Peter Welch

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I would inquire of the gentleman, were any rules offered by Members on the Republican side that were rejected?

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Washington. Just in response to comments on the rule, the Rules Committee believes that this is a judicious rule. All of the amendments that were presented to the Rules Committee were made in order. This is essentially from our point of view an open rule, subject to a filing requirement. The filing requirement obviously gives Members as well as the Rules Committee an opportunity to review what is being proposed. The rule was adopted by a voice vote.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, H. Res. 327 provides for consideration of H.R. 362, the 10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Science and Math Scholarship Act, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Science and Technology. The rule waives all points of order against the bill, except those arising under clauses 9 or 10 of rule XXI. The rule also makes in order and provides appropriate waivers for consideration of two amendments that were submitted for consideration. A third amendment was submitted, but was withdrawn by its sponsors. All three amendments that were submitted to the Rules Committee were offered by Democratic Members. H.R. 362 is a bipartisan bill aimed at improving K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, education through recruitment, training, mentoring and professional development of teachers. The major provisions of H.R. 362 are in response to recommendations laid out by the National Academy of Sciences in their recent report on American competitiveness. That report, ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm,'' identified K-12 science and math education as the highest priority policy recommendations. This legislation intends to implement those important recommendations. The report concluded a comprehensive and coordinated Federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and preeminence in these areas. This report, initiated, as you know, by Congress, makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that Federal policymakers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the Nation's needs. Those include, one, increasing America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; two, sustaining and strengthening the Nation's commitment to long-term basic research; three, develop, recruit and retain top students, scientists and engineers, both from the U.S. and abroad; and, four, ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. According to that report, in 1999, 68 percent of U.S. eighth graders received math instruction from a teacher with no, repeat, no math certification or degree. Also, according to that report, in the year 2000, 92 percent of the fifth through ninth graders, our kids, were taught physical science by a teacher with no science degree or certification. In 2004, the United States high school students ranked 24th, 24th, out of 29 countries in math proficiency, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, obviously a situation that is not tolerable. This bill makes important strides towards achieving the goals laid out by the National Academy of Sciences report. H.R. 362 will authorize $1.5 billion to be appropriated for new and existing programs within the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy that support the training and professional development of elementary and secondary school teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. H.R. 362 addresses the academy's highest priority recommendations to invest in elementary and secondary education. In summary, H.R. 362 creates programs at colleges and universities to improve the training of science, technology, engineering and math teachers; increases the size and duration of scholarships provided for those fields for people who become teachers; authorizes teacher training for advanced math and science courses; establishes a National Science Foundation grant program to support teachers institutes, including summer institutes for working math and science teachers; establishes master's degree programs for working math and science teachers through the NSF; and creates centers for improving undergraduate education in science, technology, engineering, and math. The bill also authorizes scholarships for students majoring in these STEM fields who commit to teaching in our K-12 science and math programs. The legislation has very broad support among our Nation's leading education and research institutions and broad bipartisan support in this body. H.R. 362 will improve teacher preparation by providing our Nation's teachers with the necessary professional development, and it should improve our students' achievement by strengthening our math and science curriculum. The reason for this legislation is clear: by 2010, one in four new jobs will be technically oriented, or will involve computers. Women still lag far behind in earning computer technology degrees and working in computer technology related professions, a situation we hope to change. Constituents from my home State of Vermont have expressed their belief that this legislation provides the forward-thinking policy our Nation's education system requires. H.R. 362 will provide a particular benefit to rural regions because of the number of rural school districts that currently don't have the resources to get these jobs done. High school lab courses not only reinforce what is going on in lecture, but obviously capture the attention and engagement of our students. These are useful tools for our students to acquire, no matter what career path they choose to follow. An additional 10,000 math and science teachers across the United States will help ensure that our Nation can capture the imagination of our young people and give them the tools they need to succeed in the careers of science, engineering, technology, and math. The bill also supports the purchase of laboratory equipment, absolutely essential to achieving these goals, that will upgrade facilities in the development of programs that integrate laboratory experience with classroom instruction. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 362 to invest in America's competitiveness. That is essentially what this bill is about. This bill will have a great impact on our teacher preparation, will strengthen and expand the science, technology, engineering and math workforce, and attract more of our best and brightest students into these fields. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Hastings). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. General Leave

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 327 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. No.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, this bill has received bipartisan support. There has been a slight argument here about the nature of a structured rule, but I have heard from the gentleman from Washington that there is broad support for the content of this bill. It is a step that is going to move this Nation ahead in the important areas of improving science, math, technology, and engineering. It is absolutely crucial that our country remain competitive. It is a disgrace that we are 24th out of 29 countries as measured in our performance in K-12 instruction in these critical areas to our present economy. So we support this bill and ask full support of the Members of the House of Representatives for its passage. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, every amendment that was offered was allowed. There was one amendment that was offered and withdrawn. That is the reason it is not being offered. There was no denial of any proposed amendment by anybody in this body, Republican or Democrat. The only requirement under the rule is that if somebody had an amendment to propose, they had to do it in a timely way. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Eddie Bernice Johnson).

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee is expected to meet the week of April 23 to grant a rule which may structure the amendment process for floor consideration H.R. 1332, the Small Business Lending Improvements Act of 2007. Members who wish to offer an amendment to this bill should submit 30 copies of the amendment and a brief description of the amendment to the Rules Committee in H-312 in the Capitol, no later than 3 p.m. on Monday, April 23. Members are strongly advised to adhere to the noticed amendment deadline to ensure amendments receive consideration. Amendments should be drafted to the bill as ordered reported by the Committee on Small Business. A copy of that bill will be posted on the Web site of the Rules Committee. Amendments should be drafted by legislative counsel and also should be reviewed by the Office of the Parliamentarian to be sure that the amendments comply with the rules of House. Members are also strongly encouraged to submit their amendments to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis regarding possible PAYGO violations.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Chairman, as you know, this legislation will authorize projects that are vitally important to our communities, to our citizens, to our environment. This amendment is intended to begin the process of reforming the Army Corps of Engineers process so it can be done better. I support and applaud the leadership of the Committee on Transportation and the cosponsors of this amendment. We must establish transparency, collaboration and accountability within the Corps of Engineers so as to better serve our communities. What this amendment does is begin that process by citing improvements that can be made in the principles and the guidelines. This is essential because some of the things that have happened that have been adverse to our communities and to our citizens have been foreseeable and predictable. The reforms that we are beginning to take with this amendment are to foresee, predict and avoid. Secondly, independent peer review. I want to recognize the work of the committee of including that in this legislation. It is my hope that going forward in the conference committee that will actually be strengthened.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Chairman, apparently I have the last word, and I think I will say what any of us would say if they were here, and that is thank you to the chairman and thank you to the ranking member. You have embodied in this legislation a principle we all know, and that is that the cost of the war has to include the cost of caring for the warrior. So I know I speak on behalf of all of us in thanking you for your excellent work. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. I yield to Chairman Skelton.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Yes, I yield.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, first, I want to thank the Committee on Armed Services for this bipartisan legislation that all of us here in Congress are eager to support. Mr. Skelton has spent virtually his entire career in Congress making certain that the military is prepared and has the equipment it needs and it has the services they require when they come home; and his colleague who has worked very carefully with him, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter). I thank you for bringing this legislation to Congress. The underlying bill does two things, as you know. It creates, one, a medical case manager. Number two, it creates a servicemember advocate. The point of those two positions is to guarantee that what happened at Walter Reed won't happen again. My amendment is intended to strengthen and intensify the ability of those two positions to be effective on the part of the men and women who need medical services, and it does it in two ways. One, it makes it clear to the Secretary that these two positions must be empowered to do whatever is required to work through the bureaucracy and see to it that folks get the care they need. Secondly, it requires the Secretary to advertise the availability of these services to our veterans, but also to their families. As we saw at Walter Reed, it was the families who often were the best spokesperson for the veterans and our soldiers who were in need of service. So the amendment builds on what the committee has done by empowering and advertising. Mr. Chairman, I want to close by thanking the members of the Committee on Armed Services and their staff for working so closely with me to help write this amendment in a way that was consistent with the underlying objectives of the bill. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton).

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, today I am introducing legislation that will ensure that recovering veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have access to a strong patient advocate should they encounter bureaucratic road blocks to their recovery. This legislation is in response to the appalling stories that have recently come to light regarding substandard outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. On March 5, I participated in an oversight hearing at Walter Reed of the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs where we heard from recovering soldiers coping with filthy outpatient living conditions and a needlessly cumbersome bureaucracy. One of the conclusions I reached from this hearing is that veterans are, in some cases, on their own once they leave the excellent Department of Defense inpatient health care system. These men and women are being forced to navigate an onerous bureaucracy and manage their own outpatient care--even after traumatic brain injuries. This is an unacceptable betrayal of the men and women who have so bravely answered the call to duty. The legislation I am introducing today, The Veterans' Care Advocate Act, would create an ombudsman in each military medical facility to assist in the care and overall well-being of recovering service members. The ombudsman will help patients overcome bureaucratic entanglements and ensure they receive the care they need. If the system breaks down, the ombudsman will go to bat on their behalf and cut through the bureaucracy. Numerous accounts at Walter Reed describe patients not understanding where to obtain services and assistance and not knowing what services are available to them. The ombudsman will provide a forum for service members and their families to formally appeal to or seek review from the Department of Defense, receive information about services, and obtain help with paperwork. My bill would also require the Secretary of Defense to effectively advertise the services of the ombudsman so that service members and their families know who to turn to for help with the bureaucracy. Finally, this bill would require regular reports to Congress on the status of the ombudsman program, including a description of the number and location of ombudsman positions established, a description of the services being provided by the ombudsman, an analysis of the effectiveness and timeliness of the services provided, and the adequacy of Federal resources for the ombudsman to carry out its entire mission. Madam Speaker, I strongly believe that the cost of the war must include the care of the warrior. The Veterans' Care Advocate Act is just one step of many that will be required to ensure that recovering soldiers receive the care they were promised and the care they deserve. Later today, as part of the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act, I will offer an amendment that will improve the medical care case manager and service member advocate provisions in the legislation. The underlying legislation creates two new positions as part of the team of doctors, nurses and staff caring for recovering soldiers: a medical care case manager and a service member advocate. First, the medical care case manager will assist in understanding the service member's medical status and conduct a review, at a minimum of once a week, of the soldier's medical status to ensure that he or she is receiving the necessary medical care. Second, the service member advocate assists the service member in cutting through the bureaucratic red tape and looking out for the service member's overall welfare and quality of life. My amendment requires that the Secretary of Defense conduct outreach to all service members and their families, advising them that the medical care case manager and service member advocate positions are there to help. The Secretary must also describe the nature of their services and how they can be contacted. The purpose of my amendment is to help assure that recovering members of our military are made aware of the resources available to them. Furthermore, the amendment ensures that the medical case manager and service member advocate have the resources they need to expeditiously carry out the responsibilities and duties of their position. I am pleased that the Wounded Warriors bill takes a number of important steps to improve the management of medical care, personnel actions, and quality of life issues for our soldiers. Combined with the hospital-based ombudsman created by my bill, the creation of these two positions will help ensure that our soldiers get the quality care they deserve.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. It is really true. And it is not a partisan thing. I am trying to figure this out because all these things did happen on the Republican watch. And it is a Congress that I think turned its back on its responsibility. But I sometimes wonder whether that concentration of all power and a reliance on ideology meant that if you had an ideology and you had a set of facts and if they didn't fit, you would throw the facts out and stick with the ideology. But it is not a productive and winning strategy. So I have been mystified by it. And, Ron, you and I come out of State legislatures that are smaller, where Republicans and Democrats tend to work together. You have this close relationship and a lot of this stuff just doesn't happen there. So it is mystifying to me how it happens here. But I think it is a lot less likely to happen now that there is a cop on the beat and that our committees are just checking under the covers to see what is going on.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. You know, it is very elemental: you get what you pay for, you account for what you buy, you are responsible to the people that hire you, you are responsible to the voters. The opportunity that I have had about addressing some of these issues of accountability, maybe I can just tell a few stories about some of the hearings we have had, because it is worse than I expected. I come from Vermont, where we don't know how to waste things. We do it over recycle, reuse, do all of those things. But, you know, I am on the Oversight and Government Operations Committee, and we have had a number of hearings. And let me just tell a few stories, because I think rather than have me give some conclusions, let people just hear what some of the facts are. We had some hearings on Iraq expenditures, Iraq relief money. And the Government Accountability Office has come up with an audit that suggests that a minimum of $10 billion was wasted. But a couple of graphic examples came forward that just stunned me, frankly. One was that our Federal Reserve, at the orders of the government, sent $12 billion in taxpayer money, in cash, loaded in skids, shrink wrapped in plastic cellophane over to Iraq. Now, why did that happen? It wasn't accounted for, but it was sent over there to pay salaries for people who were working in Iraqi ministries. And of course it happened at a time when there was a desperate effort on the part of the administration to show some progress in Iraq. And one of the ways of trying to show progress is that we have these ministries up and running and we have employees who are working and doing the basic jobs of providing electricity, of dealing with pensions, and the things that are the functions of government. Most of that money went missing because it turned out that some of it was literally handed out from the back of pick-up trucks in Baghdad, and it went to employees who were ghost employees. There were these various ministers in the Iraq Government who had a position of influence and saw an opportunity and they took it and made millions and millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Now, you know, there is no Republican, there is no Democrat, there is no Independent who can fathom the idea of literally loading 347 tons of 100-dollar bills on C-147 transports and sending it to a foreign country to be handed out on street corners. At home, when I go to Vermont and I tell this story, I almost pinch myself because it is so astonishing that I am wondering whether it is true. Unfortunately, it is true. That is something that is happening with taxpayer dollars. Another example: $57 million was spent, Madam Speaker, awarded a contract to a Falls Church company that was going to construct housing in Baghdad, I think it was outside of the airport, it was going to be for, Congressman Hodes is on that committee, so if I get some of these details wrong, you can correct me. But basically it was a housing contract that was going to provide housing for trainees of the Baghdad police. Not a bad idea. One problem: the housing was never built. The only residue of the $57 million are hundreds of mobile homes that are now parked, unoccupied, on a tract of land outside the Baghdad Airport. Now, even our government got embarrassed at this. And someone in the State Department suggested that what we should do, since we had all these homeless people in Baghdad but they couldn't live there, we didn't have housing units set up, we just had these facilities, the suggestion was why don't we donate these mobile homes to the victims of Katrina. And I had the opportunity to ask the question everybody else would ask, was it their plan to move the folks in New Orleans to Baghdad or was it their plan to move the mobile homes from Baghdad to New Orleans? That actually happened, all right. A third example: this isn't so much about wasting taxpayer dollars; it is about violating basic rules of political integrity really. This whole question of global warming that people now recognize is real, it is urgent, and it is immediate. And I believe it is becoming a bipartisan consensus. We are not arguing whether it is true. Well, we were arguing whether it was true. In our committee we had before us a press person that worked for the administration, and his job was to edit reports. Editing apparently included taking scientific conclusions that were reached by scientists doing a scientific method, experimentation, drawing conclusions, maintaining academic integrity, and then putting them through what was an edit that was a political filter that actually changed the outcome of the scientific conclusions. And it was all intended to meet the political agenda of the administration that wanted to resist the conclusion that global warming was real, urgent, and immediate. There are certain lines you can't cross, and that is one of them. The people of this country, obviously, are entitled to the benefit of honest science. Then we have to make a decision, all of us, about what to do with it, what policies should we pursue. But, bottom line, we have to have that integrity. So these are just a few examples that I was exposed to as a Member of Congress serving on committees. And I think it reinforces the point that you are making because every American wants and is entitled to accountability, honesty in whatever element of the government we are working in, with our finances, with the services of scientists, and every other sector. So my friend, Mr. Klein, those are a few of the experiences I have had serving on a committee here.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Yes, I do. Every American is appalled at what was revealed, the degrading circumstances for our troops at Walter Reed. There were many things that were obviously disturbing about it, the vermin, the rodents, the peeling paint, the unsanitary conditions. But that is the tip of the iceberg. What was really heartbreaking when you met the veterans was that they were completely lost and abandoned. We had people with head injuries that had very severe cognitive problems who were in an administrative morass and nightmare. They were abandoned really for 4 months before anyone knew that they were there. We had amputees who were a mile away from where they needed to be without prosthetics and were supposed to somehow find a way to walk to where their doctors' appointments were. The administrative breakdown was enormous, and it really reflected a culture of disregard. One of the things that came out as we started investigating this situation out at Walter Reed was that the breakdown of services was very predictable because there was a substantial reduction in the number of personnel that were needed to provide the services. Step one, you know that if you are having significant increased military activity in Iraq and Afghanistan, you have to anticipate you will have an increasing need for services to treat injured soldiers. Two, in response to that, the government, the Bush administration, following its ideological hard line about privatization, put to bid certain services that were being offered at Walter Reed. It turned out that the government workers who were government workers had an opportunity to bid on that. They had the lowest bid. Mysteriously, and we still haven't gotten to the bottom of this, Madam Speaker, their bid was adjusted upward $7 million, not by them, but by the reviewer of bids. They then came in second, and the contract was awarded to a private company, IAP Worldwide Services. Now, we don't know what the bottom-line connection is. What we do know is the following: Number one, what had been personnel of 300 went to 50. Now, it is cheaper to have 50 people on the payroll than it is to have 300, but you also don't get the job done, especially when the number of wounded soldiers is increasing. So that is shocking right away. Number two, this company, IAP, had all kinds of problems, even though it received millions and millions of dollars doing Katrina relief. Number three, the head of the IAP Company is a former very high executive in Halliburton, a company that I just have to say has ripped off the American taxpayer and made billions of dollars on this war in Iraq. Now, how is it that there is a disposition that is so powerful that you put privatization and ideology ahead of a bottom line, the nonnegotiable bottom line that you are going to provide the services that our men and women in the service returning from Afghanistan, returning from Iraq need? It is absolutely and completely unacceptable. That shouldn't be a bipartisan thing. We ought to be doing whatever it takes to make certain that our men and women do get the services that they need. Lack of accountability makes people lax. They are not looking over their shoulder knowing that somebody is going to be checking to find out if they are getting the job done, if they are ripping off taxpayers, if they are performing up to standards. That is a major responsibility. We are candid with one another. We know that people are pretty fed up with government. The reason, there are a lot of reasons for it, but one of them is they don't have confidence that we are taking care of their taxpayer dollars. That gets so embedded in people's sense that they lose faith that the government will be there when there is a Katrina, when our soldiers are coming home from Iraq. Our job, together, is to restore that confidence by performance, not by talk; by accountability.

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Mr. Speaker, the President's Iraq policy has been a complete catastrophe. It must be challenged. It must be changed. We must end this war. The question we face is clear: Will Congress rubber-stamp a fifth year of a failed policy, or will Congress finally, after 4 straight years of lock-step compliance with an incompetent administration, compel a new direction that ends the war? The President has arrogantly asserted that he will veto any measure with a timetable. Mr. Speaker, I will not support any bill without a timetable. If I had a chance to write this bill, like my colleague from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), I would bring our troops home yesterday. But I did not write this bill, so I must measure it based on three criteria: Does it impose accountability on the President and Iraqis? Does it revoke the President's blank check? Does it establish a date certain with the force of law that will end this war? This bill meets each of these objectives. Regrettably if this bill fails, the war will continue, unchecked and unabated. It is time for the Iraqis to accept responsibility for shaping their own future. Even President Bush has acknowledged the importance of imposing measurable benchmarks of success on the Iraqi Government. This legislation replaces Presidential lip service with congressional force of law. There is a reason the President threatens to veto this bill: It is because Congress is finally revoking his blank check. Mr. Speaker, there is no easy way to clean up the mess in Iraq or to avert further suffering. Our obligation remains to decide, at this time and place, whether to stay the President's course or to end this war as soon as possible. I will support this bill because it finally puts us on the path to end the unconscionable war. Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Mr. WELCH of Vermont

Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, as I mentioned earlier, just in response to the comments by my friend from Florida, this pretty much is an open rule. The ones that weren't allowed were nongermane. And then there was one amendment that was not allowed because it was an amendment that was earlier offered and rejected by this House, and that was at the recommendation of the Chair of the Financial Services Committee, who had a very open process in the Financial Services Committee considering numerous amendments and then has pretty much invited any Member who wanted to submit an amendment to have an opportunity on the floor to do so or for consideration before the Rules Committee. At this time, Madam Speaker, I would yield 6\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts, the chair of the Committee on Financial Services, Mr. Frank.