Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, let me just again commend Mr. Israel of New York for his leadership on this issue and bringing attention to the disease myositis. Again, as he said, it is important as we raise national awareness about these diseases that we also provide the resources necessary to the NIH and other researchers who are doing important work to find cures and treatments for these diseases. It is absolutely essential that we invest as a Nation in that very important effort and provide them with the resources they need. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to join the chairman of the Government Reform Committee in recommending that our colleagues support this legislation to name this post office in honor of Dorothy and Connie Hibbs for their service. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, as Mr. Davis said, Mo Udall was a beloved figure in this country and this Congress. He was a great American, a great Member of Congress. He dedicated himself to preserving our great natural resources and open spaces in this country, protecting our environment, and he had a very quick wit which I think brought smiles to both sides of the aisle, even for those who were sometimes the target of that wit. I want to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), for deciding to introduce this resolution to recognize the wonderful national contributions of Mo Udall. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva).

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill as well, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to join with the gentleman from Virginia in urging our colleagues to support this resolution. I think it is a fitting way to recognize the distinguished public service of Harry Parrish. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I also urge our colleagues to support this resolution. I want to commend the gentleman from New York (Mr. Ackerman), our colleague, for introducing this resolution and recognizing the service of Dr. Stavisky in this way. Mr. Speaker, I yield to him the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, for thousands of Americans, a doctor's diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is a devastating occasion that can send patients and their families into a whirlwind of depression and despair. Every year, more than 33,000 Americans are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and even more startling is the fact that the overwhelming majority of those patients will die of pancreatic cancer. Only about 4 percent are currently expected to live beyond 5 years. As Mr. Davis said, pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer death in the United States. After years of research, we are not significantly closer to understanding what causes pancreatic cancer. Most cancers are caused by environmental, dietary or lifestyle factors, and most pancreatic cancer is believed to be no different. However, the specific link between the onset of pancreatic cancer and any one or a combination of these extraneous factors has yet to be determined. A significant body of research is developing around a possible hereditary link in pancreatic cancer, but even the results of these studies have shown that only 5 to 10 percent of cases have genetic links. Although awareness of cancer's prevalence in the United States improves and medical advances in the field abound, pancreatic cancer has largely been absent from the list of major success stories. Surgical procedures may have increased the survival chances of some with the disease, but there has been little momentum in advancing diagnostics or nonsurgical oncological treatments beyond palliative care. Mr. Speaker, I think this is an important piece of legislation that draws attention to this devastating disease. We need to make people more aware of it. We also need to make sure that the National Institutes of Health has the resources necessary to continue to work toward finding cures and treatments for pancreatic cancer, all cancers, and so many other devastating diseases that hurt and strike families across our country every year. I urge adoption of this resolution. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I urge my colleagues to support this resolution. It is appropriate we recognize Curt Gowdy in this way. We know he was the voice of the Red Sox, as well as the announcer on many other sports events. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the bill.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I also commend Mr. Foley for his leadership on this issue, and yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The chairman of the committee, the Government Reform committee, Mr. Davis, has covered the bill well. I commend him for his work on this piece of legislation. I would only add to his description of the bill that it also contains provisions that would give civilian agencies additional tools to maintain their acquisition workforces by allowing agencies to reemploy retirees under certain circumstances. I think it is important that we look for ways in the Federal Government to continue to use the expertise of those who have been in the Federal Government. The Senate amendments to the bill provide additional protections to make sure that authority is used wisely with respect to rehiring of retirees, but I commend the chairman of the committee for his work on this bill and urge its adoption. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I would commend Mr. Wolf for recognizing the service of Harry Parrish in this way. I assure him strong bipartisan support, and I have enjoyed working with him on both sides of the Potomac River on issues of importance to both jurisdictions. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I stand to explain my votes on the immigration bills that this Congress considered today. I applaud our decision to pass the Border Tunnel Prevention Act (H.R. 4830), which would make it illegal for any person to build or finance a cross-border tunnel and for any person to use such a tunnel to smuggle drugs, weapons, or undocumented immigrants. These tunnels have become remarkably sophisticated ways for lawbreakers to enter our country, and I strongly support this bill to ban their construction and use. This is, at least, a small step to better border patrol. But though we took one small step forward today, it is not enough. Instead of working on real reform, we passed the so-called ``Community Protection Act'' (H.R. 6094). This bill is not about protecting our community; it is about election-year scare tactics and fearmongering. We need to fight crime and we need to deport criminals. But we can already do that. This bill does not deal with people who are in our country illegally. We can already deport individuals who are here illegally. Nor does this bill relate to non-U.S. citizens who are legally in the United States but commit a crime. We can already deport gang members and any foreign national who is convicted of a crime ranging from murder to shoplifting. This bill gives the Executive Branch unprecedented powers to deport legal immigrants who have not committed any crime. It gives the Attorney General of the United States the unprecedented power to declare any group a gang. And it gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to deport any non-citizen who is legally residing in the United States if they declare, without any due process, that such an individual is a member of those groups. This means the Department of Homeland Security can deport a legal immigrant who has obeyed all of our laws. This violates our First Amendment right of association and our Fifth Amendment right to be treated as individuals and not as guilty by association. This bill also has an expedited removal process that severely curtails due process and could lead to erroneous removal of people who should not have been deported. This includes U.S. citizens who cannot provide proof of citizenship in the seven-day window, or someone abused or eligible for asylum who cannot build their case in time. We all want to stop gang violence. It is an insidious problem in my district and in the districts of many of my colleagues. But we already have laws to deport criminals. We need to stop wasting time passing laws we don't need to deport people who aren't committing crimes and start working on real solutions to solve gang violence. Unfortunately, it seems this Congress consistently passes laws that allow us to avoid real reform. The misnamed ``Immigration Law Enforcement Act'' (H.R. 6095) also passed today, is one such example. This bill should be renamed the ``Pass the Buck for Immigration Law Enforcement Act.'' While it claims to simply ``reaffirm'' the authority of states to enforce immigration law, it actually distracts local law enforcement from their most important job--safeguarding our communities--and forces them to do the job that this Congress has repeatedly failed to do. We should enact real border security and comprehensive immigration reform; instead, we are passing the buck to our local communities and, without direction or funding, making them carry out complicated immigration enforcement. Enforcement of our immigration laws is a federal responsibility. Let's not shirk that responsibility. Let's not pretend this is someone else's problem. The Montgomery County and Prince George's County Police in my district are opposed to this legislation. They do not have the time or the resources to handle the increased workload that immigration enforcement brings. It is not their job. It is the job of the federal government. And we need to do our job. If we abdicate our responsibility on vital issues, we are failing the American people. Moreover, it is irresponsible to make local police forces handle immigration without giving them any additional resources or any training in immigration law. Our police are already overburdened. We cannot ask them to do our job, too. I want to be clear--I believe that we should have tougher enforcement of our immigration laws. But we need to do it in a way that makes sense. And it does not make sense to pass the buck to local communities. This is another unfunded mandate from a Congress that repeatedly fails to seriously address the important issues. So today this Congress has approved a bill that creates a law we don't need to punish those who don't break the law and a bill that passes the buck to local law enforcement. When is Congress going to do the work we were elected to do? When are we going to pass real immigration reform and real security instead of superficial band-aid bills? It's time to stop playing politics, and to start protecting our borders.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call our attention to National Addiction Recovery Month this September, and I encourage all my colleagues to join me in recognizing and commending those who commit their time and effort to addiction recovery. In 2005, an estimated 19 million Americans used illicit drugs. The impact of this pandemic is felt not only by individuals and their families, but by society as well. Addiction costs our society and economy billions of dollars each year, in health care costs, property damage, and lost productivity. It also costs lives, and causes immense amounts of grief and pain. Addiction is a disease, and it must be attacked as such. No one is immune from addiction, as it afflicts people of all ages, all races, all classes, and all professions. As with any serious disease, the treatment for addiction relies on great amounts of research and advances in health sciences. There have been tremendous strides in the fight against addiction. Congress allocates billions of dollars each year on addiction research at the National Institutes of Health. The NIH is a leader in this regard, and it has committed funds to research on addiction, including research on how addiction takes over the brain, the body, and the central nervous system. We must continue to fund NIH at the level it deserves so scientists can unlock the mysteries of addiction and its impact on individuals and society. Today, September 20, 2006, is National Addiction Professionals Day, and I applaud the hard work and dedication of addiction counselors who must encounter daily the difficult task of prevention, intervention, and treatment. The research on addiction that NIH conducts can only support and complement the addiction counselors' efforts in helping many Americans afflicted with addiction. We need to give them all of the support we can. Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to join me in recognizing the valuable contributions of all those who devote their time and energy to addiction recovery. We should honor and appreciate their hard work. Congress has shown strong support for this issue. However, we are far from victory, and we must continue our steadfast fight against drug and alcohol addiction. I look forward to the day when addiction to drugs and alcohol are eradicated, and these wonderful professionals can take their final bow.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. It was stunning actually, because what you would hope for from our national leaders is some reflection, some understanding that the situation that we encountered in Iraq was not what we expected, that it was not what he said it would be. And, in fact, unfortunately this administration has never come to grips with the huge gap between what they said would happen in Iraq and with what is happening on the ground. That has exposed, I believe, a great credibility gap. So when the administration says, trust us, we know what we are doing in Iraq; all you people who raise questions, don't you worry about it, I have to say, that is what they told us many, many years ago. That is what Vice President Cheney said more than a year ago when he said the insurgency was in its last throes. So asking questions and trying to figure out a better way is, in fact, the patriotic thing to do. But I think one of the things that is most surprising is the fact that the administration did not really have a postwar plan. They thought things were going to just go so swimmingly in Iraq, that you did not have to plan for really the postinvasion period. In fact, just about a week ago, there was a general from the Defense Department who not only said that they did not have a postwar plan, but said specifically that Secretary Rumsfeld would punish anybody who came up with a plan, because it would send a signal to the outside world that this would not be as quick and easy as the Secretary of Defense wanted people to think it was. And let me just, I think it is important to read this excerpt: ``Rumsfeld Forbade Planning for Postwar Iraq, General Says.'' This is out of the Saturday, September 9, Washington Post. ``Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring Commander of the Army Transportation Corps said.'' Brigadier General Mark Scheid said in an interview, that Rumsfeld said ``he would fire the next person'' who talked about the need for a postwar plan. And we wonder why we are in trouble today in Iraq. We wonder when we open our newspapers or look at television sets why we see such a mess. You know, the terrible thing is that there were people in the administration who had worked on a postwar plan. Many people at the State Department had developed different scenarios for what would happen and how to respond. But instead of following that plan, the Defense Department essentially junked it, and Secretary Rumsfeld not only did not come up with a plan, but now we have a brigadier general who said that he threatened to fire people who came up with a plan. We need to do some more firing. We need to hold people accountable. We need to hold people accountable who made these big, big mistakes. Now, one of the other things that we have learned recently, and this may be partly due to the fact that they did not have a postwar plan, was the incompetence of many of the civilians that they sent in there to work on the reconstruction phase in Iraq. You know, we recently passed the 1-year anniversary of the terrible Hurricanes Katrina and Rita that struck our States in the Southern United States, struck New Orleans, struck Louisiana, struck Mississippi. And we know all too well that the people in those regions were hit twice really. First they were hit by a terrible hurricane, and then they were hit by the incompetence of a FEMA that was headed up by people who were not experts in emergency response, but happened to be political favorites in the administration. Michael Brown, we know that his primary credential was he had been the President of the Horse Breeders Association.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, the FEMA job, as we know, is one that we have to be prepared for all sorts of things, but you are absolutely right, my colleague. It goes to show, in my view, the kind of disdain that the administration has with respect to what kind of qualifications are required for people who are vested with such important national responsibilities. And we remember when the President said, ``Heck of a job, Brownie,'' in the midst of the real disaster not just from the hurricane, but in the response. But what I think we are learning now, unfortunately, is that same kind of cronyism, that same kind of cronyism infected many of the decisions with respect to who we sent to Iraq for that postwar period and reconstruction period. You would think that in deciding who we should send to Iraq, we would send the people who are highly qualified at reconstruction, people who knew something about Iraq, maybe people who spoke Arabic and the native language if we had them available. But if you look at a very recent article from the Washington Post, we learned that it was not those kind of expert qualifications that made the decision. It had to do with whether or not you were a big political supporter of the Bush administration. And I think this kind of political cronyism, when it comes to the biggest national security issues we have got, shows an incredible contempt for the American people and their security. I just think it is very important to read a little passage from this article from the Washington Post. This is an article, September, this past Sunday, September 17. Headline: Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq. After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2007, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.- led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans, restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists, and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to just get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon. To pass muster with O'Beirne, who is a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants did not need to be experts in the Middle East or in postconflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration. Jumping down a bit: The decision to send the loyal and willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3\1/2\-year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. And one of the people who was set up to be, he was the CPA person over there, said: We did not tap, and it should have started from the White House on down, we just did not tap the right people to do this job, said Frederick Smith, who served as the Deputy Director of the CPA, that is the Coalition Provisional Authority's Washington office. It was a tough, tough job. Instead, we got people who went out there because of their political leanings. He goes on to give a couple of examples of how people with absolutely no experience in contracts were given responsibilities for a $18 billion construction budget. He goes on to talk about, you know, 24-year-old political appointees whose only qualifications were they had been part of the Bush campaign machine. Those are the people that were sent to Iraq to do a very important mission for the American people. And it is extremely disturbing to discover that the qualifications for those people had nothing to do with their ability to do the job, their expertise to do the job, their past background to do the job; that what it had to do with was whether they were a big political booster of the Bush administration. It points out that many of them were big political contributors to the Bush administration. Taking that kind of license with our national security, I think, is scandalous. It is important that we begin to hold people to account. Let's begin to have a real national conversation, not just a one-way discussion that the President wants to have. Let's have some real hearings on Capitol Hill. Let's begin to have some accountability, because we all know that when you have a system that rewards people who fail, that gives a pat on the back to the people who constantly got it wrong, and yet at the same time penalizes the people who got it right in this administration, the people who said we needed more troops on the ground, the people who questioned some of the decisions, it turns out that people who questioned the decisions were ignored or penalized. People like this general who wanted to do some postwar planning was ignored. In fact, they threatened to fire people who did that kind of thing. If you reward failure, you are going to get more failure. What we are asking I think tonight and on other nights is that we just begin to hold people accountable and that this House of Representatives begin to do its job, and not be a rubber stamp, not just say yes, Mr. President, you know it all, when in fact we know from what is going on in Iraq that they have gotten so much wrong. Let's begin to get it right, and let's begin to ask the hard questions. I thank my colleague.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my friend and colleague Mr. Schiff from California, thank him for organizing these very important national security discussions here on the floor in the House. I also want to thank my colleague from Maryland Steny Hoyer for his terrific leadership on national security and a whole range of issues, and it is great to be here again with David Scott, my colleague, from Georgia, who has also been a leader and a very important voice on these important issues to our country. Mr. Hoyer mentioned that we had the important passing about 8 days ago of the solemn occasion of 9/11. It was the 5th-year anniversary of 9/11 and the terrible attacks that took place upon our country. And I do think it is important to go back to that time and remember where those attacks came from because they were launched from Afghanistan. You had a failed state in Afghanistan run by the Taliban; and in that failed state, al Qaeda was able to take hold and find a home, and Osama bin Laden was able to prosper and plot his attacks against the United States. And after the attacks took place on September 11, 2001, this Congress, this country, and the international community were united in pledging that we would work together to defeat terrorism, to defeat al Qaeda and bring them to justice. And despite that unity, we have not achieved the result. In fact, if you look upon the situation today, there is great division in the world and we have failed to capitalize on that unity to finish the job in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda. The President declared way back in 2003, May 2003, aboard the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, he had a big banner behind him that said ``Mission Accomplished.'' Well, we haven't come close to accomplishing that mission because as we gather here on the floor today, Osama bin Laden is alive and well somewhere along the Afghan/Pakistan border, al Qaeda continues to plot attacks against the United States. They have become a franchiser. You know how al Qaeda franchises around the world. We have not made progress at totally dismantling that organization. In fact, what we are seeing in southern Afghanistan is a resurgence of the Taliban as reported by the NATO Commander there, and our own commanders on the ground. What have we done? We have actually reduced the number of U.S. forces in southern Afghanistan. We disbanded the one unit at the CIA that had the specific mission of going after al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. You open the newspaper today and see that the opium crop in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, historic high. And we also know that the Pakistan Government that we had been really relying on to keep the Taliban and al Qaeda on the run in the northwest frontier part of Pakistan, that, in fact, they have now, the Pakistani Government has entered into a nonaggression pact essentially with the Taliban leaders and the leaders in the Waziristan area. So here we are more than 5 years after those terrible attacks, and we have not completed the job. We have not finished the mission against al Qaeda. And instead, in my view, we have actually reduced our commitment to doing that. And we must make sure that as Americans we are again united today, making sure we finish the mission in Afghanistan and bringing to justice and defeating the organization that, after all, was the organization and the leadership responsible for those attacks of September 11. Instead, we did take our eye off the ball. We decided, instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, to go into Iraq. And today, unfortunately, if you look at the situation on the ground, it is a mess. You know, the Vice President, it was a little more a year ago, he went on national television and said, and I quote, that ``the insurgency in Iraq was in its last throes.'' Well, just a few weeks ago we had a Pentagon report required by Congress that said that the insurgency, and I quote, ``remains potent and viable.'' And, in fact, the insurgency no longer is our number one problem in Iraq. The real problem is the cycling civil war, whether it is called a civil war, an incipient civil war, incipient of people are being killed in sectarian violence. So you have a situation where the administration was wrong on so many counts. They were wrong on weapons of mass destruction, they were wrong on the claim that there was a connection between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. In fact, we now have a bipartisan report out of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that said definitively there was never any relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. In fact, they were adversaries, they were ideological opposites. They were wrong on that. They were wrong on the cost of the war. They totally underestimated the cost of the war. They gave the American people one number that was low-balled. In turn it was a much bigger number.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Not out of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, we submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee for its consideration. I am sorry that the chairman decided not to take up the amendment, but what the amendment did was outline the very simple prohibitions that we talked about, to prohibit us from steering Federal taxpayers' dollars to organizations that employed family members, that employed former staff members, or where monies were steered through lobbyists and lobbyist organizations that employed spouses or family members or former staff members. The key issue here is trying to end the sort of inside dealing and sweetheart deals that have rocked this town. We have not done that. What worries me about this piece of legislation is that people are going to pass it and they are going to go home to their congressional districts and they are going to tell people: We have cleaned up Washington; that we have stopped the abuses, that we have done something about the nexus between lobbying problems and the earmark process, when in fact we haven't done it. The earmarks have skyrocketed since the Republicans took control of Congress, and yet they have also refused to adopt a rule that we proposed for a pay-as-you-go budget. The President and others complain about earmarks, but he hasn't vetoed a single bill except the stem cell bill. We keep hearing about the problems on the spending side, and yet every one of the bills that has gone through this Congress has been signed by the President. Again, the only bill he has vetoed is the bill dealing with stem cell research. So if we are serious about fiscal accountability, let's adopt the pay-as-you-go rule that has been proposed by the Democrats, and let's adopt the measures that I talked about that we submitted to the Rules Committee that would end the worst abuses. And I still don't understand why the Rules Committee failed to take up and consider those proposals. I thank my colleague from New York for the time. Let's send a signal to the people around this country that we recognize the abuses that have taken place, that we are going to do something real, let's not just pretend we are doing something. There is some momentum to do things here. We are not taking advantage of it. Let's do that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. There was an amendment.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. There is a proposal also out there that we have sponsored that I hope you will address and make in order to this particular piece of legislation with respect to prohibiting funds from going to somebody who has an organization, if that person is also the head of a political action committee of a leadership PAC, some simple rules of the game that we should all therefore be able to agree to, I hope. If you didn't take it up in the Rules Committee, maybe we can take it up now today if we all agree that those are abuses that we should end.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, despite the huge scandals that have worked this town, this Congress has failed to pass a lobbying reform bill, we failed to pass an ethics reform bill, we failed to deal with the gift ban, we failed to stop the flying on the corporate jets, we failed to shut the resolving door. There has been a shameful lack of accountability. Now, I support greater transparency in the earmark process, I support greater sunshine. But we should get right at the root of the problem and eliminate the worst abuses outright. Now, Mr. Emanuel and I and others offered an amendment the other day in the Rules Committee to stop the inside dealing and to stop the sweetheart deals, and the Republican leadership said no. What did that amendment do? It was pretty simple. It said a Member of Congress can't take Federal taxpayers' dollars and earmark them for an organization that employs their spouse or their family members. They said no to that. It says let's not take Federal taxpayer dollars and steer them to an organization that just employed one of their former staffers. They said no to that.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would be happy to.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the People's Community Baptist Church, which is located within my congressional district, on its 28th anniversary, which will be celebrated September 15-17, 2006. Since its founding in 1978, the People's Community Baptist Church has established a legacy built on spiritual empowerment, social action and community outreach. Its outstanding leadership in the community has touched lives throughout Montgomery County, Maryland and beyond. With the strong foundation laid by the late Reverend Dr. Thomas Jeremiah Baltimore, this ministry has shown benevolence through ministries such as the Social Action Agency, a church ministry that addresses social concerns of the community in all areas affecting quality of life. Under its umbrella, numerous initiatives have been started, including family health programs, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous chapter meetings, cancer support groups, voter registration drives, and the SHARE program (low-cost monthly food distribution). A prison ministry was also begun, bringing the message of hope and redemption to the incarcerated. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent this progressive and distinguished ministry and extend my best wishes for continued success to The People's Community Baptist Church on this special occasion.