Chris Van Hollen

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Mrs. Sandra S. Walker, principal of Rock Creek Forest Elementary School in Chevy Chase, MD, who is retiring after a long and distinguished career with the Montgomery County Public Schools. Mrs. Walker attended Montgomery County public schools as a student and has now spent more than 30 years working for MCPS as a teacher and administrator. For the past 18 years Mrs. Walker has been principal at a very challenging and complex school. Rock Creek Forest Elementary School has both an English community program and a countywide Spanish immersion magnet program. The school also blends a student body of great ethnic and economic diversity. Mrs. Walker has served this school with dedication and distinction. On behalf of the students, parents, teachers and staff of Rock Creek Forest Elementary School, I am privileged to extend my gratitude and appreciation to Sandra Walker for her service to our children and our community. Congratulations on an exemplary career. You have my best wishes for an enjoyable retirement. You will be missed at Rock Creek Forrest.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, on rollcall No. 192, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise to explain my opposition to the Interior Appropriations bill. This important bill should reflect our national commitment to protecting our air, our water, and some of our most treasured public lands, including our national forests, parks, and open spaces. Unfortunately, this bill fails to live up to our responsibility to be good stewards of our natural heritage. This bill cuts the Clean Water State Revolving Funds by $200 million and cuts State Conservation Grants to below last year's levels. Most egregiously, this bill cuts funding for essential projects to repair and upgrade facilities in our National Parks by $216 million below last year's levels and more than $400 billion below the level of six years ago. This bill does not meet the federally mandated increase in federal pay and other fixed costs of the National Park Service. As a result, we will see cutbacks in staff and visitor services at our parks. This bill also does not include any funding for schools at Indian reservations. I am disappointed to have to vote against this bill because it did contain some worthwhile provisions. In it, the Congress finally recognized the reality of global warming. Though the bill does not include any concrete steps to address the problem, I was pleased that Congress finally acknowledged the issue. I also supported an amendment included in this bill that would require energy companies to pay royalties for the oil and natural gas they obtain from publicly-owned lands. This common sense amendment ends an unnecessary and illogical subsidy to the oil and gas industry and allows the American people to benefit from the use of our public resources. There was a Democratic amendment that would have addressed this bill's most critical failings. We proposed a plan to add essential funds to this bill by making a small reduction to the average tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. My Republican colleagues reject this proposal, upholding tax cuts for a few at the expense of important initiatives that benefit all Americans. As a result, we have a bill that fails to adequately protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and our shared natural heritage that we hold dear.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California in his leadership on these issues. We both serve on the Judiciary Committee. And we know the revelations about the domestic wiretapping program came out back in December. And as of today, we have not had a single nearing in the House Judiciary Committee devoted specifically to that issue. And whether people are for it or against it or undecided, we have an obligation as a separate branch of government to do our oversight, to get the facts, to ask the hard questions. And that committee has been AWOL on this issue, just as it has been, this Congress has been on so many other issues. And I am very pleased that my colleague pointed out in the 9/11 Commission's sort of final report card they issued last November with respect to the issue of nuclear nonproliferation. They did give this Congress and the Bush administration a big fat D, D on that effort. My colleague from California has been active in proposing different ideas for how we can strengthen those, but this Congress has not moved ahead. I just want to cite from that report card where it says, ``Countering the greatest threat to America's security is still not the top national security priority of the President and the Congress.'' What is that top priority, they say? A maximum effort by the U.S. Government to secure WMD. The fact of the matter is, we know after 9/11 that the most toxic combination of all would be some terrorist group getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction and the consequences to the people of our country. We are getting a D on that. We can do a lot better. That same report card gives this Congress a D in another area, an area we have been talking about. Under the category of congressional and administrative reform, there is a subcategory, intelligence oversight reform. Grade D. We would be embarrassed if our children brought back Ds from school, and yet Congress gets a D for this. And it is important to point out in this area, this is an area entirely under the control of the leadership in Congress. The Republican leadership could decide today to fix this. This one has nothing to do with the administration. This has to do with decisions that can be made tomorrow by this Republican leadership. They have decided not to do it. Apparently a D is acceptable to them. And I think it is important to go back to the consequences of that failure of oversight. Now, we know in the lead-up to the Iraq war the failures of intelligence. The former Director of CIA, George Tenet, very decent guy, said it is a ``slam dunk case'' that there are weapons of mass destruction. Well, what happened? Well, first the President awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The guys in intelligence and research in the State Department who got it right, they have never gotten any recognition. And then what happened?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, let me thank my colleague from California (Mr. Schiff) on his leadership on national security issues and helping to lay out the Democratic national security plan, and thank him for taking us back to 9/11/2001 and the new security challenges that posed for our country, indeed for many others around the world, and reminding all of us that at that time the American people rallied behind the President and the Congress and said we need to take action against al Qaeda, we need to take action against the Taliban. This body, the United States Congress, was united, Republicans and Democrats alike, in taking that action, toppling the Taliban government, and working to try and root out al Qaeda and find Osama bin Laden. Indeed, as Mr. Schiff mentioned, the international community rallied behind us as well. So let us go back to that point in time and see what has been done. If you look at the recent trip that President Bush took to Afghanistan and India, Pakistan last March, it was a reminder to all of us that was probably, number one, the closest he will ever get to the man who masterminded those attacks on September 11th, on the United States, Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan along the very rugged Afghan-Pakistan border. It was a reminder that we have not accomplished our mission of destroying Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We all recall back in May of 2003 aboard the aircraft carrier, the USS Lincoln, when the President unveiled a big banner that said, ``Mission accomplished.'' Well, before that time, before the unveiling of that banner, there had been 138 American troops who died in Iraq, 542 wounded. Since declaring ``Mission accomplished'' aboard the aircraft carrier, there have been 2,405 American troops dead and over 17,000 wounded. As we all know, the situation in Iraq continues to be a very difficult one. But certainly that ``Mission accomplished'' banner could not have applied to the main objective we had after September 11, 2001, to destroy the al Qaeda network and capture, destroy the person at the top of that network, Osama bin Laden, and fulfilling that mission. Preventing a resurgence of the Taliban will depend on the actions that we take today and in the months ahead in Afghanistan. This is no time for us to be reducing our commitment in Afghanistan. At the very time the President was in Afghanistan last March, the Director of U.S. Defense Intelligence, General Michael Maples, was testifying before the Congress, and he testified that the Taliban insurgency is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a greater threat to the Afghan central government's expansion of authority than at any point since late 2001. Under these circumstances, the plan, the current plan in place to replace 2,500 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan later this summer with contingents of Canadian, Dutch, British, Romanian and Australian troops should be considered. We welcome having those additional troops there, but given the intensifying Taliban insurgency, we should consider whether or not those new forces should augment and supplement the forces we have there and not replace them. Replacing them could send exactly the wrong signal to the people of Afghanistan and to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Now, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Taliban has stepped up its operations recently. Last year, attacks by the Taliban and other anti-government troops jumped by 20 percent, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency. Suicide bombings increased almost fourfold, and strikes with improvised explosive devices, which is a tactic imported from Iraq, doubled last year. The main battlegrounds in this insurgency are in the provinces of Qandahar, Oruzgan, Helmand and Zabol, the Pashtun areas that form the Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. And as recently as January 10 of this year, Mullah Mohammad Omar, who was the Taliban leader, who was born in southern Afghanistan and forged a very close tie with Bin Laden, rejected a call to reconcile with the new government of President Hamid Karzai and publicly exhorted his followers to fight. It appears from all indications that his followers have been listening. The Assistant Administrator of USAID told Congress earlier this year about the deaths that have been taking place in many of the provinces and the attacks, school teachers killed. As a result, 200 schools in Qandahar and 165 support schools in the province of Helmand closed for security reasons, and on and on. February was a deadly month, and March and April. In May, earlier this month, The New York Times wrote an article, headline, Taliban Threat Is Said to Grow in Afghan South. I am just going to read a few excerpts. The Taliban and al Qaeda are everywhere, a shopkeeper told the commander of American forces in Afghanistan. He said it is all right in the city, but if you go outside the city, they are everywhere, and the people have to support them. They have no choice. The article goes on to note that the fact that American troops are pulling out of southern Afghanistan in the coming months and handing matters over to NATO peacekeepers, who have repeatedly stated they are not going to fight terrorists, has given a lift to the insurgents and increased the fears of Afghans. I think it is very important that we not send a signal that we are reducing our commitment to the people of Afghanistan and to the fight against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. But stopping that action is going to require forceful action, stopping that violence and stopping the Taliban attacks. Until now, the NATO forces have been stationed in relatively quiet areas. Their role has been primarily limited to peacekeeping rather than combat operations, and there are real questions about whether they will be able to engage the Taliban as aggressively as U.S. forces there. It is also likely that the withdrawal of these 2,500 U.S. forces from Afghanistan will weaken our ability to put pressure on the Pakistan government to cooperate with us in trying to track down al Qaeda elements in Pakistan. We know that Pakistan Interservices Intelligence Agency has historically had a very cosy relationship with the Taliban. Many in the Afghan government, if you talk to them, doubt Pakistan's commitment to denying the sanctuary to Taliban fighters along the Afghan-Pakistan border. So we should be careful about the signals that we send. Afghanistan's stability depends on strengthening the central government, developing the economy and limiting the booming opium trade there. Progress on these fronts requires that the Taliban be neutralized and security improved. It has been said now from a number of Afghan leaders that the anticipated withdrawal of some of the U.S. forces has already caused some local leaders to hedge their bets with respect to the Taliban and figure if we are not going to be protected by U.S. forces, maybe we ought to bet on the Taliban being the future here. That is a very, very dangerous thing indeed. It is important for us to remember that the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan in the chaos that followed the Soviet Union's withdrawal from that country, and the subsequent U.S. disengagement and lack of interest in the region. With the Bush administration and much of political Washington focused on Iraq, many Afghan leaders worry whether the reduction in our forces there signals a lack of commitment and a signal that we will again lose sight of Afghanistan. We do so at our peril because we need to remember, as my colleague reminded us, that the September 11 attacks, September 11, 2001, did not come from Iraq. They were from Afghanistan. That raises a very serious question about how we came to be in Iraq and raises the question of failure of intelligence. I think it is important to note that whether or not you were for taking military action in Iraq or against military action in Iraq, we all should be in favor of getting the intelligence information right. It is especially important in this time when we are trying to disrupt terrorist networks. The fact of the matter is the President told the American people we were taking action in Iraq for two reasons. He said, there are weapons of mass destruction there, and he said that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Well, we know now that both of those statements proved false. It is important, going forward, that we get the intelligence right. One of the essential components of the Constitution of our country is a system of checks and balances, making it clear that every branch of government has an obligation to take the responsible actions within its own sphere. Unfortunately, this Congress, especially this United States House of Representatives, has failed to exercise that responsibility. Instead of being a check on the executive branch, we have been a blank check for this administration. Instead of being a balance, we have been a rubber stamp. The result of that failure of oversight has been to allow the mistakes and failures of this administration in the area of intelligence gathering to continue, because if you don't pay attention to failure, if you look aside from failure, if you ignore failure, you are going to get more failure. One of the greatest failures, of course, has been the failure of this Congress to hold the administration accountable for its failures to gather intelligence information and for its abuse of the use of intelligence. Now, every administration, Republican or Democrat, is entitled to have its own policies. But they are not entitled to their own facts. Facts are stubborn things. In the war on terror it is critical that we gather good intelligence information. We need to base our policy on the facts, not decide to make up the facts based on our policy. Now, we should all agree that we don't want to put our troops in harm's way because we don't have adequate intelligence. We shouldn't sort of make up the facts in a way that leads to those consequences. But in the lead-up to the war in Iraq, many in the administration ignored those professional voices within the executive branch, the civil servants, who had been there for years, have years of experience, who got it right. For example, the professionals in the Bureau of Intelligence Research at the State Department and the professionals at the Department of Energy said these aluminum tubes were not evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq; they were evidence of a rockets program. Yet their information, their input, was relegated to a footnote, because people did not want to see beyond the world as they wanted to see it to justify their own policy decisions. Those intelligence failures have consequences. Not just immediate consequences for our military and our Armed Forces; they also undermine our credibility around the world and are coming back to haunt us. Secretary of State Colin Powell, we all remember when he went before the United Nations. He had his charts; he had his displays. He said to the world, Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, in fact, has weapons of mass destruction. They did not. Secretary Powell has acknowledged that was one of the low points of his career. Contrast that to the Cuban missile crisis, when our ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai Stevenson, showed the world satellite photos that the Soviets were putting missiles in Cuba. The Soviets had been denying it, but they couldn't deny it in the face of those facts and that evidence. It was a high point for credibility at the U.N. Our display there was a low point. The problem is not just that we look bad. The problem is it is hard to make back lost credibility. As we go to the U.N., as we go to international partners around the world now and talk about the situation in Iran, we talk about the situation in North Korea, we talk about the situation and threats elsewhere in the world, people remember what we said before, and even the President, President Bush, has acknowledged that we face increased skepticism as a result of our failures of intelligence. Those have serious, serious consequences. There is a lot more that can be done in the intelligence area, and I think tonight we should talk about some of the missteps that were made and how we intend to correct those missteps going forward. But I think we should all agree, Republicans and Democrats alike, that getting the intelligence information right is essential to our national security. We need to allow the professionals with the experience to call the facts as they see them, not how any administration would like to see them to justify a certain policy. I yield back to my colleague from California as we continue this discussion about how we think that this Congress can do a much better job of enhancing the national security of this country.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. Very serious consequences for the American people. And that is why it was surprising, I must say, that after George Tenet left the CIA as Director, that the administration decided to replace him with Mr. Porter Goss. Now Mr. Goss is a very decent, well-meaning person. But the fact of the matter is he was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at a time when this House failed to ask the hard questions and failed to do its oversight job. It accepted what the administration told them at face value, and it was a rubber stamp when it came to taking the administration's word on intelligence. And yet he was the one they decided to make the head of Central Intelligence. And he brought with him some of the members of his committee staff. He brought his staff director and some of the other people who were very politically close to him, including his staff director, Patrick Murry. And what was the result of that? Well, I think it is important to take us back to, this is what happened right after that appointment at the CIA. And I am reading from a Post story back from November 2004. The deputy director of the CIA resigned yesterday after a series of confrontations over the past week between senior operations officials and CIA Director Porter Goss's new chief of staff that have left the agency in turmoil, according to several current and former CIA officials. John McLaughlin, a 32-year CIA veteran who was Acting Director for 2 months this summer until Goss took over, resigned after warning Goss that Goss's top aide, former Capitol Hill staffer Patrick Murry, was treating senior officials disrespectfully and risked widespread resignations. The day after this, the story says, the agency official who oversees foreign operations, Deputy Director of Operations Stephen Kappes, tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Murry. It goes on to say, it is the worst roiling I have ever heard of, said one former senior official with knowledge of the events. There is confusion throughout the ranks and an extraordinary loss of morale and incentive. That was the result of the Goss appointment at the CIA. Now, we see that Goss is being pushed out. And they are trying to bring back the guy, Kappes, in fact it looks like he will be coming back, that Goss's chief of staff essentially pushed out. He got in a confrontation and Kappes said, the person with great experience said, I am out of here. But a recent Post article of today, looking back on this period, said, former and current intelligence officers say Goss never had a strategic plan for improving spying on terrorist networks. I think it is also important to note another recent development with respect to people who were brought in at the top of the CIA, because another one of those people was a gentleman by the name of Kyle ``Dusty'' Foggo. It says, and I am quoting from a very recent Washington Post story, other Goss lieutenants at the agency also appear to be on the way out following Goss, who resigned Friday. Kyle ``Dusty'' Foggo, brought in by Goss as the CIA's Executive Director, number 3 official, announced to agency staff in an e-mail yesterday he plans to resign as well. The FBI said it is investigating whether Foggo steered contracts to a friend, Brent R. Wilkes. People may recognize that name, Wilkes. He is the defense contractor who got caught up in the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal that we all know about and is an example of what is wrong in this House. So these people who are at the CIA were appointed by this administration. I do not think it gives people confidence to know that the same people who appointed Michael Brown as the head of FEMA were the people who made these appointments to the CIA, an agency the American people depend on to gather good intelligence for our security. And yet we have been a rubber stamp in that area. And the 9/11 Commission report continues to give us a D. And this Congress deserves a D because the Republican leadership has not done anything. Until we get our act together with respect to conducting serious oversight in the intelligence area, we are going to continue to get policies that are not based on fact, but instead policies that are based on the world as people would like to see them, not the world as it really is. In this day and age, we need people who are clear-eyed and can see the world as it is, because that is necessary for our national security. I yield.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague from California.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, that is right. If I can just say to my colleague, you know this Congress was relatively quick when the 9/11 Commission recommended changes to the executive branch, in redesigning our national security review apparatus. We have the Director of National Intelligence now, Mr. Negroponte, and trying to change around the oversight within the administration, even though it is important to remember that the Bush administration originally resisted that reform and fought the reform. They realized that when the 9/11 Commission on a bipartisan basis came out in favor of that recommendation that change would have to be made. But here in the Republican-led Congress they have not done anything to address the 9/11 Commission's recommendations with respect to oversight. And I think everybody understands that at a time when we are trying to identify terrorists who are trying to do harm to our country and respond against them, it is absolutely essential that we get it right. It is important that we get it right for our military men and women. It is important that we get it right for the American people. It is important that we get it right for our own credibility. In order for us to do that, we know we have to expand our abilities in human intelligence gathering overseas. You need to have people who know more foreign languages. It is a shift in paradigm somewhat. And what is absolutely clear is that this administration has not had that paradigm shift when it comes to intelligence. Certainly the leadership in this House of Representatives has not had a paradigm shift, because they have not supported the bipartisan recommendations of the 9/11 Commission with respect to the issue of oversight. And so unless we do something, we are going to be caught with our lenses looking one way when the danger to this country sneaks up from another direction. We need to get it right. We need this oversight. It is like a board of directors that decides to go on vacation for four years and not pay any attention to the company. That board of directors would be sued for malpractice by the stockholders if something went wrong. We know some things are not going right and you have got to hold people accountable. And when you reward people who fail to punish or ignore people who get it right, you have got a recipe for failure. We need a recipe for success.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support providing much needed relief from the alternative minimum tax, but oppose those provisions providing special tax breaks for the wealthiest. I am disappointed that important legislation to help the American middle class is tied to an irresponsible tax giveaway to the wealthiest among us. The dividends tax break would help only 1 in 7 families making under $100,000 a year. The capital gains tax break affects only 1 in 20 such families. In a time of massive deficits, we should not be passing such unnecessary tax cuts. It is unfortunate that an important tax break--the AMT--is tied into this bill. While I support the AMT fix, I strongly object to the crass political ploy of attaching it to a tax break that disproportionately benefits the very wealthiest among us. The original purpose of the AMT was to ensure that taxpayers with high incomes would not take advantage of loopholes in the tax code and pay little or no income tax. However, because the AMT is not adjusted for inflation, it will penalize middle income families. The IRS calls this tax the ``Number 1 most serious problem'' facing taxpayers. We must extend AMT relief to ensure that middle class families do not face the burden of this complicated and expensive tax. That is why I am encouraging my colleagues to vote for the Democratic substitute. The substitute would eliminate AMT liability for individuals whose income is less than $125,000 and for couples whose income is less than $250,000. It is simpler, broader relief, and we can pay for it by restricting tax shelters. But an extension is only a temporary fix. We must amend the AMT to accomplish its original purpose rather than unfairly penalize millions of taxpayers. If we do not make serious changes, the AMT will affect nearly 35 million taxpayers in 2010. An extension is a good first step, but we should continue to work on policies to make the tax structure sensible and fair.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support the discharge petition for H.J. Res. 55 not because I support the substance of the underlying resolution, but because I believe a full and open debate of our Iraq policy on the floor of this House is long overdue. I believe the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. It has diverted resources from the fight against Osama bin Laden and those who attacked our country on September 11, 2001. It has fueled al Qaeda with fresh recruits and inflamed anti-American sentiment around the world. It has resulted in the loss of the lives of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis. It has cost the American taxpayer hundreds of billions of dollars. It has made us less, not more, secure. From the outset I have been an outspoken opponent of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq. I argued strongly that the United States should support the request of the United Nations' weapons inspectors for additional time to complete their mission. The Bush administration spurned that request. We know the result--the primary justification given for going to war in Iraq, namely the alleged existence of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and the alleged collaboration between the government of Iraq and al Qaeda, proved to be false. Many of us warned repeatedly that invading Iraq would open Pandora's box and unleash forces and historic rivalries that we would not be able to control. The rising sectarian conflict, the insurgency and the brutal executions carried out by militias were foreseeable. The total failure of the administration to plan for the aftermath of the invasion made what was certain to be a bad situation even worse. We went to war in Iraq in an irresponsible manner; we should leave Iraq in a responsible way. Having invaded Iraq, we have both a moral and national security obligation to do everything possible to prevent the situation and sectarian conflict from spiraling even farther out of control. We must devise a plan to leave Iraq in a way that maximizes the chances for stability and minimizes the possibility for the eruption of a full scale civil war with even more bloodletting than there is today. We must leave Iraq in a way that does not allow al Qaeda--which did not have a base in Iraq before the war--to develop a stronghold there. We must not compound the blunders of the Bush administration by creating the conditions for even more bloodshed in Iraq and allowing it to become a launching pad for terrorist activities. That is why I have not supported proposals that set a date certain for the total withdrawal of all American forces from Iraq. I believe such well-intentioned legislation, like H.J. Res. 55, would have the unintended consequence of accelerating a budding civil war and strengthening the hands of those who would like to see Iraq plunged into even greater chaos and bloodshed. While I do not support H.J. Res. 55 in its current form, I believe the Congress must have a serious and full debate on our strategy for bringing our troops home. Since the President declared ``Mission Accomplished'' in April 2003, we have seen more death and destruction in Iraq. The administration's efforts to achieve a political solution have been grossly inadequate. This House was wrong to give the President a blank check to go to war in Iraq. It now must fulfill its obligation to bring our troops home in a responsible manner. Let us honor our troops by having a serious debate. That is why I am signing the discharge petition for H.J. Res. 55.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague, Ms. Slaughter, for exposing this bill for the sham it is. It is an insult to voters around this country, an attempt to create a perception that we are making changes when, in fact, we are not. And not only is the bill snake oil, but the process by which this bill is passed is snake oil. The previous speaker talked about those who are trying to criticize the process from the outside. Well, let me just tell you a little story. When this bill was before the Judiciary Committee, I offered an amendment. It was a simple amendment to require registered lobbyists to disclose contributions they solicit and transfer to Members of Congress in the course of doing their business. It was an attempt to shine a light on the pay-to-play culture that we have seen in Washington. That amendment passed this Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan vote of 28-4. The Washington Post then wrote an editorial about it, and I would like to cite from that editorial because what the editorial said very clearly was this was a provision that exposed, more than any other provision, the way Washington does business. And they said in very prescient manner, we are afraid to shine the light on this issue for fear that it will be shot down all the more quickly. But, in fact, no other disclosure requirement would be more useful in explaining the way Washington does business than this one. Well, what happened? A funny thing happened on the way to the Rules Committee from the Judiciary Committee. When people voted ``yes'' in the daylight, it was taken out in the middle of the night, and then the Rules Committee denied us an opportunity to vote on that very provision here on the floor of the House, a sham process for a sham bill. Now, this is a lot more than just about golf trips for Members of Congress paid for by lobbyists. The fundamental issue for the American people is what it is costing them every day because we don't have better rules to shine the light on lobbyists. And we should look at the current gas prices right now. This institution and the President has signed now two bills in the last several years on energy. Both were said to be a big provision to reduce the price of gas. Well, we all know what a sham those bills were. What one of those bills did was create billions of dollars of subsidies to the oil and gas industry at a time that industry has experienced record profits and people are seeing high prices at the pump. We heard the other day this Band-Aid proposal from the Republican Senate, $100 rebate. What the American people are looking for is not chump change. They are looking for real change in the process in Washington so that we can change this country and take it in the right direction.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I am here today to ask that you grant me the opportunity to reinstate an amendment to H.R. 4975 that had been added in the Judiciary Committee, but was somehow stripped out en route to the Rules Committee. My amendment simply requires ``registered lobbyists'' to disclose the fact that they have ``solicited and transmitted'' a campaign contribution. Moreover, my amendment would require that lobbyists, who serve as campaign treasurers and chairman of political committees to disclose that as well. This amendment was added to the Lobbying Disclosure Act on April 5, 2006 by a vote of 28 to 4. It is ironic that an editorial about this amendment in the Washington Post, on April 13, 2006, stated--``We are almost reluctant to flag this provision for fear that it will be shot down all the more quickly, but in fact no other disclosure requirement would be more useful in explaining the way Washington does business than this one.'' I am not sure what appalls me more, the fact that the bill does precious little to address the problems that have created the culture of corruption on Capitol Hill or the fact that the few enhancements to the bill, added through the committee process, have been summarily deleted without a debate or vote. The irony is that the abuse of power that has taken place on the Hill, that undermines the confidence of the American people, is alive and well in the management of the bill that was originally designed to correct such abuses. The bill before us today is a weak attempt to create the allusion of reform. It fails to address: the problems with the revolving door between public service and lobbying, the showering of benefits to Members of Congress by lobbyists who have business before them, the need to enhance a broken Ethics Committee process and the need to reform the campaign financing system that creates the dangerous intersection between congressional action and campaign fundraising. The amendment that is before the Committee today, in my opinion, is a modest but important step in the direction to expose some sunlight on the activities where registered lobbyists have business before the Congress while at the same time soliciting and transmitting campaign contributions, in addition to serving as officers that run campaigns and political committees. I believe that these practices should be studied for the prospects of future regulation. However, at the very least, I believe that we need to compel the disclosure of these activities to the American people. We need to create transparency around the campaign finance practices that a registered lobbyist performs, as well as, the business that they bring to Members of Congress. As Justice Brandeis has said, ``sunlight is the best disinfectant''. Moreover, this disclosure will allow the American people to see the whole picture, of lobbying activity, so that they may judge, for themselves, the propriety of the transactions that have become an everyday practice in Washington. With public opinion of Congress at an all time low, we owe the American people a serious bill that is not a ``reform bill'' in name only. The culture of corruption that has plagued the 109th Congress is probably only rivaled, in infamy, by the Watergate era. The American people have seen Members of Congress: give appropriations earmarks in exchange for a Rolls Royce and lavish antiques; enjoy posh golf trips in Scotland at the expense of Native American tribes who were exploited by nefarious lobbyists, determine which lobbyists on K Street get the lucrative contracts, channel campaign finances to Members' spouse and children, and bend the House rules to allow the House leadership to bend the arms of Members to force a particular vote outcome. The American people are shocked and appalled by these activities. However, the real shocker is the reality that many people do not see, i.e. the nexus between these conflicts of interest and the pocketbooks of the American people. The effects can be seen in the influence of the oil industry in gaining subsidies while gas prices are skyrocketing, as well as the impact that the pharmaceutical industry had in drafting the Medicare Part D bill that prohibits drug importation and the competition for price reduction. We need to restore the trust of the American people. We need to start today by allowing this bill to be made into a real lobbying reform bill. I urge the Committee to rule my amendment in order so that I have the chance to add my amendment to this bill a second time. Real Lobbying Reform a house committee tackles the nexus between campaign cash and legislative influence Don't hold your breath for this to turn up in the final version of lobbying reform, but the House Judiciary Committee approved an amendment last week that would help shed light on the symbiotic relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers. Offered by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the provision would require lobbyists to report not just the campaign contributions they gave directly to lawmakers but also the campaign checks they solicit for or deliver to lawmakers--in other words, a measure of the real influence they wield. Astonishingly, this proposal passed the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 28 to 4--along with the underlying bill, a proposal that started out weak and was watered down from there. We're almost reluctant to flag this provision for fear that it will be shot down all the more quickly, but in fact no other disclosure requirement would be more useful in explaining the way Washington does business than this one. That may help explain why, until now, it hasn't been a part of any of the major proposals. The central role that lobbyists play in hunting, gathering and delivering campaign cash--rather than the checks they write directly--is the true source of their power. But while both sides in the transaction are well aware of how much Lobbyist X has raised for Representative Y, the media and the public are--at least based on the required disclosures--in the dark. Presidential candidates--first George W. Bush and after that Sen. John F. Kerry and other Democrats--have shown that it's feasible to provide information about the amounts bundlers have raised for them; their voluntary disclosure has added significantly to public understanding. If lawmakers are serious about effective reform, making certain the Van Hollen amendment survives would be a good way to demonstrate their commitment.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate my constituent Kimberly Oliver for being named the 2006 National Teacher of the Year. Ms. Oliver, a kindergarten teacher at Broad Acres Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland, exemplifies the best of the teaching profession--an innovative instructor who inspires her students to reach their full potential. Today, Ms. Oliver makes history as the first Montgomery County Public School or Maryland teacher to win this prestigious honor. Ms. Oliver has worked tirelessly, not only as a teacher but also as a leader outside of the classroom. Just a few short years ago, Broad Acres was on the brink of a takeover by the Maryland State Department of Education due to low performance by its students. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of Ms. Oliver and other faculty members, staff, and students, Broad Acres is now a model of school reform. Oliver was named Montgomery County Teacher of the Year in April 2005 and was selected Maryland Teacher of the Year last October. She was named one of four finalists for the national honor in January. As the 56th National Teacher of the Year, she will spend the next year representing our Nation's teachers at events around the country. The National Teacher of the Year Program is one of the oldest and most prestigious national honors programs that recognizes excellence in teaching. I am proud that one of Montgomery County's many outstanding teachers was awarded this honor. Education is the foundation of opportunity and America's children need teachers like Ms. Oliver to help provide them with the knowledge and training they need to become the leaders of tomorrow. I applaud Kimberly Oliver's achievement and wish her success in her future endeavors.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague from California, Mr. Schiff. And again, like my colleagues, I thank you for your leadership on issues of national security in this Congress for our country. I think we all understand that in order to successfully conduct the important work of our Nation, we must have management systems in place. We must have systems of checks and balances to make sure that those people who are making critical decisions for our country are held accountable, and nowhere is that more important than in the area of national security. We have to have competence and we have to have accountability, and unfortunately we have seen a lack of both those qualities in the decisions on national security made by this administration. It is Basic Management 101 that if you reward failure you are going to get more failure, and if you want success you should reward success. But if you look at the way this administration has approached national security, they have kind of got that principle backwards. In fact, they have essentially rewarded and acknowledged those in the administration who got it wrong and criticized those who got their facts right. Let us just go back to General Shinseki, who proposed early on that we would need, he said, a couple hundred thousand troops on the ground in post-war Iraq in order to maintain stability. He was dismissed by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz of being ``way off the mark.'' We have had up to 160,000 troops on the ground, and as you, Mr. Schiff, noted early on, it is the consensus of most military experts that one of the reasons we failed in the immediate post-war period to maintain stability was the lack of enough troops on the ground. General Shinseki was right. He was dismissed by the administration. Mr. Wolfowitz received the plum job as president of the World Bank. I do not know what kind of message that sends. How about the costs of the war? Well, Secretary Wolfowitz said: ``We are dealing with a country that can finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.'' Well, we know today that Iraq has still not come back up to its prewar oil production, and the predictions that were made by the chief economic policy adviser to the President, Lawrence Lindsey, who at the time said he thought the cost of the war would run about $100 billion to $200 billion, look good from today's vantage point. At the time we need to remind people that others in the administration, like the head of the Budget Office, Mitch Daniels, dismissed those projections as being too high, and said very, very high. We have seen a recent study by the Columbia University economist and former Nobel Prize winner in economics, Joe Stiglitz, who projects that this war could be up to $2.5 trillion in costs. But perhaps most dangerous from the vantage point of national security have been the failures with respect to the intelligence and the abuse of intelligence. And we need an intelligence system where the facts inform the policy, rather than a system where politics shape and distort the facts. But we have seen the administration ignore many of the professionals in the government who actually called it right in many instances. If you look back now over the national intelligence estimates and you look at what the people in INR, Intelligence Research at the State Department, were saying; if you look at what the folks at the Department of Energy were saying, a lot of them questioned these conclusions that were being jumped to with respect to the presence of weapons of mass destruction. They questioned both those agencies, the fact that these aluminum tubes were somehow evidence of an Iranian nuclear program. They said they did not believe that. And yet in its selective use of intelligence, the administration ignored those. They relegated those opinions to mere footnotes and essentially put forward the other information. And you mentioned today a very disturbing revelation has come to light with respect to the selective use of intelligence. And I just want to quote from the Los Angeles Times. This is in many other papers. It turns out, according to the information put forward by Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, ``President Bush personally authorized leaking long classified information to a reporter in the summer of 2003 to buttress administration claims, now discredited, that Saddam Hussein was attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction for Iraq.'' Before the war, they selectively leaked information in a way that misinformed the American public; and then when they were essentially caught doing that, they further selectively leaked information to try to hide that fact when revelations were brought to light. This has very serious consequences for our security because our credibility around the world depends on people whom we go to believing that the information that we have is true and that it is solid. When Adlai Stevenson was at the United Nations in the Cuban Missile Crisis and he said the Soviets were putting missiles into Cuba and had the information to support it, our credibility as a Nation was enhanced. As a result of the failures and abuse of intelligence, our credibility around the world has been degraded. It makes it much harder to persuade others about the seriousness of the threats in Iran and North Korea. Now, the 9/11 Commission made a number of recommendations as to how we could deal with this particular issue; and one of the recommendations they made was to bolster intelligence oversight reform. Let us hold people accountable for their decisions. Let us not reward failure because we will get more failure. Let us not reward and ignore mistakes; we will get more mistakes. But when it comes to intelligence oversight reform, what grade did they give to the Republican Congress and the administration? A ``D.'' A ``D.'' We have said, we Democrats, as part of our proposal, we are going to strengthen the oversight process. We are going to hold people accountable, and we are going to implement all of the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, including the recommendation to improve the oversight of intelligence so we can end the abusive intelligence, restore our credibility around the world, because that credibility is essential to the national security of this country. I thank the gentleman from California for his leadership on this issue, and I hope we will continue to have this conversation that I think is so important to our country

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, today I voted against H.R. 513, the ``527 Reform Act of 2005'' introduced by Congressmen Shays and Meehan. As a strong and long-term supporter of the Shays-Meehan/McCain-Feingold campaign reform legislation, I want to take this opportunity to explain my decision to vote against H.R. 513 today. On the surface, H.R. 513 appears to be simple. It would require ``527 groups,'' which represent individuals or groups that are not directly affiliated with political party organizations, to register and report with the Federal Election Commission in the same manner as political committees. I support that part of this bill. However, the Republican Leadership inserted a poison pill into the bill. In the dark of night, the Republican-controlled House Rules Committee added an amendment to roll back current limits on Congressional campaign committee spending in supporting a candidate in a House general election. In 2006, Congressional committees are limited to spending a maximum of $79,200 in a Congressional race. This amount is set by law and adjusted for inflation. Under current law, Congressional campaign committees possess the authority to spend unlimited amounts on a campaign. Congressional committees must currently borrow and use the limits assigned by law to each party's national committee and each state party committee. The amended bill will lift current caps and upset the balance of spending. A second killer amendment eliminates Congressional campaign committee limits on party spending for Congressional candidates. This bill allows each party to accept transfers from other committees within the party structure when spending for a candidate. This change will enable the National Republican Congressional Committee to accept unlimited transfers from the Republican National Committee for use in spending on any Congressional campaign. It is not a coincidence that Republicans outspend Democrats 5:1. We have just seen the former Republican Majority Leader resign from Congress in disgrace. Another prominent member of the majority party sits in jail for accepting tawdry bribes while selling his office. Prominent administration officials have been arrested or are under indictment. This is not a time to be playing parliamentary games with the ethical process. And that is why I voted against this shamefully amended version of H.R. 513 today.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague, the ranking member of the committee, and I am pleased to join with Mr. Castle and my other colleagues in supporting this amendment, and I want to commend the gentleman from Delaware for his leadership on this very, very important issue. I think it is vital in our Nation that we encourage more and more young people graduating from college to go into the teaching profession, to teach throughout our communities, but also to encourage many of them to go into those communities where they are most needed, where you have many more at-risk youth than others. That is what this particular amendment does, and the Teach for America program is a great example of this idea in action. If you look at their history, you see it is one of making sure that we do do a better job of getting into communities with these young teachers. By 2010, Teach for America will increase the number of highly accomplished recent college graduates teaching in underserved urban and rural communities in the United States from 3,500 to 8,000 reaching nearly 700,000 underserved kindergarten-12th grade students every day. It recruits at over 500 colleges and universities across the country, and this year 19,000 individuals of all academic majors applied for the Teach for America program. They come from colleges all over the country and are represented with the full geographic diversity of our Nation. I am personally proud to say that 138 seniors from the University of Maryland system applied for the Teach for America program. And they do a great job of encouraging more people, as I said, to get into the classroom. If you take a survey, and they did, 10 percent of those who were accepted to the Teach for America program stated that they would not have considered a career in education if they had not participated in this program. Currently, 60 percent of Teach for America's 10,000 alumni are working within education to effect fundamental change. Last year's 2005 National Teacher of the Year was a Teach for America alum and is still teaching math in the District of Columbia public school system, the same school system he began in 8 years ago. So we want to encourage these students as they graduate and become teachers to go into these communities and then stay in those communities. So I think, Mr. Chairman, in closing, I just want to again commend my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their efforts in this area. I think it is a very, very important initiative and one that I commend to all our colleagues in this House.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I, too, want to thank the chairman of the committee and the ranking member and the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee for their work on this important issue. However, I, too, reluctantly must oppose this bill because I believe it falls short, and I think it would be wrong to give the American people the impression that we are meeting the challenges in higher education when we are not. It was just 2 months ago that the President of the United States stood before this Chamber at the podium before us and delivered his State of the Union address. In that address, he told the people of this country the United States must do more to maintain our competitive edge in the global economy. He was right about that. Those were fine words, and in fact, the Education and Workforce Committee has been debating and looking into those issues for some time now, but the issue is not identifying the problem. That is the easy part. The challenge is doing something about the problem. And in that regard, this body and the Bush administration, unfortunately, get failing grades, because we all understand that a key part of maintaining our competitive edge in the global economy is to make sure we invest in the skills and education of our workforce. We need to make sure our people have the training they need in what is increasingly a knowledge-based economy, and to do that, we need to make the necessary investments. Yet the day after the President stood before this Chamber and delivered his State of the Union address was the day this House passed a reconciliation bill that cut $12 billion out of the Federal student loan program: $12 billion. Now, we all know that usually when this higher education bill comes before this House, it contains those funding provisions, the provisions for student assistance in this country. But, unfortunately, those were taken out of this bill and dealt with separately and cut by $12 billion. So now this body doesn't have to deal with that issue with the bill before us today. But those are the facts. We also need to invest more in our K-12 education system. And it was just shortly after the President delivered his State of the Union address that he delivered a budget that cut the No Child Left Behind from its authorized level. It was $15 billion short of what we had promised there. If we are going to be serious about this issue, we need to make a commitment at the national level to address the competitiveness challenges in our country. We don't do right by the American people when we say one thing on the big day of the State of the Union address and then we bring a bill before the Congress that doesn't contain the necessary investments in funding to make sure that we meet the challenges. And so, Mr. Chairman, I must reluctantly oppose this bill because it would be wrong to send a message we are doing something about the challenges when in fact we are not.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the 185th anniversary of Greek independence and to celebrate the long friendship shared between the people of Greece and the United States of America. Greece and the United States are forever linked by common values and political philosophy. In the formative years of our Republic, the founding fathers looked to the shining example set by ancient Greece whose political institutions and democratic ideals were the foundation upon which were based many of the political freedoms and traditions Americans enjoy today. In 1821, as our American experiment with democracy blossomed, we proudly stood in support of the new Greek republic emerging from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Petros Mavromichalis, a founder of the modern Greek state, said to the citizens of the United States in 1821, ``it is in your land that liberty has fixed her abode and . . . in imitating you, we shall imitate our ancestors and be thought worthy of them if we succeed in resembling you.'' As the Greek state took shape, Presidents Adams, Madison and Jefferson joined a nation of grateful Americans in an expression of encouragement and good wishes. Ever since, Greece and the United States have enjoyed a strong cultural, commercial and strategic partnership. The Greek people have stood with us during every major American military action. The citizens of the United States will never forget how during World War II, Greece in the historic Battle of Crete, presented the Axis powers with their first major setback, setting in motion a chain of events that would significantly affect the outcome of World War II. And today the Greek people are standing beside us still, this time in Afghanistan where they have not only dedicated financial and logistical support to the NATO effort there, they are also playing an important role in helping to physically secure the country. Thomas Jefferson referred to ancient Greece as the light which led ourselves out of Gothic darkness. On the occasion of the 185th anniversary of Greek independence, I join all Americans in wishing the people of Greece congratulations and best wishes. We will remain eternally grateful to the Greek people and the legacy of ancient Greece for the shining example it set for democracies the world over.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, in March, we celebrate Women's History Month and honor the historic contributions that women have made our great Nation. We remember those who have fought for progress in women's rights and recognize those who continue to fight to expand opportunities for women. Recently, I, along with other Members of Congress, welcomed Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to the U.S. Capitol where she addressed a Joint Session of Congress. It was a moving experience to hear the first woman elected president of an African country. President Johnson- Sirleaf's historic achievement is an inspiration and she embodies the theme of this year's Women's History Month--``Women: Builders of Communities and Dreams.'' During the past year, we lost several remarkable women whose courage and vision transformed our Nation. Coretta Scott King was not only the keeper of the flame, but a woman who worked for change so that all Americans would have the opportunity to experience true freedom and justice. Rosa Parks' courage and determination launched the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and sparked the civil rights movement. Betty Friedan, one of the founders of the modern women's rights movement, agitated and struggled, never ceasing the fight, for women's rights. In spite of the efforts of these and other brave women, much work still needs to be done to fulfill the legacy of these women. We must redouble our efforts to create a Nation where everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. We must pursue new policies that promote economic prosperity, affordable healthcare, and strong public schools. America can do better. This March, as we recognize and celebrate the contributions of our great American heroines, we must rededicate ourselves to making the future for all of America's girls and women full of hope and opportunity.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, we are marking a milestone in the global fight against one of the world's most deadly diseases--tuberculosis. In Rockville, MD, the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation opened a new research and production facility to meet the world's need for an advanced tuberculosis vaccine. The Aeras Foundation is currently testing multiple TB vaccine candidates. The facility will be capable of producing 150 million doses of vaccine per year. It will use the most advanced medical research and manufacturing technologies and will serve as Aeras's headquarters as well as its research and production center. The world badly needs a new TB vaccine. More than 1.75 million people die from this disease every year: It is second only to AIDS as the world's deadliest infectious disease. The World Health Organization estimates that there are 8.8 million new cases of TB every year. TB is also the leading cause of death among people diagnosed with AIDS, accounting for about 13 percent of AIDS deaths worldwide. The current TB vaccine, known as BCG, is nearly 100 years old and was developed in the early 20th century. One of the most widely used children's vaccines in the world, BCG is largely ineffective against TB in adults, who comprise the majority of TB cases. A new vaccine is the best hope for controlling TB, because vaccination is the only medical intervention that has eliminated an infectious disease. This was the case with smallpox, and today, global polio vaccinations efforts are bringing closer the day when this human disease will be eliminated. A better TB vaccine may be in reach within the next decade. At least four candidate vaccines have entered human trials recently, and others are in the development pipeline. I am pleased that the Aeras Foundation has decided to make its home in the community I represent in the U.S. Congress. The Aeras Foundation was founded in 1997 for the purpose of developing new concepts and tools to control the global TB epidemic. Today, it is the only non- profit organization in the world working through public-private partnerships with the sole focus of developing new vaccines against TB and ensuring their production and availability to all who need them. In 2004, the Aeras Foundation received a grant of $82.9 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for new TB vaccine development. It has also received funding support from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the Government of Denmark. Dr. Jerald C. Sadoff, president and CEO of the Aeras Foundation, has devoted more than three decades to developing vaccines for dozens of diseases, including malaria and chicken pox, and is one of the world's leading experts in this field. He and his team of researchers and scientists are dedicated to saving the lives of millions of people in some of the poorest places in the world from the scourge of this disease. But TB is not just a disease characteristic of the developing world; there are an estimated 8 cases per 100,000 people in Europe and 5 cases per 100,000 people here in the United States. This month we will celebrate World Tuberculosis Day, a day to heighten awareness of and rededicate ourselves to the search for a TB vaccine. That goal is closer to reality thanks to the tireless work of the skilled and talented men and women of the Aeras Foundation at their new facility in Rockville, MD. I wish them the greatest success in their important and noble mission.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, today I rise in support of the supplemental budget despite reservations about parts of this legislation. While I think this bill could be substantially improved, I also believe that, on balance, it does more good than harm. This bill provides funds for a number of important purposes, including the equipment necessary to support and protect our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan; emergency relief for the victims of hurricane Katrina; and funds to support international efforts to stop the mass killings of innocent people in Sudan. I will address each of these in turn. Let me start with Iraq. While I opposed the President's decision to go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I am supporting this bill because I believe we must provide our troops with the necessary equipment while they are there. I also believe, however, that the President has failed to provide the American people with a viable plan for success in Iraq. This bill fails to include benchmarks to hold the Administration accountable. The bill also fails to include adequate safeguards to ensure that the funds are spent responsibly. Millions of dollars have already been lost or wasted in Iraq due to poor oversight. Every effort must be made to prevent another Halliburton from growing fat at the expense of the American taxpayer. I recently supported an amendment in the Government Reform Committee that would have held the federal government responsible for overspending and general mismanagement of federal funds. Despite the common sense nature of this amendment, it failed on a party line vote. This Congress has totally failed in its oversight responsibilities with respect to these funds. Let me now turn to Afghanistan. I supported the decision to take military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I believe we have not yet completed our mission there. Osama bin Laden remains at large, al Qaeda continues to operate and the Taliban have stepped up their attacks. In the face of these realities, the funds provided for U.S. and international efforts in Afghanistan are inadequate. During a recent hearing before the House Appropriations Committee, Ronald Neumann, our Ambassador in Afghanistan testified that not enough was being been appropriated for our efforts there. I agree. This bill fails to meet the commitments we have made to Afghanistan. It defers the promised cancellation of Afghanistan's $11 million debt owed to the United States; it cuts $16 million from USAID for mission security in Afghanistan and reduces by $2.2 billion Department of Defense funds for Afghan security force training. The bill also cuts funds for counter- narcotics activities in Afghanistan from $193 million to $157 million. As U.S. commanders prepare to devolve more responsibility for security to other coalition partners and to the Afghans, they must account for the fact that it could take years and billions of dollars to achieve the level of self-sustainability necessary to provide for Afghanistan's infrastructure and national security needs. A critical test will occur this summer as the U.S. military officially hands over control of the dangerous southern region to NATO forces. Counter-insurgency has never been NATO's job and there are questions about whether it is ready and willing to take on this new role. The volatile southern region has the highest incidents of terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime in the country. Of the more than 100 American soldiers killed in insurgency attacks in the last year--most of the deaths occurred in the southern region. We must recognize that it is in our national security interest to work with the Afghan people. We must work to accelerate efforts to build and strengthen national institutions, the economy and Afghan security. By reducing the funding for Afghan operations at this critical time we are sending the wrong message to our troops, to our allies and to the people of Afghanistan. Next, to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the bill contains $19 billion to aid recovery and reconstruction efforts. Most of the funds will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency but $4 billion will go towards community development and for loans to homeowners, renters and businesses. Months after the hurricane, thousands of people are still looking for permanent homes. This funding will help citizens displaced by Hurricane Katrina rebuild their lives. This bill also contains emergency funding to help those suffering in Sudan. The United States and the international community have failed to take adequate steps to stop the genocide. This bill at least attempts to alleviate the suffering. It includes $66 million for humanitarian support, $11 million to assist refugees in Darfur and Chad to return to their homes, $150 million for food, $123 million to support African Union troops and, with the adoption of the Capuano amendment, $88 million to prepare for the transition to UN peacekeepers. Mr. Chairman, despite the reservations I have raised, I believe the bill deserves our support.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing the CSRS Retirement Repayment Technical Correction Act of 2006. This bill would correct an unintended consequence that followed the enactment of the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-508) on November 5, 1990, and provide relief for federal employees who were adversely affected by that enactment. The Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990 made retroactive changes to the rules related to separating federal employees. While the rules were made retroactive to October 1, 1990, the implementing regulations were not promulgated until February 1991. This four month period between the enactment of the law and the promulgation of the implementing regulations has adversely affected any federal employee who withdrew their retirement contributions during this period. This matter was brought to my attention by Sandra Schatz Landis, my constituent who was on maternity leave from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), a former bureau of the Department of Justice at the time in question. On November 5, 1990, Ms. Landis withdrew $24,439.00 in retirement contributions and was advised that if she later re-entered federal service, she could re-deposit the withdrawal without paying interest and not suffer any adverse consequences. Unbeknownst to Ms. Landis and the personnel specialists at INS who were advising her, because ofthe enactment of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 that occurred on that very same day, November 5, 1990, employees who withdrew their retirement contributions as far back as October 1, 1990 were suddenly required to repay their withdrawn contributions with interest in order to have the prior service included in their annuity calculation. What is unfair about this is that employees had no warning that the rules under which they were making major financial decisions were changing. If Ms. Landis were to make this repayment today, she would have to refund over $58,000 of which $34,000 is interest. This is just one example of an unintended injustice that must be corrected. The CSRS Retirement Repayment Technical Correction Act of 2006 will provide relief to those who withdrew their retirement contributions between Oct 1, 1990, when the Omnibus Reconciliation Act was enacted, and February 1991, when implementing regulations were promulgated. It is fair and reasonable legislation that needs to be enacted into law.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, just 35 days ago I attended the President's State of the Union address with other Members of Congress right here in this Chamber. And that night I was very much pleased to hear the President talk about the importance of maintaining America's competitive edge in an era of increasing global economic competition. This is an urgent issue facing our Nation and one on which I think there should be strong bipartisan support. In fact, many of us in this House have been working for some time on what we call an ``innovation agenda'' to ensure that America stays number one when it comes to international economic competition. Indeed, last fall House Democrats unveiled a blueprint for an innovation agenda. So I was pleased with many of my colleagues to hear the President join this effort in the State of the Union address. He said this was going to be a priority. In fact, that night he told the American people, ``Tonight I announce an American competitiveness initiative to encourage innovation throughout our economy and give our Nation's children a firm grounding in math and science.'' He went on to talk about the importance of the No Child Left Behind Initiative and proposed an increase in training teachers for math and sciences. Now, a few days after the State of the Union address, the President sent his budget to Congress. Now, we all know that the budget is what is a true reflection of the President's real priorities. That is where the American people have a chance to see whether the President's words at the State of the Union address are backed up by action. That is his opportunity to show that he means what he says. And I must confess, I was very disappointed with the President's budget and I believe the American people will be disappointed, too, because his rhetoric that night in the State of the Union in this Chamber was not matched by the reality of his budget. He may correctly want to invest more in math and science, but if you look closely at his budget, $115 million of the $380 million investment is simply taken from other important education initiatives. It is a shell game. Out of one pocket, into another. And what is worse, if you look at the President's proposal for No Child Left Behind, which he talked about in his State of the Union address, this year it is $15 billion dollars short of what this House and this Senate and the Congress and the President said they would provide. And that is cumulatively $40 billion short of what had been pledged. Now, what about higher education? Our students in this global economic competition have to be able to compete in a knowledge-based economy. Yet students and families are seeing across this country increasing tuition rates, making it harder and harder for them to pay for the tuition and making college out of reach for more and more Americans. So what did the President and the Congress do? The day after the State of the Union address, this House passed a budget reconciliation bill that cut $12 billion on student aid, the biggest rate on student aid in the history of this country, passed by the Republican Congress. And with the stroke of a pen, the President signed that into law and made college more difficult for many millions of Americans to reach. Now, the President also told us in the State of the Union address that to maintain our competitive edge we have to invest in scientific research, and he was right. But while he increased, rightly, his investment in the physical sciences, if you look at the medical research budget, it is flat. And in fact, if you look at 18 of the 19 institutes at the National Institutes of Health, they are cut. This violates sort of the first principle that doctors have in medicine: First, do no harm. Those cuts will harm our ability to maintain our competitive edge in the medical research area. We need to get serious. I am proud to have joined with my colleague, Mr. Inslee, to introduce a number of new provisions with respect to maintaining competitiveness, as well as others. The President also told us what many of us already knew: that we are addicted to foreign oil. If you look actually at his proposals in this area, they are rather anemic. In fact, his budget cut our investment in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And Americans may remember the spectacle just a few weeks ago when the President wanted to go out and visit the National Renewable Energy Laboratory only to discover before the great photo-op that his budget had cut funding for that, and 38 employees were laid off. So they had to scramble around to rehire those employees so the President could get his sound bite and his photo-op. We have got to put aside the sound bites and the photo-ops. And instead of having the sound bite policy, we need a very sound energy policy. And again, many of us have worked on legislation in this area. Mr. Speaker, I think the message is clear: You have to not just look at what people say but what people do. I urge the American people to recognize the gap between rhetoric and reality in the President's budget and see that there are alternatives that many of us have proposed.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, President Bush's brief stopover in Afghanistan yesterday gives us an opportunity to take stock of the progress that has been made there. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on what the world might look like today if the United States had adopted a wiser foreign and national security policy after the terrible attacks on our country on September 11, 2001. After that tragic day, the world united behind the United States and our determination to destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and the terrorists responsible for those attacks. We sometimes forget here that within days of the attack the United Nation's General Assembly, friends and foe alike, unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the attacks on the United States. And NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked article 5 of the Washington Treaty stating an attack against one is an attack against all. When the brutal Taliban regime refused to support action against al Qaeda, the United States took appropriate military action to force out the Taliban and attempt to destroy the al Qaeda terror network. That was the right action and had the strong backing of the American people. And Afghanistan is a much better place today. However, while we succeeded in driving out the Taliban from the capital city of Kabul and killed a number of al Qaeda leaders, we have not finished the job. Indeed, Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for masterminding the 9/11 attacks, is still alive and likely to be somewhere along the Afghan-Pakistan border, less than 100 miles from where President Bush stood just yesterday. And the continued presence of active Taliban and al Qaeda resistance in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border represents a lost opportunity. Instead of finishing the job against al Qaeda, the President decided instead to attack Iraq, a nation with no weapons of mass destruction and a government that was actually an ideological adversary of al Qaeda. As a result of invading Iraq, the Bush administration squandered a huge opportunity to keep both our forces and the international community focused on defeating al Qaeda and its brand of radical Islam. The goodwill that the United States had developed throughout the world in the aftermath of 9/11 evaporated as we switched our focus from the enemy that attacked us to one that had not. As a result, our invasion of Iraq has fueled radical Islamic and anti-American forces and allowed al Qaeda to gain new recruits around the world. Today, the United States is tied down in an increasingly volatile Iraq, and the man actually responsible for launching the attacks on the United States, Osama bin Laden, remains at the top of his terrorist network. Meanwhile, the United States continues to make mistakes that will hamper our ability to put the Taliban and al Qaeda out of business permanently. First, the United States is sending the wrong message by reducing the number of our forces in Afghanistan. Just yesterday, as President Bush was arriving in Afghanistan, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Maples, told Members of this Congress that the insurgency in Afghanistan is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a greater threat to the central government's expansion of authority than at any point since 2001. And the greatest threat of Taliban resurgence is in southern Afghanistan, the area from which the United States will be withdrawing more than 2,000 troops. While we welcome the additional NATO forces in Afghanistan, it would be far wiser to use these NATO troops to supplement rather than replace the U.S. forces in the region. We should not be sending the wrong signal to the Taliban and al Qaeda at this delicate time. We are still living with the consequences of neglecting Afghanistan in the past. Second, Mr. Speaker, the United States must end the abuse of the detainees at the prison at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Recent evidence suggests that the abuses that have taken place there are even worse than those that occurred at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The United States must lead by example. The abuse of prisoners is wrong and will only strengthen the hands of al Qaeda and the extremists. We cannot credibly demand that others adhere to the rule of law if we are flouting international human rights standards. The President's stopover in Afghanistan gave him a chance to declare that such abuse is unacceptable. Like so much else, however, it was another missed opportunity. As a result of many missed opportunities since 9/11, the United States is less secure than we could be. Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are still in operation. The Taliban are feeling emboldened. We are bogged down in Iraq, and our weakened moral standing around the world has made it more difficult for us to influence events and protect our security. Let us stop missing opportunities to strengthen our security. We must not reduce our commitment to the people of Afghanistan, and we must increase our commitment to human rights. Mr. Speaker, we can and should do better, much better.