Early in my first term, I was alarmed by the smell of smoke while working late one evening in the Longworth House Office Building. Upon further investigation, I discovered a fire in the office of then-Speaker Jim Wright. After years of experience as the Fire Chief of Marcus Hook, I was able to extinguish the blaze. Unfortunately, after the fire was out, I realized that not only did the building not have a fire alarm, but none of the extinguishers in the building worked.

As a result of the incident, I was able to work with Speaker Wright and demand that Congress abide by the same fire safety codes imposed on the rest of the American public. Today, every building in the Capitol complex is equipped with fire alarms and working extinguishers. Working that important issue, I realized that fire and emergency services personnel had no presence on Capitol Hill, and that their needs were going unanswered. In response, I founded the Congressional Fire Services Caucus to better educate Members of Congress on fire safety issues. Today, the Caucus is the largest on Capitol Hill with over 300 members.

Each year, in conjunction with the Congressional Fire Services institute, I host a dinner to salute our nation's first responders. Routinely attended by nearly 2,000 fire and emergency service personnel, the dinner continues to draw the attention of our national political leaders. Keynote speakers over the past eight years have included President Clinton, President Bush, Vice President Gore, Vice President Quayle, Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican Leader Bob Dole, former Speaker Jim Wright, former speaker Tom Foley.

I continue to be active on a wide variety of life safety issues ranging from the need for carbon monoxide detectors to the much publicized church arson fires. In addition, I have utilized my role as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Research and Development of the House National Security, to help coordinate the transfer of technology from our military so that it can be utilized by the civilian first responders.

 A Member of the National Security Committee (formerly known as the Armed Services Committee) since coming to Congress, I am honored to serve as chairman of the Military Research and Development Subcommittee. This Subcommittee has jurisdiction over $37 billion dollars, and oversight of all military research and development programs -- from weapons systems to technologies which will enhance the performance and ensure the superiority of those systems.

I suppose that I am most proud of the successful effort to save the Marine Corp's V -22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft from termination. In 1989, Secretary of Defense proposed cancellation of the V-22 and killed funding for the program in the President's budget. Not only would cancellation of this program impact hundreds of jobs at the Boeing Helicopter facility in Ridley and where the program was ready to enter into production as well as regional subcontractors, but it would have left the Marines without a replacement for its Vietnam-era medium lift helicopters and the special forces without the capability to do high-risk evacuations and long-range search and rescue missions. Moving aggressively to counter the Pentagon's arguments for cancellation and organizing a bipartisan coalition to save the aircraft in Congress, I was able to restore funding for the V -22 and move the aircraft into production. Not only will the military have the benefit of the increased speed, range and versatility of this aircraft, but a commercial variant -- which can be used for civil search and rescue, medivac, oil pollution containment, and make short-haul travel on the cluttered skies of the east coast much more accessible while eliminating the need for additional runway space, among other possibilities -- has been developed and commercial orders have already exceeded the most optimistic expectations.
More recently, I have been leading the effort to deploy national and theater missile defense systems. I have worked hard to follow threat development, from those that remain in an unstable Russia to emerging threats in the Middle East and North Korea. Given the current capabilities of nations hostile to the U.S., and the increasing threats posed by proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, I have staunchly advocated the need for defenses against missile threats to our troops in the field as well as our nation. I will continue to lead the effort for deployment of a national missile defense system capable of defending against an accidental, unauthorized or limited strike on the United States at the earliest feasible date, and will support efforts to accelerate theater missile defense systems that will protect U.S. troops so that they will be in place to deter and defend against missile threats by the time those threats have materialized.

In my role as Chairman, I will continue to initiate hearings and legislative actions on tactical air oversight and structuring, improving information warfare capabilities, oceans research, and have been a leader on the national initiative to prepare firefighters and law enforcement officials to respond to the growing threat of terrorist incidents and disasters involving weapons of mass destruction.