Frank Wolf

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Mr. William Lee Trolan on the occasion of his retirement from the Office of the Sergeant at Arms on December 6, and to thank him for 35 years of dedicated service supporting and leading sensitive and classified national security programs. Beginning in December 1978, and for the following six years, Mr. Trolan served as a commissioned U.S. Army officer defending our nation on the ``frontiers of freedom,'' which included operational command of a nuclear missile site. For 19 years, he worked for several government agencies focusing on critical emergency management and national security programs, including response to nuclear weapons incidents. For the past nine years, he served as the Director of Continuity Planning for the U.S. House of Representatives where he developed plans and resources that dramatically improved Congressional planning and readiness as it relates to continuity of goverment operations. On behalf of the entire House community, I extend congratulations to Mr. Trolan for his outstanding contributions to the United States House of Representatives and to our country.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record a compelling open letter that Eric Reeves, noted Sudan researcher and activist and a professor at Smith College, recently sent to President Obama expressing his dismay at the moral failure of the Obama administration in responding to ``the continuing mass atrocities perpetrated by the current regime in Khartoum (Sudan) . . .'' Reeves notes the contrast between Obama's outspoken rhetoric on Sudan as a senator and eventual presidential candidate versus the indefensible silence, appeasement and moral equivalency which has marked his administration's posture toward a genocidal regime. In February 2012 I travelled to Yida refugee camp in South Sudan. I heard devastating firsthand accounts of the violence, terror and starvation being brought to bear against the Sudanese people by the regime in Khartoum. I recall speaking with one woman who described herself and her people as ``forsaken.'' I specifically asked her if there was anything she wanted me to tell President Obama. She said the only thing she wanted was for Omar Bashir, an internationally indicted war criminal, to be arrested. But rather than working to facilitate Bashir being brought to justice, this administration seems bent, in the words of Professor Reeves, ``on throwing a political and economic lifeline to the regime.'' I can't help but wonder why the Obama Administration views the Sudanese people as any less deserving of a lifeline. An Open Letter to President Obama on the Bombing of North Sharafa, East Jebel Marra (Darfur) [From Eric Reeves, Nov. 30, 2013] President Barack Obama, The White House, Washington, DC Dear President Obama: The moral failure of your administration to respond to the continuing mass atrocities perpetrated by the current regime in Khartoum (Sudan) grows daily, and has done so for the past five years. Your refusal to condemn, in the strongest terms, the continuing war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the National Islamic Front/National Congress Party tyranny stands in stark contrast to your urgent words as a Senator, as a presidential candidate, and as an elected President. As a senator in 2004, you called the atrocities in Darfur ``genocide.'' You said so again as a presidential candidate in 2007 and chided the Bush administration for its accommodation of Khartoum. Invoking Rwanda and Bosnia as justification for humanitarian intervention in Darfur, you said, ``The United States has a moral obligation anytime you see humanitarian catastrophes.'' You declared further, ``When you see a genocide in Rwanda, Bosnia or in Darfur, that is a stain on all of us, a stain on our souls. . . . We can't say `never again' and then allow it to happen again, and as a president of the United States I don't intend to abandon people or turn a blind eye to slaughter.'' (Video recording available at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QEd583-fA8M#t=15; all emphases have been added) And as President you again characterized Darfur as the site of ``genocide.'' But despite such strong language, your administration has come to substitute words of appeasement, feigned ignorance of atrocity crimes, and a grotesque moral equivalence between Khartoum and its adversaries, one that would put in balance the regime's genocidal destruction and the actions by the various rebel groups that have emerged to resist Khartoum's tyranny. Your first special envoy to Sudan arrived declaring his strategy for confronting the regime's genocidaires in words that have become synonymous with diplomatic absurdity: ``We've got to think about giving out cookies,'' said [Scott] Gration, who was appointed in March. ``Kids, countries--they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes, agreements, talk, engagement.'' (Washington Post [el-Fasher, Darfur], September 29, 2009) In March 2009 the Khartoum regime expelled from Darfur thirteen of the world's finest humanitarian organizations, then providing roughly half the total international humanitarian capacity for millions of people. Your surrogate diplomatic representative--then-Senator and now Secretary of State John Kerry--declared in the wake of Khartoum's ruthless expulsions: ``We have agreement [with Khartoum] that in the next weeks we will be back to 100 percent [humanitarian] capacity,'' said [Senator John] Kerry. (Reuters [el-Fasher], April 17, 2009) This was a cruel lie, as Kerry and everyone within the humanitarian community working in Darfur well knew. Indeed, this was such transparent mendacity that even now it carries the stench of supreme expediency. Your second special envoy, Princeton Lyman, declared in late June 2011 that there wasn't enough evidence to support reports of massive, ethnically-targeted killings of Nuba civilians in South Kordofan. But in fact, overwhelming evidence was pouring out of Kadugli (capital of the region) making all too clear the nature of atrocity crimes, which amounted to incipient genocide. Again, this skepticism bears the stench of unforgiveable expediency, the more so since a UN human rights report on the events of June 2011 in South Kordofan-- based on evidence gathered by UN human rights investigators on the ground at the time--confirmed what all sources were declaring with increasing urgency throughout this terrible month. Lyman's disingenuous skepticism worked to convince Khartoum that the U.S. was not particularly concerned about a reprise of the genocidal campaign by this same Khartoum regime against the people of the Nuba in the 1990s. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that in the unseemly rush to secure continuing cooperation from the Khartoum regime on counter-terrorism intelligence, you and your administration have repeatedly and willfully ignored reports of the most conspicuous and brutal crimes committed by this regime, or at least decided not to speak publicly about them in any meaningful or consistent way. And here your almost total silence over the deliberate bombing of civilians--even as every such military action is a war crime, and in aggregate constitute crimes against humanity--is most shameful, and most persistent. Since 1999 the have been more than 2,000 confirmed reports of deliberate aerial attacks on civilian and humanitarian targets in greater Sudan; the actual number of attacks is very likely many times this, and continues to grow rapidly. This is unprecedented in the history of aerial warfare: never before has a military power been able to bomb with impunity its own civilians relentlessly, systematically, and deliberately during a detailed and lengthy reporting period, now extending over 15 years. While most of the attacks have been by Antonovs, Khartoum has also deployed highly accurate military jet aircraft, long-range missiles, and helicopter gunships, which were used with particular destructiveness in the early years of the Darfur genocide. On any number of occasions, helicopter gunships have fired on civilians with heavy machine-guns and rockets from extremely close range. I write on this occasion moved not by the singularity of a particular bombing attack that occurred yesterday, but rather by its horrific familiarity. Radio Dabanga, an extraordinarily important, indeed singular source of news from Darfur, reports today that on Friday, November 28, 2013: [I]n North Sharafa in East Jebel Marra [in the center of Darfur], an Antonov [``bomber,'' i.e. retrofitted cargo plane with no militarily useful accuracy] bombed three farmers, at about 5.30 pm on Friday [November 29, 2013]. The two men and a woman were riding a horse cart from their farm to their homes in Sharafa village. The three farmers and their horses were killed immediately. The names of the three farmers are Hashim Abakar Mohamed, Mustafa Eisa, and Hanan Saleh Juma. Such criminal bombings--directly violating a UN Security Council resolution as well as international law--are a virtually daily occurrence in East Jebel Marra, part of a massif in central Darfur serving as stronghold for one of the rebel groups in Darfur, now linked throughout Sudan in the form of the Sudan Revolutionary Front. But Khartoum is not attacking military forces: it is deliberately attacking civilians in an effort to compel surrender or displacement or starvation of the remaining rebel forces. There is no other conclusion to be reached, given the inherent inaccuracy of the Antonov ``bombers,'' which fly at very high altitudes and simply roll crude, shrapnel-loaded barrel bombs out the cargo bay without benefit of any sighting mechanism. Such attacks continue occur throughout Darfur. Antonovs are transparently instruments of civilian terror and destruction--as they are in South Kordofan and Blue Nile, areas where bombing attacks are also continuously reported, and with particular authority from the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan. There a campaign of civilian annihilation continues unabated as agricultural production has been brought to a halt by the fear of continued bombardment. A similarly grim narrative is playing out in Blue Nile and the result is some 300,000 refugees fleeing to South Sudan and Ethiopia, leaving behind more than one million civilians at acute risk of disease and starvation according to UN estimates. Where are the voices of condemnation? Here I mean not the occasional generic condemnations issued by your administration, typically qualified (and thus weakened) by inclusion of some other issue. What prevents your administration from condemning every attack on civilians by military aircraft, per se? The U.S. intelligence community certainly has the resources to confirm via satellite reconnaissance virtually every attack reported by Radio Dabanga or Nuba Reports, both of which are well known for their accuracy and ground-based reporting (many of their findings have been confirmed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Enough Project, journalists, and intrepid humanitarians). Would it simply be too embarrassing to reveal just what we and the rest of the international community are tolerating? Would it be too shameful to make clear that, on the basis of geostrategic considerations, Syria is important while the people of the marginalized regions of Sudan are not? Perhaps you will say that the ``hybrid'' UN/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has the responsibility for reporting and condemning aerial attacks on civilians. But this would only add to the disingenuousness of your administration in speaking about Sudan. For as you are surely aware, UNAMID is a complete failure as a mission, particularly in fulfilling it primary mandate of civilian and humanitarian protection: for some 2 million people have been newly displaced since the mission took up its mandate in January 2008--overwhelmingly as a consequence of continuing violence, directed particularly against civilians. You touted your support for a UNAMID-like mission in 2007, revealing either ignorance or an expedient desire to appear to be responding to the crisis by handing it off to an ill-prepared African Union Peace and Security Council, which had no dedicated military equipment or soldiers of its own. Unsurprisingly, the poorly equipped and poorly led UNAMID mission is routinely denied access to scenes of atrocity crimes by the Khartoum regime's security forces, as are humanitarian organizations, which struggle to work within an increasingly limited range of operations. Because of uncontrolled insecurity, the highly trained expatriate component of what was once the world's largest humanitarian operation is down to 3 percent. Your administration issues only infrequent boiler-plate condemnations in response to serious violations of a range of UN Security Council Resolutions. Despite its elaborate website and nominal reporting duties, UNAMID confirms virtually no bombing attacks, no matter how egregiously in violation of international law. Additionally and symptomatically, UNAMID has for years said virtually nothing about the epidemic of sexual violence directed against girls and women in Darfur, despite the fact that there have been tens of thousands have been victims during the conflict, now about to enter its twelfth year. Your administration has been useless in highlighting these terrible crimes, which continue to be committed with total impunity. UNAMID's only virtue would appear to be that it gives the semblance of an international presence approved by the UN--at immense cost--and provides an excuse for not responding in the way you as candidate spoke about so passionately. UNAMID's impotence, and its failure to deter aerial bombardment of civilians, is illustrated by another report of November 28, 2013 from Radio Dabanga: Ten people were killed in aerial bombardments near Shengil Tobaya and Sharafa in East Jebel Marra. One attack took place a few kilometers from the UNAMID compound in Shengil Tobaya, while a group of 15 people was on their way to Shengil Tobaya after a visit to the market of Tabit. A Sudanese Air Force aircraft appeared around 4pm on Friday, hitting the Toyota Hi-Lux that was transporting the 15 people, at Tangara, 3km west of the UNAMID compound in Shengil Tobaya. Seven of them died at the spot and eight were critically wounded. Several of them could not be moved due to their critical injuries. The relatives of the victims asked UNAMID to act quickly and transfer the severely wounded people to a hospital and recover the dead bodies. Yesterday evening it was unclear whether UNAMID had helped out. The victims are Abakir Yagoub Mohamed, Ali Ahmed Abdalla, Mohamed Ali Ahmed, Osman Adam Mohamed and Zahra Ibrahim. (emphasis added; the UNAMID compound at Shengil Tobaya is a significant one) Will you and your administration continue to hide behind the diplomatic fig-leaf of UNAMID's putative ability to halt what has become a grim ``genocide by attrition''? In fact, the genocide proceeds apace in large measure because your administration has decided, as part of its larger Sudan policy, to ``de-couple'' Darfur from the largest bilateral issue between Khartoum and Washington: cooperation on counter-terrorism. That a senior official of your administration would use the term ``de-couple'' in speaking about Darfur and any aspect of U.S. Sudan policy amounts to declaring that despite the genocidal realities you excoriated as candidate and as president--when it was politically useful to do so--you and your administration are willing to set aside, bracket, and finally ignore this scene of unending human suffering and destruction. Indeed, it is difficult not to see a direct connection between your silence about the ongoing and widespread aerial bombardment of civilians in Darfur and your decision to ``de- couple'' the region from what looms as the defining feature of your Sudan policy: an obsessive desire to retain access to the counter-terrorism intelligence provided by the regime that gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden from 1992-1996, the years in which al-Qaeda came to fruition. Let us recall also that this same regime continued to assist al-Qaeda long after bin Laden's departure for Afghanistan, providing funds, diplomatic cover, and banking conduits. Your administration's calculations about the value of counter-terrorism intelligence provided by Khartoum have occasioned a good deal of skepticism among Sudan experts outside of government; in any event, these calculations are certainly made with full knowledge of what the regime continues to inflict on the people of Sudan. You and your administration also know that demonstrations beginning in late September of this year were met by the most brutal repression imaginable, with security forces given ``shoot to kill'' orders that resulted in some 300 deaths (many killed by bullet wounds to the chest, back and head) and some 2,000 arrests (many remain under arrest without charge). Ordinary Sudanese are outraged at the economic shambles the regime has created, and are demanding that these hopelessly corrupt and cruelly self- enriching men be removed from power. And yet your administration seems to be bent on throwing a political and economic lifeline to the regime. Your former special envoy declared in December 2011, after Khartoum's military seizure of the contested Abyei region (in violation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement) and subsequent military assaults on South Kordofan and Blue Nile: ``Frankly, we do not want to see the ouster of the [Sudanese] regime, nor regime change. We want to see the regime carrying out reform via constitutional democratic measures.'' (Princeton Lyman's response to a question by the respected Arabic news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat concerning Sudan and the ``Arab Spring,'' December 3, 2011) It is the height of disingenuousness and expediency for your envoy to have suggested that the National Islamic Front/ National Congress Party is in any way prepared to ``carry out reform via constitutional democratic measure.'' The regime's response to the September/October demonstrations and political protests from all quarters provides evidence that could hardly be more compelling. And yet at the very moment in which gross mismanagement of the Sudanese economy over the past 24 years, obscenely profligate military spending, gratuitous war-making on the marginalized peoples of the periphery, and massive sequestration of national wealth by the political elite has brought about economic conditions that make democratic change a real possibility, your administration seems intent on diminishing those economic pressures that the U.S.--to its virtually singular credit--has brought to bear since 1997, both through Congressional and Presidential action. Instead of tightening the very sanctions that increasingly threaten the survival of a regime that has exhausted its oil wealth in less than a decade and has no access to international credit or Forex reserves, we read that business between the U.S. and the regime is beginning to boom. The Sudan Tribune reports (October 10, 2013) that Foreign Minister Ali Karti, after his meetings with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, ``pointed out that several U.S. companies which applied for licenses to operate in Sudan were granted, which he said is an indicator that investments and commercial relations could overcome political difficulties.'' And this would seem to be borne out by a series of reports from the Sudan Tribune and others: White Nile Sugar Company announced on Sunday (November 3, 2013) that it has signed an agreement with the US-based General Electric (GE) by which it will receive parts and services for its billion-dollar sugar plant. (Sudan Tribune, November 4, 2013) In a revealingly frank statement, Sudan's foreign ministry undersecretary, Rahmatallah Mohamed Osman, declared in August 2013 that ``U.S. economic sanctions on Sudan contain some loopholes which could be exploited to boost the economy.'' Why haven't those ``loopholes,'' if they exist, been resolutely closed? Typically of dubious reliability, Khartoum's state- controlled media recently made a specific claim that should be unambiguously confirmed or disconfirmed: The managing director of [Sudan's] Kenana Sugar Company (KSC) has disclosed KSC is currently dealing with 18 US companies licensed by Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in the area of production, irrigation, and harvesters despite the US economic sanctions imposed on Sudan for 16 years. . . Lately, an American company has submitted a request to OFAC to import ethanol from Sudan. Moreover, [the] U.S. has excluded gum Arabic from sanctions for its bad need of this commodity in nutritional and drug industry. US imports $40 million worth of Gum Arabic annually either directly or indirectly from Sudan. U.S. may want lift the sanctions gradually for face saving. (November 9, 2013) Certainly the account is accurate in pointing out the exemption in U.S. sanctions made for gum arabic, an exemption secured over a decade ago through duplicitous legislative means by Robert Menendez, formerly Congressional representative from the district in New Jersey where virtually all U.S. gum arabic processing occurs. Menendez is now, of course, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The economic sanctions put in place by previous administrations and the Congress seem to have become irrelevant by means of ``technical adjustments'' to the restrictions supposedly enforced by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The question, President Obama, is why your administration has allowed this to occur? Is Khartoum right in suggesting that ``the U.S. may want [to] lift the sanctions gradually for face-saving''? Or is the stealth lifting of sanctions part of a larger quid pro quo with the Khartoum regime? Is it of a piece with the preposterous claim by special envoy Lyman that this regime might preside over the democratic transformation of Sudan? But however enmeshed in the complexities of U.S. diplomatic and political machinations vis-a-vis Khartoum, the countless bombing attacks against civilians such as occurred yesterday near North Sharafa in East Jebel Marra provide a certain stark moral clarity. Again, one of the regime's Antonovs. . . . . . bombed three farmers, at about 5.30 pm on Friday [November 29, 2013). The two men and a woman were riding a horse cart from their farm to their homes in Sharafa village. The three farmers and their horses were killed immediately. The names of the three farmers are Hashim Abakar Mohamed, Mustafa Eisa, and Hanan Saleh Juma. Your own refusal to condemn--regularly, forcefully, and consequentially--such deliberate attacks on defenseless civilians brings shame on our nation and makes it ever more difficult to believe that our foreign policy is guided by anything other than a ruthless Realpolitik. Sincerely, Eric Reeves, Smith College, Northampton, MA.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 40th anniversary of the release of U.S. Navy Captain, Raymond A. Vohden (RET) as a prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War, who was one of almost 600 Americans held captive during the Vietnam War. In April 3, 1965, Lt. Cdr. Ray Vohden was carrying out a combat mission when his A4C bomber was shot down over North Vietnam. He was captured by the North Vietnamese and held in various POW camps around Hanoi. After enduring almost eight years as a POW, he was released in February 1973. During his time in prison, he was subjected to torture, isolation and rudimentary medical care. Telling of his strength and courage during this ordeal, he was on crutches the entire time of his captivity. He suffered a compound fracture in his right leg as a result of being shot down. Upon his return home, he underwent several surgeries to save and repair his leg and avoid amputation. Capt. Vohden joined the US Navy in 1953 after receiving his Bachelor's degree from Rutgers University the year before. During college, he played football and wrestled and finished his collegiate career as an all-American wrestler. His thirty-two year military career began when he earned his wings in 1954. He went on to fly fighter jets for four years and then serve as a flight instructor for three years. At the time of his capture, he was a Lieutenant Commander and Operations Officer of a jet attack squadron on the USS Hancock. After his eight years as a POW, he served three years as the head of the Pentagon's POW/MIA taskforce and three years as superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory before retiring in 1986. Since then, Capt. Vohden has lived a quiet life in Virginia's 10th District, where he raised his family and has enjoyed retirement. He has stayed active with other Washington, D.C. area POWs and has helped raise awareness about the struggle endured during their captivity. In 1999, he testified before the House International Relations Committee during its investigation on the ``The Cuba Program: Torturing of American POW's by Cuban Agents'' and served as the senior participant in a small program which was referred to as the ``Fidel Program.'' In addition, after years of writing, he self-published his account as a POW in 2009, entitled ``A Story of the Fifth longest Held POW in US History--First POW released at Homecoming.'' Capt. Vohden has lived a life of integrity and courage. He is a model of perseverance and sacrifice to whom our country is deeply indebted. Mr. Speaker, today we should honor the 40th anniversary of his release. Please join me in thanking this American hero for his remarkable service.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company, which celebrated its 210th anniversary on November 15. The fire company is an important part of the history of the Town of Leesburg. It began in 1803 when Leesburg residents formed a ``bucket brigade.'' Each male member of the household kept buckets made of leather on the floor of their homes. Later in the 1800s, the bucket brigade reorganized into the Leesburg Fire Company, and by the 1820s the company had acquired a new hand-pumped fire engine. In the 20th century, the company advanced from the use of hand-pulled engines and hose carts to more modern fire engines. Further expansion happened in the 1920s with the construction of a new fire station and the purchase of several new fire trucks. Over the past 210 years, the fire company has grown and changed significantly while safeguarding the Leesburg community. In 1928, the company responded to 21 calls, and by the 1970s, demand for the company's services had grown to an average of 300 calls a year. The company then hired its first fire marshal to keep up with demand. Today, the volunteers and career firefighters who make up what is now called the Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company use advance training and the highest-quality equipment to provide fire prevention, emergency rescue services and fire safety education. In 2012, the fire company responded to more than 1,723 calls, underscoring the organization's invaluable contributions to the community. A banquet in honor of the 210th anniversary was held on November 16, which focused on the book, The Early History of the Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company 1803-1925. The book was researched and written by 11-year member James R. Fazekas and is filled with newspaper articles as well as maps, photos, drawings and reproductions of archived documents commemorating the fire company's history and accomplishments. Mayor Kristen Umstattd also presented the Town of Leesburg's annual donation of $400,000 to the fire company--a substantial increase from the town's allocation of $53.69 in 1891. The success of the fire company is due in part to the leadership of President Richard Wolfe, who has been with the company for nine years. I would also like to recognize Rick Etter, a 29-year member who served as chair of the anniversary committee, and J.B. Anderson, a 43-year member. Their and exceptional service is appreciated. I commend all the members of Leesburg Volunteer Fire Company for their bravery, dedication and willingness to put their lives on the line to protect our community. I wish them all the best as they celebrate this wonderful milestone.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit for the Record remarks I delivered yesterday at America's Table Thanksgiving Luncheon hosted by the American Jewish Committee: I would like to begin by thanking AJC for the invitation to join you at the annual ``America's Table Thanksgiving Luncheon'' the theme of which is religious freedom. In 1620 a hearty band of Pilgrims set sail for the New World in the face of tremendous peril and uncertainty such that they might be able to live, act and worship according to the dictates of their conscience. The traditional first Thanksgiving feast celebrated at Plymouth was a time for the Pilgrims who had survived the journey by sea and the harsh winter that followed to give thanks for the bountiful harvest and recognize the hand of Divine Providence that had guided them to this point. I read with great interest recently that this year, for the first time since 1888, Thanksgiving and the first full day of Hanukkah fall on the same day. There are of course deep thematic commonalities between the two holidays--both grounded in triumph over religious oppression. But even as we celebrate the American experience in this regard, I am reminded anew that religious freedom remains an elusive hope for too many. As I reflect on the privilege of living in America I am cognizant of the responsibility that comes with that to help those around the world who are oppressed or persecuted. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, ``In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.'' Dr. King's statement is so poignant. In times of trouble, the silence of an enemy is expected, but the silence of a friend is devastating. I am concerned that this nation, which has always been a friend to the oppressed, the marginalized and the forgotten is at risk of sidelining this ``first freedom'' and failing to speak out when it comes under attack. Arguably religious freedom has never been more under assault than it is today. Looking to the Middle East there is often societal and communal violence and repression against religious communities which specifically targets religious minorities. Too often the governments of these lands foster an atmosphere of intolerance or in some cases such as Iran, outright criminality as it relates to different faith traditions like the Baha'is. Tragically, since 1979, the Iranian government has killed more than 200 Baha'i leaders and dismissed over 10,000 from government and university jobs. The dangerous realities facing religious minorities have been exasperated by the so-called Arab Spring--a Spring which has devolved into Winter for many of the most vulnerable in these societies. In February I travelled to the Middle East--specifically to Lebanon and Egypt. One of the main purposes of the trip was to spend time with the Syrian Christian community--a community with ancient roots dating back to the 1st century. I wanted to hear firsthand from Syrian Christians about their concerns and to put this issue in the larger context of an imperiled Christian community in the broader Middle East, specifically in Egypt and Iraq. In my meetings with Coptic Christians and other minorities in Egypt they spoke of being increasingly marginalized with the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood. While Morsi has since been removed from power, the situation in Egypt today remains fluid. However, this much is clear: Attacks against Coptic Christians have escalated and they are feeling threatened in the land they have inhabited for centuries. The issues I've just outlined must be viewed not simply as today's news but rather through the lens of history. A phrase not often heard outside the majority Muslim world is ``First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.'' The ``Saturday people'' are, of course, the Jewish people. Except for Israel, their once vibrant communities in countries throughout the region are now decimated. In 1948 the Jewish population of Iraq was roughly 150,000; today no more than 4 remain . . . some reports indicate there may actually be just one Jewish person left in Iraq. In Egypt, the Jewish population was once as many as 80,000; now roughly 20 remain. Consider this observation by author and adjunct fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom, Lela Gilbert, who recently wrote in the Huffington Post: ``Between 1948 and 1970, between 80,000 and 100,000 Jews were expelled from Egypt-- their properties and funds confiscated, their passports seized and destroyed. They left, stateless, with little more than the shirts on their backs to show for centuries of Egyptian citizenship. . . .'' One of my last meetings in Egypt last February was with 86- year-old Carmen Weinstein, the president of the Jewish Community of Cairo (JCC). She was born and raised in Egypt and had lived her entire life there. She led a small community of mostly elderly Jewish women in Cairo, who with their sister community in Alexandria, represent Egypt's remaining Jews. There are 12 synagogues left in Cairo. Some, along with a landmark synagogue in Alexandria, have been refurbished by the government of Egypt and/or U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and have received protection as cultural and religious landmarks--many have not. Further, the 900 year old Bassatine Jewish Cemetery is half overrun with squatters and sewage. Ms. Weinstein sought to preserve these historic landmarks as well as the patrimony records of the Egyptian Jewish community. I am aware of the good work of AJC in establishing a fund for the maintenance and preservation of Jewish cultural, religious and historical landmarks, including cemeteries, in Egypt. Not long after my return to the U.S., Ms. Weinstein passed away and is now buried in the very cemetery she sought to protect. Meanwhile, with the fall of Hosni Mubarak, Coptic Christians, numbering roughly 8-10 million, are leaving in droves in the face of increased repression, persecution and violence. Similarly, Iraq's Christian population has fallen from as many as 1.4 million in 2003 to roughly 500,000 today. There are roughly 60 Christian churches in the entire country, down from more than 300 as recently as 2003. Of course other, much smaller but no less vulnerable, religious minorities have also suffered greatly in Iraq. Over the span of a few decades, the Middle East, with the exception of Israel, has virtually been emptied of its Jewish community. In my conversations with Syrian Christian refugees, Lebanese Christians and Coptic Christians in Egypt, a resounding theme emerged: a similar fate may await the ``Sunday People.'' While it remains to be seen whether the historic exodus of Christians from the region will prove to be as dramatic as what has already happened to the Jewish community, it is without question devastating, as it threatens to erase Christianity, and in fact Judaism in many respects, from its very roots. Consider Iraq. With the exception of Israel, the Bible contains more references to the cities, regions and nations of ancient Iraq than any other country. The patriarch Abraham came from a city in Iraq called Ur. Isaac's bride, Rebekah, came from northwest Iraq. Jacob spent 20 years in Iraq, and his sons (the 12 tribes of Israel) were born in northwest Iraq. A remarkable spiritual revival as told in the book of Jonah occurred in Nineveh. The events of the book of Esther took place in Iraq as did the account of Daniel in the Lion's Den. Furthermore, many of Iraq's Christians still speak Aramaic the language of Jesus. In Egypt, some 2,000 years ago, Mary, Joseph and Jesus sought refuge in this land from the murderous aims of King Herod. Egypt's Coptic community traces its origins to the apostle Mark. If the Middle East is effectively emptied of the Christian faith, this will have grave geopolitical implications. But rather than being met with urgency, vision or creativity, our government's response has been anemic and at times outright baffling especially to the communities most impacted by the changing Middle East landscape. In conversation after conversation Coptic Christians, reformers, secularist, women and others have told me that the U.S. was perceived as the largest supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government. Further, there was a widely held perception that the U.S. was either disengaged or simply uninterested in advocating for religious freedom and other basic human rights. While the situation is grim in the Middle East--it is hardly an anomaly. People of faith are under assault elsewhere in the world. The Chinese government maintains a brutal system of labor camps. Common criminals languish behind bars with people of faith and Nobel laureates who dare to question the regime's authority. A February 2013 Christianity Today piece reported that ``China's Christians felt a noticeable rise in persecution in 2012 as the Communist government began the first of a three-phase plan to eradicate unregistered house churches, a new report says.'' Currently every one of the approximately 25 underground bishops of the Catholic Church is either in jail, under house arrest, under strict surveillance, or in hiding. The government is an equal opportunity persecutor of people of faith. Over the last two years, over 100 peace-loving Tibetans have set themselves aflame in desperation at the abuses suffered by their people. The government of Vietnam continues to suppress political dissent and severely limit freedom of expression, association, and public assembly. In Pakistan, Ahmadi Muslims are prohibited from voting and their graves are desecrated. In Europe, Anti-Semitism is on the ascent. A November 8 New York Times article reported, ``Fear of rising anti-Semitism in Europe has prompted nearly a third of European Jews to consider emigration because they do not feel safe in their home country, according to a detailed survey of Jewish perceptions released Friday by a European Union agency that monitors discrimination and other violations of basic rights.'' The survey referenced was released on the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht violence against Jews in Nazi Germany. In a piece which ran in the Miami Herald last fall, AJC's Miami director poignantly wrote, ``World War II and the destruction of European Jewry taught us that anti-Semitism not only kills Jews, but also poisons and ultimately destroys the society that harbors it. People of good will said, `Never again,' instituted courses on the Holocaust, and countered the image of the defenseless Jew by supporting the sovereign and democratic state of Israel. Yet today, seven decades after the Nazi death camps became operational, that lesson seems to be already forgotten in much of Europe, where small and defenseless Jewish communities face a renewed surge of anti-Semitism. This Jew-hatred expresses itself in xenophobic politics; physical attacks and intimidation; and interference with basic elements of Jewish religious practice.'' This is troubling on a host of levels. For as history has shown us, if the Jews of a country were free to practice their faith, one could be reasonably confident that tolerance and freedom were possible for others. The Jewish people have characteristically been the canaries in the coal mine--litmus indicators of the state of freedom for all. In light of these realities, it is clear that religious freedom is under assault globally. Last September the Pew Research Center released a startling study which found that ``three-quarters of the world's approximately 7 billion people live in countries with high government restrictions on religion or high social hostilities involving religion, up from 70% a year earlier.'' It is clear that the United States must do more to speak for those whose voices have been silenced. Frankly, the Obama administration in country after country has consistently sidelined human rights and religious freedom. In China we were told early on by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton that human rights issues in China ``can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis.'' In Sudan the administration actively working to undermine congressional attempts to isolate indicted war criminal and architect of genocide, Omar Bashir. Meanwhile, this Spring, the administration rewarded a notorious Sudanese government official, accused of torturing enemies and seeking to block U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur, with an invitation to Washington for high-level meetings. In Vietnam, the Obama administration, like the administration before it, has ignored bipartisan Congressional calls to place the government on the State Department's list of the most egregious religious freedom violators, despite crackdowns on people of faith, preferring instead a policy defined simply by trade. In fact the administration has failed to designate any countries of particular concern, as it is required to do by law, since 2011. The list goes on. Turning back again to the Middle East: I have authored bipartisan legislation with Congresswoman Anna Eshoo which would create a special envoy position at the State Department charged with advocating for religious minorities in the Middle East and South Central Asia--specifically focusing on many of the countries I've mentioned here today. The legislation overwhelmingly passed the House earlier this Fall and is languishing in the Senate in part due to State Department opposition to virtually identical legislation last year. I am under no illusions that a special envoy holds the key to the survival or even thriving of these ancient faith communities. But to do nothing is not an option. And that seems to be precisely what this administration aims to do. Not only has it stood in the way of the envoy legislation, key positions within the foreign policy apparatus charged with prioritizing these issues have suffered extended vacancies and individual political prisoner cases are rarely raised in public thereby sending a clear message to tyrants and oppressors the world over that there is little price to pay for violating the first freedom. While I will continue to press for swift Senate action on the special envoy legislation, I leave you with a charge. I am increasingly convinced that the discussion (or lack thereof) among government leaders and opinion makers on this issue of religious persecution, is simply a downstream manifestation of what is happening in the broader culture, and specifically in the faith community domestically. When people of faith in this country are concerned about and advocate for people of faith who are besieged around the world, the government tends to act. Consider the shining example of Cold War advocacy by the American Jewish community which championed the plight of Soviet Jewry with remarkable effect. Could such passion be galvanized once again? I'll close with the inspiring words of one of America's greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln. Speaking to a nation torn apart by bloody civil war, he still saw the importance of giving thanks, and in 1863 set apart the last Thursday of November for such a celebration declaring: ``We are prone to forget the Source from which [the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies] come. . . . No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God. . . .'' While each of us may hail from varied backgrounds and beliefs, we know as Americans that religious freedom is our birthright--a gracious gift of the Most High God not to be denied by any man or government. As we gather today and later next week with family and friends let us pause for a moment and give thanks for our first freedom while not forgetting those for whom this gracious gift is denied.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Chairman, this afternoon, I voted no on H.R. 1965, the Federal Lands, Jobs, and Energy Security Act. I appreciate that my colleagues brought this legislation to the floor, and, in fact, have supported many of the titles contained in the measure--and continue to do so. I have a long record of supporting efforts to increase development of our domestic energy resources. However, I could not support the bill today given that two troubling amendments, specifically the Marino and Hanabusa amendments, which were adopted to the bill with little debate and Members were not given the opportunity to vote on these additional provisions. I was particularly concerned with the Marino amendment. It calls for plans to allow the construction of new power lines ``across federal lands to ensure that that energy produced can be distrusted to areas of need.'' Some may consider this to be non-controversial, but I have fought the impact of similar language for a number of years. I am privileged to represent Virginia's hallowed grounds, and I simply cannot support efforts to construct new power lines through our area-- particularly power lines that would ship energy to other parts of the country. That's why I opposed PATH, and why I opposed TrAIL. Cedar Creek and Bell Grove National Historic Park and Manassas National Battlefield Park are just a few areas in our region that could be impacted by this amendment. I also could not support the inclusion of the Hanabusa amendment, which I am concerned is a continued effort to classify native Hawaiians as a Native American tribe, and, as such, have lands taken into trust. That would allow for the expansion of Indian gambling in Hawaii. I will continue to fight efforts to expand gambling in America, whether it is on-reservation, off-reservation or over the Internet. This evening, I voted for H.R. 2728, the Protecting States' Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act. I support the development of our nation's natural gas resources, which will help our economy and strengthen our national security. Advances in technology have unlocked significant domestic reserves that were historically inaccessible, which has resulted in lower heating costs and lower prices at the pump. At the same time, I understand and recognize the real concerns expressed by those concerned that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in Virginia, particularly within the George Washington National Forest, could negatively impact our region's water quality, water supply and recreational resources. To be clear--environmental protections should be increased in Virginia before any potential activity of this kind is allowed within the George Washington National Forest. I fully support efforts to enact strong laws to protect Virginia's national resources and respect the wishes of local jurisdictions in making any decisions about energy exploration on state or federal lands in the Commonwealth.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the following law enforcement personnel who have recently been honored by the Horseshoe Curve Benevolent Association for their tireless service and continued willingness to put their lives on the line to protect our communities. These honorees include: Trooper Ronnie Riggs, Deputy Greg E. Lambert, Deputy Stephen A. Moore, Officer George Bell, Sergeant Travis Short, Officer John Dixon, Investigator Greg Frenzel and Sheriff Lenny Millholland. Senior Trooper Ronnie Riggs has served the Virginia Department of State Police for over 10 years. Working out of the state police barracks in Kernstown, Trooper Riggs has become a tremendous asset to the area through his efforts to improve public safety. Trooper Riggs' service to the community and professionalism are seriously appreciated. Chief Deputy Travis Sumption began his career as a communications officer with the Clarke County Sheriff's Office in February 1993. In 1998, he was appointed Deputy Sheriff and after an assignment as a traffic enforcement deputy in 2004, he became the first person to hold the title of First Sergeant in Clarke County. In 2006, he worked with the Clarke County Sheriff's Office regional drug task force and supervised the general investigations and gang units. After graduating from the Virginia Forensic Science Academy in 2008, he successfully managed a complex, multi-jurisdictional murder case. I wish him all the best in his new role of Chief Deputy. Deputy Greg E. Lambert has served the Winchester Sheriff's Office since 2011. He came to the sheriff's office with previous experience with the Winchester Police Department and the U.S. Capitol Police. He excelled in his work with the ``Don't Bust the Bus'' operation designed to ticket offenders for passing school buses and is also involved with Project Lifesaver, a program to save the lives and reduce injury of the elderly, as well as those who suffer from cognitive conditions such as Alzheimer's and autism. He is a member of the North and South End Citizens Groups, which focus on eliminating crime in the City of Winchester. Deputy Lambert's hard work and commitment to keeping citizens safe is greatly appreciated. Deputy Stephen A. Moore serves the Frederick County Sheriff's Office. This summer he demonstrated courage when he rescued a mother of five from her burning home. He got the mother out of the house safely, and then ran back into the home when it was engulfed in flames and full of smoke to ensure that all of the children were safe. I commend him for his outstanding ability to remain calm and focused in a crisis. Officer George Bell serves the Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center and was recently honored for his remarkable efforts to prevent the escape of a high-risk inmate. Officer Bell showed resolve when he took action to address the situation and protect the civilians who would have otherwise been in grave danger. I appreciate his hard work and service to the community. Sergeant Travis Short serves Mount Weather Police Department. Recently, he was recognized by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency and also received a Life Saving Award. In August, he was the first responder to a critical scene where an individual was in cardiac arrest and severely bleeding. He took decisive and immediate action to save the person's life. Sergeant Short's focus on training and his preparedness in crisis greatly benefit the community he serves so well. Officer John Dixon serves the Winchester Police Department and was recently recognized for resuscitating a young woman who was suffering from an overdose. This was the second time he saved someone in critical condition. Officer Dixon is an excellent police officer and a leader among his peers--his colleagues frequently applaud the high quality of his investigations. His good police work makes him a committed role model to all those who serve. Investigator Greg Frenzel has served the Berryville Police Department since 1997. He began his career as a patrol officer and now serves as an investigator where he conducts investigations involving major property loss and crime. Additionally, he has worked as a firearms instructor and serves with the regional Criminal Justice Academy. Berryville Chief of Police Neal White has submitted Investigator Frenzel as the 2013 nominee of the year, citing his valuable contributions to the department throughout his career. I congratulate Investigator Frenzel on this nomination and commend him for his diligent investigative work. Sheriff Lenny Millholland has served the City of Winchester since 1979. I have known and worked with Lenny for many years. He began his career as a Cadet Deputy for the Allegany County Sheriff's Office in Maryland, where he worked for two years before accepting a position with the Winchester Police Department. During his tenure with the Winchester Police, he rose through the ranks from patrol officer, K9 Handler, Investigator, and Lieutenant for the Criminal Investigative Division, which handles murders, rapes and robberies. He is also a graduate of the Central Shenandoah Criminal Justice Training Academy, the Maryland State Police K9 Academy and the FBI National Academy Session 188. In 2001, he was elected Sheriff of the city of Winchester and shortly after completed the National Sheriff's Institute in Longmont, Colorado. Over the course of his term as Sheriff, he has been appointed to a number of committees and boards that service law enforcement and local non-profit organizations. He is also a past president of the Virginia Sheriffs Institute, which trains Sheriffs in Virginia. I commend Lenny on his outstanding career and thank him for his committed service to the Shenandoah Valley over the years. I wish him all the best in his retirement. I am proud to join with the Horseshoe Benevolent Association, which has been honoring local law enforcement since 2004, to recognize these officers for their bravery, dedication and strength. We owe them a sincere debt of gratitude for their service to the 10th District. I submit the following Winchester Star article on the Horseshoe Benevolent Association's annual police appreciation dinner. [From The Winchester Star, Nov. 5, 2013] Citizen Group Honors Local Law Enforcement (By Val Van Meter) Pine Grove--The Horseshoe Curve Benevolent Association honored eight area law enforcement personnel recently for their service to the community in 2013. Those attending the event at the Blue Ridge Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company in Pine Grove also gave retiring Winchester Sheriff Lenny Millholland a special tribute for his 12 years in office. Association spokesman Jim Wink said the gathering was to recognize local police and security officers who put their lives ``on the line'' to protect the community. Each of the officers honored received a plaque from the association and a certificate of appreciation from the Virginia House of Delegates, sponsored by Dels. Joe May, R- Leesburg, and Beverly Sherwood, R-Frederick County. Honorees were: Frederick County Sheriffs Office Deputy Stephen A. Moore, who was on his way to a court hearing on June 18 when he saw smoke coming from a residence at 300 N. Kent St. in Winchester and learned that a child might be in the house. Despite it not being his jurisdiction, he went to the scene--and when the mother of the child re-entered the building he followed her and brought her back out. He then re-entered the house with two city police officers, though he was unable to save the child. Moore's boss, Sheriff Robert Williamson, said his actions are ``a mirror image of what we all should be.'' Northwestern Regional Adult Detention Center officer George Bell, who was nominated for his actions Aug. 12 in subduing an inmate who tried to escape while being treated at the Winchester Medical Center. Bell fought off an attempt by the inmate to snatch his gun and then pursued him through the hospital and captured him in the lobby. Mount Weather Police Department Sgt. Travis Short, who was honored for responding to a 911 call Aug. 16 for a Federal Emergency Management Agency employee in cardiac arrest. As first responder on the scene, he began measures that were credited with saving the employee's life. Winchester Police Officer John Dixon, who was nominated for resuscitating a young woman who was suffering from a drug overdose. His action on Sept. 26 was the second time that Dixon had been able to restore someone's breathing. State Police Trooper Ronnie Riggs, who has served on the force for more than 10 years. Riggs, who works from the Kernstown Barracks, was praised for his ``professionalism'' in enforcing criminal statutes and driving safety efforts. Clarke County Sheriffs Office Chief Deputy Travis Sumption, who joined the department as a communications officer and moved to a deputy position in 1998. Sumption was later appointed first sergeant and became one of the few members of the county's investigative unit, working with the Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force and on gang activities. Winchester Sheriffs Office Deputy Greg E. Lambert, who was cited for a number of community policing efforts including work on an enforcement program to stop drivers from passing school buses that are picking up or dropping off students. Berryville Police Department Investigator Greg Frenzel, who was nominated for his professionalism in handling investigations, especially those involving major property loss and crimes against persons. Clarke County Sheriff Anthony ``Tony'' Roper praised retiring Winchester Sheriff Lenny Millholland, who he said exemplifies the concern a sheriff should have for his community. Roper said Millholland originally planned to study veterinary medicine at Allegany College in Cumberland, Md., but switched to criminal justice. Millholland joined the Winchester Police Department in 1979 and moved from patrol officer to canine handler, investigator and then lieutenant for the Investigative Division. He was elected city sheriff in 2001. Roper said Millholland has served on numerous boards and committees in both law enforcement and for nonprofit organizations serving the community. He is a past president of the Virginia Sheriffs' Institute, a nonprofit organization that handles training and education for sheriffs in the state. Millholland received a standing ovation from the audience as he accepted a plaque from Del. May. The Horseshoe Curve Benevolent Association is a citizens group, based in Pine Grove, which raises funds for groups and organizations that serve the community, mostly in Clarke County. Among other efforts, it supports the Blue Ridge Volunteer Fire Company and senior and handicapped residents of the Johnson-Williams Apartments, and presents a scholarship annually to a Clarke County High School senior.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit Cardinal Timothy Dolan's remarks at the annual U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) gathering in which he gave an impassioned plea for the church in the West to focus on the increasingly dire plight of the persecuted church around the globe. I venture that the Catholic bishop under house arrest in China, the imperiled believer in Iraq still reeling from the devastating attack on Our Lady of Salvation Church and the unjustly imprisoned Christian in Pakistan will undoubtedly be heartened by his words and buoyed by his call to action. Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Address to the USCCB General Assembly on November 11, 2013 Just last August, I had the honor of concelebrating the Mass of Dedication for the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Kiev. A particularly moving moment came when Metropolitan Shevchuk asked the Lord's protective hand upon believers suffering persecution for their faith anywhere in the world. That such a heartfelt plea came from a people who had themselves been oppressed for so long made it all the more poignant. This morning I want to invite us to broaden our horizons, to ``think Catholic'' about our brothers and sisters in the faith now suffering simply because they sign themselves with the cross, bow their heads at the Holy Name of Jesus, and happily profess the Apostles' Creed. Brother bishops, our legitimate and ongoing struggles to protect our ``first and most cherished freedom'' in the United States pale in comparison to the Via Crucis currently being walked by so many of our Christian brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, who are experiencing lethal persecution on a scale that defies belief. If our common membership in the mystical body of Christ is to mean anything, then their suffering must be ours as well. The new Archbishop of Canterbury has rightly referred to victims of Christian persecution as ``martyrs.'' We are living in what must be recognized as, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, ``a new age of martyrs.'' One expert calculates that half of all Christian martyrs were killed in the twentieth century alone. The twenty-first century has already seen in its first 13 years one million people killed around the world because of their belief in Jesus Christ--one million already in this still young century. That threat to religious believers is growing. The Pew Research Center reports that 75 percent of the world's population ``lives in countries where governments, social groups, or individuals restrict people's ability to freely practice their faith.'' Pew lays out the details of this ``rising tide of restrictions on religion,'' but we don't need a report to tell us something we sadly see on the news every day. While Muslims and Christians have long lived peacefully side-by-side in Zanzibar, for instance, this past year has seen increasing violence. Catholic churches have been burned and priests have been shot. In September one priest was the victim of a horrific acid attack. Nigeria has also been the site of frequent anti-Christian violence, including church bombings on our holiest days. The situation in India has also been grave, particularly after the Orissa massacre of 2008, where hundreds of Christians were murdered and thousands displaced, and thousands of homes and some 400 churches were torched. Just recently, a Christian couple was recently attacked by an angry mob just because of their faith, their Bibles torn from their hands. We remember our brothers and sisters in China, where Catholic bishops and other religious leaders are subject to state supervision and imprisonment. Conditions are only getting worse, as the government closes churches and subjects members of several faiths to forced renunciations, so-called re-education, and torture. Of course, it's not just Christians who suffer from religious persecution, but believers in other faiths as well. Much religious persecution is committed by Muslims against other Muslims. Buddhists in Tibet suffer under government torture and repression. In Myanmar Muslims suffer at the hands of Buddhist mobs. All of us share apprehension over reports of rising anti-Semitism. But there is no escaping the fact that Christians are singled out in far more places and far more often. I don't have to tell anyone in this room that our brothers and sisters in the Middle East face particular trials. As Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has observed, for Christians in the Middle East, ``even the simple admission of Christian identity places the very existence of [the] faithful in daily threat . . . Exceptionally extreme and expansive occurrences of violence and persecution against Christians cannot leave the rest of us--who are blessed to live peacefully and in some sense of security--indifferent and inactive.'' The humanitarian catastrophe that continues to unfold in Syria has been particularly close to our hearts these past few months. We've prayed for and stood in solidarity with the Church and the people of Syria, and with Pope Francis and the bishops of the Middle East in their call for peace. It's no surprise that this violent and chaotic situation has bred even more religious persecution. Of course we're all familiar with Syria's venerable history as the place from which our faith spread to the rest of the world, and Syria has long been home to a sizable Christian minority. Yet those Christians who have remained in Syria face ever-present, rising threats of violence. Last April two of our Orthodox brother bishops were kidnapped in Aleppo by gunmen as they returned from a humanitarian mission. Their driver was shot and killed. And a little less than a year ago an Orthodox priest from Hama was killed by a sniper while helping the wounded. Similarly tragic violence against believers is now commonplace. Just as Syrian Christians have suffered from the war raging in their land, the war in Iraq has devastated that ancient Christian community in that country as well. As Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Iraq tearfully told us during our spring assembly in 2012, remember, the situation of Christians there ``became a tragedy of immense proportions after 2003,'' with many religious and lay faithful tortured and killed. Violent attacks continue to terrorize the Iraqi people. Just a little over a year ago the war's worst massacre of Iraqi Christians occurred in a brutal attack on Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad, where some 58 believers were massacred. Those martyred for their faith included their parish priest who died holding a crucifix, forgiving the gunmen and asking him to spare his people. The situations in Syria and Iraq wrench our hearts, but the plight of Christians in Egypt is no better. This past summer saw the serious escalation of violence against our brothers and sisters there, as the ancient Coptic Christian community has been targeted. Dozens of Coptic churches have been burned; Christian-owned businesses and hotels have been attacked; and individual believers have been murdered. To take one example, John Allen reports that in August, ``hundreds of Muslim extremists stormed a school run by Franciscan sisters in . . . Upper Egypt, where they reportedly raped two teachers. Three nuns were paraded before the crowd as prisoners of war.'' It was only through the intervention of a Muslim lay teacher that other sisters' lives were spared. We as bishops, as shepherds of one of the most richly blessed communities of faith on the planet, as pastors who have spoken with enthusiastic unity in defense of our own religious freedom, must become advocates and champions for these Christians whose lives literally hang in the balance. Pope Francis recently invited us all to an examination of conscience in this regard during his General Audience on September 25: ``When I hear that so many Christians in the world are suffering, am I indifferent, or is it as if a member of my own family is suffering? When I think or hear it said that many Christians are persecuted and give their lives for their faith, does this touch my heart or does it not reach me? Am I open to that brother or that sister in my family who's giving his or her life for Jesus Christ? Do we pray for one another'? How many of you pray for Christians who are persecuted? How many? Everyone respond in his own heart. It's important to look beyond one's own fence, to feel oneself part of the Church, of one family of God!'' I am convinced that we have to answer those questions of Pope Francis, not merely as individual believers, but collectively as a body of bishops. So you ask me, what can we do? Without any pretense of being exhaustive, here are some ideas I'd like to lay before you, with a nod to John Allen and his recent compelling work on this topic. First, we can encourage intercession for the persecuted. Remember how the ``prayers for the conversion of Russia'' at the end of Masses over a half-century ago shaped our sense of what was going on behind the Iron Curtain? A similar culture of prayer for persecuted Christians today, both in private and in our liturgical celebrations, could have a similar remedial effect. We can also make people aware of the great suffering of our brothers and sisters with all the means at our disposal. Our columns, our blogs, our speeches, and our pastoral letters can reference the subject. We can ask our pastors to preach on it, and to stimulate study sessions or activist groups in their parishes. We can encourage our Catholic media to tell the stories of today's new martyrs, unfortunately abundant. Our good experience defending religious freedom here at home shows that, when we turn our minds to an issue, we can put it on the map. Well, it's time to harness that energy for our fellow members of the household of faith hounded for their beliefs around the world. We know the importance of supporting organizations such as Aid to the Church in Need, the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, Catholic Relief Services, and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, who have done heroic work, while among our Protestant brothers and sisters groups such as Open Doors make a similar contribution. Writers such as Nina Shea, Paul Marshall, John Allen, and Phillip Jenkins here in the United States help keep the issue alive, as does our own Committee on International Justice and Peace. Finally, we can insist that our country's leaders make the protection of at-risk Christians abroad a foreign-policy priority for the United States. We can also cajole political leaders to be more attentive to the voices of Christians on the ground, since those Christians will certainly feel the consequences of whatever the West does or doesn't do. As Dr. Thomas Farr reminded us at our spring meeting a couple summers ago, the protection of religious freedom abroad, and advocacy of oppressed believers, has hardly been a high foreign policy priority for administrations of either party. In general, my brothers, we can make supporting the suffering Church a priority--not one good cause among others, but a defining element of our pastoral priorities. As historians of this conference know, speaking up for suffering faithful abroad has been a hallmark of our soon-to-be-century of public advocacy of the gospel by the conference of bishops in this beloved country we are honored to call our earthly home. Protecting religious freedom will be a central social and political concern of our time, and we American bishops already have made very important contributions to carrying it forward. Now we are being beckoned--by history, by Pope Francis, by the force of our own logic and the ecclesiology of communion--to extend those efforts to the dramatic front lines of this battle, where Christians are paying for their fidelity with their lives. As the Council reminded us, we are bishops not only for our dioceses, not only for our nation, but for the Church universal. May all the blessed martyrs, ancient and new, pray for us, as we try to be confessors of the faith. Praise be Jesus Christ!

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Project HOPE, an international nonprofit organization in Millwood, Virginia dedicated to providing quality and sustainable healthcare to people around the world. I want to highlight their recent medical outreach to Syrian children, who make up half of Syria's refugee population from the current crisis. I travelled to the region in February and spent time with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, hearing firsthand their accounts of the horrific civil war that was ripping apart their nation. Over two million refugees have fled and are living in refugee camps or trying to survive on their own in neighboring countries. Last month, I had the opportunity to visit Project HOPE in Millwood. I was pleased to learn that they recently delivered 186,000 doses of a vaccine to infants and young children at the Al Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan to combat the potentially deadly rotavirus. The virus is highly contagious and spreads rapidly in crowded encampments with inadequate sanitation. Project HOPE is also trying to help other vulnerable refugees, including individuals with disabilities and the elderly. Often, in global disasters, children, the disabled and the elderly are most at risk. These are the people for whom Project HOPE can make a difference. In addition to Project HOPE's vital work among the Syrian refugee population, they are also serving the victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Project HOPE has a proven track record in the region and is urgently working to provide much needed emergency medicine and medical supplies to the survivors of this devastating natural disaster. I applaud Project HOPE's 55-year legacy of tireless service to the poor and vulnerable, both here and abroad. I submit the following article from the Winchester Star, which details Project HOPE's outstanding work to bring medical relief to Syrian refugees. [From the Winchester Star, Sept. 21, 2013] Hope Arrives for Refugees from Civil War-Torn Syria (By Val Van Meter) Millwood.--The disadvantaged children affect Frederick Gerber the most. He is at the Al Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan this week, delivering 186,000 doses of vaccine from Project HOPE in Millwood to children there. Gerber is a director of operations in Iraq for Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere) and helped to build a hospital for children in Basrah, the first new hospital in Iraq--a country with a population of about 33 million--since the 1980s. His organization is trying to help Jordan and other countries in the area to cope with the influx of refugees from the two-year-old civil war in Syria. The conflict has generated a flood of refugees into countries neighboring Syria, Gerber said. Al Za'atari opened two years ago, with 60,000 men, women and children. Now, Gerber said, Jordan is sheltering more than 600,000, with more than 200,000 in United Nations refugee camps. Al Za'atari is the second-largest refugee camp in the world, and would qualify as Jordan's fourth-largest city. ``It's the size of 600 football fields,'' Gerber said. Those in the camps could be said to be the lucky ones. He noted that they receive deliveries of clean water, food and blankets. Other refugees try to find shelter with family members or friends, or simply squat in empty or abandoned buildings. ``They live in dire circumstances,'' Gerber said. Project HOPE, with its focus on health projects, has been working in the Middle East for a dozen years, he said. This situation, with the refugee totals of those who have left Syria expected to top 3.5 million by year's end--and another 4.5 million believed to be displaced in the war-torn country--is swamping the resources of its neighbors. ``Jordan needs a lot of help to help them,'' Gerber said. Project HOPE's donation of vaccines to fight rotavirus is a preventative operation, he said. Rotaviruses are known to cause diarrhea and dehydration, especially in children, and break out where people are crowded together and clean water and good sanitation are lacking. Project HOPE is also readying some $30 million in medical supplies in its Winchester warehouse for shipment to Jordan. Much of that shipment will be used in the camps--but, Gerber said, he hopes some can be moved over the border into Syria, where about 2,500 medical professionals are working under battlefield conditions to help casualties from the fighting. ``These are the real heroes,'' he said. Estimates indicate that 70 percent of Syria's doctors have fled the country, Gerber said. Most of the nation's hospitals have been damaged or destroyed. The physicians remaining are working in field hospitals and aid stations, dealing with battlefield casualties with sparse modern supplies or equipment. Without proper retractors, Gerber said, he has heard of doctors holding a chest open for surgery ``with a pair of pancake flippers.'' In addition to immediate medical emergencies, he sees a future threat in post-traumatic stress disorder for all refugees and a dim future for the children who may live in refugee camps for years without any hope of getting an education. Gerber would like to find ways to have Jordanian professionals trained to handle the ``stress, depression and anxiety that are so palpable'' in and outside the camps. ``Very few have any training in psychosocial illnesses,'' he added. But his first focus now is keeping the children healthy. ``I love what I'm doing,'' said Gerber, a Washington, D.C., resident who spent 32 years in the Army health services. ``And it's wonderful to do it with an organization like Project HOPE.'' But seeing children starved or injured ``never fails to bring a tear to my eye.''

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Dr. Michael F. Murphy, who will be retiring as superintendent of Clarke County Public Schools on June 30th, 2014. Dr. Murphy has served in this role since 2008. I submit the following article from the Winchester Star, which is the text of Dr. Murphy's retirement announcement, delivered at a Clarke County School Board meeting on Monday, October 28th. [As reported by the Winchester Star on October 29, 2013] Open Forum: `Incredible Journey' I will always remember the evening of June 12, 2008 . . . Marie and I, along with School Board Chairman Robina Rich Bouffault and Interim Superintendent John Taylor, had just finished dinner and dessert at V2 in Winchester. Robina reached into her purse, presented me with an envelope, and asked that I consider becoming the next superintendent of the Clarke County Public Schools. She was more than ecstatic, and I was honored, humbled, and, to be honest, just a little bit surprised. Looking back, it has been an incredible journey. For last five-plus years, I have been blessed to have worked with some of the most outstanding individuals in the field of public education. They are passionate, caring, and want the best for each and every student. They are administrators, teachers, technologists, instructional assistants, bus drivers, custodians, secretaries and office managers. There are countless others who, while unnamed this evening, provide the leadership and support to help Clarke County Public Schools be one of the best-kept secrets in the Commonwealth. Together, with the help of great parents and guardians, they have nurtured and supported the children of this community, built technology networks and schools, and ensured that each and every student has had the best possible education they could provide. Their list of accomplishments is beyond reproach; I commend each and every one of them for their service. Their voices may be quiet, but their hearts are big and full of hope, energy, and enthusiasm. They are my champions. They are the 99 percent. And they are the true leaders of Clarke County. I would also like to take a moment to thank Janet Creager Alger and Barbara P. Lee for their steadfast support and encouragement. Janet is the only sitting School Board member from the board that hired me, and Barbara joined soon after. Thank you both for your unwavering leadership, service, and support. As we go forward into November and start the Fiscal Year 2015 budget process, I would like to again share with our community that we are one of only 36 school divisions in the Commonwealth fully accredited; that we are proud of our 97.3 percent on time graduation rate, and that 75 percent of our high-school graduates received an advanced diploma. We offer International Baccalaureate and academic, athletic, music and arts programs that are second to none. We support a host of expanded opportunities for students of all ages, and our applied behavior analysis program serves as a model for the Commonwealth. Yes, we certainly have a lot to be proud of, and this is just the short list . . . I would also like to share with our community that despite Clarke County's substantial ability to pay for public education, we are woefully underfunded and have been for years. The fiscal and philosophical challenges we face today are the same ones that Eleanor Smalley, Dennis Kellison, and Wade Johnson also faced. I have talked to each of them, and each has shared that, in one way or another, not much has changed in the last 45 years. It is time to view the education of our children as an investment, not as a burden. I believe that a community conversation about what is really important to the citizens of Clarke is long overdue. How we pay for and provide services to the young, the disabled, the elderly and everyone in between is essential for the future. And whether we like it or not, it should be a conversation about family wage jobs, affordable housing, economic development, and the creation of a sustainable future, both on and off the farm. It is time to educate, engage, and evolve like never before. This conversation is long overdue, and won't happen unless we talk about it. I would also like to remind the residents of Berryville that the Nov. 5 School Board election is not about Mike Murphy. It is about electing a leader who will model the values of honesty, integrity, and respect and who will put the needs of children, all children, before the needs of the plutocracy. As you can imagine, after serving for five-plus years in ``the hot seat,'' the stories are many, and most of them are not only unbelievable, but true. Serving in a community where some consider the education of our children a burden has indeed been a challenge. But despite the challenges, the anonymous bloggers, and those who hide behind their keyboards twisting the truth with every stroke, we have been more than successful. In fact, I would say we have been victorious. Our legacy is all around us, and they are 2,000 strong. They are the children of this community, and they deserve the best we have to offer. In closing, let me remind our staff, and share with our children and community, the three most important tools in your tool box: your head, your heart, and your voice. Use your heads to make decisions that embrace the future of an exuberant Clarke County full of love, laughter, and life; use your hearts to remember what our legacy is really all about, and that is the children we love and nurture and send on to a better tomorrow; and use your voices, loud and vibrant, to stand up for what you believe. Above all else, believe in compassion, social justice, and the hope for a better tomorrow for our children. Not somewhere else, but here, in beautiful Clarke County. Having rambled long enough, I would like to announce that after 36 years of doing what I love, I'm ready for a change. It is time to spend more time with my son, get to know my three stepdaughters a little bit better, plant that long- awaited garden, start a few more bee hives, build the boat I have always dreamed of, and finish reading the stack of books on my night stand. The future belongs to those who create it, and I have plans you can't even begin to imagine. Retirement beckons, and Marie and I are ready to begin the next chapter in this wonderful life we share. We will do it together, as husband and wife, best friends, and partners. As such, June 30, 2014, will be my last day as Superintendent of Clarke County Public Schools.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the first Federal Coordinator for Meteorology and the first Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Dr. Robert M. White. Fifty years ago, the Bureau of the Budget issued a Circular to propose policy and procedures for the coordination of Federal meteorological services. In October of 1963, President John F. Kennedy appointed Dr. White to be chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Shortly thereafter in January of 1964, he became the first Federal Coordinator for Meteorology. Dr. White was the first and only Administrator of the Environmental Sciences Services Administration (ESSA) from 1965 to 1970, and served as the founding Administrator of NOAA from 1970 to 1977. Dr. White made groundbreaking contributions to the federal coordination of meteorology in the United States. He advocated for the expansion of numerical weather prediction techniques and advanced the practical use of global weather observing technology through the launch of the first two operational meteorological satellites. He advanced weather radar research and development on Doppler technology, providing the foundation for our current NEXRAD radar system. Furthermore, he led U.S. participation in the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) and directed research essential to the modernization and association restructuring of the National Weather Service. In 1978, at the request of the World Meteorological Organization, he chaired the first World Climate Conference in Geneva. After leaving Federal service, he was elected President of the National Academy of Engineering. He was awarded the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1992 for his contributions to global environmental science. I commend Dr. White for the profound vision he brought to his government service, which furthered our understanding of meteorology and the natural environment, including the oceans and marine resources.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WOLF. I want to just thank the gentleman for speaking. Ike lived in northern Virginia when he was here, and I would see him many times on the weekend. The second when it crossed the screen that he had died, I felt very, very badly. To second what the gentleman said, many nights as I was driving home, I would see a car, Ike Skelton and Bill Emerson. They carpooled together. Bill Emerson, a Republican Member from our side, Ike from your side. They carpooled together. They were the best of friends. Ike was one of the finest people that I have served with since I have been in this House. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, last week, a new national poll was released by a respected pollster, Patrick Caddell, a Democrat, and John McLaughlin, a Republican, making clear that the American people still don't feel they know the truth about what happened in Benghazi nearly 14 months ago. According to the poll commissioned by Secure America Now, 63 percent of Americans ``think the Obama administration is covering up the facts about Benghazi''; and only 29 percent of registered voters say the Obama administration has been honest about Benghazi. Think about that for a moment. A supermajority of Americans believe they have been misled by their government about what happened in Benghazi. This is remarkable. The American people know how significant it is that Ambassador Stevens, the President's personal envoy to Libya, was the first Ambassador killed in the line of duty in four decades on September 11, 11 years to the day that nearly 3,000 people were killed by al Qaeda terrorists. The American people intuitively understand that a plot of this scale was not spontaneously inspired, as claimed by the administration's now infamous talking points. The American people also know that it is remarkable that no effort was made by Washington to rescue the Americans in Benghazi or dispatch a hostage rescue team after the Ambassador went missing that night. I think the American people also wonder just what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. Was it involved in the collection and transfer of weapons to foreign countries? Possibly to support the Syrian rebels? And could some of those weapons have fallen into the wrong hands, like the Syrian jihadists? It is too easy to say that this is ``classified information'' and expect the American people to look away. Four Americans were killed that night, several were wounded, and no one came to help them. Was it because the CIA was conducting a covert operation and if something went wrong, that was just the price of doing business? Were the CIA activities in Benghazi part of the reason the consulate and annex were targeted? These are legitimate questions the American people are asking that deserve clear answers. The McLaughlin-Cadell poll also found that 62 percent of the American people support creating a ``special bipartisan committee with broad powers to get to the truth about the attacks in Benghazi.'' Eighty percent of Republicans and 58 percent of independents support the idea. Notably, nearly half of Democrats said it was important to create a bipartisan committee to learn the truth. The bottom line is Americans from across the political spectrum recognize that not only are they not being told the truth, but they feel Congress needs to change its approach to the investigation by creating a special committee. Why is it that, despite more than a year of investigations in five separate committees, the American people feel they still don't know the truth about what happened? Perhaps it is because, despite more than a year of investigations by five committees, most of the questions raised about that night remain unanswered. Perhaps it is because, despite more than a year of investigations by five committees, hardly any of the key witnesses responsible for the government's response that night--or lack thereof--have publicly testified. Perhaps it is because, despite more than a year of investigations, none of the survivors that could help answer key questions have publicly testified before Congress. Perhaps it is because, despite more than a year of investigations, so few committee hearings have been held publicly. Or perhaps it is because, despite more than a year of investigations, what little the American people have learned has come from news reports from CNN, CBS, FOX, and other news organizations and not from congressional hearings or testimony. I think all these factors have contributed to the sense among the American people that Congress has failed in its oversight responsibility. The American people know they haven't been told the full story about what happened that night, and they believe they have been intentionally misled by the administration. I have come to the floor today to once again call on my leadership to create a House select committee on Benghazi. I am often asked what is holding up the creation of this select committee. The simple answer is because the Speaker has not agreed to it. I like the Speaker. He has a tough job, and he may have good reasons for not wanting to establish a select committee, but I don't know what it is. And more importantly, I don't think the American people know what it is. Let me be clear: my criticism is not with the chairmen of committees that are looking into this. They are all good men. They have worked very hard. Their hands are tied. They are required, though, to stay within their jurisdictional lanes, examining only what they are allowed to investigate according to their committee charter. What happened in Benghazi is interrelated. The ``lanes'' crisscross. The White House, the State Department, the CIA, and the Defense Department were all involved, resulting in overlapping, but uncoordinated, investigations. Benghazi was a terrorist attack. We need a team effort to find out what happened, why it happened, and how we are going to bring the perpetrators to justice. Any of these chairmen would be capable of leading the select committee, and other members of their committees would be very good to serve as well. They would do a good job. I have confidence in them. And let me be clear: I have no intention of chairing or serving on the select committee. I will not serve on the select committee. I just want to learn the truth, just like the American people. There is a history in Congress that when things overlap between committees and transcend jurisdictions, select committees were established. Two well-known examples are Watergate and Iran Contra. And I will submit a list of the past select committees over the past 50 years at the end of my statement. A select committee would take members from each committee with their individual expertise--and many of the members from these various committees have tremendous expertise--and have them work on this investigation day in and day out, with no other distractions. It would also prevent the administration from saying one thing to one committee of jurisdiction and something else to another. I am reminded of the poem ``Blind Men and the Elephant,'' which is said to originate in India. In the poem, six blind men touch a part of an elephant and each has a different description of what the elephant must look like. They argue at great length among themselves. The poem ends by saying that while each is partly right, they are all wrong. The moral of the poem is that, independently, people may think their understanding of the situation is correct; yet they don't know the truth until the full picture comes into focus. Each of the five committees may not be seeing the entire picture of what happened that night. Regular order has limited the committees from going beyond their jurisdictions. One group ought to have the responsibility to get to the bottom of all parts of this tragedy. One group needs to lay out a roadmap to obtaining and reporting that information to the American people so we can restore confidence that Congress has a serious oversight plan on Benghazi. Remember, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. We need to see the whole of this tragedy. My bill to create a select committee, H. Res. 36, now has 178 cosponsors--more than three-quarters of the Republican Conference and more than a supermajority of the majority. Nearly three-quarters of the Republican members who serve on the committees already investigating Benghazi now support a select committee. That means a plurality of the members who have been directly involved in committee investigations believe a select committee would be a more effective approach. The bill has been endorsed by the American Legion, representing so many vets who have sacrificed and given their time and effort to serve this country; the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents the diplomatic security agents that were present in Benghazi--the people who represent them and who were present in Benghazi support the select committee; groups representing the highly respected Special Ops community, who serve this Nation so well; and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. Perhaps, most important, it is being endorsed by some of the family members of the Benghazi victims, like Sean Smith's mother and Ty Woods' father, who want to know the truth about what happened to the children that night and why their country fell short in its response. Nothing will bring their children back, but we can at least provide them with the clear answers and assign accountability for those responsible for intelligence failures and the inept response that night. The best way to do this is to break down the stovepipes between the five committees, hold public hearings, and issue subpoenas to all the survivors from Benghazi, those who were in Tripoli, and those who were in Washington responding that night. We need a public hearing with the principals involved in the decisionmaking process in Washington on September 11, 2012, including former Secretary Panetta, former Secretary of State Clinton, former CIA Director Petraeus, former White House adviser and current CIA Director John Brennan, and former AFRICOM Commander General Ham, as well as the White House. We also need a similar hearing with each of their deputies and others who were witness to the calls for help and the decisions surrounding the response not to help. Unless we hear from these people publicly, the American people will never learn the truth about whether there were warnings prior to the attack, what calls for help were made that night, whether the CIA security team was in fact delayed in leaving to respond to the initial attack at the consulate, and what the response was from Washington, among many other questions. Also, the American people should know of the bravery of the men who were there in Benghazi. Until these key individuals are sitting side by side at the witness table answering questions under oath in public, we will never get a clear picture of who made the decisions that night and why. Again, the hearings must be in public. The American people can handle the truth. Failure to get these answers means there will never be any accountability, which further erodes public confidence in government. Absent a select committee, the Congress will fail to learn the truth about what happened that night because the administration will continue to use the jurisdictional barriers between each committee to continue to slow-walk or deny information. There are a number of new developments in recent weeks that make a select committee more timely than ever. First, our colleague, Mike Rogers, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, confirmed earlier reports, telling Fox News that the plot against the consulate and the CIA annex in Benghazi appears to have been weeks, if not months, in the making and that at least two of the plot's leaders had close connections to senior al Qaeda leadership. Nearly a year ago, I circulated a memo to all members prepared by respected terrorist analyst Thomas Joscelyn detailing the apparent connections and likely coordination between al Qaeda affiliates in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen that resulted in threats and attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in those countries the week of September 11, 2012. Unfortunately, the committees have not held public hearings looking at the connection between these threats. Last week, Fox News' Catherine Herridge first reported that: At least two of the key suspects in the Benghazi terror attacks were at one point working with al Qaeda senior leadership, the sources familiar with the investigation tell Fox News. The sources said one of the suspects was believed to be a courier for the al Qaeda network and the other a bodyguard in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 terror attacks. Catherine Herridge went on and said: The direct ties to the al Qaeda senior leadership undercut earlier characterizations by the Obama administration that the attackers in Benghazi were isolated extremists--not al Qaeda terrorists--with no organizational structure or affiliation. And then, on Sunday, CBS' ``60 Minutes'' aired a segment by Lara Logan, further explaining what happened that night and the increasingly clear connection to al Qaeda. And I am very grateful for ``60 Minutes'' covering this story. Logan reported: Just a few weeks ago, Abu Anas al-Libi was captured for his role in the Africa bombings and the U.S. is still investigating what part he may have played in Benghazi. We've learned that this man, Sufian bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and a longtime al Qaeda operative, was one of the lead planners, along with Furaj al-Chalabi, whose ties to Osama bin Laden go back more than 15 years. He is believed to have carried documents from the compound to the head of al Qaeda in Pakistan. It is particularly notable how al-Chalabi reportedly delivered documents from U.S. facilities in Benghazi to the head of the al Qaeda in Pakistan, establishing a direct link between the Benghazi attacks and the most senior leadership of al Qaeda. Among the other revelations in the ``60 Minutes'' segment was that al Qaeda stated its intent to attack Americans in Benghazi, along with the Red Cross and the British mission, well in advance of September 11. Lieutenant Colonel Andy Wood, the top American security official in Libya in the months leading up to the attack, told CBS that both the State Department and the Defense Department were well aware of the threat and the attacks on the Red Cross and British missions. He said it was obvious to the Americans in Libya that it was only a matter of time until an attack on the U.S. facilities. When the terrorists stormed the consulate property they said, ``We're here to kill Americans, not Libyans,'' and they spared the lives of Libyan guards. Confirmation of that information I detailed on the House floor in July, noting: A quick reaction force from the CIA annex ignored orders to wait, and raced to the compound, at times running and shooting their way through the streets just to get there. The Americans faced a ``professional enemy'' as they encountered waves of intense fighting on the CIA annex in Benghazi during the early morning of September 12. Mortars fired during the final wave of the assault hit the roof of the annex three times in the dark. Lieutenant Colonel Wood described hitting a target like that as ``getting the basketball through the hoop over your shoulder'' and that it took ``coordination, planning, training, and experienced personnel'' to pull off such a ``well-executed attack.'' Two Delta Force operators who fought at the CIA annex, apparently as part of the impromptu team that flew in from Tripoli with Glen Doherty during the attack without permission from Washington, have ``been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross--two of the military's highest honors.'' We owe them a debt of gratitude. The U.S. already knew that senior al Qaeda leader Abu Anas al Libi was in Libya and was ``tasked by the head of al Qaeda to establish a clandestine terrorist network inside the country; al Libi was already wanted for his role in bombing two U.S. Embassies in Africa'' where constituents from my congressional district were killed. Notably, the administration made no mention of his connection to the Benghazi attacks in its announcement of his capture last month. Some of the key questions that remain unanswered are why the CIA security team was ordered not to respond to the attack at the consulate and ``why no larger military response ever crossed the border into Libya--something U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission Greg Hicks realized wasn't going to happen just an hour into the attack.'' It is particularly noteworthy that Logan addressed the pressure on witnesses she encountered during her investigation, saying: An extraordinary amount of pressure on the people involved not to talk and an extraordinary amount of pressure on anyone in the government--the military side, the political side--not to say anything out of official channels. This is consistent with the concerns I have repeatedly raised on the House floor about efforts by this administration to silence survivors and witnesses to the Benghazi attacks and response. What are they afraid of these witnesses sharing with the American people, and how can the Congress stand by and allow this to happen knowing full well it is taking place? CNN in July reported: Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the Agency's mission in Libya have been subjected to frequent--even monthly--polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the Agency's workings. The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone has been talking to the media or to Congress. That was reported by CNN in July. In a separate piece in July, FOX News reported: At least five CIA employees were forced to sign additional nondisclosure agreements this past spring in the wake of the Benghazi attack. That is what FOX News said in July of this year. As someone who represents thousands of Federal employees and contractors, including many who work for the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and the Defense Department, I know from years of firsthand experience how agencies can sometimes use various forms of pressure and intimidation to keep employees from sharing information of concern with Congress. I know the Benghazi survivors and other witnesses that night from those agencies need the protection of a ``friendly subpoena'' to compel their testimony before Congress, particularly on matters as sensitive as this, in order to protect them. So far, the committees have failed to provide this protection to allow survivors and other witnesses to share their stories publicly so the American people can hear them. Based on disclosures in recent news reports, I now believe that the Benghazi plot represents a significant intelligence failure by the United States at several levels. Understanding these failures, as well as the government's inexplicable response during and after the attack, is critical to preventing future attacks. I want to outline a number of the apparent intelligence failures leading up to the attack, which I believe a select committee investigation would confirm: First: The State Department and CIA failed in their assessments of the militia groups working for the Americans in Benghazi, including the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, responsible for guarding the consulate property which abandoned the Americans and may have even facilitated access to the compound for the terrorists; According to a May 21 article by Eli Lake at the Daily Beast: CIA officers were responsible for vetting the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, the militia that was supposed to be the first responders on the night of the attack, but melted away when the diplomatic mission was attacked; Second: The State Department, the Defense Department, and the CIA apparently failed to adjust their security postures to support the Americans in Benghazi based on the growing number of attacks on Western targets in Benghazi during the summer of 2012; To date, no one has explained or been held accountable for why the U.S. submission was so poorly secured despite pleas for assistance by the Embassy staff in Tripoli to Washington; No one has adequately explained why the Defense Department's emergency response team was on a routine training mission in Croatia during the week of September 11 when it should have been on alert to respond, especially given the threats to the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Egypt earlier in the day before the Benghazi attack. So the emergency response team was on a training mission in Croatia at the very time and on the very date that everyone knows, September 11. Given the threats to the Embassy, it is shocking that this is the case; Third: The intelligence community apparently failed to understand the size and scope of the attack brewing in Benghazi in the months leading up to September 11; As Chairman Rogers acknowledged to FOX News' Catherine Herridge last week, this was a well-coordinated attack that was many weeks, if not months, in the making; Earlier this year, CNN reported on the number of foreign fighters who arrived in Benghazi to participate in the attack in the days leading up to September 11. A witness in the ``60 Minutes'' report noted how black al Qaeda flags were openly flying in the months before the attack, and he also noted the announced threat against U.S., British, and Red Cross facilities; How did the government miss these warnings or were they just simply ignored? Fourth: The intelligence community seems to have more broadly failed to understand and anticipate how al Qaeda was metastasizing in North Africa; This administration has been quick to take credit for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, and declared throughout the 2012 Presidential campaign that as a result of its efforts that ``core al Qaeda'' has been decimated. However, the facts don't support the administration's narrative; In a CNN report on Monday: Terrorist attacks hit a record high in 2012, and ``more than 8,500 terrorist attacks killed more than 15,500 people last year as violence tore through Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.'' Increasingly, this includes North African countries likely Libya; CNN also said: ``Despite the death of Osama bin Laden and the capture of other key al Qaeda leaders, the group has exported its brand of terrorism to other militant Muslims.'' These groups include affiliates like Ansar al Sharia in Libya; Additionally, following a report on Benghazi, CBS' Lara Logan noted earlier this week: It became evident to us during the course of our research-- this is what she said--that very little is known publicly about the true nature of al Qaeda's network in Libya, and that has consequences beyond Benghazi and beyond Libya. It has consequences that speak to the national security interests of the United States of America; Most of these affiliate terrorist groups have sworn an allegiance to al Qaeda and appear to closely coordinate their activities and plots with the core al Qaeda leadership, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's successor. To dismiss or minimize the relationship with al Qaeda's senior leadership is misguided and, I believe, dangerous as we have seen over the last several years. I fear that this administration's insistence in treating core al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan differently than groups like Ansar al Sharia in Libya has led to a dangerous mischaracterization of the threat and that it has apparently resulted in the failure to anticipate attacks like the one that was carried out in Benghazi; Fifth: It appears that documents were taken from the consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi in the wake of the attacks; As I said earlier, ``60 Minutes'' reported that terrorist Faraj al Chalabi, whose ties to bin Laden go back nearly two decades, is ``believed to have carried documents from the compound to the head of al Qaeda in Pakistan.'' What was taken from the consulate and annex and given to al Qaeda's leadership? We don't know; Additionally, as Lara Logan noted following the report: We did not expect that we would find the U.S. compound in the state that we found it. There was still debris and ammunition boxes and a whiteboard that had the day's assignments for the security personnel at the compound as of September 11, 2012; Clearly, in the chaos of the fighting and evacuation that night, information was left behind at the facilities that may have consequences for Americans operating in the region. I also believe the administration's response to the Benghazi attack over the last year has been nothing short of shameful and that it also merits a full investigation by a select committee. From the first hours of the attack, when it became apparent that no help was coming to assist those under attack--either from U.S. forces or from our allies in the region--to the failure of the FBI to gain access to key suspects in Tunisia and Egypt over the last year, this administration has sent a signal to terrorists that the U.S. will not strongly respond to an attack on Americans abroad. The failure to either arrest or kill any of the scores of terrorists responsible for the attacks more than a year later is inexcusable and reflects an unwillingness by this administration to bring diplomatic pressure to bear on countries harboring these terrorists. I am increasingly convinced that this administration is more comfortable in using the ongoing FBI investigation as an excuse not to answer questions than it is in bringing these terrorists to justice. As I said on the House floor in July of last year, Tunisia detained the first suspect in the Benghazi terrorist attacks, Ali Harzi, after he was deported from Turkey in the weeks following the attacks. Tunisia, despite being a beneficiary of more than $300 million of U.S. foreign aid--American taxpayer money of over $300 million goes to Tunisia--refused to allow the FBI access to this suspect for nearly 5 weeks. It was only after congressional threats to cut off the aid that the government of Tunisia reconsidered its position. Ultimately, the FBI interrogation team returned to Tunisia and was allowed just 3 hours to interview Harzi with his lawyer and a Tunisian judge present. Not long after the FBI interview, Harzi was inexplicably released by Tunisian authorities, and his release was celebrated by Ansar al Sharia terrorists. Last month, it was confirmed that Harzi has been involved in at least one assassination of a Tunisian political leader. In another equally concerning case in Egypt, the FBI has been denied access to Muhammed Jamal, an al Qaeda-connected terrorist who ran training camps in Egypt and eastern Libya prior to the Benghazi attack. Several of Jamal's associates are believed to have participated in the Benghazi plot, and terrorism analysts believe that Jamal may have communicated directly with Zawahiri and al Qaeda leadership about this and other terrorist attacks. Although Jamal has been in Egyptian custody for more than a year on other terrorism-related charges, the U.S. has never been provided access to him under both the Morsi government and now the current military government. I personally delivered a letter to former Ambassador Patterson in Cairo asking then-President Morsi to provide the FBI access to Jamal and his documents. I don't believe the Ambassador ever delivered the letter, and if she did, she never told me. That in itself is very, very troubling. Jamal's connection to the Benghazi attack is particularly noteworthy given that both the U.S. and the United Nations formally, both the U.S. and the United Nations, formally designated him as a terrorist earlier this month. However, in another example of this administration's aversion to discussing terrorist connections to the Benghazi attack, the U.N. designation clearly notes Jamal's connection to the Benghazi attack, whereas the State Department designation omits it. So the U.N. designation clearly notes Jamal's connection to the Benghazi attack; the State Department omits it. The UN says, and our State Department omits it? I believe there has been pressure from the administration to omit this type of information from U.S. intelligence products, sending conflicting signals to both our allies and to countries that may have Benghazi suspects of interest to the FBI. I have a lot of confidence in the FBI if they are just allowed to do their job. But if we are unwilling to identify their involvement in the attacks, it further erodes U.S. credibility in asking for access to these individuals. This willful blindness is disingenuous and, I believe, ultimately dangerous. In early January, when I offered an amendment to create a select committee to the House rules package for the 113th Congress, Speaker Boehner told the Republican Conference that he didn't believe that we had ``reached the threshold'' for a select committee. He suggested that we might get to the threshold, but the committees of jurisdiction just needed more time. That may have been the case in January, but nearly 11 months later, I think the broad support that has built up over the last year makes it clear we have more than passed the threshold for a select committee now. I believe, and I believe the American people believe, that the threshold has clearly been reached in terms of cosponsors, endorsements, and new revelations from the press reports, and a deep concern the American people have for this issue. I was particularly struck by the comments made by Ambassador Stevens' deputy, Greg Hicks, in the 60 Minutes segment on Sunday: For us, for the people that go out onto the edge to represent our country, we believe that if we get in trouble, they are coming to get us, that our back is covered. To hear that it is not, it is a terrible, terrible experience. It is not enough for the administration to just say there is nothing more that could have been done, especially given that evidence indicates that they didn't try much at all to assist the Americans under fire in Benghazi. Mr. Speaker, it is time for a unified, bipartisan select committee. Let's get to the truth once and for all so we can find out what happened and restore the American people's confidence in congressional oversight and confidence in government. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, today marks the 30th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which took the lives of 241 American servicemen, as well as 58 French servicemen in a separate building. It was the deadliest attack on the Marine Corps since Iwo Jima during World War II. This attack against our country by Hezbollah, which was coordinated with the Iranian regime, marked the first major terrorist attack targeting the U.S. This is the same Iranian regime that continues to sponsor terrorism, develop nuclear weapons and threatens the U.S. and our allies in the Middle East still today. In some respects it was an opening shot fired in a battle that continues to this day against radical Islamists and terrorist elements bent on the destruction of this country and all that it represents. I have visited the site of the barracks near the airport. Today, there's nothing left but a parking lot--not even a memorial or plaque to recognize the lives that were lost. In a cruel twist of history, the airport itself, which the Marines were guarding in 1983, is now controlled by Hezbollah. However, there are now memorials to the servicemen at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut as well as at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. This morning, the 30th Beirut Observance Ceremony was held at the memorial at Camp Lejeune. Today we pause to remember those lost in the attack--to honor them and their family members. We remember their sacrifice and reaffirm our commitment to learn the lessons of the past to prevent such tragedies in the future. As President Reagan said in a televised address from the Oval Office following the attack, the Americans serving in Beirut, ``were not afraid to stand up for their country or, no matter how difficult and slow the journey might be, to give to others that last, best hope of a better future. We cannot and will not dishonor them now and the sacrifices they've made by failing to remain as faithful to the cause of freedom and the pursuit of peace as they have been.''

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, the veterans of the battle in Mogadishu, Somalia on October 3rd, 1993--commonly referred to now as ``Black Hawk Down''--gathered at two different events in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and in Texas at the ranch of Ross Perot, Jr., to observe the 20th anniversary of these events and remember the 18 servicemen who were killed in action. I submit for the Record a statement I received from Lt. Gen. William G. ``Jerry'' Boykin who was the commander of Delta Force during this battle, which took the lives of 18 men and wounded 73 others. As Lt. Gen. Boykin notes in the statement, ``What came next was hours of fighting between ninety-nine Americans and tens of thousands of the Somali militia, all armed with rifles, grenades, and rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and determined to kill as many Americans as possible. The battle was now a matter of principle. No American would be left behind. It made no difference that the two pilots were already dead, their bodies would be brought out and returned home with dignity. No man was willing to leave his comrade's body because each man lived by an ethos known as the `Ranger Creed', which says in the fifth stanza `I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy . . .' '' Black Hawk Down Twenty Years Later (By Lt. Gen. William G. ``Jerry'' Boykin) October 3rd, 1993 was a day when ``Uncommon valor was a common virtue,'' according to John O. Marsh, Jr., the former Secretary of the United States Army. Known to his friends as Jack, Marsh was speaking at a memorial service at the Delta Force facilities at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in November, 1993, just days after the unit had returned from Mogadishu, Somalia, where sixteen of their comrades had died and another 72 had suffered wounds. The battle that Marsh was referring to was later chronicled in the Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer movie ``Black Hawk Down.'' Last week two key commemoratives occurred in different places which drew the participants of that battle together to honor their fallen comrades. The first was at Ft Bragg, NC on October 3rd where Rangers, Delta Force personnel, aviators from the 1/60th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and a small number of US Navy and US Air Force warriors gathered on the twentieth anniversary. On the 5th of October, many of the same group, along with family members, attended an event sponsored by Ross Perot Jr at his ranch in Grapevine Texas. Both events were characterized by solemn camaraderie and stories of old team mates who never made it home from that battle. Jack Marsh was right about the valor shown that day in the most intense firefight that US troops had been in since the Viet Nam conflict. One of the somewhat obscure facts about the ``Blackhawk Down'' battle is what those men were fighting for. The mission that day was to capture three Somali militiamen who were part of the network of a brutal tribal leader named Mohammad Aideed. That mission was accomplished fairly quickly and the task force was preparing to return to their base when a Blackhawk helicopter, call sign Super 61, was shot down in the vicinity of the Bakkarra market. The pilot and co-pilot were killed on impact and trapped in the twisted wreckage. Two other crew members survived the crash along with three of the Delta Force operators, all of which were injured. Every man from the task force was directed to leave their targets and to get to the crash site and to recover the bodies of the dead crewmembers and protect the survivors until they could be evacuated. Some of the injured survivors were evacuated fairly quickly by the quick reactions of courageous helicopter pilots who saw the situation and reacted instantly. After a very tough block-by- block street fight, the task force finally assembled around the crash, only to discover that the bodies of their comrades were hopelessly entangled in the wreckage and would be nearly impossible to remove without tools, which the task force did not have. What came next was hours of fighting between ninety-nine Americans and tens of thousands of the Somali militia, all armed with rifles, grenades, and rocket propelled grenades (RPG) and determined to kill as many Americans as possible. The battle was now a matter of principle. No American would be left behind. It made no difference that the two pilots were already dead, their bodies would be brought out and returned home with dignity. No man was willing to leave his comrade's body because each man lived by an ethos known as the ``Ranger Creed'', which says in the fifth stanza ``I will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy . . .'' So the die was cast and it quickly became obvious to all the Americans in Mogadishu that until the necessary tools arrived that would allow the task force to rip the helicopter apart, the battle would continue; and it did, for eighteen hours. Additional casualties were taken by the task force as they stayed and defended the bodies of Cliff Walcott and Donovan Briley. It was not until just before daylight on October 4th that a relief force carrying the necessary equipment was able to reach the surrounded Americans and extract the two bodies. At that point, the entire force fought their way out of the city and back to their base on the airfield in Mogadishu. While the cost was high, every man knew that he had done what was expected of him and had no regrets. Fighting and sacrificing for a fellow warrior is fundamental to the warrior ethos. These men battled against incredible odds to defend fallen comrades and did so without hesitation or reservation. Honor was preserved but at a price. Given the same dilemma again, it is a sure bet that every man would do the same thing. That is one of the things that makes a man a warrior and America is blessed to have people that know that there are some values for which they will risk everything, including their lives.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, in Luke 12:48, Jesus said: From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. The Congress and the President have been entrusted with much, namely, the responsibility to govern this country. The American people rightly expect us, regardless of party affiliation, to come together, especially during times of crisis, and find ways to get things done. They are understandably fed up with the current dysfunction, and I am, too. Each side thinks it's winning, but, in reality, the country and the American people are losing. Senate Chaplain Barry Black says there is a level of insanity involved in the current government shutdown. Asked what it would take to end the current impasse, the former Navy chaplain said, ``It's going to take humility.'' Wise words. Proverbs 16:18 says: Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. There is too much pride poisoning this debate. The American people should be the winner, not one party or the other, not the administration or the Congress. Shortsighted political victories aimed at capturing the latest headline in a 24-hour news cycle will not stand the test of time, nor will they be viewed well through the lens of history, especially if, on our watch, the trust that must exist between elected officials and the electorate is frayed beyond repair. For those of us who think ObamaCare is a disaster--and that is a growing number of people in our country--its future will not be decided by the shutting or opening of the government. In fact, the current failings of the system, including the widespread glitches plaguing the Web site, are not getting the news coverage they should because the story has become the shutdown. The public debate surrounding ObamaCare, which will undoubtedly be at the forefront in heading into the midterm elections, will play second fiddle until the government is once again operational. It also bears mentioning that, while important, ObamaCare must be placed in a larger context of the exploding national debt and deficit and unsustainable spending and entitlement programs set against the backdrop of a public discourse bereft of civility. Only through enacting reforms based on the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles recommendations will we ever solve the drivers of our deficits. We have put these tough but important reforms off for far too long. To my colleagues in the Congress and to President Obama who think they are ``winning'' at this particular moment, we would do well to remember the words of Napoleon Bonaparte in speaking of the changing nature of public opinion. Napoleon said: The crowd which follows me with adulation would run with the same eagerness were I marching to the guillotine. I return again to the sentiments of Scripture: We have been given a great trust, and it is demanded of us to come together to solve these problems. It is time to show some humility. It is time to govern. Let's get the government back open, ensure we don't default on our debt, and then commit ourselves to curbing unsustainable entitlement spending.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I submit a letter I sent to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden on Tuesday clarifying the statutory restrictions on bilateral cooperation with China, which were misrepresented by NASA Ames Research Center staff and reported in a recent article in the Guardian newspaper. I expect NASA to immediately correct the record on its policies and await a response from Administrator Bolden. In the letter, I also raised the rationale for congressional restrictions on additional collaboration with the Chinese government, including its abhorrent record on human rights abuses and its continued cyberattacks, espionage campaigns and development of space weapons to use against the U.S. I also challenged Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Geoff Marcy, who made public comments disparaging statutory and NASA policies, to advocate for the 2010 Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese dissident who has been jailed by Beijing since 2009, saying ``It's an ethical breach that is unacceptable. You have to draw the line.'' Will Dr. Marcy similarly ``draw the line'' regarding China's deplorable human rights record and join the Nobel Committee in speaking out for Liu Xiaobo? The Nobel Committee took the unprecedented step of holding Liu Xiaobo's ceremony with an empty chair on stage because he and his wife were not allowed to leave China to receive the award. Whether Dr. Marcy receives the award or not--and I hope he does--he and the other Nobel nominees should speak out for Liu Xiaobo. This will be a real test for the science community. Congress of the United States, House of Representatives, October 8, 2013. Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr.,

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. I want to thank Chairman Crenshaw for yielding. I want to also thank him and Chairman Rogers for their help today and on Saturday. I also want to thank their staffs. The staffs and leadership have been incredibly helpful in bringing this legislation to this floor. Madam Speaker, I think if you look at the vote on Saturday, I and all Members believe that Federal employees should be paid, period. Too many Federal employees and their families don't know when their next paychecks will arrive and are worried about paying their next mortgage payments, paying utilities bills, filling up their cars with gas, or paying for their children's tuitions, which are coming up very soon. We need to fix this. That is why I joined last week with Mr. Moran and others in our delegation--colleagues on both sides of the aisle--to bring bipartisan legislation to the floor last Saturday to ensure that all Federal employees, whether exempt or furloughed by no fault of their own, are paid once this shutdown ends. I'm pleased that this bill passed the House 407-0. I heard that both a Republican and a Democrat Senator had this bill on hold. I don't understand, Madam Speaker, the Senate's ways of going about this, but I think, if any Senators have a hold, they ought to feel strongly enough that they ought to do it publicly so we know who they are, but I understand it's both a Republican and a Democrat. On behalf of the people who are having a very difficult time, I would ask them to lift that hold. Additionally, this House acted to ensure that members of the military and Defense Department civilians exempt from furloughs would be paid on time. I am pleased that the Pay Our Military Act, which the House passed by 423-0, was quickly approved by the Senate and signed into law by the President. Today's legislation builds on these efforts by ensuring that other exempt Federal employees like the FBI team in Nairobi investigating the attack by Al-Shabaab; the CIA, which is looking at things coming in with regard to al Qaeda; the DEA, which is stopping drugs from coming into this country; the Border Patrol agents; doctors and nurses at VA hospitals; Federal firefighters; air traffic controllers; and prison guards will be paid as soon as possible. I hope the House today will follow the bipartisan precedent we have set over and over and vote for this legislation. In closing, I know my colleagues recognize that Federal employees aren't just nameless faces behind desks. They are real people, out in the field, who work day in and day out to keep our country safe.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Turner and Chairman Rogers and his staff. I also want to thank Leader Cantor and his staff and Mr. Moran and Mr. Cummings and the others and all the staff, my staff included, but all the staff who did this very quickly. This was done during the Reagan administration. It was done during the Clinton administration. Who are the Federal employees? The Federal employees are the FBI agents that everyone would call if they got a call and found out their loved one was kidnapped. The first person they would call would be an FBI agent, a Federal employee. I was with Mr. Hoyer 2 weeks ago at the Navy Yard. The 12 people who were killed at the Navy Yard and those who were wounded, they were all Federal employees. Mr. Hoyer can tell you, when the CNO talked about it, he said they were a part of the fleet. The Capitol Hill policemen that we all got up the other day and gave a standing ovation, they are Federal employees. The VA doctors that are working out at Walter Reed, working on young men and women who have lost limbs and served in Afghanistan and Iraq, they are Federal employees. I remember, I was again with Mr. Hoyer when we were down at OPM earlier this year when they had stars on the wall of 27 Federal employees who have died since 2012, and since that time the number of stars have increased tremendously. I saw the movie ``Zero Dark Thirty.'' If you looked at that movie, it was about catching bin Laden. The woman who did it, Maya, has she been furloughed? Where is Maya? We don't know where she is. But has she been furloughed? Should she not get paid? Lastly, I remember being at the memorial service. Seven families walked in; seven individuals died. I saw the young families, the families who were mourning their parents, and they were Federal employees. There are 12,000 CIA employees who have been furloughed and are gone, maybe missing that one communication from al Shabaab or al Qaeda. I strongly urge a strong vote for this. I also want to thank Chairman Issa, Chairman Rogers and the leadership, including Congressman Eric Cantor--who has quickly scheduled this measure--and their staffs, and mine, for their efforts to prepare this bill. This bill--which Mr. Moran and I have introduced with strong bipartisan support--follows in the bipartisan tradition of precedents set during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations: that we ensure that Federal employees, who are out of work and unpaid by no fault of their own, are made whole once the government reopens. Despite the difficult and unfortunate circumstances that have shut down our government currently, there is bipartisan agreement that signal to the millions of Federal employees that they will be paid for the duration of this shut down. Who are these Federal employees? They are the Navy Yard employees killed and wounded last month. They are the Secret Service and Capitol Police officers who ran into harm's way earlier this week. They are the FBI agents, DEA agents, Border Patrol agents, Weather Service meteorologists, Park Rangers, NASA astronauts and engineers, VA doctors and nurses. I think we can all agree that they deserve the confidence of knowing that they will receive back pay for the time they have worked or have been furloughed. My hope is that by moving this legislation now we can provide some reassurance to our valuable workforce and their families. By passing this bill today, Republicans and Democrats can come together to send a powerful message to the Federal workforce. In April my friend, Congressman Steny Hoyer, and I went to the Theodore Roosevelt Federal Building, otherwise known as OPM Headquarters. We were there to recognize the lives of 27 Federal employees who died in the line of duty since January 2012. Twenty- seven. Two weeks ago I was at the Marine Barracks honoring the 12 people killed at the Navy Yard. The speakers did not talk about military or civilian. They talked about ``one Navy'' serving the fleet. A hurricane watch was posted on Thursday. Who is monitoring that? Federal employees. What happened after the hurricane watch was posted? Furloughed Federal employees started to be recalled. Who is working around the clock to protect us from another terrorist attack? Federal employees? It has been reported that 70 percent of civilians working for our intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency will be furloughed. This could include 12,500 employees at the CIA. This will impact our ability to protect our nation and disrupt plots by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. In the movie Zero Dark Thirty, there is a scene where seven CIA employees were killed in Khost, Afghanistan. I went to the memorial service at Langley, which is in my district. I saw the families. I saw the young children mourning the death of their parents. The first American killed in combat during the Afghanistan invasion? Michael Spann, a CIA employee--from my district. What about NASA astronauts and scientists? Or DOE lab employees? This legislation will provide piece of mind to their families that, when the government reopens things will be okay. As their board of directors we should do what we can. If a member of your family was kidnapped, who would you call? The FBI. What about the DEA Agents stopping drug runners and human trafficking. Customs and Border Patrol Agents stopping illegal immigrants. Prison guards working in a dangerous environment who, every day, keep violent felons behind bars. All Federal employees. The doctors and nurses at our VA hospitals and clinics helping wounded warriors recover and our veterans live with dignity. Federal employees. Who else? The defense civilians repairing sophisticated electronic weaponry systems at Army depots and Air Force. The firefighters you call when a lighting strike sets a national forest on fire and homes and business are in danger. The park service rangers who help with a rescue in a National Park. The air traffic controllers and DOT crash investigators. Let's not forget the NIH researchers working to find a cure for breast cancer, and prostate cancer, and Alzheimer's and Autism. This bill will provide some piece of mind to the researchers trying to find a cure, and who's work supplements thousands of businesses, large and small. I know that all my colleagues recognize that Federal employees aren't just nameless faces behind desks, they are real people, out in the field, who work day-in and day-out to make our Nation a better and safer place.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I'm calling for the government to reopen. I'm calling for leadership on both sides to resolve these issues. The FBI is being impacted. The CIA is being impacted. The National Counterterrorism Center, which is looking at leads that are coming in to keep this Nation safe, is being impacted. The NIH and cancer research and Alzheimer's research is being impacted. People and families are being impacted. This is bad for America. It's bad for America. Enough is enough. It's time to be leaders. It's time to govern. Open up the government.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. I thank the chair. Mr. Speaker, the government should stay open. I support the legislation, but it can be improved. All employees who work without pay should be paid on time, including, for example, the CIA. I went to the memorial service where the CIA employees were killed in Khost; and they're side by side with the American military. The FBI, who is on the scene in Kenya now, investigating al-Shabab and the attack; DEA, Customs and Border Patrol agents, prison guards, doctors and nurses at VA hospitals, air traffic controllers, and Federal firefighters, many who gave their lives fighting wildfires around the country. Otherwise, they would be working without pay if the government closes. I believe that all Federal employees should be paid. We should not forget that several Federal employees were killed at the Navy Yard. I went to the memorial service and saw the pain of their families. And the CNO, who spoke, said they were supporting the fleet. So in closing, I am going to support this amendment; but Federal employees and their families should not be punished because the administration and the Congress cannot agree.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Ms. Su Webb, who will be receiving a Loudoun Laurels Medal for her lifetime of civic leadership in the Loudoun County community. Ms. Webb is receiving the award in the category of ``Extraordinary Stewardship'' on October 11, 2013 at the River Creek Club in Leesburg, Virginia. The Loudoun Laurels Medal recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the common good in our region. Ms. Webb has long been committed to cultural and environmental preservation in Loudoun County. She is the chairman of the Loudoun County Farm Heritage museum and serves on the boards of the Aldie Heritage Association and the Lovettsville Park Advisory Committee. She has also served on Loudoun County's Parks, Recreation and Open Space Board for over twenty years, during which time she was instrumental in transferring the operations of Historic Mt. Zion Church and Aldie Mill Park to the Parks authority, the establishment of Gilbert's Corner Regional Park and the planning for White's Ford Regional Park. I want to commend Ms. Webb for her tireless commitment to preserving the wealth of cultural history and environmental beauty in Loudoun County.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor Mr. Edgar B. Hatrick III, who will be receiving a Loudoun Laurels Medal for his lifetime of civic leadership in the Loudoun County community. Mr. Hatrick is receiving the award in the category of ``Extraordinary Stewardship'' on October 11th, 2013 at the River Creek Club in Leesburg, Virginia. The Loudoun Laurels Medal recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the common good in our region. Mr. Hatrick has been a tireless advocate for quality public education in Loudoun County. His tenure with the Loudoun County Public School System began in 1967 as an English teacher at his alma mater, Loudoun County High School. He worked in a variety of roles within the Loudoun County Public School System, including chair of the English Department and Assistant Principal at Broad Run High; principal of Loudoun County High School, then director of special education, guidance supervisor, foreign language supervisor, director of instruction, and assistant superintendent for planning and pupil services. He has served as the superintendent of the Loudoun County Public School System since 1991. I want to commend Mr. Hatrick for his work to make public education in Loudoun County a model for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Nation.

Mr. WOLF

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, today I was unavoidably detained and missed roll call vote 491, to concur in the Senate Amendment to H.R. 1412, the Veterans Affairs Expiring Authorities Act, and roll call 492, on H.R. 3096, which would designate the FBI Building in Vienna, Virginia, as the Michael D. Resnick Terrorist Screening Center. I was hosting a STEM Careers Fair in my congressional district, which was a longtime commitment to the students of Northern Virginia. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on both roll call 491 and 492. Personal Explanation