Congressional Black Caucus
Floor Speech
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Mr. PAYNE. Let me express my appreciation to the gentlelady from Cleveland for calling this Special Order. She has been such a tremendous resource to the Congressional Black Caucus. And as we know, the Congressional Black Caucus has been very involved in Haiti for many, many years. For the 22 years that I have been a Member of this Congress, Haiti has always been number one on the agenda. And we went through the years when there were dictatorships, and then the elections and President Aristide being elected to office, and then his being deposed and the military, General Cedras, Biamby and those folks took over. And then President Clinton having the foresight to restore President Aristide; 22,000 U.S. troops went to restore democracy without us having even one casualty. And the current situation where President Aristide left and the new government of Preval. So we have been involved throughout the years.
Let me tell you that when we heard the news of the earthquake, 7.0 on the Richter scale, only 6 miles deep, bringing it so close to the surface it made the magnitude even greater, the aftershocks that continued, we immediately said we must do something and do something quickly and do something drastic. So since the earthquake, the Congressional Black Caucus has mobilized to holding emergency meetings regarding Haiti with USAID, the Department of State, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders in the region to get a sense of the effort on the ground in order to take information back to our constituents and organize the legislative efforts in Congress.
On Wednesday, January 13, the CBC international task force called an emergency meeting with the CBC staff regarding the devastation in Haiti. USAID Deputy Administrator John Brause briefed staff about the U.S. response and the extent of the situation. Counselor Cheryl Mills, chief of staff to Secretary of State Clinton, briefed CBC members on January 13 and January 15. The Congressional Black Caucus held a Haiti disaster assistance meeting with Members to discuss legislative efforts and opportunities that we could then move right into effect.
Various members of the Congressional Black Caucus hosted conference calls with their constituents to provide them with updates about relief efforts that were being made in our respective districts. We had tremendous interest in different parts and in our State of New Jersey, New Jersey for Haiti was formed, www.nj4haiti.org. And that organization, which I cochair with Senator Lesniak, said that we needed to move quickly into action. And Stan Neron, who is a social service worker in the city of Elizabeth was able to get the United Way of the Greater Union County to be partners in arranging drives for supplies and listed organizations that could receive contributions, Red Cross and other organizations, that were already doing work throughout the land.
And so as I indicated, the CBC jumped into our meetings at the conference calls. We had a Special Order following news on January 12. Immediately, members of the Congressional Black Caucus came to the floor to discuss the earthquake in Haiti and relief efforts and what we intended to do. And the following day, on the 14th of January, Congressional Black Caucus members were briefed via a conference call with David Meltzer, senior vice president for the international affairs of the American Red Cross. On the 15th of January, Congressional Black Caucus members were briefed through a conference call by the State Department for updates. And so we just remained very active.
The week of January 18 to 22, the Congressional Black Caucus leadership introduced and passed two bipartisan measures on Haiti in Congress. Tuesday the 19th, Chairwoman Lee, on behalf of the caucus, introduced legislation expressing condolences to and solidarity with the people of Haiti. And in the aftermath of this devastating earthquake, Chairman CHARLIE RANGEL of the important Ways and Means Committee introduced a bipartisan piece of legislation, H.R. 4462, that would allow individuals making a charitable contribution after January 11 and before March 1 to victims of the earthquake in Haiti to claim these charitable deductions on their 2009 tax returns. Absent this change, taxpayers would need to wait until next year to claim a deduction for these contributions on their 2010 tax forms. And so this will speed up deductions eligible for 2009.
The bill also makes it clear that taxpayers making a charitable contribution to victims of the Haiti earthquake through text messages would be able to rely on the cell phone bill while claiming charitable deductions, the first time any activity or action of this nature has been done.
The CBC international task force held a staff meeting to discuss the next steps on Haiti on that day of January 19 and the committee that I am privileged to chair. On Wednesday, January 20, the CBC members were briefed by Ambassador Raymond Alcide Joseph, Haiti's Ambassador to the United States.
The legislation that we had, we are also in the process of developing. What we have done in our meetings, we've taken a look to see what we can do with the U.S. citizenship and immigration services to discuss TPS and humanitarian parole and other important items. The CBC looked at other issues. Representative HANK JOHNSON'S office drafted a letter to Secretary Clinton and Gates detailing details about the use of security contractors as a part of ongoing relief. Congresswoman Waters is working on Haiti debt cancellation of bills, and Representative Meeks from New York is dealing with a Marshall Plan on Haiti. I intend to ask the Earth Institute at Columbia University, Dr. Sachs, to come to brief the Congressional Black Caucus about the future of Haiti and planning: How should new Haiti be planned? How should Port-au-Prince be redone? How should satellite cities be created? Because we feel that this is an opportunity now to right many of the wrongs that had happened in the past.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will have a hearing on Haiti in the next few weeks, and Congressman Meeks will be holding a hearing on international financial institutions and how they can assist Haiti. Congressman JOHN CONYERS has been in contact with the Air Force liaison. He is going to participate when the time is right in CBC members taking trips to Haiti to see firsthand what we should do. We've been reluctant from going down en masse because we wanted to have our agency people on the ground be free to do things that need to be done. However, when the time is right, we will have a large delegation of members of the CBC to go.
As you know on the 21st of January, the CBC held a press conference to discuss the congressional response to the earthquake. Our CBC met with TransAfrica, its director, Nicole Lee, and Melinda Miles working together for Haiti, NGOs that have been on the ground for many years to find out what is the position of the NGOs and how do they see the situation and how can they better assist as we move forward. CBC facilitated a call with NGO leaders working in Haiti with the Department of State to discuss NGO's experiences and concerns as the U.S. builds and executes recovery and relief and the rebuilding of Haiti. And we found that very instructive for the NGOs and for the Department of State.
On the 19th, the CBC international task force held a staff meeting to discuss the priorities again as relates to it. Congressman Cummings, the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, held a briefing regarding the United States Coast Guard and its ongoing work in Haiti.
We held a press conference at the Haitian Embassy. The CBC went and met with the Haitian Government and we talked about various problems. We wanted to take a look at the TPS guide. We looked at the CARACOM memo. We discussed Haiti's debt relief numbers from Treasury. We have dealt with the CBC constituency outreach guide. And these were all things, as I indicated, that the Congressional Black Caucus has done.
As I wind down, I just want to once again remind Americans that Haiti has been a tremendous part of the growth and the development of our Nation. As I have mentioned on the floor before, it was back in the late 1800s when the enslaved people of Haiti had a rebellion against the Government of France, and Napoleon's army, after 12 years' struggle, lost the war to Haiti; Haiti becoming the first country where enslaved people overthrew the power, European power, and became a republic, just the third republic ever in the world at that time.
So we have a tremendous amount of regard and respect for Haiti as they defeated the French, therefore causing France to lose much of the wealth that it gained from Haiti. Half of the sugar and coffee and cocoa, other products in Europe, 50 percent of them came from Haiti alone. Haiti produced more wealth to France than all of the 13 original colonies gave to the U.S. Government.
And so Haiti, once it became independent from France, France became cash poor. But it still had land in the Louisiana Territory and, as a result of their defeat, were forced to sell the Louisiana Territory, negotiated by Jefferson, to the United States. And that opened up the West for the United States.
As a matter of fact, France had armies of 20,000 persons where the U.S. Army was just about 5,000 strong. So the French had a more powerful military here in the Western Hemisphere and would have been a problem for the United States had not the treaty been made and France being forced to sell the Louisiana Territory.
Many other Haitians are involved in our history. The Battle of Savannah, where Haitians fought for our independence, valiantly losing lives but helping to turn the tide of the Revolutionary War. We know that Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, popularly known as the Father of Chicago, was a Haitian colonist in North America, mixed French and Haitian ancestry, and he was the person that discovered Chicago and was really called the Father of Chicago back in 1968. So there are so many people of Haitian descent, and Haiti itself, that has a great deal to do with our development.
Finally, let me just mention this last point, that when World War II began, the U.S. started to become concerned about the dependence of rubber from a territory that was going to be controlled by the Japanese. By 1942, the Indonesians, the British-controlled rubber plantations provided 99 percent of the commercial rubber for the world. In the earliest stages of World War II, the United States realized the disastrous consequence if rubber plantations fell to Japan. This would cut off to the United States and its allies rubber supplies, an absolutely critical commodity, as you know, not only for the economy, but to keep a war effort moving forward.
The United States made some presentations in 1940 and 1941. We started to increase our rubber stockpiles. However, botanists went to Haiti to attempt to grow rubber trees in Haiti. The Haitian rubber project was not supposed to be a part of the war effort, but it really was. It was not something that was necessary if we were not concerned about rubber being cut off from the United States. What happened, though, is that much of the land was denuded. Natural habitat was destroyed. Ebony trees and plants that were natural in Haiti were taken out, and the attempt to grow rubber trees was started on large portions of land. There were some Haitian botanists who said that it would not work; however, the U.S. insisted on trying the experiment.
Today, one of the biggest problems in Haiti is erosion. It is because of deforestation, because people are dependent on wood for homes and heating. However, this dastardly situation started actually by the United States for the war effort with the attempt to grow foreign seeds that would not grow in that kind of topography. So, once again, as we look at the tremendous erosion that is abundant in Haiti today, the beginning of it happened to be at the time when the United States felt that it needed to have the growth of rubber trees in our hemisphere in a place that was close to the United States.
And so even, once again, as we look at how Haiti has impacted on the United States, this consequence of a negative development on the part of the U.S. Government I think once again is a reason that we should have a strong passion for our sister country Haiti.
So we will continue in New Jersey to continue to move forward with all of the many people that are involved. We look forward to having a mass at the basilica near the end of the month of February. Our Governor is going to provide an office that we can work with to try to be sure that people who may be coming with TPS and other problems, family unification, parole, adoption, that we will be able to service these people who are crying out for help.
So with that, I see one of my colleagues here from the great State of Texas, Congresswoman SHEILA JACKSON LEE, who has really done a tremendous amount of work in this area and sits on important committees and certainly has a great deal to contribute.
At this time, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from Texas.
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