the motion to reconsider is laid on the table for what purposes the gentle lady from california writes madam speaker i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days within which to rebuys and extend their r eight nine one without objection so ordered pursuant to house resolution eleven zero three and rule eighteen the chair declares the house of the in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h r twenty six thirty four the chair appoints the gentleman from arizona mr pastore to preside over the  the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h r twenty six thirty four which the clerk will report by title a bill to provide greater responsibility and lending an expanded cancellation of debt owed to the united states and the international financial institutions by low income countries and for other purposes restored to the rules the bill is considered read the first time the gentlewoman from california ms waters and the gentleman from alabama mr chairman according to the world bank more than ten million children in developing countries die every year before the age of five most from preventable illnesses more than a billion people in developing countries do not have access to sa drinking water and approximately one hundred million school age children do not attend school and septa hereon africa forty one percent of the population lives on less than one dollar a day it was because of these injustices that i pursed got involved in the issue of debt relief and i would like to thank many of my colleagues who have been working with me over the years on debt relief and who have joined with me to present this legislation first i'd like to thank you chairman barney frank who's always been a big supporter and a fighter and has worked very hard in the past to ensure that we are on record doing the right thing for poor children and poor families all over the world and of course i've been very pleased to work with the ranking member of the financial services committee mr spencer baucus who worked with me on two thousand and who's been involved in depth relief for many many years i'd like to thank the original co sponsors mr emanuel cleaver mr louis good terrorists ms carolyn maloney mr donald pa and others such as ms judy biggert who serves on our financial services committee and all of the work and the assistant and the co sponsorship for this legislation and nine hundred ninety nine i work with my colleagues on the financial services committee to pass legislation to provide debt relief to the world's poorest countries our legislation provided complete debt cancellation by the bilateral debts that certain poor countries oh to the united states several other donor countries followed our example and cancelled the debts they were owed to them as well our legislation also directed the clinton administration to negotiate with other world leaders to significantly reduce poor countries multilateral debts the following year the house passed my amendment to fiscal year two thousand and one foreign operations appropriation bill which increased funding for debt relief from sixty nine million dollars to two hundred and twenty five million dollars this amendment proved that congress supported both funding for the debt relief programs since then we have continued to work together in a bipartisan way to urge not only the clinton administration but the bush administration as well the i m f the world bank and other multilateral financial institutions to expand debt relief as a result of our efforts twenty three heavily indebted poor countries have received complete cancellation of their debt debt cancellation has proven to be protective and bring up race sources for poverty reduction cameroon is using its savings of twenty nine point eight million dollars from debt cancellation in two thousand and six for national poverty reduction priorities including infrastructure social sector and government reforms uganda is using its savings a fifty seven point nine million dollars to improve energy enter structure to ease acute electricity shortages as well as primary education malaria control health care and water infrastructure than bia is using its savings of twenty three point eight million dollars to increase spending on agricultural projects and to eliminate these  health care and rural areas i'm proud to report that debt relief has made a real difference in the lives of millions of impoverished people this came to pass because our country showed leadership and our country showed leadership because this congress showed leadership we are here today to continue our efforts we are here today to enable additional navy and deserving poor countries to benefit from the cancellation of their debt the will make up to an additional twenty five low income countries eligible for debt relief provided these countries to meet strict criteria and use the savings for poverty reduction programs such as improvement to economic infrastructure basic education nutrition and health services and programs to redress and barren mental degradation i would like to share with you a few of the observations and perhaps comments that i have learned about since i've been involved with debt cancellation julius nyerere the former president of tanzania once asked must we starve our children to pay our debts for tanzania the and to do this question is not any more that is because tanzania is one of the lucky ones it is what these that have already received complete debt cancellation the countries are still starving their children in order to pay their debt debt forgiveness is a moral imperative and it is incurred by many religious traditions the bible instructs the people of ancient israel to cancel debts periodically through the celebration of a sabbath here every seven years and a jubilee every fifty years leviticus twenty five ten says proclaim proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof it shall be a jubilee for you let us once again perk proclaim a jubilee for millions of people and some of the poorest countries in the world i would ask my colleagues to join with me and support of this ju yelling the balance of my time i'd like to thank speaker nancy pelosi for urging us to get this bill up and get it on the floor so that we could go on record and debt cancellation for the poor and subcommittee chair waters for the bipartisan cooperation they've shown in bringing this builder the floor mr chairman members this legislation is very good legislation i would our job members to support it what the legislation does as congresswoman waters sa it allows an administration to negotiate a debt relief arrangement with the twenty five poorest countries of the world it does not require them to enter into any specific agreement it simply gives them that our three zation once they have gone to those countries and negotiated debt relief that agreement then has to come back to the senate and the house for our approval so we're not approving any specific action today we're simply arthur razzing them to do what most of us in this body believe is the right thing to do