. And part of this GEAR UP High Hopes program is to, just like we do with special needs kids, to say that the State has to have a way to not just make this promise, but to have these field organizations go and work with the individual kids to help them with milestones. Much like the TRIO program has done in college, this now takes it to the high school level to make sure that those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds have some opportunity at least to get a higher education or we are not going to be able to compete in the world. We have to help all Americans and GEAR UP will help give all Americans that chance.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, my intention is to withdraw this amendment. But I want to express my frustration at actually a combination of issues but particularly related to Colombia; that I have been a strong advocate that the military has been slow in responding in Afghanistan to the interrelationship to the heroin problem in Afghanistan into the military efforts, and will be there again next week to meet on the ground to see how we are progressing. And I have grave concerns that the DOD money that is being spent in Afghanistan is not being spent as wisely as I would like. Nevertheless, I am happy that the Defense Department is starting to understand the link between what is being done in narcotics and the heroin funding the attacks on our troops and men and women in our armed services there. We have a grave problem down in the eastern Pacific, and that is, we have spent this money in the Andean Initiative and in Plan Colombia. What we have seen, as naval resources, which are very limited, have been transferred out of that zone, and the DOD has not made additional investments in, that my amendment would address the problem of an oiler. When our Coast Guard vessels go out to interdict in drug interdiction through the Department of Homeland Security, they have always been dependent, just like many intelligence assets are, on DOD. DOD has not given them an oiler with which to refuel. So logically the drug dealers, which we see far more than we used to, we can see them coming at us. We have gone from 20,000 to 30,000 deaths in America, real deaths in the streets of America, because we are not interdicting things that we can see, because we don't have an oiler in the eastern Pacific. Last Sunday in The Washington Post, a big article about Guatemala, a top antidrug person being corrupt. Why is Guatemala being corrupted? Why do we hear about the gangs in El Salvador related to narcotics? Why do we hear about the problems in the southwest border related to narcotics? We can see the stuff coming, but unless DOD makes some investment in an oiler, we can talk all we want about intercepting narcotics. But if you don't have a way to refuel their ships out in the water, and the United States Navy takes all the resources on it, we can't fight the war on narcotics. I am going to withdraw this amendment, because I understand the supplemental is focused on Afghanistan and Iraq. I support the antinarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, but I am very concerned, and I am hoping that the Appropriations Committee will work with us on getting this oiler, work with DOD, because this is essential to the war on drugs. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, I am acting as his designee.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that each side be given 5 additional minutes.

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that each side be given an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I want to again compliment the gentleman from Arizona. The Navajo nation is in northern Arizona and spills over into New Mexico and is a huge dominant entity, and he has worked aggressively to defend their interests and to make sure they are included in efforts like this, where sometimes they are forgotten. Oklahoma, which has been ravaged by narcotics, and as we see it go into the mountains of North Carolina, clearly the Cherokee nation and other nations are at risk with this, too. The gentleman's amendment will help in many of these areas as we try to tackle meth and other narcotics. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Lee Terry brought this amendment to the Rules Committee, and I strongly support this amendment. One of the things I should point out is that this has been an unusual day. We have been asking for some time to be able to have a meth day. Clearly, this has turned into a meth day, as well as when we did the terrorism bill. We had methamphetamines as part of that. And the reason is because we are hearing from the grass roots and they want to tackle the methamphetamine issue. Earlier today, interestingly, we had the Meth Caucus and others who were not able to come to the floor because there was a major press conference with DEA and other agencies to talk about the bill that we passed earlier this week, the largest methamphetamine act in the United States' history as part of the terrorism bill. And Mr. Terry and other Members, including Coach Osborne and others who come to the floor regularly on meth, are over at the White House for the signing ceremony on the methamphetamine bill. So I have been here on the floor today, and some Members have been able to make it over, but this has been a meth day and beyond on the House floor, and it is meth day at the White House as well as throughout Capitol Hill. This particular amendment directs the director of ONDCP, the ``drug czar'' to consult with the head of each major national organization that represents law enforcement officers, agencies, or associations. That would include, for example, Ron Brooks of the National Narcotics Officers Associations Coalition, the Fraternal Order of Police, the national HIDTA directors. He must consult them prior to making recommendations to the President on national budget for drug control enforcement each year. So why would we need this kind of amendment in this bill? I would think that this is what the director does for a living. But when we had a hearing and asked why the HIDTAs were being moved to the Justice Department at this hearing, we had the director of the narcotics officers who said they hadn't been consulted. We had the director of the Chicago HIDTA, the Speaker's HIDTA, and he said he hadn't been consulted. We had the directors of the Southwest border HIDTA, and they said they had not been consulted. We had the director of the Baltimore- Washington HIDTA, and he said he had not been consulted. We had the director of the Missouri HIDTA, the sheriff of our Whip Roy Blunt's home area, and he said he had never been consulted. The question is: Who did they consult? If they didn't consult the HIDTA directors, any of them, if they didn't consult the narcotics officers, if they didn't consult the police officers, on what grounds are they making recommendations to in effect gut these programs and move them to other departments? On what grounds are they proposing to wipe out the Byrne grants and the drug czar be silent or actually supportive? On what grounds are they proposing to wipe out the meth hot spots? I think it would be just basic good procedure that the director would talk to these groups before he would make these recommendations. Yet all these groups say he has never had a meeting with them. He is not meeting with them before he makes these recommendations. I think, quite frankly, it is a sad day when the United States Congress has to put into a bill that the director meets with the people who are on the street fighting the drug war, which he should be doing as part of his job. But I strongly commend Mr. Terry for this amendment, because we need the director. If we are going to have a director, a drug czar who is going to make recommendations that impact State and local law enforcement all over the country, that impact our HIDTAs all over the country, we ought to at least know, and he can still make whatever recommendations he wants, and the President can still make whatever recommendations he wants, but we would like to know before that recommendation comes over that he has at least talked to the people doing the job at the grassroots level. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), a former chairman of the subcommittee. He and I both were senior staffers in the other body and have worked on this issue for a long time. I appreciate his leadership in fighting narcotics throughout the United States.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I do not oppose the amendment.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I might consume. On the surface it looks fairly mild, but it is actually an attempt to eliminate the drug czar's office. The gentleman from Texas is certainly the most principled Libertarian that we have in the Congress and probably one of the most principled Libertarians in the country. I presume he would favor sunsetting most Departments in the Federal Government. The question is, why would we single out the drug czar's office? We have many programs that are unauthorized. That is an unfortunate thing. I believe all programs should, in fact, be authorized; and that is why we are going through this authorization. It got lost at the end of the last session in the Senate side, and we are proceeding again with Senate support. It would be tragic if we got in the position where each Department, if Congress could not decide on the exact wording of the authorization bill, the office suddenly disappeared, and we would not have a national anti-drug media, we would not have the HIDTA programs, we would not have the technology that goes forth. Dr. Paul and I have deep differences on the effectiveness of narcotics. We both share a skepticism in the ability of government to solve things. But I believe in the drug policy area we can at least make a difference. And I believe it is an important difference. He and I have our deep philosophical differences on this, but I very much respect his consistent opposition, basically to most legislation that comes forth in front of Congress. But I need to oppose this amendment. This amendment would have the effect of singling out the Office of National Drug Control Policy solely among Cabinet positions to be put under this regulation. And it could, indeed, like many other programs that we do not get reauthorization, such as juvenile justice, such as Head Start, has at times not had its authorization, we have many different programs that do not get authorized. We would not want to fold those programs merely because the two bodies could not agree on their final wording. I also would like to at this time, I got a copy of the administration's statement of policy of why they oppose this bill, in spite of the fact it has gone unanimously through the subcommittee, unanimously through the full committee, gone with complete support of multiple other committees in Congress. It is, quite frankly, a relatively insulting document. It says, for example, that it infringes on the prerogatives of the executive by designating ONDCP as a Cabinet-level official. As we explained earlier, that is not what the law says it does. It says it has to be treated like a Cabinet-level position. Which, by the way, was what Congress passed in the beginning. It was a congressional designation. The bill duplicates the drug certification process, is another one of their complaints at the State Department. That is true. But ONDCP is a narcotics agency, and they should be advising the State Department, which has multiple different concerns when they do certification. It complains about the interdiction coordinator in the Department of Homeland Security being under a national drug control strategy, which seems odd that ONDCP would be objecting to this being in their Department. Once again, it reiterates that they want to move the HIDTAs away right now in the Justice Department from ONDCP. The reason we have them there is the State and locals were drawn into HIDTA relationship where they had a vote and could have influence in the decision-making. The administration's proposals would gut the funding, over half of it; would take away the vote of State and local officials, all of whom said unanimously they would withdraw from the program if the administration persists with this, which was denied in both Houses last year, denied overwhelmingly again by their own people. When the narcotics officers of America unanimously oppose this, when the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas unanimously oppose it, how can the administration keep sending up this type of document? They are supposed to be the leaders of the world on narcotics, not fighting every police officer in America, every State trooper in America, every HIDTA in America. I do not understand this. It also says that we are reducing its flexibility in the National Anti-drug Media Campaign. We certainly are. Because we are frustrated that they have not dealt with the problem of methamphetamine. So that allegation happens to be true. We are reducing the flexibility because he has refused to respond to the counties of America that methamphetamine is their number one problem in America, to the HIDTAs; and particularly he has been after the methamphetamine HIDTAs that were created, the Rocky Mountain HIDTA, the Missouri HIDTA, the Iowa HIDTA. It has been very frustrating to see this persistent, persistent, even after we passed the Methamphetamine Act this past week, even as we moved this bill through, continuing to resist the efforts of Congress to try to tackle the problems of methamphetamine. Also they dislike that we have restricted their reprogramming ability. Yes we have restricted their reprogramming ability, because every time the local HIDTAs or others try to deal with the methamphetamine problem, they want to reprogram the money away from the problem. So we have given them most of the flexibility there. But while some of their charges are true, they fail to point out why the House and Senate unanimously from both parties are so frustrated that we have had to go forth with this. It would be tragic if my friend from Texas's amendment passed and would not let us move forward with this bill.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the manager's amendment makes technical and conforming changes to account for changes in the law within the jurisdiction of those committees that waived formal business meetings on H.R. 2829, the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 2005. On page 145, the manager's amendment strikes the mandatory restrictions on certification of budgets related to enforcement in certain contexts of section 484(r)(1) of the Higher Education Act, more popularly known as the Drug-Free Student Loan provision. The provision made students convicted of drug offenses temporarily not eligible to receive student loans. However, a significant problem had arisen in the Department of Education, beginning during the Clinton administration and continuing during the current administration, because they have misinterpreted the clear language of that statute to improperly deny loans to students whose drug convictions predated their enrollment in school. Section 8021 of the Deficit Reduction Act, Public Law 109-171, signed into law on February 8, 2006, contained language that altered the interpretation of a provision included in the Higher Education Act, and therefore obviated the need to address this matter in H.R. 2829. The manager's amendment changes made on pages 149, 187, and 217 and the related conforming amendments are based on technical recommendations made by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence through the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The technical amendments were thought desirable to make the ONDCP authorization reflect changes made by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Public Law 108-458, and related authorizations. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I also strongly support this amendment. I appreciate the gentleman from Arkansas being one of the first Members to really push us to focus on methamphetamines. His district has been hard hit. Early on it was featured in People magazine. We did a congressional hearing in our subcommittee in his district where we heard from everyone, from drug court to people who were working directly with children and the impact on children. At another hearing in Minnesota, at the request of a number of Members, we heard in Ramsey County, which is St. Paul, that they went from zero to 80 percent of the kids in child custody in the welfare department being addicts of meth. From nothing to 80 percent, in 6 months. When methamphetamine hits your area, it takes over and overwhelms your juvenile systems, overwhelms the child custody system, and overwhelms the criminal system. I very much appreciate this amendment. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Maryland for the time. I want to add that I, too, believe it should be more than 10 percent. Of course, the ONDCP director has that flexibility. I would also like to additionally comment a little bit more on the statement of administration policy and the bill in general that shows our frustration. I mentioned in the State Department on the certification process that the State Department has certification, but there are many other variables. In fact, that clause has been weakened to say ``demonstrably failing.'' What this says is the drug czar has to show whether these nations, such as Mexico, whether the pseudoephedrine producers such as India and China are fully cooperating, because we need to have the drug czar say what is happening on narcotics, and the State Department can make their own rulings. Furthermore, we have a big debate about how the budget should be counted. We believe that the administration has been misrepresenting what we are actually spending on narcotics in multiple ways. For example, in prisons, they count treatment as the only part of the prisons that is counted in the drug control budget. Well, we know many people are in jail because of narcotics. It leads to us not understanding what the actual costs of what we are doing are. Now, I support all that. I am not trying to say it should be cut, but understating it does not give Congress an accurate impression of what we are spending on narcotics. Similarly, in the Department of Homeland Security. So we are pushing in this legislation to address a wide range of things, and this particular amendment addresses one of the most egregious problems we have had, which anybody who has been watching this full debate sees, one amendment after another coming up on meth. That is because the people are speaking out. It is not just in the rural Midwest. It started out in Hawaii, in Honolulu, had to fumigate certain apartments because you can endanger the children and the people moving in the next time. When we did a hearing in Congressman Turner's district in Wilmington, Ohio, that very day in Dayton, Ohio, which is a large city, they found a string of seven houses that had the drug labs internally because you can smell it. That is partly why people go to rural areas, but they found the first big bust in Dayton because they brought up a string of houses so they could not smell it, much like they do with hydroponic marijuana. This is a thing with not only the crystal meth but even the drug labs are hitting the big cities. This is something that needs to be tackled. This is one where we can win. This is one when you show the ads, like are shown in Montana, they capture the people. They understand the danger of this drug, and what we need to do is make sure our national ad campaign includes that.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time on behalf of Mr. Terry to offer his amendment.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I think Mr. Cummings' point is a fitting conclusion as we move to the end of this debate. Our frustration is that since there has not been an authorization, the director of ONDCP has proposed a number of changes which would greatly undermine what this Congress intended. When we set up the High Intensity Drug Trafficking programs, the HIDTA, it was meant initially to focus on the Southwest border, which has not been particularly effective. In case anybody noticed, we do not have great control there, partly because we do not have an integrated Southwest border strategy. We have starts, we have a Southwest border HIDTA, but we need a Southwest border strategy. In these High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, we move to the biggest cities and say, this is how the drugs come in and move into Indiana from Chicago and Detroit. You need the Baltimore-Washington HIDTA and the Los Angeles HIDTA, the Phoenix and the Houston HIDTAs behind the border. Other States then saw the effectiveness. What made HIDTA effective? The idea was if the Federal Government tried to do everything through DEA, FBI, Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Customs, it would not work. Sometimes even our Federal agents were arresting each other, and we were not getting integrated with State and local law enforcement. So the goal in HIDTA was if we put a 1 million, $2 million into an area, first off, we would require all of the Federal agents to be there and they would get half the votes, and then we would get the States and locals and they would get half the votes, and they would feel actual ownership of it. If they felt ownership, they would participate. As the head of the Phoenix Police Department told us at a hearing, it was moved over to OCDETF. It has done wonderful work, but OCDETF talks to supposedly State and local law enforcement, but State and local law enforcement do not get a vote. So they get put on a board, and they come to a meeting once in a while. HIDTA actually gives them a vote. The head of the Phoenix Police Department said his city council asks him on a regular basis, can you justify this, can you justify that. He has kept three officers in the HIDTA because he sees how that HIDTA money gets leveraged with the State police, with the U.S. Attorney's Office, with the U.S. Marshals, with the FBI, DEA, and with everybody else. Why, when we finally get a program that works at the State and local levels that leverages these dollars, would we gut it without even talking to the people involved? The Phoenix police chairman said he would pull his three officers out of the narcotics effort if it was moved. So did Chicago. So did city after city. And it is so exasperating that they continue to persist on this. But it shows it has done a great job of educating the HIDTAs. The New York City HIDTA is integrated completely with terrorism, and it is an amazing operation as we see those to links occur. The national ad campaign we are addressing throughout this bill because we think it has been effective and we need to make it more effective, and it needs to include meth. The administration was also proposing dramatic changes to the technology center. It is one of the most valuable things to State and local law enforcement because not only do we give them goods, but it is a model for what we are trying to do on homeland security, that is, when a police department says I would like this kind of radio, night goggle, protective gear, they analyze it. In my district, take Albion, 1,500, Kendallville is 10,000 people, Fort Wayne is 230,000 people. They can go through their list and say we would like these goggles, but then it goes through a review process and they say this is probably not what you need in Albion. Unless you can make a defense, you don't get that. You have to submit what kind of drug challenges you have, what types of things you need, and the Technology Assessment Center then, off of your list, you match up what your departments need. Everybody in homeland security gets this pool of money, and now they have all kinds of things that they may not ever need and mismatches. Now we are trying to have the State say, what is your homeland security plan; to have the locals say, what is your homeland security plan. Then in a technology center, we should have it work like in the drug czar's office, except the drug czar wants to get rid of his own Department. It is baffling why there is this persistent goal in the administration to wipe out the things that most benefit State and local and keep the parts that are nationally under their control. So I think this bill will comprehensively address a whole series of those concerns. I am pleased that we have been able to do this. The Meth Caucus has been bipartisan; this subcommittee has been bipartisan with Mr. Cummings and the full active membership of subcommittee. We have all been able to bring a bill forth and move through the full committee unanimously. Judiciary, Energy and Commerce, Education, and Intelligence committees all participated in this process, individual Members with their amendments as well as the Meth Caucus. I hope this bill will receive unanimous support. Three of the amendments we need a ``yes'' on. There is one amendment that would get rid of ONDCP, and I urge a ``no'' vote on that.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and, as I said, I do not oppose this amendment. It is an excellent amendment. We have known for a long time that drug and alcohol abuse has been particularly devastating where there is lack of job opportunities on many of the reservations of our Indian nations in America, and it has been historic in fetal alcohol syndrome and other challenges. What is astounding to me is that the administration's Attorney General Gonzalez recently made the statement that meth is an epidemic, but the office that is supposed to control all this, the drug czar's office, continues to downplay meth and has actually said that it is not growing. Yet on the ground, none of us are hearing this. For example, in the Indian nations, where it is relatively quiet in the sense of the national knowledge of what Mr. Just described, at a hearing in Minnesota, the U.S. Attorney was there. He is the lead for the northern tribes in Montana, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and so on, and he said that meth is tearing through the Indian nations in a way they haven't seen in other narcotics; at reservation in the southern part of Arizona, which is right on the border, and there they are right on the front lines of all kinds of narcotics as well, as the crystal meth that is going to come across. This meth is going to move into upstate New York, where we have the reservation, the historic Mohawk reservation up on the Saint Lawrence Seaway, which once again is at a critical border point. And as we watch meth tearing through these Indian nations, we need to make sure when we put together these High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas that are under this, that those tribal nations are included as representatives. I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona taking the lead and making sure that as we have in these urban areas, whether it be in Arizona, whether it be in Minnesota, whether it be the Rocky Mountain HIDTA, or whether it be the northern upstate New York and other areas where we have major Indian nations, that they are included as we try to tackle drug trafficking and as we particularly get at the new scourge of methamphetamines. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings).