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“SECURITY POSTURE IN AMERICA THREATENED” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2304-H2305 on April 23, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SECURITY POSTURE IN AMERICA THREATENED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise as we complete legislative work this week, in anticipation of next week when we will begin the markup process for one of the largest bills we do each year, and that is the defense authorization bill. As my colleague just discussed, we are in a massive downsizing mode that I think is heading us right for a train wreck at the turn of the century in terms of our security posture.
You are going to be hearing significant amounts of comments and speeches and activities over the next four weeks as members of our committee, all 57 members, get involved in educating Members of this body, and the American people about where we are in terms of our state of readiness. I want to call attention to my colleagues two events that will take place next week.
First of all, Mr. Speaker, the largest loss of military life that we have had in this decade was back 7 years ago when 28 young Americans were killed by a scud missile, a low complexity scud missile shot from Iraq into a barracks in Saudi Arabia. That missile devastated the lives of 28 young Americans.
On Wednesday, all day in the Rayburn courtyard off of New Jersey Avenue, we will display a 40-foot-long scud missile, a missile that, in fact, was produced by the Iraqis with assistance from North Korea; that is the same missile that, in fact, killed American troops, the only major loss of life of our troops in this decade.
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That missile is now being sold around the world. Rogue nations are purchasing it. It is still a threat to this country that we cannot defend against.
Along with a display of that Scud missile, which will be available for inspection by our colleagues in the House and the other body and by the American public at that courtyard off of the Rayburn Building on New Jersey Avenue and C Street, will be a demonstration of one of our responses. The Army will, in fact, have a full, active deployment of a THAAD battery. THAAD is the Theater High Altitude Area Defense System that we are developing for our Army to deploy in theaters around the world to defeat missiles like the Iraqi Scud missile.
The THAAD battery will allow Members to see firsthand the success we have had to date in building what will become a very capable system. The unfortunate part of this is that it is going to take several years before this system will be available. But I want to encourage Members to walk over to the Rayburn courtyard and see for themselves how far we have come in terms of building a comprehensive system.
In fact, it has been this body, both Democrats and Republicans, over the past 3 years that have increased funding for these programs, at a time when the administration wanted to continually decimate and decrease funding for these very important programs.
The second event will occur the second day, on Thursday of next week, when 2,000 of America's finest American fire and domestic defenders, our emergency services personnel, will travel to Washington for our tenth annual dinner, where on Thursday night at the Washington Hilton we will pay tribute to these brave heroes.
These individuals will come from every State in the Union, they will represent every major community, large cities like New York, small towns across America, and they will come with one common purpose: that is, for us to be able to recognize their services.
But something different will happen that day, Mr. Speaker. On Thursday, at noon, there will be a massive rally and demonstration at this Capitol building, where the fire and EMS providers in every congressional district in this country will gather for a massive rally at noon, after having surrounded this Capitol building with fire and emergency services apparatus, to make a statement.
The statement is a simple one: As this Congress and this administration has increased funding for response to terrorism acts, to the potential use of weapons of mass destruction, and for the disasters that would result from those, from increases in funding for the Defense budget, the Department of Justice budget, the Health and Human Services budget, the FEMA budget, and the Department of Energy budget, none of that money is in fact siphoning down to those people who are where the rubber meets the road, who are the Nation's first responders in each of these situations.
The demonstration on Thursday, that will be loud and vocal, to which I invite all of our colleagues from both parties, will focus on the fact that this Congress and the administration need to understand that in working to prepare this Nation to deal with disasters, especially those involving weapons of mass destruction, we need to provide the support to the 1.2 million men and women in the 32,000 departments, 85 percent of whom are volunteer, who protect this country every day.
I am also asking our colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to reach out and invite fire and EMS personnel from across the country, and especially in this region, to travel to Washington on Thursday to send a signal throughout this Capitol, with a massive rally at noon right outside the steps of this Chamber, that we will no longer tolerate the consideration of our fire and EMS personnel as second-class citizens, that they deserve the top priority in preparing this Nation to deal with disasters, both man-
made and the potential use of terrorist devices.
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