perhaps the same parable has another meaning for people today living in this constitutional democracy in the parable each tree which wishes to be king over the other trees excuses itself from leadership the olive tree is reluctant to offer its ritual oil the fig tree is its good fruit the vine its intoxicating wine so all the trees plead with the buckhorn to have a hority over all the other trees but the buckhorn has nothing to offer but its own shadow lord may each member of congress offer his or her very best to the work of governance this awesome responsibility does cost them dearly that is why as your people lord they need our prayer if they do not offer all the gifts of mind and heart they are called to sacrifice for this government by the people they can only cast a long shadow over believable democracy so speak lower to your servants and allow your gifts to flow across this nation now and for ever amen thank you the chair has examined the journal of the last day proceedings and announces to the house her approval there are pursuant to cause one of rule one the general stand approved the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from colorado mr perlmutter the chair will receive a message out of speaker a message from the senate madam speaker madam secretary i have been directed by the same as we form the house that the senate has agreed to with age seventy six on the fiftieth anniversary of the international geophysical yeah and its contributions to space research and looking forward to future accomplishment thank you the chair  terrible entertain up to ten request for one minute from each side of the aisle what purpose does the gentleman from iowa  stem cell research enhanced man act would have authorized federal funds to be used for research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from embryos in vitro fertilization clinics that would otherwise have been discarded an overwhelming number of americans including doctors scientists health organizations and communities of faith have been vocal in their support for this critical research because of the cures it might offer to those stricken with diabetes alzheimer's multiple multiple sclerosis cancer spinal cord injuries and countless other ailments madam speaker president bush's decision to once again veto an expansion of this research that could bring hope to millions with life threatening and debilitating disease is dangerous and devastating to those who are suffering this democratic house will continue to push for federal funding of this ethical and critically necessary research i yield back the balance  the heat they risk their lives crossing the border they don't get paid enough wages they do jobs that others won't do are afraid to do they live in crowded conditions among the people who speak a different language they rarely see their families and they face adversity all day every day no i'm not talking about illegals i'm talking about our troops overseas doesn't it seem strange that the politicians are willing to lavish all kinds of social benefits oh no only illegals but don't support our troops and and have threatened to defund them madam speaker jeffrey brown echoes the sentiments of many other americans who wonder why so many people in washington show more concern for illegals who pledge allegiance to other countries than they do are u s troops fighting the deserts of iraq in the mountains of afghanistan supporting american military and our veterans is more important an expensive give away programs to illegals and that's just the way it is for what purposes does the gentleman from kentucky wri that objection mr speaker this house has repeatedly passed the bipartisan stem cell research enhanced man act to authorize federal funds to be used for lifesaving research on embryonic still some simple lines that would otherwise be discarded this of research conducted under strict ethical standards is supported by an overwhelming number of americans because of the hope it offers for the potential cures of many diseases such as diabetes parkinson's alzheimer's cancer and m s but yesterday president bush once again veto this important bill in an attempt to save face the president instead signed an executive order that will do little to advance essential medical research the symbolic order is the president's attempt to score political points but it fails to direct new resources or support for potentially life saving research mr speaker a majority of this house and a majority of the american people are fed up with the bush administration's stifling of this important life affirming science democrats will continue to fight to promote important groundbreaking research so that we can provide real hope to millions of americans you know but one yells back for what purposes does the gentleman from south carolina wri without objection mr speaker i rise today in recognition and appreciation of rob portman and his service to our great nation first as a fellow member of the house then as united states trade representative and most recently as director of the office of management and budget rob has proven to be an outstanding public servant i know that jim nussle will be a competent successor and carry on in rob's footsteps for the taxpayers i am grateful no republican colleagues and i had the opportunity a few minutes ago to thank rob and wish him well rob was the featured guest for our weekly theme team meeting i appreciate them team chairman jack kingston and christa cole on his staff for bringing a top notch speaker every week i wish rob his wife jane and their three children jed will and sally all the best in the future in conclusion god bless our troops and will never forget september the eleventh for what purposes does the gentlewoman from ohio rise without objection mr speaker our current trade policies have had a devastating consequences for families and communities in northeast ohio and across this nation the effects of these damaging trade policies are no longer theoretical they are real we need a truly new trade model that addresses the concerns raised by the american people in the last election congress must reclaim its constitutional authority over trade we must have strong and in forcible standards in our trade agreements we must address the ever evolving unfair trade practices used by foreign governments to protect their markets such as currency manipulation illegal subsidies and product on thing we must replace policies that reward businesses for outsourcing jobs with incentives and sensible tax policies that will help our businesses and workers we need a new trade model now i yield back the balance of my time for what purposes does the gentleman from pennsylvania arise without objection was just picker the president's emergency plan for aids relief called pepfar has instituted a carefully crafted comprehensive approach to fighting the spread of aids this approach is based on the a b c prevention model that has proven highly successful in uganda this model was developed there by africans in africa a stands for abstinence until marriage before be faithful or monogamy and small c for condoms this approach is working to reduce aids prevalence but the foreign ops appropriations bill that we vote on today seeks to got this comprehensive approach specifically the bill does away with funding protections for the abstinence infidelity parts of the model it would remove the mandate for the a and b portions in the model mr speaker these are very important components and these are the most effective in reducing aids occurrence just look at this chart illustrating the experience in kenya proof that absence the gentleman from florida arise without objection thank you mr speaker last week the new congress adopted the most significant expansion of venture in telfair in the history of the v a the real life story of lieutenant sylvia blackwood highlights why this is so important lieutenant blackwood began suffering from p t s d after serving two tours and of duty in iraq she found the strength to check herself into the v a medical center here in washington she was suicidal but instead of receiving immediate treatment she was directed to a waiting room when she was finally admitted she did not receive therapy or relief according to an in depth series published by the washington post this week unfortunately lieutenant blackwood story is not uncommon an estimated one third of all veterans returning from iraq and afghanistan suffer from mental health challenges mr speaker america's servicemen and women deserve the best care possible when they return from war both for their physical mental health that is why this new congress last week passed the most significant expansion and improvement in veterans health care in this v a seventy seven year history it's important for all americans to take pride in that action thank you for what purpose does the gentlewoman from tennessee rise one minute by the man without objection thank you mr speaker well here we are again another day another several billion dollars in new spending proposed by this hold onto your wallet congress they've already passed the largest tax increase in history and they spend too much money and today's tax does your comes in the form of the foreign ops approach still the bloated two thousand and eight  fork over thirty four billion dollars of your tax money an increase of more than three billion dollars a subtle change means that under the current bill language the mexico city policy which ensures that non governmental entities that promote abortion would not be provided u s funding can be completely disregarded in these entities would receive u s taxpayer fines the provision would mandate u s subsidies to organizations that actively promote abortion  foreign nations abortion has been a tragedy for many women here in the u s and it will carry with at the same hurt and trauma when it's used aboard mr speaker if this language stays in the bill the american taxpayer a western north carolina fixture that's been providing fun and excitement to families for the past five decades to each a road founded in one hundred fifty seven was north carolina's first ever amusement park nestled in the mountains and blowing rock north carolina it is appalachians the while was the theme of the park permeates every aspect of the family entertainment that draws families from all over to each eurotas in a category of its own situated in a beautiful mountain setting away from the noise and rush of everyday life there's north carolina sixty offers an escape from the worries of today with a glimpse of a bygone era this return to family entertainment is part of the great american tradition and i wish him many more years of delighting families with wholesome fun  birthday john edward dame was born june eighteenth nineteenth seventeen in upshur county texas he grew up in my district in the town of gilmore where he tend to get more public schools and graduated from gilmore high school in nineteen forty seven mr name would often ride a horse back to school and by the age of fifteen he was hauling cattle to the fore or stock yards to help provide for his younger siblings and not being forty five he purchased snotter sol mailing gilmer where the company will turn seventy next year john dean is an american patriot a servant who so many of us in east texas have come to respect he never missed a day of work or charge due to an illness that was never even hospitalized delayed seventy john in the love of his life the like jane holmes have three children seven grandchildren and great grandchildren and has given generously to the gilmer community his lumber companies want to give him his largest employers and was a pioneer in diversity he serves as a deacon it first baptist church of gilmer is a twenty year member of the east texas baptist university board of trustees and marshall i stand here today to wish john edward dana happy birthday mr speaker and a bright that god may continue to bless him and his family for being such a blessing to so many others i yield back pursuant to house resolution four nine eight and rule eighteen the chair declares the house in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for further consideration of h r two seven six four well the gentleman from pennsylvania mr holden kindly take the chair the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for further consideration of h r two seven six for which a clerk will report by title a bill making a prayer procreation is for the department of state foreign operations and related programs for the fiscal ending september thirtieth two thousand and eight and for other purposes when a committee of the whole house rose on wednesday june twentieth two thousand and seven all time for general debate had expired pursuant to the rule the bill shall be considered for amendment under the five minute rule pursuant to the order of the whole house on that day no amendment to the bill may be offered except those that specified in a previous order of the house on that day which is that the desk c the following sums are appropriated for the fiscal year namely title one department of state department of state and related agencies department of state and ministration of foreign affairs diplomatic programs three billion eight hundred twenty million eight hundred thousand dollars in addition not to exceed one million five hundred fifty eight thousand three hundred ninety dollars derived from fees collected from other executive agencies offered by mr lincoln diaz balart of florida pursuant to the order of the house of wednesday june twentieth the gentleman from florida will be reckoned will be will be recognized for ten minutes  chairman i my amendment coauthored by my good friend mr rugg you'll see it is of new jersey restores funds for cuba democracy assistance to the administration's request level of forty five million by offsetting thirty six million from the department of state general administration budget unfortunately as this chart so well demonstrates the committee while generally meeting or far exceeding the administration's requests for the rest of latin america something that i support the bill funds cuba democracy programs at approximately twenty percent of the president's request of forty five million twenty percent for assistance for those brave men and women who risked their lives and their families safety unarmed and a hard line to tyler perry and police state to peacefully press for democracy in cuba human rights activists independent journalists independent librarians independent physicians they say goes to them assistance is key and that it reaches them and that it has made and is making a great difference for the pro democracy movement at this time now mr chairman the opponents of this effort asked for a g a o report on these programs and i thanked them for it first the g a o report after eighteen months of thorough investigation confirmed that the program is working and i quote from the g a o report dissidents we interviewed in cuba said that they  appreciated the range in types of u s democracy assistance that this assistance was useful in their work and it demonstrates that the u s government's commitment to democracy in cuba mr chairman the g a o report food and clothing have been delivered to the pro democracy movement and their families more than twenty three thousand shortwave radios millions of books newsletters and other informational material u s assistance reported in the pending journalists and including the publication of approximately twenty three thousand reports by those in the pendant journalist mr chairman i would call the attention to the fact that the g a o report while making absolutely no recommendation for any cut whatsoever in this program does point out and made clear the case that it is an important and effective program and after the g a o report it has been significantly improved i call the attention of all of my colleagues to the replied to the g a o report by the administrative agency the u s a id where it delineates that all of the g a o reports recommendations have been implemented all of the recommendations have been implemented that is that has made an effective and important program even more effective and important mr chairman let us not turn our back on the cuban internal opposition they will play a key role in the inevitable democratic transition that is approaching and we must do all we can so that they can sure vive the brutality of that to tyler perry and police state of violence and terror that fortunately to a great extent because of the pro democracy movement in cuba will soon be the department of state sign contracts worth seventy four million dollars for cuba programs according to the g a o study the administration is asking for a one year fiscal year two thousand and eight request that is more than two thirds the size of what was committed over the ten years from one thousand nine hundred six and two thousand and five this request is five hundred percent of what usaid received in the last fiscal year given how ill conceived ill managed the program is there is no justification for invading crace my friend from florida has raised the g a o report and said that it has not recommended the funding because but the objective of the report was not to recommend that funding should be increased or decreased it was to examine the roles and objectives of the agencies implementing united states democracy assistance targeted to cuba and the characteristics and selection of the grantees receiving department of state and usa towards the types amounts beneficiaries and methods used to deliver assistance for selected grantees in two thousand and five usaid monitoring and oversight of these grantees and the availability of data to evaluate whether the u s assistance has achieved its goals although i believe that this program does little to help dissidents and very little to expand political space in cuba we have continued funding at the same level as provided by our former colleague jim colby when he chair the subcommittee the bill has nine million dollars and requires usaid in the department of state to present a plan for improve coordination and for oversight of the cuba program g a o concluded in another member two thousand and six report that quote poor monitoring and oversight of the kuber program did not provide adequate assurance that funds were properly used administrative costs on the part of grantees were high oversight of the goods chosen  inadequate specifically according to the g a o study there were instances in which cashmere sweaters godiva chocolates nintendo game boys sony playstation and were among the items purchased in the united states to be shipped to dissonance in cuba the cuba a program is poorly managed and can be argued to be counterproductive it is not a productive use of limited u s resources and the result of this program is often to identify cuban dissidents as  limited time the funding that has been provided over the past ten years to support the broad democracy movement in cuba has been working u s assistance has provided books newsletters and other informational material to the people of cuba as well as over three hundred eighty five thousand pounds of medicine food and clothing according to u s aid reports u s assistance has also funded journalism correspondent courses for more than two hundred cubans and the publication of about twenty three thousand reports by independent cuban journalist about conditions and events in cuba although the cuban ridge him regime restricts nearly all political dissent in the night to citizens the basic rights of free expression association and assembly our funding and assistance has allowed the pro democracy civil and civil resistance movement in cuba to dramatically increase in recent years as evidence in this chart from just two thousand and four to two thousand and five there was a fifty four percent increase in the number of civil resistance actions reported on the island some of these abuses civil resistance acts include citizens are willing to cooperate with regime officials in repressing pro democracy activities and citizens boycotting regime controlled meetings and mass gatherings by supporting this amendment the pro democracy movement in cuba can continue to work denies communicate the vision for the future of the cuban people and prepare to assume the role in the process of democratic transition but it's also important to realize that q what now is is at the same stage that spain was many years ago when they had a dictator for forty years the world lock down to cuba their world looked out to spain and so that many of the institution promoting democracy prevail if we don't work to promote this event who are proud democratic this events in cuba we're not going to have any institution  i want to be sure that no one is misled by a claim that this is a cut this is the same amount that the program received last year and last november as has been noted the ga a serious problems with the administration of this program as well as a lack of accountability which must be addressed in this has not happened three put is in title u democracy assistance for cuba needs better management no oversight so as to increase the funding to almost fifty million dollars well by about five hundred percent is not just  irresponsible it has an alice in wonderland quality about it rewards mismanagement and incompetence no my friends the committee has acted wisely and i applaud the committee it's demanding a spending plan and a strategy for how the funds will be used so we no longer will be sending cashmere sweaters to the tropical island of cuba yes this actually happened i know it's hard to believe this program needs does not need any more money what it needs is what it has never had before and that is vigorous congressional oversight why does it need all the site there's simply no time to list all of the programs read the report in full measure but i would note that i found it particularly informative that over a ten year period sixty two million dollars of the sixty five million in u s grants were provided without competition that's ninety five percent of the money provided in response to unsolicited proposals with no bidding no public notice no compensation no this program doesn't need any more money it needs  and i agree let's listen to the dissidents like my friend miriam lave a fool is one of the founders of the ladies in white here's what she says there must be no funds from any government allocated to the dissidents the opposition gets practically nothing and the main thing it is is that it gives the cuban government a pretext to say that we are mercenaries  i'm against any funds from the american government and i think that if it wants to help the cuban people it should lift the embargo and allow trade tourism and academic exchanges and cubans should be allowed to travel without rejection without restriction to the united states and send money to their families in cuba gentleman time in a legitimate time has expired gentlemen florida chairman i would simply remind my colleagues what if the policies advocated by those who are against this program had succeeded during the  eighty s in poland and eastern europe just ask yourselves that question and remember when we did what we're doing here in the eighty's what happened in eastern europe i'd like to yield a minute to a distinguished leader and human rights activist from us from new jersey  gentleman from new jersey is recognized for one minute and without objection thank you feel your time i rise in support of the a man and i'd like to first thank the generally the chairperson for the funding she has supplied for the graham i believe we're at a crucial time in the southern part of our of our hemisphere i believe that it will go one way or the other in the years ahead it will either be a breeding ground for violence trouble and difficulty or it will be a breeding ground for the democratic values that will make us safer and stronger and more prosperous cuba is not the only country that will influence that decision but it is a pivotal country and i think an investment in the long term process of promoting democracy and prosperity in cuba is not only in the best interest of the cuban people but of the best interests the american people many of the issues that my friend from massachusetts talked about have been addressed and correct but i think the largest mistake that we could make would be to avoid our responsibility an opportunity to influence positively those who wish to bring democracy and the rule of law to cuba at this very critical time in our history i in opposition to this amendment which seeks to send five times the current level of funding to so called democracy assistance programs for cuba five times the amount of money to programs that are not transparent smack of cron noncompetitive and frankly speaking foolish corrupt and just plain embarrassing for the united states how bad is this program so bad that cuba's courageous catholic church refuses to work with it many dissidents have told me that they think that this program is a bad idea for cuban opposition leaders to take money from the u s government subjects them to the charge that they are somehow u s agents that's not the way to promote democracy i support the committee bill which keeps finding a level  at nine million dollars it's the smart thing to do until problems outlined in the november g a o report have been addressed and the program redesigned and better manage so that it might have at least some chance of being effective mr chairman everyone in this house supports the work of cuba's dissident pro democracy community but we do not need to squander five times more money on leather coats cashmere sweaters gameboy crabmeat and good diver chocolates purchased by groups pretending to support them what do good diver chocolates have to do with promoting democracy in cuba come on give me a break the american people want to countability and i hope a chairman a time when the acumen terrorist the terrorist dictator and terrorist activity of his ailing this bill guts the funding for the brave and heroic pro democracy movement cuba now what has that money been used for in the last ten years this is in the report medicine food and clothing for the families of political prisoners more than twenty three thousand shortwave radios hundreds of thousands of newsletters and other informational material including books journalism courses to more than two hundred independent cuban journalist who publish almost twenty five thousand reports and publications from within the enslaved island i hold in my hand a letter from a diverse group of brave opposition leaders in cuba making it clear that this assistance is vital and desperately needed in the effort  free and democratic cuba and i ask unanimous consent to be included in the record i read the g a o report both the classified and unclassified parts of it and it does state that this is systems does reach the pro democracy movement in cuba and it's important to note that all of the recommendations every single one not report have been implemented unlike what you've heard today this is not the time to abandon those brave men women brave men and women their families the political prisoners the opposition leaders the independent journalist the labor leaders who are heroically and at great personal risk working for a democratic transition in cuba this amendment which is fully offset and see below scored as revenue neutral will rectify the unconscionable be trail and abandonment of the brave and heroic dissidents the opposition leaders who are working under the toughest of conditions for a free and democratic cuba i urge for the adoption of this amendment and i yield back gentlemen your vacuous time gentlewoman from new york program will be gutted the truth is the committee keeps the funding level as it is i think given the g a o report that is only proper as my colleagues have already mentioned the g a o report that was commissioned by myself and congressman delahunt noted that there were items purchased with the money that is supposed to go to dissidents in cuba a gas chain saw game boys play in station play stations mountain bike leather coats cashmere sweaters how is that going to help the dissident community in cuba i would submit not very much but yet the same ones who support increasing this funding by five times also will not support allowing individuals to visit their own family members in cuba and take toothpaste or clothing items or even to take a fishing pole so that poor cubans might supplement their meagre diets that according to the group that wants to increase funding here should be outlawed should continue to outlaw that but increased taxpayer funding for a program to the g a o says there was intense mismanagement cronyism a scathing report that came out lack of bank reconciliation lack of documentation to determine compliance akasher and requirements questionable chat travel expenses lacking adequate determinator documentation questionable expenses paid to family members of a grantee member hundreds of dollars a petty cash has one and one half minutes remaining and a gentleman from new york has one minute remaining don't for thank you a sermon let's let's a see what the dissidents in cuba in a letter and knowing full well the risks they take by sending a letter to members of congress about this issue today what they say about the aid that this program has sent to cuba and is sending quote we can affirm that the aid that for many years has flowed to the pro democracy movement takes into account the vast range of needs from medicine to keep a political prisoner or dissidents from dying to food water filters medical equipment clothing show shoes coats toys for the children of political prisoners who suffer doubly the loss of a loved one and social repression on the streets and in school essential vitamins office supplies the tools of democracy computers printers phones fax machines among others that account for the long list of articles and materials that have been made possible in cuba and they thanked the american people in the same way in which the people of poland and the people of eastern and central europe will be eternally grateful to the american people including the congress of the united states for their support in their day bickel days the dissidents in the pro democracy movement in cuba thanked the american people for they say and what president bush has requested for the rest of the hemisphere is either being funded rich funded or exceeded and yet for the only t perry and police state in the hemisphere the committee has funded it nineteen percent that's not justifiable mr chairman that's what we're asking for the funding fully offset to be at the requested level by the administration please support this amendment thank you for what purpose of the gentleman from virginia right i'm very pleased to yield one minute to the gentle lady from missouri miss emerson thank you woman from missouri recognize the one and let me let me just say very briefly because i don't need to repeat the fact that our taxpayer dollars have spent money for cashmere sweaters mountain bikes and the like that really aren't doing good for our dissidents but i want to also mention the letter that our colleagues from florida mention the one that u s i d sent it did say that this program that we have is doing some good which is why i and my colleagues support the funding that we had in the current bill but what what was not mentioned was that in the same letter the usa id also says that having wrist tricks and restrictions on travel to cuba restrictions on sending goods to cuba don't serve the dissidents well so that begs the question then if if you're if if the letter is important the letter is important in totality i think because of the g a o report and the fact that we do not before we send more money gentlewoman's time to expired for what purpose of the gentleman from virginia writes to strike the requisite number of words gentlemen recognize five minutes i rise in strong support of the amendment and this to bring it back one this has nothing to do with with trade so the trade issue is not even out here it also has nothing to do with the issue of travel and i've asked for a visa to cuban a denied me  of ronald reagan when we brought down communism this is what we did in romania to bring down that challenge s q government so this is a major cut the bush administration funds is to the pro democracy groups in in cuba they need is for training they need just for their journalists they needed for technical assistance they needed for so many other reasons usa id report to us this is supported journalism correspondence courses were two hundred cubans publication or twenty three thousand reports by any bennett you've been journalist on and on this in it's are routinely rounded up if this amendment passes imagine how they'll feel in room in cuba today to know that the united states congress it was and if it fails is not going to do a travel it shouldn't be mixed with that that's a mixed issue it has nothing to do a trade it has what do we do to help the dissidents many who have been in jail armando valid as have been in jail for  ten years and so i would hope that we can come together and send a message that when it's in memphis best their word goes forth as they listen to their radio free cuba tomorrow to know that the united states congress stood with them their way that these two who are risking their lives thousands who are in prison hundreds hundreds recognized as prisoners of conscience by international organizations such as amnesty international they are risking their lives and their family's lives to peacefully advocate for freedom and democracy as those heroes mentioned by mr wolf advocated and risked their lives and eastern and central europe in the one nine hundred eighty s and they finally achieve freedom and have no doubt that they will be the dissidents and pro democracy movement today and people will be fundamental in the transition and they will be leaders in the future tomorrow perhaps received in this congress as the sovereign and elected leader of the republic of cuba perhaps one of those political prisoners today i have no doubt or those opposition leaders to and so it's time to help them and as mr walsh that to send a message of solidarity and not retreat at this critical time served in this congress today if paul were serving here in just like the last word i ride to strike the last little woman's recognizer five minutes before i yield to my colleague i would like to just respond to my good friend the ranking member concerning his concern about the impact on the dissidents i would dare say who is as an american who is proud of our values if we open traveling communication and trade between the united states and cuba they'd really understand what it's like to be an american and i feel that's the best way to free the dissidents and to create an open and democratic society and i'm very proud to yield to my good friend  restrictions that really wanted the people who wanted to remove the restrictions i meant to say it was a letter from the dissidents the cuban dissidents to us and also i might add that the title of the report that our colleague from florida cited is entitled us democratic assistance for cuba needs manage better management and oversight which is why the committee report thing at nine million dollars they're on the island they are fighting the good fight not from the safety of washington and boston on miami but they're there let's start to listen to them this was a statement that was released by four of them prominent well respected on the island it's a statement that was signed by  he's eligible gado it was otto sanchez and vladimir tolka let's listen to what they said let's not reach our own conclusions conclusions here in this house without listening to what they say we consider it very important to achieve greater efficiency in the use of these funds we believe that one possible way to achieve this would be the elimination of a series of existing restrictions on the sending of eight and travel to cuba which doesn't at all help the pro democracy struggle that we are carrying out inside our country with all due respect to the gentleman from virginia it is about travel it is about the embargo because that's what the dissidents are saying to us here and we ought to listen to them and i'll yield to my friend and colleague from massachusetts mr mcgovern and not only listen to the dissidents but listen to the courageous catholic church in cuba which refuses to participate in this program we have had a policy for fifty years that has failed it has been a failure this is a continuation of the same old same old but even if you want to go down that road the reason why you should oppose this amendment is because this program has been plagued with corruption in cronyism we have used taxpayer monies to buy godiva chocolates in cashmere sweaters i mean come on i mean that is not a way to support dissidents that is not a way to support the struggling democratic movement in cuba this program has been gentleman from virginia mr wolf will be recognized in a member opposed each of the recognized for five minutes in opposition jerry recognized the gentleman from i am myself one many other gentlemen the suspend and it million it was cut the end then that we're going to offer today is income compliance with the iraq study group now about two hundred twenty six members of this body said they favor the iraq study study group what this does is explicit money back in for the mining for the mining if you listen to the news today there were thirteen killed with regard to i e d these in the effort for the mining this also puts money in for training for human rights now whether you want to take go out today or whether you want to do whatever you want to do we still need training for human rights we still need training for capacity for democracy and governance we still need a way for reconciliation to bring the parties together always hearing about the differences between the different factions that's what this money is for so i urge members this the administration originally asked for four fifty eight we knocked it down we brought a minute so what do you really need they say this is what we really need this amendment is what the  group report recommended number six says and i'll quote in and building the capacity of the iraqi government should be at the heart of u s reconstruction efforts and capacity building demands additional u s resources chairman i rise in strong opposition to this amendment with great respect to my good in ranking member mr wolf we have just provided two point eight six three billion dollars in emergency supplemental appropriations for iraq diplomatic operations and reconstruction in addition there are three billion dollars for unexpended fund this amendment is requesting one hundred forty million in additional funding for democracy rule of law and governance programs the supplemental provided two hundred fifty million for democracy activities sixty seven point six million for civil society fifty seven point four million for targeted development for one hundred twenty five million and governance programs and one hundred fifty million enroll of law activities the amendment has also requesting sixteen million in additional funding phenomena proliferation anti terrorism and a mining activities the recently passed supplemental  million for di mining in iraq additionally nowhere in this bill is the language restricting funding for humanitarian activities in iraq in my judgment the administration should substantially expand the funds we have provided before congress provides additional funding for the same purposes and lastly if the situation on the ground changes and our assistance can be used to make substantial achievements we can address funding for iraq as the president has requested two point eight nine three billion in emergency appropriations for diplomatic operations and reconstruction in iraq in fiscal year two thousand and eight so my colleagues my good friend is requesting one hundred fifty eight million for purposes that have already been funded in a two point eight billion dollars supplemental and there's another two point eight nine three billion dollars supplemental coming up in september i know that one hundred fifty eight million can be used for the tremendous needs around the world so i strongly oppose this amendment and i ask that my colleagues join me and i yield back the balance of all i i reserve the balance  bill for democracy governance rule of law and human rights programs in addition it will fund nonproliferation and anti terrorism programs mr chairman the debate in this chamber over the future of iraq and the best course of action has been passionate and divisive each member of this house has their own opinion yet the one thing we should be united on is that our end goal should be the same a secure and stable iraq unfortunately this bill predetermines failure by cutting off all funds to important democracy building programs in iraq the majority has chosen to use this bill as they have attempted several times already this year to force a premature end to rex pursuit of freedom and democracy this will only lead to chaos and instability in the region and as a consultant to the iraq study group along with mr wolf for virginia we introduced a bipartisan bil study group recommendations implementation act of two thousand and seven which provides a comprehensive set of recommendations and a plan of action to six lead in iraq included in these recommendations are suggestions for funding democracy governance and rule of law all of the items that are funded by this amendment this bill has garnered fifty two co sponsors from both sides of the aisle who have recognized the potential we have by implementing these recommendations together and moving forward as a united congress if we allow this bill to pass without the money for building in iraq democracy we condemn our mission to failure and declare that the sacrifices we made over the past several years were in vain it will also squander any opportunity we have to give the iraq study group recommendations a chance to succeed and i strongly urge my colleagues to support the wall for a minute i yield back the balance i has  i'm very pleased to yield three minutes to the vice chair of this committee my distinguished friend mr jackson gentleman from illinois recognized for three minutes thank the gentle lady for yielding mr chairman and the madam chairman i rise in opposition to this amendment we have just  provided two point eight six three billion in emergency supplemental appropriations for iraq to play mattick operations and reconstruction as the gentleman has accurately noted in committee the funding in the supplemental is tied up due to benchmarks benchmarks that reflect the will of the american people and the congress binge marks that presumably reflect the president's concurrence as he signed them into law been to marks that can be argued are the best interest of iraq in becoming a stable democracy furthermore i believe the gentleman's argument is not valid as the two point eight six three billion we just provided will be available long before this bill comes back from the president's desk assign additionally while i believe we provided sufficient funds for iraq i want to point out that the administration should such dan actually expend the funds that we are provided before congress provides additional funding for the exact same purposes besides congress provided an extension of the authority to da obligate and then to re obligate prior year appropriations to the iraq relief construction fun which as of may first two thousand and seven had three point one one nine billion dollars in unexpended balances in the committee the gentleman raised the issue of this little support as my last colleague raised in his remarks i take a little bit of offense to that because i think that every day our troops our diplomats and aid workers are in harm's way we show the greatest levels of support what's more none of the funding in the gentleman's amendment would go toward providing a safer environment for men and women serving in the country of iraq we just provided two point eight six three billion so let's take the gentlemen's amendment apart for a moment and be clear on what we are considering this amendment is requesting a hundred forty million dollars in additional funding for democracy rule of law and governance programs the supplemental provides two hundred fifty million dollars for democracy activities sixty seven point six million for civil society and fifty seven point four million targeted for development four hundred twenty five million and government's program programs and one hundred fifty million in rule of law activities on page fifty eight line eighteen the amendment is requesting sixteen million dollars in additional funding for nonproliferation anti terrorism and the mining activities i want to make a couple of points about that the recently passed supplemental provided seven million dollars for the mining in iraq we do not appropriate nonproliferation anti terrorism demining related programs accounts by country we appropriate this account by program to allow the administration the flexibility to adjust to emerging priorities and opportunities this amendment would seek to change that and radically affect how the president performs his duties additionally this bill and i want to emphasize this this bill for the first time fully funds t president's request for an a d r something i would note that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle could not claim when they were in the majority at the generator one additional one minute gentlemen of the record i for one additional minute the humanitarian demining account is funded at the president's request level of sixty six point five million dollars it does not need further funding on page sixty three line twenty three of the gentleman amendment where he requests an additional two million dollars the images requesting this two million dollars for foreign language training of iraqi security forces to date we have provided eighteen billion dollars in training for the iraqi security forces two million dollars where does this figure come from we provided eighteen billion dollars and now the distinguished ranking member seeks a ranking republican member seeks an additional two million we have provided sufficient funding and most of these account numbers are unexpended the administr expand those funds we provided before congress provides additional funding for the exact same purposes mr chairman and lastly what's more none of the funding in the gentlemen's the minute would go toward providing a safer environment for our men and women serving in the country of thank our ranking member for human kind to me while there are many disagreements about policy in iraq we can all agree that a military solution is insufficient and more effort is clearly needed on the political diplomatic and economic fronts but i have concerns about what i'm hearing from across the aisle given the history if we look back at the c r at the beginning of the year there's a lack of clarity about how funds could be used by our state department furthermore we saw a marked reduction in human intelligence funding in the intelligence authorization bill in the supplemental economic support funds were basically withheld but they were some funding was restored through administration waivers and now in this bill economic stabilization fund for basically zero did i thank my my colleague our ranking member to patrolling in subcommittee and in full committee to restore this funding and now with this amendment which i believe is very essential to success in iraq he has put forth this effort these funding is clearly important if we're going to to fund the political and economic endeavor in iraq the state department cannot complete its planning and implementation of phase three of putting together these pr reconstruction teams which are absolutely necessary for the success of the mission so it's clear that we need to we need this amendment to pass through allow the state department to plan and move in the post cold war environment we have great responsibilities as a nation and yet we're refusing to fund our state department worthy of this position of responsibility the united kingdom alone which has one fifth the population of the united states has fifty six hundred diplomats worldwide one hundred thirty thousand troops the u s has a mere sixty five hundred diplomats worldwide with one point four million troops and two point five million if you count our reserves i urge the adoption of the of this amendment clearly it's a responsible thing to do to move forward and restore hundred forty million dollars in economic support fund sixteen million dollars in nonproliferation anti terrorism and the mining efforts a critical critical piece to this and two million to increase international military education and training this amendment is a responsible thing to do i urge all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment and gentleman yield back about this time gentleman from that you recommended that we fund this one hundred fifty eight million and yet this amendment takes the money away from the state department a ryan crocker is doing us a perp job we just appropriated two point eight billion dollars in the supplemental the american people have requested and this congress has requested that we see some response to the benchmarks that we say some response on the part of the iraqi government to the benchmarks that have been put in place so if i understand correctly even though the supplemental funded and i'm not going to repeat it every single category that my dear friend the ranking member and my friend mr bustani are advocating for you want to fund a hundred fifty million a fifty eight million dollars with funds from the state department which is supported and best supporting embassador ryan crocker and other ambassadors around the world who are doing such an amazing job representing us i really think there's a disconnect here and i want you to know that for those of us who are opposing this amendment with great respect again to my ranking member we feel that the supplemental that has passed and the two point eight billion that is coming up in september requested by the administration can address these issues if in fact there there is an understanding that they are not being funded adequately so again i strongly object to this amendment i strongly object to taking funds away from ambassador ryan crocker and our other ambassadors around the world and representatives at the state department and i general from arizona mr shattuck general of mary's on a second i for one minute the chairman i rise in strong support of the amended by the gentleman from virginia and i think it's important to focus on this debate there is no challenge greater than this facing america right now it is vitally important that we succeed in iraq and allow that nation to establish a democracy i hear on the other side that what we've amply funded is this already we are imposing dramatic increases in spending in thousands of our other areas a fifty six percent increase in a hiv aids funding alone what message do we stand if we reduce spending in this area at this time i would argue that whether you want out of iraq tonight or whether you support the current course it is vitally important that we send every message we possibly can to the iraqi people and to our nation that we are doing everything we can to support democracy that's what these funds are for of course other funds have been spent but these funds continue the effort to tell the iraqi people we stand with them and these are funds for domestic purposes for their security for governance and for rule of law i believe it is vitally important indeed critically important for our nation that we fund these monies now and i thought you was suggesting that you didn't think that was a good idea that it was more important to add to the two point eight billion another hundred fifty eight billion hundred fifty eight million and take it from the h i b funds but if i misunderstood i apology w which is democracy and rule of law and governance in iraq reclaiming my time for the gentleman believes the two point eight billion in the supplemental is not adequate and we must dead one hundred fifty eight million now even though there's another two point eight billion dollars requested by the president for the fall and i yield to my good friend mr jackson on the from illinois recognized for one minute i thank the gentleman and i think the distinguished chairwoman for using me the time the question here is one of unexpended balances the mimesis requesting an additional hundred forty million dollars for rule of law democracy related programs but the supplemental that is still warm on the president's desk provided two hundred fifty million dollars for those democracy activities and they have not been expended sixty seven point six million for civil society and fifty seven point four million targeted for development for one hundred twenty five million dollars in governance programs and they still haven't been expended one hundred fifty million rule of law activities that have not been expended as we move forward with the surge and so mr chairman it is premature to request a hundred and forty million additional dollars page forty line twenty six of the gentlemen's request on the gentleman's amendment for monies that have not been expended that the congress just vote on in this particular bill the same can be said of the gentleman's requests on page fifty eight line eighteen and page sixty three line twenty three two million dollars we have eighteen billion time i want to yield to the gentleman from connecticut and memory should know mr shays has been there seventeen times and has been outside the i os on the umbrella of the military four times and probably understands this issue in the know that you are focused on a lot of issues and i congratulate you for that we have a disagreement on a few issues in a very significant bill i have a strong concern about the lack of any dollars for economic development in the f y o eight budget and that's what we're talking about we're not talking about an emergency supplemental which by the way has lots of strings attached which may mean ironically money will not be spent we want to succeed in iraq republicans and democrats economically politically and socially and militarily we want to succeed that the challenge is i feel like you're pulling the rug out from under the chance to succeed economically and politically and the reason why i say politically is i've been there for the elections particularly the first one this money helped educate  iraqis on how to have elections and they did elections better than we do in the united states when i was outside the umbrella of the military people would say why have you put my father my uncle my brother my cousin my my son out of work when we abolished all of their military so when i hear that we spent eighteen million dollars billion dollars to reconstitute a military that's not a large number it's money that had to be used because of what we did we attacked them they didn't attack us and we have a moral obligation i believe to put iraq in a better place if we don't do it economically and politically any effort militarily fails and and i mean no disrespect but it's almost like there is an interest in having iraq fail so all the predictions that it would fail will be proven right and we need to prove ourselves wrong we need to succeed this toddlers should be in my judgment  count not in an emergency supplemental whether now or in the future the administration asked for four hundred fifty eight billion million we asked them to say what are your absolute needs for economic support the rule of law governance and democracy and they've come back to us and said we need one hundred fifty eight billion a million i'm sorry and i just hope that the gen lady in her wisdom will reconsider her decision gemma's time has expired all time for debate has expired for what purposes the gentleman from new york writes i just rise to strike the last word and with great respect again for our ranking member and for my friend mr shays who i know has been to iraq many times i do hope that in light of the supplemental which has been funded a two point eight billion dollars and an additional supplemental which will be presented to the congress in september for another two point eight billion dollars we won't cut the rug under our good friend the co ambassador ryan crocker and take this one hundred fifty eight million dollars from the state department for several lines that have already been funded in the supplemental i won't go through that again mr ryan crocker represents us and i am so proud of his good work i would like to support him and of the other good men and women in the state department around the world so let's defeat this amendment night urge my colleagues to vote you i think the chairman for for yielding and i fully support the amendment offered by my good friend from virginia mr wolf this amendment gives vital assistance for demining counterterrorism rule of law program funding for iraqi military training in international human rights we must remain committed to assisting the development of iraq into a nation that is capable of governing itself sustaining itself defending itself and independently taking all necessary actions to root out terrorists and militias that seek to undermine the transition to a free and sovereign iraqi government continue to promote democracy and the rule of law continue to provide necessary services to the people of iraq and maintain the authority of the government of iraq in all parts of his national territory my colleagues seek to cut intricate components of our efforts for cooperation and coordination with iraqi leaders mr wolfson amendment correctly is aimed at strengthening the iraqi government to make sure that that nation can truly become self reliant and stable and not count on the u s as a blank check any longer thank you mr chairman i yield back those in a gentle lady has been very good and i appreciate miss lowey on a lot of the issues as mr sze said there is a lot of really good things in the bill this in closing deals with the whole issue of the mining human rights training criminal justice rule of law and human rights none of these things really ought to be controversial for anybody whatever their positions also they fit into the recommendations of the iraq study group and i think that offer an opportunity to heal and to build the sector the civilian sector in iraq on these issues of human rights trainees so that when the united states is out there will be respect for human rights so the criminal justice the rule of law and with that intent of the gentleman's amendment that these funds would somehow not be subject to the benchmarks established in the supplemental bill for funding and future funding at iraq is this we asked the ministration to come up and tell us what they really needed because we said this is a very difficult issue the gentle lady put a lot of programs with good money and what the honestly need and so everything would be in compliance with the benchmark but it would also give them initial funding and they say we actually need this one hundred fifty eight million dollars and so they but they would be to answer a question they would be in compliance with if the gentlemen would continue to yield to one final question if in fact and i certainly hope that the iraqi government is able to achieve that benchmark if in fact for whatever reason they are unsuccessful in achieving the benchmarks and the congress of the united states history contemplate elements of the supplemental and additional funding for the efforts that iraq does this gentleman's amendment appropriate dollars that are not subject to the specific requirements of the benchmarks established in the supplemental is this a funding in addition to that zero eight and these are the all issues recurring light on all issues that i think everybody on both sides republican democrat independent moderate conservative would be for if you go out on the street and say do you favor funding the bill for demining i think you'd probably get a ninety ten yes and if you said you favor funding for human rights training whatever the case may be people would say yes do you favor with regard to human rights rule of law it would say it was say yes this is what the administration and the state department not so much the administration the state department really felt that they would that they would need and with that if the general i think they don't feel that i am back to balance my balance of his time all time has order of the house on wednesday june twentieth two thousand and seven the gentleman from connecticut mr shays and a member opposed it will control five minutes the chair recognizes the gentleman connecticut thank you to describe this amendment this amendment would provide one million to the u s institute of peace referred to as u s ip for the purposes of reestablishing the iraqi study group to have them visit iraq one year later to a value wait the condition in iraq one year later to look at their findings and compare them to a year ago and to look at their recommendations to see where they might alter their recommendations i have that's what the amendment does i've spoken to richard solomon at the u s institute of peace who said that the institute is prepared to do this to to reconstitute its expert working groups i would say that this would be done at the same time that we are going to hear from a baster ryan crocker and general david petraeus who will be giving us their findings but the institute wanted to make clear that they would not be there to look and evaluate the crocker betrayers findings and recommendations but it would simply be a report that would be provided at the same time to which people then could compare i spoke to one of the principals of the iraqi study group lee hamilton he said that they are willing to take this effort on provided it is to review what they did to look at what's taken place in iraq to review their observations their findings their recommendations but they would not be eager to take the betrayers crocker report and then analyze it but it would be in in support of the gentleman cement the amendment will move one million dollars from the diplomatic and consular programs account to the united states institute for peace to reconstitute the iraq study group and although i feel compelled to point out the likelihood that that by the time this bill is signed into law the study on the effectiveness of the president's surge in iraq will have passed but nevertheless i support this amendment because i feel there is value added to was her general of new york reserves down for time gentleman connecticut i'd like to grant myself thirty seconds and say to the gentle lady thank you very much a point out the iraqi study group was an instrument created by both sides but particularly by mr thank mr shays for offering i think this is really the way that the country is going to go there may very well be a vote here mr your all and other members with mr shays mr call have a deal and to make the iraq study group the policy vote in that pursuit the classics of rule eighteen further proceedings any amendment offered by the gentleman from connecticut will be postpone will read age five line thirteen capital investment son fifty nine million sixty two thousand dollars office of inspector general thirty two million five hundred eight thousand dollars educational and cultural exchange programs five hundred one million four hundred thousand dollars representation allowances eight million one hundred seventy five thousand dollars protection of foreign missions and officials twenty eight million dollars to remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine and d c security construction and maintenance seven hundred twenty nine million eight hundred ninety eight thousand dollars in addition for cost of worldwide security upgrades in addition for administrative expenses six hundred seven thousand dollars payment to the american institute in taiwan sixteen million three hundred fifty one thousand dollars payment to the foreign service retirement and disability fund one hundred  fifty eight million one hundred thousand dollars to international organizations contributions to the international organization or just one billion three hundred or more million the four hundred thousand dollars he was driving a  amendment will increase our funding of international counterterrorist programs while also calling out the united nations for its continued reluctance to recognize and fight international terrorism now we are at war with an enemy whose tactics not only of involve the destruction of noncombatants women little children people just trying to work or buying something at the market their tactics depend on such destruction terrorists described i this regard the rules of warfare and strike at pure innocence they wear no in uniform and often do not even care about the savings of their own lives despite the fact that the world is in the throes of the violence of terrorism the un has done so very little to fight this threat on humanity the un marks progress against terrorism by how many committees they have formed and how many documents have been signed we need a world body that does not consider an expanded bureaucracy as success we need a world body that is a partner in the war on terror instead the u n spends a symes passing toothless resolutions on counterterrorism that even countries such as iran libya and syria can support these nations will continue to funnel money to terrorist organizations like hamas hezbollah and the mojave army knowing that there will be absolutely no repercussions from the un so my amendment proposes to shift twenty million dollars as approximately just three percent of the u s contribution to the un to anti terrorism assistance programs see if the un is unwilling to join the fight against terrorism then we should reallocate our dollars a proportion of the funds intended to put them so they the programs that are truly working to bring real peace to the world and with that mr chairman i reserve the balance the gentleman reserves the balance of this time gentleman from new york i rise in opposition to this this amendment would cut twenty million dollars from the contributions for international peacekeeping organizations from international organizations the question posed by this amendment is straightforward do you want to take the fun away from an account that is saving lives every day around the world former defense secretary donald rumsfeld last year told senate appropriate is that un peacekeeping was an example of the benefit of them powering partner nations and it would cost the united states taxpayers almost eight times as much of course  i apologize we are responding to another amendment would the gentleman please clarify your amendments so we could direct our debate to the appropriate amendment is this the one that you are going to offer and withdraw that exactly her time gentleman from new jersey yes to the gentle lady i've yet i have not yet officially withdrawn my men and i would appreciate a comment from the gentle lady with regard to her do apologize to the gentleman because the order was changed of the amendments and international peacekeeping is very important to me but as soon as i understand what you're memon is that you're going to withdraw i'd be delighted to comment on the gentleman ok excuse me sir could the gentleman read designate the amendment that seems to be a question my comments were concerning we were  jersey page eight line eighteen after the dollar amount insert reduced by twenty million dollars page fifty eight line eighteen after the dollar amounts are increased by twenty million dollars the peacekeeping mission which is what the general lady was referring to here instead is to take money from the un's international organizations line and re designate those twenty million dollars to join us in the fight against terrorism as my opening comments to the chair stated that the un has done a willfully poor job when it comes to fighting terrorism around the world we only have to look at the situation in the in the sudan and to far where they are not even able at this late date to define and tell us that a genocide is going on my goodness the did the un has not been able to grapple with the definition of what a a genocide is let alone take response of action to try to bring it to an end likewise in the area of terrorism the un has again willfully and woefully been failure to step up to the plate and to be an instrument in fighting and combating terrorism with so many other world and  the united states obviously taking the lead in that course if the u n is not going to be the international body to step up and to take the affirmative actions in these in these areas then i think it's incumbent upon us here in this house to make sure that our dollars our limited american taxpayer dollars do not go to an organization the u n and international body that is not getting the job done but in said to reallocate those dollars to reallocate just three twenty million dollars that's only three percent of the u s contributions to the united nations to anti terrorism assistance homeland security fighting terrorism and terrorism is one of the hallmark principles that i come to congress to fight against the work on and to cheaper it and results on and this legislation this amendment will go to that and with that i reserve the balance the gentleman from the jersey reserve the balance of this time for what purposes the gentleman from new york writes i would like to respond to the gentleman from new jersey i do believe that nonproliferation must be a key focus of this committee and this congress in fact in this bill because of the recommendations of so many members of our subcommittee and members of the congress we have increased money the nuclear nonproliferation efforts so i look forward to working with the gentleman on this issue as we move ahead however i do think that you cut off dues to the u n and then when we need the u n they wonder what are we going to do if we didn't have a united nations i look forward to working with the gentleman from new jersey in strengthening the committees of the u n in working together to face the tremendous we tremendous challenges we have internationally so i support the gentleman skin cern's about nuclear nonproliferation i look forward to working with the gentleman but i strongly oppose taking the money from u n dues and i yield i'm aereo for the gentleman from illinois and i'm very pleased  the gentleman from illinois for how much time i think the gentle lady for for yielding let me be clear recognize for two minutes i thank the gentleman thank you mr chairman we are in opposition to the gentleman's amendment i understand that the gentleman is going to withdraw his amendment and let me be clear the various organizations international organizations for which this account is designated and to do that we paid not only to the u n but to other member organizations that our country is a part of believe me when i tell you the state department has made it very clear in each of those organizations that we are in a global war on terror and our contributions to those organizations part of our mandatory obligations to those organizations for which the gentleman  cut funding would quite frankly undermine our ability to maintain our own status within those international organizations as we try to direct the global war on terror the spirit of the gentleman's amendment which some aspects of it are actually covered in the supplemental bill and some aspects of it are obviously covered in our bill is something that very difficult to argue against twenty million additional dollars for demining activities part of this amendment was offered by the ranking member mr wolf in his amendment and it's something in principle that we can support but sufficient in this bill are the resources to advance democracy activities and the mining activities but by cutting aid to international organizations and contributions cutting our amendment is now that go to that point this amendment simply goes to the point of taking money from the international organizations funds and trying to fight it fight terrorism and so with that i yield back my time and not withdraw the man the gentleman does not withdraws and them and they yield back the balance of gentleman has not withdrawn of them and then make it let me make it clear i think on behalf of the distinguished chairman love and the committee that we rise in opposition to the cement wall time for the vague has expired i think the question is on the adoption of the amendment fox and a member opposed each will control five minutes the chair recognizes gentleman from north carolina thank you mr chairman the minimum offering would restart or funding level for international organizations provided in this bill to the fiscal year two thousand and seven seven level the purpose of my men is to fall first it would bring help bring accountability to organizations that have demonstrated limited effectiveness second this amendment would help control the out of control federal deficit this keeps the funding level at last year's level which is very reasonable in fiscal year two thousand and six total interest payments on treasury debt securities amount to four hundred five point nine billion or about fourteen percent of federal outlays that amounts to one point seven percent of the u s g d p translated that means one point seven cents of every dollar produced by americans is used to pay interest on the federal debt as a percentage of p the federal debt ratio is larger for the united states and is in finland ireland spain switzerland and the united kingdom by any measure it should be clear to any responsible fiscal steward that congress needs to do more to deficit spending to help reduce the federal debt my man would take a small but much needed step in that direction with a little help from the majority party in congress we could reduce unnecessary spending and return more money to the american injured in the first place secondly i wonder if our constituents what our constituents think if they knew they were being forced to pay millions for perpetual never ending funding increases for organizations such as the international bureau for weights and measures the international coffee association the international copper study group the international hydrographic organization the international lead and zinc study group the international rubber st group and the world organization for animal health given the tremendous amount of funding contained in the bill for the united nations i'm particularly interested in encouraging that body to reexamine its spending habits so it can be more effective fulfilling it mission as most would agree the purpose of the united nations is to help promote peace and security throughout the world our of it is obviously fail miserably in that respect iran's nuclear weapons program is charging along at a rapid pace threatening israel ne entire region genocide persists in sudan all the lancet the united nations can even agree on a definition for the word terrorism in an age where terrorism remains one of the biggest threats to humanity and civilization furthermore despite the implicit purpose of the united nations human rights council to promote loose global human rights this body has among its membership notorious human rights abusers such as angola china cuba egypt russia and saudi arabia iran serves as the vice chair of the un disarmament commission syria is the rapid tour of the un disarmament commission zimbabwe is the chair of the un commission on sustainable development and sudan serves on the executive committee of the n high commissioner for refugees and if that wasn't enough an examination of the right list of countries subject to the most un condemnation for human rights violations in two thousand and six reveals israel ranking first having received one hundred thirty five actions nearly twice as many as sudan the next country listed and more than the number of actions directed at iran china colombia cuba saudi arabia and syria combine the united states ranks fourth on this list having been subject to thirty eight actions this indicates the united nations is more interested in condemning israel and the united states than it is in horrendous human rights abusers throughout the world with that being said the part of my memory should draw support from both sides of the fact that my mema doesn't cut a dollar from us spending on international organizations my meme simply maintains a fiscal year two thousand and seven level by holding the line on spending congress  another year to work on balancing the books and finding other ways to fund the increased spending proposals contained in the underlying bill mr chairman a time when americans are being asked to do more with their budgets it's only reasonable to expect the same out of those who benefit from generous american donations that is why it should be clear to all of my colleagues why they should support my member of our reserve the balance of the john gentleman from north carolina reserves the balance of our time for what purposes the gentleman from new york wri address the effect our rears have on our standing in the world community at a time when the united states is increasingly relying on international organizations to further our security interests around the world short changing our treaty obligations our contributions undercuts our foreign policy goals and undermines our reputation around the world it also countermands our new  to pay our dues in full and on time as of today the united states has two hundred ninety one million and arrears at the u n for regular budget contributions alone the united states has chosen to belong to each of these organizations they leverage u s taxpayer dollars and advance a wide range of u s foreign policy objectives including monitoring monitoring nuclear proliferation through the i a e a creating norms international telecommunications to the i t you then involve global pandemics through the w h o the administration and the congress have underfunded and cut this account in recent years this amendment would continue this organization in this account shortfalls to this c i a o account in two thousand and six because the state department to pay all of its regular dues to the i a e a almost a full year late even as we year late even as we asked w h o to help contain avian flu and pay the vast majority of our regular dues to nato a year or two so late even as we relied on that  shore up security in afghanistan this amendment has no appreciation of the influence this increasing trend of paying late and underfunding international organization has on our ability to sway others it is difficult to justify why our prayer or they should be given full consideration when we chronically pay our dues late paying these international organization late is counterproductive to achieving united international security goals the increasing trend of paying late and underfunding international organization confounds us demands for better management in them an example of this detrimental effect is seen that's the world health organization which reports that the arrears oh by the united states are preventing well managed budgets and resulting in programs not reaching optimal effectiveness for a year or more after they were planned to be fully operational further our dues paying countries take note when the united states fails to honor its commitments in these international organizations as a result our influence on making budgetary  policy decisions and them lesson for example the u s consistently wants the food and agricultural organization to increase its capacity to set world wide food and plan standards yet it's very difficult to justify why u s priorities for the f a o shall be given full consideration when the us is chronically paying its dues they are about a year late therefore i strongly object to the gen woman's amendment and i i reserved about gentleman york reserves about her time gentlewoman from north carolina has thirty seconds remaining thank you mr chairman i appreciate what my colleague has said but these organizations do nothing to help the security of the united states the u n is an ineffective and corrupt organization and are continuing to provide much of its funding implicitly endorses that corruption ineffectiveness if we put this to a vote of the american people died say fun nothing of the united nations keeping this a level funding is the right thing to do i yield that gentleman's time has expired that miss gentlewoman from new york at thirty seconds remaining i yield balance of my time to mr jackson thank the gentle chairman will chairwoman well here we go again cutting a multilateral account that allows us to have hold our head up high in the international community as we organize the international community in the global war on terror in favor of unilateralism to fight the war on terror we must be multilateral and not unilateral u s ambassador to the u n callil assad said pay our dues on time and pay it in full and every time there's a crisis that confronts our country we run to the un we run to the international community demanding their involvement to help provide security for the american people mr chairman reject this amendment general other things they stood by and frankly didn't do very much in rwanda either but what this amendment would do i think is people have to look at this would actually cut nato fees and n is sort of the backbone of what we're doing in afghanistan and many other places but particularly forty one million dollars out of this fun game to nato also on the world health organization with regard to avian flu and things like that this is not the time to do that also is another issue that i have personally made a cause of funding a war crime try tribunals to bring people to justice this w the war crimes tribunal in rwanda were over eight hundred thousand people have died between hutus and tutsis and that whole issue also the former yugoslavia where after the genocide took place  was brought to the court so for those reasons i understand what the general lady's trying trying to do but i think this would be the wrong place to kind of do it because from nato and i a e a and the world health organization and the world  and the war crimes tribunals lastly this is at the request of president bush of the bush administration this is what the bush administration president bush has requested and so for those reasons from texas mr mccall and a member of post each will control five minutes chair recognizes gentleman i thank chairman arise day to offer an amendment that will partially restore the administration's funding request for the international narcotics control and law enforcement account in the f y o eight state department and foreign operations appropriations bill this amendment would add thirty million dollars to the count halfway between the committee funding level and the president's request that this is a b and like to think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle mr quaoar for his support as an author and co sponsor that earlier this month i attended the u s mexico in a parliamentary group in austin texas and for three days we talked about issues important to  the united states and mexico the major topic discussed was the issue of increasing violence and lawlessness along the us mexico border the drug cartels have taken control over northern mexico and law enforcement has become corrupt  ineffective since his inauguration earlier this year president calderon has begun a renewed effort to reach stablish law enforcements control over his country and their borders however the drug kingpins are ruthless in their efforts to retain control and the mexican government's law enforcement cape bill these are sorely outdated just recently the drug cartels brazenly order the assassination of the mexican state legislator i'd like to take a moment to commend here woman lally and the ranking member walt for including twenty seven point five million dollars in the bill for this effort and for recognizing in the report language of the bill the need to address this problem which so devastatingly impacts our southern border our national security and the citizens of this country however i believe that additional funding would go a long way to eradicating the drug cartels the offset in this amendment is thirty million dollars a reduction in the contributions to the international organizations account i believe it's a worthwhile transfer of funds to see that will benefit not only our border with mexico but our counter drug efforts worldwide one of the most important or national peacekeeping efforts today should be on the sort southern border against the violent criminal enterprise of the narco traffickers the cartels control the corridor routes into this country exporting drugs and human trafficking across our southern border and the intersection between these criminal enterprises and potential terrorists could be deadly in the post nine eleven world we can no longer continue to ignore this threat at a time when the newly elected mexican government has stepped forward and made a commitment to reform its law enforcement and combat the drug cartels it is important that we provide as much funding and resources as possible to the international narcotics control and law enforcement program i urge my colleagues to support this know we have a perfect opportunity at this time and i think mr mccaul under census since we've been working on this for a while that they have a president president calderon that's willing to go ahead and take on the powerful drug cartels the from the right of texas i see what's been happening across the river we had talking about one of the congressman my counterpart right across all right another level just there was an attempt to assassinate him he ended up in the hospital his chauffeur got killed because again he wanted to go ahead and fight the drug cartels it is extremely important that we provide this extra funding because if we don't do what you're going to have you going to have a bigger problem that what we're seeing right now across the river it is permeated not only the law enforcement it's not colleague will be want to do that that if we can withdraw this amendment i believe we have a commitment from the chairwoman that in conference committee she will go ahead and increase the dollars because we need more than what's been appropriated so far what's currently in the in the important work with mr mccall on this issue i understand the urgency and the impact of methods amphetamines in your areas and the tremendous negative impact on the people you represent i have a problem with the offset therefore if you will withdraw this amendment i'd be delighted to work with the gentleman as we approach our conference in increasing money money for this very important need i will consider withdrawing the member i'd like chertoff he understands this i've met with the mexican congress they understand it our state department actually does understand this and while they may not ask overtly would would really could use these funds to confront this threat i would ask in exchange for withdrawing that we try to come as close as possible to the number i have requested and that that money be directed towards the threat that mr quaoar and i see so often down and in a border state i would say to the gentleman that in my discussions with mrs quale our he is very clear about the urgency of this issue when the impact of these concerns on the citizens that you both represent so i'd be delighted to work with you and we will certainly search for funding as close to the numbers you mention as we possibly can and again the only issue with this amendment was the offset not the quickly read page nine line eighteen contributions for international peace keeping activities one billion three hundred two million dollars for what purposes the gentleman from new jersey wri amendment and then that number sixteen printed in the congressional record offered by mr garrett of new jersey persimmon to the order of the house of wednesday june twentieth two thousand and seven the gentleman from new jersey mr garrett and a member of post each will control five minutes and a chair recognizes gentleman from new jersey thank you mr chairman first of all let me begin by saying that i am pleased please that the committee has taken steps to see that the united nations peacekeeping forces are not and will not be engaged in human trafficking or other sex crimes but i'm concerned that the language in the bill quite frankly does not go far enough the facts are that between two thousand and four and two thousand and six one hundred and seventy nine peacekeepers from the un under their charge under their control were dismissed or repatriated following investigations for sex crimes yet only a very few of these have been successfully prosecuted for their crimes earlier this year the daily telegraph newspaper revealed that members of the un force in southern sudan had abused children as young as twelve and just last year the us tried to claim that these reports were just unfounded rumors but only after these reports to the un admit to repatriating for individuals for these crimes yet none of these four have ever been prosecuted in their home country of bangladesh just this week the government of sudan agreed to a substantial peacekeeping force in the far we must ensure that the people of to far who have been subject to a systematic rape and violence constituting genocide do not suffer further at the and so the people who are there to protect them i'm concerned that the language in the present bill that the quote to hold accountable the un these individuals will mean that peacekeepers will continue to get away scot free all national armed forces have processes for court mar and punching crimes committed to their personnel the u n must see to it that these countries offering peacekeepers actually apply their system of justice when a crime is committed you know the un is supposedly committed to high ideals of human rights and justice we are merely asking that they keep them to ensure that their own personnel and others operating under the u n flag do not use their position to commit gross crimes let us be clear that the united states taxpayer funding these important missions will not stand for this injustice i'd reserve the balance of my time it serves the balance of this time for what purpose is the gentleman from new york rice i accept the gentleman from  don't new jersey and i thank the general a d for accepting the amendment because i do believe as i'm sure she does as well that this is the right thing to do for the people of the world and not only for the people here in the united states as well and with eleven line for international commissions for necessary expenses to meet obligations of the united states arising under treaties international boundary and water commission united states and mexico six thousand dollars salaries and expenses thirty million four hundred thirty thousand dollars construction fifteen million seven hundred twenty five thousand dollars american section international commission ten million six hundred thirty thousand dollars international fish greece commissioned twenty six million dollars other payments to asia foundation fifteen million dollars center for middle eastern western dialogue trust fund for unnecessary expenses of the center for middle eastern western dialogue trusts one eisenhower exchange the fellowship program for necessary expenses of eisenhower exchange fellowships incorporated as authorized israeli arab scholarship program for necessary expenses of the israeli arab scholarship program as authorized national endowment for democracy for grants by the department of state to the national endowment for democracy as authorized eighty million dollars related agencies amendment offered by mr mack of florida pursuant to the order of the house of wednesday june twentieth two thousand and seven the gentleman from florida mr mack and a member opposed each will control five minutes the chair recognizes gentleman from florida while we in this chamber can debate and freedom and the american people can hear and see our every word thanks to a free press but in hugo chavez venezuela the only thing the people can see or hear are the things that he's a chavez left his media print and broadcast freedom of the press died in venezuela on may twenty seventh two thousand and seven when chavez shut down r c t v this was just the latest in a long line of actions to snuff out free press free speech and free thought by shutting down the largest and oldest t v network in the country chavez is sending a message to all other media that he has the power to do anything he wants to with radio and television stations in venezuela the government is targeting opposition voice because of their massive reach appeal and influence throughout the country chavez said and i quote i'm going to go after all those who resist the revolution and eliminate them one by one end quote and this was in reference to one of the only remaining independent voices left in venezuela as the window of independent media in venezuela closes voice of america will play a critical role in getting the truth out about what is happening in the country voice of america must provide and create additional programs with targeted funding voice of america can have an even greater ability and capability to broadcast longer with more programming voice of america serves as  significant counter to chavez's propaganda being exploited in nicaragua bolivia ecuador and cuba mr chairman my amendment would significantly grant the broadcasting board of governors the tools to increase broadcasting to venezuela and latin america chavez's communist plans for the future do not include independent media and freedom of the press we must recognize the war on terrorism is in our backyard the gang of countries lining up w is powerful bolivia ecuador nicaragua and others together with the likes of iran we must recognize a serious threat to our national security in fact just this morning chavez announced plans to visit iran and a few weeks following a long courtship between the two countries the window of freedom is closing fast we cannot turn our backs on the people of venezuela we must do more to promote freedom with inside venezuela america has always been a beacon of freedom in our hemisphere now we must be the pillar of hope for the people of venezuela and our friends and neighbors in latin america who fear hugo chavez and his communist revolution i reserve the balance of my time time for what purpose does the gentlewoman from the or cry i want to thank the gentleman for bringing this issue to the attention of the house international broadcasting is an essential component of our nation's public diplomacy strategy enjoys broad bipartisan support in our committee the bill before the house include six hundred seventy one point six million to the international broadcasting operations of the b b g it restores over thirty million in cuts to b b language services proposed in the president's budget it includes program increases requested for high priority areas such as two point nine million for broadcasting to north korea point five million for enhanced broadcasting to somalia one point two million for radio sahwa in the middle east five point zero million to maintain b b g s broadcast capability and the matter of broadcasting to venezuela is an emerging issue and i commend the chairwoman for accepting the amendment venezuela is going down the wrong path and i think this will help us set a new course so the people of venezuela can continue to enjoy the freedom and democracy they deserve thank you want to thank you for your hard work in ensuring the funds spent in iraq are properly overseen your bill on the floor day contains a section concerning the special inspector general for iraq reconstruction that extend the authorities of that office the national defense authorization act which came out of the armed services committee and passed the house on may the seventeenth contained a provision was similar goals that i had worked out with chairman lan of the foreign affairs committee and i want to think first the chairwoman for pursuing this issue so strenuously and also i express my appreciation that we are able to work out a way forward so that our two committees work together on the issue rather than pursuing separate hands rather than contesting at this time the inclusion of this authorization language in the state department foreign operations and related programs appropriation bill arise  subject we included the secure provision in our procreation fail to ensure that this subject does not fall out somewhere in the process you and i agree completely on the importance of the segre office i look forward to working with you to make sure that the version ultimately included in the national defense authorization connect conference report achieves the goal our respective bills laid out it is my intention to drop section six ninety six of the state foreign operations appropriation act in conference so that we do not end up with competing versions of the same language let me sincerely thank the chairwoman to look forward page fifteen line four broadcasting capital improvement ten million seven hundred forty eight thousand dollars commission for the preservation of america's heritage abroad salaries and expenses bacon four hundred ninety nine thousand dollars i appreciate the gentle woman's courtesy as i appreciate the hard work that she and her committee have done bringing forward i think a really terrific bill i wish to enter in madam chair at the end of two thousand and five congress passed the senator paul simon water for the poor act with broad bipartisan support at the time it was called landmark legislation unfortunately today it's clear that the intent and many of the legal requirements in the water for the poor act are not being met by the state department and usa id earlier this month the state department delivered its second report on the required drinking water and sanitation strategy unfortunately it continues to be more of a recitation of the work they're doing rather than a strategic forward will looking roadmap to move from the current state of access to achieving the international commitment to cut in half the percentage of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation while our legislation was specifically written so that it would improve aid quality at any level there was also a call to increase the amount of resources devoted to the very poor for instance as part of the strategy rick we required an increase in the percentage of assistance going to high priority countries defined as countries with the greatest need and countries in which assistance would be expected to make the greatest difference many if not most of these countries would be in sub saharan africa for too long the state department has used disaster funding to artificially inflate the numbers that used to meet congressional requirements instead of giving the necessary focus to long term sustainable access to straight drinking water and sanitation for the poor for too long subsaharan africa has gotten funding that is inversely proportional to the level of need for too long the state department has treated water for the poor act as if it were a guideline or a suggestion rather than a law passed by congress and signed by the president that they're obligated to fully upline i very much appreciate the work of chairwoman lowy and chairman only for whom i know this is a particular interest i deeply appreciate increasing the overall level of funding for water and sanitation to three hundred million dollars and directing that much of it be spent pursuant to the water for the poor act i hope for the opportunity as we move forward towards conference to work together to ensure that as much money as possible is made available to the long term development of safe drinking water and sanitation programs in the areas of greatest need with the strategy needed to ensure that we're making the most effective use burrage dollar most important i hope that the oprah appropriations committee will continue to help with the oversight needed to make the water for the poor act fully implemented in the united states leads to lives up to our international commitments i appreciate the gentleman to interest in this issue and i applaud your work over the past two years have stated the committee bill increased funding for safe water and by a hundred million dollars him to place parody on long term and sustainable safe water programs through a port provides clear direction to the agency that funding much be provided in accordance with the strategy based on the paul simon water for the poor act finally we shared the gentleman concerned about the reliance on emergency programs to meet this recommendation and will work with the agency in the coming year to ensure that this does not happen again i thank you for raising these issues today i look forward to working together on this issue in the coming year if the gentlewoman will you will yield i you know i i just can't tell you how much i appreciate what you've done and this commitment i appreciate your words and everything the committee has done to make our waterfront investment going to the right places in the right ways for the right things i am reassured your intention that only eighty million of the three hundred million level come from disaster and assistance that's important step in making the necessary long term investments to deal with this leading cause of preventable death in the world i'm particularly pleased by the requirement that funds be spent in accordance with the water for the poor act which was carefully crafted to provide a framework a policy and a goal for ensuring affordable an equable access to safe drinking water and sanitation for the poorest in this world i look forward to the opportunity to continue to work with you there was at one point our colleague chairman payne of the africa subcommittee  was going to be here i thought and i apologize i don't see him but i know he has done outstanding work with the subcommittee and i think between the three of us great things could happen well i thank the gentleman and i know of mr paine's import more on word and i don't want to light it by many ills to my good friend mr payne who is really an expert on africa in all phases of african development and has a keen interest in water and i thank you what i'm kind of the er testified i agree with him that the state department in its two thousand and seven report to congress reflects inflated figures and a lack of concrete strategies for providing substa access to drinking water and sanitation for the poor the millennium development goals a catalyst for the water for the poor aim to reduce by one half the poor proportion of people without access to basic sanitation and save drinking water by two thousand and fifteen due in part to the state department in a fission execution of sustainable programs the m t g target is being missed in the sub  saharan africa which has had the slowest rate of improvement in this category compared with all other regions furthermore the state department reported that in fiscal year two thousand and six the us helped nine million people receive that access to water of the beneficiaries seventy five to eighty percent was in the middle east and twenty five percent was outside this region according to the united nations most countries in the middle east and north africa are on track towards reaching the m d g targets our efforts should be directed to regions such as subsaharan africa which has the highest proportion of people living without access to improved water sources of any region in the world and is not on track to meet its m t g target therefore the one hundred fifty million appropriated to africa in the middle east i feel that more than fifty percent should be allocated to the countries in africa where the need is greatest so i conclude by saying also the state department's water funding in africa has primarily used for emergency relief efforts rather than water supply and management projects that deliver sustainable results in maintaining the vision of the water for the poor act assistance should be focused on improving the sustainable management of drinking water and sanitation i agree with congressman blumenauer and chairwoman lowey that the three hundred million appropriate a fiscal year two thousand and eight a significant amount should be directed toward sustainable water management with programs in africa with the fission execution and adequate funding the objectives of the water for the poor can be accomplished access to the same water and sanitation plays a central role in promoting global public health economic growth poverty reduction and environmental sustainability i look forward to working with congressman blumenauer and congresswoman lowey in increasing our funding to regions with the greatest need and improving the strategies in place to provide the world's poor with sustainable safe drinking water and basic sanitation  riveting and i thought it was the best expression of the needs and the prospect of our subcommittee for not working with your subcommittee with africa being able to focus on this i think is the brightest spot and it's going to make a difference for millions of lives around the world i appreciate your leadership and your focus on this and thank you both for your efforts i thank the gentleman and i yield back and i'm other members have said on your leadership on this particular bill very important bill but what i want to do madam chair is point out two things that you have selected that are very important to about my district south texas the border area the first one has to do with the funding that has been  increased for the international boundary water commission that provides funding for the levees that we have along the u s to mexico border the current but you're right now is that two million dollars you have brought that up now to a to an amount of almost sixteen million dollars this again is appreciated again by my office my constituents but also by congressman ruben and a host of and solomon ortiz that have levee issues down there this isn't it sure that has to be addressed because again we don't want to see what happened in another part of the united states this levee work is very important it's important to the areas of mission by cal and then the other areas in south texas this will go a long way and again madam chair i want to thank you for that also want to thank you for some of report language that you added something that again michael mccall and myself have been very interested in and that is the issue of the trafficking of human what we call human cargo also drugs cash and of course the missing americans as you know there are people that live in the united states that have gone over across the river into a novel idea though and have been kidnapped and have not been found we've been asking the mexican government for years to provide us information so we can bring some sort of closure to this particular situation and again we have not gotten this and we're hoping that the mexican government would provided since information as soon as possible but this report language madam chair that you have added will provided says this incentive and hopefully an incentive to the mexican government to work with us to provide its information on the missing americans again madam chair i want to thank you very very much for adding increasing the amount of the levies from two million dollars to almost sixty million dollars and we have congressman ruben the whole sense of i'm on ortiz we thank you very much for your leadership thank you very much for your kind words and i feel and your important interest in this area and i look forward to continue to work with you thank you thank you thank you madam chair you're line for broadcasting capital improvements ten million seven hundred forty eight thousand dollars commission for the preservation of america's heritage or on salaries and expenses four hundred ninety nine thousand dollars commission on international religious freedom salaries and expenses three million four hundred thousand dollars remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine commission on security and cooperation in europe salaries and expenses two million thirty seven thousand dollars remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine congressional executive commission on the people's republic of china salaries and expenses including not more than three thousand dollars for official representation to remain available until september thirtieth two thousand  united states china economic and security review commission salaries and expenses four million dollars including not more than five thousand dollars for official representation to remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine united states institute of peace operating expenses twenty five million dollars to remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine general provision department of state and related agencies section one zero one funds appropriated shall be available for allowances and differentials as authorized section one hundred two and obligated balances report the department and the broadcasting board of governors shall provide to the committees a quarterly accounting of any and obligated fun section see construction except as provided in subsection be a project to construct a diplomatic facility may not include office space for an employee of a federal agency if the secretary determines that such department has not provided to the department of state the full amount of funding required section one zero for peacekeeping missions none of the funds may be used for any united nations undertaking when it is may known known to the federal official having authority to obligate that the united nations undertaking is a peacekeeping mission section one o five denial of these is one of the funds shall be expended for which appropriations are prohibited by section six one six of the departments of commerce justice and related agencies appropriations act one nine hundred ninety nine section one zero six senior policy operating group the senior policy operating group on trafficking in persons established to coordinate agency activities regarding policies involving the international trafficking in persons shall coordinate all such policies of traffickers section one of seven united states citizens born in jerusalem for certification of nationality of the united states citizen born in the city of  secretary shall upon request record the place of birth as israel section one away egon from an initiative any fun used to implement ego verman initiative shall be subject to the procedures set forth in section six fifteen section one zero nine consulting services the expenditure of any appropriation under title one for any consulting service through procurement contract shall be limited to those contracts where such expenditures are a matter of public record section one ten limitations on diplomatic or consular post in the socialist republic of vietnam none of the funds appropriated shall be expended for which appropriations are prohibited by section six zero nine of the departments of commerce justice and state th related agencies appropriation act one thousand nine hundred nine section one eleven state department of four of these funds appropriated eight funds appropriated under title one of this act for broadcasting board of governors and the department of state may be obligated and expanded section one twelve restrictions on contributions to the united nations none of the funds may be made available to pay any contribution of of the united states to the united nations if the united nations implement any taxation on any united states persons section one thirteen personnel actions any cost incurred relating from personnel actions taken shall be absorbed within the total budgetary resources available section one fourteen restrictions on united nations delegations none of the funds may be used to pay expenses for united nations for united states delegation to any specialized agency or commission if such a commission is chaired by a country which the secretary has determined has provided support for acts of international terrorism titled to export and investment assistance export import bank of the united states inspector general one million dollars  remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine program account the export import bank is authorized to make such expenditures within the limits of funds subsidy appropriation sixty eight million dollars remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and eleven administrative expenses seventy eight million dollars overseas private investment corporation noncredit account the corporation is authorized to make such expenditures and commitments within the limits of funds available to it program account twenty million dollars in addition such sums for administrative expenses to carry out the credit program trade and development agency fifty million four hundred thousand dollars remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine title three bilateral economic assistance funds appropriated to the president for expenses necessary to enable the president to carry out the provisions of the foreign assistance act of one nine hundred sixty one united states agency for international development child survival and health programs fund one billion one hundred fifty five million one hundred fifty thousand dollars remain available and till september an amendment which increases the amounts of valuable in the foreign operations appropriations bill to fight the global spread of tuberculosis by adding an additional fifty million dollars by taking twenty five million from economic support fund account and twenty five million from within the child survival and health program it's a cow according to the world health organization estimates someone is infected with or organisms that develops into tb every second every second and effective person may not develop full blown tb but in two thousand and four the nine million people who were newly infected two million died the good news is that it is entirely curable however the treatment requires patience to be on a drug regimen for six months if they do not can please the regiment or if they complete it but take an incorrect number of pills during the treatment the infection can develop into what is known as multiple drug resistance or m d r t b m t r t b is not responsive to either of the two first line tb drugs and the treatments that are available take longer and more expensive than regular tb medications but as news headlines earlier this month have shown there is an even more deadly threat extensively drug resistant tb x t r tb is not only resistance resistant to the first two first line drugs but also all to three of the six second line drugs the treatment required to cure a patient can be radical including the removal of part of the lung that has been infected earlier this month a georgia man who had been diagnosed with a dangerous strain of tb known as extremely drug resistan in mind that x the our t v has a deadly linkage with h i v and threatens to undermine all of the investments we have made in global fight against h i v and aids the devastating effect  patients with h i v first gained a global recognition last august with reports of an outbreak in a hospital in south africa where fifty two of fifty three patients with h d r tb died half of them died within a matter of sixteen days this tragedy serves as a sobering example of what may happen across africa if we do not act to prevent another outbreak given x the r t b s resistance to both the low cost first line anti drug tb drugs and to several of the classes of second line drugs used we are faced with a burgeoning epidemic driven by h i v infection that is lethal says the initial outbreak south africa medical authorities have documented some four hundred cases in dozens of more hospitals in south africa what is troubling however is that no one knows for sure or that these four hundred cases represent the extent of the outbreak because  typically kills quickly and doctors ability to identify it is severely limited so many people may have simply died without it even being diagnosed experts believe that x d r tb has moved beyond south africa into other countries in the sub region where the capacity to identify it and control it is significantly weaker than in south africa and where each age rate continues to drive the epidemic is a matter of fact there are only two laboratories in forty eight countries in sub saharan africa that have laboratories that can continent that can determine this disease all of us here today must work together to take the necessary steps to enhance the ability of the medical establishment in africa and other developing countries to identify treat and stop the spread of drug resistance t be primarily in africa and to head off further trojans of h x d r tb into the united states failure to do so will result in potentially devastating health catastrophes and with share that none of the twenty five million in this amendment that comes from economic support funds will come out of economic support fun assistance to countries and programs in the middle east or e s fund programs that support afro colombians or e s f programs fund it for sudan liberia and congo e s f programs that are to be channeled towards  counter terrorism initiative or e s f funds that for our for democratic assistance program so i wanted to make that clear so that we know exactly where this funds coming from rise in strong support of the amendment i agree with the intention of the amendment and i thank my friend for raising this important issue as we know tuberculosis is taking a terrible toll on men women children in the developing world with approximately three million people dying every year the recent highly publicized case of extremely drug resistant tuberculosis tuberculosis has brought this issue to the forefront and the additional funding this amendment will be used to strengthen the global tuberculosis treatment and care network i appreciate the gentleman's interest in this issue and would be happy to accept this amendment and i'm very pleased to yield to my good friend the vice chairman of the committee mr jack i thank the general of of the members of the subcommittee because i think their views need to be taken into account while we overwhelmingly support the gentlemens amendment for an increase in fifty million dollars the  offset does have the effect mr paine of robbing peter to pay paul the committee worked very hard to increase the child survival account which is a nother health care account that includes maternal health that includes malaria accounts and we worked very hard to increase the e s f account which does impact profoundly subsaharan africa afro colombian programs and israel and egypt and while these funds are extremely important the subcommittee did the best that it could in the original mark to increase funding for tuberculosis particularly the extremely drug resistant strands of tuberculosis so i rise in strong support of the gentlemens amendment and i also rise in a strong support of the committee's initial mark which did everything it could within its power to increase child survival in the cellphones thank you very much offered by ms jackson lee of texas pursuant to the order of the house of wednesday june twentieth two thousand and seven the gentlewoman from texas ms she would actually in a member oppose we control five minutes she recognizes gentleman from texas i thank the chair very much and let me begin by thanking the chairwoman and her staff and the vice chairman of the committee for working with my office and of course the ranking member and their staff it is evident how hard this committee has worked on a very broad band wide reaching initiative as it relates to appropriations in the foreign relations foreign affairs of this nation as a member of the authorizing committee  recognize that this committee touches the heartbeat of every aspect of the world's business and the importance of the united states and creating internationalism for the greater good of the world  hospitals that in fact will respond to a number of issues my minute reallocates an additional five million to the child survival and disease programs fund to increase the amount of funds appropriated for child maternal health the purpose of this amendment is to direct additional funds for technical assistance to provide capacity building for hospitals in africa that deal with child surviving and other relevant needs we have been if you will screening the research annals of across this congress to try to find out how many full service hospitals are in all on the continent of africa some of said two hundred some say i know that there is one in syria leone some say they know that there is one in in south africa but i can assure you that the plight of women who are pregnant in africa is a severe plight take for example that every minute somewhere in the world a woman dies from pregnancy related causes with ninety five percent of those deaths occurring in africa and asia worldwide about five hundred twenty nine thousand women die from pregnancy related causes every year a woman in sub saharan africa has a one in sixteen chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth part of the care and prevention of such is preventative care the monies that are in this particular account but i also believe part of it is the importance of building full capacity hospitals that deal with women in the maternal aspect and as well and the pregnancy aspect and so this amendment seeks to provide that opportunity and i might cite as an example the mo tembo hospital kinshasa congo it is a hospital that has three hundred beds three operating room and outpatient clinic and emergency room of pharmacy you cannot find that mr chairman across america across africa and therefore i believe there is a definitive need to via the technical assistance so that we don't have to guess what number of hospitals are in and on the continent but that we will know that they look someone like this with operating rooms with expensive sylvie's to provide treatment for mothers and babies treatment that will be lifesaving madam chairwoman let me simply say that i had an experience in a hospital in africa  medical experience was to require sutures in an accident in africa let me thank those medical professionals who helped me be here today but i want you to know that i was laying out on  slab and looking through tattered curtains and looking at the sky as the doctors were working on me that was the hospital that i was in on the continent i do not say it in degradation or insult what i say is i would venture to say that if we go to africa today in many of the countries the kinds of facilities that are there reflect that kind of lack of resources this will help not only in maternal and child survival because of the loss of life of mothers who are pregnant and who give birth which were syllabi that would provide hospital resources but it will also if you will give encouragement to the continent as hope that this amendment will be accepted because it will go a long way for expanding the lives of mothers and children but it will also go a long way for ensuring that we believe in good hospital care excellent hospital care across the continent of africa for perhaps a gentleman from new agree with the intention of the amendment and i really do thank my friend for raising this very important issue this committee made global health the priority in this fiscal year we provided a total of six point five one seven billion dollars for global health then i do agree with the gentlewoman that strengthening the public health infrastructure should be central to our global health strategy so i do appreciate the gentlewoman's interest in this issue and i look forward to working with you to the general a real i you i thank you very much i appreciate the accepting of this amendment and i think it's laying the groundwork and i look forward to working with you as we go to conference we're laying the groundwork about the infrastructure of health care on the continent goes a long way in saving lives i thank you for your leadership in the leadership of the ranking member and i asked my colleagues to support this amendment thank you are you a back up gentlemen for any  let me thank you for your leadership and to the ranking member as well i think we know the story of liberia and i want to applaud the new president of liberia who has visited  us someone who understands economics and is committed to the success of this nation she cannot however do it without friends liberia has a enormously important nexus to the united states it was where slaves were returned back to the continent of africa after having been in slave here in the united states i look forward to reenergize in the relationship not only with the continent but also particularly with the nation of liberia after a very troubling and violent time i knew president of liberia is tracking all of the needs accounting for all of the dollars and my mammoth simply seeks to reallocate an additional five million for republican liberia of the three hundred sixty five million development assistance account the net effect would be to increase developmental assistance to the republic of nigeria to thirty five million let me explain why this would be a wise investment we have heard recently from bob johnson the former chairman of bt who has taken a special interests private sector initiative in liberia and if i recall his remarks correctly he believes that liberia can be on the precipice of a rebirth it can be on the precipice if you will of a renaissance of economic development educational achievement and infrastructure repair in two thousand and three fourteen years of civil war left liberia in shambles nearly two hundred thousand civilians have died nearly a third of the population of one million citizens have been displaced and three hundred thousand have fled the country women are involved in on all sides of the war from come back to slavery to rate child soldiers were involved in this terrible horrific tragedy physical violence often accompanies the rate a highly regarded survey of six selected liberian counties reveal that roughly seven percent of women have been raped during the war moreover female minors were frequently targeted the war ended and as i indicated we now have a woman president liberian president ellen sirleaf underlines this in her statement to the two thousand and six international symposium on sexual violence in studies conducted in many of the countries of liberia in two thousand and four large percentage of women and girls reported that they were victims of various forms of violence this reprogramming of dollars were we focus on the need for developmental assistance that will be able to assist those who are making their first steps their first steps of achievement both in business wise educational wise and building up the confidence of women and men and families turning child soldiers into constructive giving adults and participating with president sirleaf commitment to moving liberia forward as a shining star on the continent i know they know how to do it but we need to give them the extra added tools and to be able to emphasize in this bill that their development is key i asked my colleagues to consider where liberia has been where liberia is today and where they will be twenty years from now i believe in president sirleaf and the commitment  johnson the clinton foundation and many others who have targeted of the liberian people and the liberian government as an achievable goal of economic develop middle educational political democracy from new york rush i rise to strike the last word in one directness mr chairman i rise to accept this amendment and i thank the gentlewoman again for raising an important issue i agree with the intention of the amendment library liberia is certainly has been a priority for us and we support the very important work that the president is doing there we provided total of thirty million in the development assistance account thirty million above the area it encourages the new elected woman president of liberia which we hope and pray for her ultimate success for her people and for the continent of africa i thank the general a date for accepting the amendment and i yield back to the generally i thank the gentleman and or read page thirty five mine sixteen international disaster and famine assistance three hundred twenty two million three hundred fifty thousand dollars transition initiative initiative forty million dollars development credit authority twenty one million dollars in addition forgiveness trade expenses to carry out credit programs administered by the united states agency for international development seven million four hundred thousand when dollars operating expenses of the united states agency for international development six hundred twenty five million seven hundred thousand dollars of which up to twenty five million dollars may remain available until september thirtieth two thousand  capital investment fund of the united states agency for international development eighty seven million three hundred thousand dollars operating expenses of the united states agency for international development office of inspector general thirty eight million dollars to remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine other bilateral economic assistance economic support fun two billion six hundred fifty six million five hundred six thousand dollars to remain available until september area to which i have some concern mr chairman my amendment would designate fifty million in economic support funds for the community action programs also known as cap in iraq the cap program directly engages iraqis  reconstructing their own communities while building a nationwide grassroots constituency for democracy typical cat projects use both u s and iraqi funds and resources to rebuild schools repair water and sewage lines and in the past save the children since two zero three six of usa id's and geo partners have implemented this program in eighteen governance of iraq in order to maintain the security of staff and win the trust of iraqi communities the employer manner to and usa ideas have largely run the program under the radar as a result not enough people are aware of the remarkable success story the cap represents here just a few highlights cappa successfully manage more than six thousand reconstruction and development projects and create more than two point seven million days of employment and thirty four thousand long term jobs was forty three percent of those jobs going to women arac and women in january two thousand and five auto report from id regional inspector general baghdad stated quote based on test performed and eighty nine statistically selected sample projects the cap achieved ninety eight percent of its intended output and read that again based on tests performed and eighty nine statistically selected sample projects the capital ninety eight percent of its intended outputs end of quote communities are contributing between fifteen and twenty five percent of the value of each project that's a racket contributing this contribution is often in the form of labor in kind materials or other provisions in my travels to iraq i have seen firsthand how the cap program improves allies iraqis and most importantly how it helps us accomplish our mission of creating a secure environment for the iraqi people so democracy can prosper it would be a terrible waste of time to turn our backs on such a great investment in fact this is exactly the time to nurture and build on the relations of care partners have forged with the communities furthermore cap provides the foundation in the constituency of the community level that will help ensure the success of other state department civil society programs the cap program as a george strong support from the appropriations committee republicans and democrats alike in the past and an amendment we are for doing last year supplemental appropriations act increase cap of funding by ten million was accepted by the committee the committee noted in this report last year that quote care provides a vehicle for empowering communities building community cohesion and providing evidence that the u s is committed to improving the lives of iraqis and of course we're asking for fifty million to be designated with the economic support funds to ensure the agency can expect a gypsy's can expand and improve the valuable projects they've been implementing for the last several years i urge all my colleagues to support this amendment and i retain the balance of my time believe this is a really critical program and i'd love to work with he won it this amendment would provide fifty million in funding for community action programs there is no funding in this particular bill for iraq operations and reconstructions and as i explained to the gentleman the reason there is no funding in this bill is because of the two point eight billion in the supplemental and the two point eight billion requested in september for the supplemental i want to make  very clear that i agree with the gentleman that the community action program and n g o partnership with usa does really good work in fact kept is the only program of its kind to operate outside the green zone in iraq i've been a strong supporter of their efforts i've met with them repeatedly and i know with their good work by working from the community level up and assisting iraqi moderates who have issues sectarian and insurgent violence the cap partners directly engage iraqis in reconstructing their own communities they create employment they build nationwide grassroots constituency for democracy congress as a priority when it appropriated one hundred million dollars specifically for captain the f y two thousand and six supplemental additionally we just provided ninety five million for cap in the two thousand and supplemental and i want to make it clear to my good friend from connecticut that we put that money in after i met personally with representatives of cap and i understand the important work that they're doing i have spoken to the cap partners they agreed that they do not need any additional funding in the regular f y two thousand a bill they tell me they have enough to continue operations as difficult as it is the they are continuing operations through f y two thousand and eight at the current pace of operation they also noted that they worked very hard to stay under the radar in iraq which is what makes their great achievements possible so they have no interest i want to make it clear from my conversations with them they don't want to be the follow in an iraq funding debate we have made it clear my colleagues once again i want to make it clear that the reason we are not providing additional funding and we cannot provide additional funding to the cat in this bill is because of the two point eight billion in the supplemental on the two point eight billion that's being requested the caps have made it clear they don't need the money now they're operating under the radar and if we're providing zero funding for iraq in this bill they don't want to be part of this debate this is not a partisan issue they're doing very important work it has nothing to do with any of the debate on iraq it's what's needed now and there are tremendous needs around the world that we're trying to fail in this bill so again with great my respect for my good friend mr shays we've worked together on many issues i appreciate you concerns i agree with your concern not in this bill and i look forward to continuing to work with you as we move ahead knight thank the gentleman and i yield ba budget and the challenge we have is that this is the one program more than any others that works it shouldn't be tied to any benchmarks because implementing this program expanding it actually will make it easier for all those benchmarks to be realized i'm not trying to bring more attention to this program i just think it needs to be funded in expanded and this is the be able to do it that you know the balance in my time  i thank the gentleman i mr shays made a good case and the chair is made a good case for this without mentioning the groups or we don't calling attention to them we know the good work that are that we're not going to put things in this is something that would actually work to have success in iraq from the civilian side so i and i would be agree boosh to have this in so i  i agree with everything you said i agree with all the good work that the caps are doing and that is why we appropriated one hundred million and then another one and ninety five million but i want to make it clear that at least from my interaction with the caps and i've had many discussions with the caps they don't need the money now they are operating under the radar they are doing good work and with the supplemental in two thousand eight that is coming up in september they don't need the money now they'd certainly welcome if it is necessary some additional time general a d o happy to you just so the debate is a little more accurate and we'll see how the vote turns out and whether asked for roll call vote or not would it not be fair to say that they can live with the money they have but they would like to have more would be and that they could use more and do more with it i'm not this is not a trick question but i want to make sure for the record we don't make it seem like they have all that they need and can and can use well if the answer to that first question is yes my question to my second question would be would it be the intent of the generated from new york to consider funding this at an now that will enable him to at least doing what they're doing now and possibly more reclaiming my time and again with great respect to the gentleman in connecticut in my discussions with the cab they made it clear that they don't need money now this is now june we just passed the supplemental in september there will be another supplemental they are doing great work and we both admire their work and given the tremendous needs around the world which i know you support the air clean water h i b aids or peacekeeping and we can go on and on that cap made it clear to me that they do not need the money now and therefore i must reluctant way oppose this amendment because i do not want to take the money from any other urgent needs that exist in the world today occurred while you're making them work through that unless by your else but not this and my interest is what your intentions are in the future as it relates not to iraq in general or military forces but the cap agency program i would like to make it very clear to my good friend from connecticut just as they had a hundred million then an additional ninety five million in the last supplemental i certainly would intend to fund this outstanding program in the next supplemental that control five minutes to recognize gentleman from massachusetts i thank you mr chairman and today i rise to ask what for rather straightforward budget neutral amendment that will meaningfully contribute to our campaign against international terrorism and will serve the long term national security interest of the united states by member would provide an additional seventy five million dollars the basic education programs directly reaching pakistani children through the u s agency for international development or provided through local and international non governmental organizations offering reliable and effective basic education services and doing so the amendment serves long term united states national security interests by helping to give pakistani children an educational alternative to extremist jihadi teaching the dresses i'm pleased at the chair of the foreign operations appropriations subcommittee has agreed to accept this amendment and their bill in the committee report the gentlewoman from new york and the rest of the members of the committee have recognized the importance of basic education assistance to our country's long term national security interests this amen complement and build off of those important efforts and i thank the gentleman from new york for her willingness to work with me and accept my amendment the nine eleven commission described a generational struggle against international terrorism stressing the importance that any offensive efforts be accompanied by a preventative strategy they also know that it is hard to overstate the importance of pakistan in the struggle against islamic terrorism and urge the united states government to support of pakistan in pakistan a comprehensive effort that extends from military aid to support for better education unfortunately we've not yet gone far enough in that regard in december of two thousand and five the nine eleven commission's public discourse project gave united states government a degrade for not doing enough to support secular education it noted united states assistance to pakistan has not moved sufficiently beyond security assistance to include significant funding for education efforts and just a few months ago our own of state department concluded pakistan remains a major source of islamic extremism this is precisely the time that we should be spending substantially more on education where we should be broadening and deepening our relationship with the pakistani people with aid that reaches directly into the pakistani homes and this amendment is an important first step in this endeavor by providing an extra seventy five million dollars fusion for basic education directly to pakistani children and actually seventy five million dollars that would come on top of pakistani education funding already in the bill and what we have provided for before this amendment provides additional seventy five million dollars to basic education by reprogramming existing funds within the economic support funding count fifty million dollars of the total seventy five million dollars will be drawn from that part of the economic support fund that provides direct budgetary support for the pakistani government over the last several years the pakistani government has been receiving hundreds of billions of dollars per year in a cash transfer this memo to show that fifty million dollars of those funds be reprogrammed to ensure they reach pakistani children and not simply be handed over to the pakistani government without direction the other twenty five million dollars of the seventy five million total would come from the non budgetary support component of the economic support fun all of us hope to support the pakistani people in their efforts to achieve a stable prosperous  free nation but our national security interests here among work you will be safe or will we be safe of the next five ten or twenty years as thousands of all young people learn jihad of the extremists glasses instead of learning real world skills to become productive citizens in their communities and i shared world when asked about this amendment former nine eleven commission vice chairman lee hamilton responded increased use u s funding for basic education provided by the t n t pakistan education assistance amendment will send a powerful message that we are committed to a better future for young pakistanis and supporting alternatives to radical islamic education sending this kind of message is hugely important to the future america's relationship with the people of pakistan and our efforts to combat radical islam is past time to heed the nine eleven commission's warning by fighting terrorism at its source by stopping the process of extremism before he could begin by helping the children of pakistan to have an alternative to streams madrassas and that should be at the core of our long term national security strategy and that is what this amendment is all about again i thank the gentleman from new york for accepting this amendment i look forward to working with her to see that this additional funding for basic education programs directly reaching pakistani children is retained in conference i ride to accept this amendment i thank the gentleman for his interest in basic education in pakistan as the gentleman knows i've been a firm believer in basic education for a long time and the bill includes a total of seven hundred fifty million dollars for basic education programs the gentleman recently went to pakistan and i had the privilege of going to pakistan and visited the earthquake zones and fact i had the privilege of opening a school in the earthquake zone and these beautiful young girls looked at me and said can you send us science teachers can you send us computers we know that this experience can be replicated thousands of times around the world so i really do appreciate the gentlem commitment to basic education and i look forward to working with this gentleman accepting your man john you know you just want to again say that i was in fact at the same time that you were approximately and you witness says that we exactly what you're talking about this is a great by way of be brief background there is a strong and vibrant minority community of christians in iraq some of the oldest christians in the world are these various sects the assyrian church of the east  in iraq and other miss middle eastern countries such as iran turkey and syria like other ethnic minorities residing in the middle east throughout their history these various sects have been used as pawns by major powers in the region unfortunately the christian faith had made has made them targets and they frankly have been subjected to harassment and violence throughout the region in particular the regime of saddam hussein was particularly brutal in their treatment of christians because of their religion and because of the majority of the christians opposed saddam's regime many of their leaders were assassinated and subjected to arbitrary detention the war in iraq exacerbated the situation and further endangers the fate of this group i estimated that as many as forty thousand iraqi christians five percent of the faithful have left the country since the war has begun while iraqi christians make up just three percent of the overall population reports are that christians make up more than twenty percent of the refugee exodus to syria and there are mounting fears that if iraq becomes the exodus will accelerate my congressional district the eighteenth district of california happens to be home of a large a syrian population i have heard the horror stories from some in my district and i am committed to ensuring that the interests of the assyrians and the broader christian community are well protected in the new iraq i have taken numerous steps to protect the rights of this might majority minority in particular i written a letter on the subject to secretary rice and implo her to use all means available to ensure that the rights of this group are respected to further enhance our ability to protect these people it's my understanding that there is a report language in this bill which urges that ten million in recently enacted supplemental be targeted towards helping the christian community in iraq i want to work with the chairwoman in the rest of the members of the committee to ensure that this money goes for its intended purpose of protecting this community and does not get diverted to other issues m chairman the gentleman from california healed absolutely i thank my friend from california mr cardoza for bringing this important matter to the attention of the committee this type of government sponsored terrorism was  of saddam hussein's rule and cannot continue it was endemic and i'm fortunately it seems that the practice continues and i continue to worry that our assistance may not be benefiting the intended recipient i too am concerned about the plight of the christian minority and i'm dedicated to using whatever tools we have available to ensure their rights and given due consideration for the more i want to know  colleagues that the recent supplemental included a requirement for a report on the ethnic and geographic distribution of the united states assistance programs reaching the nineveh plain region which should give us a clearer picture of the situation facing iraqi christians i want to assure my friends that i and i know my ranking member member who cares passionately about these issues will work closely with the congressman to ensure that this ten million dollars does go for its intended purpose of protecting the christian minority in iraq mr chairman thank the gentleman for help on this issue and for agreement to work towards ensuring that the money goes to alleviate the suffering of the christian community in iraq this community has lived in as part of the world for over a thousand years and we must do our part to ensure that they live there for a thousand more again i think the chairwoman and i  i look for you yesterday and what i wanted to ask you to do was to offer an amendment on the floor and i know the gentle lady would have accepted it of another hundred thousand dollars or one million dollars for the called in christians and got a roll call vote on because the id has failed to address this issue we have asked them on a number of times they tell us that we can't be targeting with regard to certain ethnic groups and it's never been a satisfactory answer so it's too late now but what would have been a good thing to do in fact is this congress and this government we have a denon to christians in a middle east we have pretty much walked away and the christian community and then releases declining and so you're on to something and hopefully you can find a way in another bill or in a supplemental perhaps to offer the general work with a gentle lady to have an amount and then you offer an added one hundred thousand dollars or one million dollars or whatever you think are appropriate and then ask for a roll call vote so the entire congress is on record because you are right on target so i want to thank you and we'll work with you and help you in any way possible but a roll call vote reform and thirty five zero would send a message today id people that they would have to face and focus on so with that so are my good friend from california and of course my ranking member  that we together will make it clear that this is an urgent issue and the amendment in the committee validated the urgency of the issue and i know we will continue to work together to address this and i thank the gentleman for bringing this up and of course i respect the interest and passion that my ranking member we will be following up and there will be attention given to this issue but i think it is a down and a real that they with their calm and i think that really sends a message yield to my good friend me or mr me make friend important statement thank you madam chair i don't have any amendments at the desk but i do wish to rise in support of the two thousand a state and foreign operations appropriations act and to commend the committee particularly the chairwoman from the york for the fine work that has been done to get the bill to this point i want to bring attention to a very important aspect of the bill funding for trade capacity building this bill raises the federal pro creation level to two hundred fourteen million dollars that is eighty seven million more than the administration requested there are obvious obviously many different points of view on trade in this body but i think all of us can agree that we must do everything possible to enable developing countries to facilitate trade with the world most people think of trade infrastructure projects when i think of trade capacity but facilitating trade goes well beyond that these funds will help developing countries w labor and environmental law enforcement and provide technical assistance for better trade access in remote areas trade capacity assistance is a relatively new to all in the trade arena but it is but has recently played an important role in the implementation of trade and will continue to play a critical role as we consider several free trade agreements with developing countries that are eligible to receive capacity building from our nation i thank the chairwoman for maintaining the commitment to trade capacity funds for a reason agreement and i hope to work closely with the committee on follow up and oversight of trade capacity funds past and in the present hopefully in the near future will have the opportunity to consider this on the floor for with the countries such as peru panama rock and colombia all of these nations the trade capacity assistance but colombia is arguably the country with the most intense and persistent challenges and look forward to working closely with the committee and usa id to see that we dedicate some of the increased violence in this bill to help colombia meet critical needs like assistan murders and kidnappings particularly those of labor leaders and managing the legal process of the demobilized nation of paramilitaries and the for the first aliyah needs as much support as we can offer it  it is going to have is going to expeditiously carry out the hundreds of investigations and legislative demands that it must meet as an independent agency of justice i hope my colleagues who share my concern over violence in colombia particularly in remote areas populated by african colombians and attacks against labor leaders will support the two thousand and eight front operations bill and join me and calling for trade capacity funds specifically dedicated to those countries who are cooperating with us to make strides toward a more secure hemisphere and i you send and new york for bringing attention to these very important issues as you know the former chair of this committee mr colby has been a leader on trade and continues to share with us the importance of trade as we move forward in this process so i thank you very much for focusing on his very important legacy he was a great partner for me working together on this committee and i also appreciate your mentioning colombia and the fact that we change the balance of funding in this bill putting more resources in the fiscal leah when i was there was clear to me that they didn't have enough people to enforce the law to go after the narco traffickers so this was an important area in addition to increasing funding for interdiction justice rule of law into direction and funding for the africa act for a colombian and we know that there has been a tremendous need said thank you for your work i look forward to working together and you better i know that my colleagues realize how important these issues are as well thank you imo to strike the last word jewel from  treaty organization called c t b t i had planned to offer an amendment to fund the c t v cio at least to the administration's request of eighteen million dollars for the fiscal year two thousand and eight but i would just like to make a few points for the record as you know the administration's fiscal year two thousand and eight budget request calls for eighteen million dollars for the u s contribution to the c t b t o unfortunately the foreign operations appropriation bill would shift eight million dollars of the ministrations already inadequate request to another account leaving only telly in dollars for u s funding for the c t b t o test than monster monitoring the administration's request already falls well short of what is necessary to make up for past funding shortfalls that threaten to slow or stop the construction and operation of the test ban treaty organisations international monitoring system in two thousand to the bush administration unilaterally decided not to support the u s portion approximately eight hundred thousand  of the onsite inspection component of this c t b t o verification activities the administration which does not support ratification entry into a fourth of the comprehensive test ban treaty argues that because of the onsite inspection will only be available upon entry into force of the treaty the united states should not contribute to the fiscal year two thousand and six the bush administration requested in congress approved on fourteen point four million dollars for the treaty organization which was seven million dollars short of the twenty two million dollars assessed by the organization the continuing resolution offered a fiscal year two thousand and seven spending set of u s funding for the c t b t o s physically or two thousand and six level which was nine million dollars short of the united states twenty three point four million dollar assessment compounding the problem last month the bush administration unilaterally decided to obligate only ten million dollars as a fourteen point four million dollars appropriated by congress as a result the u s is now in a total of twenty eight point three million dollars we are the single is the single largest contributor to the treaty organization and our shortfalls will have a significant impact face failure page share will directly affect the treaty organization's ability to complete construction and certify for use the remaining stations in the entire international monitoring system including those in more remote and strategic region such as turkmenistan which lies just north of iran i think that the  i'm sure that the distinguished chairwoman ms lowy shares my deep concern that the united states is underfunding the treaty organization and that is a danger and the danger of iran's nuclear program grows as these finding continue to deplete and we're not able to keep up with our obligations so i think unless congress increases funding for the u s contribution the shortfalls that have accumulated over the last seven years will continue to undermine the effort to complete a global monitoring network and conduct data analysis designed to detect and deter nuclear weapons test explosion and happy meals to the distinguished chairwoman i am very i'm very pleased that my good friend from california brought this issue to our attention i really want to thank you feel work on c t b t o and i agree with you that the united states should show leadership and pay our and i think that these are very important issues especially since i hope we will eventually get to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty and our obligations are significant to make sure we have a global monitoring network and i appreciate the clerk that we have not yet reached that portion of bill the quick will read the bill into which of course page forty three line twenty three international fund for ireland fifteen million dollars assistance for eastern europe and the baltic states two hundred ninety seven million three hundred thirty two thousand dollars remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine assistance for the independent states of the former soviet union three hundred ninety seven million five hundred eighty five thousand dollars to remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine independent agencies enter american foundation one thousand nine hundred dollars three main available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine african development foundation thirty million dollars  remain available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine peace corps three hundred thirty three million five hundred thousand dollars three main available until september thirtieth two thousand and nine mullaney and challenge corporation one billion eight hundred speaker the united nations program on a aids report estimates there are forty million people infected with hiv aids worldwide and like everyone else i'm deeply saddened by this reality however i'm also filled  because recent evidence indicates that the current prevention strategy is helping to produce behavioral change that has significantly decreased people's risk of contracting this deadly disease the current hiv aids prevention strategy was carefully crafted in the pepfar authorization bill to reflect a balanced approach and the good news is that this balanced approach is working the pepfar authorization bill which became law in two thousand and three included a provision that required one third of the twenty percent for prevention funding that's approximately seven percent of the tunnel pepfar funds to be spent on abstinence and fidelity programs prior to the employment taishan of this spending directive the u s promoted and unbalance condoms only approach the u s remains the largest distributor of condoms in the world but for the first time the behavior factor is getting real attention under the current program rules and the result falling h i v age prevalence rates in seven of the fifteen focused countries the current prevention strategy is based on the five for females the decline was fifty three percent to sixteen percent the program actually helped change the behavior in women and men a fact i hope my colleagues take seriously opponents of this approach claim that behavioral change is unrealistic dr edward green a researcher at harvard university was an opponent of the a b c model and in particular of abstinence until he saw what happened in uganda he testified the energy and commerce committee saying quote many of us in the aids and public health communities did not believe that abstinence or delay and faithfulness were realistic goals it now seems we were wrong in quote rates experts continue to testify to the fact that behavioral change continues to be the key indicator of hiv aids prevention yet for some reason some of my colleagues have decided to make a crucial provision of this successful strategy optional this crucial provision ensures that the abstinence and be faithful components are incorporated in the approach never mind the fact that pepfar is expected to be reauthorized later this year and never mind the fact that the reauthorization might be the more appropriate forum to debate this critical component that was agreed to some of my colleagues argue that we need a comprehensive approach but i remind them that abstinence and fi y education are fundamental to the comprehensive a b c approach some of my colleagues argue that we need an approach that saves lives i remind them that the a b c model with the a and the be spending requirement intact is continuing to save more and more lives in countries that have relied predominantly on condom distribution the age prevalence rates have not improved meanwhile countries that promote behavioral change have seen significant improvement mr speaker a balanced evidence based approach is essential if we're going to effectively fight hiv aids in africa the current policy is the balanced approach it is the evidence based approach it is the approach that is working why change what works i urge my colleagues to vote for my amendment keep absence in life and fidelity in the aids program and in doing so to vote for an approach that is saving lives and i yield back as general reserve infected with the virus and for every new treatment patient in two thousand and six six additional people became infected with h i b if we do not slow the pandemic treatment costs alone in two thousand and ten could be as high as eleven billion dollars unless this trend is reversed global efforts to expand treatment will falter in our global effort to address the pandemic will fail that is why it is so critical to maximize the effectiveness of the five point zero six two billion dollars for h i v aids programs provided in this bill and make sure that our prevention programs work a recently released institute of medicine report entitled pepfar implementation stated quote the earmark has greatly limited the ability of country teams to develop and implement comprehensive prevention programs that are well integrated with each other and with testing care and treatment programs end quote these congressionally mandated funding restrictions are hampering our overall prevention efforts therefore and i want to make it very clear to my colleague the bill allows the president to provide funding for h i b aids prevention at his discretion it does not change the underlying pepfar law i want to repeat that so on my colleagues here it does not change the underlying tep fall law nor does it require that the president change the amount of funding for any particular prevention programs in fact it doesn't require the president to change the programs at all the language simply provides flexibility to design the most effective prevention programs effective h i b aids prevention initiatives much be designed to respond to the local social and cultural conditions these efforts should include ala bill options including abstinence programs comprehensive prevention programs condom distribution medical intervention such as male circumcision and mother to child prevention programs to ensure that we use every tool at our disposal to stop this deadly disease we know that the only solution to stop the spread of aids hiv aids is expanded and effective prevention programs are built language again provides the administration with the flexibility to respond to the ever changing pandemic in the most effective ways without the restrictions of arbitrary numerical targets and i reserve the balance of my time you mr chairman i rise today in support of the amendment offered by my friend and colleague the gentleman from pennsylvania mr pitts and in support of this evidence based approach to reducing the spread of hiv and aids the aids epidemic in africa is a serious problem that demand serious results however i also had the privilege of seeing firsthand the success of uganda's a b c program when i traveled to  a couple years ago to visit my daughter who's a missionary there and also a health educator dealing specifically with hiv aids also meeting with who has now become adopted into our family mama who is a young woman with three children who has a charity as a result of behavior issues related specifically to a husband who is unfaithful in many many ways it has been interesting to note that in uganda as well as other countries that are now using the a b c program authorized and pushed by the first lady and the president president the seventy in each of those cases there is a significant decline in the reported numbers of sexual partners that's the behavior portion of it and a significant decline of the numbers of unmarried youth who are sexually active which is the abstinence portion of it authorizing legislation that requires thirty three percent of prevention funds that have to be spent in abstinence until marriage programming is the best way to address this progress problem because it's a proven successful method of reducing the spread of hiv aids there is a growing evidence that partner reduction is the single most important factor in reducing a chevy aids prevalence rates according to the pepfar third report to congress and i quote of the countless developments taking place in the global fight against the aids pandemic perhaps the single most important in the recent years is a growing number of nations in which there is clear evidence of declining h i v prevalence as a result of changes in sexual behavior furthermore no country with a generalized epidemic that has relied on condom prevention alone has reported the decline in a chevy aids prevalence rates because studies have shown that the abstinence until marriage method is producing the best results i urge my colleagues to consider the merits of the pitts amendment and support this important and need i say life changing and life savings mint thank you very much and i urge rise urge my colleagues to oppose the pets amendment that was striking on a lying language that provides flexibility to the president on designing his h i v in aids program in two thousand and three congress and the president came together to establish the global h i v s initiative five years ago the world was optimistic that we could with additional funding start to turn the pandemic around as we have heard success has not been as easy as we would have hoped and over four million people were newly infected last year that is why in addition to increasing the amount of money we are spending to combat a d n a test we must take every effort to ensure that we are spending money wisely as wisely as possible the chairman's the chairwoman this bill contains language which gives the president maximum flexibility there is no imperil data to my knowledge what supports the abstinence only earmark n p l one zero eight dash twenty five the original pepfar oregon authorizing legislation the m r calls for one third of all prevention funds to be spent on abstinence only until marriage no one has ever explained the rationale for that figure the provision of flexibility to the president to determine how much money to spend on abstinence only is way overdue i urge my yield to the distinguished gentleman from florida dr david weldon to venice film is recognized for two minutes with purpose a gentleman from illinois mr chairman i rise in support of the pitts amendment i am concerned with the change in the absence policy in the pepfar budget too permissive authority for the administration to give grants to abstinence based programs i fear that this is a set back to the work we are doing overseas with aids relief the best way to stop aids is to encourage people to abstain from sexual behavior outside of marriage last july southern african aids experts and officials listed and i'm quoting here reducing multiple konqueror and partnerships as their number one priority for preventing the spread of hiv i used to treat aids patients i used to practice infectious disease the reason aids exploded through the gay community in this country in the late seventy's and early eighty's was because of this phenomena having multiple conquer and sexual partners and the reason  uganda and you're going to hear uganda quoted over and over again was successful in lowering their rate aids incident from eighteen percent to six percent and there was very little foreign aid going in the country at the time they did this is because they established an education program and people are rising on the floor today acting like there are there is no money for anything other than absence education this is a very modest component of the bill we have a lot of money for prevention and we have money from mother to child prevention and we are simply requiring that a third of the money go to what i think is the most cost effective venue that we could be using and i would highly encourage my colleagues to support this amendment and i believe right now under the current law the president has the authority to waive this requirement if the country team asks for it as i understand some countries have and they have waived the authority and i believe that this language that they changed in pepfar is authorizing and this should have been left to the authoriz language in the bill provides the president flexibility not mandates the gentleman's amendment seems to be more interested in being counting than saving and treating those with hiv and aids it is more important to make sure that thirty three cents out of every dollar according to the gentleman's amendment go to abstinence or that we give the president some flexibility if that is if he needs it we all know that hiv and aids prevention programs must be targeted to the group that we are seeking to influence and when abstinence programs may be appropriate for some groups including the very young i want to raise to my colleagues attention that the underlying language in the bill that provides flexibility enjoys bro support from groups that are working on the ground i have a letter from the elizabeth glaser pediatric aids foundation urging no vote on the pitts amendment we have a letter from care one of the world's leading in goals providing aid care and prevention services urging a no vote on the pits  i have a letter from the general board of church and society of the united methodist church urging a no vote on the pits amendment i urge my colleagues and their counsel to vote no on the pits the minute in fact mr chairman i'd like to quote to distinguish ranking a republican member who said this on the floor last night i believe this bill has the potential to do a lot of good and i want to say that this bill will help save a lot of lives not only here but around the world this is the work of the lord and i know members are going to come down here and they're going to be again this bill and i hope that we can change some of the things to prevent a veto but this bill eventually when it passes and it will pass assuming it will be vetoed the ranking member says is really about feeding the poor the hungry the naked and the sick almost a better title would be the matthew twenty five bill so it has the potential to do a lot of good and he hopes to work with the chairwoman to ensure the state department has what it needs to do these things matthew twenty five is very clear mr chairman then the king will say to those on his right come you are blessed by my father take your inheritance the kingdom prepared you since the creation of the world for i was hungry and you gave me something to eat i was thirsty you gave me something to drink i was a which you know the writers will answer him lord when did you see the hungry and feed you thirsty and give you something to drink when did you see a stranger invite you in or needing see cold and clothe you when did you see the sick or in person or in prison or did they go visit you i will tell you the truth whatever you did for one of the least of these my brother and you get it out to me mr chairman the people need medicine not self righteousness reject the pits amendment save lives the president emergency plan for aids relief commonly known as pepfar is the largest bilateral foreign assistance program dedicated to mitigating the hiv aids crisis worldwide the plan's places special emphasis on the fifteen countries in africa a huge asia in the caribbean which accounts for approximately fifty percent of the world hiv infections if the u s is to remain the world's leader in saving from the devastation of aids it's time to look at the track record and see what works well demographic in health surveys show that hiv aids prevalence prevalence rates and at least seven of the fifteen pepfar focus countries is declining countries such as uganda zambia and senegal have success stories to showcase and something to teach us and these nations and others experiencing declines in the prevalence of hiv aids it is through indigenous programming that respects the local cultural milieu you and social norms that figure prominently in uganda for example prevalence rates among prev pregnant women fell from approximately twenty one percent to five percent while the causal factors behind the prevalence declines are complex and should not be over simplified it is clear that the success stories in  a zambia senegal and elsewhere all incorporate the same common denominator an emphasis on abstinence and fidelity as critical elements in successful interventions as it stands this appropriations bill would potentially reverse the most significant element element of this success by diminishing the emphasis on abstinence and fidelity this issue is much too serious to prevent the outright dismissal of compelling we share that knowledge we can be proud that the united states is leading the way in addressing a global aids pandemic we are providing support for millions of people through treatment care and prevention programs but we need to take a very practical approach and the bill before us does that by including a language that gives the president flexibility to implement prevention programs that fit the country's current aids pandemic i thought it was very compelling to hear the story that was shared on the floor by my republican colleagues about how a wife had become infected not because of her behavior but because of her husband's behavior and i'm particularly concerned about the forty percent of new age hiv aids infections between the youth of ages fifteen and twenty four women and girls make up sixty percent of all the of infections and seventy six percent of the affections among those are between the ages of fifteen and twenty four now abstinence could be an option but we know that marriage is not a protective factor and listen carefully to this over the next ten years more than one hundred mil the end girls in the developing countries will be married before their eighteenth birthday some as young as age fourteen mostly older men often against their will these are forced child brides these girls will have a significant higher rate of hiv infection than their peers who are sexually active and their unmarried peers we should give these young girls the opportunity to protect themselves to save their own lives i believe we must make sure that our prevention programs address their needs and provide alternatives for these young girls and women abstinence is just not an option they need programs that provide them with full information to protect themselves we in congress must do all that we can stop child marriage but in the meantime we need to protect these young women i urge my colleagues to oppose the pitts amendment president the president's fifteen billion dollars five year law to combat hiv aids in africa and in the targeted fifteen countries i rise in strong opposition to the language in the bill that undermines and dismisses the successful hiv aids prevention spending requirement in the pepfar legislation where the epidemic is spread among the general population mr speaker the only successful evidence based approach to hiv aids prevention is  emphasizes abstinence before marriage and faithfulness in relationships and lastly where necessary condoms the success of the a b c approach depends on the proper balance between these three elements and the spending requirement is necessary to attain that balance the vast majority of pepfar is focused countries mr speaker have generalized epidemics and those that have emphasized a and b abstinence and being faithful programming have experienced significant increases in the number of youth and adults who are either abstaining or being mutually faithful and at the same time they have seen significant drops in those countries in the percentage of their population infected with h aids examples of countries that have aggressively promoted abstinence infidelity at the national level backed by real resources and have experienced decrease a heavy rates include uganda senegal jamaica thailand  zimbabwe the dominican republic and kenya on the other hand no country with a generalized epidemic that has relied primarily on condom promotion has reported a decline in each of the rates southern africa is a tragic example of this the washington post on march second pointed out that and i quote research is increasingly attribute to resilience of hiv in botswana and in southern africa generally to the high incidence of multiple sexual relationships western aid experts brought not just the ideas but the money and soon billboards to botswana touting condoms schoolchildren sang about them because of young women demonstrated how to roll them the anti aids partnership between the gates foundation and drug maker merck budgeted thirteen point five million for condom distribution and promotion twenty five times the amount dedicated to curbing dangerous sexual behavior but the soaring rates of condom use the washington post went on have not brought down high eight hiv rates instead the post points out they rose together until both were among the highest in africa as indicated in the post report those who are considered aids experts in the west including some of those who directed us prevention funding prior to pepfar imposed their narrow minded condom promotion mentality on africa that pepfar coordinator appropriately broadening the range or prevention efforts in addition he goes on the say the directive as helped the pepfar to align itself with the strategies of the host nations of which a b c is a key element close quote this is speaker in a letter to the editor of the lancet in june two thousand and six the minister of health of namibia noted that pep for support for abstinence and being faithful is needed to ensure the balance of speaker that even with their spending requirement the united states remains by far the largest condom to distribute or in the world if our goal here is to save lives by implementing the strongest evidence based prevention programs possible we should be at least maintaining and i would suggest increasing the percentage of funding directed to abstinence and to being faithful programs it works it has proven that it works and i support the the attempt by the subcommittee to give the president flexibility to implement prevention programs that fit the country's current aids put the epidemic a salute the president's emergency plan for aids relief i've been to africa to tanzania to see how the program works and everyone i spoke with pleaded with us to make sure that there was more emphasis on not a but on see condoms young children asking that this be a factor in their schools they said sex is going to happen no matter what you say no matter what you say about abstinence or be faithful it's going to happen and particularly disconcerting to think that someone who is chosen one partner and loves that partner not knowing that that partner has been unfaithful and in fact has aids transmitting that disease to in most cases a young woman this makes eminent sense  i would like to think that we could get our religious beliefs out of this issue not be talking practically but talking realistically if you want to prevent death you need to allow more condoms if you want to save lives you need to allow more condoms if you want to prevent pregnancies you need to allow more condoms if you don't want so much interest on other things like whether there should be abortions you need to have condoms i weep thinking young kids go to school without teachers and go home without parents we need to be doing more in africa to spend our money better thank you need a low a for what you've done to give the president of these all there is flexibility there is there is there is the ability to waive and i hope mr pitts will cover that so there is flexibility there is ability to to waive let me read you what ambassador mark dybul said he said recent data from kenya zimbabwe and urban haiti shows declining age of the prevalence a new study has concluded these reductions in prevalence do not simply represent the natural course of these nations epidemics bucket only be explained by changes in sexual behavior this demonstrates the power of behavior changes to save lives and the importance of support for effective behavior change intervention and it's this apparent said i would argue to know that he's right i think biblical faithfulness is a biblical principle faith or is is a very good principle does anyone disagree and now we're we're saving right so there is flexibility so there's a fake argument here there is the ability to wait and what we're doing here we can talk about different things there underline the agendas we are talking about basically mr speaker there is flexibility in the existing program countries can apply for a waiver every country that has applied has received a waiver our friends say that all they want to do is provide flexibility and more condoms well for twenty years of fighting aids the pre bureaucrats who run these programs tried to same approach over and over again it never worked when you got it came up with a congress prom prince of approach that works they still opposed it well the buck stops here in congress and we told them in two thousand and three to do what works and it's working without this amendment this bill will allow them to go back to the failed policies of the past mr speaker so many on the other side are saying that we need to listen to the experts on the ground we need to follow their advice well that's true they even raised this point with the centers for disease control in a letter signed by several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle including th world health organization researchers from johns hopkins and other leading back medical institution institutions allow me to quote from what these people the experts are saying about what's working to reduce aids prevalence quote when targeting young people for those who have not started sexual activity the first priority should be to encourage abstinence or delay of sexual onset hence emphasizing risk avoidance is the best way to prevent hiv and other sexually transmitted infections as well as unwanted pregnancies in quote abstinence behavior change that is what the experts are stressing mr speaker and i agree mr speaker the experts know best they're saying that a comprehensive approach that includes behavioral change is  the statement he signed nobel prize winner bishop tutu have you come out to africa support the pitts amendment i mean is there a greater expert from both morrow and understanding than that and did you gentlemen say there have been waivers united states and give him the discretion we're not changing the law would just giving the president the discretion now that's number one number two i believe both gentleman said that  get time to my colleagues number two number two i believe the gentleman know that when a waiver is granted the other countries may if make up a difference so for example if waivers are granted to fifty percent of the countries i think of my trip to russia tanzania and there was a hut right in the middle of this community how this would work at the waivers are granted and many of the other communities around the world have to make up for that waiver how with this be done and the gentleman number three has also talked about a comprehensive program well we may agree i believe in abstinence i think it's great and if it can be implemented in africa and asia and all the other countries that are spreading h wildfire i'm perfectly in support but we're talking about compress hence the programs including abstinence and i'm glad the gentleman agrees that there should be comprehensive programs including  anything and and that the president could remove the a and the b and just have the see and when ambassador dialer was a asked if any of the countries wanted waivers they all said of the pepfar legislation i actually helped write the majority of this legislation i can tell you that while i did not agree nor support the thirty three percent earmark i know for a fact that this does not undo that earmark let me just to tell you a couple of things you probably have heard and you know that over the next ten years more than one hundred million girls in developing countries will be married before their eighteenth birthday and often against their will as currently written the bill does not change the underlying abstinence until marriage earmark for me that's unfortunate but it doesn't change that and it does not require the president to make any changes to current prevention funds the current language merely provides the president with the flexibility to plan the most appropriate and sensitive and required program for countries per their request the fact is the administration has already raved you're right application of the abstinence earmark for certain countries receiving assistance under our global aids program but i want you to remember a b c does mean abstinence be faithful use condoms for many of these young girls abstinence is not an option and we must provide them with what they need to protect themselves a b c is a b c the lowly language provides a very practical common sense one year fix my new one year and it gives the president the authority to program global aids funding according to local country needs ultimately it will be up to the president to determine whether to exercise this flexibility this amendment mr pitts really does render a death sentence to millions of girls and their children and their baby so i urge my colleagues to vote against restricting the ability of the president to save lives and that's what this amendment would do and so i hope that all of the pastor in and all of the ideological debate today really comes down to the fact that we believe all of us believe in a b c abstinence be faithful use condoms and as i said i helped write this bill and i was much opposed to this earmark but believe me i know that this does not remove it and so i urge my colleagues to oppose the pitts amendment you manager i thank the gentlewoman and i'm very pleased to yield one minute to the distinguished gentleman from california mr chairman i rise in opposition to this amendment and i thank the chairwoman of the foreign operations committee for her leadership in this area my life has been devoted to public health to bettering it and this amendment is bad public policy wherever it will affect lives in a forces actually bad public health policy and removes the flexibility to opt for a better allocation of public health services pepfar is extremely important it to our fight against the transmission of hiv aids and our treatment of the forty million people living worldwide with this but as the institutes of medicine  both reported country teams have been greatly limited in their ability to provide effective lifesaving services by the restriction that has been placed in for the past several years i applaud chairwoman lowey for lifting this restriction by allowing pepfar funds to be spent where they are actually needed in order to accomplish the program goal we spent all last week ing week listening to complaints about a lack of responsible spending quite frankly making the amount of funds available for proven effective public health programs depended upon spending for unproven and ineffective programs is the epitome of yr responsible spending so i urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment to support responsibility i  distinguished ranking member and my colleague from pennsylvania that what this does is gives the president of the united states of america the at sardi the flexibility i believe in a b c abstinence be faithful use condoms but i want to make a very clear to my colleagues when the administration uses the waiver then the other countries of the world still have to me that one third per cent when it comes to prevention abstinence all we're saying again is abstinence be faithful use condoms we have to prevent that's sincerity abortions we have to save lives we have to make sure that we do what ever we can to prevent the spread of h i v aids and six of rule eighteen for the proceedings of the members of the by the gentleman from pennsylvania will be postpone colombia as you know colombia is a critical u s ally in the region it's in our interest and it's call of eight this partnership to ensure that colombia remain strong i sincerely appreciate that your woman's efforts to address my concerns about the overall cuts the program particularly given the constraints of the bill however i still have concerns about funding levels provided for the climate aviation programs as well as some of the certification requirements contained in the bill alternative livelihood which the chairwoman is very interested in and i am too and other developmental projects are certainly vital to our overall effort in colombia but they can only be successful in areas where the colombian government maintains territorial control that i would like to continue working with the chairwoman and ranking member to address some of these issues as we move forward to congress madam chairman once again i thank you and i look forward to working with you as the process continues reclaiming you have long been deeply concerned about the situation facing us in the war on drugs we agree that increasing drug interdiction efforts is necessary we also agree that colombia is a vital partner or an ally of the united friend mr wall to strike a more balanced strategy that shifts the aid from the military and strengthen civilian governance humanitarian insistence and rural development i continue to believe that we need to attack the that is at the root of the problems in colombia as well as the region i've attempted to increase the social component in our assistance to colombia and begin colombian ization of the military package and place a greater emphasis on into deck interdiction rather than eradication this bill also increases funding for judges prosecutors and rule of law and create jobs in the legal economy again i say to my good friend from illinois i greatly appreciate your advice the give and take you have provided as we drafted this bill i want to assure the gentleman that the committee will continue to pay close attention to his concerns as we work through the next pages of the process would with the gentleman from illinois yield gentle lady york at the time i would be happy to you to the gentleman from virginia i thank the chair and i want to join my colleagues and continue to work on the important issue u s assistance to colombia has been directly responsible for bringing stability to the country people colombia couldn't travel freely but now they can the security is due to plan colombia appreciate the speaker's hard work over the years on this issue i want to say mrs lowell chairwoman lowey for really being very open and taking all the time and the kind of work this out thank you very very much to just like to say thank you for your hard work and i bothered to continue to work with you on this issue thank you very much i thank the gentleman and it was a pleasure working with you and i look forward to continuing to work together on this important issue