Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the PATRIOT Act and, in particular, title VII of that report, the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. This is certainly the biggest, and last night we passed Chairman Boehlert and Congressman Gordon's environmental meth bill, but this is the biggest comprehensive bill on meth that we have ever had in front of the United States Congress, and it is important that we pass this. I want to thank a number of people. It is impossible to thank everybody who has been involved in this, but I would like to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner of the Judiciary Committee for his co- sponsorship and his willingness to put this in a conference report. If we did not have this in a conference report, it would not see the light of day. We have had the pharmaceutical companies attack this bill. We have had the Mexico and China lobbies attack this bill. We have had the pro-drug groups attack the law enforcement provisions. It would not go through the other body. It is not even clear we can move it to another bill at this point. Yet, it is the only bill standing, and it is a bipartisan effort to try to address this scourge that is crossing the country. I thank Chairman Sensenbrenner; also Majority Leader Roy Blunt, who has been an early leader in this charge; Chairman Barton of the Energy and Commerce Committee for his willingness to have this move on this conference report; Chairman Hyde of the International Relations Committee because it has International Relations jurisdiction and for his support; Chairman Young of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; Chairman Coble of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime; Chairman Frank Wolf of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, Commerce, Justice and State, because, without all of their help, we would not have this bill in front of us. I would also thank the several Members who have worked so hard to make this comprehensive anti-meth legislation happen. In particular, I would like to thank Representatives Mark Kennedy, Darlene Hooley of Oregon, Dave Reichert and John Peterson, because they provided much of the content of this comprehensive bill and their consistently strong leadership on the House floor. I would also like to thank the four co-chairmen of the Congressional Meth Caucus, Congressmen Larsen, Calvert, Boswell and Cannon, for their staffs' assistance in putting this together so we could have a bipartisan effort. Congressman Tom Osborne has crusaded on this House floor and across the country on behalf of anti-meth legislation, as has Congressmen Baird, Wamp, Boozman, King, Gordon and so many others. This would not be happening today if we did not have this bipartisan coalition, and I hope it becomes law. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the conference report to H.R. 3199, the USA PATRIOT and Terrorism Prevention Reauthorization Act of 2005, and in particular of title VII of that report, the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005. I believe this bipartisan legislation is a vital first step in our renewed fight against the scourge of methamphetamine trafficking and abuse, and I hope the House will support its passage. I would probably take an hour if I tried to thank each of the Members and staff who helped with this legislation, so I will have to mention only a few. First, I'd very much like to thank Chairman Sensenbrenner of the Judiciary Committee for his cosponsorship of the Methamphetamine Epidemic Elimination Act, H.R. 3889, one of the two bills that was incorporated into today's legislation, and for his leadership in ensuring that anti-meth legislation would be added to the conference report. I would also like to thank Majority Leader Roy Blunt, Chairman Barton of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Chairman Hyde of the International Relations Committee, Chairman Young of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Chairman Coble of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, and Chairman Frank Wolf of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Science, Commerce, Justice, and State, for their invaluable assistance and support in bringing this bill to the floor for a vote today. I would also like to thank several Members who worked so hard to make comprehensive anti-meth legislation happen. In particular, I'd like to thank Representative Mark Kennedy, Representative Darlene Hooley, Representative Dave Reichert, and Representative John Peterson for providing much of the content of this bill, and for their consistently strong leadership on the House floor on meth issues. I would also like to thank the four co-chairmen of the Congressional Meth Caucus, Representative Rick Larsen, Representative Ken Calvert, Representative Leonard Boswell, and Representative Chris Cannon, for their and their staffs' assistance and support. And to every other Member who has cosponsored either H.R. 3889, or the other major bill incorporated in this conference report, the Combat Meth Act of 2005, H.R. 314, I express my deep appreciation. I don't have to tell any of you how serious a threat meth is for our communities; pick up almost any newspaper or magazine these days and you can read about it firsthand. As chairman of the Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources, I have held 11 hearings on the meth epidemic since 2001, not only in Washington, DC, but in places as diverse as rural Arkansas, Ohio, Oregon, and Indiana, suburban Minnesota, island of Hawaii, and urban Detroit. There are regional and local variations on the problem, of course, but one thing remains constant everywhere: This is a drug almost unique in its combination of cheapness, ease of manufacture, and devastating impact on the user and his or her community. There are three aspects of the meth epidemic that I believe need to be emphasized as Congress prepares to enact this legislation. First, meth presents unique challenges to Federal, State, and local law enforcement. The small, clandestine meth labs that have spread like wildfire across our Nation produce toxic chemical byproducts that endanger officers' lives, tie up law enforcement resources for hours or even days, and cost tremendous amounts of money to clean up. That, combined with the rise in criminal behavior, child and citizen endangerment, and other effects, have made meth the number one drug problem for the Nation's local law enforcement agencies, according to a study released over the summer by the National Association of Counties. Second, the damage this drug causes is not confined to the addict alone; it has terrible effects on everyone around the user, particularly children. Another survey by the National Association of Counties found that 40 percent of child welfare agencies reported an increase in ``out of home placements because of meth in the past year.'' This abuse unfortunately includes physical and mental trauma, and even sexual abuse. Sixty-nine percent of county social service agencies have indicated that they have had to provide additional, specialized training for their welfare system workers and have had to develop new and special protocols for workers to address the special needs of the children affected by methamphetamine. Community health and human services, as well as child welfare services such as foster-care, are being overwhelmed as a result of meth. Finally, the meth threat is not confined to the small, local labs, but extends well beyond our borders to the ``super labs'' controlled by large, sophisticated Mexican drug trafficking organizations, and the international trade in pseudoephedrine and other precursor chemicals fueling those super labs. Three-quarters or more of our Nation's meth supply is controlled by those large organizations, and over half of our meth comes directly from Mexico. The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act will be the first legislation enacted by Congress that addresses all three of these critical aspects. Previous acts of Congress have addressed meth production and precursor chemical diversion, while others have provided assistance to State and local agencies; for the first time, however, we are tackling domestic and international chemical diversion, assistance to State and local agencies, child and family welfare issues, and the criminal production of meth. The conference committee has filed a detailed section-by-section analysis of the legislation, so I will only briefly mention the highlights of this bill. Among other things, the act would: Require all pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine products to be stored behind the counter or in a locked cabinet; impose a daily and a monthly purchase limit; require purchasers to show I.D. and sign a logbook; and require training of all employees handling the products; Close a number of loopholes in existing import, export, and wholesale regulations of meth precursor chemicals, including import and manufacturing quotas to ensure no oversupply leads to diversion; and regulation of the wholesale ``spot market''; Require reporting of major meth precursor exporters and importers, and would hold them accountable for their efforts to prevent diversion to meth production; Toughen Federal penalties against meth traffickers and smugglers; Authorize the ``Meth Hot Spots'' program, as well as increase funding for drug courts, drug endangered children programs, and programs to assist pregnant women addicted to meth. Each of these steps is vital to our success in the fight against meth, and I hope that the House will support them. Mr. Speaker, this bill was a true compromise--both between the two parties, and between this House and the other body. Of all the many Members of Congress who worked on this legislation, no one got everything he or she wanted. But what we did get was an excellent bill that will re-energize our fight against methamphetamine. Every one of us, Republican or Democrat, urban or rural, has a stake in the outcome of that fight. We have to stop the meth epidemic from spreading, and we need to start rolling it back. I believe that this legislation will be an important step in that process, and I urge my colleagues to vote for its passage.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, anyone who has been exposed to this is just appalled. And one thing that surprises me is even as our own country was lackadaisical on international prostitution for many years and would not stand up on international conferences, and as we are lackadaisical about looking at the horror of pornography worldwide, we are then surprised that there is this huge demand for both young boys and young girls in sexual trafficking. We need to understand what some of the core issues are that are driving this. In the subcommittee I chair, we got involved in a case where USAID funded an NGO that was complicit in human trafficking. With one group of funds to one NGO from the State Department, they were trying to rescue minor girls from a brothel in India. Another NGO funded by our tax dollars at USAID interfered in the rescue and ultimately facilitated the potential retrafficking of the girls. We need legislation like this so we can be the leader in stopping sex trafficking and go directly after those agencies in the United States that are complicit in this. Lastly, I want to thank our former colleague, Linda Smith, for devoting so much of her personal time in rescuing these young girls. Human trafficking is--plain and simple--modern slavery. The victims of human trafficking, by and large, are women and children in extreme poverty. They suffer some of the worst crimes imaginable. This bill makes the necessary provisions for our country to continue as the global leader in fighting human trafficking, and to do what is right at every level of government in order to effectively combat the scourge of human trafficking. This bill effectively ensures that various agencies in our government are united in their efforts and armed with appropriate tools to combat trafficking in humans. I absolutely do not want to see another situation, like that being investigated by the Subcommittee I chair, where a USAID-funded NGO is complicit in human trafficking. This situation involved the efforts of one NGO, with funds from the State Department, trying to rescue minor girls from a brothel in India, and another NGO, funded by USAID, interfering in the rescue, and ultimately facilitating the potential retrafficking of the girls. It is critical that the United States and its agencies and programs are united in efforts to combat human trafficking. This bill is essential for such efforts. Among the key provisions of this bill that strengthen our efforts against the crime of human trafficking, while also providing necessary help for the victims: First, it strengthens our efforts to combat sexual exploitation and trafficking crimes committed by ``peacekeepers'' in war-torn countries; It directs the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, to establish a pilot program to help victims of trafficking by providing residential treatment facilities; It authorizes new programs aimed at reducing demand for commercial sex while also strengthening law enforcement programs aimed at investigating and prosecuting trafficking in persons; Includes compassionate, essential, provisions to assist victims of human trafficking--those women and children who have seen the worst side of humanity--to put their lives back together. This bill strengthens existing human trafficking laws by reaching out to help the victims with various forms of emotional and material support programs, such as providing guardians ad litem for alien children who are suspected victims of human trafficking, and providing victims with access to legal counsel. H.R. 972 gives our law enforcement agencies the tools necessary to fight against this terrible crime of human trafficking, domestically and internationally. The bill also incorporates child protection and trafficking prevention activities into USAID, State, and DOD post-conflict, and post natural-disaster relief programs, increasing anti-trafficking efforts in situations where so many women and children are exploited. I commend my colleague, Mr. Chris Smith, for his leadership on this important issue. He has done more than anyone I know to bring attention to this terrible crime and its victims, and he has been the driving force behind efforts to combat human trafficking. Mr. Speaker, thank you for bringing this vital legislation to the Floor today. I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 972, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, in the legislation that hopefully will be before us tomorrow, Congresswoman Hooley and Congressman Kennedy and others were dealing with international, with drug kingpins. We have had many Members dealing with how to control the pseudoephedrine and some of that, but we still have some bills that we need to look at. Congressman Gordon and Congressman Boehlert have a bill on EPA because one of the things is this collective impact on water systems, and when we think of it, it is in the forests and it is up high and it is going down, the cumulative impact of all these little labs is fairly damaging from an environmental standpoint and yet they are not the Superfund sites that we deal with. But the workplace question, I believe, is the one that we are going to have to address next year. And I believe the gentleman from Iowa and Congressman Peterson have also been huge advocates of drug testing, and we have to understand that drug testing is the best deterrent in the workplace. This is where the meth battle is going to be won or lost, because if employees take meth at the workplace thinking they can produce more, the only real way to do this is targeted education at the workplace and, in effect, a check of responsibility. A number of Congresses ago when I was on the Small Business Committee and now-Senator Talent was chairman of the committee, we moved the drug-free workplace bill through that gave guidelines to small business and what kind of testing they needed to do, including testing the managers. I personally believe we in Congress ought to be drug tested and lead by example, but the managers need to be tested as well as employees. There needs to be security that they are not going to get false positives, and I understand all of that. But there needs to be drug testing, and ultimately we also need ad campaigns directed straight at the workplace, posters that can be there, handouts that can be there, education, because ultimately if they do not have a job, it chokes off the habit to some degree. It does not completely, because they can steal and so on; but, ultimately, the drug testing in the workplace, I believe, has been a lot of the missing link in how we have been approaching meth.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, the interrelationship between the mom and pop labs and the crystal meth lab is tied together in several ways in the pending legislation. First off, what the pharmaceutical companies are already preparing to do is come up with non pseudoephedrine products. There will be somewhat fewer choices at grocery stores and pharmacies, but still plenty of choices. Some of those choices may not be as effective, but they will be effective. But the net is they are already taking the pseudoephedrine out which also means there will be less pseudoephedrine to divert towards the superlabs. So while we are addressing at the pharmacy and grocery store level the mom and pop labs, we are also affecting, because of the changes in the pharmaceutical company industry, which may have been adapting for State level and now are rushing, knowing this bill is about to pass, that we will see an effect on the supermeth, too, in addition, which is probably more like a third, two-thirds in most States, although nobody really knows. Also, because we are going at the primary sources, this bill will marry the two. In other words, the initial bill that I had drafted, combined with a revised Talent-Feinstein, married together, is going to give us a wall across the country. I appreciate, and many others like you in these hard hit States appreciate, that this is going to alter behavior patterns in some places where they do not yet have meth. Because of that, children are going to live. Children are not going to be beaten by their parents. They are not going to be abused, and they are not going to have as much problem. Guess what? Meth is coming to a block near you anyway. So this enables us to get in front of the curve, and I know this is going to be difficult in some areas where they have not had meth yet, but the bulk of the States have at least some. Thirty-five or 37 States are being fairly overrun, and by doing this nationally, we will not hear what you said earlier, is them going to the next State there. But I do believe this will affect not only the ma and pop labs but what you are talking about and what you have been talking about tonight actually helps us with the superlabs as well.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, there is quite frankly some disagreement in the field. Generally speaking, we figure six to eight times somebody's going to go through drug treatment. Many times they are pressured by a family member, and they did not really make the commitment. If somebody makes an internal commitment you can usually do it in one time. I would also like to insert into the Record at this point the scientific reasons for the effect of meth. I think this will help answer the question. This is a fairly technical document here that comes from a meth report that we are about to release. scientific reasons for meth effects Methamphetamine is a potent central nervous system stimulant that affects the brain by acting on the mechanisms responsible for regulating a class of neurotransmitters known as the biogenic amines or monoamine neurotransmitters. This broad class of neurotransmitters is generally responsible for regulating heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure, appetite, attention, mood and responses associated with alertness or alarm conditions. Although the exact mechanism of action is unknown, it is generally believed that methamphetamine causes the release of these monoamines through the monoamine transporter as well as blocking the re- uptake of these neurotransmitters, causing them to remain within the synaptic cleft longer than otherwise. As in most neurotransmitter chemistry, its effects are adapted by the affected neurons by a decrease in the production of the neurotransmitters being blocked from re-uptake, leading to the tolerance and withdrawal effects. In medicine it is used as an appetite suppressant in treating obesity, treating anesthetic overdose and narcolepsy. The acute effects of the drug closely resemble the physiological and psychological effects of the fight-or- flight response including increased heart rate and blood pressure, vasoconstriction, pupil dilation, bronchial dilation and increased blood sugar. The person who ingests meth will experience an increased focus and mental alertness and the elimination of the subjective effects of fatigue as well as a decrease in appetite. Many of these effects are broadly interpreted as euphoria or a sense of well-being, intelligence and power. The 17th edition of The Merck Manual (1999) describes the effects of heavy use of methamphetamines in these terms: ``Continued high doses of methamphetamine produce anxiety reactions during which the person is fearful, tremulous, and concerned about his physical well-being; an amphetamine psychosis in which the person misinterprets others' actions, hallucinates, and becomes unrealistically suspicious; an exhaustion syndrome, involving intense fatigue and need for sleep, after the stimulation phase; and a prolonged depression, during which suicide is possible'' (p. 1593--ch. 195). Depending on delivery method and dosage, a dose of methamphetamine will potentially keep the user awake with a feeling of euphoria for periods lasting 2-24 hours. The acute effects decline as the brain chemistry starts to adapt to the chemical conditions and as the body metabolizes the chemical, leading to a rapid loss of the initial effect and a significant rebound effect as the previously saturated synaptic cleft becomes depleted of the same neurotransmitters that had previously been elevated. Many users then compensate by administering more of the drug to maintain their current state of euphoria and alertness. This process can be repeated many times, often leading to the user remaining awake for days, after which secondary sleep deprivation effects manifest in the user. Classic sleep deprivation effects include irritability, blurred vision, memory lapses, confusion, paranoia, hallucinations, nausea, and (in extreme cases) death. After prolonged use, the meth user will begin to become irritable, most likely due to lack of sleep. Methamphetamine is reported to attack the immune system, so meth users are often prone to infections of all different kinds, one being an MRSA infection. This, too, may simply be a result of long-term sleep deprivation and/or chronic malnutrition. It is a common belief that methamphetamine gives people super-human strength. This is not really true, but methamphetamine inhibits pain and increases metabolism, which allows a person to push muscles to points of failure that would otherwise be harder or impossible to reach. (See the article entitled Exercise and Stimulants for a better description of the factors involved.) Other side effects include twitching, ``jitteriness'', repetitive behavior (known as ``tweaking''), and jaw clenching or teeth grinding. It has been noted anecdotally that methamphetamine addicts lose their teeth abnormally fast; this may be due to the jaw clenching, although heavy meth users also tend to neglect personal hygiene, such as brushing teeth. It is often claimed that smoking methamphetamine speeds this process by leaving a crystalline residue on the teeth, and while this is apparently confirmed by dentists, no clinical studies have been done to investigate. Some users exhibit sexually compulsive behavior and may engage in extended sexual encounters with one or more individuals, often strangers. This behavior is substantially more common among gay and bisexual male methamphetamine users than it is their heterosexual counterparts. As it is symptomatic of the user to continue taking the drug to combat fatigue, an encounter or series of encounters can last for several days. This compulsive behavior has created a link between meth use and sexually transmitted disease (STD) transmission, especially HIV and syphilis. This caused great concern among larger gay communities, particularly those in Atlanta, Miami, New York City, and San Francisco, leading to outreach programs and rapid growth in 12-step organizations such as Crystal Meth Anonymous. See Crystal and sex. This meth behaves differently in your brain, much more like ecstasy and much more damaging in that it gives you a false sense of high, and therefore, you become addicted to it rapidly. Thus, you think you can perform better at work. You can go three nights sometimes without sleep if you are driving a truck, but it gets so addictive and it damages your brain so significantly, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), soon to be Governor, has been on the floor with his chart showing how rapidly your teeth start to fall out and hair starts to fall out. It is a different thing that happens to your body. So part of the question is, how quick do you get treatment? Do you get it early? Do you get it medium? Do you get it late? Some people say, well, oh, meth is much harder to treat than other drugs, but that is really wrong. What has been disturbing is we finally have eight studies going on out of the national research under Director Charlie Curie, but we need more because, in fact, we are dealing with mom and pop meth. We are dealing with crystal meth. We are dealing with women who use it for weight loss. We are dealing with some who are just drug addicts, and there are some who are using it like an amphetamine at work. That means different types of treatment to deal with it. We are also not dealing with kids. We are mostly dealing with people in the workplace, 18 to 45, really 25 to 40. It is a different type of drug, and it means different kinds of treatment and success efforts vary.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) for being such a passionate and aggressive and steadfast leader and part of the meth caucus, not only back home, but out here in Washington, that has been able to help us make a lot of progress. What I wanted to do, and take some time here, is lay out a little bit of the history of how we got to where we are. I felt probably the simplest way to do that would be that I chair the Narcotics Subcommittee over in Government Reform where Speaker Hastert chaired and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica). The former Congressman Ose had come to the committee when the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) was chair and talked about the super lab problem in California and that it led to the death of a young child. It eventually led to the child endangerment laws in California that have been patterned elsewhere. Then when I became chairman starting in 2001, we focused a lot on the southwest border. But we held our first hearing on 7/12/2001 with the DEA, with Ron Brooks, who is the national chairman of the National Narcotics Association, with a sheriff from Indiana, a police chief from California, and a sheriff in Washington State, and then a public affairs director, Susan Rook, who used to be with CNN. Then it was 7/18/2003 when we really started to focus in on metham phetamines. After we had looked at the borders and tackled that for a 2-year cycle, we came back on meth. The gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) and the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Case) had both been hard hit and testified, as well as DEA and ONDCP. And then Captain Kelly, the commander of the narcotics division in Sacramento who had been instrumental in the early superlab efforts in California as well as the chief of police in Vancouver, Washington, and the sheriff in Clark County, Washington. Then we went into the field hearing in my own district, along with the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Chocola), where we had ONDCP come out and DEA as we usually do at field hearings. We heard from Curtis Hill, the prosecutor in Elkhart County, his chief investigator Bill Wargo, the Starke County detective, Corporal Tony Ciriello from Kosciusko County, and multiple other prosecutors and people in local law enforcement. Then we moved up to Detroit. At Detroit on 4/20/2004 our hearing was ``Northern Ice: Stopping Methamphetamine Precursor Chemical Smuggling Across the U.S.-Canada Border.'' We had the director of the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in Detroit, as well as the Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement person, a special agent in charge of DEA, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection person in charge of Detroit. In Detroit they had brought down a pseudoephedrine ring that was supplying at that time 40 percent of the illegal pseudoephedrine coming into the United States. It was the biggest bust in American history and dried up much of the quantity of pseudoephedrine that was coming in. It is still the kind of gold plate standard of what has happened on the north border. Of course this moved a lot to the south border then and to the Internet. The next hearing we held was 6/28/2004, ``Ice In The Ozarks: The Methamphetamine Epidemic in Arkansas.'' We held this at the request of the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman). There we had the DEA, the U.S. Attorney, and the EPA, and then local people from the State drug director. We heard from the drug court about a very innovative program there. We had people from trucking, from children and policy, from drug treatment places. But the thing that highlighted northwest Arkansas is People Magazine did a story on a small town near there where 70-some percent of the people were addicted. They were people in the medical field, the law enforcement field, school teachers. It started like normal out in a mom-and-pop, fairly isolated individuals, and spread as meth tends to do into this whole town and grabbed it. And People Magazine did an incredible story. I will insert in the Record a list of subcommittee hearings at this point: Subcommittee Meth Hearings Since 2001 (** indicates a field hearing) 07/12/01 ``Emerging Threats: Methamphetamines'' (DC) Panel I Joseph D. Keefe, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration Panel II Ron Brooks, Chairman, National Narcotic Officers Associations Coalition Doug Dukes, Sheriff, and Doug Harp, Deputy Sheriff, Noble County, Indiana Henry Serrano, Chief of Police, Citrus Heights, California John McCroskey, Sheriff, Louis County, Washington Panel III Susan Rook, Public Affairs Director, Step One 7/18/03 Facing the Methamphetamine Problem in America (DC) Panel I Representative John Boozman Representative Ed Case Panel II Mr. Roger E. Guevara, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration Mr. John C. Horton, Associate Deputy Director for State and Local Affairs, Office of National Drug Control Policy Panel III Captain William Kelly, Commander, Narcotics Division, Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Mr. Brian J. Martinek, Chief, Vancouver, Washington Police Department Sheriff Garry E. Lucas, Clark County, Washington Sheriff's Office **2/6/04 Fighting Methamphetamine in the Heartland: How can the Federal Government Assist State and Local Efforts? (Field hearing in Elkhart,

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

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, on May 18, 1980, a catastrophic volcanic eruption forever changed the face of Mt. St. Helens in Washington. As a result of the eruption, fifty-seven people were killed, hundreds of square miles of forest were shattered, and the once graceful peak of the mountain was reduced to a smoldering crater. In 1982, President Ronald Reagan established the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument within the U.S. Forest Service. The Monument is unique in that it is the only unit of its kind in the U.S. Forest Service. The Monument's mission to provide research, recreation, and education opportunities related to Mt. St. Helens and the 1980 eruption does not fit with that of the Forest Service, which is charged with management of our Nation's forests. The attached article, which appeared in The Columbian, a Vancouver, Washington-based newspaper, puts forth the idea that the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument should be removed from the Forest Service, and made a unit of the National Park Service, whose primary mission is research, recreation, and education. When I visited the Monument earlier this year, the same idea occurred to me. Perhaps it is time we look into it. [From the Columbian, Nov. 7, 2005] Park Status May Ease St. Helens' Blues (By Erik Robinson) Dave Uberuaga has been watching with interest as his neighbor to the south struggles to pay the bills. Uberuaga, superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park, has a built-in advantage over the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument: a steady and reliable source of funding. While the U.S. Forest Service looks for private enterprise to help make ends meet at Mount St. Helens, Congress provides 80 percent of Mount Rainier's budgetary needs. Out of an annual budget of just over $10 million, Uberuaga said Congress provides all but about $1.9 million. In contrast, the $2.25 million recreation budget at Mount St. Helens is supported roughly 50-50 by direct allocations from the Federal government and fees generated by visitors. Even with that, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest has had to jockey with other forests for a $400,000 boost from the Forest Service's regional office in Portland this year and last. ``It makes it very difficult on Mount St. Helens to have a viable operation,'' Uberuaga said. For some, the proximity of Mount Rainier offers one tantalizing solution to the chronic funding woes at Mount St. Helens. ``I think the possibility of it being folded into the Park Service or redesignated as a national park has never been greater,'' said Sean Smith, regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association in Seattle. A new national park? Mount Rainier and other national parks receive direct appropriations from Congress. Mount St. Helens, on the other hand, receives its share of recreation funding only after it filters through three distinct layers of administrative overhead from national headquarters, through the regional office in Portland, and, finally, through the Gifford Pinchot forest headquarters in Vancouver. At each level, the monument must compete with other recreation programs operated by the Forest Service. ``That's what the park service doesn't have,'' said Cliff Ligons, monument manager at Mount St. Helens for the past 5 years. Ligons added that the Forest Service had ample money and resources to operate in the years after Congress established the 110,000-acre monument in 1982. Times have changed since then, beginning with a precipitous decline in timber revenue since the 1980s. Since the Forest Service opened the last of three visitor centers at Mount St. Helens in 1997, direct appropriations for recreation have dwindled. ``The money to fight wars and to fight terrorism comes from someplace, especially when you cut taxes,'' Ligons said. ``Where do you think that's coming from? It comes from government programs. Mount St. Helens is one of many areas in the Forest Service that's currently struggling.'' Ted Stubblefield, who retired as Gifford Pinchot forest supervisor in 1999, said Congress ought to establish a budget for national monuments such as Mount St. Helens as they do for national parks. He said it made sense for the Forest Service to hang onto Mount St. Helens once the monument was established, partly because national parks tend to employ more people with higher salaries. ``Our guess is it would have been somewhere between two to four times as expensive to operate it,'' he said. Stubblefield and another former Gifford Pinchot forest supervisor, Bob Tokarczyk, blasted members of Washington's congressional delegation for failing to adequately fund the monument in a guest opinion piece published by The Columbian on Oct. 28. Although Stubblefield said the monument is suffering from budgetary neglect, he doesn't believe the solution is to simply fold it into the National Park Service. Instead, he said the volcano should be treated less like a wayside and more like Mount Rainier, Liberty Island or Mount Rushmore. ``Congress should do the same thing with monuments that the Forest Service manages,'' he said. ``The monuments are really owned by the public in a more deeply held manner, in my mind. They're like our national treasures.'' Broadening opportunities Were it not for a new system of collecting fees on public lands authorized by Congress in 1997, the Mount St. Helens recreation program would have run out of money long ago. The Forest Service collected about $1.1 million in visitor fees for the volcano last year. Now, the agency is looking for more help from private enterprise. In a 150-page prospectus issued last month, the Forest Service solicited proposals from private businesses willing to pay the government to operate helicopter tours, mobile food stands, RV sites, or other amenities around the erupting volcano. Forest Service officials said the outreach may help to improve the monument's bottom line, but it also would ``broaden visitor opportunities'' around Mount St. Helens. ``The government doesn't run gift shops,'' said Steve Nelson, recreation planner for the Gifford Pinchot. Uberuaga said Mount Rainier also has private concessions, including two overnight lodges, gift shops, a store for campers and three services providing guided climbs to the top of the 14,410-foot peak. He acknowledged, however, that people generally expect a national park to have a limited range of commercial opportunities. ``So there are no off-road vehicles at Mount Rainier, and yet on the forest there's appropriate places for that,'' he said. Snowmobile tours are one of the potential opportunities suggested in the prospectus offered by the Forest Service at Mount St. Helens. Uberuaga said he will be interested to see how the Forest Service strikes a balance between new recreational opportunities while protecting the unique environment surrounding the most active volcano in the Cascade Range. ``I think the Forest Service has a great opportunity there to demonstrate their recreation and visitor experience,'' he said. ``They just need a little more funds to take some of the pressure off.''

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit comments of USMC veteran, Barry Yeakle, about the Vietnam war, delivered at the Whitley County Veterans Observance in Columbia City, Indiana, on November 6, 2005, for the Record. Try and picture this: I am a green 19-year-old, just off the boat from Indiana. I'm 9,000 miles away in Viet Nam. A delegation of Vietnamese peasants approaches me. Their appointed spokesman steps forward and very formally gives me to understand by an amazing mixture of Vietnamese, French, English and even Japanese (but mostly by waving his arms about wildly) that they have heard that the United States intends to send a man to the moon. They are incredulous. To make sure I understand which moon they mean, they keep tugging at my sleeve and pointing to it. Looking back, what amazes me most is the matter-of-fact way I answered him: Sure, absolutely, we're going to do it. I had never doubted it. That story illustrates the times. We were idealistic and maybe a little naive. We believed in our country and it wasn't hard to convince those peasants that they could believe in us as well. Is it any wonder that they believed we could protect them from communism? When I was fourteen, this country elected its youngest-ever President. He was very charismatic and taking office, this is what he said: ``Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.'' It was an amazing promise; looking back, perhaps a foolish or impossible one, but the cold war was a great reality in our lives and his message was heard in the Soviet and Chinese empires. It was also heard by my generation, many of whom were sons and daughters of the men who'd won World War II. We believed that what he said was possible. We believed it was our duty. The story of this country's longest war can be told briefly. Nine years after the Japanese Army was ejected from Viet Nam at the end of WWII, the French lost a huge battle against the communists and Viet Nam became two countries with a communist government in the North and republican government in the South. There was a time period in which citizens could decide in which country they would live. Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority emigrated to the South, while virtually no one emigrated to the North. At once, the communist government under the sponsorship of the Soviet Union began a guerilla war. As the new democracy began to totter under the terrorism, President Kennedy decided to give it military aid against the fear that communism could spread throughout all of Indo China. It was a near thing in the beginning and as American soldiers arrived to advise and train, the escalation of the guerilla war continued. By the summer of 1965, President Johnson sent the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force to keep the critical city of Da Nang from falling. We had been trained for grand amphibious assaults in the Pacific and great land battles in central Europe. Although we as Americans had a legacy from our own Revolution, we scarcely remembered how to fight a guerilla war and it was painful to learn it again. Still, the Communist soldiers kept invading from the North, and always the men who died along side me seemed the least the United States could afford to lose. Besides being courageous, they always seemed to be the Eagle Scouts, the valedictorians and class presidents. Two thirds of them were volunteers, the very opposite of WW II. An opposite type fled to Canada to evade the draft. Though non-combat service was offered them, others cleverly transferred from college to college to evade service. Each time, someone else had to serve in their place. Some tell me that these actions were consistent with their honour, but they don't look me in the eye when they say it. Interestingly, when the draft ended, all campus objection to the war seemed to end with it. By the end of 1967, we had thousands of troops in Viet Nam and had brought the enemy to certain defeat. In a desperate gambit, they broke a truce they'd requested themselves and launched assaults all over South Viet Nam. In this the Tet Offensive, they suffered one of the most lop-sided defeats in modern history; but an impatient television newsman named Walter Cronkite, who didn't understand the imprudence of the communist's desperation, reported it otherwise. He influenced many Americans. Those of us in the field were horrified that all the sacrifice we'd witnessed could be wasted if the country turned against the war. A famous American actress went to the enemy capital. She wore their insignia. As the photographers clicked away, she pretended to sight-in an anti-aircraft gun, a gun that had but one purpose: to shoot down American warplanes. Little was made of her treason; she went on to become an even bigger star. This apathy of the American people was very hurtful to the returning servicemen. And it got worse. There is a decorated man in this room who was abused when he got off the airplane in California. His experience was not unique. A new President, known to be tough on communism, Nixon, was elected and the war went into a sort of stalemate. An accord was reached with the communists that made it possible for the American troops to leave. Our faithful allies were promised that we would respond if the country were to have its sovereignty threatened. When that did indeed happen, still another President, Ford, did nothing. South Viet Nam, our ally, fell. Though American arms had lost only one battle, the war itself was lost. Nearly all of us were home by that terrible day in 1975. Choked with emotion, I ran to my church for comfort and found it empty and locked. I realized I would have to keep my sorrow to myself for years to come and that is exactly what happened. Over 58,000 American men and women--more people than live in Whitley County--died. Thousands more have died since from causes born in the war. Our friends from Australia, South Korea, Thailand and the Philippines lost over 6,000 more, and the Army of South Viet Nam's losses were nearly a quarter of a million. Future generations will ask to what avail, since Viet Nam became one more brutal communist dictatorship. Here is the answer I like: There are some who say that Viet Nam made WW III unnecessary. That so many brave men could stand so firmly against a bully 9,000 miles away deeply impressed that bully.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Colorado for the time. First, let me thank the BRAC Commission head Anthony Principi and all of the panel members for their hard work for listening to all of us, both at the regional hearings and in person, and with the staff and the Department of Defense who worked with so many of us in these very difficult decisions. I rise in opposition to my colleague from Illinois's resolution, but I share some of his concerns. I would like to talk about a few of these. In the State of Indiana, the previous round of BRAC, I was legislative director for the junior Senator from Indiana when we watched all of our active military bases get wiped out in the State of Indiana, one of the number one recruiting States in the United States. My hometown in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is one of the major centers of defense electronics in the United States with ITT Aerospace, with Raytheon, Defense Electronics based there making many highly classified electronics, defense systems, with General Dynamics with a huge facility there, with BAE Systems with a huge facility there, with USSI with a huge facility there, with Northrop Grumman with a large and expanding facility there. We have defense electronics and a very patriotic, one of the highest, if not the highest, congressional districts in America in military recruiting for Army, Navy, Air Force and all of the various Guard and Reserve groups. We have an Air Guard base there in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that is gaining under this process. It was a very difficult process as to how we deal with the Guard and particularly the Air Guard, and it was a very stiff competition with the gentleman from Illinois' air base and the air base in Terre Haute, and we can argue the relative merits. What I heard at the hearing is, look, I am very proud of our Air Guard. They are way over. They have the highest percent retention, actually overretention at 116 percent of their recruiting quota. They have won national outstanding unit award three times by the Air Force and recipient of the National Guard number one Air Guard unit in the United States. But I also heard from the people in the capital region Air Guard unit and the people in the Terre Haute Guard unit. In fact, they were all high in recruitment, and they were all high in national awards. The problem is the Air Force is cutting. The F-16s are aging and declining in quality and disappearing from our defense system, and the Air Force plans are to reduce the number of fighter planes by two- thirds. So where is this going to leave the Air Guard and the Reserve, and how do we work this through when we head into a BRAC process? I am very concerned where we are headed long term with this, not just this BRAC process but the next BRAC process. It is clear we are leaning heavily on Guard and Reserve. Are we going to the point where Guard and Reserve and the Air Force are only going to be at active bases, and where does that leave the heartland of the United States as we move everything to the coast? Where does it leave us in homeland security? The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) raised a very difficult and interesting question that worked through the courts in this process, that it is pretty clear that the Department of Defense cannot close an Air Guard base, but they can move the airplanes. So we had one court ruling in Pennsylvania that said they could not close the base, but we have other rulings that said they could move the airplanes. What exactly is the role of an Air Guard base if it does not have any airplanes, and how are we going to work this through? I believe there will be other types of defense systems in homeland security that hopefully will be located in Terre Haute and will be located in Springfield, Illinois, very important cities to homeland security and our national defense. We have to work this through. I believe the BRAC Commission made the right decisions, but this does not necessarily give us much guidance as to where we are headed and how we are going to integrate and maintain the defense structure we have in the United States with our Air Guard, Army Guard, and all of our Reserve units around the country if we do not have an adequate base structure, if we do not have adequate training places and ways to do this. I hope we can find, in addition to the fighter planes that are located in Fort Wayne, and the expansion of our base, for which I am very thankful, ways to work with Springfield, Illinois, with Terre Haute, Indiana, and other bases around the United States because we need all of those pilots. We need all of those Guard and Reserve people around the United States because we are strapped very thin. I hope this BRAC Commission report, while I strongly support it, will also be a launching point as to how we are going to work and build and keep this very diverse Armed Forces system in the United States.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the entire House today for adopting H. Res. 485, supporting the goals of Red Ribbon Week. Red Ribbon Week, which is this week, helps bring together local communities for anti-drug abuse education and other prevention efforts. I would like to thank all the members who cosponsored this resolution, and Chairman Joe Barton of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Chairman Nathan Deal of the Health Subcommittee for their assistance in bringing it before the whole House. Regrettably, as this resolution was added to the schedule only last night, I was in my Congressional district and was unable to be on the House floor today to express my support for my own bill. However, I am very pleased that we were able to pass Red Ribbon Week. Twenty years ago, in March 1985, Special Agent Enrique Camarena of the Drug Enforcement Agency, DEA, was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by drug dealers in Mexico. Red Ribbon Week began as a local commemorative effort Agent Camarena's hometown of Calexico, California. Congressman Duncan Hunter and Camarena's high school friend, Henry Lozano, created the Camarena Club to preserve the agent's legacy. The National Family Partnership later formalized Red Ribbon Week as a national campaign, an 8-day event proclaimed by the U.S. Congress and chaired by then President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan. Red Ribbon Week is dedicated to helping preserve Agent Camarena's memory and further the cause for which he gave his life, the fight against the violence of drug crime and the misery of addiction. By gathering together in special events and wearing a red ribbon during the last week in October, Americans from all walks of life demonstrate their opposition to drugs. Such events include organizing drug prevention events and schools distributing educational materials to young people about the dangers of drug abuse and other activities designed to promote healthy choices. Approximately 80 million people participate in Red Ribbon events each year. I would also like to use this opportunity to urge that our leadership soon act on anti-methamphetamine legislation, legislation with broad bipartisan support. I hope that after this legislation is passed, it is then applied to the Commerce, State, Justice appropriations bill and any other appropriate appropriations bill that we have not yet passed, rather than languishing with a few hundred bills over in the other body. We need results, not just more posturing, not just talk, actual money and actual policy in the fight against methamphetamines. I hope the appropriations conference committees do not undo the will of the House, as we added methamphetamine funding in a number of appropriations bills, including adding $25 million to the national ad campaign specifically designed for methamphetamine prevention, not a reallocation of other committee money. We had an offset, it was money specifically in the ad campaign for anti-methamphetamine advertising. Also, that this $25 million not be diverted to other types, on marijuana and other issues, it is for methamphetamine advertising. It is very important, it was bipartisan and it was overwhelming. We need to do these things. We have not had a lot of bipartisanship in this House, but in this battle against methamphetamines, we have that. The same on steroids. I have been a long-suffering White Sox fan for over 50 years at this point in my life. I am thrilled they are in the World Series. This is a time that we should move the ONDCP, the so- called drug czar bill through, which has been held up because even though it passed unanimously through the committee, which was not an easy process, we have a very divided Government Reform and Oversight Committee, but we were unanimous on trying to address the problems of steroids. Rafael Palmeiro thumbed his nose at this Congress, as did Mark McGwire, and then the reaction of the Baltimore Orioles when he actually went to testify, they said he was not welcomed back in their locker room because he named other players. If there is any doubt in our minds that Major League Baseball will never solve the problem of performance-enhancing drugs, it is that scene in the Baltimore locker room. If their club mentality is to punish the players who finger the dealers, who punish the trainers who identify and cooperate with law enforcement, it will never be fixed internally. We can sit here and twiddle our thumbs and be bullied by different organizations that do not want this, but it is time during Red Ribbon Week for us to stand up and say we are going to do something in a bipartisan way on methamphetamine. We are doing to do something on steroids, and we will bring these bills to the floor and we will find out how to make them law. That is how we can recognize Agent Camarena, a DEA agent who was shot by law enforcement officials on the other side of the border, one of the most tragic events that led to this whole national campaign. What we can do here in Congress, in addition to speaking out in our district, working with events, as I am going to be at South Side High School in Fort Wayne this Saturday. They are going to have a poster contest and a basketball event to try to get kids in other programs and keep them off the streets. We need to do that as Members of Congress, but we are legislators. What we need to do is pass the bills that the House has already spoken out on regarding methamphetamines, pass the bills that have unanimous backing on steroids and stop holding it up, getting it done, even if a few powerful people want to stop it. What better time to do it when the White Sox finally win the World Series, and we take a strong stand on baseball.

Mr. SOUDER

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

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

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, first I want to again thank the chairman for making my amendment in order. Let me give a very short history, and then I will elaborate a little further. After the Great Society was less than sensitive to many urban areas in the United States, empowerment movements developed in America, led actually by a leftist named Sal Olinsky, that said local people, when they are being displaced, ought to have more input into the decisions that are being made in their lives. This happened originally in Chicago and it is something that we are looking at doing in New Orleans in the name of empowerment. We saw, when the Republicans came to power in the 1980s and to the Presidency, President Reagan put Jack Kemp in charge of HUD, Housing and Urban Development, and we had tenant management and resident management moving to homeownership and we said, let the people make the decisions themselves. Sometimes it was messy. Sometimes we did not really like their decisions, just like sometimes we do not necessarily agree with the people who they elect to Congress; but we let the people make the decisions. Head Start, when it came in the 1970s as part of Richard Nixon's efforts to block grant, to give more local empowerment to react to the programs of the 1960s, the heart and soul of this program was to say, we are going to let the parents, in these preschool situations, in these low-income situations, we are going to let them make the decisions. It is not going to be like PTAs in schools where often they become fund-raising supplements and they are allowed to give their opinions, but they have no vote. We are going to let them actually vote. When you go into Head Start programs, they get to vote on what they are going to serve for lunch, they get to vote on the textbooks, they get to hire and fire the teachers. This bill, unfortunately, because of a broader concern about how to address some of the problems in Head Start, removes the voting rights, the actual powers of those parents. Not because of any GAO report. Not because the GAO report says there is a problem with the parents. There is no reference to the parents in the GAO report, other than one. It says the tips of financial mismanagement came from the parents. It is not because of the boards because, in the GAO report, the boards are only mentioned twice, because they had financial problems. The underlying part of the bill addresses the financial difficulties that we have, and we have added in our amendment to make sure that fraud is actually addressed because there the board has legal liability if there is fraud, but not what is being served for lunch or what textbook or even who is hired and fired. They have legal liability for fraud. That is already granted. But we made it clear that the board has the legal liability on fraud and they have the decision-making power on fraud. I somehow think that we have drifted into this policy that we think we know better than the people who are making the decisions themselves. How are we going to move ahead in New Orleans with this attitude? We cannot one week strip the number one empowerment program in America, and the next week say we are going to empower in New Orleans. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of the time. Let us make this absolutely clear. Advice is nice. We just went through this in high-intensity drug trafficking areas where we tried to take the voting power away and we resisted that in Congress. Power comes from voting, not advise. This strips the parents of their power and lets them give their opinions. This is a tremendous reversal for either side of the aisle to make of the number one parent advisory program in America. There are not financial problems with the parent councils. The financial problems were with the agencies that were granted to and the boards. For fraud, they need to be held accountable. This bill does that. Do not take the power away from the parents. I have also received these letters which help explain my concerns. Dear Mr. Mark Souder: My name is Chris Wallace Sr. and I am a parent of 3 children. Two of which have been enrolled and ongoing participants in CANI's Headstart program, my third child is going into her 2nd grade year with Adams Elementary, Fort Wayne Community Schools. I am currently the Policy Council President, and the Vice-President of MILC (Males Involved Leading Children), and my wife and I are repeatedly volunteering for CANI (in-kind). I have received the Volunteer of the Year Award from CANI, and I have also received a Certificate of Recognition from the City of Fort Wayne, for my ongoing commitments with CANI. Currently I am looking forward to another successful year with my involvement with CANI, MILC, and introducing MILC along with All Pro Dads into the Fort Wayne Community school system. Which brings me to my disappointment with the news that some of these programs, most importantly the parent involvement initiative may be withdrawn from CANI's Headstart programs. I would like for you and those involved with this decision to understand the importance of parent involvement. It has not only allowed for me to be more involved in the decisions that affect my children, it has also allowed me to be involved in some of the decisions that affect my community. These programs allow parents to understand more how important education, family and social development is to their family, and the community around them. I believe that these programs empower parents, and give them leadership skills that they may never learn elsewhere. I can attest to this, for I have learned many leadership, mentoring, and role model skills. I also have learned how important I am to the community and the development of my children, and my peers children. I believe it would be an injustice to take this away from so many who are currently involved and those in the future that have yet to benefit. Please pass on our plea, meaning the parents, employees, and even more important our children, that you work for keeping the current programs well established within CANI's Headstart program. This will continue to allow us to provide a good start to our future leaders. On behalf of parents of CANI Headstart. Sincerely, Chris Wallace, Sr., Parent, Volunteer.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman for yielding me this time. I have an amendment, the second amendment, coming up that I believe is very critical. It goes to the heart and soul of the Head Start program, and that is whether parents have voting rights or whether they are just going to get a pat on the head and told we like their opinions. I believe it is critical to Head Start that we put this back in. But two points: first off, I thank the chairman and the Committee on Rules for allowing an amendment in order that they do not support, and I appreciate that and I want to thank them for that. Secondly, I gave my word and I believe it is important that we move this Head Start bill whether my amendment is agreed to or not. I believe the Senate will never allow an amendment that strips parents, and I believe the administration will not sign a bill that strips parents, and I believe it is important that we have that debate, but it is also important we move ahead. A number of Members have told me that if the amendment is not agreed to, they would vote against the bill. I urge them to move the bill forward regardless of what happens to the parents amendment. We need to address it in conference if we do not today, but it is the number one empowerment program in America. We do not need to go backwards and give more power to the government and boards that are not responsible to parents. We need to keep it at the parents level. But I want to, again, thank the chairman for his leadership in trying to clean up the financial problems. It was not the parents. This bill does that, and I support this bill.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. (Mr. SOUDER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller), a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce and a leader on education issues.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, there was no testimony at any hearings about this subject. The only reference in the hearings, I believe, was actually on the Senate side from the deputy mayor of Memphis who complained that he did not have decision-making powers to make some changes that he wanted to make, but it was not financial abuse or financial waste. I have asked the committee staff, as well as the chairman, to come up with an example. There is not an example. There are problems in the whole system; but mostly it is the grantees and the board that have been the problems. The board is not as engaged like the parents. In this case, it is not a question of whether the parents have veto power. The parents have the power, the board has shared power, and the parents have the primary power, the board has the veto power. The parent council is 51 percent parents, 49 percent community leaders who are actively engaged. The board tends to be leading citizens of the community who come in and review that. We are gutting, for a pat on the head, saying we like your opinion, but not your vote. You are not good enough to vote, but you are good enough to give your opinion. This is an empowerment program by the people who are running it, it has worked well, and we should not change it.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I rise to ask my colleagues' support for this amendment which would authorize critical resources for our drug interdiction efforts which directly impact the U.S. Coast Guard. I first want to commend the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman LoBiondo) for his leadership and efforts in providing much-needed support to the Coast Guard. Recently, more than ever, the Coast Guard has demonstrated its unique multimission role as the world's premier maritime service. The recent devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina along our gulf coast has been well documented, and our sympathies are extended to those who have lost so much. However, out of the destruction and despair come many positive stories, and one of the best stories to emerge from this disaster has been the heroic work of our Coast Guard. Hurricane Katrina ravaged Coast Guard stations in Gulfport and Pascagoula, Mississippi; and looters wrecked part of its New Orleans base. But that did not stop the Coast Guard from sending out rescue helicopters, cutters, and small boats on dangerous and exhausting missions to save lives and clear waterways after the hurricane ravaged the gulf coast since August 29. To date, the Coast Guard has coordinated the search and rescue efforts that resulted in over 33,000 lives saved and evacuated to date. Coast Guard helicopters and boat crews from around the country responded and have heroically risked their lives in some of the most challenging and dangerous circumstances of recent times. As a military, multimission maritime service, the Coast Guard performs a unique blend of humanitarian, law enforcement, regulatory, and military missions and responsibilities providing maritime security, maritime safety, protection of natural resources, and national defense services. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources and a member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I am very aware of the critical role performed by the Coast Guard in drug interdiction and homeland security. In fiscal year 2004, the Coast Guard seized a record 240,519 pounds of cocaine worth approximately $7.3 billion. To date, in fiscal year 2005, the Coast Guard has seized over 290,000 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $8.8 billion. As Hurricane Katrina has made abundantly clear, our country needs a strong and robust Coast Guard, and Congress needs to ensure that we are putting the right tools and equipment in the very capable hands of Coast Guard men and women so that they may continue to deliver the robust maritime safety and security America expects and deserves. The Coast Guard's Deepwater recapitalization project plays an absolutely critical role in building a more ready and capable 21st century Coast Guard equal to the challenges we face today and anticipate tomorrow. It is vitally important to our national drug control strategy and our national security, as well as protecting our Nation's citizens from natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, that the Deepwater project be accelerated and that there be more Coast Guard ships and aircraft to respond to the many critical missions of the Coast Guard. I offer this amendment to improve upon these drug seizure totals by authorizing the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs to acquire a refueling vessel for the benefit of U.S. and allied drug interdiction agencies, such as the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy, operating in the eastern Pacific region. According to testimony provided by the Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and other agencies, drug traffickers have increasingly pushed their routes into that area farther and farther west. We have three Coast Guard vehicles that operate there. One is usually trying to come in, one is going back, and only one is out in this huge zone running up with all of the cocaine and heroin coming in from Colombia because we do not have a refueling vessel there. U.S. vessels have no capability of refueling in that area and, thus, cannot operate for any significant length of time. The drug traffickers, by contrast, have developed their own sophisticated refueling system and can now simply bypass our interdiction forces. Today, we face an almost unique situation in drug interdiction history: we now have more intelligence about drug trafficking than we have assets to act on it, meaning we know it is coming, we know where it is, but we cannot get it; meaning that we have to watch helplessly while some shipments of poisonous narcotics are brought into the U.S. The Coast Guard's motto, ``Semper Paratus,'' meaning always ready, has been earned through the courage and actions of the members of the Coast Guard. I am happy to say that this amendment will help ensure that future Coast Guard members can live up to that motto. Again, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey (Chairman LoBiondo) for his leadership in support of the Coast Guard, and I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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

Mr. SOUDER. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery), the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), and I rise in support of this bill, but I would like to make a cautionary point. I have been a long advocate of the charitable points in this bill, and I think they are very important. After 9/11, however, what we saw was charitable giving diverted from people all over America into New York City. If the giving is not sacrificial above and beyond what you already give, there are going to be children who are hungry, people without homes, people who cannot get the drug addiction assistance, juveniles who cannot find a place to go, people who cannot get immunized all over America as the money just pours into one region. Sometimes the unintended consequences of giving a preferential advantage in charitable giving over others can drive this trend even more. As I have talked to different groups in my district who have poured down into this region, this is not a 3-month project or a 2-day project, this is going to be 7 to 9 years as they reorient their mission programs as they try to do this. We need to make sure that the broader Charitable Giving Act is passed as well so that we do not dry up charities around the country and other people who are hurting in other areas are abandoned. I strongly favor all the incentives in this bill, I believe we absolutely need to do it in this region, but we also need to make sure that the same charitable options are there for the rest of the country, where they are not getting $60 billion of assistance and probably $200 billion more that is desperately needed. Because if you are hungry, if you are hurting, it is the same no matter what city you are in, and we need to make sure this charitable giving applies to the whole Nation, not just here. I am strongly in support of this, but I hope we can move an additional bill so we do not have an unintended consequence coming out of this bill.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I appreciate his leadership in moving this through his subcommittee. We served together on the Drug Policy committee in Government Reform where he served ably as vice chairman before moving up to this important subcommittee chairmanship over in Energy and Commerce and understands directly the need for drug treatment. Mr. Speaker, we can work for interdiction. We can work for eradication down in Colombia and Afghanistan. We can work to try to seize it as it moves through the Caribbean and through the Pacific. We can work to try to catch it at the borders. We can try to take down the delivery people. We will continue to do that. We will continue to work through our national ad campaign, through school programs to try to prevent drug use. But ultimately many people in America become addicted. The question is, How can we treat them? As has already been explained, this was an unintended consequence of the original act. I appreciate Senator Levin's help on the Senate side in moving this bill that group practices were capped at 30 patients as well. Between 1997 and 2000, the number of treatment admissions for primary heroin abuse increased 21 percent while treatment admissions for primary abuse of narcotic painkillers increased at an unprecedented 186 percent. In view of the skyrocketing numbers of treatment admissions for primary opiate addiction in recent years, it is imperative that measures be taken at the Federal level to provide adequate treatment options. Given this epidemic of drug abuse in America, drug addiction treatment programs must effectively correspond to the widespread nature of this problem. In order to expand drug treatment programs, please support this bill, the Drug Addiction Treatment Expansion Act, which will remove the 30-patient limit currently imposed on group practices. According to the American Medical Association, the current 30-patient cap has limited access to effective substance abuse treatment services. There is a broad consensus according to AMA in the medical community that buprenorphine is a major new tool to fight addiction and does not have a high potential for misuse or fatal overdose. Lifting the cap would enable group practices to treat more patients with this highly effective drug. There are 49 different, well-respected drug treatment organizations that back this bill, including the American Medical Association, the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the Alliance of Community Health Plans, and the American Medical Group Association. And then in addition to all these medical groups, are almost all the major anti-drug groups in America, including the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, Drug- Free Schools Coalition, Drug Free America Foundation, the Save Our Society From Drugs, Drug-Free Kids, America's Challenge. I include this list of 49 groups for the Record. American Medical Association (AMA) National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) American Psychiatric Association (APA) American Psychological Association (APA) Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Alliance of Community Health Plans (ACHP) American Osteopathic Academy of Addiction Medicine (AOAAM) American Medical Group Association (AMGA) American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) Partnership for a Drug-Free America Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD) Legal Action Center (LAC) National Alliance of Methadone Advocates (NAMA) National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD) State Associations of Addiction Services (SAAS) National Association of Counties (NACO) Kaiser Permanente National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) National Association of County Behavioral Health Directors (NACBHD) The College on Problem of Drug Dependence (CPDD) The Friends of NIDA Faces & Voices of Recovery Association for Addiction Professionals of New York Drug-Free Schools Coalition Drug Free America Foundation, Inc. (DFAF) Save Our Society From Drugs (SOS) Drug-Free Kids: America's Challenge Advocates for Recovery Through Medicine (ARM) National Families in Action (NFIA) National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Man Alive, Inc. Institute on Global Drug Policy (IDGP) International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse Californians For Drug-Free Youth (CADFY) National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment, Inc. Christian Drug Education Center New Jersey Federation for Drug Free Communities Wisconsin Families in Action (WFIA) New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA) Physicians and Lawyers for National Drug Policy (PLNDP) Entertainment Industries Council, Inc. (EIC) The City of New York, New York Providence Breakthrough International Study Group Investigating Drugs as Reinforcers (ISGIDAR) Housing Works I think that we can unanimously support this bipartisan effort to make sure that we have another tool in an adequate way with group practices to make sure that we can treat the scourge of drug addiction and help many family members get back into their families, whether it be the mom, the dad, the kids; and this is the way we can in a bipartisan way and with the other body show that we really are trying to address these difficult questions of drug treatment.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a few questions on process and some on policy. There is a big difference between talk and actually getting something done. This is not an ideal bill. I would have liked to have had a lot more in this bill. I wish we could have had more. I hope we can get some additional provisions in as it moves through the Senate. But the fact is, with all due respect, the most powerful lobby, or at least one of the most powerful lobbies, in this Congress is the China lobby, with quotes around that, those people who believe that trade with China and expanding trade with China is absolutely essential. They rolled us on vote after vote, and we cannot get their attention. Some people have alleged that the only reason this bill is coming up is because of CAFTA. Well, big shock. It is hard to get different bills up unless you can use your leverage at different times when the majority of Congress, of the leadership, President Clinton when he was President, President Bush when he was President, the leadership of both political parties, has not been willing to aggressively confront China. They view it as a paper dragon. This bill is not perfect. If I can move into policy for a few minutes, because it is very difficult to figure out how to deal with a country that is cheating in their currency manipulation. If they do not float the manipulation, is it 20, 40, 80 percent? We do not know. It is not floating. So how do you peg it? If you do not have any data like this bill is asking us to collect, when I went in and worked with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English) and others to try to put this bill together in the beginning, the main problem is that most of the proposals on the table are not workable. They are not workable under WTO because we do not have the functional data with which to match it up to try to prove that there is currency manipulation. We know there is currency manipulation because they are propping it up, but that is very difficult to prove in a world court. Furthermore, as I worked with Ambassador Zoellick and with now Ambassador Portman and Josette Shiner and others who are working and lobbying China is that as you confront them on these issues, it was questionable whether they had the power to invoke countervailing duties. This bill incorporates the English bill that I was an original cosponsor of and helped in drafting with the modifications of the Ways and Means Committee, with the numbers collection, so that we can have the first steps to be able to not just be a paper dragon. Now, for all the rhetoric that comes through, and we come down here on the floor and we pound on China and lose another vote, and pound on China and lose another vote, the fact is they have reevaluated their currency this past week. Sure, 2.1 percent. If they are cheating by 80 percent, 2.1 percent is not much. But it is a step. All the rhetoric of Congress got nothing, but when we leveraged on CAFTA, which, quite frankly, is a little tiny peanut compared to a great big elephant when we are talking about China, very important in Central America, very important to those democracies, important to a few people in our country and certain trading agreements, but just a little tiny trade thing, and China is a huge trade thing, but they will not talk to me or others about China, either party, unless you leverage your vote when it becomes a critical time. China, as I talked to the DCM a few weeks ago, says, we are not going to reevaluate. The pressure was so great out of Congress on the markets and manipulation that they made a small concession. They need to make more. The plain truth is that for all my criticism of China, they have been helping to prop up our currency. As Arab countries back out of our currency and move to the euro because of our support for Israel and other elements in the Middle East, China has helped prop it up. If they suddenly float it, it is uncertain what would happen to our economy from interest rates and inflation, but they need to reevaluate. American industry cannot compete with environmental standards, clean air, clean water, parental leave, the minimum wage, ADA and all this type of stuff, then add to that a currency manipulation of 20 to 80 percent. We cannot compete. It is not a matter of putting tariffs up and us asking for trade advantages. We cannot compete when other people cheat. Now, we appreciate the Chinese Government moving 2 percent. They need to move faster. This bill gives us a tool. It was shocking to me last night when this bill went down. It should have been a unanimous vote. Yes, there was not normal participation. Normal participation going through the Ways and Means Committee means it would have been buried so deep, we would not have even seen the letters with the H.R. on it. It would not have ever come out to the House floor. It took leverage to come out. It is not a perfect bill, but we had a bill. Quite frankly, when I first saw that bill go down last night, I thought the China lobby won again, the China lobby on our side that wanted to bury it and the China lobby on the other side that wanted to bury it. I am thankful to our leadership that they agreed to come back today with a rule so we could pass it with a clear bipartisan majority. I appreciate them moving forth. I believe this incrementally, and that is politics. It is not some dramatic speech. It is not denouncing China. It is actually making incremental policy changes. We just got the double. With this bill and the currency reevaluation, we have made the first progress with China that we have had in years. I think we should be commended, and I think we should try to get a unanimous vote after the politics are done.