taking money away from under-funded public schools and diverting it into selective private schools is fundamentally flawed. This proposed voucher program is part of a larger initiative of the Bush administration to privatize essential…

Mr. Chairman, I find no small amount of irony. Yesterday, we were celebrating the accomplishments of that great American Lance Armstrong for his prodigious bicycle accomplishments, and today we are moving to gut the enhancements program…

I am glad that the House has finally decided to confront what can only be described as a national embarrassment. Today we must take steps to prevent our low-income seniors from paying the highest prescription drug prices in the world…

it makes no sense to gamble with Head Start. We have a program that serves almost a million people. Since Head Start's inception in 1965, the program has reached over 21 million children. In our community it has served over 214,000…

initially, I had significant reservations about the trade agreement with Singapore. The Integrated Sourcing Initiative was too open-ended and Singaporean enforcement of environmental laws regarding commerce in endangered species was not as…

I deeply appreciate the expressions of concern and the hard work. There is probably no committee in Congress that has a more difficult assignment and stretched in more areas that really are a matter of life and death. But I think here even…

One program that was particularly hard hit this year is the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP). The funding level this year is $32.5 million--less than half of last year's appropriation of $73.3 million. As the founding…

It is time for us to move past the free versus fair trade debate that has dominated the considerations in this Chamber for most of the last five Congresses, where each side uses code words to ignore the inconvenient arguments of each…

My point, Mr. Chairman, was that the Federal Government right now, today, can make a small but significant improvement by reducing millions of gallons of peak summer demand. Teddy Roosevelt helped designate one of these wildlife refuges as…

Mr. Chairman, first two factual observations: One, the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Agriculture suggested that we were going to be flinging these farmers off the 2,000 acres that are leased and denying them a way to earn a…

This is an example of why our export control regime is broken and badly in need of review. The typical high school teenager's bedroom has more computing power than the United States possessed when it developed the atomic and hydrogen…

There is truly a bipartisan consensus on our committee that the time has long since passed for us to address the critical need to change the regime in Burma and to be able to recognize the courage of Aung San Suu Kyi, the potential we have…

I offer this amendment this afternoon together with the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) to provide $800,000 for improved enforcement for the Federal animal fighting law. It is not just enough to fight a law, Mr. Chairman. It must be…

I wanted to just respond very briefly to two points of the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee. What he describes with the notion of this being a misdemeanor is part of the catch-22 that some of the people in this Congress who are…

the Labor, Health, Human Services and Education appropriations bill is a logical consequence of misplaced priorities in the budget resolution and tax cut proposals that have been pushed through the House of Representatives this year…

I come today with deep respect for the hard work that this subcommittee has done. I think it may be the toughest subcommittee in the House given the amazing pressures in terms of the military requirements of our country during a difficult…

Hometown security should be our number one priority to ensure the American public is safe from terrorism--both domestic and foreign. The federal government has made significant commitments, but unfortunately these have been more show than…

I invited a number of tax professionals in my community, CPAs, tax attorneys, financial planners, to come down and talk to me about how the effect of this proposal actually works. They said, number one, under existing law anybody who could…

people who care about the environment were heartened 2 weeks ago when the administration declared that it would uphold the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. But alas, the other shoe dropped. Last week, the administration proposed exempting…

the pages of our newspapers have been filled with accounts of corporate abuse of investors and consumers. Part of the reason Oregon has the highest unemployment rate in America for over a year is the result of the Enron scandal and the…

Mr. Chairman, the modern airport is a building block of a livable community. Air transportation is essential to cities being competitive in a global economy and being integrated into the national transportation framework. It is time for us…

I am troubled by and opposed to the increasing reliance of government on gambling. We are seeing more evidence of its destructive power, even as the current financial crisis is driving more States to expand their gaming operations. Gaming…

I cautiously approach my colleagues' zealous concern about the European Union's long-standing moratorium on agriculture and biotech products. The World Trade Organization agreement does recognize that countries are entitled to regulate…

one of my fundamental principles is that government not interfere with the basic freedoms of our families, and a basic freedom for the health of women includes reproductive health choices. This legislation threatens that freedom by…

the United States flag is one of the two most enduring symbols of our freedom and liberty. I believe that those who desecrate the flag degrade themselves and I find it a reprehensible act. So too, it is reprehensible for people to express…