Mel Watt

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. I join with my colleagues in expressing sympathy and paying tribute to our friend and colleague, Juanita Millender-McDonald. When you serve in a body of 435 people, you get to know some of the Members by face, some by name, and then you get to know some close up and personal. When you serve as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, as I did for the last 2 years, you get to know your members on a close personal basis, and you get to know who will stand with you and fight, who will support you, who will cover your back for you. And that is how I got to know Juanita Millender-McDonald, because I knew she would stand and fight for what she believed in and she would be a friend. So I remember her first and foremost as a friend and colleague, and pay tribute to her family and express my sincere condolences.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I rise in opposition to the gentleman's amendment. The gentleman has indicated that this is about transparency. I really don't think it is about transparency. The underlying bill is about transparency and giving shareholders the information they need to at least express themselves about salary increases and golden parachutes, both of which I think all of my colleagues have acknowledged are problems that need to be addressed. What this amendment is about is more about two things. One is the ability to express ourselves to each other as shareholders without impediments. That at some level is a free speech issue. The second thing this amendment is about is balance. What the gentleman would say to shareholders is, if you communicate with other shareholders about executive compensation or a golden parachute, then your vote gets disqualified. But if the corporate executive communicates with other shareholders about this issue, they can do it in an unimpeded way and without any consequence. So if the gentleman were interested in making this a balanced amendment, what he would do is to add a provision that said, if the executives communicated with the shareholders about the vote, then they would be disqualified from getting any salary increase if they didn't disclose if they had spent anything other than a de minimis amount of money communicating with the shareholders. That would give it some balance. But right now, it is, as the gentleman from California has pointed out, a completely unbalanced equation. And it is not unlike what is already existing in this executive compensation arena because the scales are totally unbalanced against shareholders, and the underlying bill attempts to at least in some measure restore a sense of balance and give shareholders more rights. It doesn't do it in an intrusive way. In fact, there are a number of proposals, including one on the Senate side, that would be a lot more intrusive than this bill. I think this is the least intrusive way to do it, and I support the underlying bill and oppose the gentleman's amendment to the bill.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I am just trying to be clear, under your amendment, who would make this determination of whether it is outside the norm? Where would the information come from? Has anybody done a cost analysis of what it would cost to obtain this information?

Mr. WATT. Is that spelled out in your amendment?

Mr. WATT. Okay.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the chairman of the committee.

Mr. WATT. Reclaiming my time, that was exactly the point I was going to make. So a broader amendment, were it germane to this bill, would probably be received favorably by all of us because we believe that fiduciaries in general should be reporting to the people that they are representing. But when you limit it only to pension plans, you eliminate foundations, you eliminate family trusts, and you eliminate a whole range of other fiduciaries that should have the same obligation. And singling out pension plans in this context I think is the wrong thing to do. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. WATT. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. WATT. Reclaiming my time, I am not sure that the SEC would have the authority to go outside without some legislation anyway. So a letter to the SEC saying, do this, would take two conditions: Number one, it would take the passage of this bill, and I presume the gentleman is not planning to vote for it. So you would be asking us to accomplish something for you without a quid pro quo. Number two, it would take some legislation. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. WATT. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. WATT. I am delighted that my chairman has reaffirmed that because my colleague from North Carolina would never take that piece of advice from me. I'm joking. I oppose the gentleman's amendment because it is not broad enough to cover all fiduciaries. We ought to work on it in a different context, and I hope we will have that opportunity.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and was not able to get here to cast my vote on H.R. 1591. Had I been here, I would have voted for the bill.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for the way he has framed this issue as a fiscal responsibility issue; although I think he frames it incorrectly in this case. There really is no precedent in disaster situations if you go back throughout all the disaster situations for even requiring a local 10 percent match, and I think in another bill there will be language that would actually waive the 10 percent local match. This component of it disallows the use of Federal money that has been granted to the local communities to provide that 10 percent match. I think the issue is going to go away in another context anyway, but it is counterintuitive to say to local communities whose complete tax base has been destroyed that they should somehow provide a 10 percent match for Federal funds that are given, and historically in disaster situations, there really has never been a 10 percent match at all because we have recognized that the distress situation that is created by a disaster makes it highly unlikely, improbable, impossible in many circumstances, that the 10 percent match would be able to be met by the local community. You take that and multiply it times five, because this is five times the worst natural disaster that our country has ever had. So we should reject this five times, not just once.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I have been listening with some interest to the comments on this amendment, and I think there would be substantially more credibility for the people who are advancing it if there had actually been some units constructed or even started in the 17 or 18 months since Hurricane Katrina occurred. It is somewhat amazing to me how we have fought for so many years to do community development, and all of a sudden HUD and our colleagues here want to do community development, but they want to do it in this distress atmosphere where there is no housing, even for people to move back into who would participate and do work on the units. Here is what has happened. The hospitals that had damage to the first floors went back in and put patients on the second, third and fourth floors. The housing, the public housing that had damage to the first floors, the Public Housing Agency, which, by the way, is in receivership under HUD, not an independent local housing authority, but in receivership, being operated by HUD, took the position that it would be unsafe to put public housing tenants back in those units by restoring second, third, fourth floors of the housing units. Now, I can't figure out how it is safe to put medical patients on the second, third and fourth floors of hospitals where you have gone in and basically done some remedial stuff on the first floors of the hospitals, and yet it is unsafe to put people who have no housing to return to on the second, third, fourth floors, and restore the first floors of the public housing. This is not an argument against doing longer-term community revitalization. That needs to happen, and we are supportive of that. But in this distress situation, there needs to be, first, restoration of the housing that was there so that people can move back in and get back into their communities and stop being scattered all over the country. And that should be the highest priority that we are pursuing, and that is what the bill does.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I am struck because I was here about 15 or 20 minutes ago debating the last amendment. We operate in a structure that requires us to deal with one amendment at a time, and when you deal with one amendment at a time, you kind of get segmented into these little places that you are. But the thing that is astonishing here in this opposition to this amendment is that if you look at it in the context of the last amendment and this amendment, I don't know what it is you all would have these people do for housing. In the last amendment, you said we don't want to build or renovate or restore any public housing in New Orleans because we want to do community development in New Orleans, and that is going to take a long time, and it is counterproductive to restore public housing in New Orleans while we are doing this community development. Then in the next amendment you say, well, we don't want to give people vouchers so they can in the meantime stay in Houston, Texas, or Charlotte, North Carolina, or California or anywhere else. Then my colleague gets up and starts his comments by saying, well, we are all working toward the same objective. I keep wondering what that objective is. Our objective is to house these people temporarily and long term. Then in the last amendment you cut off the notion that you would house them long term because you don't want to renovate public housing. In this amendment you are cutting off the notion that you will house them short term because you don't want to give them vouchers to have housing immediately. So when and where are you planning to house these people? Now, there is, my colleague reminded me, a NASA facility in Houston. Maybe you would like for us to put them on a spaceship and send them out. My friends, these are not welfare recipients. Even if you have these stereotypes about these people feasting at the trough, these are people who were displaced by a hurricane. Regardless of these images that you may have about welfare recipients, these are people, these are our United States citizens who were displaced by a natural disaster, and all we are trying to do is provide housing for them, both on an immediate basis and on a long-term basis. They have had three or four cutoffs now where one day they are sitting in a hotel and they are told, your assistance is being cut off. Imagine what that does for family values and for the notion of stability. Have a heart and let's pass this amendment so that we can provide some housing to these people.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Madam Speaker, in October of 2002 I worked meticulously with Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to craft a statement of principles that has proven to be so absolutely prophetic. Listen to what our 2002 principle said, and it will put in context why I feel so strongly that this war has taken us in the wrong direction and why this resolution is so necessary and worthy of our support. First principle: ``We oppose a unilateral first strike action by the United States without a clearly demonstrated and imminent threat of attack on the United States.'' My colleagues, history will record that the President took first strike action, and that there was neither a clearly demonstrated nor an imminent threat of attack on the United States. Second principle: ``Only Congress has the authority to declare war.'' History will record that Congress delegated that authority to the President, but I say unapologetically that history will also record that I voted against that delegation of authority. I never believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; and, even if it did, I never believed that they posed any imminent threat to the United States. Third principle: ``Every conceivable diplomatic option must be exhausted.'' History will record that our President instead thumbed his nose at the United Nations and at almost all diplomatic options in his rush to lead us into this foolhardy war. Fourth principle: ``A unilateral first strike would undermine the moral authority of the United States, destabilize the Middle East region, and undermine the ability of our Nation to address unmet domestic priorities.'' The passage of time has demonstrated and history will record that every single one of these concerns was legitimate and warranted. Fifth principle: ``Any post-strike plan for maintaining stability in the region would be costly and require a long-term commitment.'' We haven't yet gotten to a level of stability that we are trying to maintain, but the cost of this war today exceeds $500 billion. That is costly and with no end in sight. If we continue to follow the President, the duration of our commitment has no end in sight and no plan to bring home or redeploy our troops. Increasing the number of troops in Iraq does not make ending the war more foreseeable. Past troop increases in Iraq have paraded under different names than surge, but make no mistake about it, this is not the first time the United States will have increased troop levels, and each time they have been met with greater levels of violence. From December of 2003 to April 2004, the troop increase paraded under the name ``troop rotation'' and resulted in an increase from 122,000 to 137,000 troops; yet April of 2004 was the second deadliest month for U.S. forces. From November 2004 to March 2005, the increase paraded under the name ``improving counterinsurgency operations after the Fallujah offensive,'' or ``increasing security after January 2005.'' We increased our troop level to 150,000 troops; the result, no impact on violence increase. And again, September to December of 2005, we went to 160,000 troops, still no decrease in violence. In most respects, what the President has proposed is business as usual, simply under a different name. It did not work before, and there is no prospect that it will work this time. Madam Speaker, this resolution is one that we should support and bring our troops home. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Resolution. Simply stated, as the Resolution says, I support the troops and I oppose the increase in the number of troops. Simply stated, I support a redeployment of the rest of our troops from Iraq as soon as possible. But I can't go forward before I review how we got here in the first place. Looking back helps me to put a time perspective on this because this War is now approaching 5 years in duration, a period longer than the Second World War. And looking back also helps me to put a substantive perspective on this that I think is absolutely critical to an understanding of my vote. It's gut wrenching for me to recall that as early as October 2002-- several months before the President proceeded to war in Iraq and long before I was later elected to serve the 2-year term that I have now completed as Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus--I worked meticulously with every single member of the Congressional Black Caucus to craft a Statement of Principles that have proven to be so absolutely prophetic. Listen to what our 2002 Principles said and it will put in context why I feel so strongly that this War has taken us in the wrong direction and why this Resolution is so necessary and worthy of support: First 2002 Congressional Black Caucus Principle: ``We oppose a unilateral, first-strike action by the United States without a clearly demonstrated and imminent threat of attack on the United States.'' My colleagues, history will record that the President took first strike action and that there was neither a clearly demonstrated nor an imminent threat of attack on the United States. Second Principle: ``Only Congress has the authority to declare war.'' History will record that Congress delegated that authority to the President, but I say unapologetically that history will also record that I voted against that delegation of authority. I never believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and--perhaps more importantly--even if they did, I never believed that they posed any imminent threat to the United States. Saddam Hussein was a dastardly tyrant and bully toward his own people, but was a coward and no threat to the United States. Third Principle: ``Every conceivable diplomatic option must be exhausted.'' History will record that our President, instead, thumbed his nose at the United Nations and at almost all diplomatic options in his rush to lead us into this foolhardy war. Fourth Principle: ``A unilateral first strike would undermine the moral authority of the United States, destabilize the Middle East region and undermine the ability of our Nation to address unmet domestic priorities.'' The passage of time has demonstrated and history will record that every single one of those concerns was legitimate and warranted. Fifth Principle: ``Any post-strike plan for maintaining stability in the region would be costly and require a long-term commitment.'' We haven't yet gotten to a level of stability that we're trying to maintain, but the cost of this War to date exceeds $500 billion. That's ``costly'' and with no end in sight. If we continue to follow the President, the duration of our commitment has no end in sight and no plan to bring home or redeploy our troops. Increasing the number of troops in Iraq does not make ending the War more foreseeable. It will only escalate the number of troops and the prospects of casualties and will likely only increase the resolve of the enemy, the same thing that increases in troop levels have done in the past. Past troop increases in Iraq have paraded under different names than ``surge''. But, make no mistake about it, this is not the first time the United States will have increased troop levels. And each time they have been met with greater violence. From December of 2003 to April of 2004, the troop increase paraded under the name ``troop rotation'' and resulted in an increase from 122,000 to 137,000 troops. Yet April of 2004 was the second deadliest month for U.S. forces. From November 2004 to March 2005, the increase paraded under the name ``improving counterinsurgency operations after the Fallujah offensive'' or ``increasing security before the January 2005 constitutional elections'' and increased troops to 150,000. Result: short term positive impact, but longer term increase in violence and resistance. Between September and December 2005, troop levels were increased again, taking the number up to 160,000, around the constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections. The referendum and elections proceeded without major violence, but the increase had little long term impact on sectarian violence. In most respects, what the President has proposed is business as usual, simply under a different name. It did not work before and there is little prospect that it will work this time. Madam Speaker, this Resolution is our attempt to make it clear that we do not support a troop increase or an escalation of this War. I intend to vote for the Resolution. I just hope the President is listening.

Mr. WATT. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WATT. I am just sick and tired of people telling us that we are unpatriotic and not supporting of the troops.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor MGM Brakes, headquartered in Charlotte, NC, on its 50th anniversary. MGM Brakes is a division of Indian Head Industries, Inc., also headquartered in Charlotte, NC, and maintains manufacturing facilities in Cloverdale, CA and Murphy, NC. MGM Brakes was founded in 1956 and is a leading U.S. manufacturer of spring parking brakes and actuators for vehicles with air brakes. Fifty years ago the company's founders (Miller, Gummer and Meyers) invented the spring brake actuator to prevent air braking failures in heavy, over-the-road vehicles that usually resulted in runaway vehicles. MGM Brakes is now a leading world-wide supplier to the commercial vehicle industry and its actuator products have become standard equipment on more than 125 makes of commercial vehicles currently manufactured in over 40 countries. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to pay tribute to MGM Brakes and its employees for 50 years of pioneering technology and innovative products that have helped increase the safety of commercial vehicles, transit buses and school buses across the states and around the country.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, if I was present to vote on rollcall No. 431, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus have throughout a long period of time led the fight against HIV and AIDS by insisting on the creation of a global fund to attack it internationally, insisting that we address the issue here in the United States, and that we take it as a serious proposition. Unfortunately, as we have been addressing it, it has grown to epidemic proportions in the African-American community here right in our own backyard. And so we will have today a series of speakers coming to address that issue from the Congressional Black Caucus because we think it is time for the United States to declare a state of emergency and we are intent on taking the lead ourselves on this issue to dramatize it in our own communities, to talk about it, to be tested ourselves, to insist on mandatory testing, and support some new initiatives that will address this problem and get it in control in this country.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for yielding time. I rise in support of H.R. 5347. It is necessary to extend this program, and we are extending it for 1 year, the reauthorization, and that is the best we can do. You may sense frustration in that statement, because there is a sense of frustration. I have been at this HOPE VI for a long time now, and I think we need to go back and trace a little bit of the history of how we got here. HOPE VI is not a Democratic program. It was introduced under a Republican administration. It was the brainchild of Jack Kemp when he was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. And the idea was that we were not going to make any progress on dealing with community issues as long as we had these tremendous numbers, thousands of people in dense public housing communities in various places throughout the country, and that the only way we could approach the problem effectively was to disperse poverty and create communities with mixed incomes, low-income people, middle-income people, and high- income people. And so HOPE VI was about community revitalization. All of the complaints I have heard about it over the years make it sound like people don't understand how difficult it is to do community revitalization. Because every time somebody says, well, they didn't finish a project in a year, I say to them, you can do construction in a year, you cannot do community revitalization in a year. It takes time to revitalize a community. Now, why am I so passionate about this? We have seen five communities in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, completely transformed as a result of HOPE VI. We have seen one community in Greensboro, North Carolina, in my congressional district, completely transformed as a result of HOPE VI. We have seen two communities completely transformed in the Winston Salem part of my congressional district as a result of HOPE VI. We bring a little bit of Federal money, private people come to the table, and you end up with a mixed community in terms of income, racially and otherwise. And I can tell you, if you come into downtown Charlotte now, you will see a completely different story than you saw 10, 12, 15 years ago. You will see a beautiful community where a concentration of low-income public housing used to be. Now if anybody tells me that is not success, I say I do not know what success is. That was exactly what the program was designed to do. And I don't understand how this President, on so many issues, including this one, will take a successful program and all of a sudden say this program doesn't work. Now, coincidentally, most of the money is going into Democratic districts. That is really what the debate, the subtext of a lot of this debate, has been about. We knew where the public housing projects were. They were in most of our congressional districts. We set out to try to do something about those, and we have done something about those using HOPE VI. It has been the single most successful community revitalization and housing program probably that our Nation has ever seen, contrasted with the whole idea of warehousing poor people in concentrations of low-income communities. So I am passionate about this. I am delighted we are extending this program for a year. But, at the same time, we need to recognize there is not but $99 million even in the appropriations bill that hasn't been passed and finalized. And every time we have had to fight this battle to reauthorize the program we have lost funding for the program, so it gets less and less and less effective at accomplishing its mission. So I congratulate my friends for extending the program, and I ask for their support, all of our support, for extending a program that is a no-brainer. We ought to all be supporting this program.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, I want to start by thanking my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, Representative Danny Davis, who has already spoken, and the other members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are here this evening to shed more light on what is going on in the Sudan and to challenge our other Members of Congress and our administration to take action in this dire situation. Many people, when they saw the movie Hotel Rwanda, believed that it was a fictional movie. Unfortunately, the actions, the things that were depicted in that movie, were not fictional at all. It is true that actors and actresses played the roles, but it depicted something that had actually transpired in our world, which has been described by Representative Danny Davis as over 850,000 people killed through acts of genocide. Unfortunately, that occurred with our United States Government and people around the world knowing that genocide was taking place in Rwanda and not taking any action to do anything about it. Well, we are now facing a similar situation in the Sudan. We are up now to what is estimated to be 450,000 people having been killed by official governmental actions, genocide. We have declared it to be genocide. Our government has declared it to be genocide. And in addition to the 450,000 people who have been killed, over 2 million people have been displaced from their home communities, their villages, because they are fearful of staying in their communities lest they be killed by genocide also. And the beat goes on daily. Mr. Speaker, this is something that must stop. It is inhumane and it is something that our country and people around the world should not continue to tolerate. We visited, a number of us, Members of the Congressional Black Caucus and others, visited the Sudan and actually went into the displaced persons camps where we found conditions were horrible, where we found disproportionately women and children, because the men had stayed behind to fight, and most of them had been the victims of the killings and genocide. So we are going to have a situation where more and more and more children are going to be without parents if we do not act, and that is unacceptable. The African Union troops have gone in to try to stabilize the situation, but we met with the African Union troops and their resources are depleted and they are not mobile enough. Even when they know another act of genocide is about to occur, they cannot move fast enough to the location where they know it is going to happen to prevent it from happening. And so we have made it clear that the only way this can be resolved is for United Nations troops to be put into that area to stop the genocide that is going on. Now, let me tell you what happened. The U.N. met and a resolution was passed, and still the United Nations troops are not in Sudan. The U.N. met and a resolution was passed authorizing troops to go into Lebanon, and the U.N. troops are already in Lebanon. So there is something going on here, Mr. Speaker, that we need to expose to the world. We cannot distinguish between folks just because they are in Africa as opposed to the Middle East. We have got to take action. We call on our Congress and our administration and people around the world to do so this evening.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the time of the gentleman from New Jersey.