Lee Terry

Mr. TERRY

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Kennedy-Hooley Amendment to H.R. 2601. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 90 percent of the meth available in Nebraska is trafficked from superlabs operated by drug cartels in Mexico, California, and the southwestern states. Local law enforcement officers face that challenge of dismantling home-based meth labs while combating the flow of meth from international drug trafficking. The Kennedy-Hooley amendment will help give local law enforcement officers the tools they need to combat meth. It requires the U.S. State Department to report and certify that countries heavily involved in the import or export of pseudoephedrine--a key meth ingredient--are cooperating with local law enforcement agencies to prevent its misuse and diversion. Countries that do not comply would be subject to consequences under the Foreign Assistance Act. In Omaha, Nebraska, seven of nine law enforcement jurisdictions identify meth as the drug that most contributes to violent crime. Omaha policemen tell me that meth is now the drug of choice for gangs in North Omaha, replacing crack cocaine and heroin. Sixty percent of inmates in Nebraska jails have problems with meth, and the toll on families in Nebraska is incalculable. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for the Kennedy-Hooley amendment to help stop meth smuggling for Mexican drug cartels, and support our law enforcement officers.

Mr. TERRY

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Today I rise in strong support of the Velazquez-Slaughter amendment to H.R. 3058. This amendment will restore almost $48 million in critical funding to help States combat lead poisoning in children. Just as a reference, my interest is in the children and the families who live in older areas of cities, including Omaha, Nebraska that I represent, who have to deal with the lead paint and lead dust in their houses. On top of that, in my city they also deal with contaminated lead. So EPA is coming in, cleaning up the lead soil in people's yards, but yet are not doing anything to clean up the lead poisoning from the paint inside and outside those homes. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that as many as 1,600 children in East Omaha have harmful levels of lead in their bodies. There are 86,000 residents in Omaha affected by the lead cleanup. Parents wonder whether it is safe for their children to play outside, but they must continually check windowsills for lead dust and beware of cracking paint inside their homes to help protect their children from lead poisoning. The dangers of lead poisoning are well known and heightened for young children. High levels of lead in the body can cause asthma, brain damage, mental retardation, hearing loss, hyperactivity, and developmental delays. The Federal Government will end up paying the costs of lead poisoning in Medicaid, S-CHIP, and IDEA dollars unless greater resources are directed toward lead remediation efforts such as the State grant program operated by the EPA's Office on Lead Hazard Control. The amendment offered today will prevent a significant cut to this program from $166 million in fiscal year 2005 to $119 million in the Transportation-HUD appropriations bill under consideration right now. This year the EPA was only able to fund one third of the State grant proposals for lead-based paint remediation. The city of Omaha in its dire need lost a $3 million grant for HUD assistance. This situation can only worsen unless the amendment is approved today. I commend the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter) and the gentlewoman from New York (Velazquez) for championing this effort and strongly urge my colleagues to join me in voting for this commonsense amendment to help protect children from the dangers of lead poisoning.

Mr. TERRY

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Parents' Tax Relief Act, PTRA, to empower parents who choose to stay home with their children. This legislation will end the longstanding inequity in the Tax Code that encourages day care above stay-at-home parenting. It will also help parents to spend more time with their children by encouraging flexible employment opportunities such as home-based businesses and telecommuting jobs. Congress should recognize and support the incredible sacrifices parents make to raise their children. I have heard from Nebraska families who struggle to make ends meet so one parent can stay at home and provide the love, care and attention that every child deserves. The high Federal tax burden, which falls most heavily on the middle-class, has unfortunately made this option extremely difficult, if not unreachable, for many families. Parents perform a tremendous balancing act between work and family responsibilities. It can be difficult for families to survive without a second income, much of which goes towards day care and work-related expenses such as dry-cleaning bills and gasoline, but which can also support grocery bills, medical expenses and savings for a child's future education. Greater tax relief will make it a more realistic option for parents to stay at home with their little ones in the early formative years that are so crucial to children's physical, mental and emotional development. The legislation that I am introducing today will improve options for parents to contribute to family income while staying at home for their children, including home-based businesses and telecommuting jobs. It is clear that parents want these options. A comprehensive study on balancing work and family, conducted by four major charitable foundations, found that 70 percent of parents believe the best arrangement for the care of young children is to have one parent at home. An ABC News poll last month showed that 77 percent of parents agree that while it may be necessary for a mother to work and contribute to family income, it would be better if she could stay home to care for the house and children. In a parenting survey done for Warner Books, 87 percent of mothers said they would stay at home to raise their children if they could afford it. The Family and Work Institute reported that 70 percent of working parents feel they lack enough time with their children, and nearly two-thirds of all workers would reduce their work hours by an average 11 hours a week if they could. In addition, 62 percent of parents with preschoolers want policymakers to concentrate on making it more affordable for a parent to stay at home during a child's first few years than on improving the quality and affordability of day care. In fact, 53 percent of parents preferred direct tax cuts to stay-at-home-parents, while only 1 in 3, 33 percent, would cut costs for families using day care. Members of Congress should trust in the judgement of parents, especially regarding the care of preschool children. The Parents' Tax Relief Act, which I am introducing today with a dozen original cosponsors, contains seven major tax improvements to empower parents and strengthen families in America: First, this legislation extends the Dependent Care Tax Credit to parents who choose to be at home with their children. Established in 1954, this credit allows families to claim up to 35 percent of $3,000 in documented, non-parental child care costs, and 35 percent of $6,000 in day care expenses for two children. Families who make the financial sacrifice to have one parent stay at home for their children should also benefit from this tax credit. Second, the Parents' Tax Relief Act will make the $1,000 child tax credit permanent and index it to inflation to retain its long-term value. This tax relief is critical for Nebraska families with dependent children. Third, this legislation will double the personal income tax exemption to half of its original 1948 value, from $3,100 to $5,000. From 1948 to 1963 when this exemption was equivalent to $10,000 in today's inflation-adjusted dollars, America witnessed a ``marriage boom,'' a ``baby boom,'' and a decline in the divorce rate. There is evidence suggesting these outcomes were significantly advanced by federal tax policy to strengthen families. Doubling the personal income tax exemption provides critical support to families with children, as well as elderly or disabled dependents. Fourth, the Parents' Tax Relief Act eliminates the marriage tax penalty once and for all. This penalty discourages the sacred institution of marriage by unfairly taxing married couples filing jointly at a higher rate than two single individuals earning the same income. The 2001 tax cut law reduced this penalty by doubling the standard deduction for joint filers, and doubling the size of the 15 percent tax bracket for married couples. Unfortunately, these reforms will expire by 2010, along with the rest of the tax cuts enacted by Congress. The Parents' Tax Relief Act will extend marriage tax relief to all tax brackets to prevent the government from discouraging marriage or forcing both parents into the workforce. Fifth, this legislation will support parents who operate a home-based business in order to spend more time with their children. The bill establishes a standard home-office tax deduction to replace complicated IRS regulations that prevent many small business owners from deducting legitimate expenses. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that nine. million of the 17.3 million small businesses in the United States are homebased, and 55 percent are operated by women. Many home businesses are started to provide a secondary income. Sixth, the Parents' Tax Relief Act encourages telecommuting for families with young children. It will create a Telecommuting Tax Credit allowing employers to deduct a portion of a telecommuting employee's wages for income tax purposes. It will also support President Bush's budget request to allow individuals to exclude from income the value of employer-provided computers and related equipment necessary for work from home. Telecommuting is one way mothers or fathers can stay at home with their children while still contributing to family income. Finally, the Parents' Tax Relief Act protects the Social Security benefits of women or men who choose to stay-at-home with preschool children. When a parent leaves the workforce to be at home with a child, the family's finances may not only suffer, but career opportunities and future earnings potential may be diminished. Parents who stay at home to care for children during prime working years may also jeopardize their future Social Security benefits--especially in the unfortunate case of disability or divorce. The Parents' Tax Relief Act addresses the realities stay-at-home parents face by allowing up to 10 years of flexible Social Security employment credits for parents who stay at home to raise children age six and under. Public policy should recognize and safeguard stay-at- home parenting as valuable work that contributes to the character and security of our Nation. These seven tax improvements will empower parents and strengthen families. The Federal government must not tax parents out of their homes at the expense of children. I am pleased to note that Senator Sam Brownback is introducing this legislation in the other Chamber. It is my hope this bill will address the needs of modem families who want to stay at home with their children without decimating their family finances. I urge my colleagues to support families by cosponsoring the Parents' Tax Relief Act today.

Mr. TERRY

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, today I want to call attention to the June 25 Bulgarian and July 3 Albanian parliamentary elections. Voters in these developing economies deserve the opportunity to exercise the freedoms that were unavailable to them for so long. As the world's greatest democracy, we should strive to foster the ideals of freedom in these developing democracies. Free and fair elections are the first essential step in this long and arduous process. As a member of the International Anti-Piracy Caucus, I am a proud supporter of international intellectual property protection. As Albania and Bulgaria move through the election process, they should understand that part of the process of becoming free is making sure that applicable laws are in force both locally and internationally. Failure to punish those that disregard laws will mean that these countries will not become accepted players on the world stage for some time to come. Part of the process for providing free and fair elections is respecting and enforcing the intellectual property rights of American businesses assisting in these elections. Therefore, I call upon the sitting governments of these two nations, including their justice ministries and central election commissions, to condemn the distribution of counterfeit Gallup polls that are being used to distort the democratic process during their parliamentary elections. Promotion of democracy is one of the core pillars of our national security policy. Bulgaria and Albania are both important allies in the war on terror. It is essential that the elected leadership of these two great nations remain committed to defeating, preserving, and extending freedom and the rule of law. The citizens of these great countries have already made substantial progress in the fight for democracy. It is unfortunate, however, that a small segment of society has chosen to act nefariously in an attempt to distort the election process by misuse of the Gallup name. George H. Gallup, the founder of the Gallup Poll, felt that providing a voice to all people around the world would strengthen societies to help ensure accountability of elected representatives. Unfortunately, Mr. Gallup's mission is being tainted by a group of counterfeiters in both Bulgaria and Albania. These organizations are conducting electoral polling under the Gallup name without permission or license, while all the while receiving American support through USAID. These actions constitute a clear violation of Gallup's intellectual property rights and, perhaps more importantly, taint the reputation that Gallup has rightfully earned during its 70 years of existence. While it is true that Gallup is a major employer with its headquarters in my district, Gallup has been active across the country during their existence, providing polling in every Presidential election and several senatorial and congressional elections during that time period. Gallup might employ a number of my constituents, but it is a strong national company with a solid international reputation as well. To see this reputation tarnished with the aid of taxpayer dollars is not only a serious mismanagement of government funds but reprehensible conduct as well. Mr. Speaker, USAID ought to provide better oversight of the work conducted under their name overseas, and I have called upon them to provide an explanation regarding this matter. Additionally, Congress should do all it can to help ensure that American companies and American intellectual property rights are protected overseas without the willful and wanton negligence of American governmental institutions. Mr. Speaker, I hope that my colleagues will join me in this call for free and fair elections in Bulgaria and Albania, and support my request to stop the counterfeit polls from being distributed.

Mr. TERRY

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

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

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I am honored today to offer this amendment to now fully fund Byrne-JAG grants with the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad), the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak), the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen), the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert), the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). And I also want to thank the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) and others for their help in this. I also want to congratulate or show my appreciation to the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf), who certainly has been an advocate in the fight against drugs and methamphetamines in our communities and, from the President's budget that zeroed out the Byrne-JAG grants, was able in his subcommittee to put back $300 million. I am here, with my colleagues that I just read off, to take that back to the $600 million that was in there before. Let us put this in context. This amendment, unlike the last amendment that went after just one or two areas, this is an across-the-board reduction of .448. So as the subcommittee's report, the bill that comes out, the funding remains at 99.55 percent, in essence, of what the committee has asked. Just to show that there has been incredible impact in our communities from methamphetamines, and the Byrne-JAG grants go directly to our police departments, our sheriff departments to fight the drug dealers on the ground, they are our front line in the war on drugs, and it just makes no sense to me that we are moving towards a policy of nationalizing our drug crime fight at a time when it is our police officers on the streets that are fighting meth and other drugs. At least in the Midwest it started off as a drug that was easy and cheap to make. They just needed ammonia, Sudafed, other chemicals to make this. It is highly addictive, and it is highly destructive to our communities and to our families, and I would encourage support for this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne).

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy).

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ramstad).

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Reichert).

Mr. TERRY

Mr. TERRY. Yes, Mr. Speaker, I yield once again to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. TERRY. Absolutely. I really appreciate your forceful and passionate words on the floor tonight and just how staunchly you have stood on this fight. I thank you for those efforts. Just one little bit of trivia. You talked about how our own police officers on the front lines have to be trained to deal with meth. In fact, one of the new things adopted by the Omaha Police Department, they are now having the emergency response or the snipers go with the officers when they exercise a warrant on a meth bust now because usually when you break into somebody's home or you are smashing the door down exercising a warrant, these people are so extraordinarily violent that we have had to go to those level of measures in the metropolitan area.

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to introduce the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder), who also is the head of the Speaker's Drug Task Force and probably the most impressive person in this body on his granular knowledge of the war on drugs.

Mr. TERRY. I appreciate the gentleman's efforts on this cause. It is a great training center, by the way. He mentioned the patches. I happen to know that at least several, if not every one, of the departments that I have the pleasure of representing from the Second Congressional District have patches up there.

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne). The gentleman did a great job of laying it out. The Justice Department provided statistics, and last year we saw a decrease in the numbers of labs. There is one way of looking at that, that these Byrne grants have done their job by helping local law enforcement. The reality is that while it is our local law enforcement that is finding these labs and breaking them up, and there is one that just moved away from my house, and a month or so before that they found one in the trunk of a car at super department store in a very affluent neighborhood in west Omaha, so these can be anywhere. But what my local police officers are telling me is while the labs are a major part of the supply or a significant part of the supply, it is actually more now from the gang drug network coming in from the superlabs in Mexico that the gentleman spoke about. So as we are fighting the good fight and shutting down the labs, the drug dealers have found a new way to create supply in a different country across the border. They are using the already existing cocaine distribution system, and are using our kids to do that, which I think is one of the most horrible things that has happened in our society. Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to the gentleman from western Iowa (Mr. King), also a member of the meth caucus, and has been one of the loyalists in our fight to protect our families from this horrible drug.

Mr. TERRY. I am pleased to have as one of our last speakers for tonight the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy), who has also been a very forceful fighter against meth and is a member of the Meth Caucus and actually one of the coauthors of the amendment that has been referenced several times tonight.

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's assistance and help on this. The gentleman from Michigan did make one point that I want to highlight before I call on my next speaker, and that is the cuts in funding. Remember, about 2 years after I got here, we were funding our criminal justice grants to our local police and sheriffs at about slightly over $1 billion. In 2005, we condensed several of those grant programs, like local law enforcement block grants, Byrne and JAG, into one, and lowered that to 600-, and it was zeroed out. And chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), did a good job of doing what he could to get 300- of that 600- put back. But as the statistics that the gentleman from Michigan just read off, that means even at the current level of funding that will come to the floor tomorrow, of about $300 billion, a 60 percent reduction, a 70 percent reduction from just 4 years ago, at the time that meth problems are increasing in our communities, I cannot fathom the impact it is going to have to eliminate these drug task forces. The gentleman also mentioned that local police officers make over 90 percent of the drug arrests. And it just astounds me that we are, in this war against drugs and meth, taking our front-line people off the front line. It would be like fighting the war on terrorism by just funding the Pentagon and not funding the Army and the Marines and the Air Force and properly equipping them. So I do appreciate those comments. It is now my honor to call to the microphone my colleague, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), who has been a continuous fighter in his terms here. He has raised the meth issue and been consistent in bringing the message to all of us here of how to fight and why we should fight methamphetamine.

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's coming over to the floor and speaking in favor of this amendment against meth, and he certainly has had some worldly experiences that he can speak from.

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for his comments. And this is Angela from Iowa. Like the little girl in Minnesota, this is her school picture. I do not know if our C-SPAN cameras can get tight on this or not. This is her 12-year-old picture, her school class picture. This is her at 13, a year later, after similar friends turned her on to meth. And this had a little different, tragic end. This little girl, after her mother found her and tried to clean her up, could not kick the habit of meth and committed suicide. And, unfortunately, that is the way that many of these tragedies end. Mr. Speaker, at this point I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in favor of the Byrne-Justice Assistance Grant, JAG, amendment that we will debate and discuss in tomorrow's appropriation, Justice appropriations tomorrow. This is a grant that our local police and sheriffs have relied on to form task forces, multijurisdictional task forces to fight our drug problems in our communities, particularly meth. At least in Nebraska, the State that I have the responsibility and honor to represent, meth is by far the number one drug of choice. It started mostly as a rural drug where the ingredients were fairly easy to get, anhydrous ammonia, pseudoephedrine from your local grocery store or pharmacies. The Sudafed that they can break down, the components, and using a variety of other chemicals, even ammonia, they would be able to manufacture in small labs using basic chemistry sets to make this drug. This drug has spread throughout the rural communities across our Nation, devastating these communities, devastating families. The drug is highly addictive. Part of the symptoms of the drug while you are high on this drug is the tendency to be violent, staying up for long periods of time, and in fact, because of the toxicity of this, it even breaks down your skin. It breaks down your gums and your teeth and your hair. You can have open sores. As I mentioned a minute ago, the consequences of this highly addictive drug run deep in our social and family infrastructure. I am pleased that we have so many Members on both sides of the aisle that are coming forward to help our local police and sheriffs with their part being on the front lines in the drug war. I have the honor now of recognizing the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak) who represents the Law Enforcement Caucus and is a great supporter of our local law enforcement, and I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Stupak).

Mr. TERRY. And just to take that thought and put it in context for someone like our colleague, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), who represents 68\1/2\ counties, this funds the multijurisdictional aspects that the local jurisdictions would not be able to fund because of their rules on funding. So this allows intra-agency and counties in the district of the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) to actually work together. So with that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to my colleague from Nebraska.

Mr. TERRY

Mr. TERRY. Madam Speaker, I have the honor of extending a warm welcome to Father Val J. Peter, our guest chaplain in the House of Representatives today. And I also want to thank him for his heartfelt moving prayer. Father Val is a native Nebraskan and has been the fourth executive director for Girls and Boys Town USA, with 20 years of service to Girls and Boys Town. Father Peter is renowned as one of the principal supporters of youth in the world. Father Peter once said, ``We are like strong swimmers. When a child is floundering, we have a moral obligation to plunge in and help the child out of harm's way. Girls and Boys Town is not only to save children from harm but to make them whole again so they can become a strong, positive force that will touch other lives.'' As the Bible's Book of Psalms, chapter 127, verses 3 through 5 says: ``Behold, children are a blessing from the Lord. Like the arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.'' Father Val is undoubtedly one of the happiest and most devoted men I have ever had the privilege to meet. Father Val Peter began his service to Girls and Boys Town in 1985. Twenty years later, as he now nears his retirement, the following words he wrote about Girls and Boys Town's ongoing work have never rung truer: ``In the midst of apathy, we bring enthusiasm. In the midst of despair, we bring hope. In the midst of burdensome bureaucracies, we bring an entrepreneurial spirit. In the midst of violence, we bring the hope of peace.'' Father Val Peter has earned the gratitude of thousands of children and families across America. Madam Speaker, I know I speak for my colleagues when I say we are honored to have Father Val Peter here with us today.