Mr. Speaker, it is altogether fitting that we adopt the resolution commemorating the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the United States and specifically against the World Trade Center in my district on September 11, 2001.

The attacks were unprovoked, dastardly and a notice to us all that we are not, at our choosing, at war. Since that day, this Congress has taken many actions in response, some of which I agreed with, some of which I did not. I resent the Republican leadership's inclusion in this resolution of references to controversial legislation, as if to imply that any patriotic American who was appalled at the attacks on our country and who believes we must take resolute actions to defend ourselves must approve of all this legislation, and anyone who doesn't is either unpatriotic or foolish.

It may be, though I do not believe it so, that all this legislation was wise and appropriate. But that was a highly debatable proposition and should not be in this resolution.

The resolution quite correctly ``honors the heroic actions of first responders, law enforcement personnel, State and local officials, volunteers and others, who aided the innocent victims and bravely risked their own lives and health following the September 11, 2001, attacks.'' Unfortunately, unless Congress acts quickly, future generations will regard this resolution as the culmination of 5 years of hypocrisy and betrayal.

While we praised the first responders, the Federal Government has betrayed their trust by first lying to them and causing them to work in conditions that destroyed the health of many and risked the lives of thousands. It has conducted a coverup that continues to this day. It has denied the reality of the resulting illnesses and has provided almost no help to assist with the medical and other costs imposed on thousands of first responders. It is not just the first responders.

Many resident school children and people who worked or lived near Ground Zero are still suffering from the devastating environmental effects of the attacks. In the days following the attacks, former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman repeatedly declared the air safe to breathe.

A Federal judge found that ``Whitman's deliberate and misleading statements to the press, where she reassured the public that the air was safe to breathe around Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and there would be no health risk for those returning to those areas, shocked the conscience.'' The EPA Inspector General confirmed the EPA's wrongdoing and reported 3 years ago that the White House had instructed EPA to downplay air quality concerns.

For this, Whitman and anyone at the White House who was involved ought to be criminally prosecuted, and I have demanded an independent counsel to look into this. Now thousands of people are sick and some have died from World Trade Center contamination because of the actions of the Federal Government in telling them to work and live in contaminated environments.

Studies come out every year showing that most of the people exposed to 9/11 dust and debris continue to suffer adverse health effects. On September 5, 2006, Mount Sinai Medical Center released a study that found that 70 percent of the first responders suffer lung problems because of their work at Ground Zero. Information collected about the health effects on residents, people who work in the area, and school children, show similar patterns.

This resolution before us today claims to honor the heroes of 9/11, but that is just sheer hypocrisy if we do not at the least provide health care for these people as they struggle with the effects of the attacks and of the betrayal by their own government. As Americans, let us resolve that just as we showed exemplary valor and compassion in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, we should do the same for those who continue to suffer the health effects of living and working in a toxic environment.

Abraham Lincoln said that it was our job, our duty, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and this we must do. We ought to provide comprehensive health care benefits for all those who are suffering. I suggest the easiest way to do this would be to extend Medicare benefits to those with 9/11-related illness who were exposed to World Trade Center dust.

I have introduced such a bill and urge my colleagues to support it and pass it without delay. As we mark this fifth anniversary, we still are not safe. We are not safer than we were on September 11, 2001, as this resolution claims.

The President and this Congress refused to do what we must to make us safe. We are not securing all the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union before it is smuggled to al Qaeda to make nuclear bombs. We are not screening all of the 12 million shipping containers coming into our ports to make sure that they do not contain nuclear or biological or chemical weapons. We are not hardening our nuclear and chemical plants from sabotage that could kill tens of thousands of Americans. We can and must do better. Now, the specific resolution before us ought to pass because we cannot let this occasion go unmarked.

But because of the cynical manipulation of the rules of the House two months before an election, the Republican leadership is using the memories of my murdered constituents to try to score political points. I find this offensive, and I for one will not fall for it.

I will not vote against the victims and heroes of 9/11 simply because the leadership distilled the resolution with highly charged political rhetoric. This type of resolution is not the way I would have chosen to honor 9/11, a day marked by unquestionable national unity.

Nonetheless, out of the respect for the families of the victims, and on behalf of all Americans, I urge my colleagues to see past the obviously political paragraphs inserted into the resolution and come together to support passage of the resolution that should really only be known for honoring a tragic day in American history.

In order that this resolution not go down in history as hypocritical, I urge my colleagues to join, finally, in helping the victims of 9/11, the victims of our government's inaction and betrayal after 9/11. My thoughts and prayers, as ever, are with the families and friends of those we lost.