macleginn/stanford_congress_record_longer_speeches huggingface dataset:
Date: 1999-07-20
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. later today after the adoption of the rule. we will have the debate on what I believe is a historic bill in this sense. that we have been funding the Title I program and Teacher Improvement Program now for several decades. and never during the process of that program did we ever ask that they use this money to hire qualified teachers and that the States. in fact. put a qualified teacher in every classroom. This legislation. both the Martinez substitute and the bipartisan bill. requires both of that. At the same time. it also makes it very clear that we carry out the intent of the ESEA bill. which was to provide Federal assistance to close the gaps between educationally disadvantaged young children and others in our society. .Yet as we continue to measure it. the gap continues to widen all over the country. For the first time in the 30year history of this program. we are asking the school districts be measured and be held accountable for closing the gap between majority students and minority students and between rich students and poor students so that in fact all students can learn under our system. We know that the biggest single factor in the ability of a child to learn in our educational system is the quality of that teacher. yet we find ourselves throughout this country saddled with tens of thousands of -teachers that are not qualified to teach in the core subject matters in which they are teaching. This legislation says that the Federal money ought to be used for that. This Federal legislation also preserves the Presidents program for 100.000 teachers. I would prefer to preserve it as the Martinez substitute. which will be offered later. does. But the fact of the matter is it is also very logical to look at the way the bipartisan bill does this. which says schools must use thismoney for class size reduction. but if they cannot hire competent teachers. they do not have the facilities to do it properly. then they can use the money until such time to go ahead with teacher development. improvement. and training. all of the things we know are absolutely essential all over this country to improve the professionalism of our teacher core and to make sure they are in fact certified and qualified to teach in their core subject. It is for that reason. Mr. Speaker. that I will be voting for the Martinez substitute. I will also be voting without reservations other than the targeting matters for the bipartisan Goodling substitute that will be offered later this afternoon. I would hope that Members would focus on the issues of teacher quality and accountability. because for far too often. we have put in over $125 billion into this program and we have neither gotten teacher quality out of this program nor have we gotten the accountability of school districts for improvement of the students which the money is designed to help. I would urge Members to consider. certainly on our side of the aisle. voting for the substitute. also voting for the bipartisan legislation.
Date: 1999-07-20
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I am still waiting on the answer. Mr. Chairman. every Member of the House ought to support the Goodling_ amendment. because it does. in fact. dramatically strengthen the legislation that we had in committee. It does provide for increases in accountability and improvements in teacher quality items within the legislation. I think it is a very important amendment. because it embodies what all of us have been saying on both sides of the aisle. that questions of simple class size are not enough. that it is not enough that students spend either more hours with or there is fewer students with an unqualified teacher. What we must put in the front of the classroom are qualified teachers. This -legislation with the Goodling amendments. for the first time. de.mands that local school districts put qualified teachers into the classroom. It demands. for the first time. that we hold school districts accountable. which is the basic purpose of this legislation. and EFCA and that is. in fact. that we close the gap between rich and poor. between minority and majority in this country. and that we hold districts accountable for doing that. Up until the time that this amendment is offered and up until the time " that this legislation is passed. we have put $120 billion into this program. As the gentleman from Pennsylvania has reminded us time and time again. that money has been sent out. and we never asked. we never asked that the teachers in the classroom be qualified. We said one of the purposes was to close the gap between majority and minority students. but nobody was ever held accountable for it. What we now know and what we have witnessed now over many. many years is that poor and the minorities continue to be held back in this educational system because they do not have qualified teachers and the majority races ahead. We also know from years of research and understanding of how children learn that all of those poor children and all of those minority children can. in fact. learn at the same rate and with the same degree as children in suburban schools. middle class schools. or upper income schools if we do two things. If we reduce class sizes. and we put wellqualified teachers and a first class curriculum in front of those children. they will learn and they will learn at the same rate. We need not accept those losses. The Goodling amendment is the first step to doing this. and every Member of this House ought to support this amendment. I will be supporting the Martinez substitute because of the targeting provisions. but we will talk about that later.
Date: 1999-07-21
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Californih

Mr. Speaker. it is rather fitting that we are here late at night. because for weeks we have heard from conservative Republicans how they were upset about the failure of their bill to provide for debt reduction. Then we heard from the moderate Republicans how they were concerned about the size of the tax cut and the failure to meet deficit reduction and some of the programs they were worried that were going to be sacrificed on the alter of this trillion dollar tax cut. Somewhere tonight. they lost the courage of their convictions. On the way to the Committee on Rules. they lost their convictions. But I should say to them. do not fear. The leadership will respect you in the morning. The Speaker said that tonight we are doing something to the American people that has not been done to them in a long. long time. He is right. It has been 18 years since the last time in the middle of the night we passed a Republican tax bill that set this Nation on a sea of red ink. unlike anything we have ever seen. Never had we had a deficit larger than $70 billion. and until Bill Clinton came to office. we were headed for $400 billion deficits every year. each and every year. each and every year. Mr. Speaker. I guess the Republican Party has not learned from history. but the American family has. because they have experienced in the last 8 years the greatest economic recovery since the Second World War. maybe in our history. More of them are working. earning more money. they are buying more houses. more automobiles. they are able to educate their children. because interest rates and inflation are low. But my Republican colleagues have decided tonight. after beating their Members around the head. that they will take out the dice and roll them.They will play dice with the American economy. They will play dice with peoples ability in the future to refinance their homes. to pay for their college educations. to take care of their parents. to take care of their children. to provide a firstclass elementary and secondary education. That is what my colleagues put at risk tonight with this trillion dollar and soontobe $3 trillion tax cut. That is the sea of red ink that my colleagues threaten to launch in this Nation again. and my colleagues should not be allowed to do it. They should take care of the peoples money. They should take very good care of the peoples money. Mr. Speaker. the Republican Party should take care of the American peoples money.
Date: 1999-07-21
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that we suspend with the reading of the bill until my colleagues are done writing the bill.
Date: 1999-07-26
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. on rollcall numbers 335 and 336. I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present. I would have voted "no" on each rollcall vote.
Date: 1999-07-27
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. it is a rather interesting argument that the Republicans make so that they can pass their tax bill to give the vast majority of its benefits to the wealthiest people in this country. and that is they must give the money to the wealthy so that the Congress will not spend the money. It is interesting because there can be no expenditures of that money without Republican votes. Last time I looked this morning. the Republicans controlled the Senate and the Republicans controlled the House. but they keep saying. You have to stop me before I spend again. It is the Republicans Committee on Appropriations that is coming up with phony emergencies. They now want to say that the census was an emergency. We could not predict it. we could not see it. we did not know it was coming. That is funny. it has come every 10 years. For the last 200 years of this country we have had a census in this country. but somehow now it is an emergency spending so" that they can break the caps. so they can spend the surplus supposedly there for Social Security. Every day now they are dipping into the Social Security Trust Fund to spend more and more money. So the Republicans are saying. You got to give a tax cut to the wealthiest people. otherwise they will spend the money. Sort of like the son of Sam who was saying. Stop me before I kill again. Stop them before they spend again.
Date: 1999-07-27
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman. this debate I think makes the exact point that the ranking member on the committee is trying to make with his amendment. and that Is that this ought to be hashed out in the policy committee where all sides can be heard on this as opposed to proposing this amendment. if my colleagues will. in the eleventh hour of this consideration. I think this committee has done a remarkable job with this legislation given the terrible lack of resources that they have had available to them under the budget constraints to deal with the problems that all the Members have tried to deal with. But clearly in this particular case this language is flawed because it simply comes in in the middle of the process. if my colleagues will. or very near the end of the process. and takes the demands of one constituency to what has been a longrunning argument in this country about how we process permits dealing with the protection. the enhancement and conservation of wetlands. and puts the thumb of the committee on one side of the scales of justice here. if my colleagues will. and decides that. in fact. that those who do not think that the Corps is going to respond to them now come to the committee and get it done by edict with no hearing. with no chances for the other side to be heard on this matter. And that is the reason that the gentleman from Indiana and the gentleman from Minnesota
Date: 1999-07-27
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the gentleman very much for offering this amendment. I would hope that the point of order would not lie. This is becoming an increasingly important and dangerous situation. We have been working on this now for the last several years. Clearly. a number of the solutions that have been proposed are simply inadequate for the protection of the drinking water supply from those who take their water from the Colorado River. I think the gentleman is quite correct. This is now getting to an emergency state of affairs here where we have so many people depending upon this water and we have what clearly is a continuation of the leaching of this radioactive material. The simple capping of this in place and failure to remove it is not going to work. I think the gentlemans amendment is quite on point.
Date: 1999-07-27
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. the Juvenile Justice bill passed long ago. and the House still has not appointed conferees. This legislation and its accompanying gun safety provisions are vitally important to all American.families. Each day in America. 14 kids age 19 and under are killed by guns. In 1996. almost 5.000 juveniles were killed with a firearm. In 1997. 84 percent of murder victims age 13 to 19 were killed with a firearm. Fiftynine percent of students in grades 6 through 12 know where to get a gun if they want one. and twothirds of these students say they can acquire a firearm within 24 hours. Kids and guns do not mix. Yet the Republican leadership refused to consider commonsense gun safety measures that would only serve to protect our kids. It is far too easy for kids to get and use guns. Trigger locks. or locked safety boxes.. would keep this from happening. We have continually passed up the opportunity to act on this vitally important issue. I urge the Republican leadership to move to appoint conferees before we lose another child.
Date: 1999-08-02
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this legislation. Mr. Speaker. the Act of June 20. 1910. which provided statehood for Arizona. granted federally owned lands to the new State and created a permanent trust fund into which revenues from these lands are invested. However. the act also placed certain limitations on the fund which have worked over time to prevent the State from managing the trust fund as profitably as possible. H.R. 747 will alter the terms of the trust fund and correct the problem. These changes have been approved by the voters in Arizona. but because they alter the original statehood act. Congress must- approve them as well. This measure is almost identical to legislation approved in a previous Congress for the State of New Mexico. It is noncontroversial. and I urge my colleagues to support the bill. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.
Date: 1999-08-02
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of this legislation. H.R. 1104 is a minor housekeeping measure to authorize the National Park Service to transfer jurisdiction over approximately one acre of land to the National Archives to enable. construction of a joint visitor center facility at the Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site in Hyde Park. NY. It is our understanding that the site in question has been mutually agreed upon by the two agencies and that the funds have already been appropriated to construct the jointuse facility. Mr. Speaker. both the National Park Service and the National Archives and Records Administration testified in favor of this legislation. and we are unaware of any controversy and we support the legislation. Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.
Date: 1999-08-02
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. I rise in support of H.R. 695 by the gentleman from New Mexico
Date: 1999-08-05
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. the fact of the matter is they pay very little in terms of their participation. We are telling them this is what they signed on to. this is an agreement they agreed to. They are signatories to this operation. We changed it to meet their concerns and so that they can import the tuna in this country. and they agreed. A contract is a contract. They signed a contract saying this is what they agreed they would do. Now they are not doing it. So we end up paying 70 or 80 percent of the cost of this commission. It is not much more complicated than that.
Date: 1999-08-05
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I yield myself 2 minutes simply to respond to what the gentleman from Maryland says. This amendment has no impact on his concerns. What this amendment simply says is that these nations who sought to change the law. who sought to change the access to the American market. who signed an agreement to do so. that they keep their word. that the taxpayers of thiscountry get the benefit of that. We have been funding over 90 percent of this. We have not taken anywhere near that amount of tuna over the last 10 years. All of those things that the fishers have to do now in terms of speed boats and monitors. all the rest of that is what they agreed to do because that is what they said they would do in order to get access to the American market. That is why they signed the agreement. That is why you changed the label. That is why we changed the law. so that they could do this. Clearly that is a very small expenditure compared to finally having. after many years. access to the American consumer market. That is the deal. Yes. they will start negotiating. We all know how the international bodies negotiate. They will pick out a lovely city somewhere in the world. they will go there month after month after month after month and 3 or 4 years from now. because this is about negotiating the entire treaty. they will come back to us. In that time the American consumers are going to be out 6. 8. $10 million. That could be used to shore up the other international fisheries commissions that are not properly funded under this legislation or in request with what the President has sought for those. This is not about dolphin safety. All of the things to protect the dolphin are in place under the agreements. This is about the enforcement. One of the conditions to participating in the program is that you meet your commitments under the law in terms of your financial responsibility. These countries have chosen not to do that. Once again. the good old United States comes in and picks up the fall. You have 10 countries that would have to whack up half of the budget. yet they are harvesting 70. 80 percent of all the tuna. This is just a matter about equity for the United States taxpayers. It is that simple.
Date: 1999-08-05
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I rise in strong support of the Kucinich/RosLehtinen amendment so that NAFTA will not force California to have to live with MTBE gasoline additives. I rise in support of the Kucinich/RosLehinen amendment because I believe that state and local governments should be able to act to protect the public interest without being unnecessarily restrained by trade agreements. Increasingly we have seen that international trade agreements like NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. instead of promoting high international standards. can undermine the most basic protections for workers and the environment. Federal laws to protect clean air and endangered turtles. have been weakened to comply with WTO rulings. and numerous state and local laws are currently threatened. In California alone. 95 laws have been identified as potentially "WTO illegal" by the Georgetown University Law Center. Just last month. a Canadian company initiated a NAFTA suit against the state of Californias phase out of MTBE. a gasoline additive that has polluted water supplies nationwide. If the Canadian company succeeds. the federal government could sue California to change its law. This amendment would deny funding for that type of lawsuit and thereby protect state and local laws. I think that California. like other states. has a legitimate right to protect the health of its citizens and should not be subject to a lawsuit for this action. Unfortunately. this lawsuit against Californias action is just the tip of the iceberg. The laws of many other states and local governments could be challenged next. Potentially tradeillegal are laws to promote recycled materials. encourage the purchase. of local or American goods. and protect human rights. I urge my colleagues to support the KucinichlRosLehtinen amendment to ensure that all levels of government are able to act in the public interest without the threat of trade lawsuits.
Date: 1999-09-14
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the gentlewoman. my colleague from California. for bringing this motion to the floor. She has championed human rights all over the world. I am delighted that she has given us this opportunity to speak out against the atrocities and the brutality that has taken place in East Timor. Year after year. we are told by the military of this country that they are engaged in training programs with the military of other countries that cause that military establishment in those countries. in this case Indonesia. to respect human rights. to understand the chain of command.. to respect civil authority and to benefit us through that relationship. Unfortunately we now see in East Timor just one in a continuation of tragedies where this has turned out to be fiction. It could be no further from the truth. What in fact we see is the involvement of those Americantrained soldiers in the massacre. the slaughter and the brutality against their own citizens. Earlier this year. we debated the School of the Americas where we saw this activity in South America and today now we see it in East Timor. Let us understand something. that the contacts that were supposedly established in East Timor and in Indonesia because of American military training never came about. They never came about because those phone calls were refused. those conversations were not paid attention to. they were not heeded until one thing happened. until the military had taken care of business in East Timor. And by taking care of business. we are talking about the burning and sacking of towns and homes. the destruction of people and the killing of people who voted for and supported the democracy movement. who voted for and supported a vote for freedom that was offered to them by their government. They have thought it was offered in good faith. It turned out when they voted for freedom. they were then signing a death warrant on themselves. We are told of how systematically. systematically the military and militia with lists of names of people who supported democracy were taken from their homes and killed. in some cases killed in their homes in front of family and the members of the family were killed. This was a systematic extermination of the forces of democracy in East Timor. and we have got to quit kidding ourselves that somehow the continuation of expanded IMET. of IMET training to these forces. is bringing about democracy. It is bringing about a holocaust of people in East Timor.