H 5738 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE June 8, 1995

United States of America, we thank

you Capt. Paul A. Fortunato, and the

rest of the brave participants in this

heroic and spectacular rescue mission.

America is infinitely proud of you,

and forever grateful.

EXCHANGE OF SPECIAL ORDER

fTIME

Mr. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, I ask

unanimous consent to exchange my 5-

minute special order with that of the

gentleman from Florida [Mr. GOSS].

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there

objection to the request of the gentleman from Missouri?

INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION

There was no objection.

TO INCLUDE AMERICAN SAMOA

fAND GUAM INTO THE EXPEDITED FUNDS AVAILABILITY

ACT

(Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA asked and

was given permission to address the

House for 1 minute and to revise and

extend his remarks.)

Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA. Mr. Speaker,

I rise today with my colleague the gentleman from Guam [Mr. UNDERWOOD],

to introduce a bill to include the U.S.

territories of American Samoa and

Guam into the Expedited Funds Availability Act.

Mr. Speaker, for as long as I have

been doing my banking in American

Samoa, getting access to funds represented by checks drawn on banks

outside of American Samoa has taken

literally weeks. Banking customers

throughout the United States had similar problems, and in response Congress

passed the Expedited Funds Availability Act in 1987. The 50 States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth

of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands were included in the act, but the

territories of Guam and American

Samoa were not.

While Guam and American Samoa

are still the most distant territories,

billions of dollars now move daily

around the world at close to the speed

of light.

Mr. Speaker, thousands of years ago

the Samoans and the Micronesians carried their currency across vast expanses of open ocean in heroic voyages

in wind-driven canoes made of

hollowed logs. I have sailed part of the

Pacific Ocean in a double-hull Polynesian voyaging canoe called the

Hokuleian from Tahiti to Hawaii for 28

days, and I think I could have carried

my currency in stones from one port to

another faster than funds are now

being made available by the Banks in

American Samoa and Guam. This is

the 95th year of this country, and I

hope the banks in the Pacific will enter

this century before the rest of us move

on to the next one.

I ask that a copy of the bill be printed in today’s CONGRESSIONAL RECORD,

and, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues

to support this legislation.

H.R.—

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in

Congress assembled, That the Expedited Funds

Availability Act (12 U.S.C. 4001 et seq.) is

amended—

(1) in section 602(20) (12 U.S.C. 4001(20)) by

inserting ‘‘, located in the United States,’’

after ‘‘ATM’’;

(2) in section 602(21) (12 U.S.C. 4001(21)) by

inserting ‘‘Guam, American Samoa,’’ after

‘‘Puerto Rico,’’;

(3) in section 602(23) (12 U.S.C. 4001(23)) by

inserting ‘‘Guam, American Samoa,’’ after

‘‘Puerto Rico,’’; and

(4) by adding at the end of section 603(d) (12

U.S.C. 4002(d)) the following new paragraph:

‘‘(3) EXTENSION FOR CERTAIN DEPOSITS IN

GUAM AND AMERICAN SAMOA.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any time period established under subsection (b), (c), or

(e) shall be extended by 2 business days in

the case of any deposit which is both—

‘‘(A) deposited in an account at a depository institution which is located in Guam or

American Samoa; and

‘‘(B) deposited by a check drawn on an

originating depository institution which is

not located in the same State as the receiving depository institution.’’.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under

SPECIAL ORDERS

fthe Speaker’s announced policy of May

12, 1995, and under a previous order of

the House, the following Members are

recognized for 5 minutes each.

TRIBUTE TO DEPARTING PAGES

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

fprevious order of the House, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. EMERSON] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise,

as chairman of the Page Board, to advise my colleagues that today marks

the end of the school year for our pages

and those who are here with us today,

the pages here with us today, will be

replaced over the weekend by a new

group of pages who will be with us for

the summer.

For those who may be unfamiliar, we

have school year pages and we have

summer pages, so this is to advise that

the pages who are here today will not

be here on Monday, and, second, Mr.

Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the

very wonderful group of young people

who have served throughout this past

school year. Not all of them have

served the whole year. Some of them

have served only this last semester,

but whether it is for the whole year or

the whole semester, they have rendered

distinguished service, and I do not

want their parting to be unnoted.

Mr. Speaker, I am inserting at this

point in the RECORD a list of all the

pages who have served here in the

spring of 1995.

The list follows:

DEPARTING PAGES—SPRING 1995

Maria Grace Abuzman, Paulette M. Adams,

Seth A.G. Andrew, Angela S. Armstrong,

Kathryn L. Ballintine, Alison J. Bell, Rebecca A. Belletto, Joanna L. Bowen, Kirk D.

Boyle, Tamara L. Brewer, Nancy M. Brim,

Erin C. Carney, Carolyn A. Cassidy, Erin A.

Coker, Todd D. Connor, Richard A. Consul,

Keegan B. Cotton, Mary K. Derr, Courtney

M. Duncan, and Tristan A. Durst.

Joseph F. Eddy, Micheal D. Ellison, Tatum

C. Evans, Kristin M. Francis, Robert C.

Gates, Rebecca M. Geraci, Jennifer C. Gerard, Carolyn J. Gereau, William J. Heaton,

Joseph R. Hill, Erica L. Hogue, Anna M.

Holder, Molly K. Hooper, Sarah C. Jackson,

Francie J. Julien, Kathleen A. Kelly, Karly

A. Kevane, Debrorah L. Kinirons, Lisa N.

Konitzer, and Ross C. Maradian.

Rene Marcano, Katharine J. Mills, Abigail

M. Moon, Kristina M. Motulewicz, Joel T.

Niedfeldt, John S. Parker, Jeffrey A.

Pojanowski, Kathleen E. Quinlan, Alison J.

Rabb, Lindsay E. Rosenfeld, Marianne E.

Royster, Vanessa M. Ruggles, Nick T. Ryan,

Timothy P. Scharf, Allison M. Sessions,

Serena M. Sherrell, Tatiana I. Sohrakoff,

Jennifer T. Sontag, Kelle L. Stanforth, Joshua K. Stello, Todd J. Stonewater, Xaviera M.

Vanegas, Brooke E. Wagner, Matthew R. Williams, and Calvin W. Winchester.

Mr. Speaker, it may interest my colleagues, if you do not know it, although I am very proud to talk about

this, and it may interest the pages if

they do not know it, that I am the only

sitting Republican in the House of Representatives who was actually here the

last time we Republicans controlled

the House.

b 1630

I was not a Member at that time. It

was as a page that I served here in the

83d and the 84th Congresses, and I want

to say also that I have always—I have

long regarded, since I underwent the

experience, that having been a page

was probably the finest, most objective, educational experience of my life.

I’ve said many, many times that you

learn as a page by doing and observing

and participating and that is just an

awfully lot different than reading

about it in the textbooks.

So I hope to the pages—let me say I

hope that this experience has been as

meaningful to you as it was for me, and

I wish all of you, and I know I do this

on behalf of the entire House, I wish all

of you well in your life’s endeavors.

Some of you will be going off to college, others to the military, perhaps

others to other things. But I hope this

experience has served you well, will be

a constant point of favorable reflection

throughout your life and that you will

have much success and happiness and

good health in all of your undertakings.

So from me on behalf of the House to

all of our department pages, ‘‘God bless

you and Godspeed.’’

Let me at this time yield to the distinguished gentleman from California

[Mr. DREIER].

Mr. DREIER. I thank my very good

friend, the former page from Cape

Girardeau, MO, for yielding to me, and

I would like to first extend to him

hearty congratulations for his stellar

service. He served in the last Republican Congress, and we certainly hope

that these pages on the Republican side

who have blazed a trail will not follow

the precedent that my friend from Cape

Girardeau established in seeing the