capability will become important. it will remain important in the capability will be how do you address and how you work in this hybrid environment in which we will live and operate. i believe that the high and capability can go low but below and can go high all the time -- the low end ken gough hi all the time. we have seen the reach of the destroyer to rescue captain phillips. that is a good investment that we have. we see demand from our combatant commanders for increased maritime ballistic missile defense, increased numbers of submarines, and increased intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance. as i mentioned before, for us, flexibility while we are deployed and while we are spread is very important. when the situation develops, you do not go home to get your gun. you have to be there ready to respond with the kit to that you have and the training that you have provided your sailors before they go forward. the challenges to get to way structure that can service the world that we are going to live in is going to

i reallyize how important it is to -- i realize how important it is to have these elements of science. the $1.3 billion including the $150 million to deal with space-based climate measurements is important. for those of us on the golf region, the issues dealing with -- gulf region, the issues of dealing with hurricanes and noaa is very important and the national science foundation but let us work together as we look at science in its totality to view the international space station as something we created, something we built. this massive football field that is in space is a miracle in essence. let's utilize it in a vital way by supporting our human space flight. i thank my colleagues and i ask my colleagues to support the rule. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. the gentleman from florida. mr. diaz-balart: thank you, mr. speaker. and i want to thank my friend, mr. arcuri, for his courtesy and all who have participated in the debate on the rule bringing this appropriations bill to the floor. mook, i will be asking for a no vote -- mr. speaker, i

it's a very important issue and i think it's important for us to raise them in advance so that sotomayor at least has some idea what some of the questions will be. this is a very important question for us, the second amendment means a great deal to us. it took a long, long time to get the heller case that finally decided that the second amendment is a personal right. and i think the distinguished from alabama has explained it quite adequately. the senate has to look at judge sotomayor's entire record to looking at hir philosophy and her speeches as well as her cases. now, her second amendment decisions appear to have unnecessarily minimized and confined the scope and vitality of this second amendment constitutional right. even after the supreme court in heller indicated the second amendment protects not only an individual right to keep and bear arms but a preexisting fundamental right. judge sotomayor continued to say the right to keep and bear arms is not a fundamental right. this appears to be an approach focused on politically correct results rather than on the -- a judicially correct

i thank the chairman for consideration on this important issue. mr. dicks: i understand my colleague's problem and with our -- we are going to work with him and try to work this out. with the other body. but i realize how serious this is and we'll work with him until we get a satisfy -- satisfactory solution. mr. tiahrt: i thank the chairman. . mr. dicks: i would like to yield -- if i could be recognized again. i want to welcome -- yield two minutes to congressman connolly of virginia for the purposes of a colloquy. the chair: the gentleman from virginia is recognized. mr. connolly: i thank the chair and i thank my distinguished friend, chairman of the subcommittee. heritage programs have been proven to be effective vehicles in improving tourism and conservation. many citizens have worked with members of congress to designate new heritage areas. one of the areas is the journey through hallowed ground. i appreciate the chairman including funding and other heritage areas in his markup. i ask if he perceives an opportunity to see that in financial cycles

house for re-importation. and we have an administration and a president who are for re-importation, and he's on record in that regard in his service in the u.s. senate. in addition, we have an important issue that can save all of a sudden and can save our health care system billions of dollars as we go into health care reform, surely we need to be talking and acting in ways that can cut costs in health care without endangering the public, without hurting patient care. and this is a great opportunity. the c.b.o. has estimated that americans would save about $50 billion -- $50 billion, with a "b" -- over the next ten years if re-importation were enacted. so we have a true bipartisan issue which has true consensus support in the senate, in the house, in the administration, which can save all of us and our health care system $50 billion. let's act. surely this is a recipe for something we can act strongly on and produce positive results. so what's going on here? well, i'm afraid what's going on is exactly what my

they spend their time on something more important. you spend your time on something more important. your employer is happy. there's a win here for lots of interactions that happen in the system. for everything, it's not that it absolutely can help take some of the expense out of the system. so this is just a quick screenshot of what that looks like. we're actually talking about a video transmission from the patient and the physician. we think it has a lot of applications for the rural parts of our state. and about being an role minnesota and being able to have an interaction with somebody at mayo on the phone line or somebody at the fairview health system. there's lots of opportunity here for that to take off. in summary, we have been tackling cost. we have been looking at improving the care through collaboration. we see ourselves as a health company. i know i went through this quickly, but we are committed and passionate about what we are doing there. and the last thing i will leave you with is a couple of comments for this process here in washington, d.c.. payment reform and medic

it will also be important to incent the right kind of procedures. so one of the benefit plans we see taking on a lot of interest are benefit plans where the consumer can have a reduction in their premium by managing their numbers and when i safe their numbers, being aware of your blood pressure, being aware of your cholesterol, being aware of your body mass index, an we make that available thank you a number of employers today, and those employers set bench marks and then as you move towards improving those numbers and demonstrate that you've moved towards improving those numbers, you actually get a premium reduction. those are incentive-based benefits. those are important to this overall reformest that we're all talking about. some of the other things we've tried to do is certainly minnesota is one of the early leaders in retail clinics and we now actually waive co-pays if you use the retail clinics, to trying to put incentives in the benefit package to use the right place for people to be accessing care, where you can get quality, and where you ca

i think this is an important point. the other area that think we have to remember is that we are the yo-yo dieters when it comes to energy in the u.s. weekend, we crash, we start, we've been again. the problem is if you binge long enough, it is harder to get lean. energy companies are doing the right now. that leaves the energy infrastructure vulnerable to greater costs of imported energy sources. the very price signals we are talking about encourage leaner growth to spend the money that we need to build energy muscle. 2009 looks like it is going to be year no. 5 and that is going to be a doozy. basically this is a yo-yo dieter buying a swimsuit for win -- when you are thinnest. i do not think we should build our policies at the time when we are our sixth guest. if you look a figure eight on page 10, and it shows a picture of what you get for free allowances. there is a trend line that goes up a little bit and down and falls historic the at the end. there are two scenarios and one from iaea. no matter what, there is a p

and these are important because they develop local content and they are important to the very community interest. i certainly have opposed media consolidation particularly with the cross-ownership and i don't think it's really the way that we're going to save newspapers. i don't think that's the issue. i think that there is an important role, though, for police, education and government, the peg channels. and their service. and peg channels provide an outlet for people in the community to create and distribute their own television programming. but i'm concerned if the -- i know you're working on a rule-making, but if the translators get priority and fill all the available frequencies, even if congress were to allow low-powered stations to operate in the adjacent channels it wouldn't be operational. i want to understand what you're doing to make sure you're keeping the diversity of voices and having low-powered stations. >> senator, yes, we spoke about this a little bit before the wide dissemination of spectrum licenses, diversity of ownership is, i think, in the communications act. it's

this is important relief to ensure that we have strong global trade. i don't think given where we are in the world economy that we would want to see a pullback in that commitment and i think we should understand that exports create jobs right here at home. >> robert, what is the recent delay week after rick and some are saying because we're losing ground in this world in discussions. >> unfortunately the scheduled year is always a work in progress and for those reasons the meeting has been i think rescheduled to i think the 25th and i have it off the top of my head, but the president remains committed to working with congress to seek changes in our immigration law but that doesn't, that is not shifted because the meeting got pushed back in the schedule. >> the house majority leader said he has reason to believe the president is considering an executive order that would prevent the release of detainee abuse photos -- is that something the president is considering? >> all i'm going to say on this is the president has committed to all interested parties t

finally, we believe that it is important to have greater transparency and independence. the sale on pay legislation chairman frank has long sponsored which president obama and senator obama was a co-sponsor and senate would be a very significant move forward in terms of transparency and accountability, the evidence in the u.k. shows it has had a positive impact and in terms of the independence of compensation committees i will say briefly we start with the same premise s chairman frank that independence in the name doesn't mean in fact but we do believe if you gave the committee the funding and the authority to be the haulier some of the compensation consultants and the council and you had the sec go forward to ensure reduction or elimination of conflict of interest for compensation consultants it is our hope we would at least make progress and move the ball forward. thank you. >> thank you, mr. alvarez. >> thank you for the opportunity to offer the federal reserve's. compensation practices and financial firms and other business organizations can have a significant effec

think it's important for u.s. firms to gain access to markets of fast-growing developing nations abroad. our economy will revive only if we create jobs. enacting this colombia free trade agreement will help to do that. america's two-way trade with colombia reached $18 billion in 2007, making colombia our fourth largest trading partner in latin america and our largest export market for u.s. agricultural products in south america. exports are the only major sector of the private economy actually making positive contributions to u.s. economic growth. in my own state of arizona, nearly 40% of all of our manufactured goods were export exported. on average, net exports added more than one percentage point overall to our economic growth last year, in part offsetting the negative consequences of the housing downturn. so if u.s. manufacturers and farmers were not able to sell their products abroad, the current economic downturn would be much worse. enacting the colombia free trade agreement would help more than 10,000 u.s.

would be important. now, president sarkozy, as an actual member of the e.u. has a different view, but i think it's very important to note he strongly supports the work that turkey is doing in nato. i believe he's interested in further economic integration and what the united states wants to do is just continue to encourage discussions and talks and a process whereby turkey can feel confident that it has a friendship with france, with the united states, with all of europe and that to the extent it's defining itself as part of europe, it has an opportunity to be a party. but again, that's something that's going to have to move forward not based on what the united states says but rather a dialogue between the european union members and turkey. in all of this, i think europe and france has a critical role to play just as the united states does, in sending a message to muslims around the world that we welcome and want their participation in a world community that is peaceful, that is prosperous, that is economically integrated, that is developing on behalf of all

it is very important to look at this when we deal with africa. the way we live can be tough on people. on the other hand, we should also address how certain things can be dealt with more efficiently. it was a very good experience to read this book. >> thank you very much, everybody. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this week saw the release of more than 150 hours of secret cordons -- recordings from the nixon white house. >> they are not to have any advance information street is that clear? the message is not to be funny. is that clear? it should be from the whole state department. >> we will have more from the tapes this afternoon on c-span radio. >> how is c-span funded? >> publicly funded? >> donations? >> government? >> surtaxes. >> federal funding? >> 30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span as a public service. it was a private business initiative with no government mandate or money. >> this is a look at the conduct of the justice department dur

she thought it was an important topical issue. by the time she finished it, it shouldn't be so unusual anymore. it's something people still have an issue about. this is a book that travels from the civil war right up to the present and looks at the many different groups that have been defined as nonwhite and the laws that have been made against all sorts of unions and love relationships in this society and how people got basically taken to court and other people judged what their race was. and she ties this in to gay marriage today so it's a very, very topical book that the propositions in california is not different than what that law what you >> and peggy pescoe won what awards? >> she won the holly prize which is for political institutions and political history. and she won the lawrence levine prize for a beloved historian who passed away a few years ago. >> and who is she? >> she's the beakman professor of northwestern history at the university of oregon. this is her second book and -- it's a labor of love. >> the day wall str

i think, are extremely important. one of the outgrowths of my visit to china was an invitation that i extended to my counterpart, to have him send a couple of doctors down to our hospital ship comfort for a couple of weeks. normally, that is a have lengthy process. -- that is a very lengthy process for them to approve and doctors were on board within about four weeks. so i think it is important that we have these discussions. that we continue to meet, that we make sure that we can articulate our interests, and positions. but, professionally, be able to work our way through that. so i am hopeful we will see increasingly robust opportunities. >> admiral, we have time for one more question. >> okay. yes, sir? >> currently you have combined task force operating in the persian gulf. stressing the mill-to-mill relationships, if china were to become part of that, because they are going to come into the gulf for energy, and it is known to everybody, would you entertain allowing some sort of mill-to-mill contact, vy -- be esta

the situation is really -- imports, i might come back to that. 40% of the gasoline is imported. what has happened is there is a debate on who gets the money. if you look at the first debate, ahmadinejad debated with mir hossein mousavi. he said that he had these files, and i am not debating one person, i am debating everything. it means that i have got something on you. this is something that could take you to jail. that threw off the entire debate. suddenly we saw the unity breaking apart, as robin so eloquently described. how is the money going to be separated? but this -- what is the role of the economy? housing? much much faster than the inflation rate. imports of food have gone through the roof. inflation has gone through the roof. the central government is giving money. salaries are not keeping up with inflation. in the presentation, everybody shows numbers. multiplied by 12, you can get the year. in any case, this is the central bank of iran. if you add to unemployment -- sorry, thank you. if you look at unemployment, it is an interesting statistic. the government gives y

yes, of course, very important, and please, let's remember how important people of indian and other nationalities are, and disproportionately so, and what wonderful personifications of the virtues and values and commitment to entrepreneurship they represent. the family commitment. i inaugurated awards for the top math and science students purely on academic achievement in our state. we've had two years time two, three of the four were indian youngsters, the fourth was a mormon. so you know, there are many people like that who -- who i believe are more -- can also be invited and welcomed to this debate and maybe their presence would attract those from the other nationalities too. >> thank you. >> yes, sir? >> now for more from the other side after this. >> i'm from the republican staff of the u.s. congress joint economic committee. thank you. voting results over the recent past few elections show that well-educated people are turning away from the republican party. why is that? and how do we reverse it? thank you. >> rich? >> well, i think obama, we have a peace in our last -- we had a piece in ou

one has to do with workforce diversity and this is an import aspect that you need to look at. the second deals with poverty and educational level. just by being poor, you are likely to live 6 to 9 years less, those determiners are very critical. as the uniformed answer, we need to look at literacy as the bigger picture rather than language because many patients -- come to our offices and facilities with not the best literacy understanding especially when you talk about medical. so we have to look at the complexity of the health-care industry and put the resources and all of this -- other areas that impact the care of individuals rather than focus on the patient or provider information we have to utilize. >> commissioner harry it? >> i think dr. satel -- >> the answer to your question is we going to -- we don't know what makes up a lot of that noise. at that fine grain level, you need prospective studies and

>> this is an enormously important set of questions. as we said before, the president said, we are extremely reluctant investor. we're -- we don't want to be in the business of managing these companies on a day-to-day basis. we would like to make sure we have the ability to get out as quickly as we can and have these companies emerge as their own as viable entities without government assistance and have the commaft to raise capital in the markets to repay the government's investments. to underscore that, we are -- we've designed a set of policies and mechanisms that will ensure that people understand we only tend to use our voting rights for a very limited number of core judgments about financial structure of the firm, make sure that there's a strong board and management in place at the time we take our equity investments so the taxpayers are protected. so we have confidence in their ability to oversee a sufficiently robust restructuring plan. we do not want to leave the impression or the reality in place that the government of the unit

their role is very important and the role of the arabs is very important. i think that is something that he stressed in his speech in cairo. host: if you just joined us or are you -- or if you are listening on c-span radio, our guest is abderrahim foukara, the washington bureau chief for al jazeera arabic. our next call is vincent. good morning. caller: good morning. the middle east did not have on the region did not have any oil. if there was no oil in the middle east, do you think that the united states would be so evasive and worrying about what we call human rights in the different countries? my basic comment is, i believe the united states has totally, absolutely been one-sided in this whole issue. we have not addressed with the united states has done with the shah because it was conducive to the united states. some people in the united states, we say that the muslims are terrorists. is in one man's terrorist another man's freedom fighter? when you allow israel to be able to do whatever they choose to do and to allow the palestinians not to have their

saying, you are important and i am listening to them. it's the wrong person, the gangbanger, they will respond to that. or the person in the community, they will respond to that. we need to affirm positive behavior and not just condemn bad behavior. a lot of times young people need to be told, that if you -- one the neat things about this program i was looking at. they had a whole code, the first thing they train young people is on how do you interact with others. they were shaking your hand and not mumbling, and there were certain words they have banned from usage. not just curse words, they were saying, don't go around and say shorty and what's up "g." because that's not professional. and all that was important to them and they absorbed it quickly. but it requires spending a little time and lifting up some role models. ok. all right. this is always tough, the last question thing. i will call on one of these young people again. here, this man here. >> i was wondering. >> what is your name? >> i am nick from st. aldbins, mr. president, h

it is important had ago about this affectively. the dprk needs to cooperate with the council and to stop developing nuclear weapons and missiles. what is the choice? i do not think we should do is to take the situation -- i think we should do is to take the situation calmly and hope the dprk positively and constructively. i think that is what i think we should see. >> every weekend, the latest nonfiction books and authors on c-span 2's "book tv." saturday, afterwards, had he run for congress with $7,000 in your sixth grade students met managing the campaign. she is interviewed by washington d.c. delegate eleanor holmes gran home. then, how the followers of jefferson, and jesus are battling to transform the world. then, what is next for the economy? the former reagan economic policy adviser on taxes and the end of prosperity. later, "for closure nation." the housing crunch and where it is headed. the weekend is filled with books and authors on "tv." look for our entire schedule online at booktv.org. >> here is our present policy. we

this is not what importation is. importation will come through a variety of trade routes for which there will be inspection and there is a lot of counterfeiting. if you want to vote on it and think it's so, don't imply those who are voting for safety are showing for the drug companies. >> let me echo that point, as well. it's always a dangerous ground when we get into attributing motivation why people cast votes. i do support the mccain amendment, but i don't believe people necessarily worry about safety and efficasy are cools of the drug industry. >> i apologize if that's what people thought my comments indicated. >> senator sanders? >> i don't often agree with senator mccain, but i think he is absolutely right on this issue and concur with what senator brown just said. i live an hour away from the canadian border in northern vermont. i think i was the first member of congress to take people over the border. i will never forget as long is a live. we were with a bus load of women and dealing with breast cancer, and t

any claim that important -- imported trucks is inaccurate, safety is of utmost concern in this amendment would require pharmacies and drug wholesalers to register eight yen is industry safe requirements including many fratricide inspections. additionally require strong anti counterfeiting measures and chain of custody rules to ensure that only authorized persons handle medications. it would provide the fda the resources and authority to ensure the safety of imported drugs and stop illicit sales. i don't know whether this will pass on this bill particularly when it may have some additional courtesy given the fact we're trying to find ways of paying for the universal health care making an affordable to all americans. i have watched the pharmaceutical industry and a powerful army and they may be able to do so and again, but i have been around this kind of issues where we taken on the special interest for a lot of times over the years. we will do what is right in the long run. maybe not in this committee or on this bill but as some point in time because it benefits the american consumer and

my hunch is that if it is important to bring out, the message will be delivered to its importance. >> going back to this tax pledge, whether he made a campaign promise and if you opened the door to this. he said he won't raise taxes on people that make up of $250,000 a year. >> i love us playing at wimbledon without the benefit of a grass tennis court, but we are going to let congress do its job. we are going to have the president do his job. i think you will see a reform bill come to his desk later this year and one that he will sign. >> is it fair to say that he is not allowing himself to be boxed in? >> it is fair to say that we are watching congress -- letting congress do their job. >> [inaudible] >> let me get more on that and i will walk you through it. >> cap and trade related question. over the past month, the dollar has been very volatile. wall street is looking for a strong signal from the white house, that you are serious about attacking the deficit. could you repeat again where cap and trade fits in and will help the deficit? >> i think we talked about the fact that -- fir

these gains in proved too important points. it establishes the fact that the people are sick and tired of waiting in traffic standing in line at the airport, inhaling dangerous emissions and just waiting indefinitely for their who traveled mechanism to be there. if we come provide reliable service americans will choose. second, these gains proved time cries out this time for major investment in high-speed rail. we need to fill the rising demand for faster and more efficient service. for years, we have had flights to fight, too big and fall for faster rail against those that want to bankrupt amtrak even as more americans were demanding increased amtrak service. and in this chart we have here in quick fashion describes some of the hurdles we face for you will have problems discerning what each of these covers is, the blue is highway investment since 1949, aviation is the yellow and the intercity passenger rail you can see at the bottom is the green and when we look how much we have invested in the highways and aviation system it'

now risk is a very important part of this business. we are not trying to discourage people from taking risk. that's not the governments job. but it should not be a system in which risk is artificially encouraged in which excessive risk-taking takes place. now i set out i should correct myself before someone else does, that we were talking about dollar amounts. we are in one sense. i do think there's a problem with the overall compensation but it's not one the government should try to solving any specific way. what we do instead here is to borrow from our english neighbors and competitors, because people say you can have a competitive disadvantage, the system in which shareholders are empowered to vote. a number of my friends are great supporters of shareholder democracy until you try to implement it and say that the shareholders and owners of the company should go. no shareholder should be running a company day today, that's what you have a board of directors. i think evidence is overwhelming as is the logic. the relationship between b

and the affected leadership, which is important. i suspect we can make some headway with some of the followers, but the leadership is what counts unfortunately at this particular moment, even thinking about negotiations. i am really struck by the fact that after the negotiations we have been involved then, after pyongyang is disassembled then so forth this reversal is really striking and then beyond that, nuclear tests, missiles flying over japan and all the rest of it. we can speculate whether they are having an internal problem politically but the effects on the rest of the world are very severe, and that would be in favor really of moving very strongly toward the economic sanctions route, but i think that may be a difference and that is why we got to the table to begin with. in fact, there has not been much movement prior to that point but i am also intrigued by your thought about an inspection machine. describer loop what is a counterproliferation regime means or how that is set up. >> the first point on that senator lugar is, a

this is an important piece of legislation. it deals with the security of our country, the security of our citizens. it deals with those young men, young women in uniform wherever they may be. it's our job to do our best to support them and this bill does just that. i thank the members of the committee on both sides of the aisle. they have been magnificent to work with. and with that, i express appreciation to our wonderful staff. i yield back. the chair: the gentleman's time has expired. all time for general debate has expired. for what purpose does the gentleman from missouri rise? mr. skelton: mr. chairman, i move that we do now rise. the chair: the question is on the motion to rise. those in favor say aye.. those opposed, no. the ayes have it. the committee will rise. the speaker pro tempore: mr. chairman. the chair: the committee of the whole house on the state of the union has had under consideration h.r. 2647 and asks me to report that they have come to no resolution thereon. the speaker pro tempore: the chairman of the

it's a very important charge. it's our duty as senators to ensure that the members of this high court, which we are asked to confirm, serve as impartial and fair-minded, who apply our laws, not merely their ideology. the american people deserve no less. a number of my colleagues have expressed concerns regarding this nominee. those are not concerns that i share. having reviewed her resume, her academic credentials, having reviewed her time both on the bench, on the second circuit as well as in a trial capacity, she has an expansive judicial record, and i think that provides evidence of the kind of judge that she will be just as she will be on the supreme court. she's been described as a fearless and effective prosecutor. she has for six years as a trial judge in new york, as i said, on the federal district court and 11 years on the circuit court of appeals. so she has been in the courtroom, on both sides of the bench, representing a variety of different kinds of clients. and she has written extensively. and i thin

he made a lot of other important statements but he wanted to keep in touch was very important to me. we have been keeping in touch and citizens have been keeping in touch. i know because i have been invited around the country some people would like me to travel less and stay in my district more. the fact of the matter is we're dealing with, and the polls establish i have something hear that tells us through to polls that this is the most popular system in the minds of most americans. most americans. i will put all of these things in the record, but here are more than 400 local unions, 20 international unions, 39 state afl-cio unions all revolve around this question. i wish i could claim some creativity or imagination for this. but universal single payer is not a new idea. as a matter of fact every industrial country on the planet except one, us, already have some version of it. what we're doing is developing the american version. what we're doing, then we have examined all of the systems on earth, putting this all together, we are studying the spread of we are not turning this over t

important. and i think about the capacity of the workhorses, the combatants, the cruisers and the guided missile destroyers that i talked about earlier and the la toarl combat ship which i'm very pleased to say we've turned the corner on that important capability for our navy. but capability will become important, will remain important, and that capability will be how do you address and how do you work in this hybrid environment in which we will live and operate? i believe that the high end capability can go low, but the low end can't go high. all the time. we saw the range of the guided missile destroyer from providing ballistic missile defense to rescuing captain phillips. that's a pretty good spread and a pretty good investment and versatile investment that we have. but we see demands from our combatant commanders for increased maritime ballistic missile defense and increased intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. and as i mentioned before, for us flexibility while we're deployed, wh

what is important is to implement what we decided on in london. you have a very ambitious plan that you laid out. we will keep a close eye on developments. in the autumn when we meet we will state clearly that strengthening the multilateral system is also important. negotiations on climate change are also on the agenda. we very much welcome the hard work the united states has done in order to see to it that the necessary answers are found for this phenomenal climate change. we know that it is very much an uphill battle. we are familiar with that. and we are keeping a close eye on legislation that is passed. we need an ambitious program. we want to have a successful negotiations in copenhagen and make the best possible use of our time leading up to this. a very warm welcome to you and we are glad that you and the members of your team have taken the trouble to come here. >> thank you very much everybody. it is wonderful to be in the beautiful city of dresden. which is obviously speak in history and as chancellor merkel discussed, has overcome great

beef imports from the u.s. to korea. after defusing a sensitive political situation that temporary halted our imports of beef to south korea. his determination to settle the beef issue underscores the importance commercial ties between korea and the united states. mr. speaker, i wish to close my remarks by offering a few thoughts of importance of reaffirming our alliance with south korea. the history of relations between our two countries which can be tracked back to a treaty of friendship more than 125 years ago has been marked by consistency and mutual solidarity between our two nations. with that, mr. speaker, i ask my colleagues to support this resolution and i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from florida is recognized. mr. bilirakis: thank you, mr. speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. i rise in strong support of this resolution. put forward in march by my good friend and homeland security ranking member, p

i believe this is appropriate and important. it is just as imperative we will be able to identify those stem programs in the federal government that are effective and can serve as models for other agencies as it is for to us eliminate those programs that are duplicative and wasteful. ranking member hall and dr. ehlers, the ranking member of the research and science education subcommittee, are original sponsors of this measure and have worked closely with chairman gordon and mr. lipinski on this legislation. i join them in support of h.r. 1709 and urge my colleagues to do the same. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from washington. mr. baird: madam speaker, i yield three minutes to mr. polis, the gentleman from colorado, a valuable member of the committee who has been stickley concerned about stem education. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. polis: thank you, madam speaker. today i rise in

some say sonia sotomayor is a important force in the courtroom. she never lost sight of who she was fighting for. she was fighting for the people in her neighborhood. she was fighting for the victims of crime. her experience as a prosecutor tells me that she meets one of my criteria as a supreme court nominee. i am looking for someone who deeply appreciates the power and the impact that loss have in the criminal justice system on real people's lives. from her first day as a manhattan district attorney's office, she knew the law was not one thing. i have learned a lot about her from her work as a judge. she has been a judge for 17 years. she has spent six years as a trial judge. the first president bush gave her the first job she had as a federal judge. the job was to be a district judge in the southern district of new york. her nominations were enthusiastically supported by several senators. if you watch tv, you know she has been called several names. she has been called names by talking heads on tv and radio. in most cases, these commentators may

it is just not that important. which is very infuriating or disturbing if you are in the and rising as a global power. the chinese are very good at conveying that they are not as big a concern to us which could be worse because they could be nasty and mean and aggressive. that is one reason it doesn't get resolved. >> everyone seems to not be wanting to tie this to the afpak issue so i will ask the question, there seems to be a lot of concern in pakistan about the growing conventional superiority of india these of the pakistan. i am wondering in light of the recent military campaign pakistan has been waging which presumably india supports against the taliban and other guerrillas. you see any change in this doctrine or this structure through the military forces to makes this less of a threat to pakistan to deploy forces against these guerrillas? >> india developed this doctrine out of the frustration in 1999, and the crisis in 2001 where they get attacked by terrorists affiliated in pakistan. you have to do somethin

health care reform is important, to be sure. getting things done obviously that is important. but so is process. it's not because i do not want health care reform or any member in this body, i don't think, is in a position to say that they do not want health care reform. i want every single kansan, every single american to be able to see the doctor of their choice when they want to, especially when they have to. and i speak today because this health care reform bill will likely involve one of the biggest, most important votes that i or any one of my colleagues cast during the time that we are privileged to serve in the senate of the united states. this health care reform bill will affect the lives of every single american. it will reform a system that drives one-sixth of our economy over 16 million american jobs. it will have consequences for medical science and innovation that improves the lives of not only those of us in this great country but all across the world. when people are really sick, they come to the united states. and it will spend upwards of $2 trillion -- $2 tri

that is what the legislation we find is so important. we do not want children going down that path in the first place. >> you said you call la and american countries -- you call on latin american countries to do certain things. [inaudible] >> i am looking forward to seeing the colombian president. i think he is one of the finest leaders in latin america. if you look at how chilly has handled the recession -- chille as head of the recession, it has been good. they have the resources to deal with the downturn. it is a good lesson for the united states when we have surpluses. they anticipated. we think we can make progress in latin america generally. one of the things i will be talking about with the president there is the coordination and cooperation between the united states and them on clean energy. we will have an announcement when we do our first press conference after my bilateral meeting. we are making important progress when it comes to the exchanges on cancer research. we continue to have a robust regime with them. they have entere

i think more important is what are the options? do we increase the force structure within the dod and state so that we have not just the contracting oversight expertise but we have got folks to do some of these jobs being done by contractors. do we change the emphasis within the services to push more things into the system meant force out of the operational force? do we provide just less services or less quality services or do we just accept the fact this is the way we are going to go to war? and i think those questions we need to focus on in addition to waste, fraud, and abuse. >> that was a large part of the formation of this from reading your own charge in the legislation that is a piece of work that we seriously want to have done. >> mr. don? >> mr. chairman, one last comment. i think we have far to the contractors. when i read we have four -- 240,000 contractors in the arena as in afghanistan and iraq put together and 80% of them are foreign nationals it seems to me that this is just a gravy train of money for these defense co

bill is much more important in some ways than many expenditures this federal government makes. and it is also something that i believe is fundamentally important in many sectors, especially in the area that i talked about with adopting new children. the gentleman says that federal employees is some of the most stable work force we have in this country. well, that is the kind of people you want adopting children, stable homes that have jobs they aren'toing to lose and take the time to do. while lead policies in the government generally may compare favorably with some private sector employment, the federal government's paid parental leave policy simply does not. 75% of the fortune 100 companies offer at least six weeks of parental paid leave and make them much more attractive to young working families who cannot afford to go without pay for that length of time. madam speaker, i would like to yield two minutes to the the gentlewoman from new york, mrs. maloney. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. . mrs. maloney: i rise in strong 130r9 of the bill

those of very important. we will pay great attention to that in conjunction with everything else that is going on. this is not a time where you can demonstrate to everybody that price stability will be maintained and sustainable growth will be provided for. we have the programs in place. we will do the best job we can. it brings up another issue. during the 1990's, greenspan had a long time. he played a more political role. he argued that the means justify it the chance. getting fiscal discipline was important. talking with the clinton administration about fiscal discipline. i think it is interesting to see ben bernanke talking about fiscal discipline. that is appropriate within the context of what we were talking about. i watched the testimony to congress. it was not the fiscal stimulus of the great depression that was a problem but it was that it was not big enough. that is what he said. the fiscal stimulus along with monetary -- is causing people to think longer-term. how much more doesn't put the fed in a

it is important. we talk about the trade, that $1 trillion of trade that our countries do with the united states. the decrease in transit time is startling between the far eastern countries and the u.k. and our nato allies. we can cut a for your 05 steaming days off. an issue of significant strategic and economic importance. we are working in concert with -- not been contest to northern command from a european command, our friends and allies, and the department of state. >> the menil, have complicated, challenging, and important, it you are dismissed. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> how is c-span funded? publicly funded it. donations may be? i have no idea. >> government? >> federal funding? >> may be, i do not know. >> how was seized in pandit? 30 years, america's cable companies created c-span -- how is c-span funded? 30 years ago, america's cable companies face c-span as a public service. no go

very important. in means there and lot of stories about to blacks not only in the united states, even in a one of the first stories here began asking if adam-and-eve for blacks because all the experts: the impact that we all came from africa. in we are all african immigrants because the human beings began in africa so perhaps adam-and-eve were blacks. in. >> host: most likely. >> guest: and there are some stories that were for me very relevant. especially because they happen 15 minutes ago. obama is now the president and these are stories that are very recent. for instance in 1942 the transitions of black blood when the united states was entering the second world war. and at that time the director of of the red cross was a very impressed scientists we had not invented but almost invented because they see him it was possible to say it millions of lives in the second world war. and so he was the director of this part of the red cross and he said i will not obey the stupak order because black blood does

as we test our assumptions and it's important that we do and examine our options, we have to consider not only who is at the table but also whether to attempt to reinvigorate six party talks launched bilateral negotiations or devise a new architecture. we also have to consider how to prior to rise the many issues that demand attention including nuclear proliferation, human rights, regional peace and security, economic development, and humanitarian concerns. i personally believe that we can get back to the six party talks, that we should get back to them, and i believe we will get back to them. i also believe that bilateral is an important route to simultaneously take knives and sulfur in the number of years. i look for to hearing from our witnesses on each of these questions and me say one quick word before passing to senator lugar -- i know i speak for every single member of this committee and for every american when we express how deeply concerned we are on a purely humanitarian basis and the basis of common sense and decency, deeply concerned we are for the fate of two american jou

but those skills i think are important. i think we need to find ways and government to be more effective and more responsive. and it is much more difficult, in some sense, because of all the players, turf battles, debates about how to proceed. but i think it is important to get that right. i see obviously from your question the room for improvement. host: today's "the wall street journal" editorial that focuses on ben bernanke and his role. he will lead political courage we have not seen since paul volcker was chairman, to exit from all of these efforts in time to prevent another bubble. talking, of course, about the housing and credit card bubble. guest: again, i think it is a very good point. first of all, paul volcker did have amazing coverage and strength to counteract a very serious problem in the country. i inflation, loss of confidence in the dollar. he took action plan and was criticized tremendously but stuck through it and then passed a much better situation to his successor, pete successor, alan greenspan, who al

we all have things we think are important. and there are many things that are important and we won't agree on what theyr but they're out there. but budgets are about making choices. we cannot do it all. and when we do it all, we get into the problem that we are in today. we get into deficits that go on without end, trillion dollars or more. we get into debt that will crush not just our children, but ourselves. we get into spending that rises and rises and rises and won't stop. and there are so many things -- i'm sure this project is one of them. and i'm sure the gentleman from alabama will make a defense of this project. and his defense may be very legitimate. but there will be similar projects in my district and everyone else's and there are a million of other things he we can do. what about national defense? what about all kinds of other things that this federal government has to do. madam chair, it is time that we look at these earmarks and look at this spending and we start to make those priorities. and we say this is the

chile is an important partner. i think that's the model that we want. partnership, the united states doesn't dictate how chile should view its own interests, but, in fact, we have achieved great cooperation. and i will be looking at president bachelet at getting us to further advice in terms of how we can take the kind of relationship we have with chile and expand that to our relationships throughout latin america. >> not only about chile, but latin american countries, giving you a hand against less democratic countries. >> the point is that i think chile is leading by example. so i am using chile as an example. whether the same is true in brazil, for example. their president came in and he has a great different political organization that most americans. he came up through the trade union movement. he was perceived as a strong leftist. it turns out that he was a very practical person who, although maintains relationships across the political spectrum in latin america. has instituted all sorts of smart market reforms that have made pursell prosper. and