Brian Bilbray

I support this amendment. As somebody who has spent 20 years supervising law enforcement agencies... they are illegal because they have broken the laws of the United States.

I am just saying from personal experience, what is said and what has been done are two different things. I think the one thing that we want these Chambers to have is that dose of reality of what really is going on out there. I just have to…

I am just saying as somebody who spent 20 years in local government in a border community, I just heard that the Federal administration 2 years ago was out to reimburse for the cost of incarcerating criminal aliens. You know, all I got to…

And you have monitoring that basically says that you have to prove, bring monitoring that you do not, that you are not degrading the environment. That is what we are talking about; we are talking about an outcome basis. Does it hurt the…

You have to read the bill and all the conditions of being able to meet the triggers of the EPA.

The fact is here it is outcome-based. In fact the water quality is not violated as long as scientists at EPA say there is not damage. My concern to you is if the monitoring is done, if the environment is protected, if EPA and all of the…

There is no slippery slope. What it says is those that have proven scientifically there is no reasonable reason to think there is environmental damage that is going to occur should not have to go through a process of having to go through…

The fact is that it is costing $1.5 million. The fact is, it is only a 4- to 5-year waiver, and the fact that under our bill all monitoring, the EPA will monitor it, the Environmental Protection Agency of California will monitor it. We…

I would like to point out, Mr. Chairman, my experience with Mr. Filner was as the director of the public health department for San Diego, and as he knows, this is not something I am not involved with. I happened to be personally involved…

I was in a community called Navajo where the lady who runs the school lunch program came forward and said, I did not know about you Republicans. I was not sure. But thank you for giving us the program so we do not always have to have…

I say to the gentleman, ``But their premiums can be raised, and you tell a senior that it's no problem. You just pay more, and you won't know what that is in the future. We try to lay a defined course for these people. They have enough…

Let me say, as somebody who has had to work with this population from a county service point of view, the inconsistency of not letting them know as soon as humanly possible what their options are and if this program will be available, and…

2 years ago as a member of the public I watched these proceedings, and I watched my colleague from Maryland support the largest tax increase in the United States.

I think that what the gentleman is saying, see, the gentleman is trying to use that. This law was meant to go after the Mafia. The fact is it is being abused.

What we are talking about, those one or two sentences, are being manipulated for 40 percent of the actions. I do not think the legislation, and the gentleman was here, probably, I was not, I cannot believe the gentleman meant for 40…

Of course not, Mr. Chairman. There are 40 percent of the cases being used under this. Is the gentleman saying that 40 percent of the cases under RICO are all racketeering?

Here is the point: RICO is meant to go after racketeering. It is being misused by attorneys, because it means they do not have to play by the other rules.

I think this issue is the old bracelet concept. As an individual who has operated the system for 10 years, I just would like to point out to my colleague from California that we are really talking about apples and oranges here. This is a…

In closing, Mr. Chairman, as somebody who has had to fulfill these obligations, I think all of us will recognize that this will help us fulfill one of the items in the contract, and that is for the Federal Government to address this issue…