Date: 2003-05-09
Speaker: LORETTA SANCHEZ (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I rise today to express my disappointment over the Rules Committees decision that the amendment offered by myself and several other distinguished members of the Select Committee on Homeland Securitys Subcommittee on Infrastructure and Border Security was not ruled In order. Furthermore. debate was once again stifled in this House by the majoritys decision not to allow even the democratic substitute offered by my friend. Mr. RANGLE. My amendment would have addressed critical vulnerabilities in our nations Infrastructure. vulnerabilities that if exploited by our enemies will have terrible costs in both lives and dollars. It would have done this by delaying for only one year the Implementation of the dividend portion of the tax cut. As I speak. several areas of critical infrastructure remain vulnerable to terrorist attacks. We are. without a doubt. still living in a dangerous time. Neither Saddam Hussein nor his weapons of mass destruction have been found. The next attack on America could come at any time. We cannot afford to wait any longer to shore up our homeland defenses. Due to the urgent nature of this request. we felt that delaying a portion of the tax cut package was the obvious way to pay for these critical projects. That delay would have generated 4 billion dollars. That represents only seventenths of one percent of the tax cut we are discussing today. Seventenths of one percentl For that comparatively small cost. the citizens of this country could have been made a lot safer. That tiny fraction of this tax package would have been used to: Help safeguard millions of our citizens by completing necessary chemical plant vulnerability assessments. Increase the National Guards Civil Support teams so that they are protecting the citizens of all 50 states. Provide needed physical security at federal dams and waterways all across this country. Enhance port security by funding port ..ecurity grants. Increase the size of our Coast Guard. � Increase the number of inspectors at our border. Enhance the safety and efficacy of our firefighters with firefighter assistance grants and grants for Interoperability with police and emergency medical personnel. And provide more security to our Nations food and water supplies. And this Is only a portion of the programs my amendment would fund. Once.again. I must highlight how much we could have gottenfor so little. As I said earlier. this amendment would not have affected 99.3 percent of the tax cut package. Sadly. the message from the Republicans Is clear: They care more about cutting taxes for the wealthy than protecting the public. They will not even sacrifice less than one percent of their illadvised tax cut to help keep the citizens of our country sale from terrorist threats. H.R. 2 violates 4 Rules of the House. so the Rules Committee granted H.R. 2 special protections. Instead of being fair and granting the same protections to my amendment or the Democratic Substitute. they refused and ruled us out of order. . They did the same thing to all the other important amendments offered by the Democrats. The Republicans have turned this House. the peoples House. into a dark place where debate is feared because it just might shine some light on the unjust policies that they want to shove down the throats of the American people. This Is not right. it Is not fair. It is undemocratic. and it is unAmerican.