David Wu

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 1867 and H.R. 1868, including corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. I thank the gentlewoman. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule for consideration of H.R. 1868, the Technology Innovation and Manufacturing Stimulation Act of 2007. H.R. 1868 is a bill which will bolster innovation and our manufacturing base and enhance national economic competitiveness. The bill was ordered reported by a unanimous vote of the Committee on Science and Technology on April 25, 2007. The bill puts the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST, on a 10-year path to doubling as an investment in our innovation future. H.R. 1868 is a comprehensive authorization bill for NIST's Scientific and Technical Research and Services, Industrial Technology Services and Construction Research Facilities accounts. NIST has not had a comprehensive authorization bill since 1992. I want to highlight that H.R. 1868 is a bipartisan product of the Science and Technology Committee. I worked closely with Ranking Member Hall and with Dr. Gingrey. I want to thank Dr. Gingrey for coming to the floor and speaking on behalf of this bill and rule this morning. I worked closely with Dr. Ehlers in developing this legislation. They were original cosponsors of the bill. We adopted several amendments at the subcommittee and full committee markup, and we have a stronger bill as a result of this bipartisan effort. This bill has been endorsed by TechNet, the Alliance For Science & Technology Research in America, the American Small Manufacturers Coalition, the American Association of Universities, the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges and dozens of other organizations, companies and individuals. Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee has crafted an appropriate rule, and I would urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying legislation.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of this legislation. Head Start has proven its ability to improve the lives of disadvantaged children. Numerous studies have demonstrated that children who attend Head Start come to school more prepared than children who do not participate, and that these effects last over a period of years. I have personal experience with the program--my wife, Michelle, was a Head Start teacher for 7 years in Oregon. In her classes, I saw the children of janitors and security guards. Their parents worked in the sparkling towers of downtown Portland, but they themselves never got to visit downtown, except in their Head Start field trips. The Improving Head Start Act makes several needed changes to current law. It ends the use of the National Reporting System--a flawed testing system that has tested over 500,000 4-year-olds, despite strong opposition by child development experts. The bill also improves current law by making clear that Head Start agencies must establish and maintain a formal structure of shared governance with parent policy councils. This will codify in law that parents have the ability to shape and share a role in the success of their local Head Start program. Finally, the bill authorizes $7.35 billion in funding for the program in FY08--an increase of over $400 million from this year's level. Oregon's Department of Education reports that, as of January 2007, 43.2 percent of eligible children cannot participate in the program due to lack of funding. Head Start is a highly successful program, and it ultimately costs all of us when those eligible cannot participate.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York. As cochair of the House Community College Caucus, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 334, a bill that recognizes the goals and ideals of National Community College Month; and I thank Congressman Brad Miller, the gentleman from North Carolina, for his leadership and for introducing this legislation. Almost 50 percent of undergraduate students are enrolled in community colleges. It is the tradition of community colleges to serve nontraditional students. Many students work either part-time or full- time while they take classes. Others are seeking job training to allow them to better support their families. Some are returning to the workplace after a few years, and some are single parents. Increasingly, many are high school students who attend community college before a 4- year institution. This saves them, and frequently taxpayers, tuition, fees and financial aid dollars. In other words, we have no sector of education that serves a wider spectrum of our citizens every day. As we look to what this new century holds for us, we know that employers seek people who not only are well versed in science and technology concepts but are also adept at learning through experimentation, inquiry, critical examination, and discovery. In other words, employers are seeking a highly trainable workforce, rather than just a highly trained workforce. Community colleges are at the forefront of this effort. They are a cornerstone of our system of undergraduate education, particularly in mathematics and the sciences. As we all know, these areas of study are ever more critical for our Nation and our State to maintain an economic edge in the global economy. I strongly support this resolution and urge my colleagues to do so as well.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 362, the 10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Science and Math Scholarship Act. I would like to thank Chairman Gordon, as well as Ranking Member Hall, on their hard work on this legislation, and the bipartisan manner in which the Science and Technology Committee operates to produce such substantial legislation. Mr. Chairman, this legislation will come to the aid of America's need for more school teachers in our nation's classrooms. In their much referenced report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, the National Academies found that 68 percent of U.S. 8th grade students received instruction from a mathematics teacher who did not hold a degree or certification in mathematics; in 2000, more than 85 percent of students in grades 5-9 were taught physical science by a teacher lacking a major or certification in the physical sciences. Also, U.S. 15-year-olds ranked 24th out of 40 countries that participated in a 2003 administration of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) examination, which assessed students' ability to apply mathematical concepts to real-world problems. These figures could spell disaster for America's competitiveness in the fields of science, technology and innovation. By amending and expanding the Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF) which will go to universities that build model programs for recruiting students into teaching, H.R. 362 will move us down the road to improving the strength of our math and science teachers, while actively recruiting new teachers. Our future lies in our students, and their ability to think critically, and ask thoughtful, insightful questions lie in the strength of their schooling. The un-bias nature of scientific inquiry and the natural beauty of math help students build their questioning and logic skills. It is imperative that our students are taught by teachers whose strengths lie in conveying these concepts and inspiring young minds not only to go into the science and technology fields, but also to open their minds to be inquisitive in the world.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 363, a piece of legislation that is desperately needed to enhance tomorrow's scientific research. We all know what it's like to start out on our own--the uncertainty of your financial footing, but with great faith in yourself and your ideas. Imagine that feeling on an exponential scale and that might be how a young, talented researcher feels as they work on a cure for autism, or traumatic brain injury for our troops, or a new source of cleaner, renewable energy. The field of research is high-risk and high-yield, and the federal government is right to invest in research that benefits us all. H.R. 363 will help ``sustain and strengthen the nation's traditional commitment to long-term basic research . . . to maintain the flow of new ideas that fuel the economy, provide security, and enhance the quality of life,'' as prescribed by the National Academies report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, that has been the focus of our work in the Science and Technology Committee, and mentioned many times today. Young researchers are the key to innovation, as they are more likely than established researchers to shift paradigms, break with tradition, or bring new ideas to a discipline or to a combination of disciplines. The early-career awards outlined in this bill reward young researchers for engaging in high-risk/high-reward research that is likely to be transformative or highly innovative. The establishment of a presidential innovation award is designed to identify and recognize people who develop the unique scientific and engineering innovations in the national interest at the time they occur. This bill doesn't simply seek to fund all science; it focuses on fostering the most innovative elements of the scientific enterprise. I would also like to thank Chairman Gordon, as well as Ranking Member Hall, on their hard work on this legislation, and the bipartisan manner in which the Science and Technology Committee is run to produce such substantial legislation.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. Mr. Speaker, for thousands of years, a village stood at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River, which today is the boundary between the States of Oregon and Washington. Celilo Falls was known to Native Americans as a center for gathering and trade in the Pacific Northwest. It was so important that some have even called Celilo Falls the Wall Street of the West. Lewis and Clark described it as a great emporium where ``the neighboring nations assemble.'' Artifacts suggest that tribes as far away as Alaska, the Great Plains, and the Southwest of the United States came to trade at the falls for salmon and other goods. The trade was so extensive and the number of tribes who came to Celilo was so extensive that the number of languages spoken developed into a trade jargon known as Chinookan, and it was used among the people conducting business at Celilo. Celilo Falls was also known as a great salmon fishery. Salmon were both sacred to and provided economic wealth for the tribes who fished in the area. Thousands gathered to fish and trade along the river. Fifty years ago, Celilo Falls changed forever. In 1957, the Dalles Dam was completed a few miles downriver from Celilo. Once the dam was completed and the flood gates closed, Celilo Falls was inundated in just 6 hours. The Dalles Dam was constructed to provide hydroelectricity, irrigation, and to enable navigation. The dams along the Columbia and other rivers created numerous benefits for the Pacific Northwest. The slack water created by the dams provided easy and safe river navigation upriver to deliver goods to the inland Northwest. Today, barges can travel as far as Lewiston, Idaho, because of the navigable waters created by the dams. However, the benefits created by the dams changed a way of life for the tribal peoples who were the first inhabitants of the Columbia River Basin. While some may not remember Celilo Falls before the Dalles Dam was completed, its effects remain fresh in the minds of many of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Recently, the 50th anniversary of the flooding of the falls was acknowledged by these tribes. This event both mourned what was lost and celebrated what remains today, tribal stories and culture, a way of life. Attendees included tribal officials and tribal members throughout the Pacific Northwest, nontribal members, and various Federal, State, and local governmental officials. The attendees reflect the relationship of the various groups who now work together to manage the river for all those who live in and visit the region today. This resolution seeks to acknowledge and commemorate the flooding of Celilo Falls. I urge my colleagues to support the resolution.

Mr. WU. I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico.

Mr. WU. The gentleman is correct. The purpose of the resolution is commemorative, and limited to an expression of the sense of the House of Representatives.

Mr. WU. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Madam Speaker, I rise today to support all those in the United States battling psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis and that is why on February 9, 2007 I introduced H.R. 1188, The Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Research, Cure, and Care Act. Today as many as seven and a half million Americans are affected by psoriasis--a chronic, inflammatory, painful, disfiguring and disabling disease for which there are limited treatments and no cure. What's worse is that along with living with this disease is that many of these patients are still living with the painful stigma that has accompanied psoriasis for some many years. The Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Research, Cure, and Care Act seeks to create a fundamental understanding of where we are as a nation in fighting psoriasis and how we can align our resources and focus our efforts in combating the disease. The Act calls on the Secretary of Health and Human Services to convene a summit of researchers, public health professionals, representatives of patient advocacy organizations and policymakers to review current efforts in psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis research, treatment, quality-of-life being conducted by federal agencies whose work involves psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis related co-morbidities. The Act also commissions the Institute of Medicine to investigate and recommend changes to the current ways psoriasis is treated by the insurance industry and what treatments are available to patients and how effective available care is for patients. Finally, the Act directs the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to begin to develop a patient registry to collect much- needed, and highly informative longitudinal data on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis so researchers can begin to understand the long- term impact of these conditions and evaluate the effects of various therapies. I would I also like to recognize the work of the National Psoriasis Foundation, and their leadership to work with patients and their families, doctors and researchers to work toward a better understanding of the disease and their commitment to improve the quality of life for people living with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. This bill is an important move forward to realizing the promise of the current research in the field, as well as the creation of possibilities for the future. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Research, Cure, and Care Act.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Fanaticism, George Santyana famously said, is ``redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.'' Let us measure our efforts against our aims in Iraq. After great effort, Saddam is dead. After long effort, we have established there are no WMD. We have eliminated Iraq as a threat to its neighbors. We have achieved the President's Iraq war aims. Why are we sending 21,000 more troops there, rather than redeploying all our troops out of Iraq? Because we have forgotten our aims. Now we referee a civil war between the peoples of Iraq. The President admitted as much in his State of the Union, saying ``This is not the war we entered but the war that we are in.'' The use of force resolution we passed in 2002 nowhere authorizes our participation in an Iraqi civil war. It has, therefore, expired. The President must come back to Congress for reauthorization if he wishes to war further in Iraq or to extend the war to Iran. The fact that we are in a civil war is backed up by our own national intelligence estimate, as well as my conversations with soldiers who served, serve or who will serve in Iraq. I share with you a typical comment: ``I joined the Army, and I will go as many times as they send me. But I will tell you what. These folks have been killing each other for 1,000 years. They are killing each other today and may kill each other for another thousand years. I just don't see what good we are doing there.'' This loyal soldier deserves our support and our protection. John Murtha's efforts to craft an emergency supplemental appropriations bill to protect our troops is commendable. No soldier should be repeatedly deployed to Iraq without being rested, retrained and ready. To do so otherwise is an abuse of our citizen soldiers. It is a criminal dereliction of duty. It is an abuse of power. The Constitution gives Congress the express power to regulate the military. We must exercise this responsibility and stop the abuse of our troops by building thoughtful guidelines into our defense appropriations bills. Some want us to believe that we must either stand aside and let the President have his way or use the blunt axe of cutting off all funding for the Iraq war. Not true. Not only does the Constitution give to Congress, not the President, the power and responsibility to regulate the military, there is ample precedent to support Congress's authority in wartime. In the 19th century, Congress went so far as to require President Andrew Johnson to obtain the signature of General Ulysses S. Grant to any of the President's military orders before it could become valid. The President obeyed. President Truman was forced in the Youngstown Steel case to recognize that his powers as Commander in Chief were severely limited when they undermined congressional decisions. Even though a steel strike seriously affected our ability to fight the Korean war, the Commander in Chief could not act independently of Nation's laws. President Bush needs to learn that we are a Nation of laws and that no one in America is above the law. He needs to listen to the American people. He should heed our professional military, rather than shop for a convenient opinion. The American people understand the challenges in Iraq are political and that no amount of military force can retrieve the situation. Only the Iraqis can solve the problems of Iraq. Our staying merely delays their day of full responsibility, and that is why this Iraqi government asked us not to escalate until, like our own generals, they were browbeaten into submission by President Bush. We must end this war with a minimum of domestic recrimination, a maximum of motive and opportunity for the many peoples of Iraq to solve their own problems without genocide, one last chance to win the war in Afghanistan, the last known mailing address of Osama bin Laden, and we must begin the long task of rebuilding America's foreign policy on its traditional bipartisan basis. We must forsake fanaticism and never forget our national aims. My colleagues, this President has never had the authorization from Congress to enter a civil war in Iraq. Our mission is done. Bring the troops home.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Chairman. I would like to commend my new colleague from Texas, the Chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, Mr. Lampson for his great work on this bill, and also Chairman Gordon for his leadership on alternative fuels. We rely on fuel everyday. While the market is awakening to its ability to sell alternative fuels like E85 or biodiesel blends many of these new fuels have compatibility issues with the existing delivery systems in place in America. Fuel depots, fuel pipelines, fuel trucks and local gas stations are not truly ready to ship, store, or sell these fuels to consumers. These fuels can cause corrosion of tanks and pipelines, clog filters, and pose danger of thermal and oxidative instability. The cost of replacing or building new infrastructure is sometimes infeasible for fuel suppliers, frequently small business owners. H.R. 547, The Advanced Fuels Infrastructure Research and Development Act, meets the needs of fuel shippers and suppliers so they can I use alternative fuels in existing infrastructure. It directs the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to research and develop new technologies and methods such as fuel additives, blend stocks, and easier tank reconditioning methods that would allow fuel retailers, shippers, and storers to use alternative fuels in existing infrastructure, significantly reducing costs both for businesses and consumers. The bill also directs the DOE and NIST to develop affordable, portable, quick and accurate ways to test the sulfur content at pump stations to make sure it complies with EPA regulations of 15ppm, and directs NIST to develop a physical properties data base and a set of standard reference materials for alternative fuels, which is not unlike the ones that currently exist for standard fuels. If we are truly serious about bringing alternative fuels to consumers, we need to make sure that we can store, deliver, and retail these fuels with the same efficiency and safety as we deliver traditional fuels. I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 547, and again want to recognize the leadership of Chairman Lampson and Gordon for bringing this important legislation through the Science and Technology Committee, and Speaker Pelosi for bringing this legislation to the floor as part of her efforts to stem global warming.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support H.R. 161, to expand the Minidoka Internment National Monument to include the Nidoto Nai Yoni Memorial, which commemorates the Japanese Americans of Bainbridge Island, the Japanese Americans of Bainbridge Island, Washington, who were interned during World War II. On February 19, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order which forcibly removed approximately 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry from their homes, their friends, and their communities. They were incarcerated by this government for their ancestry. Just over 1 month after the executive order was signed, 227 Bainbridge island men, women, and children were sent to internment camps. They were the very first Japanese American families in the United States to be incarcerated. We in the Pacific Northwest would like to think that we live in a better part of the country, in a part of the country where things are the way they ought to be. But sometimes the way we want things to be is not the way things happen or reality. Because these Japanese Americans were taken from their homes in the heart of the Puget Sound. They were sailed to Seattle. They were loaded onto trains for a 3-day journey to Manzanar, a concentration camp in California's Mojave Desert. These Americans were the very first Americans to be so detained, and the last of the detainees were not released until October of 1946, 4\1/2\ years after the signing of the executive order and over a year after the end of World War II. But this chapter of our history did not end there. Upon release from the internment camps, Japanese Americans could not return to the lives that they had led before the tragic and misled executive order. I would like to submit further information about General DeWitt's decisions and recommendations, and I will do that at a different time, but during the period of internment, they had lost their homes, their businesses, and their livelihoods. By commemorating Japanese Americans who were so detained, we ensure that this sad episode in our history will never be forgotten and hopefully not repeated, because we need to learn from the mistakes of the past. Thirty years passed before the executive order was formally rescinded in 1976. In 1988, a Presidential apology was issued internees. This is not an abstraction. This is not a theoretical debate. The Military Commissions Act passed by this Congress on September 30, 2006, potentially puts American citizens at risk of military detention. That is a plain reading of the Military Commissions Act. It was hotly debated between the then chairmen of two committees and this Member. It has been commented upon to a limited extent in the national press. But I think that a fair reading of the Military Commissions Act would show you that if a person is just walking down the street and is detained by military authority for whatever reason, and we are not talking about aliens in Afghanistan, we are talking about someone walking down the streets of Portland, Oregon, or in Bainbridge Island. What could potentially happen to that person? The better course under the Military Commissions Act is that they are subject to military justice, a very limited review by a military tribunal, and the end of that appeal road is the Secretary of Defense. That is actually the better course. Now, I have to point out that there are 25 detainees in Guantanamo who, after 5 years of detention, have not had their first review yet; and I say that is the better course because the course that is actually more troubling under the Military Commissions Act is that if there is not a review, there is no appeal. There is no appeal to a civilian court. There is no habeas corpus, a doctrine which has served Anglo American societies well for almost a thousand years. This memorial, which H.R. 161 helps us remember, is not an abstraction. It was real suffering for the Japanese Americans, for the Americans who were incarcerated. But it is also a reminder that, as was said of the executive order much later, when actions are taken by this government in an atmosphere of hysteria, great injustices can be perpetrated; and we need to be careful in our era lest we be put in a position to issue an apology decades from now. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii passed under martial law, the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, and the military police took several hundred suspected spies and saboteurs of Japanese extraction into custody. But the very size of the Japanese community in Hawaii (nearly half the territory's population), and its vital importance to the islands' economy, foreclosed any thought of wholesale evacuation. The mainland community, however, was proportionately much smaller (in California, barely 1 percent of the population), more economically marginal and socially isolated, and long buffeted by racist pressures. The mainland Japanese for the most part kept warily to themselves, many of them toiling with exemplary efficiency on their family fruit and vegetable farms. Insular and quiescent, they were also internally riven by age and legal status. Their elders, the forty thousand first-generation immigrant Japanese, or Issei, were generally over the age of fifty and debarred from citizenship by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, a statutory impediment that perversely exposed them to the accusation that as non-citizens they were poorly assimilated into American society. A majority of their children, the eighty thousand second-generation Nisei, were under the age of eighteen. Born in the United States, they were also citizens. Alien and citizen alike, the peculiarly vulnerable Pacific Coast Japanese community was about to feel the full wrath of war-fueled hysteria. Curiously, no clamor for wholesale reprisals against the mainland Japanese arose in the immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. The Los Angeles Times soberly editorialized on December 8 that most of the Japanese on the Coast were ``good Americans, born and educated as such,'' and serenely foresaw that there would be ``no riots, no mob law.'' General John L. DeWitt, chief of the army's Western Defense Command, at first dismissed loose talk of mass evacuations as ``damned nonsense.'' He condemned any broadside assaults on the rights of the American-born Nisei. ``An American citizen, after all, is an American citizen,'' he declared. Individual arrests were another matter. Government surveillance, ongoing since 1935, had identified some two thousand potentially subversive persons in the Japanese community. Along with fourteen thousand German and Italian security risks nationwide, they were quietly rounded up in the last days of 1941. But those individual detentions stopped well short of wholesale incarcerations. ``I was determined,'' Attorney General Francis Biddle wrote, ``to avoid mass internment, and the persecution of aliens that had characterized the First World War.'' In fact, the immigrants whose loyalty had been questioned during World War I had then been freshly arrived and seemed to many observers unarguably alien. But by 1941 those older European groups were settled communities, well assimilated, their patriotism as well as their political loyalty actively cultivated by Roosevelt's New Deal. Though a surprising six hundred thousand Italians--more than 10 percent of the entire Italian-American community--remained Italian citizens and were automatically labeled ``enemy aliens'' after Mussolini's declaration of war, Roosevelt instructed Biddle to cancel that designation in a joyfully received announcement at Carnegie Hall, shrewdly delivered on Columbus Day 1942, just weeks before the congressional elections. The Japanese were not so fortunate. As war rumors took wing in the weeks following Pearl Harbor, sobriety gave way to anxiety, then to a rising cry for draconian action against the Japanese on the West Coast. Inflammatory and invariably false reports of Japanese attacks on the American mainland flashed through coastal communities. Eleanor Roosevelt's airplane, en route to Los Angeles on the evening of the Pearl Harbor attack, was grounded in the Midwest while the first lady telephoned Washington to check a radio message that San Francisco was under bombardment. Painters at Stanford University blacked out the skylight of the library's main reading room so that it could not serve as a beacon to enemy pilots. Carpenters hammered up dummy aircraft plants in Los Angeles to decoy Japanese bombers away from the real factories. Athletic officials moved the traditional New Year's Day football classic from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California; the game was played instead in North Carolina, presumably safe from Japanese attack. Japan's astonishing string of victories in the Pacific further unsettled American public opinion. Hong Kong fell on December 2, Manila on January 2, Singapore on January 25. The release at the end of January of a government investigation of the Pearl Harbor attack proved the decisive blow. The report, prepared by Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts, alleged without documentation that Hawaii-based espionage agents, including Japanese-American citizens, had abetted Nagumo's strike force. Two days later, DeWitt reported ``a tremendous volume of public opinion now developing against the Japanese of all classes, that is aliens and non-aliens.'' DeWitt himself, described by Biddle as having a ``tendency to reflect the views of the last man to whom he talked,'' soon succumbed to Rumor's siren. He wildly declared to an incredulous Justice Department official that every ship sailing out of the Columbia had been attacked by submarines guided by clandestine radio operators near the river's mouth. When evidence of actual attacks failed to materialize, DeWitt invoked the tortured logic that the very absence of any sabotage activity on the West Coast proved the existence of an organized, disciplined conspiracy in the Japanese community, cunningly withholding its blow until it could be struck with lethal effect. In February the respected columnist Walter Lippmann alleged that military authorities had evidence of radio communications between ``the enemy at sea and enemy agents on land''--a charge that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had already advised Biddle was utterly without foundation. A radio technician from the Federal Communications Commission reviewed DeWitt's ``evidence'' of electronic signals and declared it hogwash. All 760 of DeWitt's suspicious radio transmissions could be accounted for, and not one involved espionage. ``Frankly,'' the technician concluded, ``I have never seen an organization [the U.S. Army's Western Defense Command] that was so hopeless to cope with radio intelligence requirements. The personnel is unskilled and untrained. Most are privates who can read only ten words a minute. . . . It's pathetic to say the least.'' But by this time facts were no protection against the building gale of fear and prejudice. ``Nobody's constitutional rights,'' Lippmann magisterially intoned, ``include the right to reside and do business on a battlefield.'' Lippmann's colleague Westbrook Pegler echoed him less elegantly a few days later: ``The Japanese in California should be under armed guard to the last man and woman right now,'' Pegler wrote in his widely read column, ``and to hell with habeas corpus until the danger is over.'' Unapologetically racist voices also joined the chorus. ``We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons,'' a leader of California's Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association declared. ``We might as well be honest. We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific Coast or the brown man.'' Prodded by such sentiments, in early February 1942 DeWitt officially requested authority to remove all Japanese from the West Coast. It was impossible he claimed, to distinguish the loyal from the disloyal in the peculiarly alien and inscrutable Japanese community. The only remedy was wholesale evacuation. The same man who had said a month earlier, ``An American citizen, after all, is an American citizen,'' now announced, ``A Jap's a Jap. . . . It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not. . . . I don't want any of them.'' At the Justice Department several officials, including conspicuously Edward J. Ennis, director of the Alien Enemy Control Unit, as well as Biddle's assistant James H. Rowe, struggled to quell this irrationally mounting fury. Rowe denounced Lippmann and Pegler as ``Armchair Strategists and Junior G-Men'' whose reckless charges came ``close to shouting FIRE! in the theater; and if race riots occur, these writers will bear a heavy responsibility.'' Attorney General Biddle informed Secretary of War Stimson ``that the Department of Justice would not under any circumstances evacuate American citizens.'' But at a fateful meeting in the living room of the attorney general's Washington home on the evening of February 17, the gentle and scholarly Biddle buckled. Facing off against Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy and two army officers, Ennis and Rowe argued heatedly that DeWitt's request for evacuation orders should be denied. Unknown to his two subordinates, however, Biddle, new to the cabinet, unsure of his standing with Roosevelt, and overawed by the Olympian figure of Stimson, had told the secretary of war by telephone earlier in the day that he would not oppose DeWitt's recommendation. When this became clear, Rowe remembered, ``I was so mad that I could not speak. . . . Ennis almost wept.'' Even Stimson had grave misgivings. ``The second generation Japanese can only be evacuated,'' he wrote in his diary, ``either as part of a total evacuation, giving access to the areas only by permits, or by frankly trying to put them out on the ground that their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or even trust the citizen Japanese. This latter is the fact but I am afraid it will make a tremendous hole in our constitutional system to apply it.'' Despite his own reservations and the sputtering opposition of the Justice Department officials, Stimson advised the president that DeWitt should be authorized to proceed. The cabinet devoted only a desultory discussion to the matter. On February 19 Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. It directed the War Department to ``prescribe military areas . . . from which any and all persons may be excluded.'' No explicit reference to the Japanese was necessary. When Biddle feebly objected that the order was ``ill-advised, unnecessary, and unnecessarily cruel,'' Roosevelt silenced him with the rejoinder: ``[T]his must be a military decision.''

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 5, the legislation to lower student loan interest rates. According to the Department of Education, two-thirds of undergraduate students will take out a Federal student loan this year to help finance their college education. As tuition costs swell and grant-aid fails to keep pace, students and their families are increasingly turning to loans as the primary mechanism to finance a higher education. While student loans make the college dream a reality for millions, they all too often turn into a nightmare of debt. Over the past eight years the typical student loan debt has more than doubled to approximately $19,000. In addition, 39 percent of all student borrowers now graduate with unmanageable debt levels. Too many student borrowers struggle to make their monthly loan payments, and many must forgo savings, public service careers, and home ownership. Borrowing for higher education should be a sound investment for the future, both for the student, and our society. Yet, today we are asking far too many students to mortgage their future at too high a cost. I am proud to support this legislation which will help ease the burden of student loans. H.R. 5 will cut the interest rate for subsidized student loans in half to 3.4 percent. For a student with $13,800 in student loans, this will save them $4,400 in interest over the life of their loan and will help make the college dream a viable reality for countless students. I have been working in Congress to do just that. I have been pushing for legislation that will not only make student financial aid more flexible for students but also ease the financial burden of student loans. For instance, I have been pushing for passage of the Student Loan Interest Full Deductibility Act, which would allow eligible taxpayers to deduct the full amount of their student loan interest and would remove the current income cap limiting the deduction. Current law only allows for $2,500 to be deducted, even though many students pay thousands more each year in student loan interest, and phases out this deduction if a taxpayer's income is greater $50,000 a year. I have also been advocating for the Community College Partnership Act, which would create partnerships between community colleges and four-year institutions to encourage students to continue their education at a college or university. This is based on an Oregon idea where colleges noticed their students were taking classes in non- traditional ways. Students would take classes at a community college in the morning, go to work, and then take another class at a different campus at night, or vice versa. However, in order to create such a class schedule, the students had to deal with two sets of administrations, two sets of paperwork, and two sets of financial aid. In order to encourage more of these students to continue and complete their studies at the 4-year institution, Portland State University partnered with neighboring community colleges to make this transition seamless through dual enrollment programs in which enrollees' class credits, financial aid, and administrative paperwork seamlessly transfer between the schools. The Community College Partnership Act expands on this idea by establishing a competitive grant program to encourage or expand similar partnerships throughout the United States. Finally, I am proud to be investigating the high price of college textbooks. Recent news reports have exposed what has long been experienced by students and college bookstores: often the exact same college textbooks that American college students are required to buy for class are sold overseas for less than half the price. This situation does not meet the test of fairness and common sense, and it is especially troubling when one considers the skyrocketing cost of higher education in general and of college textbooks in particular. It is increasingly common for students to pay in excess of $1,000 per school year for textbooks and supplies alone. Last Congress, I was successful in getting the Government Accountability Office to investigate the high price of college textbooks and the disparity of prices between textbooks sold in the United States and overseas. The GAG report unmasked the problem of rising prices of college textbooks. Given this, Congressman Buck McKeon and I commissioned the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance to further study the problem and to develop solutions. Again, I am pleased to support H.R. 5 today because it will help address the rising cost of college. We are at the dawn of a new economy--one that is based on knowledge. A higher education is more important than ever in this economy. We must work on policies that not only improve access to a higher education but also makes this education more affordable. That is what H.R. 5 is about, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, 4 years ago, this administration took America to war in Iraq without adequate evidence. Since that time, the administration has not listened to the American people, it hasn't listened to our professional military, and it certainly hasn't listened to this Congress. It was said of a prominent businessman in downtown Portland that he never listened to anybody and that if he was ever drawn in a cartoon he would be drawn without ears. Now, this President has listened to some people, the so-called Vulcans in the White House, the ideologues. But unlike the Vulcans of Star Trek, who made the decisions based on logic and fact, these guys make it on ideology. These aren't Vulcans. There are Klingons in the White House. But unlike the real Klingons of Star Trek, these Klingons have never fought a battle of their own. Don't led faux Klingons send real Americans to war. It is wrong.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I have a statement which I will submit for the Record, but I want to speak for a moment from my personal experience. I have owned a business. I have met a payroll. But I have also worked for relatively low wages. I have worked in decommissioned ships that were both extremely hot in the hold and also filled with asbestos. I have worked in a dog food factory. But my real minimum wage job was as an assistant dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant owned by friends of my parents. I saw how hard those full-time workers worked. I was an assistant dishwasher, and I saw how the full-time dishwasher got his fingers burned, how the cooks got their hands cut. And they worked for minimum wage just like me, but I was a teenager. And I came home to my parents' home. I said to my parents, Those people work awfully hard, and they deserve more. We ought to have a union. I never got to go back to work at my parents' friends' restaurant. There are times when there is unequal bargaining power, when there are market failures, and there is a very legitimate role for the public sector and for joint action. I ask my friends on the other side of the aisle whether they would roll back the 40-hour work week. I ask my friends if they would roll back worker safety provisions and roll back child labor laws. Your time has passed a century ago. It is long due to pass an increase in the minimum wage. I rise in strong support of raising the minimum wage. We tend to assume that employment is the solution to poverty. And in the past we have enacted legislation that reflects our commitment to training and placing individuals into jobs. While I strongly support efforts to increase employment, a job is not the complete answer to poverty. Far too many families who work full time still live below the poverty line. In fact, since the late 1970s, the number of full-time workers who live in poverty has doubled. The reason for this is our low minimum wage. In 1996, after a 5-year freeze, Congress enacted legislation to raise the minimum wage from $4.25 an hour to $5.15 an hour--still well below the value of the minimum wage at its in peak in 1968 at $8.49 in 2005 dollars. Now, 10 years have passed without an increase in the minimum wage. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who live in poverty has increased by 5.4 million during the Bush administration. Today, a minimum wage worker working full time earns only half the poverty level for a family of four. A single parent working full time at the current minimum wage cannot support one child above the poverty threshold. More than one-quarter, 26 percent, of the 13 million workers who would benefit from a minimum wage increase are parents. Sixty percent of these workers are women. History has shown that a minimum wage increase does not decrease employment or increase inflation. In fact, in the four years after the last minimum wage increase passed, the economy experienced its strongest growth in over three decades. Yet a minimum wage increase does raise the wages of low-income workers in general, even those who earn more than the minimum wage, the ``lifting all boats'' effect of an increase in the minimum wage. It moves working families out of poverty. Unfortunately, the Republicans leadership has resisted all efforts to increase the minimum wage. The Fair Minimum Wage Act, of which I am proud to be an original cosponsor, will raise the minimum wage to $7.25 over a 2-year period. It is time to raise the minimum wage. No one should work full time jobs, or even work multiple jobs, and still live in poverty.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the rule and the underlying legislation. When I was a child, this country sold F-15s to Iran so that Iran could be our offset to Soviet power in South Asia. And because we sold F-15s and other arms to Iran, we wound up selling chemical weapon precursor materials to Iraq to offset Iranian power in the Middle East, and today we have 135,000 troops in Iraq, in part, because of those unwise decisions. Now, we are told that we should sell nuclear materials to India, which would free up Indian nuclear reactors to produce many more nuclear weapons for the Indian nuclear weapons program as an offset to Chinese power in Asia. If we approved this deal with India, it would encourage China to increase its nuclear arsenal, and I submit to you that we, that we are one of the potential targets of that enhanced Chinese nuclear arsenal. Even more worrisome is that an Indian nuclear build-up would further accelerate the Pakistani nuclear build-up. While I have strong confidence in the stability of the Indian Government and in the stability of Indian democracy, I have much, much less faith in the stability of the Pakistani Government and of Pakistani democracy, and of the Pakistani Government's ability to keep under control those nuclear weapons which it already has and the additional weapons it would build because of an Indian nuclear build-up. If there is a military coup in Pakistan, we should be very, very concerned about the stability of not only South Asia, but of the world. There have been three military coups in Pakistan since its independence in 1947. Rather than approving nonsignatory states like India in violation of nonproliferation treaties, the better course of action is to respect international agreements and immediately bring to the Senate a total ban on nuclear testing and a comprehensive set of treaties to curtail nuclear proliferation. Back in July, just this summer, there were only 68 of us in this Chamber who voted against approving the legislation to permit sales of nuclear materials to India. I ask more of my colleagues to join me today at this historic moment to prevent adding fuel to the fire of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. This legislation and the following sale of nuclear materials to India blows out of the water any hope we have of treaty constraints on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I want to make it clear for this record and for history that the actions of this administration in containing nuclear proliferation have been patently irresponsible. This administration has underfunded the Nunn-Lugar legislation which takes nuclear materials out of the open market which would otherwise be available for sale to terrorists. This administration has failed to support internal treaties limiting nuclear weapon proliferation, and now, and now it has proposed a treaty with India that would sell India nuclear materials, which would result in a nuclear arms race between India and China and between India and Pakistan. Pakistan is not a stable country. It is already leaking nuclear weapons technology to other countries and groups. Let the Record show that if or when a mushroom cloud ever erupts over an American city, that event will be traced back to this unwise vote in the United States Senate and to the bone-headed policy of this administration toward treaty obligations, Nunn-Lugar, and the sale of nuclear materials to India. Ladies and gentlemen, compared to this legislation, the authorization to go to war in Iraq was a piker. This is the moment to pull back from the brink of a new nuclear arms race.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this legislation. Let the record show that if or when a mushroom cloud ever erupts over an American city, it will be traced back to this unwise vote in the United States Congress and to the bone-headed policy of this administration towards treaty obligations for Nunn-Lugar safeguards and the sale of nuclear materials to India. When I was a boy, this country sold F-15s to Iran so that Iran could offset Soviet power in South Asia. Because we sold F-15s and other arms to Iran, we wound up selling chemical weapon precursor materials to Iraq to offset Iranian power in the Middle East. Today, we have 135,000 troops in Iraq, in part because of that string of bad decisions. Now we are told that to offset Chinese power in Asia, we should sell nuclear materials to India which would free up Indian nuclear reactors to produce many more nuclear weapons for the Indian nuclear weapons program. If we approve this deal with India, it would encourage China to increase its nuclear arsenal. I submit to you that we Americans are one of the potential targets of that enhanced Chinese nuclear arsenal. Even more worrisome is that an Indian nuclear buildup would further accelerate the Pakistani nuclear buildup. While I have strong confidence in the stability of the Indian Government and in the stability of Indian democracy, I have much less faith in the stability of the Pakistani Government and of Pakistani democracy, especially of the Pakistani Government's ability to keep under control those nuclear weapons which it already has and the additional weapons it would build because of this Indian nuclear buildup. If there is a military coup in Pakistan, we should be very, very concerned, not only about the stability of South Asia, but of the whole world. There have been three military coups in Pakistan since its independence in 1947. Rather than approving nonsignatory states in violation of the nonproliferation treaties, the better course of action is to respect international agreements and to immediately bring to the Senate a total ban on nuclear testing and comprehensive treaties to curtail nuclear proliferation. On the last night before our July recess, there were only 68 of us in this House who voted against approving the legislation to permit sales of nuclear materials to India. Tonight, on the last night of the 109th Congress, we are voting on the House-Senate conference report. I ask, I implore more of my colleagues to join me to prevent adding fuel to the fire of nuclear proliferation in South Asia. This legislation, and the following sale of nuclear materials to India, blows out of the water any hope we have of treaty constraints on the proliferation of nuclear weapons. I want to make it clear in this record and for history that the actions of this administration in containing nuclear proliferation have been patently irresponsible. This administration has underfunded the Nunn-Lugar legislation, which takes nuclear materials out of the open market which would otherwise have been available for sale to terrorists. This administration has failed to support international treaties limiting nuclear weapons proliferation, and now it has proposed treaties with India that would sell India nuclear materials that would result in a nuclear arms race between India and China and India and Pakistan. Compared to this, the resolution to go to war in Iraq was a piker. Let us pull back from the brink of this nuclear precipice.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding. Like the gentleman from Arizona who has objected to this humanitarian measure during the holiday season, I am a relatively junior Member of this body, but I do recognize when there is a difference between decisions from the heart and decisions of the mind. It is past 11 o'clock, but believe me, I know something about late-night voting, and this is early for late-night voting. I know that we have 12 more bills to consider. And I also know that from our office budgets, we could have allocated amounts of money for our personal staff if we chose to, and if the gentleman from Arizona chose to, he could pay severance for his employees out of his own pocket if he really wanted to. The fact that this act of generosity, of humanitarianism during the holidays was taken should not be held up for political points.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan. I was one of the Members of the House of Representatives who was originally troubled by the House version of the bill and by the balance it struck between respect for the fallen heroes of this Nation and the Federal Constitution for which they died. I am pleased to support a much improved version of this bill returned from the other Chamber. And I thank Mr. Durbin directly for his good work on this bill to remove the unfettered discretion of Federal officials and to limit some of the proscribed activities to include intent and intent to disturb. I am pleased to support this bill in its final form.

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WU. In the original House version of the bill, the person in control of Federal property was given virtually unfettered discretion in determining what activities were acceptable and what activities were not. I had hoped in the closing hours of this session that we would come together in comity to respect both the fallen dead and the Constitution, which is certainly my intent.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in strong support of the legislation, not on behalf of the flounder but because of the salmon. This year the Federal Government imposed a radical reduction in sport salmon fishing and an effective closing of the salmon fishing season on most of the west coast. The purported reason was to restore the fall Chinook run in the Klamath River system. However, NOAA scientists have admitted that water mismanagement and environmental degradation of the Klamath River system, not ocean fishing, are the causes of Klamath fall Chinook salmon decline. Radically reducing sport salmon fishing and effectively closing commercial salmon fishing is bad public policy, extorts a high price from coastal communities, and did not solve the problem. In our coastal communities, every job lost on the water results in the loss of three jobs on dry land. Estimates of the economic impact are in the millions. All of this sacrifice with no benefit to the fall Chinook is an ineffective Band- Aid for bad public policy in the Klamath River system. Most importantly, this administration is attacking the cultural roots of the Pacific Northwest. By effectively closing the salmon fishery, the administration is not just terminating an economy, it is ending a way of life. Fishing for salmon is an integral part of who we are. Under previously imposed fishing restrictions, folks who fish for salmon have made innumerable changes and sacrifices to restore the salmon runs. This administration owes it to these fishermen and their families to provide the disaster assistance that they have promised. When Klamath Basin farmers needed assistance in 2001, this administration correctly declared a disaster and assistance was appropriated within weeks. Oregon salmon fishermen and their families deserve the same. Finally, tonight, months after west coast families were hit so hard by the salmon closure, we take another important step toward appropriate relief in this bill. This bill provides that affected offshore fishermen and onshore workers are eligible to receive direct assistance under section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Act and directs the Secretary of Commerce to provide the assistance. On behalf of west coast fishing families affected by bad Federal policy, I ask you all to support this bill.

Mr. WU

Mr. WU. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize that on December 8, 2006, the Democratic Pacific Union will be hosting an international symposium in Taipei, Taiwan on democracy and commerce. Participants from more than 20 countries will discuss issues related to democracy and the workings of national legislatures, parliaments and congresses. The Democratic Pacific Union was founded in Taiwan and is committed to the promotion of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the Pacific Rim. It emphasizes representative government and peaceful resolution of disputes. I am pleased that the Democratic Pacific Union will foster a discussion about the importance of democracy and the rule of law and also pleased that the open dialogue will foster the possibility of enduring peace.