Jan Schakowsky

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as cosponsor of H.R. 2567. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Walden of Oregon.) Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Illinois?

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, today I'm introducing the Immigrant Victims of Violence Protection Act because there is a perverse incentive in U.S. law for immigrant women to stay with their abusive spouses in order to preserve their immigration status. My legislation will help immigrant women who need to leave their abusive spouses by preventing their deportation and providing them access to work permits and legal and social services. Violence against women is a profound and extremely pervasive problem, striking across economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and across all age groups. If we are to stop violence against women, all victims need protection and assistance without regard to their immigration status. Escaping domestic violence can be especially difficult for immigrant women and their children. The threat of deportation, cultural and language barriers, lack of a work permit and limited access to legal and social services may make immigrant victims of domestic violence more dependent on their abusive spouses. That is why including the Immigrant Victims of Violence Protection Act as part of VAWA reauthorization is essential. My legislation would help immigrant victims in my district and across the country escape from violent and abusive households. Battered immigrant women deserve an escape from abuse that protects their rights and keeps them united with their children. Today this House has a chance to fight against violence against women and protect all immigrant victims of violence. I urge every Member in this House to join this fight.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my great disappointment about the fact that the Republican majority has refused to allow Representative Edwards the opportunity to offer his bill to provide $1.5 billion in emergency funding for veterans health care. Instead, we are being asked tonight to vote up or down on a bill that will provide only part of the funds that are desperately needed to provide essential care to those who served our country so well. Full funding is critically needed by the Veterans' Administration to overcome its massive budget shortfall caused by the Bush Administration's war in Iraq and the Republicans' shameful budget. Last Friday, the Washington Post reported that the Bush Administration finally acknowledged that it is short $1 billion for covering current needs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, despite repeated efforts by House Democrats to adequately fund VA healthcare. Even that admission is likely to be short of the mark. Earlier today, the Chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee reiterated that the Senate would quickly pass a $1.5 billion emergency supplemental if the House would first approve the measure. Unfortunately, the Republican majority has offered a bill that provides only $975 million, and then denied us the opportunity to offer an amendment to increase that level. To shortchange our veterans during a time of war is not only shocking, it is greatly disrespectful to the brave men and women who have volunteered their service to defend our country. The shortfall that the VA is experiencing has resulted in some VA medical facilities no longer scheduling appointments for veterans, others not filling vacancies of medical and nursing staff, and others having to close operating rooms or not replace basic medical equipment, such as hospital beds. Because of the Republicans' refusal to provide sufficient funding, many of the 50,000 veterans who are currently waiting in line for medical appointments will be forced to continue their wait. It is shameful that the Republicans in Congress have once again failed our veterans. It is apparent that the Republicans do not represent the priorities of the American people. At a time of war, Americans want the Congress to offer bipartisan support and services for our veterans and their families. They do not want us to shortchange military families and they certainly believe that taking care of our Nation's veterans should be a higher priority than providing tax breaks for millionaires. The Republicans should have done the right thing and worked with the Democrats on this nonpartisan issue.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time and for his leadership on this important issue. I rise in strong support of the McGovern-McCollum-Moore amendment to cut $100 million from the Andean counterdrug initiative account, which, by the way, still leaves $634.5 million in the account. I am not against helping create a more peaceful nation for the people of Colombia, and of course we want to reduce the flow of drugs to this country and the use of them by Americans, but I do not support throwing good money after bad in the quagmire that is our Colombia policy. I wanted to read from an article today in the L.A. Times written by Sonni Efron, the headline being ``Drug War Fails to Dent U.S. Supply.'' ``The Bush administration and congressional allies are gearing up to renew a plan for drug eradication in Latin America despite some grim news. The $5.4 billion spent on the plan since 2000 has made no dent in the availability of cocaine on American streets, and prices are at all- time lows. United Nations figures released this month show that coca cultivation in the Andean region increased by 2 percent in 2004 as declines in Colombia were swamped by massive increases in Peru and Bolivia. And the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said last week that the antidrug effort has had 'no effect' on the price or purity of drugs in the United States. The findings have fueled skepticism in Congress where conservative groups have joined efforts to lobby against continued funding.'' Let me underscore that: ``Conservative groups have joined efforts to lobby against continued funding. The National Taxpayers Union calls the antidrug program a 'boondoggle.' '' That is from The L.A. Times. And the policy of fumigation is not only ineffective, but it is inhumane. The majority of small farm families whose crops are sprayed do not receive assistance to transition to food crops from either the Colombian or the U.S. Governments. They are given no incentive to change their behavior, no alternative to make a living that will help them survive. There are areas in Colombia where massive spraying is occurring and little or no development aid is provided. Even legal crops in those areas are killed. They are subsistence crops, and there is nothing given to replace that loss for those families. This is inhumane and it is also remarkably ineffective. Sixty-two percent of the coca fields detected by the U.N. in Colombia in 2004 were new; evidence that fumigation, in the absence of alternatives, is not moving farmers away from planting coca. If we want a long-term and effective plan, it has to be a new one. It is not enough to send a report to our constituents each year and detail how much we are spending to go fight drugs. And it is not a real success when we reduce coca in one country while cultivation soars in another. We need to show them results, and this plan has provided none. So if you truly care, you are going to support the McGovern-McCollum- Moore amendment and send a message that we need a new approach.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. 295. Staff Sergeant David J. Weisenburg 296. Lance Corporal Cesar F. Machado-Olmos 297. Lance Corporal Michael J. Halal 298. Lance Corporal Dominic C. Brown 299. Staff Sergeant Guy Stanley Hagy, Jr. 300. Sergeant Carl Thomas 301. Lance Corporal Mathew D. Puckett 302. Corporal Adrian V. Soltau 303. Corporal Jaygee Ngirmidol Meluat 304. Sergeant Jacob H. Demand 305. Major Kevin M. Shea 306. First Lieutenant Tyler Hall Brown 307. Lance Corporal Drew M. Uhles 308. Lance Corporal Gregory C. Howman 309. First Lieutenant Andrew K. Stern 310. Corporal Steven A. Rintamaki 311. Corporal Christopher S. Ebert 312. Sergeant Thomas Chad Rosenbaum 313. Private First Class James W. Price 314. Sergeant Brandon E. Adams 315. Specialist Joshua J. Henry 316. Lance Corporal Steven C. T. Cates 317. Sergeant Foster L. Harrington 318. Private First Class Nathan E. Stahl 319. Staff Sergeant Lance J. Koenig 320. Private First Class Adam J. Harris 321. Sergeant Skipper Soram 322. Sergeant Benjamin K. Smith 323. Lance Corporal Aaron Boyles 324. Lance Corporal Ramon Mateo 325. Sergeant Timothy Folmar 326. Second Lieutenant Ryan Leduc 327. Specialist David W. Johnson 328. Specialist Clifford L. Moxley, Jr. 329. Specialist Robert Oliver Unruh 330. Captain Eric L. Allton 331. Specialist Gregory A. Cox 332. Sergeant First Class Joselito O. Villanueva 333. Private First Class Kenneth L. Sickels 334. Sergeant Tyler D. Prewitt 335. Private First Class Joshua K. Titcomb 336. Staff Sergeant Mike A. Dennie 337. Specialist Rodney A. Jones 338. Staff Sergeant Darren J. Cunningham 339. Specialist Allen Nolan 340. Sergeant Michael A. Uvanni 341. Sergeant Jack Taft Hennessy 342. Sergeant Christopher S. Potts 343. Sergeant Russell L. Collier 344. Staff Sergeant James L. Pettaway, Jr. 345. Staff Sergeant Richard L. Morgan, Jr. 346. Specialist Jessica L. Cawvey 347. Private Jeungjin Na ``Nikky'' Kim 348. Specialist Morgen N. Jacobs 349. Staff Sergeant Michael S. Voss 350. Sergeant Andrew W. Brown 351. Private First Class Andrew Halverson 352. Private Carson J. Ramsey 353. Private First Class James E. Prevete 354. Sergeant Pamela G. Osbourne 355. Private First Class Anthony W. Monroe 356. Staff Sergeant Michael Lee Burbank 357. Private First Class Aaron J. Rusin 358. Private First Class Oscar A. Martinez 359. Corporal Ian T. Zook 360. Specialist Christopher A. Merville 361. Lance Corporal Daniel R. Wyatt 362. Captain Dennis L. Pintor 363. Specialist Michael S. Weger 364. Specialist Jaime Moreno 365. Specialist Jeremy F. Regnier 366. Lieutenant Colonel Mark P. Phelan 367. Major Charles R. Soltes, Jr. 368. Second Lieutenant Paul M. Felsberg 369. Lance Corporal Victor A. Gonzalez 370. Specialist Ronald W. Baker 371. Staff Sergeant Omer T. Hawkins II 372. Specialist Bradley S. Beard 373. Private First Class Mark A. Barbret 374. Specialist Josiah H. Vandertulip 375. Private David L. Waters 376. Specialist Alan J. Burgess 377. Corporal William I. Salazar 378. Specialist Jonathan J. Santos

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I rise today, with the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Crowley), to offer an amendment that would protect the retirement security of dedicated United Airlines employees and retirees who support, and I want to underscore that, who support our amendment. Our amendment would stop the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation from taking over United's four pension plans in one fell swoop. Our amendment would give Congress a chance to work out a better solution than pension termination. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment because the threat to United's employees is real. This is not a straight hand-off from United to the PBGC. Although United's pension liability is $9.8 billion, the PBGC is only assuming $6.6 billion of the debt to United workers. The takeover of the plans will result in pension benefit cuts averaging 25 to 50 percent, a loss of $3.2 billion, for men and women who have worked for years with the promise of a secure pension. And it is on top of the $3 billion in concessions United employees already made. We are on the cusp of a pension crisis in this country. The PBGC, without United, has a $23 billion deficit, and other companies are waiting in line to dump their pension benefits. I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, at a time when the Bush administration continues to paint a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq, Congress should really be investigating why exactly the administration is misleading both the American public and Members of this institution. While most Republicans in this Chamber continue to take the Bush administration's rhetoric as fact, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska states in this week's U.S. News and World Report: ``The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along.'' That is a Republican Senator. It would be nice if other Republicans would follow suit. For some reason Republicans think they are supporting troops in Iraq if they remain silent about what is going on there. Are Republicans supporting our troops when they refuse to question misleading statements like that from Vice President Cheney that the Iraqi insurgents are in their ``last throes''? Are Republicans supporting our troops when they refuse to support investigation into prisoner abuse scandals, scandals that many, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell, believe are harming both our reputation and our troops? Silence is not the best way to help our troops.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Madam Speaker, the Bush administration and Republican leaders are engaged in a pathetic attempt to make Senator Dick Durbin's condemnation of the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay an issue. As a result of the revelations of conditions at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, the Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, the Republicans owe the American people, our soldiers, and veterans an apology for undermining American values such as the rule of law, for putting our troops at greater risk around the world, and for cutting veterans health benefits when they come home, and failing to provide our troops the equipment they need to protect themselves on the battlefield. Clearly the Republicans are reading the polls and watching their approval as well as the approval for the misguided war plummet. So in a desperate attempt to shift the blame, they want to shoot the messenger. Everyone knows what Senator Durbin meant, and he was right. The United States of America stands for the rule of law, not for torture. It is this administration and the Republican leaders, certainly not our soldiers and not Senator Durbin, who has tarnished the image of our great country.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to this restrictive rule. The gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) offered a reasonable amendment, which was rejected by the Rules Committee, that would have put the House on record in support of a bipartisan, independent investigation into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the facility at Guantanamo Bay. Because there are known cases of abuse, and there are more questions than answers about the extent of abuse on people held by or for the United States, we need to shine a very bright light on detainee treatment. Only when we know the full scale of the problem will we be able to stop, prevent, and correct any wrongs that have been done in our country's name. And if it is true, as Vice President Cheney says, that the prisoners are peddling lies, then let us investigate prisoner treatment so that we have evidence and not just assertions. The United States should be the standard bearer of democracy, freedom and human rights throughout the world. However, it has been over a year since the story broke about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and we have yet to conduct a through independent investigation. Opening the door to an independent investigation would be a major step toward returning our country's standing as a moral leader. And to those who would try to justify what we do by saying, well, it is not as bad as those unspeakable beheadings or other things, well, I should certainly hope not, because we are not like them. We are better than them. We are the United States of America. And now, those who call on our country to uphold the rule of law and who reject becoming debased ourselves by conducting torture, they become the object of relentless criticism. Those patriots who want to stand up to our values and our belief in the rule of law, we are a proud and a great Nation blessed with immense freedom and with military personnel who proudly defend us. We should not fear the truth; we should demand it with an independent investigation.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) so much for the opportunity to join the gentleman tonight, and thank the gentleman for his leadership. As I have said, I have learned a lot from the gentleman. Actually wrote the book on trade agreements called the Myths of Free Trade. You can get it at a book store. If they do not have it, order it. It is a good read and educational. What we are seeing right now is a growing bipartisan consensus that CAFTA is not a good idea. I realize there are all kinds of pressures going on on the side to get Members to vote for it, and I think the reason is very simple. Why do we have trade agreements? Well, of course, we have now an increasing global economy. That is inevitable. It is going to happen as the world gets smaller, because of technology, because of our capacity to trade with each other across borders, and that is a good thing. But we are at a point now where we have to decide what are the beneficiaries, who are going to be the winners and the losers of this international trade. Clearly, we are talking about businesses being able to sell their products and import products and to set a level playing field, but we want to make sure that it is not just multinational corporations, the huge companies that benefit from this global marketplace, but that it is consumers, that it is workers, and that at the same time we are not damaging our environment. The thing about trade agreements is that it is possible to craft trade agreements that are not only good for business, but they are also good for workers and that they do take into consideration the environmental impact. We had a trade agreement with Jordan that, if we used it as kind of a template for how we write these agreements, could have been a model for how we do it around the world, but instead, this trade agreement speeds up or at least contributes to what we call the race to the bottom; that is, the kind of agreement that does nothing to lift the wages or the living standards of people in the Central American countries and the Dominican Republic, and makes it easier to actually lower the standards of workers here in the United States. It starts pushing down wages, pushing down working conditions, and that is not the kind of globalization we want, where the whole world is diminished in terms of its workers by these trade agreements. I went to Cuidad Juarez right across from El Paso at the 10th anniversary of NAFTA, and it was a trip that was organized in large part by the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur). When I went there, what I saw were workers living in the packing crates of the products that they were manufacturing, often American companies, who had crossed the border and set up shop there so that they could pay very low wages to Mexican workers who were benefiting hardly at all. I mean, yes, they wanted some kind of a job, but their standard of living was to live in packing crates without health care, without certainly any kind of a living wage. In fact, we saw children who looked pretty sick, but they could not afford to take them to the doctor or even to send their children to school. Is this the kind of world that we want to help create with these trade agreements? Is this good for the people in Mexico? Is this good for Americans? Because then those jobs go to places where there are low wages and where it is dangerous to try and organize for higher wages and higher benefits. It is dangerous to talk about unions. In our country, every 23 minutes a worker gets fired for trying to organize a union. In some of those places, you can get killed if you try to organize a union. It can be very, very dangerous. So the United States is the richest country in the history of the world. It could be a leader in saying we want to establish rules that lift all people, that make it possible for our workers to have a living wage here at home, to have our consumers be able to buy products from other countries where the people who produce them are not living in slave or near slave labor conditions. I feel bad because often it is posed, you are either for trade agreements or you are not; you are an isolationist; you do not want to. It is not that at all. We could craft an agreement. We could go back to the drawing board, and we could craft an agreement that would work for workers here and workers there, too.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) for yielding to me. I want to express my appreciation for all that he has done to draw attention to the plight of United employees and how what has been happening with them really reflects the larger looming pension crisis in our country. He has repeatedly called on Congress to protect defined benefit plans and to ensure that the rank and file workers have the same retirement security that executives with golden parachutes do. As he frequently says, ``What is good for the captain is good for the sailor.'' I thank him for his leadership and his fight for workers, and I really appreciate working with him on this important issue. As he knows, United Airlines, like so many other corporations, has exploited loopholes in the law to disguise the true financial standing of its pension funds. The company knowingly underfunded its pensions and hid the truth from its workers about their retirement security, all quite legally. The nearly $10 billion shortfall at United was only revealed when the company asked the bankruptcy court to terminate its pension plans and now the employees are the ones that are going to have to pay the price. These dedicated employees have had the rug swept out from under them, and their retirement security is in serious question through no fault of their own. United employees have tried to be responsible. They have tried to plan ahead. When they signed up for their jobs they believed they were making informed financial decisions for today and for their retirement. United offered luring packages of benefits, included defined benefit pensions, meaning employees were guaranteed a set figure for their retirement when their years of work for United Airlines were done, years down the road. Now, because United is using the bankruptcy court to back out of its pension agreements, United employees and retirees are being tossed into retirement without a parachute. Tens of thousands of the flight attendants and machinists that are affected are in Illinois, 10,000 of them. It seems now that the only ones who are making honestly informed decisions about what they were getting into were the executives like Chairman Glenn Tilton, who squirreled away his $4.5 million retirement fund in a trust that cannot be touched during bankruptcy proceedings. He made sure to protect his retirement package because he, like his employees, knows exactly how important planning ahead is. I would like to share a few stories from United employees in Illinois who, because they were being fiscally responsible, know exactly how losing their pensions will affect them. These are letters that came through the E-hearing, the on-line hearing that the gentleman and his committee held. This is the story of Michael Moore from Crystal Lake, Illinois. It is the other Michael Moore. He writes: ``I hope you have some time to hear from a small voice and on a quiet street in Illinois. I am a 54-year- old maintenance mechanic for United Airlines. Having 25 years for the company in today's world is a trick in itself. My wife and I have raised our four children and they are out building a life of their own. You work, you plan and you save for this point in your life, only to have lost it all. I have only 4 months until I was planning to retire and now I can't. I have lost $60,000 in the United Airlines employee stock option plan back in 2001, gave up a total 23 percent wages in the last few years, sold my home and now will lose my pension and health care. What is next? ``There has to be a better way. We can't just allow large corporations to just terminate pension plans. The pension plan is our deferred wages traded from our current wage to provide a retirement in the future, a legal contract. Now it is not worth the paper it was written on. ``I feel I am a perfect example of how Mr. Bush's Social Security plan will fail. As the employees of United continue to give and give and give, our top management make more and more. Something isn't right.'' If I could go on, I have a couple more. This is what Paula Carlson from Oak Lawn, Illinois, had to say: ``I have been a flight attendant for almost 20 years for United Airlines, and if my pension is terminated I will be paid as if I terminated my employment at 47, even if I continue to work and retire from United Airlines when I am 62. My retirement plans were for the full pension I was promised, a 401(k) and Social Security. Now I will have to live off of $400 monthly approximately from my pension, instead of $2,800 monthly. ``I can hardly contribute to my 401(k) due to pay cuts at United. I will be at poverty level and may have to be a burden on my son, who is only 16, but hopes will make a decent enough living to help me out. ``We have been deceived our whole lives about hard work paying off. The only ones paid off are the CEO and the board of directors. They come in with their guaranteed payoff and the company they have been hired to build or maintain can collapse right from under them, while the workers who built the companies lose everything and become a burden on their children and our society. What has happened to our country?'' Let me read one more. This is a good one. The following is Joseph Gillick's story. He is a flight attendant based out of Chicago, lives in Espyville, Pennsylvania: ``If you have traveled frequently on United Airlines during the last 13 years, chances are you have become familiar with my voice and face. I have worked as a flight attendant for United Airlines for 29-plus years. My name is Joseph Gillick, I am based in Chicago Illinois, and I am the safety video spokesperson seen on United flights worldwide. ``I submit United senior executive's bankruptcy strategy under the leadership of CEO Glenn Tilton is an affront to basic human values, financially wrong and unquestionably unpatriotic. ``If senior executives are successful in dumping pension obligations, forcing the PBGC to take responsibility, I will immediately lose 50 percent of my meager $1,100-a-month pension benefit. I am presently the primary caretaker of my 89-year-old mother. With ever-increasing health care and home care expense, my mother and myself are just two out of countless thousands of citizens who will be unquestionably harmed and placed in dire financial circumstances. ``No question United is operating under severe financial circumstances. Difficult decisions must be made. Corporate change must occur. Yet at the end of the day, will we be able to say all possible solutions were explored before allowing United executives to dump employee pension responsibilities?''

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, let me say one thing about that. It is not as if they are saying we want things to be exactly as we were promised when we came in. These employees have given up about $3 billion in benefits already.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I will submit for the Record an article in the New York Times entitled, ``Pension Loopholes Helped United Hide Troubles.'' The article, by Mary Williams Walsh, discusses loopholes in the current laws that allow corporations to grossly underfund their employees' pensions, and to do so legally. They use accounting tricks to give the appearance of healthy financial standing; and as Senator Grassley says, ``We saw similar practices and events at Enron but, unfortunately, this time it is perfectly legal.'' These companies keep the poor health of their pension funds hidden from the public until they decide to terminate them, as United Airlines currently is doing. United knowingly underfunded its pension fund as it faced bankruptcy, shielding from its workers the truth about their retirement futures. I would like to share two statements from hard-working people in Illinois who are personally affected by pension-accounting sleight of hand. These statements are from the more than 2,000 dedicated United Airlines employees and retirees who submitted testimony to the online hearing that the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) and I held highlighting the United pension crisis and clearly showed just how devastating losing one's retirement security can be. The first letter is from Joseph Krist, Jr., Schaumburg, Illinois: ``I am 68 years old and worked for United Airlines at O'Hare Field as an aircraft mechanic from September 1959 until October 2000. I was an aircraft mechanic in the United States Air Force from 1954 to 1958. ``My job at United Airlines was very challenging. We accomplished much work outside in all kinds of weather. In the winter months, if the hangars were full, the work was done outside with one man working while another would hold a heater on his hands. We worked with all kinds of hazardous fluids, which has given me and many of my fellow mechanics cancer and other medical problems. My oldest son was a mechanic for United for 11 years when he came down with leukemia and died 9 weeks later at the age of 34. ``Now that the pensions are being dropped by United Airlines, dumping it on the PBGC, we will be losing more of the money promised to us. I do not live high on the hog. We have two older cars and a 28-year-old house in Schaumburg, Illinois, which still carries a $124,000 mortgage on it. We presently have this house on the market, as we will not be able to afford the mortgage and the real estate taxes with the estimated reduction in our pension. How will we pay for the increased cost of gas and other living expenses in the years ahead? How will we pay for medical insurance, treatments, and prescriptions? ``The thousands of people and their families who are being hurt by allowing United Airlines to terminate our pensions will surely snowball and affect everyone in the country as more companies shirk their responsibilities. We need someone to support us and give the retirees who sacrificed and dedicated their lives to making this airline and country great the money they earned by the sweat of their brow.'' Another one from Karen Harvey-Kincaid of Streamwood, Illinois, and she writes to Congressman Miller: ``I have been a United flight attendant for 20\1/2\ years, never missing a trip, never being late for check-in. I have truly been the friendly skies. I am now 46 years old, not old enough to retire from United, and not young enough to start over at another company. The truth is I do not want to work anywhere but United. But will I be able to afford to work there? I am not talking about the financial toll this has taken on me. It's the emotional roller coaster they have put us through for the last 2\1/2\ years. I honestly believe my health, sleeping, and eating habits have all suffered. ``I am now divorced after 12 years of marriage. I didn't take half of my husband's pension because I wanted to keep mine. If I only would have known. I lie in bed at night worrying if I will lose my house, thinking how many more trips can I pick up this month, knowing that I am paid $9 per hour less, paying for all of my benefits, losing thousands in vacation pay, and now, a reduced pension. ``I implore you to use this letter as part of your Congressional Record. I have tears in my eyes as I write this. I got up at 4:15 a.m. and walked into my house at 7:21 p.m. tonight, after going to San Francisco and back. I welcomed and made happy all 694 passengers today. I only wish I was welcomed and happy at work.'' That is again from Karen Harvey-Kincaid from Streamwood, Illinois, one of the more than 2,000 people who wrote to tell their personal stories, how they are being affected by the loss of their pensions. This may only be the beginning, Mr. Speaker, of what we hope will not be the opening of a floodgate of companies that want to escape their pension responsibilities. [From the New York Times, Jun. 7, 2005.] Pension Loopholes Helped United Hide Troubles (By Mary Williams Walsh) Loopholes in the federal pension law allowed United Airlines to treat its pension fund as solid for years, when in fact it was dangerously weakening, according to a new analysis by the agency that guarantees pensions. That analysis is scheduled to be presented at a Senate Finance Committee hearing today. A second report, by the comptroller general, found that most companies that operate pension funds are using the same loopholes. Those loopholes give companies ways--all perfectly legal--to make their pension plans look healthier than they really are, reducing the amount of money the companies must contribute. United's pension fund failure is now the biggest since the government began guaranteeing pensions 30 years ago. Most companies are able to keep their pension plans going, despite the chronic, hidden weakness, because they are generating enough cash to meet their obligations to current retirees. Only when a company files for bankruptcy, as United did in December 2002, and terminates its pension plan, as United has, does the government step in and make the plan's true economic condition apparent. ``We saw similar practices and events at Enron, but unfortunately, this time it's perfectly legal,'' said Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the finance committee. He said he had scheduled today's hearing because he wanted to find ways to keep pension disasters like the $10 billion failure at United from happening at other companies. ``The rules are full of serious holes that need to be fixed as soon as possible,'' Senator Grassley said. ``No on should make the mistake that this is an airline-only problem. The reality is that companies everywhere have used the same arcane pension-funding rules'' to shrink their contributions. Many analysts believe that the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation will one day require a bailout because it has been forced to pick up a number of large failed private pension plans. The more big defaults there are in the meantime, the more the eventual bailout will cost. The federal pension law was enacted in 1974 after a number of scandals in which companies went bankrupt and their workers discovered there was little or nothing set aside to pay the pensions they had been promised. The law was supposed to make pension failures a thing of the past by requiring companies to set aside money in advance--enough each year to pay the benefits the work force earned that year. The law also required that if a pension fund got into trouble, its sponsor was to quickly pump in more money, warn its employees about the problem and pay higher premiums to the federal pension insurance program. United did none of those things, even as its pension fund withered, because its calculations were making the fund look healthy. The fund is made up of four individual plans for various groups of employees. United's calculations followed the letter of the law until July 2004, when the airline announced that it owed $72.4 million to its pension fund but would not make the contribution. By that time, the company had filed for bankruptcy protection. The $72.4 million would have done little good by then, because the pension guaranty agency told the bankruptcy court that the pension fund had a shortfall of $8.3 billion. In its analysis, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation found that in 2002, when United was determining how much it had to contribute to its four plans, it calculated that the plans for its pilots and its mechanics each had more money than needed. It further calculated that the plans for its flight attendants and its managerial workers were close to being fully funded, and did not need any special attention. On the basis of those calculations, United, a unit of the UAL Corporation, made no pension contributions that year. Those numbers are on file with the Labor Department. But they do not square with the pension numbers United provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That agency requires companies to calculate pension values in a different way. At United, that method showed the four pension plans to be only 50 percent funded; that is, they had only half as much money as they needed to make good on United's promises to its workers. Pension calculations done for S.E.C. filings have nothing to do with the rules for calculating contributions. But had United been required to use the S.E.C. pension numbers to determine its contribution that year, it would have had to pump money into the plans quickly. The pension law requires companies to make special catch-up contributions any time their pension funds fall below an 80 percent funded level, or even when they fall below 90 percent funded, if they stay at those levels for several years. A plan that was only 50 percent funded would be considered a real emergency. But the law allowed United to say its pension plans were fully funded, or nearly so, and, therefore, no more money was needed. United's employees were not informed that anything was amiss, as the law requires of badly weakened plans. Nor did United have to pay the higher premiums to the pension guaranty agency that the law expects. The discrepancy between a company's pension report to the S.E.C. and the Labor Department is but one example of the problems. At today's Senate hearing, David M. Walker, the comptroller general, is expected to testify that companies have so many ways of tweaking their pension calculations that they almost never have to make the special catch-up contributions that Congress required of plans that are slipping. A recent study by the Government Accountability Office, which Mr. Walker runs, examined eight years of records for the nation's 100 largest pension funds, and found that only six plans in the entire group ever had to pay the special contributions in that period. For two of the plans, it was already too late by the time the special contributions came due. Years of insufficient contributions had taken their toll, and those plans collapsed and were taken over by the government. The G.A.O. study attributes some of the misleading pension math to the use of inappropriate actuarial assumptions in projections and some to a process called ``smoothing,'' in which actuaries attempt to eliminate short-term volatility by spreading changes over several years. But the pension agency's analysis of United's case shows that the rules for tracking contributions made in prior years have also caused a great deal of trouble. The rules allow companies that put in more than the required minimum in any given year to keep the excess amount on their books and to use it to offset their required contributions in years when cash is tight. These excess contributions from the past are kept in a running tab called a credit balance. The trouble is that at United, as at many companies, money contributed in the 1990's was invested in assets that lost value during the bear market that began in 2000. But the pension rules allow companies not only to keep their pension credit balances on the books at the original amount, but they are even permitted to allow their credit balances to compound in value at some interest rate determined by the plan's actuary. When United's calculations finally began to show that contributions were quickly needed, in 2003, the airline was able to satisfy the requirement with just a small amount of cash and lots of bookkeeping entries from its credit balance. Senator Grassley said he believed many companies were ``booking phony investment gains to hide that workers' pensions are going down the tubes.'' He said he hoped the hearing would lead to legislation that would eliminate the loopholes that made such maneuvers possible. In a later session today, the finance committee is scheduled to hear from executives of some of the major airlines, and from the leaders of some of the unions for airline employees.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I stand today in strong support of the bipartisan Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005. One of the few places this is really an extremely controversial bill is right here because the majority of Americans strongly support embryonic stem cell research. They want the Federal Government to fund research that is critical for some 128 million Americans who suffer from juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, spinal cord injuries, ALS, and other diseases. Stem cell research is a medical issue, one that should and fortunately does transcend political lines and instead focuses on human lives. One such life is that of Clara Livingston, a 9-year-old girl with diabetes. During her testimony last week in a hearing in Chicago, Clara said, ``There are things I don't like about diabetes. I have to put a one-inch needle into my skin to connect my insulin pump. I don't like pricks or shots. I don't like having high blood sugar and not being able to eat. I don't like going low and fainting.'' She continued, ``I would like to find a cure because finding a cure will help make America and the rest of the world not worry about diabetes.'' Most scientists agree that embryonic stem cell research offers the greatest hope to patients like Clara. There are limitations on the usefulness of adult stem cells when compared to embryonic stem cells. For example, there are no adult stem cells in the pancreas. That means that adult stem cell research will be inadequate in helping Clara or any other patients who are patients hoping for a cure for diabetes. While it is important to continue working with adult stem cells, it is also vital to fund the research funding embryonic stem cells. We do a grave disservice to millions of children and adults living with serious illness, as well as the millions who will develop these conditions in the future, by prohibiting promising research. This bill will lift these arbitrary restrictions and permit funding of cell lines regardless of where they were created. Federal funding guidelines assure that research will meet ethical standards and allow advancements to be made as quickly as possible. As Steven Teitelbaum of Washington University in St. Louis said, ``This is not a contest between adult and embryonic stem cells. This is a contest between us as a society and disease.'' I hope my colleagues will vote ``yes'' on this bipartisan legislation.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today as a cosponsor and in support of a strong consumer and privacy protection bill, H.R. 29, the Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act, or the SPY ACT. I want to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), and the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) for their work on the SPY ACT. I would like first to commend the manner in which this bill was handled. The process was thorough, open to input and willing to address each other's concerns; and, most importantly, the work was organized around the goal of creating a strong and effective consumer protection bill. I believe we have accomplished our goal. Spyware is software that has tracking capabilities so pervasive that it can record every keystroke computer users enter. It can take pictures of personal computer screens. It can snatch personal information from consumers' hard drives. People can see their bank account numbers, passwords, and other personal information stolen because they quite innocently went to a bad Web site or clicked a misleading agreement. Spyware is a serious threat to consumer privacy and potentially a powerful tool for identity theft, a serious crime that is on the rise. Spyware is a nonpartisan issue. As we learned last year while not yet a household word, spyware is a household phenomenon. America Online recently released a study which found that 80 percent of families with broadband access had spyware on their computers. Earthlink found that in 3 million scans of computers, there was an average of 26 instances of spyware on each and every computer. With those kinds of numbers, spyware will soon be a part of everyone's vocabulary. Technological advances have brought ``the world into our homes,'' and the purveyors of spyware have interpreted that as an open door to come in whenever they want, whether invited or not. Still, because the software does have shady purposes, it usually comes in through the back door of consumers' computers. Because consumers do not know that spyware is on their computers, people are still surprised to hear about it. They experience the noticeable effects of the software, impossibly slow computers, hijacked home pages, unstoppable pop-ups, but they do not know where their problems are coming from or what is going on behind the scenes. For instance, someone's computer may be sluggish because she may unwittingly have downloaded a program that records every key stroke entered and passes it on to a third party who wants to steal bank account numbers and passwords. The explosion of pop-up ads may be because a program has been tracking a consumer's every move on the Web. Serious privacy and security issues are at stake here. Spyware could be a major contributor to the fact that identity theft is the fastest-growing financial crime today. The time has come for a bill like the Spy Act. The gentleman from Texas (Chairman Barton) very clearly outlined the specific provisions of the bill, but it bears briefly repeating. The Spy Act ensures that consumers are protected from the truly bad acts and actors while also protecting proconsumer functions of the software. It prohibits indefensible uses of the software like keystroke logging or the copying of every keystroke entered. Additionally, it gives the consumer the choice to opt in to the installation or activation of information collection programs on their computers, but only when they know exactly what information will be collected and what will be done with it. Furthermore, the Spy Act gives the Federal Trade Commission the power it needs on top of laws already in place to pursue deceptive uses of the software. The Spy Act puts the control of computers and privacy back in consumers' hands, and I am very glad I was a part of the process that brought this bill to the floor today. So, again, I thank my colleagues for their work on this proconsumer, proprivacy, and bipartisan legislation, and I urge all Members to support it. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I can only heartily agree with all that has been said. Let me just add a few words. Spyware has changed the computing experience for so many people. Increasingly, consumers are finding that their home Web pages are changed or that their computers are sluggish; and they get, as I said, the pop-up ads that will not go away no matter how many times they try to close them. They find software in their computer they did not install and they cannot uninstall; and their computers are no longer their own, and they cannot figure out why. And consumers tend to blame viruses on their old computer or their Internet service providers, but because spyware is bundled with software people do want to download or because it is drive-by downloaded from unknowingly visiting the wrong Web site, people do not know that in many cases the real cause of their headaches is spyware. And some of the above examples can be written off as merely annoying. Spyware is so much more than merely annoying, as we have pointed out, and there are these serious privacy and security issues at stake. These problems of slow computers and pop-up ads are just symptoms of the real trouble spyware can cause. Again, the software is so resourceful that it can snatch personal information from computer hard drives and track every Web site visited and log every keystroke entered. Spyware is a serious threat to consumer privacy and potentially a powerful tool for identity theft, a serious crime on the rise. As the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, reports, in 2003 there were nearly 10 million Americans victimized by identity theft. Over the past 5 years, there have been 27 million victims, and my State of Illinois is in the top 10 for identity theft occurrences. On-line predators, like spyware transmitters, provide an easy access to personally identifiable information that can be used to steal people's identities and put them at greater risk of being financially and otherwise victimized. So this is now the time, once again, for the House to pass this important bipartisan legislation. And I too want to thank all of the leaders who have been involved in bringing this bill once again to the floor. I want to particularly thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), whose statement, though he could not be here today, will be in the Record, and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns), who has worked on this legislation from the very beginning with the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono). And I want to thank the staff on our side, Diane Beedle and Consuela Washington, and the Republican staff for their hours of work. I want to join the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Stearns) in urging our Senate colleagues to move on this very important legislation. It is time that we not only pass it in the House, but that we make it the law of the land, and I look forward to seeing that happen in the near future. I thank my colleagues for the opportunity to work with all of them. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention to the first annual National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day today, May 19, 2005. This day seeks to raise awareness among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders about the devastating impact of HIV/ AIDS on their community and to highlight AIDS prevention and treatment opportunities. AIDS has claimed the lives of over 20 million people worldwide since it was first diagnosed in 1981, and the numbers continue to grow at an alarming rate. An estimated 5,500 of 750,000 Americans who face the perils of AIDS today are Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, but with the fastest-growing racial/ethnic population in the nation, this number is increasing at a staggering rate. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of AA/PIs living with AIDS has increased 10 percent annually over the past five years. Many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders living with HIV/AIDS too often do not take the steps necessary to prevent and combat the disease due to cultural stigmas around issues of sex, sexuality, and drug use. Other obstacles include the fact that nearly 40 percent of AA/PIs have limited English proficiency and 13 percent live below the federal poverty line. Nearly one in five are uninsured, and many others lack adequate health insurance. That is why this day is immensely important in communicating the facts and preventative practices regarding HIV/ AIDS. With increased national awareness and improved communication, HIV/AIDS information will become more widely available and more effective in crossing the social, linguistic, and economic barriers this population faces. It is also critically important that we expand the budgets of the CDC, especially the Office of Minority Health and the National Institutes of Health, and reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act to ensure that HIV/AIDS is addressed seriously and with adequate resources. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders face a serious health threat, and they are just one segment of the American population which battles this deadly disease on a daily basis. Our financial support is critical in providing information, medicine, care, and ultimately a cure for this debilitating disease. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in acknowledging the first National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and working to enact healthcare solutions to the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, Senate Republicans are preparing to blow up 200 years of tradition in the U.S. Senate, abusing their power in order to force through a few judges who have been unable to earn a bipartisan consensus for their lifetime judicial appointments. Democrats have helped confirm 95 percent of President Bush's judicial nominees. The few that our Democratic colleagues in the Senate have opposed are those who have had serious questions raised about their independence, fairness, and record on issues involving our most vital rights. Republicans are willing to attack the constitutional system of checks and balances and change the rules of the Senate in the middle of the game, all of this for seven extreme judges. Senate Republicans know full well the impact their nuclear option will have on the bipartisanship that is necessary for a productive and effective Senate, but they simply do not care. If Senate Republicans are successful at abolishing the rights of the minority, what is next?

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. As the gentleman remembers, that woman had children who she could not afford to send to school. It costs money to send them to school, a modest amount of money by our standards but out of reach for her because she does not make the kind of income that even would allow her children to go to school or have adequate health care. Is that the point of a free trade agreement? The United States should and could lead the world by example through a trade policy that improves the lives of individuals and not just adds to the profits of the major corporations. We could and should benefit workers here in the United States and create and sustain jobs that help small- and middle-sized and family-owned businesses grow. And D.R. CAFTA, Dominican Republic CAFTA, is not going to accomplish those goals for us here, for our small companies, for our workers and is simply going to increase this race to the bottom so that, how cheap can we get labor? I wanted to make a point about, are we really looking for markets in these Central American countries? Do we really believe that we are going to find people who are going to be buying our products? The combined purchasing power of the Central American nations in CAFTA is the same as Columbus, Ohio, or New Haven, Connecticut. The average salary of a Nicaraguan worker is $2,300 a year, $191 a month. Are they going to buy that car that is made in Ohio or in Michigan?

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, if I could, it is bad enough I suppose that usually these workers are paid such low wages, but should those workers try to organize themselves into a union to try and stand up for better working conditions and better wages, we know that in those countries that human rights violations for people who want to form a union are rampant; and the problem with CAFTA is that it really does virtually nothing to protect those workers who want to organize. We hear in CAFTA, ostensibly it requires enforcement of the local labor laws, both that may exist in the country. Of course, those could change, but even then the penalties are very, very weak. Violations of core labor standards cannot be taken to dispute resolution, and the commitment to enforce domestic labor laws is subject to remedies weaker than those available for commercial dispute. So every time we put the rights of capital, the rights of intellectual property, the rights of the corporations up here and the rights of workers even to stand up for themselves to try and collectively bargain for better conditions or wages, and it is often at peril of their lives that they do that, not just job loss, but we find in many of those countries that it is very dangerous to be a labor organizer. You can find those people dead. The other thing is we spend a lot of time around here talking about illegal immigration; and, again, if you think about it in human terms, people do not generally want to leave their homeland. They would prefer to stay there, the place where they are born, where their families live, where their ancestors are, where they have roots. Why do they leave those countries to come to the United States, to risk crossing that river, risk crossing that border? It is because they cannot make a living. They cannot provide any kind of a decent life for their family, and they are willing to do anything to do that and so they come here. If we want to be able to protect our borders and to have good trade policies, then we have to look at things that will help to lift those workers in other countries so that they can prosper in their homelands.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I just want to tell the gentleman that I was visited by a group of religious leaders from CAFTA countries who said exactly what the gentleman said. They said, we know that in many cases our governments are supporting this policy, but we represent the interests of the people in our countries, our parishioners, the people who come to us every Sunday and during the week. And we know they are really suffering, and we know that this trade agreement is just going to be license to further exploit those people and their poverty, not lift them out of the poverty. And they were asking Members of Congress like myself to consider the people; and that is, the gentleman is right, we have to think about the faces. We have to think about the mothers and the fathers and the little children that suffer because of that and in our country, too, when those jobs are lost in our community.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to monopolize this conversation. I do feel so strongly that, as the greatest country on the face of the Earth, the wealthiest country, the country that has the capacity to create jobs, to help people, to lift our own people and people around the world, to help lift them out of poverty, to set a standard that would at least work towards that goal. What a shame that we have before us a trade agreement that, as the gentlewoman said, my sister, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), just a repeat of NAFTA, and we know the devastating results both here in the United States and in Mexico and in Canada, that it did not do anything for us. So I just am encouraged actually that we are seeing growing bipartisan opposition to this. Let us go back to the drawing board and come up with a real trade agreement that is going to achieve the goals that we want, that is going to be helpful to us and to our neighbors around the globe and certainly our closest neighbors here in Central America in the Dominican Republic.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), one of our best experts on trade. And in fact, the gentleman actually wrote the book, or at least a book on trade called ``Myths of Free Trade,'' a book I am happy to have and learn a lot from. And I am pleased to join all my colleagues. It is interesting that, so far anyway, those of us who are here tonight are from the Midwest where we have seen so many of our manufacturing jobs lost since the passage of NAFTA over 10 years ago. But, you know, I think as a people, as a Congress, certainly, we have to say why do we want free trade agreements? What is the purpose of trade agreements? I think all of us here think that we know that there now is a global marketplace, that the goal of economic integration, when done in the right way, is not only inevitable but can actually be desirable. The question is who benefits from it? What are, who are the winners and who are the losers? And what is CAFTA for? And, unfortunately, what we find is that the ordinary people of this country, and the ordinary people of the Central American countries now, the Dominican Republic and the Central American countries that are supposed to be part of CAFTA, it is the ordinary people, the everyday citizens, the hard-working people that are the losers, and the only ones who are the winners are corporations that really have no particular loyalty. They can pick up their capital, they can move their plants, as they did from Illinois. We lost about 100,000 jobs because of NAFTA. We saw a plant, a profitable plant, a Maytag plant, a nice manufacturing plant in Galesburg, Illinois, pick up and take with it over a thousand jobs. This was a plant that was actually making money. Why did it move? Because it could actually make more money by exploiting workers when they moved to Mexico. In a trip that was in part organized by my colleague, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), I had the privilege of going to Ciudad Juarez last year, a town that is really in the metropolitan area of El Paso, Texas, separated by the Rio Grande River. And on one side of the river you have got workers who are looking for good jobs to support their families; and on the other side of the river, we see people who are working in the plants for American companies. And what we saw were workers who were actually, some of them, actually living in the packing crates of the products that they were manufacturing for the companies, the American companies that took those good-paying jobs and went to Mexico.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, you can imagine a fairly mid-sized, kind of small-town community, when a major employer like that leaves town, it does not just impact that business or those workers. It resonates throughout the community in a very negative way, and it is really hard to recover from that. I want to say, just bringing a Wal-Mart to a community like that so you can buy really cheap products, is that our future in this country? That we will be able to buy imported goods? Flags made in China? T- shirts that are made for 12 cents? And that is not our future if we are going to continue to be a great country. So it hurt Galesburg. It is hurting communities all over our country.

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Chairman, I stand today in strong opposition to H.R. 1279, the so-called gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act. Despite its deceptive title, its primary purpose is to punish more young people as adults. This bill would expand the use of the death penalty, treat juveniles as adults and impose mandatory minimum sentences. The research conclusively shows that prosecuting young people as adults does not reduce youth crime. If Congress is serious about reducing youth violence, it should fund evidence-based programs that have proven effective. Federal prosecutors are already armed with the Continuing Criminal Enterprise, CCE, and Racketeer Influences and Corrupt Organization Act, RICO, statutes to combat gang crimes. This bill would unnecessarily federalize a host of crimes currently and competently handled by the states; penalize even non-violent crimes and misdemeanors as crimes of violence, including garden variety State offenses like resisting arrest; expand without reason the definition of criminal street gang; unwisely leave to the sole discretion of the government the unreviewable decision to try juveniles as adults; impose unduly harsh and discriminatory mandatory minimum sentences; and expand the use of the federal death penalty to new offenses. I agree that gang violence and youth crimes are serious concerns today. Unfortunately, this bill does nothing in the way of jobs or education for at-risk youth. Instead, this bill would lock up young people in adult prisons and take away judges' discretion to review on a case-by-case basis crimes committed by youth. Research shows that young people who are prosecuted as adults are more likely to commit a greater number of crimes upon release than youth who go through the juvenile justice system. Locking young people up in adult prisons will actually compromise public safety. We know what works to prevent violent crime. Research demonstrates the effectiveness of focused family interventions such as family therapy and multidimensional treatment foster care. Certain school- based interventions such as the Bullying Prevention Program and the Project Towards No Drug Abuse, and careful monitoring programs such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America have also proven effective. Instead of funding these programs whose empirical effectiveness can be demonstrated, supporters of this bill insist upon approaches that lack any evidence of actually deterring and reducing violent youth crime. Furthermore, state juvenile justice systems are more appropriate and effective means for addressing youth offenses. Studies have shown that comprehensive, locally tailored strategies are the most effective in preventing gang and youth violence. Existing state legislation is more than adequate to comprehensively address youth violence--increased federalization of juvenile crime is not the answer. The Judicial Conference of the United States, child advocacy groups, criminal justice groups, industry and business-oriented groups, religious, human rights and civil rights organizations all oppose this bill. It is the responsibility of Congress to the young people of this nation and to all citizens to ensure public safety. I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 1279 because it would only exacerbate youth violence in the United States.