Mel Watt

Mr. WATT

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

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. First of all, I want to thank the gentleman from Oregon for his thoughtful approach to this and express my desire to have all of the Members of the Congress have an equally thoughtful approach to it. The Kelo decision was met with a tremendous uproar, with many echoing the view that all private property is now vulnerable to condemnation as long as the new use of the land will produce additional tax revenue. While I appreciate that concern and share the view that private property should not be taken solely for the purpose of increasing State coffers or local coffers with additional tax revenue, I do not believe that the Court's decision leads to that result. What is even more important is I do not believe that this bill does much, if anything, to address that concern even if it did do that. Unless we get down to a definition of what removal of blight is, and this bill does nothing to do that, local communities are still going to be able to condemn property, as they should, for public purposes. There really is nothing inconsistent with that in the Kelo decision. Flexibility by local communities in determining whether the public use requirement has been served by ensuring that condemned property creates a public benefit or advantage has long existed, and I believe should continue to exist, as the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) has so eloquently stated. I feel like State and local officials have as much intellect and discretion and are as accountable, probably even more so, to their constituents than Members of Congress; and they should be answering to their constituents on these issues. Again, while I believe that the power of eminent domain must be exercised judiciously, I think this bill goes too far in limiting the power of States and local governments. In addition, the punitive measures included in the bill will visit additional harms on the very distressed communities that are often the target of eminent domain proceedings. I would just point out that apparently after this bill is passed, if it is passed, a local government, a State government could still condemn blighted property. The problem now is that it would just have to sit there vacant with nothing developed on it, otherwise they would be in violation of the provisions of this bill if there were any kind of private development, even a public-private partnership. So I think we are going too far and we need to take a giant step back, take a deep breath, and pass the sense of Congress part of this resolution expressing our concern, but not the bill.

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

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for yielding. I was trying to decide how to approach this issue and decided that probably there were two things I need to do: number one, I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), my good friend and colleague, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), my good friend and colleague, the two States with whom Rosa Parks probably had the strongest physical connections, for convening this Special Order for us to pay tribute to Rosa Parks. I have listened to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and my other colleagues talk about some of their personal connections to Rosa Parks. One would think that maybe the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus would have some personal stories, too; but when I reflect, I can only say that I never met Rosa Parks, nor for that matter but for the fact that Martin Luther King spoke at my high school graduation in 1963 did I ever meet Martin Luther King. So why would we be here talking about somebody that we have never met? Because they have had an impact on our lives. What would compel a person to go visit a bus stop in Alabama? Simply because you knew that there was a particular significance to that bus stop, that that was the stop at which Rosa Parks got on the bus. I cannot talk about the personal things about Rosa Parks that some of my colleagues have talked about. I can only talk about the impact that she had on my life and the lives of other people who viewed her from a distance and respected and admired her gentle but defiant stand, the stand that she took actually by sitting down and refusing to stand up, and by knowing that it had a tremendous impact on everybody around us as we were growing up, because by her sitting down and refusing to stand up, it allowed other people to stand up and straighten their backs and raise their shoulders and look up and start to move in a direction that we had not been moving before, starting with a bus boycott, and then sit-ins and other public accommodations and the entry of Martin Luther King as a leader of a whole series of things that started to take place. What does that say for us who never met this wonderful woman, except from a distance? It says that there are probably many, many, many people who are watching us and would it not be a wonderful tribute to have somebody someday pay tribute to us who never, ever met us in person, by saying this person had an impact on my life. I cannot think of a higher way to pay tribute to her. She had an impact on my life, and I cannot think of a greater challenge to issue to my colleagues in this body, to people who may be watching around the Nation, than to say what a wonderful tribute to have somebody think that you could impact their lives by simply sitting down or taking a stand for what you know is right. We have that opportunity every single day, and I am delighted to pay tribute to Rosa Parks for exercising that opportunity and for allowing me to stand taller on her shoulders, on that giant commitment that she made. Mr. Speaker, I do want to spend one moment, if I may, talking about the underlying resolution. We have not heard much of a whimper of opposition to it, and I do not anticipate any opposition to it. But when we are doing something for the first time, there is always going to be somebody who would raise the question, raise a question, and the one question that several people have raised is are we creating a precedent here. I want to address that because I think we need some benchmarks for this for future Congresses and others to take into account. This is the way I view this. Our Capitol and its Rotunda stand as a monument to our democracy. There are some principles upon which our democracy is founded that were articulated by the Founding Fathers. As most people know, the Founding Fathers articulated the very highest principles for our country, and they were just exquisite principles. Unfortunately, the Founding Fathers did not necessarily at that time intend for all of those principles to apply to everybody. They did not apply to women, for example. They certainly were not intended to apply to African Americans. The standard that I want to articulate here, I think, that undergirds this resolution and the authority to have the body of Rosa Parks lie in honor in the Rotunda is that more than perhaps anybody that we can think of, she extended those principles of the Founding Fathers in a way that they apply universally to all of us. I am not going to dwell anymore on that because I do not want to start trying as an individual to start articulating a standard for having somebody lie in honor in the Rotunda, but for those people who may be worried about it setting a precedent or worried about how future Congresses are going to decide whether to do or not to do the same thing, let me advance the proposition that the role that Rosa Parks played in our democracy for some people, for all people, is as profound, as important as the role that the Founding Fathers played when they articulated a set of principles, because the principles do not mean anything unless they apply to all citizens of this country. That is what Rosa Parks was fighting for. That is what we ought to continue to fight for, and the highest tribute that we could pay to Rosa Parks going forward is to continue her fight, the fight that she sat down on a bus; that made it possible for us to stand up and lift our shoulders and lift our visions and really, really aspire to believing that the principles that were articulated by our Founding Fathers apply to each and every one of us. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time, and I hope I have not abused it by talking primarily about the resolution and its place in history, but I just thought we needed to put that marker down at this place so that somebody will understand why this powerful lady has this honor and how she honors us and the principles that our government stands on by lying in honor in our Rotunda.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Millender-McDonald) for yielding. We all are under the disadvantage of never having enough time. We could speak the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the rest of the month, the rest of the year, next year, and we still could not say enough things to give praise to Rosa Parks, who meant so much to us. I want to be very brief and I would simply ask, if I may, to take a part of the Record that was done in Special Orders the night before last and graft it into this section of our Record so that it will appear here. The Congressional Black Caucus, headed by the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) of Michigan, the two States to which Rosa Parks had the most concrete and physical connection, led that Special Order, and a number of members of the Congressional Black Caucus came and spoke, including myself. Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that we make that a part of the Record of today.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) for yielding. I was trying to decide how to approach this issue and decided that probably there were two things I need to do: number one, I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), my good friend and colleague, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), my good friend and colleague, the two States with whom Rosa Parks probably had the strongest physical connections, for convening this Special Order for us to pay tribute to Rosa Parks. I have listened to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee) and my other colleagues talk about some of their personal connections to Rosa Parks. One would think that maybe the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus would have some personal stories, too; but when I reflect, I can only say that I never met Rosa Parks, nor for that matter but for the fact that Martin Luther King spoke at my high school graduation in 1963 did I ever meet Martin Luther King. So why would we be here talking about somebody that we have never met? Because they have had an impact on our lives. What would compel a person to go visit a bus stop in Alabama? Simply because you knew that there was a particular significance to that bus stop, that that was the stop at which Rosa Parks got on the bus. I cannot talk about the personal things about Rosa Parks that some of my colleagues have talked about. I can only talk about the impact that she had on my life and the lives of other people who viewed her from a distance and respected and admired her gentle but defiant stand, the stand that she took actually by sitting down and refusing to stand up, and by knowing that it had a tremendous impact on everybody around us as we were growing up, because by her sitting down and refusing to stand up, it allowed other people to stand up and straighten their backs and raise their shoulders and look up and start to move in a direction that we had not been moving before, starting with a bus boycott, and then sit-ins and other public accommodations and the entry of Martin Luther King as a leader of a whole series of things that started to take place. What does that say for us who never met this wonderful woman, except from a distance? It says that there are probably many, many, many people who are watching us and would it not be a wonderful tribute to have somebody someday pay tribute to us who never, ever met us in person, by saying this person had an impact on my life. I cannot think of a higher way to pay tribute to her. She had an impact on my life, and I cannot think of a greater challenge to issue to my colleagues in this body, to people who may be watching around the Nation, than to say what a wonderful tribute to have somebody think that you could impact their lives by simply sitting down or taking a stand for what you know is right. We have that opportunity every single day, and I am delighted to pay tribute to Rosa Parks for exercising that opportunity and for allowing me to stand taller on her shoulders, on that giant commitment that she made.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, normally when we see a manager's amendment come to the floor, it is an improving amendment. Unfortunately this one makes a bad bill actually worse than it was originally drawn, and it does so in this way. There are already pleading requirements in every State, and basically what this amendment does is make those pleading requirements higher for the food industry than for anybody else in America. And, in essence, where you end up is that lawyers who represent people who are claiming to have a cause of action are not only now, under this language, called upon to represent their clients and make a reasonable effort to determine whether there is a basis for their claim, they have to be the jury also. They have to go out and decide, are there enough facts here on each and every cause of action against each and every defendant to win this case and win it profoundly. They have to allege specific facts. I mean, that is the kind of stuff that normally gets done at a trial if a case even gets that far. Most of these cases are being dismissed really. So most of them are not going to get that far anyway. But I am not sure what role discovery or any other aspect of our legal process is playing anymore if we pass this manager's amendment. This is much, much more than a technical amendment. This is a very substantive amendment. And, unfortunately, I think it makes a bill that is already a very, very bad bill, it makes it a very, very, very bad bill. I oppose this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is where I think we are. Some of us are frustrated by some of the litigation that has taken place in this area. I said it when we debated this bill the last time on the floor. I am not a fan of fat litigation either, but sometimes we have to be patient enough in a legislative body to let the institutions that are supposed to work, work. They are working. Most of the lawsuits that have been filed in this area have been dismissed. Most of them have been dismissed. That is what the courts are for. We do not always get the result we want, but the courts are there to make a determination of what results are appropriate and not under the laws that exist. The State legislatures are responding. Mr. Chairman, there are 26 pending laws out there in the States. A number of them have different components, different nuances. Some of them are retroactive, some of them are not. Whatever happened to our belief that the State legislatures, the States are a laboratory of good legislation? I thought that is what my colleagues who are supporting this bill believed in more heartily than anything else they came to Congress to talk about. When it is convenient for them, when it is convenient for them, there is no more important mantra to them than the mantra of States rights. What are we doing to States rights here, in an area that throughout history has been the province of the States? I do not understand. We cannot be so intent on getting a particular result, so results-oriented that we disregard everything that we have set up in place to deal with problems of this kind: Our judiciary, our State legislatures, our common sense.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT. Madam Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. WATT. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. And as I said the last time we debated it, I do not rise because I am a supporter of frivolous lawsuits or lawsuits even that some of the people have used the legal system to pursue. I rise in opposition to the bill because I think it is an overreaction; and, indeed, I think it is perhaps an ultimate attestation to the fact that many of my colleagues have lost confidence and faith in the legal system on the one hand or that, regardless of what the legal system does, if it does not yield for them the result that they are seeking, they are willing to compromise any principle that they have professed to stand for to achieve the result that they wish to achieve. H.R. 554 goes much further than its stated purpose of banning the small handful of private suits brought against the food industry. It also bans suits for harm caused by dietary supplements and mislabeling, which have nothing to do with excess food consumption; and it would prevent State law enforcement officials from bringing legal claims to enforce their own consumer protection laws. Simply look at the provisions of the bill. Section 4(5) would prevent any legal action related to any ``health condition that is associated with a person's weight gain or obesity.'' As a result, the bill would prevent persons who develop heart disease and diabetes from dietary supplements such as Ephedra and Phen-fen from being able to obtain redress if they gained weight. Even worse, the bill bans these lawsuits in a retroactive way. So it would throw out dozens of Ephedra and Phen-fen cases currently pending before courts. This is a far cry from the concerns that led to this legislation originally, some of which I have the same concerns about. H.R. 554 would also prevent State law enforcement officials from enforcing their own laws. Under section 4(3), the bill applies to legal actions brought by any ``person,'' and the term ``person'' is defined to include any ``governmental entity.'' That means States attorneys general will be prevented from pursuing actions for deceptive practices and false advertising and other practices that are illegal against the food industry. Again, this is a vast departure from most of the so-called tort reform bills considered by the Congress, which are drafted to apply to private lawsuits, and is a vast departure from the original purpose of this bill and the problems it was designed to deal with. Since the predecessor to H.R. 554 was first introduced last term, 18 State legislatures have enacted so-called cheeseburger laws to prohibit certain claims from their courts. While most of those enacted apply retroactively, others, that is, Kansas, Arizona, Colorado, do not. Some provide for a stay of discovery; others do not. Some establish affirmative defenses; others do not. That is our State law taking effect. In short, in the considered judgment of each of these 18 State legislatures, laws have been enacted that best serve their States. The bill completely preempts those laws and brings to a screeching halt the work of 26 other States that have been working on pending legislation. It also disrupts the process in some States that have combined obesity bills with menu labeling requirements as part of their overall health enhancing legislative scheme. What is the price that we are willing to pay to get the result that we are seeking? Have we lost confidence in our State and Federal court systems that have systematically thrown out most of the lawsuits that have been filed against the food industry using this ``fat theory,'' as it is commonly referred to? Have we lost confidence in our whole federalist form of government in which tort law has been particularly the province of the States? Have we lost confidence in our State legislatures that are in the middle of responding in their particular States to any problems that may be on the horizon in this area? We have instead cast ourselves as the imperial Congress because the same people who came to this Congress, saying that they believe in States rights, have now shown they do not care about States rights. What they want is a result that they can control and they can dictate. That is really what this bill is about, and it is unfortunately not only this bill. There is another bill right behind this one that will be up today or tomorrow that does the same thing in the gun context. So I do not think we are going to hear a lot of people out here talking about this bill today. I do not see many people on the floor. It will be like a tree falling in the forest. We do not know whether it is having any impact out there or not. We will pass it out of here. It will become a political vehicle to cozy up to the food industry, but at what price? At what price? I would just say the people who maintain that H.R. 554 is necessary to make people responsible for their own choices and to thwart the unwarranted imposition of legal costs and fees on the food industry are just not being upfront with us about this one. This bill insulates an entire industry from liability; and more importantly, it undermines our State judicial and legislative systems that should be and are in the process of dealing with this to the extent that they have identified it as a problem. In that sense, the bill represents yet another arrogant attempt by this Congress to impose its will on the States, and I urge my colleagues to get a grip and understand what we are about to do here. There are some things that are more important, and our judicial system is working its way through these cases, is dismissing them where they need to be dismissed; and where that is not happening, our State legislatures are taking care of this problem. This is not a Federal issue, nor should it be. I urge opposition to the bill. Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to thank my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus who are taking the time and consistently putting forward this message that poverty and race and the convergence of them in this country must be an issue that we deal with.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson) for providing an opportunity for us to speak this evening. I am speaking as Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and we are here to show our support for our three Members whose districts have been severely and adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina, the gentleman from New Orleans, Louisiana (Mr. Jefferson), the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), who represents part of that district, and the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Davis), who represents part of that State. We are here to support their efforts on behalf of their constituents. Mr. Speaker, it is coincidental that those constituents are disproportionately African American. I say it is coincidental because I believe this catastrophe, this hurricane, was certainly not directed at African American people. But the reality is that poor people, disproportionately African American people who were poor, were not able to get away from the disaster. When they were told to leave New Orleans, in particular, they did not have the financial means to escape the disaster. This is an issue that the Congressional Black Caucus has been talking about not only in the context of a hurricane, but in the context of an agenda which describes disparities in every area of our lives. It is an agenda that we have been talking about the entire year. We did not just start talking about it in the context of a hurricane. Disproportionately, African Americans are poor. And if this same catastrophe had happened in any American community in which black people and white people were living, disproportionately African Americans would have been left behind, subject to the whims of nature and the catastrophe. So we are here to express our support for our Members and their constituents, and we heartily endorse the proposals that have been outlined in general terms by our friend, the gentleman from New Orleans (Mr. Jefferson). We endorse them and we encourage our colleagues to embrace them. Our Nation is at a crossroads, and we must respond. We must respond to these constituents in the same way that we would respond to other Americans, rich, middle class and otherwise, who were subjected to this kind of disaster. I encourage my colleagues to pay attention to what is going on in this area and to devote our resources and our energy, both private-sector and governmental, to addressing this problem. Mr. Speaker, I will yield back to my colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), and again applaud him for providing this opportunity for Members of the Congressional Black Caucus to address this issue.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Chairman, I suspect that the American people do not realize just how much the process of legislating is about reacting to events that take place around us. When something like Enron happens, we react to that. When accounting scandals happen, we react to it. When the events of 9/11 occurred, we obviously reacted to those events. And quite often when we react, we are looking for an appropriate new balance that takes into account some outrageous activity that took place. And so when we passed the PATRIOT Act originally, our effort was to try to find a new security balance for people here in our country, and we thought we had done a tremendous job of doing that in the Judiciary Committee, only to find that the Rules Committee, which did not even have any jurisdiction over the matter or had any hearings about the matter, took the bill, rewrote it, brought it to the floor and struck a completely different balance between the rights of government on one hand and law enforcement and the rights of individuals on the other hand. I voted against the original PATRIOT Act, and I still believe that the balance that was struck in that bill was inappropriate. I think the balance that we have struck in this bill is not the appropriate balance. And a number of my colleagues have said that, well, there have not been any abuses by law enforcement of the powers that we gave them. But the truth of the matter is that depends on how you define an abuse. And I do not like to define an abuse as something outrageous. If we wait on something outrageous to happen, then we will react back in the opposite direction of against government and law enforcement in unreasonable ways, just as we are reacting in favor of law enforcement now. So here are a couple of statistics that you need to know about: the American Library Association found that libraries have received over 200 formal and informal requests for materials including 49 requests from Federal officers. Well, maybe they did not find anything. Maybe that was not an abuse that people are going to get outraged about, but I think that is outrageous. In section 213 it talks about sneak-and-peek searches. In a letter to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), the Department of Justice said on July 5, 2005 that that section had been used 153 times as of January 2005. Only 18 of those times were the uses for terrorism investigations. Well, what is happening with the other 80 percent is in my estimation an abuse of this provision because we passed the law so that we could make it easier for law enforcement to get to terrorists. The law is being used in ways that, but for the events of 9/11 and the terrorism that occurred, we would not have accepted as residents of this country. I just think we have struck the wrong balance. We need to sunset this bill again for a shorter period of time, and I hope my colleagues will take that into account and vote against it.

Mr. WATT

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, solely for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green.) (Mr. AL GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I am here as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and to talk about the bill before us. When I became Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus earlier this year, I encouraged my colleagues in the caucus to refocus their energies, and they agreed to do so, on the basic historical purpose of the Congressional Black Caucus: closing disparities that exist between African Americans and other Americans in this country. That enabled us to develop, in a daylong retreat, an agenda around closing disparities in this country. It enabled us to give that agenda to the President of the United States on January 17 of this year, and to say to the President of the United States, we will not evaluate you on whether you are a Republican or a Democrat; we will evaluate you solely on whether you are proposing an agenda, an appropriation, a proposal that will close or widen the disparities that exist between African Americans and other Americans in this country. It enabled us to come, when we engaged in this debate on the budget and offer a Congressional Black Caucus budget that focused on the agenda of closing disparities between African Americans and other Americans. It enabled us to develop a legislative and an appropriations agenda that focused on that same objective. So why are we here today? Because this bill literally blows up our whole domestic agenda that the Congressional Black Caucus has adopted. In health care, in education, in justice, and in all of the things that we believe are important, we believe this bill moves us in the wrong direction. In our CBC budget, we proposed to roll back the tax cuts on people who make the highest amount of money in our country, people over $200,000 a year, and to get $20 billion, approximately, out of that rollback from which we could do our agenda. That was not allowed. We cannot do what we want to do in the context of this bill because the only thing we could do in this bill, if we offered an amendment, would be to rob Peter to pay Paul. We would be taking from one worthy purpose to give to another. But we cannot sit by and allow this bill, which rolls back adult training grants, U.S. employment services, youth training grants, Job Corps, community service block grants, LIHEAP, No Child Left Behind, and zeroes out a total of 48 programs that would have the effect of closing disparities between us and other Americans. We must stand, and that is why we have asked for the time today. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Mrs. Christensen) to talk about the health disparities that this bill will not help close. (Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Owens). (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, solely for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee.) (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I rise to say to my colleagues, 15 minutes, an hour and 15 minutes, 15 days would not be enough time for us to tell you how bad this bill is and how devastating it will be in opening disparities that already exist wider and wider and wider. When we rise into the full House, we intend to offer a copy of the Congressional Black Caucus agenda, the legislative agenda, and a listing of 48 programs that are zeroed out by this bill. I do not know how we think there is going to be any kind of movement toward a closing of the disparities that exist between rich and poor, black and white in this country if we continue to go down the road we are going. We have drained all of our resources off to war, to tax cuts, and left nothing to address the needs of our own country and our own people. Amendment Offered by Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, solely for the purpose of a unanimous consent request, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green.) (Mr. AL GREEN of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the time be extended by 10 additional minutes, for a total of 15 minutes in time, and that I be allowed to yield that time to other Members.

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. WATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).