Today we say thanks to our fellow citizens, including many from our district, who contributed financially and played a critical role in the rescue and recovery efforts on the ground during Katrina and its aftermath. However, we must also reflect on what went wrong, so we do not repeat our past mistakes. What we witnessed a year ago was heart wrenching and terrifying; what we have seen in the last year from Washington in the millions wasted on no-bid contracts is inexcusable. The federal government has promised to fix FEMA and to improve emergency planning and preparedness, but where has the oversight been? How much more prepared will America be if another Katrina happens? The people of this district deserve better than ‘FEMA-style’ government. They deserve a new direction in the way Congress handles the critical needs of the American people.

The United States Senate and the House of Representatives have passed two very different plans to address illegal immigration.  Congress has spent a tremendous amount of time and energy trying to find common ground that could result in a compromise bill supported by both the House and Senate.  Such a resolution is becoming more and more unlikely as the Senate continues to advocate for their “guest-worker� amnesty programs.

Our goal in Congress is not to obstruct illegal immigration legislation, but rather focus on initiatives that will secure our borders, add resources to the Border Patrol, increase interior enforcement and enforce the law on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.  You simply cannot reward the behavior of illegal immigrants with jobs or citizenship.
The truth is the Reid-Kennedy Senate bill does more to invite illegal immigration than prevent it.  The Senate’s proposal guarantees Social Security benefits to illegal immigrants retroactive to the time they were in the country illegal.  It allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities.  It also fails to adequately address employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Instead of spending time trying to broker a compromise between the House and Senate, we should instead focus on a viable alternative that will make an immediate impact on illegal immigration.  By passing H.R. 98, the Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act, Congress can put into place the policies needed to eliminate the financial incentive for illegal immigration by stopping illegal employers from hiring illegal immigrants. Read the rest of this entry »

One year ago today, we watched in horror as Katrina bore down on the Gulf and laid waste to an entire region. Yet as horrific as this storm was, what came next was in many ways worse. Who can forget the thousands of people stranded in New Orleans, waving from roof tops, wading through polluted water and left stranded at the Convention Center and the Super Dome.

The Administration’s immediate response to Katrina was marked by chaos, confusion and gross incompetence. The Federal Government left thousands of people stranded in New Orleans for days without basic services or even food and water. The response to Katrina became a great shame for our nation.

In the aftermath of this disaster, President Bush tried to restore people’s confidence in his Administration by making many promises of support to the desperate residents of the region. Sadly today, most of those promises have proven to be hollow. Thousands of families are still waiting on FEMA trailers, most homeowners are still waiting on federal loans, less than half of the public schools will open this fall and only three hospitals in New Orleans have re-opened.

While Katrina was not only a natural disaster, the aftermath was a man made one that exposed many ugly truths about how we treat our nation’s least fortunate. I was ashamed at the Federal Government’s response then and, sadly, I am still ashamed one year later. We must do better.

The United States has an immigration problem.

But it is simplistic to think that we can control our immigration problem simply by controlling our borders.  For years, that has been the line of thinking.  And, for years, we have spent more and more money to reinforce the border.  And, for years, more and more immigrants have come across that reinforced border.  So, we need to do more than apply simplistic analyses to this very complex problem.  Certainly, we need to look at border problems.  But we also need to look at U.S. businesses and their need for labor – both now and in the future.  And we need to look at our need for high-skilled immigrants.  And, clearly, we need to look for a realistic approach for dealing with the 11.5 million undocumented immigrants who have been living and working in the United States for years.

Our Immigration System is Broken.  The root of the current crisis of undocumented immigration is a fundamental disconnect between today’s economic and labor market realities and an outdated system of legal immigration. Undocumented immigration is driven in large part by a U.S. labor market that is creating a higher demand for less-skilled workers than is being met by the native-born labor force or by the current legal limits on immigration. Migration from Mexico in particular has increased over the past two decades as the U.S. and Mexican governments have actively promoted the economic integration of the two countries. As the past decade and a half of failed federal border-enforcement efforts make clear, immigration policies that ignore these larger economic forces merely drive migration underground rather than effectively regulate it.  In short, there is an unsustainable contradiction between U.S. economic policy and U.S. immigration policy, and economics is winning. The problem is not undocumented immigrants, but a broken immigration system that sends the dual messages “Keep Outâ€? and “Help Wantedâ€? to the Mexican, Central American, and other foreign workers on whom the U.S. economy depends. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, my campaign began airing a commercial on cable television that notes the disappointing direction Bush Republicans have taken our country in these past few years. The President and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress have failed us in Iraq and in the fight to lower the cost of prescription drugs and gasoline prices. We need common-sense change in Congress, and we need it soon. Watch my commercial and let me know what you think.

This week marks the third anniversary of a report that laid bare one of the most disastrous failures of government I have seen in my 30 years as a legislator. In 2003, the EPA Inspector General released a report that confirmed what I had been saying from the beginning of the recovery process — the EPA had failed abjectly and miserably to fulfill its mandate in the aftermath of September 11th.

The 2003 Inspector General’s Report detailed misleading and falsely assuring statements make by EPA officials about air quality post 9/11, and specifically cited White House interference as a major factor in those statements. It also found that the Agency’s 2002 so-called “Indoor Air Residential Cleanup Program” was deeply flawed in design, too limited in scope, utilized inadequate testing and cleanup methods, and therefore did not meet “the minimum criteria for protecting human health the EPA established. . . .” Since the publication of this damning internal report, there has been plenty of talk by the EPA, but to this day, a complete failure to act in the manner called for by the IG.

Three years later, I, along with my colleagues from the New York Congressional
Delegation in the House and Senate are calling on the EPA to finally comply
with the findings of the Inspector General’s Report issued on August 21, 2003.
This week marks the third anniversary of a report that laid bare one of the most disastrous failures of government I have seen in my 30 years as a legislator. In 2003, the EPA Inspector General released a report that confirmed what I had been saying from the beginning of the recovery process — the EPA had failed abjectly and miserably to fulfill its mandate in the aftermath of September 11th.

In a letter we sent to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, we demand that
EPA “make a full and complete disclosure to the public about the health risks
associated with World Trade Center contamination, and institute a proper testing
and clean-up program for all buildings contaminated by the terrorist attacks.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week, House Democrats launched the Waste, Fraud and Abuse Truth Squad. Congressman Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and I will serve as co-chairs for the Truth Squad and we will be joined by Congressman David Obey (D-WI), Congressman John Tanner (D-TN), Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), and Congressman John Tierney (D-MA).

The Truth Squad will conduct oversight of the Bush Administration’s handling of taxpayer dollars. Under the Bush Administration’s watch, billions of taxpayer’s dollars have been squandered, contributing to the largest annual deficits in our nation’s history. Despite documented instances of waste, fraud and abuse, the Republican Congress has failed to provide meaningful oversight or hold the Administration accountable.

To kick start the Truth Squad, we have released a new report on wasteful procurement spending in response to Hurricane Katrina. In the year following Hurricane Katrina, citizens of the Gulf Coast needed government to be at its best. Instead, they got the cronyism, corruption, and incompetence that has been far too commonplace under the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress.

The Republican leaders in Congress and the White House have abdicated their responsibility to manage our nation’s finances. Congress cannot continue to buck its constitutional duty of checks-and-balances. Future generations will have to pay for the money the federal government is borrowing from other countries to spend in Washington.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and I arrived by small aircraft in the 100 degree heat of a Texas summer at a municipal airport near the US/Mexico border.

Harlingen, Texas, is ground zero for the influx of illegal aliens from countries “other than Mexico” (OTMs) and, like San Diego yesterday, has made tremendous progress reducing the flow of human traffic in recent years. Shortly after our arrival we watched as the Coast Guard jet carrying DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff touched down and taxied to the terminal. A huge motorcade pulled up to the aircraft and we were spirited into an oversize van for an immediate briefing and border tour.

Secretary Chertoff is an intense and impressive administrator. He peppered the U.S. Border leadership at our briefing with questions and outlined upcoming strategies with ease. Yesterday, Secretary Chertoff made national news announcing that all OTM’s would be subject to the new “catch and remove” policy, ending a long-time policy of allowing illegals to leave custody on a promise to return for a hearing six weeks later. As we left the tarmac, we watched as dozens of OTM’ s were escorted to two waiting 737 aircraft for a return trip to their Central American homes. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stood up to outside pressures and rejected a petition by Barr Pharmaceuticals to allow the morning-after pill to be sold over-the-counter.  At the time, the FDA cited concerns about the lack of research on the potential effects of the drug on the health of adolescent girls.

The fact that those concerns remain unanswered makes it hard to understand the agency’s about face yesterday.  Instead of answering the questions raised by the 2004 petition, the FDA decided to disregard them completely and create a dual-marketing scheme that puts Barr’s profits above the safety of our children. The plan approved by the FDA creates a two-tier system that allows adults to purchase the drug over-the-counter, but requires minors to have a doctor’s prescription.  This is an entirely new type of approval that has not been authorized by Congress and has not undergone a formal rule-making process.

This scheme puts the health of adolescent girls at risk. Despite claims by the FDA and Barr laboratories that this policy protects children, under this approval the drug can be easily obtained and redistributed to kids while research about its dangers remains inconclusive.

Yesterday’s decision by the FDA is misguided to say the least. Approving the sale of a controversial drug under this strange arrangement, without Congressional input, and without clear guidelines for enforcement sets a dangerous precedent.  In essence, the FDA has fashioned new complicated and unclear standards for prescription drug approval based on one individual drug application.

The Republican war on science suffered a defeat today when the Food and Drug Administration finally approved Plan B for over-the-counter purchase. The President’s appointees to the agency and his allies in Congress have been stonewalling this women’s health issue for more than three years, despite overwhelming support from the scientific and medical community, as well as from women’s health groups. The FDA went so far as to ignore the findings of its own scientific staff, ignoring the facts and distorting public health concerns for political gain.

Former Assistant FDA Commissioner Susan F. Wood resigned in protest, saying she could “no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled.” Her courageous stand brought much needed attention to the issue, and today we see it was not in vain. Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray have held the Administration’s feet to the fire, providing necessary oversight by preventing Bush crony Andrew von Eschenbach from serving as FDA Director.

Sadly, the furor over Plan B is just one struggle in the Bush Administration’s attempts to put politics over science. As Rep. Henry Waxman extensively documented last month, federal support for “abstinence-only” education programs has expanded rapidly under the Bush Administration. The federal government will spend approximately $170 million on abstinence-only education initiatives during the current fiscal year, more than twice the amount spent in fiscal year 2001. As a result, millions of children and adolescents each year receive abstinence-only education, which promotes abstinence from sexual activity while failing to teach basic facts about contraception. You can read Waxman’s report here.

The news on Plan B sends a loud and clear message - science can not be trumped by the Republicans’ ideology. Reproductive rights, family planning, and contraception are personal medical issues that should be discussed between families and their doctors - not turned into political fodder to appease far right extremists. American women have waited far too long for this crucial victory that it is a step in the right direction.