Mark Souder

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1370) to amend the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to provide for maintenance and repair of buildings and properties located on lands in the National Wildlife Refuge System by lessees of such facilities, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1925) to direct the Secretary of the Interior to study the suitability and feasibility of designating the Waco Mammoth Site Area in Waco, Texas, as a unit of the National Park System, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to conclude by saying that we are looking forward to seeing the continuing development and study by the National Park Service. Our National Park Service is not just great wild places; it is also important cultural and archeological finds, such as Dinosaur National Park, such as Mesa Verde, and other types of archeological finds. This also proves that Texas not only has the biggest cattle, they at one time had the big mammoths. Even before there were people, they had huge mammoth ranches, apparently. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material in the Record on the three bills just considered, H.R. 1370, H.R. 1925, and H.R. 4044.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this legislation and wanted to briefly comment as one of the Chairs of the Speaker's Task Force on a Drug Free America and chairman of the Drug Policy Subcommittee on the counterdrug provisions of the bill. First, I want to commend the Armed Services Committee for its work on the bill and support for counterdrug programs. The Department of Defense plays a critical role in our nation's efforts to keep drugs off our streets, particularly with respect to interdiction programs in narcotics source and transit zones in the Caribbean and South America and in providing training and resources to our allies. There has been concern that the Department intended to substantially reduce its support for these programs, and I very much want to thank the committee for its continued careful attention to ensure that the Defense Department continues its important involvement. My subcommittee and the Speaker's Task Force will continue to follow this carefully, and we look forward to continuing to work with the Department and the Committee. Second, I wanted to emphasize and associate myself with the guidance contained in the committee's report on this bill with respect to narcotics in Afghanistan. John Walters, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, recently stated in an interview that our military involvement in Afghanistan has given us the first meaningful opportunity to address the global heroin trade. Ninety percent of the world supply of heroin is grown in Afghanistan, and this huge supply inevitably affects the entire world market. I am concerned at public reports and briefings obtained by my staff which suggest that the Defense Department and the Central Command have been unwilling to participate vigorously in drug interdiction and eradication efforts. While I agree that the protection of our forces must be the paramount concern, it also seems apparent that the Defense Department can make some important contributions not only to drug eradication, but also to the military goal of cutting off the source of economic support for potential enemies. As we know, the Taliban received substantial financial support from the drug trade. It makes no sense to leave as potentially lucrative a source of funding for future terrorists as the poppy crop in Afghanistan. I also want to support the committee's report language on this issue with respect to targeting. It expressed concern with the lack of targeting of opium storage facilities in Afghanistan that were identified early in the conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom. The committee shared our understanding that U.S. Central Command had deemed that opium in any form did not constitute a credible military target. I agree strongly with its conclusion that the Department of Defense should review and revise its policy in this regard to ensure that such targets are properly prosecuted in Afghanistan and any future conflicts. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Defense must continue to play an active role in our drug control efforts, particularly in Afghanistan, and I hope that this bill will encourage it to do so.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate, somewhat belatedly, the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) on their 90th anniversary, which took place on March 12, 2002. On this special occasion, I would like to commend Girl Scout leaders and volunteers, who have devoted time and energy in preparing young girls to be our Nation's future leaders. Throughout its ninety year history, Girl Scouting has promoted the development of leadership and character in young girls. GSUSA teaches girls to serve God and Country and help others at all times. It also encourages girls to do their best to be honest, fair, and respectful of others. With committed adults as leaders and volunteers, young women learn strong values and skills that will serve them their entire lives. I am especially proud of the Girl Scouts of Limberlost Council, which serves six counties in Northeast Indiana. The Council has been creative and innovative in reaching out to girls in the community. It currently serves five in every nine girls across Adams, Allen, DeKalb, Huntington, Steuben, and Wells County. The Council also benefits from the cultural diversity of the area by serving one in every three African American girls, one in every four Native American girls, one in every five Asian girls, one in every five Caucasian girls, and one in every six Hispanic/Latina girls. I am pleased with the Limberlost Council's commitment to providing young girls with enriching experiences. Again, I would like to congratulate the Girl Scouts of the USA, and especially the Limberlost Council, on their 90th anniversary.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of our friend and ally, Israel, for celebrating the 54th Independence Day for the State of Israel. It is important at this time that we stand with our friend and ally, Israel. There is a famous story that Davy Crockett told. It is in the book ``Three Roads to the Alamo.'' Davy Crockett got into an argument and then there was a brawl afterwards. One of his friends did not help him out and Davy Crockett got kind of beaten up in the brawl. He asked his friend afterwards, how come you did not help me? His friend said, well, it was really controversial and it was kind of a difficult decision, and I was not sure if I wanted to back you up. He said, hey, you do not need friends when everybody is in agreement with you. You do not need friends when everybody thinks what you are doing is wonderful. You need friends when you are in a fight and there is a question over the principles. We are not the government of Israel. It is a difficult time for Israel. They made some decisions to go after terrorists that were attacking their right to exist, just like we have gone after terrorists that are attacking our right to exist. Whether or not I would have done the completely same methods that Israel has used, I do not know. I think so, but I am not the leader of Israel. Ariel Sharon is the Prime Minister of Israel and the leader of Israel, and I believe it is important that we stand with them. One of the debates when I have been in the Middle East is whether or not Israel has displaced the Palestinians. Any student of history, even somebody who has not focused on history, realizes that there has been a conflict, basically, an eternal conflict over who was where. But when the Jews were dispersed around the world and others moved in does not mean that when the Nation of Israel was created in 1948, that suddenly the people who were displaced at that point had any more of a legitimate claim, even in a secular way, than the people who were moved out and dispersed before that. It is important that we recognize that that is an independent state of Israel. When we met with Dr. Arakat and the Palestinians in Jericho, Dr. Arakat was promoting that they needed a contiguous state, a Palestinian state. Part of the argument that I had was why should we trust you when you still have it in your Constitution that Israel does not have the right to exist. Conflict erupted, verbal conflict in the meeting, because he said that that was not politically possible. But why should Israel trust the words of the Palestinian Authority if they do not grant their right to exist? Part of the problem is, as we have seen multiple times there, when we pushed and western powers pushed Israel to back off the Golan Heights, people can look right down on Israeli citizens and shoot down on them that the reason that they cannot have a contiguous state is that there is not much water in that area. The reason they cannot have a contiguous state is there is not much water in that area. They have water pipes going through. If those things are controlled by people committed to their destruction, they cannot exist as a state. Furthermore, we have a longtime moral and secular argument about whose capital Jerusalem is. It is a shrine to many nations. We have some conflicts that are not easily reconciled. Israel, unless they have the flexibility to take out the terrorists, will not exist as an independent state. So we can commemorate the independence of Israel, but unless they can make sure they have a water supply that comes, unless they make sure people are not shooting down on them from the heights, people who can hide in terrorist camps, they cannot exist and have an independent state. Furthermore, we have a lot of whining about how Israel treats the Palestinians. It is tough. Quite frankly, I might handle some of these things slightly differently. But we know this for a fact, Palestinians can become citizens in Israel. They can vote in Israel, in the Israeli elections. They can own property in Israel. But when we go to the Arab countries around Israel, they treat the Palestinians like dirt. They cannot own land. They cannot vote. They are a homeless people. They only want to put the Palestinians in the Israeli territory, but they will not give any flexibility to these poor people in their countries. Why is it totally Israel's burden to give up their land to make themselves unsafe because Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Syria do not want the Palestinians in their country? These borders have been fungible for thousands of years. To argue that the Palestinians' border should be precisely right here, the Arab countries need to show some real concern; not just lip service on what Israel's obligation is to the Palestinians, but what their own obligations are to help these poor homeless people. The big conflicts in the Middle East are not going to be between Israel and the Palestinians. There are other conflicts far broader with bigger countries. Israel clearly needs to come to peace with their Palestinian neighbors. They have much more, and long-term, in common than they do with Iran and Iraq, and other greater sources of conflict in that region. But ultimately, Israel must have the right to exist. People have to be able to go to a bar mitzvah, to a pizza place, to move around in a shopping center, to go to the synagogue, without being in fear of being terrorized and blown up. They have to be able to live in their houses without people shooting down on them from the mountains, or from planes overhead. It is important on this Independence Day that we show courage and stand with our friend and ally, Israel, as they stood with us.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, as a cosponsor of the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, I strongly support its passage. This bill would firmly establish that, for purposes of federal law, an infant who is born alive is, indeed, a person and is entitled to the protections of the law. This concept has been a standing legal principle, spelled out in many state statutes and recognized by some federal courts in interpreting federal criminal laws. However, recent changes in the legal and cultural landscape appear to have brought this well-settled principle into question and have made it necessary for the Congress to ensure that this principle becomes law. A significant change in how the law defines a person occurred with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to strike down a Nebraska law banning partial-birth abortion. Partial-birth abortion is a procedure in which a doctor delivers an unborn child's body until only the head remains inside of the mother, punctures the back of the child's skull with scissors and sucks the child's brains out before completing the delivery. The Court's decision found that the location of an infant at the time of death--delivered partly outside the body of the mother--is of no legal significance. The Court's decision implies that a partially born infant's entitlement to the protections of the law is dependent upon whether or not the partially born child's mother wants him or her. The Born-Alive Infants Protection Act was also introduced partly to respond to testimony that ``live-birth abortions'' are performed around the country. A registered nurse from Illinois testified before Congress that she witnessed pregnant mothers being prematurely induced and delivering living premature infants that were then left to die without any medical attention. The hospital where this occurred defended its actions by saying that the newborns were intended for abortion. In other instances, babies whose lungs are insufficiently developed to permit sustained survival are often spontaneously delivered alive, and may live for hours or days, while some are born alive following deliveries induced for medical reasons. The Born-Alive Infant Protection Act would ensure that any infant born alive is treated with the dignity and respect of a human being and given appropriate medical attention regardless of whether he or she is completely extracted or expelled from her mother and breathes, regardless of whether or not her lung development is believed to be, or is in fact, sufficient to permit long-term survival. The infant will be considered to be alive if she has a beating heart, a pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of the voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the baby was born as a result of natural or induced labor, Caesarean section, or induced abortion. I believe we must pass this bill to protect the lives of the unborn and prematurely born.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I am appalled by a recent report on National Public Radio linking the Traditional Values Coalition with the Anthrax letters that were sent to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. I am outraged by this biased and unsubstantiated attack. I have personally known the leadership of the Traditional Values Coalition for many years. Even if I was not personally acquainted with members of TVC, I would still find this type of malicious and biased reporting completely outrageous. NPR linked an organization that represents 43,000 churches across the nation to criminal activity with absolutely no evidence or fact. As the basis for their accusation, NPR cited a press release that TVC issued criticizing Senators Daschle and Leahy for a policy that they disagreed with. If a policy disagreement is enough to speculate on a taxpayer- funded national radio program that a group has tried to murder members of Congress, then the list of suspects for this unspeakable crime would take NPR days to report. Instead NPR chose to mention only TVC in connection to the Anthrax with absolutely no evidence linking them to the crime. This is slander, and NPR should be held accountable for such blatantly biased reporting.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, as we depart for the Christmas and the rest of the holiday season, we all pray for peace and justice in the world. But I think that I have some concerns, as do others, that some people are having difficulty sorting the differences between terrorists and those who are trying to respond to terrorism. The people who attacked the World Trade Towers and who blew Americans up are not the same as when people like us try to respond. We need to understand that same difference in Israel. For example, when a terrorist who attacks innocent people who are going about their daily routine with the sole purpose of causing terror, that is different than trying to respond with as much precision as possible, although there may be innocents killed, which is unfortunate, but it is still different. We cannot hold Israel to a different standard than we hold ourselves. We now see the same problem in India. Once again, terrorists have stormed their Parliament and they have attempted to kill and assassinate the leadership of a democratic country. These are difficult times. They are difficult for us when we try to figure out how to respond, too. We all need to be carefully and prayerfully thinking of any response that might lead to more death in the world. At the same time, it would be wrong for the United States to say that it is okay for us to respond to terrorists, and not for other countries. We all, including us, should be wise and careful in our responses, but respond we must. I would also like to pay tribute to those brave Americans who are on the front lines protecting us all the time; not only our soldiers in Afghanistan and throughout the world, particularly those who are in immediate harm's way, but also to all the brave firemen and policemen who daily risk their lives to help us. We have all become more aware of their sacrifices. I also want to thank all those on the front lines trying to protect us from future terrorist attacks: those in the Coast Guard, the INS, the Border Patrol, the DEA, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, and the U.S. Customs Service. Every day they are trying to protect us from future terrorist attacks and from chemical and biological attacks, whether it be anthrax, heroin, smallpox, or cocaine. Protecting our borders is not easy. It takes people of judgment, and daily they have to exercise that judgment. I was recently along a number of the borders in Washington State. Diane Dean is one of our American heroes, along here with Mark Johnson and Gerald Slaminski. In late 1999 at the Port Angeles Customs Station in Washington State, she thought one of the people were behaving suspiciously. She detained him. As they looked further, they thought he had stuff for a meth lab in the car. It turned out they were handling nitroglycerine. He had enough weapons to blow up LAX Airport, where they had the information that that was where he was headed to rendezvous with another person. Because one Customs officer detained and went through a thorough examination, and two other Customs officers basically violated orders and chased the person down the street, because we have this absurd position right now that if the person can get away from the immediate border, they cannot be chased, but they took it in their hands to chase him. We saved LAX Airport, and we also have a suspect who has been one of the key people, or we have a convict, basically, at this point, who has been one of the key people in identifying the al-Qaeda network in the United States and around the world. That information hopefully will save and has already saved and will save more lives in America and around the world. We need to thank these public servants who are so key in keeping each of us safe, not only during this holiday season, but all year long. Before closing, I would also like to add a few words of tribute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bonior). I came in as a fierce partisan in 1995. I have tremendous respect for people who are also fierce partisans. I also know he is a good man, a dedicated Midwesterner who stands up for the working man. And whether or not Members disagree with each other at times, it is important to have civility in this body. I believe he has been a fierce partisan, and that helps lead us to the type of debate that we have to have in America if we are going to arrive at public policy. Too often, it seems to be coming in this day and age that we are trending towards blow-dried cookie cutters, where we all sound the same, we all move the same. It is important that we have people of conviction and people that follow the patterns that many before us have set. I, too, will miss him in a different way. I will not miss part of his abilities and I will not miss part of his enthusiasm for his cause, but it is always a tragedy when we lose dedicated leaders who spent their lives having such an impact. I have appreciated his time here as one of the rowdy class of 1994.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday evening after returning from a day and a half visit with the Canadian parliamentarians and government leaders in Ottawa, I spoke briefly about the importance of our mutual trade and our mutual concerns about terrorism. It is important when we are discussing antiterrorism efforts on our north and south borders that we not forget the importance of trade. The trade crossing just the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan, equals all U.S.-Japan trade. That said, Americans as well as Canadians and Mexicans are concerned about the movement of terrorists and other illegal activity along our borders. It is not just about terrorists and possible terrorists. Most Americans have been aware of the narcotics problems along the U.S.- Mexican border over the last decade. Andean cocaine and heroin move into the U.S. through Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The northern border does not have the fences and patrols that we have along the south border. Now, as drug patterns change in the United States, Canada has become a major narcotics conduit to the United States, as well: Ecstacy, coming mostly from the Netherlands, across into the U.S. from Canada; ephedrine and chemical precursors for methamphetamines, meth, for Ecstacy and other synthetic drugs are moving through Canada. These are in fact our fastest growing drug problems. Furthermore, potent marijuana from British Columbia, called B.C. Bud, and from Quebec, called Quebec Gold, have potencies similar to cocaine. In fact, Quebec Gold sells for about the same price as cocaine in New York City. But it is important for Americans to understand two basic points: one, it is our consumption that has resulted in our hemispheric neighbors turning into transit and drug-producing nations; and, B, in the case of Canada, the drug-trafficking, like the movement of terrorists, goes both ways. This does not change the need for border control. The borders are often our best chance to catch drug traffickers and terrorists before they lose themselves within our free nations; thus, we have to work on border control. So how can we keep our trade, tourism, and shared work forces moving with relative ease, and also protect our nations? It is not a matter of Canada, Mexico, or the U.S. dictating to the other nations about what must be done, but this is a fact: the United States is toughening its laws. If our neighbors do not, as well, trade will suffer. Changes must include numerous things, including more shared intelligence information among trained professional personnel. The personnel has to be trained so we do not have compromises when we share information, like happened with the Mexican drug czar who was living in an apartment that was owned by the cartel. The ability to collect intelligence information. We have to have laws that are flexible enough to allow us to gather the intelligence, or we cannot allow the movement across the borders as free as it has been in the past. The ability to arrest, detain, and prosecute violators, and to keep track of high risks. This is what we are doing in our terrorism bill; and this is what we need from our neighbors, if we are not going to have tighter controls on the border. The ability to extradite criminals to the U.S. This has been a sticking point for many years with numerous countries, for example, in Colombia where the drug-corrupted President would not allow extradition, and it became a place for them to hide out. It became a process where we in fact cut off trade and assistance to Colombia. It is now a problem with al Qaeda members from Spain, which does not want to send them to us because of our death penalty. Extradition of those who murder Americans is essential for justice, but also for defense and for protection and deterrence. Terrorists and drug lords would rather face soft justice than U.S. justice. In Holland, narcotics traffickers find cover. If someone in Holland attempts to escape or escapes from prison, there is no penalty. It is assumed that that is a natural thing, to want to escape from prison. Is it any wonder that people try to hide in Holland, with those kinds of laws? No wonder drug lords and terrorists try to hide out in other nations that do not work with our extradition. We need also passenger manifest lists, as our Customs Director, Mr. Bonner, has insisted; and we need them now. We cannot have open airports if we do not know who the passengers are coming in, and it is something that needs to be done immediately, to the degree that we can all, including the U.S. And we, the U.S., after all, missed the September 11 terrorists, and they were here, not at the other places. So this is not just about pointing fingers while we live in a glass house. We know we need to make the changes, but so do our neighbors. We in the U.S. are building a different house. It is not dramatic, but it is going to have major adjustments. If our neighbors do so also, and Canada clearly is working rapidly to do so as we speak, because they are moving their antiterrorism and immigration packages in the next 2 weeks, we can make this. The laws will be different but similar, with our neighbors devoting resources to their own airports and borders not adjacent to the U.S. For example, the southern border with Mexico and Central America, if we are sure about that border, then we do not have to be as careful on our border; or if the airports coming into Vancouver and Halifax have protections similar to ours, then we do not need to be as tight on the north border. Furthermore, we need to work towards joint efforts with Canada and Mexico on our joint borders. For example with Canada, we can look for cooperation on truck sites. We can look for shared border crossings where we do not need as much. I believe we can accomplish this with both countries by working together.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the difficulty that the subcommittee chair and the full committee chair have with the moneys; I know these things are very difficult to balance, but it is clear we have an emergency in the Coast Guard. We have had to divert the Coast Guard to antiterrorism protection in New York Harbor, Boston Harbor, in Puget Sound, in the Great Lakes. We have pulled them off of their other resources in order to guard the nuclear power plants and other chemical facilities on the water. What it has done is it has pulled many of them out of the Caribbean where they were in the forefront of our antidrug effort, temporarily. They are moving back and forth. We have a shortage. We cannot do both things. Similarly on the California coast and in the Pacific, we have fisheries questions, we have safety questions, we have increasing immigration, water interception things coming through the Pacific Ocean. It is clear that we have an emergency as well. I encourage you strongly as we move towards the supplemental to address this. I understand that your budget is extremely tight, there is general sympathy for the difficulty, but we have to have more for the Coast Guard, our most neglected service, because they are being asked to do double and triple and quadruple duty. The events of September 11, 2001 have changed this Nation forever. So many people were affected, so many agencies and people have had to make sacrifices, and work so hard, to meet the national security needs of America these past 3 months, and they continue to do so. The Coast Guard is one of the foremost of these agencies, and the men and women who serve are some of those people, they have doubled and redoubled their efforts to tackle their normal multi-mission responsibilities, along with the massive increase in Homeland Security requirements that were placed on their shoulders as a result of this national crisis. In fact, the Coast Guard took on the responsibility of sweeping the Capitol and our office buildings in response to the Anthrax threat. As a multi-mission, maritime, and military service, the Coast Guard is a leader in America's maritime security. They array their ships, planes, and people against multiple National Security threats including drug smuggling, alien migration, protection of fish our fish stocks, and of course terrorism. Along with these law enforcement missions, they tackle their other traditional missions, of Search and Rescue, Maritime Safety, Recreational Boating Safety, Aids to Navigation, to name a few. Their motto, Semper Paratus, Always Ready, has been put to the test many, many times, and without fail, they have come through, it's now our turn to come through for them through adequate funding. They have worked around the clock since 11 September, increasing their presence to protect ports and maritime transportation infrastructure, boarding commercial vessels at sea, instituting a successful Sea Marshal program at many of their ports, escorting our Navy Ships entering and departing ports, and enforcing Security Zones in protection of critical infrastructure points along our shores. There was a dramatic mission shift for the Coast Guard come 11 September, once again they proved to be very felxible, very can-do, these are their greatest strengths. They have met the current crisis, they continue to increase their effectiveness, they continue to say Aye Aye, but it has not come without a cost. The cost has been that their people, their equipment, have been pressed -071o their limit. The increase in their operational tempo, regardless of the mission emphasis, has drained their crews depleted their surge capacity. Some air stations and many of their other field commands are beginning to express concern about their Search and Rescue posture based on crew fatigue, lack of resource maintenance, and lost training opportunities in certain mission areas. Sustainability of their current operational pace is a growing service concern. The cost has also been their presence, or lack thereof, in other law enforcement mission areas due to their limited resourcing. Shifts in protecting ports and maritime transportation infrastructure yielded activity levels near zero in fisheries enforcement and Alien Migration Interdiction Operations. The Coast Guard is the designated lead agency for maritime drug interdiction and shares lead agency responsibility for air interdiction with the Customs Service, but is now down to less than half of the previous level of activity. This can not and should not continue. Declines in these mission areas are not in the long term national interest especially drug interdiction. Increased profits for illegal drug smuggling is channeled into the coffers of terrorist organizations thereby giving them additional resources to mount further strikes against our homeland. The Coast Guard has broad enforcement and regulatory civil authorities, military capabilities, and a coastal and offshore presence to bring to bear against Homeland Security requirements, they will protect our Nation's largest, and perhaps most vulnerable border a 95,000 mile coastline with hundreds of ports. But they are a multi- mission service which can not possibly meet these new homeland security requirements as well as other mission requirements without significant increases in both people, assets and overall funding. Comparing the new security environment and the new demands it places on the Coast Guard, the Coast Guard mission requirements in other mission areas and the services current capability there are major gaps we need to assist * * * we need to do our best to help fill those gaps. In the House mark-up of the Emergency Supplemental appropriation, the Coast Guard's figure has been cut from $203M to $145M a $58M cut that will directly take away from the Coast Guard's ability to handle sorely needed depot level maintenance, much of the maintenance that was deferred as a result of the current crisis as well, this cut will not allow Coast Guard operational assets their cutters, small boats, and aircraft, to operate at their optimum levels. Now is not the time to be cutting the Coast Guard. We need them to be operating at their absolute maximum level in order for them to have any chance of meeting America's present and future needs. The Coast Guard has been Semper Paratus for America, day in and day out. In their time of need let's do our part to be Semper Paratus, Always Ready for them. Coast Guard's capability has been reduced due to chronic maintenance funding shortfalls; 15 percent operational reduction proposed in the FY 2002 President's budget limits the Coast Guard's ability to operate at the levels necessary for the national interest; Cutters, boats, and aircraft are thoroughly involved in the Coast Guard's port safety and security missions and are a key component of the service's Homeland Security mission; The Coast Guard cannot take on the increased Homeland Security demands without first ensuring their assets are properly supported and maintained; and Overall operational level must be increased to ensure that the service can continue other missions critical to national security such as marine safety, alien migrant interdiction, living resources enforcement, and counter-drug operations, while maintaining a robust Homeland Security force.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk a little bit tonight about our north and south borders. We have general concerns in the United States about our borders, our land, air, and water, for any number of reasons; and our challenge is how to keep our trade flowing and our traffic flowing while still meeting our security concerns. Drug issues are a big concern in this country, illegal immigration, and other products that are either illegal to come in, like Cuban cigars, or of particular importance in regional areas such as cheese or other products. And of course the big concern that all Americans have right now is terrorism. It is of particular importance on the northern and southern borders of the United States, where trade with Mexico and Canada have become vital to the economic systems of our nations. My Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources of the Committee on Government Reform is conducting a series of hearings over the next few months in both the north and south borders. Our first hearings were held at the Highgate Springs, in Vermont, on the Montreal-Boston interstate corridor, and in Champlain, New York, on the Montreal-New York City corridor. In 2 weeks, we will be having a hearing in Blaine, Washington on the Vancouver-Seattle corridor. In addition to these hearings, we have also been systematically meeting with the Coast Guard on Lake Champlain and will be in Puget Sound with the Border Patrol, with INS, with Customs and DEA. We also visit some of the lower traffic ports of entry in each of these areas. Some of these in the past have only been manned part-time with one person. There are many areas along our borders, both north and south, where you can just walk across. These are clear challenges as we try to control not only illegal drugs and immigration and products but also terrorists from entering our Nation. With these hearings, because of the importance of working with our neighbors, we have invited participants from the parliaments as well as business representatives from Canada and plan to do the same with Mexico. As a result of our first hearings, in which Parliamentarian Denis Paradis from Quebec participated, he asked me to come to Ottawa to discuss with the numerous committees and other parliamentarians, as they enter into the final stages of their debate on anti-terrorism legislation and immigration bills what we have passed here in this House. I returned from Ottawa a few hours ago, after spending a day and a half with our Canadian friends and our U.S. Embassy, and I would like to discuss a few of the important points tonight, and probably get a little bit into these again tomorrow. Twenty-five percent of all trade from the United States is with Canada. To put this in perspective, the trade crossing the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit, not all the trade that comes through Detroit, the tunnels and the other bridges, just the Ambassador Bridge alone, the trade over the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit is greater than all U.S.-Japanese trade. All the trade with U.S. and Japan does not equal what goes across one bridge in Detroit. As Canadian Parliamentarian Susan Whalen of the Windsor Riding has pointed out to me multiple times, it is not just trade and tourism, which are big, for example, our Speaker's State of Florida, if the Canadians do not come down to Florida, it is not clear what would happen to the tourism business. Many United States Congressmen and women represent more Canadians at this time than the Canadians themselves in their parliament do. We have a big tourism exchange. Many people retire and go back and forth with their relatives. But we also have workers across the border in Canada and in Mexico. In Windsor, there are 1,100 nurses who daily cross to meet the needs of the Detroit hospitals and the Detroit area hospitals. What are the people in these hospitals going to do if we wall off the borders or, as is currently happening, it takes 4 hours on many days? They are not able to get to the hospitals. The hospitals do not know how to staff. They are running into these problems on borders. Clearly, we have to figure out some different methods of how we are going to do this long term because maybe a 2-hour is tolerable, but 4 hours is pushing the extreme. We have a 30 to 50 percent reduced traffic right now. What is going to happen if the traffic comes back? How are we going to meet the economic, the tourism, the trade and the workforce movement pressures? Now, there are real reasons why traffic has slowed down. It is not just to spite either one of us on either side. There are real concerns. In the narcotics issue alone, we have seen a rise in illegal narcotics coming across from Canada, not just Mexico. BC Bud and Quebec Gold both are very potent forms of marijuana like we have never seen before in the United States. BC Bud is very near the levels in THC of cocaine. They have brought it into Indiana. Indiana has now become an exporter of marijuana to California and around the country. They bring it in, and they plant it in our soybeans and corn. Quebec Gold is being shipped down to New York City and is right now more higher priced because of its potency than cocaine on the streets of New York. Ecstacy is coming in predominantly from Holland and Rotterdam into Canada and down, precursors for methamphetamine labs and meth labs. Clearly, we have to work on the narcotics issues, but both nations have other concerns as well, and the terrorism, and I will get more into how both our parliament and their parliament are trying to address these concerns and balance the needs of both commerce and terrorism.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, this is probably the most important antinarcotics vote that will be cast in Congress this year. There is just no way to avoid it. I do not support TPA. I am not exactly known as Mr. Free Trader. This is something where we have to look at the facts. As my friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, just pointed out, whether we like NAFTA or not, we have that; whether we like the Caribbean Basin Initiative or not, whether we like the Andean trade preference, that is what is there now. This vote is whether to repeal the trade advantage in the most critical cocaine and heroin region in the world at a time that the surrounding nations have these advantages because of the legislation in this United States Congress. Let us look at the facts of this situation: in Colombia, we once had a narcostate that has now elected a free government, that is helping us eliminate the cocaine and heroin. As they elect a government that now responds to our concerns, we are going to tell them they do not have anywhere to sell their products if the farmers stop growing poppy and coca? In Bolivia, which used to supply 30 percent of our cocaine and heroin, they now are down to less than 5 percent and going towards complete eradication. We have a president who succeeded President Banzer, President Quiroga, who is committed to providing trade opportunities so the campocinos have some way to feed their families other than feeding our children cocaine and heroin. And we are going to say, no, we are going to stop that trade? In Peru, we have a newly elected government, a country riven by tremendous crisis because of past illegal activities in security issues with President Fujimori. That president is trying to build and rebuild a coalition, and we want to yank his opportunity out from underneath him? Mind you, we already have an Andean trade preference. This is whether to repeal it. We are going to yank it out at a critical time in Peruvian history? In Ecuador, which has had five different governments in 5 years, that is teetering on instability. As we see the coca and heroin producers look at their region as a possible place to go in, we want to tell their government that is saying, we need to trade, we need to build our relations with the United States, we want to stiff-arm them and repeal their opportunities? For those who come here and say, we do not want to do eradication, we do not want to do fumigation, we do not want to shoot down airplanes, to do all the interdiction, we do not want to throw people in prisons, what do they propose to do to help these people? My friend, the gentleman from Massachusetts, has said it well: in the Andean initiative, we are trying to do alternative development. We are trying to rebuild their legal systems. But we are going to stop and repeal the trade initiatives at the very time this Congress has put $1 billion into Plan Colombia, we are putting another half a billion into the Andean initiative, and now we want to yank out the essential follow-through that gives something for these people to do to make a living to feed their families at a time when they most need it? I just do not understand it. My friends who supported the interdiction efforts, as we eradicate their crops, as we intercept their ships, as we shoot down their planes, what do we propose they do? That is a fundamental question Members are dealing with today. We cannot on the one hand, and look, this is a tough decision. I understand that this is not likely to help my district in the trade question, but it is certainly going to help the kids and families on the streets of Indiana if we can lower the amount of heroin and cocaine coming in and protect them. We have to make some tough decisions. I strongly support this act. It is essential. It is the centerpiece of the antidrug efforts. We cannot just tell these people: eat coke. We have to have an alternative. This is not an easy vote, but it is one of the most essential votes in this hemisphere in the antidrug efforts that Members will cast this year or next year.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, last Friday I led a bipartisan delegation to Europe that met with the exiled King of Afghanistan in Rome, and I want to say up front one of the most common questions we had was, is United States policy tilted towards the King, or is it tilted towards the Northern Alliance? And one thing we continually made clear and we need to continually make clear is that many of us here in Congress supported the Northern Alliance and wanted additional funding to go to them, and many of us in Congress support the exiled King. We support both, and we believe there should be a coalition government. In fact, today's papers, in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, all are running stories suggesting that the Northern Alliance is suddenly wanting to go it alone, now that after months of not moving or actually retreating, were able to advance with American bombs, all of a sudden they want to go exclusive. Our policy needs to be balanced. I would like to share a few comments of our exchange with the King and then some thoughts on the direction of where we may head. Clearly, the King is 87. He is of strong mind and will, but he has been in exile for years. His role would be more of a coordinator and peacemaker, not necessarily a dominant leader. After all, he is 87, not 57. His heart hurts for his people and country. He expressed sorrow because of the terrorism that brought the bombing. He stated that that bombing was a necessary evil. He stressed the need for meetings with the Northern Alliance as soon as possible. We pushed him hard in part on that point, and clearly they need to get to those meetings. Unfortunately, one of the dangers here is if one group gets in a dominant position, particularly if they are in the minority population, a dominant governing position over the others, we will not have peace in Afghanistan; we will descend into further chaos. We stressed Afghan solutions. But that does not mean just warlords who could not have advanced without our bombs; it means a real coalition. Our goal is to hunt down terrorists and to bring them to justice and to hold those who harbor terrorists accountable; but our goal is not to be nation-building beyond a point. We want an Afghan solution, but if they want our long-term support, they need to have a balanced solution. We also aggressively oppose the distribution of heroin and the violation of human rights, which some of our so-called new-found friends have done as well, not just the Taliban. Financial assistance and trade policies of the United States are impacted by a government's abuse of human rights and death peddling through drug dealing and drug trafficking of heroin. There is an Afghan solution that meets these goals, but it needs to include the people of the north as well as the majority Pashtuns of the south. Americans today only see an Afghanistan that is riven by tribal factions, funded by heroin, chaos and constant war, terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. But the former King has shown that a different Afghan did exist, a coalition government, a move from monarchy to democracy, rights for women, and an economy not dependent upon heroin. It can happen in Afghanistan, and it did for many years. In that sense, the country is currently missing all of this for many years, and the exiled king would give them a vision of hope. It is not a question of his returning as a King, but as a symbol of a functional Afghanistan which many people in the United States and the world do not see. As our delegation told him, if we do not see, if the Afghan that he represented that did not harbor terrorists, that respected human rights and, in fact, does not distribute heroin, then the American people will help rebuild their economic devastation that the Taliban has caused. But we are not going to help rebuild if, in fact, it is replaced with another government. It does not mean that an enemy of an enemy is just that, an enemy of an enemy is a temporary ally, but to be a friend, where they get the financial assistance, the trade and help in rebuilding their country, we want to see a decent government. Afghanistan has been subject to being a political football for centuries, particularly between Russia and England, but all the way back to Timur-i-Leng, for centuries and centuries. The book ``Tournament of Champions,'' a book about this battle for Central Asia, reads, in many ways, like the current New York Times: ``Back and forth through the passes, through the mountain hideouts, hiding out in the snow, fighting mountain wars, tribal factions dominated by the bordering nations.'' What we do see in the reign of the former King is a move to democracy, that it can be different. A country torn by war with tribal and religious differences that was poor before being wrecked by the Taliban is not suddenly going to be paradise on Earth. Romanticism by Americans is not in order. But we do know that it can be a better Afghanistan. We do know that if there is a coalition government that respects the rights of the Afghan people, that does not deal in heroin, that is committed to rebuilding their economy, that is oriented towards peace, not harboring terrorists, it can be different. But if it does not, it not only will not be a paradise, it will continue to be close to an earthly version of hell.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). I understand some of his concerns and share some of the gentleman's concerns, but I wanted to speak because overall this is a very strong bill. It is one that we need to pass. I believe that some of the comments that have been made here in this debate have been inappropriate and indeed anticapitalist and antibusiness. To argue that workers should not get financial advice or to argue that businesses are somehow going to trick their employees or bring in charlatans is in many ways beyond the pale of debate here in Congress. Quite frankly, some advice may be bad; but much of the advice out in the financial world is bad right now. Employees, at present, can go to the Internet and get all sorts of mail at home that has no anchor. No employer is completely infallible. No employer can bring in somebody who is going to give perfect advice that everybody is going to get rich from. But I would say that most employers in America are not like Samuel Insull from the 1900s. Give me a break. Most employers know that if they brought in somebody with a conflict of interest, that would be out there and informed at their plant immediately. If they had somebody who was a charlatan ripping off, you would have all sorts of contract negotiation problems, not to mention that if it is a smaller company that is not unionized, the people probably have their kids go to school in the same place, they eat in the same restaurants, they live in the same town. To imply that employers are somehow likely to want to rip off their employees or give them bad advice at a time when this would be a way to help them and improve their relations with their own workforce is absurd. The problem is that our law is arcane. It has been out of date for a number of years. As more and more employees in America have flexibility, they need to have the same advice that the management is getting, that the business leaders are getting and we should not discriminate against employees.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first let me speak to the underlying bill, which I strongly support and have supported since its introduction in the Congress. Ronald Reagan was not only an inspiration in my life, but many others. His speech for Barry Goldwater is what inspired me to get interested in politics when I was 14 years old. He inspired the bulk of the young conservatives, the middle-aged conservatives, and the older conservatives in America to a philosophy of government. To many of us, he stands as our conservative hero, much like Franklin Roosevelt is for liberals. Therefore, it is important that we recognize his sites and his importance to a strong political movement in America, not just some of his later sites, but also his early birth sites. For Teddy Roosevelt, we have multiple sites in the Park Service, for Franklin Roosevelt and for Abraham Lincoln and for others on the Mall. It is important that we have recognition for Ronald Reagan as one of those pillars of leadership in American history. Ronald Reagan's roots are in the Midwest, much like Abraham Lincoln's; and as a member of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Recreation and Public Lands, among many Westerners, let me add a concern that I have. The National Park Service has consistently opposed anything that has come up from the Midwest. We do not have the grand big Rocky Mountains, we do not have the ocean beaches, we do not have a lot of the things that they have in the West; but we do have a fair amount of historic sites. This happened when we got to the Underground Railroad. This has happened with a series of sites that the National Park Service has opposed. This bill has not moved until this year because it was opposed. Those of us in the Midwest, while we understand that the National Park Service is concerned that we keep adding units to the National Park Service without expending money at the same rate we are expanding units and, therefore, building a backlog; and we understand the concern of the Western States for constantly opposing new things because they are concerned with the backlog that those things are not going to be funded. Those of us in the Midwest, particularly when it comes to sites like Ronald Reagan's boyhood home, have concerns. I share the concern of our former chairman, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), about the proliferation of heritage areas, about the proliferation of sites, whoever wants to stick something in a bill; but this Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home is not that standard. Part of the reason they had to get somebody to switch in full committee was because I was in another markup at the time of it, sprinted over, as did the gentleman from California (Mr. Pombo), and because they managed to get the one person to switch, they did not get our votes. This bill would have passed in the committee had we been there. For that I apologize for any confusion. But the fact is, this is a deserving bill. We need this site in the Midwest. The Speaker is right to put his weight behind this. I support him in these efforts. We in the Midwest for too long have been shorted. Ronald Reagan deserves these tributes. He deserves these tributes while he is still alive. No one disputes the historic nature of this building or the importance of Dixon, Illinois, and his Midwestern upbringing, to his leadership of America and the values he was anchored in.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, tonight I would like to focus on our border policies and drug and anti-terrorism policies and want to share a number of things that we have been working on, and hope to continue to do this as we are in session the rest of this year. First, I want to begin with a series of hearings that we are working with on the north and south borders. The actual conception for this idea came out of the U.S.-Canada Parliamentary Conference last May. Some of the Canadian legislators had expressed concerns that the slowdowns at our borders, much like on the Mexican border, were impacting commerce. We have become so interconnected in all of our border states, particularly you think of California and Texas, but in the Midwest, Michigan, as well as my home State of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, New York State and all of New England, are very interconnected with the Canadian trade. We have gained almost as many jobs in our trade with Canada as we have lost to Mexico in Indiana, and in Texas they have gained from Mexico, but lost some to Canada. That is what the North American Free Trade Agreement was originally conceived to do, and ironically seems to in a way that many of us were skeptical about, be working, but only if our borders work. At the same time, I as cochair with Susan Whalen of the House side of the Transborder Sub Group in our Canadian Parliamentary Conference, as I pointed out, we are not going to back off on our drug war, we are not going to back off on illegal immigration because of the trade thing. We have to figure out how we can have adequate means to move commerce and the people moving across the border and still protect our borders. That was long before September 11. We had agreed to hold a number of hearings on the border. After talking with the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Ballenger) and those in the U.S.-Mexico Parliamentary Exchange as well, we decided to do some on the south border. At this point, we are at least going to do the Detroit-Windsor corridor, the Buffalo-Toronto corridor, the Seattle-Vancouver in the north, as well as the New York-Montreal, Boston-Montreal corridors, and on the Mexican border, the California crossings, Nogales to El Paso- Juarez and the Monterey zone. To get a picture of what is happening on our borders, our first hearings were held this past weekend at Highgate Springs in Vermont, which is the I-89 corridor where Montreal, Quebec City come down and into Boston and New England, and at Champlain, New York, on Monday morning on the I-87 corridor where Montreal comes down to New York City. We also visited the border control regional command center. Twenty- four states are coordinated out of Burlington, Vermont, the U.S. Coast Guard Center on Lake Champlain, and the southern border crossing between I-89 and I-87. The first zone highlights from these first hearings highlighted certain things that are likely to be repeated as we do other hearings. One, there is insufficient staffing for customs, INS and Border Patrol. Two, the current staff is working overtime and having vacation leave canceled, which is exhausting them and also reaching the overtime limits in some cases. You can do that for a short period, but not for 10 years, if we are in a long-term war with terrorists. Three, because of the pay grade and benefit restrictions, many INS agents are leaving the agency. Four, few receive language bonuses, some even who are bilingual. We have a different kind of problem. We have looked at this in different ways, but the State Department test difficulty, which is one of the ways we give language bonuses, is probably too stiff for what we need for conversational language at the border. Thus, we had one case of a person I talked to, because with Quebec there at that northern border, French becomes critical. Yet at the same time one person who grew up in Quebec, whose first language was French, could not pass the State Department test. This leads us to the question of we are not even sure whether our government employees, including maybe Members of Congress, could pass the State Department English test, because it is testing things beyond conversational level. What we really need at the boarders are conversational level, to be able to identify things and certain key phrases, like, for example, anthrax. So we have fewer people taking language training where we actually need it because of this difficulty. For example, in this north zone, and I am going to point out later it is important because Montreal has been a center for a lot of these terrorists to move around at different border crossings and different ways in the United States, we do not have anybody in the entire zone who can speak Farsi. We only have one at a regional headquarters who can understand Arabic. For that matter, you could conceivably have anthrax or illegal narcotics sitting in your front seat and as long as it is in a language that the Border Patrol or the INS agent cannot read, theoretically it could get through. We need to have more language understanding, certainly like Spanish on the southern border, or French on some of our borders as well. Also infrastructure needs are significant, but they differ by station. Trade we also learned is the lifeblood of the border communities, and it is down and it is going far beyond just the border communities. Let me step back for a minute and look at the border perspective in a bigger way. The U.S. customs has, along with INS, border crossings from basically Seattle or the Blaine crossing, all the way up to the northeast corner of Maine. There are hundreds of crossings. In addition, some of those run along water, such as the St. Lawrence River or Lake Champlain or Puget Sound. Some of them have natural barriers, and some of them are just woods or open space like in Maine and Montana. The major ones, as I mentioned, that we are looking at on the Canadian side are Vancouver, Seattle, Toronto as it goes to Buffalo and Niagara, Montreal as it comes down, and Detroit-Windsor. Then if you look at it from the perspective of border security, Winnipeg, International Falls, as well as Thunder Bay and Grand Portage at the top of Minnesota flows down toward Minneapolis-St. Paul, going toward Chicago. You also have the Edmonton and Calgary areas in Alberta that come across all that open space in Montana, and then Maine and North Dakota. On the southern border with Mexico, you have San Diego-Tijuana moving east all the way to Yuma. Then you have a sector of where Tucson and Nogales moving through New Mexico towards El Paso-Juarez, and then another heavily crossed area that feeds into Monterey and the zone where so many American industries have located across the Mexico border, crossing at Laredo, McAllen and Brownsville. You have one gap running from El Paso down to Laredo where Eagle Pass is that is a kind of a no-man's zone, and no major highways connecting, and a lot of Desert, but has also been a pressing point. So when you say your goal is to seal the border, it is not that easy when you look at the total number of mileage. In this description that I just gave you, it is not just that, it is the airports and it is the water. We have major customs facilities obviously watching the Gulf of Mexico, the entire East Coast of the United States, as well as the West Coast of the United States, all of the airports. Let me give you an example as I alluded to earlier. In the specific crossings we worked in Vermont and New York, you have a crossing at I- 87 that is the Maine corridor. Then you have a little bit of land and water from Lake Champlain. Then you have a small station that up until we went on high alert only had one person there and was only open for part of a day. Then you have more Lake Champlain. Then you have a crossing at I-89 that is a major crossing. And then a whole series of small crossings, some of which are unmanned and some of which have one person and now have a little bit more pressure on them. You look and say, boy, that water in there, I wonder if somebody could move through the water? Or think of the St. Lawrence River and the area called 10,000 Islands. Or at the Great Lakes, anybody who has crossed at Souix St. Marie, you see Manitoulin Island in there and the crossing from Manitoulin Island and jumping over to some of the northern Michigan places is basically a row boat. Similarly, in Puget Sound, anybody from the Northwest can understand that there are lots of islands there. And if you have any doubt that we are vulnerable there, remember had it not been for an extremely vigilant customs officer highlighted in the PBS special aired last weekend, that one of the millennium bombers targeting LAX Airport was captured at Port Angeles, who, by the way, was coming from Montreal. He crossed clear across Canada and tried to slip in through a ferry boat to Port Angeles, Washington, coming across the water, in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. This is not easy, and those who think we can easily seal the border are making a serious mistake. But it is not to say it is impossible. Let me get into some of the specific challenges at the border hearings we had this week. At Highgate, Vermont, they have new facilities but not enough personnel to staff them. So they were looking at our backups on a Sunday night, even though there are estimates ranging of commerce being down approximately 30 percent right now. The question is if we continue to tighten the boarders, particularly if we have any other terrorist incidents, and the terrorists are not American citizens, they are people who are coming in from outside. Furthermore, we have this Quebec Gold BC Bud marijuana as well as Ecstasy and methamphetamines heading to New York and Boston through these border crossings, they are not things that come from inside the United States. And this Quebec Gold and BC Bud is selling in many places higher than cocaine, it is not marijuana, it is much more potent than traditional marijuana, and is as dangerous as cocaine. So if we are going to seal these borders, at least to some degree and keep the commerce going, we have to have enough personnel to open more lanes. We cannot simultaneously say that we want commerce to work, we want more American jobs, we do not want to depress our economy; and, by the way, we do not want terrorists, illegal drugs and illegal products in the United States and immigration problems; we want the border secure, without saying then we are going to put sufficient people to keep all the lanes open where we have built the facilities and able to do that. Now, at Champlain, they still need more personnel, but they have more personnel; their backups were less, substantially less, but their traffic is way down as well. The question is what will happen when the traffic picks up, but there they do not have the facilities. There the trucks were backing up and they need a new truck facility to be able to process the trucks. At Highgate they have new equipment coming in for scanning and they are making some progress with that as well at Champlain, but those are important things, because in the trucks is a great place to stick illegal narcotics. They find them in the axles, they find them in tires, they find them packaged inside other containers. But among other things, you can hide illegal immigrants and terrorists in the back of those trucks as well. Often they find people sneaking in inside those trucks too. Third, single-person staffing and not 24 hours is not acceptable at key border crossings. Short term, we are double staffing and keeping them open 24 hours. But unless we get more agents, this is not going to work. Fourth, we have lots of unmanned roads in a variety of ways and we cover them with a variety of mixes: Of monitors, of roadblocks, of local people identifying, and it actually works pretty well, but we need some additional help. The news media has been really fond of particularly picking on the Vermont border right now as well as, to some degree, the New York border because of some incidents that have occurred. But what has not been told is that in almost all the cases, the news media has been caught. Even though they originally did not think that they were being caught, they were being tracked and eventually caught. Part of the argument is how fast they were caught. But in some of the places, they are actually legal, because the road runs along the border on the Canadian side, and only if one takes a right turn or a left turn, depending on the place into U.S. territory and then do not report, is one violating the law. So it can take, even when we are doing the right thing and tracking appropriately, 10 to 15 minutes before somebody catches you, because you were not illegal most of the time, and some of the media has been reporting has, quite frankly, been inaccurate. We have done a better job of protecting the border than one would think, but we still need additional things, because as we put the pressure on, so will those who want to violate the law, including terrorists. Fifth, the water. In Lake Champlain we obviously need a little bit better protection, but in fact we have a pretty good method of watching, we just need a little bit of additional protection on the eastern part of the lake, the northeast part of the lake. Sixth, we have an Indian reservation over by Mecina to the west that is cooperative, but because it is in effect an independent Nation, we treat Indian reservations differently than other areas as far as border crossing, and even though the local tribal council has cooperated, it is problematic how to deal with this, particularly when there is, in Canada they call them the first nations, when they have a reservation on the other side, because the law enforcement policies are different. So it takes excellent cooperation. Seventh is just walking in the woods. Because they have caught a lot of people carrying these potent drugs in backpacks just walking through the woods across the border. Now, this becomes problematic. But remember what I said is we caught many of them. The interesting thing here is the reason, and this could depress us to listen, because this is just the Vermont and the New York zone here, but the encouraging thing is if we can concentrate the pressure at the major crossings and fan them out so that they have to go wider and wider, just like we have worked with immigration policy along the Mexican border, it is easier to catch somebody going through open desert than it is when they get lost in a crowd at San Ysidro at the San Diego crossing. The same thing in the north country. You may think you can walk through the mountains or in the woods of Maine or Vermont or upstate New Hampshire, but there are several things working against you. One, it is cold there a lot of the year. You are going to leave foot prints, even snowshoe prints. You are going to have to eventually hook up with the car, and we are monitoring, and the other thing are the locals. Just like on airplanes, where the private citizens on the plane need to be watchful as well, the same thing is true on the borders. It is amazing in these tight knit local communities, they know when somebody strange is coming across and they report it. To the degree that American citizens join in, we can, in fact, make many of these borders much more secure than one would think at first glance. Now, on October 17, our subcommittee also held a hearing entitled, Keeping a Strong Federal Law Enforcement System that featured U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, the INS Director James Zieglar, as well as Assistant Commissioner at U.S. Customs and the Assistant Director of U.S. Marshals. They made several key points. Because bottom line is, we cannot control or seal the border if we do not have the agents. In Congress, we passed this really bold bill. We said we want 3,000 new Border Patrol and INS agents. Well, that sounds real great until we get to the point of last week, we did not add agents, we lost 5 agents just before we had one meeting. What we were told at these hearings is up to 67 percent of the agents are looking at leaving in the next couple of years, and we are talking about adding them. This is our frontline of defense. Well, what are some of the problems? We have 6,000 miles of border and 300 points of entry. The budget calls for 3,000 to 3,500 new Border Patrol agents and immigration inspectors. In 1999, INS had to attract 75,000 applicants to fill 2,000 positions. Of those 2,000 positions, 37 percent were former military. Now, they say they do not recruit from the military, but, in fact, they recruit from people who are retired, and many people who retire are looking at whether it is going to be a satisfactory job, so people who have job options will leave the military, and re-enlistment has become a big problem. 30 percent come from local law enforcement. That was one of the debates we had here tonight on the Airline Security Act. If the Federal Government nationalizes all security at the airport, where are the guards going to come from? Last week, last Sunday, to be exact, Philadelphia reported that they had 37 murders compared to 25 last September and directly attributed it to the fact that so many policemen had been taken off of traditional law enforcement and moved towards antiterrorism efforts. Twelve people died because we were chasing things that did not happen in Philadelphia. That has been repeated all over America. We cannot do more things with the same number of people without diverting resources from one place to another. People are dying daily because of drugs; children are being abused, wives are being beaten, all sorts of things are happening in our country. If we do not have adequate law enforcement or if that law enforcement is chasing anthrax hoaxes or worried about things they previously did not have to deal with, and we have to reconcile this that if we are going to do more law enforcement, then we are going to need more agents. And if we are going to get more agents, given how hard it is to hold, retain, and recruit agents now, some changes are going to need to be made. Well, like what? One, for the INS Border Patrol, they need a waiver of the overtime cap. I mentioned earlier at the borders that we visited this past weekend, they are nearing the overtime cap. They have people with no vacations and they are working overtime, and yet we capped them out of overtime, so that is not even going to be an option. Then, what are we going to do? In late November, early December, we are going to say okay, we have used up all of our overtime, we do not have any a little, I guess we will now just open up the borders completely. I do not think so. We have to address this rapidly. Secondly, we need comprehensive pay reform. Part of the problem is that INS and Border Patrol they are topped out at a G9 and anybody who has been there a while if they have an option like oh, tonight, more sky marshals, where do sky marshals come from? They come from Border Patrol and INS, but we just said we are going to hire 3,000 more of them but we are taking them and moving them to sky marshals. We have to figure out how we are going to get people in both places, which means, for example, recruitment bonuses. In San Francisco, because of the cost of living and the shortage of applicants, they had to have $5,000 bonuses and then they got the applicants. In the year 2000 they used $2,000 recruiting bonuses. Just sitting on the border is not the most exciting thing and then being held accountable if one person in every 500,000 slip through, it is difficult. If we do not pay adequately, we are not going to be able to recruit people. We also need law enforcement status for INS inspectors. They are expected to do law enforcement work; they are expected to catch criminals, and yet at the same time, we do not pay them that way. We also need to really raise the earnings caps, and we also need language bonuses. I referred to that earlier. We need some changes in how those language bonuses are worked. It is not that they are not good, they are 3 percent of their salary. But if they are viewed as unachievable and not relevant to your job, then nobody seeks the bonuses. We should be seeking that, and if we tie that to people's pay; if we say, look, we will give you 5 percent more if you learn Farsi. It would make me feel more secure if we had people on the borders who speak Farsi, and if we are going to give them a pay raise, let us tie it to something, but let us make it achievable. They do not have to be a teacher in Farsi; they need to be able to understand it and have basic communication with somebody who is crossing the border, or Arabic or Spanish or French or whatever language we need, the Asian languages on the West Coast in particular, but increasingly across the country. We also had a hearing this week student on visas in the Committee on Education and the Workforce, and let me make a couple of points with that. First, let me put it in context. The only real way we are going to stop terrorists and, for that matter, illegal drugs, is before it gets to the United States. One of the chief planners of the September 11 attacks was on a student visa, was not a student. How can we protect ourselves if people are here on visas that they have jumped, and nobody reports it? So I would suggest several things. First, let me state one other problem. Foreign students, of which we have hundreds of thousands, or we have at least several hundred thousand plus, apply to multiple universities, just like we do in the United States and our kids do. Presumably, the student may tell the university, I think most of them either put a down payment down, they pay it, they get a dorm, they get their classes, but right now, the government requires that the student, when they get their visa, say what university they are going to, but the university is not told they are coming, so the university could have a student headed for UCLA or Indiana University, the University of Notre Dame, and they might have it on the student visa, but the university may very well not know they are coming. So one thing we need to fix is to let the university know that the student got the visa in that university's name. Then, the university has an obligation to let the United States Government know: did the student actually check in and start classes? Did the student drop out? And/or did the student graduate? In other words, once they have completed the criteria on their visa or fail on the criteria of their visa, they are the first line of defense to let the government know. They do not have to be a law enforcement agency. It is not their job to go out and find the student, but the government does not know where to find them or whether they have even jumped the visa if the university will not help. The only way we learn usually is after they have committed a felony. That is how we learn whether somebody has violated their visa. So we need to get a better system with that. What I would suggest, because not every student is obviously a case at risk here, and we are not talking about American citizens or immigrants who have come to America and are going to college, let us get this straight. We are talking about people who are here because of the free nature of our country. Just like when our students go overseas, they are a guest in that country, and when they go overseas, there are certain criteria that they have to follow. For example, let me tie this to another incident, and I mentioned one of the terrorists. A number of years ago, when we were looking at stolen Chinese secrets which basically made us much more vulnerable to attack from China, the son of the equivalent of the head of the CIA of China had come to the United States. The way we turned this up in the Committee on Government Reform is we were investigating Johnny Chung and he worked for him. He was a lower level in the process of where the money got laundered and he was very open with us, and it may be, I am not saying the son was a risk, but the plain fact of the matter is he was enrolled at a university in Los Angeles, did not show up, we lost him. We lost the son of the CIA. Now, do Members think China, when George Bush, Senior, was head of the CIA, and George W., if he had visited in China to be a student, do Members think China would have lost George W., being a student there? I do not think so. It is incredible that at a time in the very period when our secrets were stolen, we did not know where the son of the head of their CIA was in the United States because it was not reported that he did not show up on a student visa. So this has happened before. It is not new, and it happens a number of times, but we are looking for a needle in a haystack in the terrorist question unless, what I would suggest is that they start with a simple process. The INS does not have enough people to look up everybody who jumps their visa. This is not just students, it also applies to workers and when somebody sponsors a visitor. They ought to be held accountable for notifying the government if they have jumped. We need to give additional dollars then to the INS. I said, we cannot get the borders covered, the basic work covered even for felons, so if we are going to put a new thing on them, we have to give them the money to be responsible. It is a waste of money to do this for everybody right now because everybody is not at risk, but how about if we start something simple: If you are a student from a terrorist nation, one that the State Department listed as funding or supporting terrorism, and there are seven, then those students ought to be tracked, those workers ought to be tracked, and those guests ought to be tracked. We ought to know if they have overstayed or violated the terms of their visa, and it ought to be reported to the government by their sponsor if they know that they have violated it. It is not their sponsor's responsibility to track them, but it is to let the government know, and the INS will track. There ought to be a penalty if you do not report. Furthermore, in addition to those terrorist countries, we ought to add Afghanistan. Right now Afghanistan is not on the terrorist list. It kind of surprised me when I heard that, because we do not recognize the Taliban. Since we do not recognize there is a government there, they are not on the terror lists. It would not be too hard to come up with another list, and that is if the country is not themselves a terrorist threat but there is reason to believe that that country is the home nation of a lot of terrorists. Let us take, for example, Saudi Arabia, where I believe 15 of the 17 were from; that then students from that country, even though their government may be completely innocent, that we track them. In other words, let us look at the facts. If you are a terrorist nation and certified as such by our State Department, or you are Afghanistan with the Taliban, or you are from Saudi Arabia right now, you are at much more likely risk if you have violated your visa, and we are not talking about people who are following the law. I would place a bet right now that the average American thought this was already happening. We would have thought that if there was a student from a country certified for terrorism and they had a work visa or a student visa or a tourist visa, Members probably thought that once they were here longer than they were supposed to be, or were not doing what they were supposed to be, that we know. Well, we do not. It is time we fix that right away. I also want to comment on the role of the Canadian parliament, the Mexicans, and the commerce. As I mentioned, we started this process through the parliament groups. Both sides of the border are interested in fixing this. We know the importance. The Plattsburgh Chamber of Commerce leader said that $1.4 billion in trade in that community of 80,0000 people. Fourteen percent of the people who work in the area work for a Canadian-owned companies. I have multiple Canadian-owned companies in Fort Wayne, which is 140 miles from the Windsor-Detroit border. We have become totally interconnected in big cities, and in Michigan Texas, Arizona, far more than Indiana. We all know there needs to be a stake. The Canadian parliament now is working on an antiterrorism law and are working on their immigration laws, but they have different traditions and we have to work through it. If we are going to have accelerated border passes, background checks, fast passes, they need to understand they are going to have to make changes in their countries just like we are, because the American people as well as the people in their countries are not going to tolerate living in fear of nuts. Now, I want to also talk tonight, in addition to the terrorism on the border, a little bit about our anti-narcotics efforts. In our subcommittee, we have oversight of narcotics. It is a lot like terrorism. We are going to learn how difficult it is to fight terrorism, because if Members think the drug war was hard, the antiterrorism war is going to be even harder because there are fewer people and they have more targets. At least in drugs we know the networks and know where it is coming from. Number one, it is coming from Colombia, the heroin and cocaine. It is then coming either through the Caribbean corridor or the Pacific corridor or by air. Depending on our successes, sometimes when we put the pressure on the Caribbean, it moves to the Pacific. When we put pressure on the Pacific, it moves to the Caribbean. It used to be all through the Andean Indian region, but Bolivia got most of theirs eradicated. We need to make sure that stays firm. In Peru, they got most eradicated but it is coming back. It has moved to Colombia. Chances are overwhelming, about 90-some percent, if you have heroin in your community, as every community basically does, if you have cocaine in your community, as every community basically does, it is coming from Colombia. We know where it is at. We have to get it there. They are having a war in that country. We have had a big controversy in this Congress about the so-called Plan Colombia. We passed over $1 billion, and if I have heard it once, I have heard it 50 times on this floor when we debated the Andean initiative this year, how can we keep pouring money into Colombia. Plan Colombia did not work. As we heard in our drug task force today from Rand Beers who heads international narcotics for the State Department, I am going to have to recall this from memory because I do not have it written down, but of the Blackhawks that we put in our package, four arrived in September, two for the CNP and two for the military, and six more will arrive by the end of the year. Of the Huey helicopters that we had in the budget, they are arriving in January. In other words, how can Plan Colombia fail when it is not there yet? I am tired of hearing how Plan Colombia failed. When we budget for a helicopter, we do not just pull it out of a Wal-Mart. We have to build it. There is a backlog of orders because we do not have right now as big a military establishment as we have had before. It takes a while to get the helicopters built, and the new Huey IIs, we do not just all of a sudden ramp up an assembly line like G.I. Joe. These are not little plastic toys. I did not mean a real person G.I. Joe, which we cannot ramp up, either. We have to do training. It is not a plastic toy. These are real helicopters which are complicated. It takes a while to get there. We do not know whether Plan Colombia does not work. We will know more in 6 to 12 months. What we know is the Colombians were bravely fighting a battle, and we had aid there, but not the size of the aid we are talking about. If we are successful in putting pressure on Colombia, we know the pattern. They are going to move to Ecuador, move to Bolivia, move to Peru, move to Brazil. So that is why this year the House appropriated $670-some million out of the President's $707-some million request, the bulk of which goes first to Colombia, that is the biggest battle; second to Peru; third to Bolivia, where we know they have been before and could potentially come back; and fourth to Ecuador, which is on a watch list. So what did the other body do? The other day they cut it another couple hundred million dollars, and they cut Colombia first, Peru second, and left in for Bolivia and Ecuador, which is fine, but they are three and four. If this budget does not get fixed, we will have put $1 billion into Plan Colombia, then cut the follow-up plan, and wasted the money, basically. What is the point? Can we not ever see past our nose? Are we going to be inevitably constantly repeating our Vietnam problems, where we get into, and this is not exactly like Vietnam, but when I say that, it is like the antiterrorism war or the war on drugs. We do just enough to fail. When we finally get ahead of the curve, we somehow decide we are going to be off on another adventure and do not finish the job. In the case of Colombia, we need this assistance because, first, we have to stop the terrorizing before we can plant alternative crops. People say they want to plant alternative crops. It is just like a kid on a street corner. If he can make $600 an hour as a lookout, he is not going to take minimum wage at McDonald's unless the risk of being a lookout is too high, and then maybe he will take the job at McDonald's. But we are not going to pay him $600 an hour at McDonald's. The same calculation goes into a coca grower. If they are going to plant palm hearts, they are not going to make the same as coca, but they want to plant legal things. They want a decent living for their family. If they are going to get shot, and when we were in Colombia and we talked to one of the members who had left the FARC, I will never forget this, Mark Sanford and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Blagojevich), two other Members, we were waiting for the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert), then Congressman, to arrive in his helicopter. We were talking to this young kid who just left the FARC. He was an enforcer. We asked him if he had ever shot anybody. He said yes. We asked, ``Why did you shoot him?'' He said, ``The guy was behind in his payments.'' What do you mean? ``He was a coca grower and he was not paying us the amount that he was supposed to pay us. I warned him twice and then shot him. He did not pay his bills.'' ``What do you mean, he did not pay his bills? You do not shoot him for that.'' We were told that, yes, we told him if he did not pay the tribute money we were going to shoot him. What did you do? He was an older man. We went to the restaurant. I went up behind him and we killed him. And he said, ``Look, he did not pay his bills.'' Now, if you are a farmer and they are coming in killing your family or kidnapping them or maiming them, it is pretty tough to walk in and say, by the way, we want you to plant palm hearts. First, we have to get order. Then once we get order in Colombia, then we need to go in and help them get or make a living, because if we do not help them make a living, they are going to go right back to what they were doing before. That is why we have money to help build the legal system. Right now the judges are intimidated. They killed one-third of them back in the days when the movie Clear and Present Danger highlighted it. At the same time, they shoot the judges, and they have destroyed and killed much of the legal system. People are intimidated. There are brave souls fighting away, but we have to rebuild a respect for law and work with the people. Colombia is the oldest democracy in South America. Because of our drug habits, they have had serious problems in their country. We need to get the Andean initiative because if this process works in Colombia, it is going to move as it always does. People say if you legalize drugs in the United States it is going to go away, like the people who are making all this money are going to say, right, I am going to go broke now. No, they are going to step people up to other things. We are not going to legalize cocaine and heroin, even if we legalize marijuana, which would be a huge mistake. So it is important now. We are having a big debate in Congress. We understand if we cut back the Andean initiative, that the net result of this is going to be more terror on our streets at home, more cases like what we have heard in our hearings from mothers whose husbands were whacked out on drugs and came home and beat them and their kids, or used up all their money for health care and for education to fuel their drug habits; or as I have talked to former and current drug addicts, when they need money, they just go out and rob somebody, mug them, or kill them if necessary to get the money. We visited juvenile detention centers and had some young guys tell us, one of them had killed somebody when he was stealing his car to fund his drug habit. The question was, why did you kill the person? He said, what does it matter? I will be dead by the time I am 25, anyway. So when we look at that, it is a tough thing. If we cannot get it in the source countries, then it moves out into the Pacific and the Caribbean. Then we come back to the border question I was talking about before. Once it gets to the border, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack in a city. We dare not cut back the Andean initiative any further than we have already cut it back. I know there are many money pressures, but we have to simultaneously say if we are going to go after terrorism, we are not going to go after terrorism at cutting back on illegal narcotics. Alcohol and illegal drugs account for, in every district, every city in this country, 70 percent to 85 percent of all crime, including child abuse and domestic violence. If we are going to get at other sins in the society, we have to get rid of the enablers. Let me talk a little further about a couple of other things. The DEA has finally started to crack down on some of the medicinal marijuana problems. We have had a huge problem in this country with so-called medicinal marijuana. There is nothing medicinal about marijuana. Lots of poisonous things have some good ingredients in them. There is no medicinal marijuana. There are components inside marijuana, as there are in arsenic and other things, that are healthy. But in California, this has become a way, for example, they got into one housing addition where it looked from the air like it was a housing addition, but they were all fake homes growing quantities of marijuana. In my home State of Indiana, where they have what is more commonly called ditchweed, they have now been bringing in BC Bud and mixing it with Indiana ditchweed. Indiana has become the fifth largest exporter in the United States of marijuana, and it is shipping to the east and west coast mixed with this BC Bud, and we are talking about in Indiana a raid just like in Colombia. They plant it in the corn and it is not even necessarily that the farmer knows it is there. They plant the marijuana inside the corn. It is hidden under there. You have to catch it with different screening methods from the air or ocean, or from tips. It is extraordinary how wishy-washy some of our leaders back here are. And my favorite chart that I do not have with me tonight showed directly that in 1992 to 1994, with the combination of the signals we sent from our top down of ``I did not inhale,'' and joking about it, to the movies, to the music, and then, combined with our reduction in source country interdiction in the drug budgets from 1992 to 1994, the drug use in the United States soared at such a level that to get back to that in 2001, we have to have a 50 percent reduction from where we are at to get back to where it was when President Clinton first took office in 1992, a 50 percent reduction. A 50 percent reduction. That is how bad it was. And it was directly correlated. In 2 years it soared that much. And what we saw was the purity soar. We saw the price go down, and we saw the use go up. In 1995 and 1996 it started to stabilize. In the last years of the Clinton administration with General McCaffrey as drug czar we started to make progress again; but we have challenges. I want to read from The New York Times Magazine from this past weekend about a man named Adam Sorkin, who is the key person behind ``West Wing''; and I am just going to read out of this magazine. As you may know he was busted again. This article talks about how he has a drug habit. It also shows the problem with our drug treatment program because he has been through a treatment program, and he is cynical about ever being cured; yet they keep saying he is cured. Quote: ``While Sorkin seems to derive a very similar kind of relief from writing hyper-articulate dialogue and from inhaling crack, he keeps his two worlds separate. That is not to say he never writes about drugs. His teleplays are sprinkled with roach clips and bong pipes and all the references are slyly appreciative. Five weeks into the West Wing pilot this year, a high priced call girl whom we will soon come to appreciate for her intelligence and strength of character, greets the day by lighting up a joint and saying, `It is not like I am a drug person. I just love pot.' '' We in Congress can work and work at it, but if we have the producers of ``West Wing'' and other people, ``West Wing,'' by the way, is a tired, formerly creative TV show that is basically trying to rehash what former President Bill Clinton would do if he was facing the crises that they can develop each week; and it is starting to become old, but it is entertaining in many ways. But it is also here from the producer bragging about working in pro-drug statements. What kind of example is this? How are we supposed to fight it on the one hand when our TV producers glamorize drug use on television. Then we wonder why we are failing the drug war when people call it medicine, when TV producers glamorize it. Furthermore, to quote an article this week in the Washington Post, which is something we have been talking to the South American and Central American countries about, our drug habits because of irresponsible leaders in the media and in political offices and people in the TV industry, because of our usage, they now have produced such a supply in these countries that the use is increasing and doubling in many of these countries. This article this week in the Washington Post, which I would ask to be inserted in the Record, says ``Mexico finds drug abuse is now its problem too.'' Let me read from one of the paragraphs: ``Mexico used to think that people like this Arellano were an American nightmare. By Mexico's reckoning, Americans were the ones using drugs. And their insatiable demand was the reason that violent cartels, which continue to conduct daily assassinations on the border, existed here. Places like Tijuana, where people did not even use drugs, were suffering because coke-heads from Malibu to Maine could not get enough, it was said. But that is changing fast. Mexico is not now the only major transit point for drugs shipped into the United States. It has a growing demand problem of its own.'' [From the Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2001] Mexico Finds Drug Abuse Is Now Its Problem, Too tijuana streets teem with addicted youths (By Mary Jordan) Tijuana, Mexico.--Berenice Arellano Gil celebrated her 29th birthday by doing what she does most days: She slipped $3 into another addict's hand on a downtown street corner and bought a two-inch vial filled with crack cocaine. ``I feel like a dog running wild on the freeway, not knowing if I am going to make it off the road alive,'' she said, cupping her hands around the smoking white powder and inhaling deeply, letting the crack fill her lungs and surge into her brain. She opened her glassy eyes, looked toward the United States, beyond a metal fence a few yards away, and her story tumbled out. She had a good life once in Los Angeles, installing carpet for $10 an hour, but she got caught and deported and despair led to crack, and at least now she has cut back and is spending only $10 a day on her habit instead of the $100 she used to waste, and she hates her job making $5 a day working in a restaurant but will never, never, never again have sex with a stranger to make a few bucks for crack, and you just can't believe how hard it is to get unhooked. ``It's my birthday, you know,'' she said. Mexico used to think that people like Arellano were an American nightmare. By Mexico's reckoning, Americans were the ones using the drugs, and their insatiable demand was the reason that violent cartels--which continue to conduct daily assassinations on the border--existed here. Places like Tijuana, where people didn't even use drugs, were suffering because cokeheads from Malibu to Maine couldn't get enough, it was said. But that is changing fast. Mexico is now not only the major transit point for drugs shipped into the United States, it has a growing demand problem of its own. While drug consumption in Mexico is still far below that in the Untied States, it began climbing in the mid-1990s at an alarming rate. This gritty city of 1.2 million is Mexico's drug-use capital. Between 1993 and 1998, government surveys found a five-fold increase in the number of people saying they had used drugs in the past month. For 1998, the last year the survey was conducted. 15 percent of Tijuana youths said they had tried cocaine, heroin or other drugs--three times the national average. Since then, far more people have begun trying drugs, particularly crystal methamphetamine. There are now hundreds of Tijuana crack houses, alleyways and street corners where people gather to snort, smoke or inject drugs. ``It's a dramatic problem affecting the quality of life here.'' said Victor Clark Alfaro, a prominent human rights advocate. ``Many of these people steal to get money for drugs. People are afraid of what people will do when they are high on crack and crystal meth.'' He said poor addicts are most visible because they often use drugs in the street. But he said middle-class children are taking them, too--in homes and discos at parties, out of their public eye. The increasing drug use is generally traced to a change in the practices of Mexican traffickers who ship drugs into the United States. In the mid-1990s, according to Mexican law enforcement officials, the traffickers started paying local employees--those who handled such jobs as fueling planes and renting warehouses--partly in drugs. Those people needed to create their own market, and they began selling drugs in their home towns. At the same time, the price of cocaine and other drugs has fallen. Drugs used to be beyond the means of poor youths from the Tijuana barrios, but a vial of crack now sells for as little as $2--and a heroin injection costs a $5 to $10, depending on quality, according to interviews with addicts here. They said the most popular drug is the cheapest: crystal methamphetamine, or ``ice,'' a synthetic drug that goes for $1 to $2 a hit. Some Mexican law enforcement officials say the problem has become far worse since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. U.S. border security has sharply increased, making it harder for the cartel to move their cocaine, marijuana and heroin across the border. That has led to concern that the backlog is being dumped in Mexican towns, where youths have a growing appetite for drugs. U.S. law enforcement officials say they doubt the border security has curtailed drug trafficking. They note that U.S. street prices for drugs have not risen, a sign of steady supply. But Pedro Jose Penaloza, who oversees crime prevention efforts in Mexico's attorney general's office, recently said that ``the consumption of cocaine in the entire country has risen alarmingly since the Sept. 11 attacks.'' He said the ``sealing of the northern border by the United States'' has led traffickers to drop the price of cocaine and other drugs normally destined for the United States and flood the market in Mexico. In Mexico, drug consumption is seen largely as a health problem and is rarely prosecuted. In most places it is not a crime to consume small amounts. But despite concern over health, the government has devoted little money to treatment or rehabilitation, focusing instead on prevention efforts, which are far less expensive. Clark Alfaro said there are about 80,000 addicts in Tijuana and the city's 50 private rehabilitation centers have room for 3,000. To many, these places, often run by former addicts or church workers with no formal training in rehabilitation, are notorious for harsh treatment. Two people who have been treated in such centers said in interviews that techniques there include dousing addicts with ice-cold water, beating them and chaining them to make sure they don't flee. Several Tijuana newspapers recently ran photos of teenage addicts chained down in one of the centers. The youths had been placed there with the permission of their parents, who said they didn't know where else to turn. Such techniques are ``not uncommon'' in the private centers, said Enrique Durantes, a psychiatrist who heads Tijuana's drug prevention program in the city's health ministry. ``We are totally against this method.'' He said more federal funding is desperately needed to open rehabilitation centers that use accepted treatment techniques. Last year the federal government issued national regulations and guidelines for drug rehabilitation centers, but officials said there has been little effort to enforce them. ``The government is leaving in the hands of [private groups] the process of rehabilitation,'' said Clark Alfaro. ``They are closing their eyes to human rights violations that occur there.'' Arellano, the crack addict, said she would not enter a private rehabilitation center. ``They are horrible. It's not like you have in the States. No, no, never, never, will I go into one of those places. I must try to get unhooked myself.'' A recent tour of open-air drug markets in Tijuana found many people inhaling crystal meth or crack and a new injecting heroin. Most of the users were in their twenties. One man sat on the curb on Ninos Heroes Street, the hood of a parka pulled over his face on a day when the temperature was near 80 degrees, a vial of crack supped in his hands. A half-block away, Manuel Lopez, 32, slouched against an abandoned house, high on a combination of crystal meth and crack, known as a ``speedball.'' He was too incoherent to speak. Another man in much the same condition wandered into traffic on International Highway, nearly getting run over before his friends pulled him back. Police in Tijuana have long been connected to major drug traffickers. Now those corrupt links extend to street-corner drug dealers, who say that association has created new bribery patterns. Money paid to the police by drug cartels is often carefully orchestrated. High-ranking officers decide how big the bribe should be, and how it should be distributed within the ranks. But now cops on the street are taking ``express bribes'' from local dealers, pocketing a relatively small amount of money without consulting or sharing with other officers. One dealer said that as the recession has set in, more police officers have become open to taking bribes to look the other way. Mexican police officials deny publicly that their officers take bribes. But many officers on the street readily admit that they take bribes to augment their low salaries. Clark Alfaro said a man who manufactures crystal meth in a Tijuana laboratory recently complained to him that he had paid the police a $9,000 bribe because they threatened to shut down his lab. the man was upset because the cops wanted $20,000 and he had to bargain hard to bring down their price. Our problem has now spread throughout Central and South America and throughout other parts of the world because we could not get control of our problems; it has now spread. And so the blood on the hands of those who die to illegal narcotics, of those who say marijuana is not a big deal, doing crack is a cool thing, who write songs like the song ``Heroine Girl'' that was supposedly an anti-song that turned out not to be an anti-drug song at a second level, that people who do that type of thing are responsible not only for the deaths in the United States but elsewhere too because much of this is psychological in whether behavior that is seen is approved or not approved. There is another wave that we are trying to address. Clearly methamphetamines and Ecstasy have become a huge problem in the United States, and we are doing the best we can to address these things as well. We will continue to work at that as they come in from countries like the Netherlands. There they say legalization has worked well. Yes, they are shipping it to us. We would not have the stuff coming through Canada and through our borders and through other ways in the United States if they were not doing that. The New York Times, ``Violence rises as club drug spreads throughout the streets.'' In Fort Wayne, Indiana, ``War on meth, number of labs raised to record highs.'' Here is from Fresno: ``Meth dump discovered.'' There they have a law because so many little kids have been burned to death with labs exploding, these giant labs. USA Today: ``Ecstasy drug trade turns violent.'' Just the other night there was a ``Dateline'' special on some of this potency. We have a huge problem in the United States. We do not just have problems with anthrax, which is scary, where four people have died. We have people overdosing, terrorizing their families, terrorizing their neighborhoods every day because of illegal narcotics. The ranking member of the subcommittee from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) has said it well. We are already under chemical attack. The chemical attack is illegal narcotics. The way we address trying to protect our borders from the terrorists, from coming up with strong law enforcement and in tracking and anti-drugs is going to be the same way we catch the terrorists coming in our midst. We are working in multiple ways. This week in the committees alone we have done the postal. We did the student tracking. We have done field hearings at the border. We did airport security tonight. We are doing the best we can to try to address it. We cannot stop every terrorist. We cannot stop every illegal drug. But we will do the best we can and with the cooperation; and the support of people in their home neighborhoods, we in fact can make progress. We will never eliminate sin in America; but if we work together, we certainly can limit it.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, tonight I would like to talk briefly about some concerns I have in the foreign operations appropriations bill, about some rumors that are circulating. The bill has passed the House and it has passed the Senate. As we go to conference, it is important that we address some of these concerns and we do not retreat on our anti-narcotics efforts. I know Americans are deeply concerned about the anti-terrorism as I am, but in the process of focusing on the terrorism question, we should not retreat from our war on drugs. As my friend and the Democratic ranking member of the Committee on Government Reform, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings), has said, we are in a chemical war in the United States. They have distributed illegal narcotics throughout our country. We are watching the Taliban to see if their heroin makes it over from Europe. They dominate the Europe and Asia markets, but clearly we have thousands of Americans dying of illegal drugs, which is a consistent problem. I want to talk first about an understanding that the Senate has been pushing to drop a drug certification. First, I do not think it should be dropped. I know countries do not like it. I met with our leaders and presidents in Mexico and throughout South America and in the Summit of the Americas. I know they do not like it. They do not like that it seems judgmental. But the truth is we have certification on human rights and we have certification on terrorism. Are we saying that we will drop all criteria for foreign aid and standards, including human rights and terrorism? We should not. It is important that we have an idea of which countries in the world are cooperating in our efforts against illegal narcotics, human rights and terrorism. And if we drop one because of judgment, all will be dropped. If we have drop none, that would be the better point. Now, let me draw in some particular things. Mexico and Colombia as well as Peru and Bolivia have in fact responded and been aggressive. Certification is not about whether you have been successful but whether the government involved is doing its best to try to cooperate with our government, and Mexico has undertaken incredible efforts in the last 4 years. Colombia has changed its government and has been fighting in the war ever since, as did Peru and Bolivia. What you need are a carrot and stick approach. In those countries when they elect leadership, they deserve to be rewarded with assistance. The point of being on the list is whether or not you get assistance. We do need to make some changes in the law. For example, we should not have to certify. The question should be is if you are in noncompliance and nonassistance then you should go on a list like in terrorism or human rights. In the drug certification question, in the drug list, it only applies to whether you are going to get aid. If you do not get aid you are not on the list. The second concern is the chopping down of the funds in the Andean Initiative. If we are to ever make progress, we cannot push in Plan Colombia. We have to look at the countries around Colombia. We cannot just focus on military. We have to focus on legal aid and economic aid. As we reduce the Andean Initiative, we will have wasted the money that is now going down into that area if we do not continue to follow through the strategy that we put in, which is we squeeze and put the pressure on the narco-traffickers in Colombia, but then as we start to move and as they start to transfer their planning and their trafficking to Ecuador to Peru and Bolivia and Brazil, we should not be backing off the efforts and spread the drug war to those countries. We need in the Andean Initiative to make sure that they are funded so our American drug addiction does not spread this terrible war to the countries around Colombia and, in fact, we can make progress. The drug issue is very similar to the terrorism question. Unless you can get it at its source, there is only so much we can do at the border, and once it gets across the border it is about impossible to tackle. We have worked with drug-free schools, drug-free communities, drug treatment, but in fact the closer we can get to the source the better. Just like in terrorism, once those terrorists come into our region and get across our borders, it is very hard to find them in a country that practices liberty. I hope in the Foreign Operations bill we do not back off with a new Democratic Senate and a new Republican President from our strong efforts against narcotics, either in the Andean Initiative or in the certification of nations who are not cooperating with the United States.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate and send best wishes to the Republic of China on Taiwan as they celebrate National Day. National Day marks the beginning of democracy in China when on October 10, 1911, a revolt erupted against the ruling Manchu dynasty. This revolt led to the establishment of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912. The ROC was established on Taiwan in 1949. The Republic of China on Taiwan has made great strides toward full democracy. Last year, voters in Taiwan elected Mr. Chen Shui-bian as the Tenth President of the Republic of China. This election marked, for the first time in Chinese history, a peaceful transfer of power and the first change in the ruling party in fifty years. The ROC thrives as multi-party democracy and furthermore, the people of Taiwan have proven that freedom and democracy are not just American ideals; they are universal principles that apply to every individual, to every community and to every nation. The ROC has also shown that hard work and ingenuity can create a strong world class economy. Taiwan has a fully developed market-oriented economy ranking as the world's 14th largest trading state and the United States' fifth-largest trading partner. It is Japan's second-largest export market, and a rich country possessing one of the world's largest foreign exchange reserves. The ROC has long been and continues to be an ally of the United States. The United States continues to benefit from our countries' bonds of friendship and cooperation, both economic and governmental. Unlike the United States, however, the world has not been able to fully benefit from all that Taiwan has to offer. The Republic of China has been kept from full participation in the world. It is not a member of the United Nations. It is not a member of the World Health Organization. It has not been allowed to participate in the Asia Pacific Economic Conference. By denying Taiwan membership in these organizations, the world community loses. On this day especially, it is my wish for the Republic of China on Taiwan that it be granted participation in these forums and for the world to fully embrace Taiwan and all it could bring to the global community. I congratulate the ROC on its National Day and wish it greater prosperity and achievement in the future. The Republic of China has always been our friend. And at this time, of all times, we need to be thankful for and loyal to our true friends.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, first before I discuss what I intend to discuss here for a few minutes, a matter of importance, the National Park System, let me make a brief comment on capital gains. Depending on when the effective date of the capital gains cut came in, it is unlikely that a whole lot of people in the stock market have capital gains. But we are also looking at real estate questions, at companies expanding. And the idea that somehow we will spend our way out of a recession, rather than grow our way out, is backwards. If we do not have real substantive incentives to get people back to work in all sectors of our economy, we are in deep trouble in this economy. Demonstration Fees Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about demonstration fees. This was supposedly a test to see whether it would relieve the financial pressures on our national parks. At some point, either this demonstration has worked or it has not. It is time to either make them permanent or remove them. In fact, we have had very few complaints, almost none at most parks. The fees range from $10 to $30 to enter the park, negligible compared to most entertainment in America. Fees for special services for those related costs, camping, back country expenses, are logical because the money goes directly to pay for those expenses. These fee dollars have helped supplement the park's complete projects efforts. For example, 6 percent in 1999 of Yellowstone Park's revenue were from the demonstrations fee. The less attended park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, netted about $300,000 a year for projects. In the year 2000 that included projects such as boundary fence repair, overlook trails, radio-collar elk monitoring, trailhead and interior trail signs throughout the park, new laser slide programs for a visitor center and an archeological exhibit at the Medora Visitor Center. Fee uses are diverse, visitor service usage intensive with these fees and all, help fund unmet park needs. The long-range source problem is that Congress and/or the President keep adding additional units to the National Park Service. This has been especially true or has actually been true since the foundation of the Park System and will always be true. It is only a question of degree. So the park service gets more units and their budget does not increase at the rate of responsibilities. So we have developed associations like the Rocky Mountain National Nature Association at the Rocky Mountain National Park or the Yosemite Fund at Yosemite National Park, plus concession fees to help meet these needs. The demonstration fees have also helped supplement these budgets. This has, in fact, led to an unofficial ``crown jewel'' approach. Former Park Director James Ridenhour argued that Congressional ``park- barreling'' was diluting the national vision and uniqueness of the National Park System. In fact, the major natural parks plus the major cultural parks have the strongest financial support groups and the most demo fees. People are voting with their own dollars by giving it through the funds, associations, and their park fees. These demonstration fees should be made permanent because they have become an essential part of preserving our most popular and beloved parks. But, ironically, the National Park pass is beginning to threaten the success story. This was further complicated by our so-called technical corrections to the National Parks' Omnibus Management Act. Each park has historically kept most of the demonstration fee collected at the gate. Because most projects require planning of multiple years, they plan ahead. Parks also get to keep a significant percentage of the national parks pass fees sold at that park. But as more parks put in demo fees and as demo fees have risen, those who visit multiple parks or visit one park frequently obviously purchase a pass. The more passes sold disadvantage the more remote parks. Demonstration fees not collected or passes not sold at those parks dramatically reduce the revenue at those parks which was, after all, the original purpose. Furthermore, the Technical Corrections Act set aside 15 percent of sales for administration and promotion of the National Parks Pass. Obviously we have administration costs, and that is a whole other subject. But why are we promoting the national parks pass? National sales and Internet take dollars from specific parks, draining the original intent. There is no data to suggest that promoting the pass in general increases usage of the parks. It just goes to the Washington office rather than the individual park. And even if it did increase usage, that is the wrong goal. Parks with demonstration fees which need a pass are generally nearly overcrowded in peak seasons already. Why would we want to have more people go to them? Every person who purchases a day pass at a park is given the option of purchasing a national parks pass, so no one is getting shortchanged. Furthermore, the cost of the national parks pass has become too low. As some parks go up to $30, we need to reevaluate the system. We need to look at making it $100 and there are two problems with that: Low-income families and local residents. A ZIP code criteria for a lower fee is a possibility. Although there is no philosophical defense for that, it may need to be a practical consideration. A refundable tax credit for low-income families would address the income problem. It would cost the government nothing because the people who laid out the $100 are just getting it back, likely would cost the parks little, but would eliminate the complaint that poor families could not afford the $100. If we do not address this problem, our park revenue is going to decline. It is something we must address for the sake of our national parks.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Chairman, I rise in support of this bill at a particularly critical time for our Nation. As chairman of the Drug Policy Subcommittee and one of the cochairs of the Speaker's Task Force for a Drug Free America, however, I wanted to express my desire to work with all interested parties with respect to critical counterdrug programs. My subcommittee and the Speaker's Task Force have watched with some concern as significant changes to the Defense Department's counterdrug program and organization have been considered. This is an issue which deserves careful attention, and I very much appreciate the Armed Service's Committee's clear statement of its support for a robust counterdrug role for the Department. I also appreciate the committee's stated intention to continue to direct careful and continuing attention to departmental reorganization initiatives in this area. Our counterdrug efforts are interagency efforts that require cooperation and coordination from agencies across the Federal Government. It is critical that the Defense Department not unilaterally withdraw key support in this area or conduct fundamental reorganizations without consulting with the Office of National Drug Control Policy and other affected Federal agencies. Any policy changes in this area must be considered in light of the overall national drug control strategy issued by ONDCP. I would also like to express my concern about a provision of this bill related to the Tethered Aerostat Radar System, or TARS. I intended to offer an amendment regarding this provision, but was not able to submit it due to the extremely early deadline set by the Rules Committee regarding the bill. The TARS system has been an important asset to our narcotics interdiction efforts along the southern border and the Caribbean and has been operated in cooperation between the Department of Defense and the U.S. Customs Service. TARS balloons provide a platform for radars to detect incoming aircraft attempting to smuggle drugs into the United States. The Defense Department has determined that the TARS system is no longer needed for national defense purposes, and has now shut down virtually all of the aerostats which previously operated in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. However, the Customs Service strongly believes, as do I, that these assets remain critical to our drug interdiction efforts. The Department and the Customs Service have been attempting to reach an agreement to transfer the system completely to the Customs Service. Because of the change in administration, those discussions have been stalled. The relevant political officials have only recently started work at DOD, and we still do not have a confirmed Commissioner of Customs. This bill contains a provision authorizing the Secretary of Defense to transfer the TARS system to the Customs Service, which I support. I am concerned, however, that the bill contains a specific deadline of the end of the next fiscal year by which the transfer must be completed or the system will effectively be shut down. Since Customs Service officials have not yet been able to resume discussions with the Defense Department on this matter, I do not believe that it is wise either to mandate a specific date for the resolution of this matter, or to pass legislation which would relieve the Defense Department of its responsibility to operate this system without providing for a mechanism to ensure that the counterdrug mission will continue. I ask the committee to consider removing this deadline in the final version of the legislation and look forward to working with all interested parties to reach an appropriate resolution of this matter.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, it is hard for us, as we have been in one of centers of the firestorm, to react emotionally as we have tried to deal with this issue with our staff. We can see the pictures like other Americans. But last night, when I went home to my apartment and actually could look out the window and see the smoke from the Pentagon across the interstate and smell the smoke in my apartment, it became a little more real. Until the Republican Study Committee organized this first group of Members to go over this afternoon and we were standing there at the site, we thought that it is just a small measure of what they must feel in New York. The ability to thank our workers who are strained, who are stressed, who are now going in trying to find the bodies, the dads and the moms and the brothers and the sisters of Americans who have been brutally assassinated by terrorists and to talk about how in their offices now they have the names and how they are targeting where they are going to go in and try to find them. The building is still burning in some parts as they try to find the black box. The men were trying to figure out whether the structure was safe for them to go in. Yet, if they do not go in soon, they cannot get the black box out and this holds valuable information. So time is of the essence. We wanted to personally thank, in our small way, those Americans so dedicated and make it clear to anybody around the world that this is a Nation of love but also a Nation that is angry. This is a Nation that is very passionate and cares but also wants some answers and some results. Our heart goes out to them; and I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), the leader of the Republican Study Committee, for organizing this because it was an experience that many of us will never forget.

Mr. SOUDER

Mr. SOUDER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 2291.