mr. speaker , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
mr. speaker , i want to sum up and repeat , because i think it deserves repeating . 
first and most importantly , no one has really shown a need to increase the size of the commission from three to five members . 
we find it very unusual that the majority party with great emphasis on saving dollars on education and a number of much needed programs , wants to waste a little money on two additional members , create a little bit more of a bureaucracy by having two more members to make a decision . 
instead of five people , three people can make this decision . 
they have been functioning with three members since the creation in 1970 . 
why should it be any different now ? 
given the enormous deficit spending promoted by this republican majority , there is no real purpose in adding members and swelling the ranks . 
last but not least , i find it quite ironic also that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to tack on the requirement that the commission members have legal training . 
i think you have heard the expression that our colleague , the gentleman from georgia ( mr. norwood ) xz4002960 , often makes about the government being over burdened with lawyers . 
so i am surprised to hear that the leaning of this bill as we read it would certainly require more appointment of lawyers or somebody similar to lawyers . 
there is no demonstrated need for such a requirement . 
there is no demonstrated need for this particular addition to the bill . 
the capacity of osha to produce cases is steadily shrinking as a result of the steady chip-away strategy of the republican majority . 
they have chipped away at the budget every year . 
osha is far smaller and far less effective than it was when the republican majority took power in the house . 
certainly that was accelerated when the republicans took control of the white house as well as the house . 
so osha is under attack in a way which produces less work for such a commission . 
why should we increase the size of the commission when there is less work for it ? 
it is part of the pattern to chip away in every little way and trivialize what osha is all about . 
at the same time , the only parts of the department of labor that are being increased are those parts that are aimed at attacking organized labor , the organizations that represent working families . 
we happen to know there is a great push on to drive the unions into the ground with trivial audits , financial audits mostly , of petty cash , the receipts for cab fare and receipts for lunch . 
various efforts are underway at this point to force labor unions to defend themselves from bookkeeping errors . 
the same kind of zeal needs to be expressed in the way that osha is staffed and manned to provide the basic necessities to keep our workplace safe for our workers . 
let us just discuss for a moment the 2 , 578 osha violations in georgia in 2002 . 
the occupational safety and health administration in 2002 issued an average of seven citations a day to georgia businesses that year . 
osha found 2 , 578 violations of its rules during 1 , 481 inspections of companies operating in georgia and documented more than 50 workplace deaths in that year . 
in 2001 , osha issued 2 , 962 citations , more than eight a day , and 1 , 596 inspections in georgia . 
so 2002 had improved a bit from 2001 . 
but i think it would be good if members got in touch with what is happening in their states and in their districts . 
the atlanta business chronicle documented this information in an article published march 23 , 2003 . 
at that time , the atlanta business chronicle had documented safety concerns in three of georgia 's largest companies , the home depot incorporated , the georgia pacific corporation , and united parcel service incorporated . 
but as osha records show , safety is a widespread concern among many georgia companies . 
on february 24 , osha issued a list of 14 , 200 u.s. facilities that had accident and illness rates at twice the national average . 
the national average is about three illnesses or injuries for every 100 workers that are serious enough to cause employees to lose time from work . 
included in osha 's list were 563 workplaces in georgia , and more than 200 of them were in the atlanta metropolitan area . 
wal-mart stores , the nation 's largest retailer , had the largest single number of georgia facilities on the list , 11 . 
of the companies based in georgia , united parcel service had the most facilities on the list with 174 nationwide . 
out of all the georgia companies during 2003 , durango-georgia paper company in st . 
mary 's was fined the most by osha . 
osha assessed durango-georgia $ 258 , 000 after an august 19 boiler explosion that killed two workers and injured one . 
osha found 48 violations during an investigation of that accident . 
in addition to the safety violations that contributed to that explosion , osha cited the company for allowing employees to work at heights of up to 50 feet without fall protection and for requiring employees to stand on a conveyor belt to remove jammed logs without adequate protection against being caught in a machine . 
it was not the first large fine against that paper manufacturer . 
osha fined the company $ 157 , 000 after an accident had resulted in the double amputation of a worker . 
in 2000 , the company had paid $ 220 , 250 for 12 citations . 
the pattern goes on and on . 
the american workplace is not a safe place . 
it becomes more complicated all the time . 
the new chemicals , new machines , and new challenges , the building of houses , buildings and facilities at higher heights , for example all lead to complications . 
we talk about small businesses , and it is true that a large number of construction businesses are small businesses . 
that does not make the work that their workers do any less dangerous . 
the fact that they are a small business does not remove the fact that their workers must use scaffolding . 
small business workers have trenches that they dig . 
they are doing work that is very dirty and very dangerous . 
the workers in small constructin firms deserve protection . 
small contractors are also the ones who are most likely to disobey immigration laws and have large numbers of people who are illegal immigrants working in their facilities . 
and therefore , i have noted before we have a noticeable large number of deaths of immigrants in the construction industry . 
and this is not confined to georgia or any one state . 
this spreads right across the country . 
the employers of construction companies know that they can save money by disobeying the law and using illegal immigrants . 
so it has become a major problem . 
again , the working families of america deserve better . 
we have come to the point where our economy is compared to other economies in our global partnerships around the world . 
we compare ourselves and say , oh , it is awful that we can not compete better with china . 
well , china was organized as a country which has dictatorship of the proletariat . 
dictatorship of the proletariat meant workers were going to be charge . 
all of the unions in china are collapsing to the government . 
china produces a large part of its consumer goods in prisons . 
they produce a large part of their consumer goods in factories where workers are paid less than a dollar a day . 
it is not useful for us to invoke the third world countries , the developing countries and china -- i do not know what china would be categorized as -- with exploiting companies and decide that we ought to be more like that so we can be more competitive . 
some allege that one way we can be more competitive is to make the workplace less safe , by providing employers with a situation where they do not have to worry about workers ' safety . 
china -- as a dictatorship -- can do what they want to with their workers . 
they can continue , as i pointed out , pay workers the lowest possible wages , and they can also not spend any money on guaranteeing worker safety . 
so given the fact that we are on the floor for the second time in 2 years with these four bills , it is an opportunity for us to educate our colleagues as to the seriousness of the current situation in the american workplace today . 
we must be more sensitive to the fact that our working families are out there suffering . 
our health care situation does not get any better . 
we need to come to the rescue of private enterprise in terms of their pension funds collapsing . 
and their health care systems are so expensive that they are now calling for help from the government . 
all of this is part of a threatening and more intimidating atmosphere that mushrooms all the time against the interests of working families . 
and the attack on osha , which is consistent , the harassment of osha , the downgrading of osha , the chip-away erosive effect of osha is all part of that pattern . 
a department of labor which declares it has no money to really have an osha that functions appropriately is the department of labor which has managed to spend a great deal of money on the faith-based initiative . 
we noticed that large amounts of money from the department of labor have gone to faith-based initiatives over the last few years , and that is a great mystery as to how that money was doled out , under what criteria was it given to certain faith-based organizations . 
i think one got more than $ 1 million . 
it was on the front page of the new york times . 
the department of labor had given a grant to one faith-based group for more than $ 1 million , and we do not know what it is the dol is doing here . 
this all happened right before the november 2004 election . 
so the department of labor is being used for mr. speaker , i yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from california ( mr. baca ) xz4000090 . 
