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The Acting chairman: The Clerk will read.

The Clerk read as follows:

Office of the Under Secretary for Management

For necessary expenses of the Office of the Under Secretary for Management, as authorized by sections 701 through 705 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 341 through 345), $237,765,000, of which not to exceed $3,000 shall be for official reception and representation expenses: Provided, That of the total amount provided, $6,000,000 shall remain available until expended solely for the alteration and improvement of facilities, tenant improvements, and relocation costs to consolidate Department headquarters operations and $300,000 shall remain available until expended by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Accreditation Board for the needs of Federal law enforcement agencies participating in training accreditation: Provided further, That no funding provided under this heading may be used to design, build, or relocate any Departmental activity to the Saint Elizabeths campus until the Department submits to the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and the House of Representatives: (1) the published U-Visa rule, and (2) a detailed expenditure plan for checkpoint support and explosive detection systems refurbishment, procurement, and installations on an airport-by-airport basis for fiscal year 2008.

Amendment No. 9 Offered by Mrs. Drake

Mrs. Drake: Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Acting chairman: The Clerk will designate the amendment.

The text of the amendment is as follows:

Amendment No. 9 offered by Mrs. Drake:

Page 2, line 16, after the dollar amount, insert "(reduced by $10,400,000)".

Page 17, line 23, after the dollar amount, insert "(increased by $9,100,000)".

Mrs. Drake: Mr. Chairman, I introduce an amendment today to highlight the importance of State and local law enforcement participation in immigration enforcement.

The intent of this amendment is to fully fund the President's budget request of $26.4 million for State and local law enforcement support for the training and support for the voluntary participation of local law enforcement officers and immigration law enforcement as authorized under section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

This program is designed to enhance cooperation and communication between Federal, State, and local law enforcement in identifying and removing criminal illegal aliens. Under 287(g), ICE provides State and local law enforcement with the training and authorization to identify; process; and, when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter during their regular daily law enforcement activity.

It is very important to note that the 287(g) program is not used for rounding up illegal aliens in random street operations. This program is targeted specifically for those individuals who pose a significant threat to public safety and national security. Additionally, the 287(g) program is not used to determine the legal status of witnesses and victims of crime. Officers in the 287(g) program are trained to respect the status of witnesses and victims involved in a criminal case in order to ensure the integrity of our criminal justice system.

Currently, the 287(g) program is implemented in 13 jurisdictions. Perhaps the jurisdiction with the greatest success in this program is Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. In just 12 months, Sheriff Jim Pendergraph has been able to identify and deport nearly 1,900 criminal illegal aliens, most of whom had been previously ordered deported by an immigration judge. This program is working and the demand for participation among the States is increasing.

And in the report accompanying this appropriations bill, the committee has acknowledged the importance of identifying criminal illegal aliens while incarcerated in our State and local jails. Participation in the 287(g) program can rectify that problem.

Immigration enforcement is clearly a Federal responsibility. It is the Federal Government's primary duty to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. But we cannot do it alone. We need the assistance of our State and local law enforcement who encounter these issues on a daily basis.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this important amendment.

Mr. Price of North Carolina: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I wish, Mr. Chairman, to offer some comments on this amendment.

The amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Virginia would reduce the Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Management Account by $10.4 million and reallocate $9.1 million of the funds to the ICE 287(g) program. Because of the differences in outlays, the remaining $1.3 million cannot be used.

Now, as we have said on this floor many times in the last 18 hours of debate, our Republican friends seem determined to trash the front offices at the Department of Homeland Security. They rail against bureaucrats. They have no regard for the President's requests for those front offices. The fact is that the Under Secretary for Management funding is critical for the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that it develops its new headquarters in a consolidated way and that it does its job.

But if our friends on the Republican side of the aisle are not going to defend their own administration's needs in this regard, let alone their budget requests, I and my colleagues here are not inclined to do so. So our colleagues will need to look at this amendment and maybe they will want to support it, the source of funding notwithstanding.

Let me say something about the recipient of these funds, the 287(g) program. Now, the ICE 287(g) program does require additional funding next year, and it requires additional funding because of the emphasis that we are placing in our bill on the necessity of ICE's getting serious about preventing the release of prisoners, people who have committed serious crimes, who are deportable, permitting the release of those people back out on the streets. It is just outrageous that criminals who have been convicted, who have committed serious crimes in this country are being put out on the street without their status even being checked.

So we do have in this bill a requirement for ICE to contact every prison, jail, and correctional facility in this country on a monthly basis to identify removable criminal aliens. And we have provided a good deal of additional 287(g) funding to enroll correctional facilities in this program and to provide training and technical support to participants so they can provide accurate and actionable data to ICE agents.

So we have tripled ICE's funding. We have tripled ICE's funding. We have more than tripled the amounts provided in fiscal year 2007, that was $5.4 million, to $17.3 million in fiscal year 2008. Now, we think that is sufficient to enable ICE to undertake these duties as well as to carry on its existing functions because, first of all, it is a tripling in funding. Secondly, the Department has yet to obligate more than half of a $50 million appropriation made in 2006 for this program. It has not yet been obligated.

I have to say to my colleagues that as far as the 287(g) program is concerned, the availability of funding is not the issue. Trying to increase participation rates is the issue. But it is not just a matter of throwing money at the problem, as our friends like to say.

So ICE is going to take on, we hope and believe, significant new responsibilities. We have provided funding to accomplish that, and we are also, of course, assuming that the Department is going to obligate that $50 million that is sitting there already.

Now, our colleague has offered an amendment to provide yet more funding for ICE, funding that it is not clear to me that she has really analyzed how and when the funding can be used. But if she wishes to take yet another bite out of her own administration's front office accounts at Homeland Security, then, again, she can be our guest.

I do want my colleagues to know, though, that we are serious about this prison program. We think of all the priorities in terms of deportation, this is at the top of the list. It is a major feature of our bill. ICE is going to be directed to undertake this as a top priority. We know it will require funding. We have provided the funding, and perhaps in the best of all worlds this additional funding contained in this amendment would help this function be performed even more effectively. That would be a positive way to look at it, and for that reason we will not be opposing the amendment.

Mr. Rogers of Kentucky: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the gentlewoman's amendment. I have some concerns about the offset, but I believe this amendment will help restore balance to ICE's enforcement resources as well as the agency's support for State and local officials. As I said when we opened this debate, I believe a fiscally responsible funding level includes sufficient resources to carry out all legislative functions and directions.

This amendment helps to restore some balance of resources to meet the bill's mandate for ICE to contact every correctional facility across the country, over 5,000 of them, at least once a month to identify incarcerated aliens that can be deported and to initiate those deportation proceedings. That mandate is a lofty goal. Over 5,000 local and State jails and detention facilities that you have got to contact monthly and talk to the jailers who are State or local officials and are not being paid to help you with this, it is an unfunded mandate, and who are also not qualified to judge whether or not a person that is incarcerated is an illegal alien. It is not their job, and they are not trained for it. So that is going to be a difficult goal to implement and one that is unfunded but, I think, worthwhile.

So I remain concerned that the bill presupposes that ICE can simply redirect resources from some other vital criminal investigation or fugitive operation to meet this unfunded mandate. I mean, ICE is understaffed as it is with personnel out there. You take a lot of personnel off of what they are doing now to check with every jail in the country, 2,000 of which hardly have any incarcerated aliens in them anyway, and you have got to take that personnel off of fugitive operations, catching people who are not in jail who are rapists and murderers and thieves, and deport them.

So the bottom line is we have got to have some more money for ICE to do this new chore. In fact, the bill even suggests resources can be drawn from the 287(g) program to meet this mandate. But then the bill reduces funding for that very program by almost 30 percent below the request.

So restoring the $9.1 million cut in the 287(g) program will provide additional funds to help State and local correctional facilities at the ID and processing of illegal aliens, the very priority the bill is trying to force. In fact, over 40 percent of the local law enforcement officers trained to date through the 287(g) program are from jails and correctional facilities in States like Florida, Arizona, Alabama, North Carolina, California.

Look at some of the notable results from the ICE's 287(g) program.

I am quoting from the Nashville City Paper printed April 24. "If the first week's worth of figures hold up, the number of illegal immigrants deported in the first year of the national 287(g) program would be more than 4,200, or equal to 11 percent of Nashville's total, legal and illegal, Hispanic population, according to a City Paper analysis of the first batch of 287(g) immigration enforcement data."

Bottom line, Mr. Chairman, the 287(g) program is too vital a program in the fight to secure our borders to accept the bill's $9.1 million cut.

I urge Members to support the Drake amendment.

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I would like to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Homeland Security on the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, we have learned from the recent devastation of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma, as well as Tropical Storm Allison, which devastated my city of Houston in 2001, that severe consequences can result from not having the proper hurricane preparedness plans and outreach efforts in place prior to such a disaster.

In my own district in Houston, and in New Orleans, and in communities throughout America, we have personally seen firsthand that minorities, the elderly, the disabled and impoverished populations have not been adequately prepared for the upcoming hurricane seasons or, in fact, hurricane seasons in the past.

I am particularly dismayed that these vulnerable populations have not been targeted by outreach efforts communicating the need to prepare for a major hurricane or other natural disaster. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck some of America's most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Even rural communities have suffered from the lack of focus on emergency preparedness, communities which are just now beginning to find their feet again after these devastating storms.

National, State and local governments have not fulfilled their responsibility to ensure that they are not, once again, left to face nature's wrath alone. My colleague from Minnesota, Representative Jim Ramstad, has stated that the disaster in the gulf coast region exposed the enormous gaps in the emergency planning preparedness and management for people with disabilities. We desperately need to fill these gaps.

Mr. Chairman, I had intended to offer an amendment to H.R. 2638, the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2008, that would have provided an additional $5 million to FEMA to support emergency preparedness outreach and program efforts for vulnerable communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and the economically disadvantaged.

However, money does not answer all questions, and I would be willing to forgo offering my amendment if the chairman would be willing to work with me to ensure that FEMA makes specific efforts to engage those most vulnerable members of our communities in programs that would involve the necessary preparedness, education, training and awareness that is necessary to prepare our communities.

Mr. Price of North Carolina: I thank the gentlelady from Texas for raising this important issue. I will be happy to work with you on it. I want to thank you for your leadership on the issue. I agree with you, as the chairman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that much more must be done to engage our communities about the need to be prepared for all types of disasters and that special efforts are required to engage the most vulnerable members of our communities. It is a very valuable focus that you brought to this.

So that's why we fund FEMA's management and administration account at $685 million, $150 million above the current fiscal year. FEMA has told us of its plans to engage in this type of preparedness effort. We intend to monitor that. We strongly support it.

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: Mr. Chairman, I thank you.

I am aware of dedicated community activists that have stepped forward to fill the void left by Federal, State and local governments. Currently, FEMA's national preparedness director only has an acting deputy administrator rather than the permanent leadership this office requires. Further, this administrator testified before our Homeland Security Subcommittee that our national strategy for citizen preparedness must be rooted in strong local efforts to integrate citizens and communities, and requires locally or regionally developed plans to address each community's unique risk and capabilities.

He also testified to the need for utilizing volunteer services, since there are not enough emergency responders to take care of everyone in every location during the most critical time.

I understand the chairman believes there are funds available in the legislation for FEMA to reach out to these State and local activists and groups to provide them with the resources that they need to continue their vitally important work, and to work to ensure that the absolute debacle that we saw 2 years ago before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina is never allowed to happen again. One such activist is Mr. Charles X. White, who has worked tirelessly to provide much- needed resources for Houston's vulnerable communities.

In light of predictions of a devastating hurricane season this year, we must take action to ensure that those who are reaching neglected segments of our American population are adequately funded, including these vulnerable populations, racial, ethnic, disabled, elderly and others.

I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, on report language as this bill goes forward, to ensure that hurricane preparedness outreach to vulnerable communities is a priority for FEMA.

The Acting chairman: The time of the gentlewoman has expired.

(By unanimous consent, Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. Price of North Carolina: I thank the gentlewoman. I will be happy to work with her on report language.

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: I thank the distinguished chairman for his work on this legislation, this appropriations bill. And I thank you on behalf of the vulnerable communities across America who may be facing a tough hurricane or man-made disaster season.

We need FEMA to focus their attention. I thank the gentleman for his work and his support.

Mrs. Blackburn: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I rise in support of the amendment from the gentlelady of Virginia, and also in support of the 287(g) program.

I want to thank the ranking member for mentioning our program in Nashville, Tennessee, and talking a little bit about that. He gave us some information about why this program works. I would like to expand on that for just a couple of minutes, and then I'm going to yield to the gentleman from Virginia for a couple of minutes of remarks.

The program in Nashville, the 287(g) program there, is working. We understand that it yields results. You heard about the first week's results from this program.

Now, the reason we need to put our money where our mouth is and the reason the funding needs to support the language in the bill is because this is a program that saves local governments money. And it works. And there is a waiting list to get into this program.

Now, a follow-up on the comments that the ranking member made from the June 10 issue of the Nashville Tennesseean. Fifteen deputies from the Davidson County department underwent training, and now they check the immigration status of every foreign-born person that is booked to that jail.

Also, they have 213 inmates that were held on immigration orders during the program's first 45 days. It is a sharp increase from the 151 metro jail prisoners subjected to immigration holds in the year of 2006. This is paying for itself. It is getting results. That is why this program deserves to be fully funded.

At this point, I would like to yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor) for his 2 minutes of remarks.

Mr. Cantor: I thank the gentlelady. And I want to commend the committee for bringing this bill forward, but really take some difference in the remarks that were made regarding the gentlelady from Virginia's amendment on the 287(g) program. I couldn't think of anything that would be more effective in helping us enforce the law in the interior of this country than additional funds for this program.

As some of the speakers prior to me have said, we need all hands on deck as far as the criminal population that has made its way into this country. We need the ability to go after these criminals, in the words of the gentleman from Kentucky, these rapists, these murderers and these thieves. And there is no more effective way to identify them than to empower the folks, the first responders that are on the ground in our communities across this country.

Now, some of the words from the gentleman of North Carolina, the chairman of the subcommittee, were that, in fact, we have too much money in this program and it hasn't been used, and, in fact, they are unobligated funds. Well, then I would say to the gentleman and to my colleagues that we haven't done our job, because we have got to do our job to put the vision out there that we intend to get serious about the illegal immigration population, especially those that are criminals in this country.

The American people expect us to enforce the law. This vehicle allows the Federal Government to step up to the plate to provide local law enforcement and our agencies at home the necessary resources and the tools with which to identify and apprehend the illegal population that has run afoul of our law in the interior of this country.

Not more than a month ago we saw the individuals in New Jersey; we saw them apprehended, planning a terrorist attack on Fort Dix in that State. Later, we come to find out that those individuals had had various run-ins with the law, and in fact, combined, 75 times had been involved with some type of either traffic violation or other criminal interdiction, but yet these individuals were never identified as being illegal.

We have got to make sure that that scenario is not repeated. We have got to empower the most powerful force we've got, which is that on the grounds and in our local community.

So I would urge my colleagues to join the gentlelady from Virginia Beach in making sure that we adequately fund this program and insist that our local law enforcement agencies have the necessary tools and the resources that they need to assist in enforcing the law.

Mrs. Blackburn: I would yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. Rogers of Kentucky: I thank the gentlelady for yielding. And to both Members, there are just a few thousand ICE agents, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of local law enforcement officials.

The Acting chairman: The time of the gentlewoman has expired.

(By unanimous consent, Mrs. Blackburn was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)

Mr. Rogers of Kentucky: If 287(g) would provide the training and the authority for the local law enforcement to do just as the gentleman has said, think of the law enforcement power that can be brought to bear on the severe problem the country faces of getting rid of convicts in the penitentiaries, as well as fugitives on the run and on the lam, and raping and plundering and robbing in the country. I think it's as simple as ABC. I don't know why we don't do more of it.

I thank the gentlelady.

Mrs. Blackburn: Mr. Chairman, precisely, there are 13 jurisdictions that have this program. It works. We need this Nation right. The cop on the beat needs the information to get to these criminals that are on our streets.

Let's fully fund the 287(g). We're looking at $36.3 billion. There is money to do this right and be a good steward of our taxpayers' money.

Mr. Farr: Mr. Chairman, I rise to strike the last word.

I rise on this issue with just some concern here that we don't lose perspective of what we're really trying to accomplish.

This was an issue brought up in the committee, probably the most popular issue of all, which was that we wanted ICE, which is the second largest law enforcement agency in the country next to the FBI, at the rate it's growing, it's going to be bigger than the FBI, we wanted them to do their job of being able to determine whether people who had been arrested at the local level and were in jail, maybe not yet sentenced, but were pending trial or were being held, that somebody would review their legal status.

The question is that this program that we are debating and wanting to put more money into, and frankly, the committee doubled the amount of money that's going into it, which is a grant program to local governments, not all local governments are keen on wanting to do this. Why? Because they have emphasized what they call "community policing."

They want the local law enforcement officer to be a friend of the community in order to be involved with the community, to have communities trust them. And if they think that the local law enforcement is also the Border Patrol, they are going to shut up and stop talking to cops. And you get all kinds of issues with this, particularly when it comes to children who are afraid of law enforcement, and so on, if they are the ones that are going to arrest their moms and dads.

So, let's put this into some perspective. What we really need to do is make sure that the ICE, the Federal law enforcement, does their job. Why? Because they are trained.

I have a note here from my sheriff saying that the ICE comes to our jails in Monterey County, a small rural county in California, three times a week. He said the number of confirmed, undocumented prison inmates varies. Last quarter, there were 52 identified undocumented inmates in Monterey County. The previous quarter there were also 52; prior to that, 72.

Some of the inmates claim citizenship status or legal permanent residency and don't have their documentation order. It takes some time to label them and do all that legal background work.

That is not what the legal background work is. We have that information. That is Federal information.

As we pointed out before, we have no national ID. None of you in here can prove you are an American citizens by any card you carry in your wallet, unless you want to show your voting card, but they won't accept that in the airport so I don't know what valid status that has.

The point here is, let's not stop making ICE do their job. They should be doing these local jail checks. If you want to do additional training for local jailers, that is fine. That is what this program is about. But don't substitute it so the local government has to do it, because I think you ought to believe that criminal management up to your local elected officials, your sheriffs and your police chiefs, to make that decision.

This is the second largest police force in the United States. It ought to be doing jail checks. They are the ones that have the qualifications to look into the Federal Information Bank to see whether these people are properly documented, and I think we ought to make sure that they do their job.

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Farr: I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: Mr. Chairman, I just want to say the gentleman is absolutely right. We have to separate what ICE does from local law enforcement. This is trying to backdoor immigration reform. We really need, not piecemeal immigration reform, if we are going to do it.

ICE, in relation with the jails, that works. Make sure the incarcerated criminals are tracked in the right direction. But to go into neighborhoods using local law enforcement that is now using ICE money to train them really, I think, undermines the law enforcement system in that community, and law-abiding citizens who would be willing to help solve a crime are now being victimized.

If we are going to do immigration reform, let's do it. Let's do it in the right way. But let's not manipulate local law enforcement, who in fact have made official statements on the record that they would prefer not to be engaged in Federal immigration work.

So I thank the gentleman for the point that he has made, and I hope that this body will get down at some point to a reasonable and rational response to the problems of the immigration system.

Mr. Farr: Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, this amendment has been accepted. I am just concerned that we still need to put pressure on ICE to do the real jail checks.

Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite of Florida: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, when I talk to my local sheriffs back home, one of whom actually burned out the battery on my cell phone, what they want to do is do what people expect them to do, and that is help the very overtaxed, no pun intended, ICE employees who are out there trying to apprehend the criminals, the criminal illegal aliens.

In Florida, we were able to train 35 State and local law enforcement people under this program, under the 287(g) program. It is a good program, and, believe me, it is very much wanted by many local sheriffs, sheriffs who also get elected like we do and who get frustrated when ICE is unable to come to the jail with the frequency that they need to, who are frustrated because the citizens want illegals who have criminal records, they want them off the streets, off their lawns, and they want to once again be able to reclaim their communities, very often, from a lot of illegal activity.

The 13 jurisdictions that use the 287(g) program are very happy with it. We need to adequately fund it, and I commend my colleague from Virginia for introducing this amendment. It is a good amendment and one that I think the American people certainly would want to have well- funded because of its efficacy.

Again, I commend the gentlewoman.

Mr. Poe: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, in my other life, before coming to Congress, I spent 22 years on the criminal court bench in Houston, Texas, trying all kinds of criminals. During that experience, I learned a lot about the way the world really is.

It is unfortunate that, in the society we live in, the Immigration Service cannot protect the United States as far as interior enforcement goes. There aren't enough interior enforcement agents to track down people who are illegally in the system. When I say "in the system," I am talking about the criminal justice system.

What happens too often is a person is arrested for a crime. He is put in jail. The person is illegally in the United States, but nobody knows about that. They are sentenced to some term in jail or in prison. They get out, and they continue to stay in the United States illegally. That continues to be a problem, especially in big jurisdictions like Houston, Texas, where I am from.

They are committing more crimes, yes. The last three peace officers in the City of Houston that have been shot, Mr. Speaker, were all shot by people illegally in the United States. Two of those individuals had been arrested several times and yet kept being released. The problem breaks down in the local jails.

It needs to be clear that this program, the 287(g) program that is being funded and that we are asking more funds to be appropriated for, is voluntary. Cities are not required to participate.

Sanctuary cities, and we know what cities they are, that harbor illegals, they won't participate. They don't have to participate. But not all cities in the United States are sanctuary cities.

Some cities want to help clean up the crime problem in their neighborhoods. One way they can do it is to receive Federal funds, going to local law enforcement, who know best about policing and who the people are in the area and what criminals they are; to track those individuals illegally in the country and make sure they are legally deported back where they came from. We find that it works, and it works very well.

For example, in local jails, sheriffs use the 287(g) program to find out who foreign gang members are, like the MS-13 gang members. Once they are in custody, they can determine who those individuals are, that they are illegally in the United States, and, as soon as they are released from jail, which happens to all of them, rather than be released back on the streets of our cities, they will be deported back where they came from.

Now that doesn't seem to happen as much as it should. We have "catch and release" of illegals in our county jail system. Then we got to go catch them again and then try to have them deported after some crime is committed.

So I think it is wise to use the 750,000 local peace officers in the United States, those peace officers that want to participate in the 287(g) program, train them with Federal funds and allow them to police their own jails and their neighborhoods so that people who are convicted of criminal conduct, that are illegally in the United States, once they are captured, we can deport them rather than continue to release them back on our streets.

So I want to commend the gentlewoman from Virginia for proposing this important amendment asking for more funds for local law enforcement to do their job. Obviously, the Federal Government cannot, has not done its job in protecting interior enforcement, and I think it is a wise use of money to allow local law enforcement to do so.

Mr. Reichert: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment to fully fund ICE's request of $26.4 million for its 287(g) program. Let's just get down to sort of the cop's nitty gritty here.

Just 2½ years ago, I left the King County Sheriff's Office as the sheriff in Seattle, Washington, an 1,100-employee organization with a $110 million budget. I started in 1972 as a 21-year-old police officer in a patrol car for about 5 years. I worked in the jail, and I worked as a property crimes detective, and for the most part of my career, I was a homicide investigator. I worked with all kinds of communities.

All the different diverse communities that we serve across this Nation exist in King County, Seattle, Washington. I understand the theory of the Community Oriented Policing program. We implemented that program in the King County Sheriff's Office. It is one of those programs that really comes natural to a police officer working on the streets in their patrol car. They want to connect with their community. They want to be friends with their community, as mentioned earlier by my colleague across the aisle.

Part of the Community Oriented Policing program is to make friends and engage in conversation and build relationships, but it is also our job as law enforcement officers, local law enforcement officers across this Nation, to enforce the law. Sometimes we make friends doing that. We save lives doing that. But sometimes we make enemies.

In the process of making friends and making enemies and protecting our neighborhoods, we also build partnerships with those communities, but we also build partnerships beyond that. We build partnerships with the Federal Government. We build partnerships with the FBI, with the U.S. Attorney's Office, with DEA, with ICE, with Border Patrol. I could go on and on and on with the Federal agencies that join in concert, in partnership, with local law enforcement every day.

In Federal task force organizations, like the Joint Analytical Centers, the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the HIDTA, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, the Violent Offenders Task Force, the VICAP Program, and I could go on and on and on with Federal agencies and Federal programs and Federal task forces that come together; it is about partnerships between local law enforcement and Federal law enforcement. And it is about training, joint training, with each of these agencies so that we can get our job done, that we can protect this country.

I understand that. I worked as a partner with the Federal agencies when I wore a police uniform on the street. I worked with as a partner with Federal agencies as I wore my suit and tie and my uniform as the sheriff for 8 years in King County. These partnerships are essential. They create a seamless web, a seamless web of sharing information across all spectrums of the Federal, local, State law enforcement.

There is no undermining of the local police department when partnerships are created with the Federal Government. It is an uplifting and exciting experience to work with all of these agencies and train together to finally learn what each one of us does and what we can bring to the table as a team as we protect our country.

So Homeland Security now, as a fairly new agency with 22 departments, is another one of those agencies that we have to work with, and ICE is one of those.

This training program creates an understanding. It helps police officers understand and respect civil liberties. It helps police officers understand and respect civil rights. It helps police officers at the local level in training with the Federal Government understand and respect the diverse communities that we serve. Why would we not want to have our local police officers participate in training that helps give us a broader understanding of the diverse community we serve?

It makes no sense to me to be against increasing this budget to what ICE has asked for. It makes no sense at all. If we are truly interested in civil liberty, civil rights and respecting each other's diversity, we would want this training.

Let's make a point clear: This is voluntary. This isn't mandated by the government. Every police department and Sheriff's office across the country can volunteer for this program.

So, Mr. Chairman, this is a great program. I commend the gentlewoman from Virginia for bringing this forward. I fully support this amendment, and encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of it.

Mr. Carter: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

The Acting chairman: Has the gentleman from Texas spoken on this amendment yet?

Mr. Carter: No, I haven't.

The Acting chairman: The gentleman from Texas is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. Carter: Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that I follow my colleagues that have worked in law enforcement, for I, too, have worked in the court systems of criminal justice.

This 287(g) program to me is an exciting idea that has great potential, and I would love to see it expanded to where we have trained every law enforcement officer in America in just the style that my colleague from Washington just described, so that they can not only honor the diversity as he described, but also can participate in enforcing the laws of the United States, where the resources required for interior enforcement of the immigration laws, the number is overwhelming. To me, it is a good use of resources to use good, honest law enforcement wherever it exists to enforce the laws of this land.

I thought about this the other night, because it's an experience that most everyone here probably, if they will confess, has had. If you live in Houston, Texas, where my colleague, Ms. Jackson-Lee, lives, or pick a town, it doesn't really matter, Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Ohio, and you get a parking ticket, if you fail to pay that parking ticket, you're probably going to get a notice from the department that takes care of parking tickets, and they're going to send you that notice and tell you that you have failed to appear to answer to this parking ticket.

They're going to stick a fine on there to go with the parking ticket fine. It could be $100, it could be $50, whatever the jurisdiction chooses, and then that letter is going to say, if you don't pay these two offenses, then we're going to issue a warrant for your arrest on a parking ticket.

Believe me, it happens every day. Ask my daughter, okay? Now, they probably aren't going to get out and serve that warrant unless they do some mass roundup, but generally they don't do that. But you're driving down the street, if you get that ticket in Houston, Texas, and you happen to be in Dallas with a broken taillight, and a police officer stops you to tell you he wants to give you a warning about your broken taillight and he runs the national system of warrants that's available across this Nation. Guess what he finds? They have a warrant for your arrest for a parking ticket in Houston, Texas, and he will arrest you; and he will put you in jail or hold you until you deal with that ticket.

Now, that's what happens to every American citizen that follows the scenario that I just gave you, or could happen to them.

Now, 18 months ago, when I was meeting with ICE people, I asked them how many absconders we had from these folks that were catch-and-release that had been ordered to court and had failed to appear on the ICE warrants. I found the number was approximately 700,000 people. It's probably more now, because I'm talking about 18 months ago; that's the number they gave to me.

And I asked the ICE agents, are there warrants issued for their arrests? Are they in the system? And will local law enforcement respect those warrants? And I couldn't get an answer. I was privately told, "No."

Now, this program, with trained officers out on the street, at least we could pick up violators of the Federal law who had disrespected the court system created by this Federal law and had failed to appear in that court. At least we could pick them up in the manner we pick up people who get a parking ticket.

We have to be inventive in this problem that we are facing with massive violation of the law in the immigration system. And I think the 287(g) is the core, so that we train to find these people in prison. There were times when we were at the jail commission trying to close our county jail for overcrowdedness that the district judges would review it every Friday evening, and we would find that 30 percent of the inmates in our jail would be illegal aliens. Thirty percent. And sometimes higher.

Let's have trained people. Let's support this amendment. Let's have trained people and let the departments that want to participate put trained people on the street to deal with ICE issues.

Mr. Campbell of California: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I've been listening to the debate on this particular amendment, and I've heard a number of people who are opposed to it speak, I suppose, about their theories, about how this won't work or why it may not be effective or what it may do or affect people in a community or whatever.

I am here, Mr. Chairman, not to talk about theories or not to talk about speculation, but to talk about what this particular program has done, in fact, in Orange County, California. My congressional district is entirely encompassed within the County of Orange in California. There are five other Members of this body whose congressional districts are either entirely within Orange County, California, or partially within Orange County, California, and two jurisdictions within that county, both the Orange County sheriff's department and the police at the city of Costa Mesa, California, have been engaged in this program.

I would like to read from a press release that was issued from the Office of Sheriff-Coroner Mike Carona. This press release was issued just last month relative to the effectiveness of the program that is the subject of the lady from Virginia's amendment.

It says, "Since the inception of Orange County Sheriff Michael Carona's cross-designation program in January 2007, deputies have increased the number of immigration holds by more than 400 percent, from approximately 350 to over 1,600. Of this amount, more than 1,000 of the undocumented individuals who were booked into Orange County jail were charged with felony law violations, and over 100 were known gang members."

Now, Mr. Chairman, this is fact, that since the Orange County sheriff's department participated in this program and had its deputies trained on how to enforce our illegal immigration laws, they have taken off the street 1,600 illegal aliens, 1,000 of whom were felons. So because of this program, there are 1,000 fewer illegal immigrant felons walking the streets in Orange County, California.

That is not theory. That is not conjecture. That is actually fact.

Also, in the city of Costa Mesa, which I do not represent, but is represented by Congressman Rohrabacher, but it's adjacent to my district, they've recently trained their officers in enforcing immigration laws, and between March and May of 2007, they identified and placed containers on 146 illegal immigrants in the city jail, and of this amount, 53 had committed felonies.

Now, this is in addition to the 1,000 felons that I talked about before, because it's a separate jurisdiction, a separate city police force dealing with their jurisdiction within the County of Orange.

So, Mr. Chairman, this program is effective, and I know some people who are opposed to this amendment have said that somehow it's going to disrupt community relations or something like that. I can tell you that the Orange County sheriff's office has been very, very involved in the community generally, broadly in Orange County, both in ethnic communities and in regular communities, and very involved in stopping drugs.

Because what a lot of people are interested in, particularly in some lower-income communities, is getting the drug dealers and getting the problems that drugs create out of their community. That's what they're interested in. They're not necessarily interested in protecting felons or in making sure that somehow when we have illegal alien felons that we handicap or restrict the ability of local law enforcement to find those people, identify them and bring them to justice and eventually out of this country.

So, Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment from the lady from Virginia, and I support it on the basis of actual, real experience that has happened in my county; and, that we know of, well over 1,000 felons who are no longer on the street.

Mr. Serrano: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, we have been down this road before in this discussion, and it's easily something that the other party wants to do in spite of the fact that their local governments tell them they don't want this done. I think the public and all Members really need to understand what this is about. This is about the fact that there are people in this country who are undocumented. That's a fact. How do you remove them out of the country is another issue.

What happens while they're living in this country is the issue at hand. Now, throughout the discussion on immigration, we've had questions like, if a person is here, undocumented, and they have a child, do you say to that child, you can't go to a public school because your parents are here undocumented?

Well, if you think they're leaving tomorrow or next year, that might work. But if you think that eventually whatever plan we come up with allows X number of children to stay in the country, then you can't deny them education because you're just creating a generation of Americans who won't get education.

Then you move on to step two. At times, we have said that if a person is here undocumented, they should not get any kind of emergency medical care. Well, besides the humaneness of that, that we should never deny medical care to anyone, there is the issue of, so do you want the person working at a local hamburger place serving you food while they are ill and not able to treat their disease and the germs they may spread around. That is an issue.

This one is really a classic one. This is where you say to your local police department, we want you to enforce immigration law. And just about a unanimous cry throughout the Nation has been from police departments saying, Don't give us that responsibility. We don't want it. We don't need it.

The reason they don't want it and they don't need it is for a very proper crime-fighting purpose. A local police department, a local law enforcement department, makes contacts in the community, finds out who's committing crime in the community by talking to folks. Traditionally, undocumented folks have known and have felt secure in that they can tell a police officer that a crime has been committed and point a finger at the person who's committed the crime, knowing very well that their conversation is about crime and not about documentation or about their status as a citizen or a noncitizen, an illegal or undocumented person within the country.

That is the reason why just about every police department in the Nation, sheriff's, whatever they are called in different communities, have said, don't give us that responsibility; we don't want it because we want to keep this relationship going with this community, knowing well that we can get information out of them.

And they are not dealing with us on an immigration law issue. That's why we have ICE. That's why we have all other people in the country that enforce immigration law.

But now we bring it, since September 11, to a new point, and that is, what if in the gathering of information that could lead to the prevention of a terrorist attack, you can't get information from some folks because they're afraid that while speaking to you, their immigration issue comes to light rather than their information on the fact that there could be a terrorist plot being planned somewhere.

This is a classic case of the old line throwing the baby out with the bath water. Yes, there is an immigration issue, and we are trying to deal with it, all of us. And, yes, I know that there are some people that are very upset about the fact that there are people here who are not legally in the country.

But now to go and say that you're the party for law and order, Mr. Chairman, and at the same time say, but we want to tie the hands of our local law enforcement in gathering information, is a terrible mistake.

You will continue to do what you want. Eventually more and more police departments will tell you that they don't want this job; they don't want this responsibility. And somehow we will continue to get it wrong. Don't tie the hands of our law enforcement folks. Let them continue to gather the information they need.

Mrs. Myrick: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I appreciate the comments of the gentleman from New York, but we solved that problem in my community of Charlotte, North Carolina. We have a police department that has relationships with the people in their community, and they go out and deal with them; and the sheriff is handling our 287(g) program. We have one of the most successful ones in the country, and it is very simple. The misconception is out there of what the 287(g) program is really about. It is about people who have committed some kind of a crime, just like you and me, who are booked into the jail, and that is why it is perfect for the sheriff to handle it, because then they are booked into the jail, then the sheriff has the ability to check the national database and see if that person has any violations anyplace, anywhere else in the country. That is the beauty of the program.

We started it in our city. Our sheriff, Jim Pendergraff, has very successfully found ways to grow this program. And in the first few months, actually, we had over a thousand people who were removed and deported that were criminals on the street. It is working very well.

Again, I go back to the fact, and I thank the gentlelady from Virginia for this amendment because it is crucial we have these all over the country.

The Senate bill said there were only 50 programs going to be authorized. We have 3,200 jails in the country. That doesn't cut it. ICE can't do it all. They literally can't, and local law enforcement is in a perfect position to be able to help.

Since we started it in Mecklenburg County, all of the counties around us are also doing the same program because they have found that people are moving into their county to avoid being caught in Mecklenburg. So we have our surrounding districts who are applying, have applied or are now doing the 287(g) program in addition to Mecklenburg. It really works. It is a good program, and I totally support the efforts to see this come to fruition as an amendment.

Mr. Akin: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I would yield to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Mrs. Drake).

Mrs. Drake: Mr. Chairman, I would just like to point out that the reason I chose this funding, the Office of the Secretary of Management, is because in researching this, I realized there was an $89 million increase between 2007 and 2008 funding. That is a 60 percent increase. I think it is important that money be spent in our communities.

I would also like to point out that I did research the $50 million that was referenced in the report, and that report isn't very accurate because by the end of this month, there will be roughly $1 million left in that account, not $50 million. In 2006, $5 million was appropriated for operating expenses. In 2007, it was $5.4 million; and then there was the $50 million appropriated for start-up costs. But by the end of this month, those will have been almost spent.

With the hard work of people like Sheriff Pendergraff in North Carolina and our other sheriffs across the Nation, the public is aware of the services, the resources, the technology and the training, that can be provided through this program.

Unfortunately for us in Virginia Beach, all of America heard of the very, very tragic accident that took the lives of two beautiful young women at the hands of an illegal alien DUI driver who had been apprehended in our community at least three times and was still back out on the street.

This is a voluntary program, but citizens in our State are asking: How can you break our law, be in our justice system and be right back out on the streets again? This is a program that deals with people who have been apprehended and not victims or witnesses.

There are also State-level programs. With our DMV, I think every one of us would want to know that our DMVs can find fraudulent documents because of these resources that are available.

And in regards to our correctional systems, for local governments to be telling ICE right in the very beginning, ICE can have all of the paperwork done and be ready when that person is released for that person to be deported, just like that, no additional cost of detainment.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friends today who have spoken on behalf of this amendment, and I certainly appreciate the chairman of the subcommittee saying he is willing to accept this amendment. I think all of America thanks you.

Mr. Akin: Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Rogers).

Mr. Rogers of Kentucky: Mr. Chairman, I wanted to compliment the gentlewoman for being an aggressive leader on this subject. She is very knowledgeable on the subject and has done a great deal of work in backgrounding on the amendment she has brought forward. She is doing a great service to the country in this effort. I want to compliment and thank the gentlelady for a great job.

Mr. Pence: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment, but I come to the floor today having responded to the gentlelady from Florida, a distinguished colleague in the Democrat majority, who asked I think a very poignant question on the floor within the last hour, and that was: Where are the reformers?

I must admit, Mr. Chairman, I didn't get the whole gist and the whole context of her question, but it seemed to me that could be a headline. That could be the lead of an editorial. It really represents the question in which much of the exercise in which we are now involved could be summarized.

The chairman of this committee I think has earned throughout his career the label of reformer. I give Chairman Obey that with great respect, not just as a colleague but as a man who has earned that reputation.

But today, as someone who over the last 6 years in this Congress has engaged in fights almost exclusively with my own colleagues on the Republican side, to achieve the beginnings of earmark reform, I ask: Where are the reformers?

And let me specifically say to my Democrat colleagues who share my passion for transparency and accountability, I ask the question: Where are the reformers?

In the last 3 years, and there are colleagues in this room whom I consider not just friends but good friends with whom I have clashed. The ranking member of this subcommittee, we have been on this floor together, Republican on Republican, using, in some cases, the same tactics that we are using today, but we were not training them on the majority. We were training them on our own. We were training these tactics on our own Republican colleagues. That is how passionately we felt for the need for point of order protection in conference reports and for fundamental earmark reform. It would be Members of the Republican Study Committee that virtually singularly took on, not Democrats in the minority, we took on Republicans in the majority. And it was painful among our friends to do it, but we withheld our support for the majority budget. We negotiated fairly but firmly with our own colleagues and friends to achieve the beginnings of earmark reform, requiring that people add their names to earmarks, requiring that earmarks be included in legislation, that they be subject to challenge on the floor of this Congress. These were modest gains, and clearly, the result of election day on November 2006, they were too little, too late. Our clock ran out on this side of the aisle.

But we were fighting on this side amongst ourselves and making halting progress toward earmark reform. That is why, as I watched this debate and as I participate in it, I will be here, as we say in Indiana, until the cows come home. I ask with a sincere heart: Where are the reformers in the majority? Where are the reformers who will come down into this well, and I see some up there that wear that label and deserve it, but on this issue, where are the reformers who are willing to come into this well and say, how about "no"? How about we don't bring appropriation bills to the floor without all of the spending items in the bill, including Member projects and earmarks, so they can be subject to the accountability and the scrubbing of the legislative process?

I know it is inconvenient. I do not question for one second the sincerity of the chairman of this committee, that he is trying and laboring to find a way forward to achieve his goals. But at the end of the day, we cannot set aside the accountability of the legislative process. I ask again: Where are the reformers?

Mr. Farr: Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Pence: I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Farr: I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I have been in elected office, local, State and Federal, for 34 years, and I cannot imagine how any of your community got built without earmarks at the local level, the State level and the Federal level.

There are also earmarks in the bill the President sends down. I think you have misstated the whole symbol of earmarks. The reform in here is more severe than any local, State or Federal office has ever had in the history of the United States.

Mr. Pence: Reclaiming my time, the distinguished gentleman should know that I have supported earmark reform, not banning earmarks, but we can't have earmarks that deny the legislative process here on the floor. Where are the reformers?

Mr. Obey: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to speak, and I certainly am not directing my comments to the gentleman who just spoke, but I do want to make a few comments about the issue of so-called earmarks.

For the last 2 days, Member after Member in this institution have traipsed to the well or stood at the committee table and misdescribed and mischaracterized my proposals and the proposals that several other Democrats have made to reform the earmarking process.

I would simply say, I would have been greatly, if I had had any regard at all for those who were making those statements, I would have been upset. Let me simply say there are many Members--well, that is not true. There are some Members who have embarrassed this institution by the carelessness of their earmarks who came to the well and sounded off as so-called champions of reform.

There are Members who have come up to me and chastised me because I was insisting on a 50 percent reduction on earmarks; who have sent me letters asking for earmark after earmark after earmark. And there are a great many Members of this body who are not members of the Appropriations Committee who seem to have a memory lapse and forget that the bridge to nowhere, and most of the actions by Mr. Cunningham had nothing to do with the appropriations process; they occurred on legislation out of other committees.

I want to make clear, I hate the earmarking process. I absolutely detest it, not because earmarks are wrong, I think 90 percent of the earmarks attached by Members of both parties are perfectly legitimate, and they are a whole lot more on target than the misdirected spending of some of our bureaucrats and the misdirected analysis of OMB, and I know that from personal experience.

The reason I hate earmarks is because they suck everybody in. They suck them into the idea that we have to be ATM machines for our districts, and so they focus on the tiny portion of most bills that are earmarks instead of focusing on the policy that is represented by the legislation that we produce.

It's a whole lot more important to know whether we have adequately funded education or whether we have funded the right programs in education and refused to add funding to some of the worst programs in education than it is to know whether a Member got a $200,000 earmark for an after-school center.

I want the public to know all of that. Every earmark I've ever gotten I believe I've put out a press release and talked as loud as I could and tried to get as much attention to it as I could, because I believed in it.

But what I don't believe in is people who walk both sides of the street. I could tell you what they call them in my hometown. The letter begins with W, and I just want to say that I'm going to be very interested in seeing which Members ask for earmarks and which don't, and I'm going to be very interested in seeing which Members vote for the amendment that I intend to attach to every appropriation bill, which would call for a total elimination on earmarks. I want to see how many of you actually vote for it. I want to see how many of you do not give hypocrisy a bad name.

I thank the House for its attention.

Mr. King of Iowa: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, the timing of this discussion, I really asked to be recognized to address the Drake amendment, but as I listened to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I think there are some things that we need to take up and add to this particular discussion that he's opened up.

And that is, what do we do about this conundrum of earmarks? First of all, we do have too many earmarks, and I've not been one that's said that that solves our spending problem here, but I think it puts bait out there for people to do things that, first of all, if the bloggers could see the things that are going on, they would weigh in on us, and perhaps that would be some of the regulatory function that the bloggers could perform.

But a couple of nights ago, I sat down and went through two appropriations bills. One of them was the omnibus spending bill for 2005, 1,600 pages; another appropriation bill, 400 pages; all together, 2,000 pages. And I didn't read it all, wouldn't have been possible, but I leafed through that appropriations bill, and I find in there earmarks that wouldn't be identified as earmarks. I find in there language that says this funding shall go to this company as funded in previous years.

And my recommendation to the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who hopefully would hear what I would have to say, that being a bill I introduced last year called the CUT Act, "cut unnecessary tab," as in a bar tab, unnecessary spending. But what it does is it solves the problem that's been identified here and, to some degree, described by the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and articulately addressed by Mr. Pence and others here on this floor.

It puts us all up to public scrutiny. Sunlight is the antidote, and we ought to have enough pride in every earmark that we ask for that we would allow the public to see what we're doing with our spending.

And when I look through an appropriations bill, 2,000 pages of them, and I see that even if you knew what you were looking for, you couldn't identify that earmark, you couldn't identify the amount. You might identify the company that it goes to, but unless you had an in with the committee staff and you could trace back through that paperwork, and no one outside this Chamber that I know of can do that without favors by a Member, and a lot of Members couldn't walk in there and get that information, including myself. We need to set this all up for the public scrutiny.

So I spent a couple of years working through my proposal, and I'll hopefully be able to introduce the language again so it's here and goes into this discussion. But the CUT Act makes in order a bill to come to the floor once a quarter that is a rescissions bill and a rescissions bill only. It might just be a blank title offered by the majority leader or the minority leader on the other side, but every Member could bring an amendment down to that.

And it takes this idea that once you go to the conference report and you offer it to the House and the Senate, up-or-down vote, no amendments, no one can know what's in there and no one can read it all, no one can analyze it if they can read it all, but if we put that all up and post it up on the Internet and let the world look at what we're doing and then bring a bill to the floor that's a rescissions bill and let any Member bring an amendment to strike something like the reference was to the "bridge to nowhere," put that up on an up-or- down vote and accumulate that list of rescissions. Then, in the end, we've got an appropriations process that everyone in this Chamber, no one will have an excuse to say I couldn't find that amendment; I couldn't find that language; I couldn't take it out; it wasn't my responsibility. We all become collectively responsible for every dollar spent by this Congress, and if we do that, we truly have sunlight and we truly have a full responsibility. And that's the step that we need to take.

The rest is rhetoric. The rest is hiding behind one side of political argument or the other, but if we're willing to put our earmarks up for an up-or-down vote and let this Congress go on record for any line item, then we truly have the sunlight on this that we've asked for; and I'd ask that consideration from the chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

The people that want to stand up for reform, here it is, the CUT Act.

And then in the moments I have left, I would add that I stand in support of the Drake amendment. And I grew up in a law enforcement family. You cannot enforce laws effectively if you're going to have local government or State law enforcement that decides that they can't engage in enforcing Federal law or vice versa. This has got to be a kind of working, compatible relationship so that the city police, county sheriffs, highway patrolmen and Federal officers all work in a collaborative arrangement. And we need to have the resources to train those local officers.

When we have people on the streets that are picked up two, three, four, five or six times for a traffic violation or an insurance violation, or in an accident or a minor misdemeanor, and they're released back into society and then someone is killed or someone is raped or someone is robbed from, the price to this economy and this society is horrible and horrendous.

And we can't get government to tell us what those numbers are, but I commissioned a GAO study here that was released in April of 2005 that produced those numbers, and I'll bring those numbers back to this floor.

Mr. Hare: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I'm a new Member of this institution. I sat here last night, along with a lot of Members of this body; and on my way, walking to my apartment, I was walking with another freshman Member, and we were talking about what did we just do.

It was what we didn't do. We listened to procedure after procedure, stall after stall, finger-pointing after finger-pointing; and here we were talking about, I thought, an appropriation for something that is incredibly important to this entire Nation. Our national security is at stake.

I'm going to say something also as a new Member. I will comment on the bill in a moment.

I want to commend the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Quite frankly, he has a much longer fuse than I have. So much finger-pointing going on. I know how much work that he and Representative Price and other people have put into these bills.

I'm not an appropriator. I'm a clothing worker, but I'm a freshman Member of this body, and I know finger-pointing when I see it. I know coming to the floor and getting your picture on TV and making sure the cameras hear every word that you say, but I also know the difference between right and wrong. And I will tell you this, Mr. Chairman, last night this was absolutely one of the worst dog-and-pony shows I've seen, and hopefully we will never have to revisit this again.

To the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, let me say, I understand how much work went into this, and to the appropriators, how many hearings went on. I heard about the 3½-month delay that we were blamed about, but the very same chairman of the Appropriations Committee was verbally blasted in this Chamber because he had the unmitigated gall to try to put things in that would give hurricane relief to people affected on the gulf coast, give an opportunity for people to be able to have better lives, a farm disaster, wildfires that we don't have any money for to put out.

How quick we can be to criticize. It's easy, very easy to do.

I'm here tonight to say to this chairman of the committee and to the appropriators, I thank you for the hard work that you have done. We'll get these passed. We have agreed to a rule that opened this Chamber up to allow people to be able to do it, to be able to offer amendments and to come to the floor. I didn't think we offered it so that we could just have a 2 o'clock in the morning marathon, but I was elected to do the work of the people of the 17th Congressional District.

This bill fulfills the commitment to the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. How many years have we been waiting for that, Mr. Chairman?

It provides significant increased support to our first responders, to Customs and border agents and the Transportation and Security Administration. It appropriates $44 million above 2007 to infrastructure protection so communities can identify and assess critical security vulnerabilities. It funds disaster relief to the tune of $1.7 billion so our State and local governments can respond to declared disasters or emergencies.

My congressional district runs almost from the Wisconsin border to St. Louis. I've seen what floods can do to my district. I see what it could do to our farmers and how it can displace people. This bill provides $230 million to modernize and digitize over 100,000 flood maps used to determine rates for the National Flood Insurance program.

And the bill assures the consistent application of Davis-Bacon prevailing wage standards to construction projects funded with Federal grants. By guaranteeing payments of the prevailing local wage rate, this legislation facilitates a better standard of living and economic security for workers, particularly in rural communities and small towns in my district.

I want to close, Mr. Chairman, by again thanking the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. I thank my friend Congressman Price for the hard work that he's put in. As I said, these bills will pass, and we will let the people of our district and the people of this Nation be the ones to decide which one of us, which Member of this body, really came here to do the work of the people. I did and so did many, many of my colleagues in this Chamber. But I will tell you what I won't do: I will not go back to my congressional district and apologize for putting in for projects.

The Acting chairman: The time of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hare) has expired.

(By unanimous consent, Mr. Hare was allowed to proceed for 1 additional minute.)

Mr. Hare: Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to apologize for trying to keep my arsenal, the 7,500 jobs there that produce armor to keep our troops safe in Iraq. I'm not apologizing for trying to save the community of Galesburg that lost a plant because of unfair trade policies to Sonora, Mexico. I don't apologize for writing things and asking for money. It's the taxpayers' money.

I don't apologize for anything I came here to work on. I will continue to work. But let me tell you, I'm not going to go through another night like I had last night. I'm going to be very vocal, and I'm going to stand up and I'm going to defend the people of this district.

I'm going to defend our leadership because I don't think they need defense, but I think they need to know there are a lot of us that really believe in what they have been doing.

Mr. Flake: Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I have great respect for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and I heard what he said about the position he's in. I don't envy being in that position, to try to wade through 30,000-some earmark requests. As he mentioned, there are some within that number that will embarrass this institution and embarrass the Members, I have no doubt of that; and I think that's part of the reason that those have not been made public. I think that is the reason that they are kept with the committee.

But we are in a situation now where this well has been poisoned. If we go ahead and go through with the proposal that we simply in August list the earmarks that are being put into the bill, that are going to be airdropped into the bill later, without the ability to challenge them individually, there will surely be accusations, founded or unfounded, that people are being targeted for their opposition to earmarks, to speaking out on the floor, for speaking about them, against them or for them, or people will be favored or not. That's the nature of the game. That's the nature of the political process.

So I think it will be virtually impossible to go through that kind of atmosphere without the process being tainted even further.

I believe the chairman when he says that he hates earmarks. I think if it were up to him, he would get rid of them, and I would certainly support him. I don't think that the Democratic Caucus would allow that to happen because I fear that they believe, as we did as Republicans, that that's the surest path to reelection, that you protect vulnerable Members by giving them earmarks, that you spread it around in ways that you can curry favor with your constituents and your voters.

I think that is a road that leads directly back to the minority, but I wouldn't propose to give advice in that regard. I think that's part of the reason we are where we are today.

But all I know is that, when we have a situation, there is no perfect solution, certainly. We are in a fix now. But a situation where you have a choice of actually putting earmarks in bills with information about who has requested that earmark, what entity that earmark goes to, or balance that against a process where you simply can write a letter to the committee and ask about specific earmarks, I think that we as Members should demand the latter.

I, for one, am not willing to trade in this voting card. This is a card that we all get when we are elected that we use multiple times a day on this House floor. It allows us to register our support or opposition for specific legislation.

I am not willing to give this up for the ability to write a letter to the chairman of the committee or anyone else in Congress. That's a bad trade. I don't think that's a trade that anybody should be happy with.

I am intrigued by the chairman's proposal to offer an amendment on each appropriation bill to strike earmarks.

I would be most pleased if the gentleman would be glad to yield time if he would explain that amendment there is to offer. I will support it. I will gladly support it. So I would love to learn more about it. Perhaps we can jointly sponsor it.

But until then, until then, I think the country deserves to know what's in the bills when we vote on them. We aren't well served with the process, however intended, a process that keeps earmarks secret until a time that it is too late to actually challenge that earmark on the House floor.

So I think that this is a fight that is worth fighting, and I am glad that my colleagues have taken it up.

I support the amendment.

Ms. Jackson-Lee of Texas: Mr. Chairman, I thank the Chair for this opportunity to explain my amendment to H.R. 2638, the "Homeland Security Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year of 2008." My amendment would provide an additional $5 million to FEMA, to support emergency preparedness efforts for vulnerable communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, the elderly, and the economically disadvantaged.

My amendment is very simple, but it is extremely necessary. In my own district in Houston, and in communities throughout America, minority, elderly, disabled, and improverished populations have not been adequately prepared for the upcoming hurricane season. Special efforts must be made to engage these most vulnerable members of our communities in vitally necessary emergency preparedness education, training, and awareness.

I am particularly dismayed that these vulnerable populations have not been targeted by outreach efforts communicating the need to prepare for a major hurricane. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck some of America's most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, communities which are just now beginning to find their feet again after these devastating storms. National, state, and local governments have not fulfilled their responsibility to ensure that they are not, once again, left to face nature's wrath alone.

We saw the utter failure of government response 2 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina struck our shores. One Katrina survivor, a resident of New Orleans named Charmaine Neville, told her story in an interview following Hurricane Katrina. Ms. Neville described having no way to evacuate the city before the storm hit, and her feelings of abandonment by the authorities. She discussed her personal efforts, and those of other volunteers, to rescue stranded and vulnerable individuals "from the hospices, from the hospitals and from the old-folks homes."

Ms. Neville's testimony is shocking, even 2 years later. She states, "I tried to get the police to help us, but I realized they were in the same straits we were," and tells the story of her personal rescue of 2 elderly women in wheelchairs. Ms. Neville recalls, "When we finally did get into the 9th ward, and not just in my neighborhood, but in other neighborhoods in the 9th ward, there were a lot of people still trapped down there … old people, young people, babies, pregnant women." She told the interviewer, "What I want people to understand is that, if we hadn't been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn't have happened. When they gave the evacuation order, if we could've left, we would have left."

Another Hurricane Katrina survivor described the situation at a local hospital, where his wife was employed as a nurse, in the days following the storm. "You can imagine a hospital with 2,000 people and no electricity, water, food, or flushing toilets. Breathing machines did not work. Cell phones did not work. Because the computers stopped working, medicines were unavailable. Elevators in the 8 floor building did not work. We quickly ran out of food because the cafeteria and food were also in the flooded basement. The gains of 21st century medicine disappeared. Over 40 people died in the hospital over the next few days as we waited for help."

He went on to talk about the evacuation, stating, "The Katrina evacuation was totally self-help. If you had the resources, a car, money and a place to go, you left. The poor, especially those without cars, were left behind. The sick were left behind. The elderly were left behind. Untold numbers of other disabled people and their caretakers were also left behind. Children were left behind. Prisoners were left behind."

I believe in an America in which no one is left behind. I believe in an America where these vulnerable sectors of the population are targeted by education, training, and awareness programs; an America in which they receive the tools and resources that they need to survive the next disaster. And I believe that, thus far, federal, state, and local governments have failed to provide this.

In light of this lack of adequate response, dedicated community activists, like Mr. Charles X. White of Houston, have stepped forward to fill this void. Mr. White and his organization, Charity Productions, are working tirelessly to provide much-needed resources for the elderly, disabled, impoverished, and minority communities of Houston. Community projects, like Mr. White's, that reach vulnerable members of our population are particularly crucial in light of predictions of a devastating hurricane season this year.

I saw firsthand the plight of vulnerable populations after Hurricane Rita. During the hurricane, I fielded calls at Houston's Emergency Operations Center in order to facilitate obtaining assistance for elderly and disabled residents. I believe it is unconscionable to, despite the knowledge and experience we have gained in the past 2 years, allow this to happen again.

A major component of hurricane preparedness must be an evacuation plan. In New Orleans, residents were divided between those who had cars and could easily escape, and those who did not. Nationally, African Americans and Latinos comprise about 54 percent of those reliant of public transportation. Blacks are 6 times more likely than whites to travel via public transit.

Since Katrina, cities like New Orleans have made some attempt to address evacuation deficiencies. According to reports, New Orleans has developed a system of bus evacuation; however, managers of the program have released few details about accommodations for those individuals with limited mobility. Matthew Kallmyer, New Orleans' deputy emergency preparedness director, has been quoted as saying, "Those people need to go ahead and try to make their own plan, of course. At the end of the day, you know you are someone who has a disability. Try to go ahead and find the means to get yourself out or get yourself to one of the evacuation points."

We have an obligation to provide the American people with a disaster response system that works. We must not allow the lessons of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to fall on deaf ears. My amendment seeks to fund the groups and programs that target vulnerable communities, to ensure that, when the next hurricane hits, these groups may be adequately prepared.

I look forward to working with the Appropriations Committee, and Chairman Obey and Chairman Price, to ensure language in the Conference Report for H.R. 2638, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2008, which provides funds to FEMA for hurricane preparedness outreach to vulnerable communities.

Mr. Obey: Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

The motion was agreed to.

Accordingly, the Committee rose; and the Speaker pro tempore (Mrs. Tauscher) having assumed the chair, Mr. Weiner, Acting Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union, reported that that Committee, having had under consideration the bill (H.R. 2638) making appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other purposes, had come to no resolution thereon.