As Chairman of the HELP Committee for the last two years, my goal has been clear – securing a lifetime of opportunity at school, at work, and at home for American families. I have worked to improve health care quality and expand access to care, ensure lifelong opportunities for education and training, promote a workplace environment that encourages responsibility and safety, and ensure that Americans are secure in their retirements.

With the help of very active and knowledgeable Committee members, we compiled an impressive list of accomplishments in the 109th Congress: 57 oversight hearings held, 37 bills and 352 nominations reported favorably out of Committee, 23 bills approved by the Senate, and 14 bills signed into law by President Bush.

Despite a period of intense partisan wrangling, we made progress on critical legislation, much of which had been stalling for years:
- We secured the retirements of millions of Americans by passing the Pension Protection Act into law – the first major revision to pension laws in 30 years.
- We passed the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act into law to promote the use of new technologies to improve mine safety and save lives – the first revision to mine safety laws in 28 years. Read more...

This Administration has to hold our trading partners' feet to the fire and enforce the rules of trade. Goods and services produced by American workers, farmers and businesses that have high intellectual property content are critical to restoring broad-based economic growth and job creation, yet they are widely pirated, stolen and copied. No country in the world has done more to undermine American intellectual property than China. Accordingly, as a first step, we call on the Administration immediately to file a broad-based challenge in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The United States should use the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) to challenge China's flagrant abuse of international rules governing intellectual property rights. If we're going to convince American workers that trade can work for them, they need to know that Congress and the Administration will crack down on violations to give them the advantage they deserve.

It’s unfortunate that anti-gay groups are using the Foley scandal to advance their divisive agenda.

Mark Foley’s behavior was despicable. He abused the power of his office, violated the trust of the voters, and preyed on young people. If Foley broke the law, he should be prosecuted. His sexual orientation is irrelevant to this story. Such behavior is shameful and immoral regardless of the perpetrator’s sexual orientation.

Predictably, anti-gay groups have used this awful situation to push their divisive agenda. They are pushing false stereotypes about gay men preying on young people—stereotypes that have no basis in science or fact. Tony Perkins and others from the Family Research Council are working overtime, in TV appearances and in communications to their members, to advance the false assertion that gay men are more likely to be pedophiles. Perkins and his crowd use junk science to back up their false assertions. In fact, a 1998 study described in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that 98% of male pedophiles are heterosexual. Other peer reviewed studies reach similar conclusions. Read more...

Four years ago, we in Congress voted to authorize the use of military force against Iraq. I was one of 23 Senators who voted against it and my thoughts expressed then still hold true today:

"Before the United States wages war against Iraq, President Bush and the Congress owe it to the young Americans who face death or injury in that conflict to ensure that every effort has been made to obtain our ends without endangering them. Every ounce of preparation must be taken to ensure a swift and efficient outcome should war become necessary. As another President, Herbert Hoover, once said, 'Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die.' The burden is on our leaders to justify why young men and women need to risk their future now.

"As we consider this war, we must also consider the implications of what we are doing. Saddam Hussein is not the only dictator who oppresses his people, attacks his neighbors, and is developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD). North Korea's Kim Jong Il, Libya's Muammar Qaddaffi, Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei, Syria's Bashar al-Asad, and others, all pose threats or have posed threats to American interests. All are known for their human rights abuses. Read more...

51,000 new jobs. 4.6 percent unemployment rate. More Americans employed than ever before. Plummeting gas prices. All-time stock market highs.

While this news alone proves the strength of our economy, just yesterday, President Bush announced that the federal deficit has been cut in half three years earlier than he originally promised. Unfortunately, Democrats are too consumed with casting a dark shadow on Republican policies to acknowledge the great strides our economy has made in the past several years.

The facts, however, are indisputable: Republicans' responsible fiscal policies and pro-growth initiatives have put money in the pockets of American families and raised the standard of living nationwide.

The numbers released by Treasury yesterday demonstrate the positive impact that tax relief can have on our economy and our fiscal outlook. By lowering the tax burden and encouraging more business investment and hiring, Congress helped create the conditions for economic growth, which has led to a surge in revenue flowing into the Treasury. (FY 2005 revenues were 14.5 percent higher than the year before and FY 2006 tax receipts are 11.8 percent above last year.) Due to these pro-growth policies, the deficit is dropping, but we must do even more to restrain spending so that we can balance the budget. This is especially critical in preparing the way as we work to address the budgetary challenges that face us in the near future with the retirement of the baby-boom generation.

The Treasury numbers for FY 2006 show:

* The FY2006 budget deficit was $248 billion, or 1.9 percent as a share of the economy (GDP) -- below the average of the past 40 years of 2.3 percent of GDP.

* This year's deficit has fallen by $71 billion from last year's actual deficit of $318.7 billion.

* The FY2006 deficit is 41 percent lower than the OMB's original projection of $423 billion in February of this year.

In his press conference today, President Bush demonstrated that, in addition to being in a state of denial on the war in Iraq, he is also in denial over our nation's historic fiscal downturn.  President Bush and Congressional Republicans have squandered the $5.6 billion budget surplus they inherited and transformed it into a $4 billion deficit.  America deeply needs a new economic direction, one that Congressional Democrats are ready to provide.  Democrats will restore fiscal discipline by re-implementing pay-as-you-go budget rules.  Restoring the pay-go rules is the common-sense approach to getting our country back on the right fiscal track.

The following is a joint post from the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee, Va. GOP Rep. Bob Goodlatte and Minn. Dem. Rep. Collin Peterson:

Despite the decline in gasoline prices, asserting our nation’s energy independence continues to be a challenge. To move us closer toward the goal of greater energy independence, the House of Representatives recently passed a resolution that established a goal of producing 25 percent of the all energy consumed in the U.S. on America’s farms, ranches and forests by the year 2025, an initiative known as 25x’25 (H. Con. Res. 424).

The resolution recognizes the need for a sustainable, safe, and reliable energy supply and enjoys wide bipartisan support in the House Agriculture Committee and in the House and the Senate. A broad coalition of agriculture, industry, environmental leaders, as well as several governors and state legislators have also rallied around the 25x’25 Resolution.

Expanding production and use of renewable fuels opens new markets for agriculture producers, provides consumers with a safe, sustainable, environmentally friendly, and renewable source of energy, and decreases our nation’s dependency on foreign oil, reducing the negative effects of severe spikes in oil prices on consumers.

Read more...

Yesterday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted what Americans will spend to heat their homes this winter. For households using natural gas, consumers can expect to pay $826, down from a record $945 last winter. But this modest decline is cold comfort when costs have nearly doubled in five years: they were $465 in the winter of 2001-2002, $600 in 2002-2003, $659 in 2003-2004, and $741 in 2004-2005. Natural gas is the most widely used winter heating fuel in the United States, used by 58 percent of all U.S. households.

This winter’s small cost break follows an unusual combination of events – curtailed production after last year’s hurricanes and a record warm winter that dramatically reduced consumption. But make no mistake, the natural gas crisis hasn’t gone anywhere. Natural gas prices continue their march upward, U.S. jobs are being shed by the millions, and the nation’s competitiveness, economy and security remain at risk – due in large measure to current federal energy policies.

The nation simply can no longer afford a ‘fair weather’ energy policy under which a warm winter represents our only relief from steadily rising energy prices. Instead, what residential and industrial energy consumers need is for Congress to change federal energy policies so that Americans have greater access to our own abundant natural gas supplies in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Decades-old energy policies have placed 85 percent of these supplies off-limits while demand rises – driving natural gas prices higher and making the nation less competitive internationally. Every American pays the price for these irrational and outdated policies. Read more...