I am going to go through a description that I think will help people understand what we mean by earmarks and by the kind of a simple earmark that you might think about, and then the more complex, the more subterfuge, the more hidden ones…

Taking back my time, I think it's stunning, but I don't like the words ``special interest,'' because that makes you think it might be some kind of a public interest, maybe it's for hungry children or maybe it's for needy families or maybe…

this legislation is flawed in many respects. It provides $7.5 billion in loans to cities, States, and nonprofits to buy foreclosed homes from mortgage lenders who made bad loans. That will not help people avoid foreclosures. In addition…

Probably not a financial interest if I just bring home the bacon. That is to say, if I just get a bridge or a tunnel or an overpass in my district, I still get to use taxpayer money to buy myself back into office.

I think he has made the point very clear that if we back away from Iraq right now, all those people in the country who are helping us right now, their lives will not be worth a penny.

I know that he believes deeply, as I do, that we have an obligation, having thrown out Saddam, as was needed to be done, a terrible dictator, to now help the Iraqi people. I think his illustrations of what we have done have helped. Quite…

I have been saying now for lo these many weeks that this has been on the discussion table, America, that the $20.3 billion for so-called reconstruction is as important to our military's success as the $60-some billion for the military…

As was mentioned earlier, today was the first day of school in Iraq; and in my visit there, we learned that America has done a great deal to rebuild the schools, although Americans will say, well, why are we rebuilding their schools and…

And this reconstruction aid is a way for us to illustrate that we are on their side, and for them to come to realize we are on their side, and for them to decide they need to be on our side and not on the side of the terrorists who want to…

Not just their quality, their enthusiasm. They are committed to this task. They can see in the faces of the Iraqi people that they are trying to help every day what it is doing for that country and for their people. Quite frankly, I think…

I again reiterate my opposition to this amendment. I would agree with the gentlewoman who just spoke that each side has an argument of merit in this debate. But I would say I strongly disagree. Let us start with this whole issue of States'…

I appreciate the supportive remarks of my colleagues on the opposite side of this issue. I simply believe this is critical. The issue I raised a year ago was additional funds for firefighting. The issue I am raising, however, this year has…

Mr. Chairman, on the issue of hazardous fuels reduction activities, as the gentleman from North Carolina knows, many of our national forestlands are covered with unnaturally dense vegetation. This unnaturally dense condition has…

As a member of both the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the Committee on Energy Commerce, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2122, the Project BioShield Act. Mr. Speaker, today, the House takes an important step toward preparing…

last Friday the Nation lost a distinguished public servant. Bob Stump humbly and admirably served his country and represented Arizona for nearly 60 years. His service began as a Navy medic during World War II and continued in Arizona in…

the goal of this sense of Congress amendment is, in fact, to direct the resources that we have for disabled children to those disabled children, and to make sure that we are putting into the program those kids, those young people, those…

I rise in support of the Nussle budget, but in stronger support of the RSC Toomey budget. Let me make it clear why. This Congress, year in and year out, faces the challenge of setting a budget for our Nation, but it seems to me this year…

I want to talk about the seriousness of this issue. I want to talk about the question of preemption and why America might even contemplate striking under these circumstances. I want to address the concerns of those who say they simply do…

it seems to me this is, in fact, a commonsense amendment. It does not say that you can never bring such a lawsuit. It is limited to certain circumstances where they are cutting small diameter trees, trees of less than 12 inches. It would…

I simply want to make the point that my colleague, the gentleman from Washington, and I complimented the committee for its effort to begin with, has pointed out some of these particular projects: the Lewis and Clark National Historic…

my only question is, this does reduce the amount of money for land acquisition, but it does not zero it out. I mean, the intention of the amendment was to say let us leave some money there and to recognize that we need to acquire some…

I believe that one of them has been misallocated. The bill currently provides $23 million less for the Bureau of Land Management's budget for wildfire management than the current year allows. We have reduced the amount of money to fight…

I certainly concur with the gentleman that the place for firefighting money is in the supplemental, which could become law literally next week.

I would simply argue that when this committee draft was put together, I do not know that we appreciated the dimension of this year's problems. I know this report was prepared very, very recently; and I know that the fire in Arizona…

I would just like to drive home a couple of the points the gentleman has made and make it very clear that what we are talking about here is more resources for education. It is kind of interesting, as the gentleman points out, in Arizona we…