Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon), chairman of the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, and the vice-chairman of the full committee.

(Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I would pledge to work to see that we have a balanced result coming out of the conference and that we work with the gentleman and the other gentlemen who have spoken of this.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the great State of Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Simmons), who is a member of the committee and has a great defense background.

(Mr. SIMMONS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Porter).

(Mr. PORTER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains?

Mr. Chairman, I yield a challenging 15 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), who has a presentation he wants to make.

Mr. Chairman, how much time do we have left under the striking request?

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have under my regular time?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I wish to assure the gentlewoman that we will work to see to it that small businesses participate robustly in rebuilding Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to reciprocate to my partner, the ranking member of the Committee on Armed Services, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), and thank him for his great work on this bill, and I want to thank all the Members for their great work on this en bloc package.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we have a system today which makes a great deal of sense. It says if we sell a supercomputer, and the President has a right to define what a supercomputer is, he can raise the number of millions of theoretical operations per second that define a supercomputer, but once he makes that determination, then if someone sells to what is known as a Tier III country, and that is a country that we may have great problems with, and I will ask the staff to bring down a poster that has those countries. I am talking about countries like China, India, Djibouti, other countries like that; and if you sell a supercomputer to those countries, you have to do something very simple, you just give notice.

You just send a notice to the Department of Commerce; and under our law that we worked out very studiously, the Department of Commerce gives within 24 hours that notice to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State, and they are able to scrub their list and say wait a minute, have we got a bad guy who is an end user here? Have we got a company that wants to kill Americans? Do we have somebody who is going to aid terrorists?

If that is not the case and we come up with a benign end user, okay, go ahead and sell it. All we have to do is give notice 10 days before the transfer is made. And if the bureaucracy fails to act in 10 days, the trade under our present law is authorized.

The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), and I have great respect for him and he is a great friend and he is right on many defense issues, is wrong on this one because this takes away the notice. We are a Nation that now understands that fighting terrorism means knowing things. It means intelligence. We are the country that is going to get information off driver's licenses and visas and background checks because we need information; and yet if this passes, there is no notice requirement.

The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) says some notice requirement may be built in in the future; but when we strike title B, it takes away the notice requirement.

The other thing that it takes away, it takes away what is known as end-use verification. That means when we sell a supercomputer to Communist China, and they say we are not using this for our nuclear weapons development, we are going to use this for our weather laboratories, that means we have a right to go over and check in that weather laboratory and make sure that they have not transferred it over to nuclear weapons development. The Dreier amendment strikes this, and we no longer can check on how this equipment is being used.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Chairman, let me just say, the playtop system that the gentlewoman from California held up and said this would be licensed, that is not the case today. Today the case is 19,000 million theoretical operations per second. That is about 2,000. Nobody is asking for a report on that. We have taken care of that.

Secondly, the heart of this is the report. If you sell to one of these controlled countries like China, you have to let the Secretary of Defense know you did it. He only has 10 days to review it. If he does not do anything, you make the sale. But the idea that we do not want to bother ourselves with knowing what we are doing makes no sense.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Hawaii (Mr. Abercrombie).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), chairman of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities.

(Mr. SAXTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment guts a very important aspect of national security, and that aspect is knowledge. The idea that we want to take away notice when a supercomputer is sold to one of these third-tier countries, and once again I would ask the floor staff to put up that list of so-called third-tier countries, including Communist China and a number of others which may at some point be our adversary, the idea that we want to take away our notice so that we do not know if we are transferring a supercomputer to the Osama bin Laden Construction Corporation, we want to divest ourselves of that knowledge, that makes no sense.

We have a system in place which is very practical. It is a 10-day system. You simply tell, by notice, the Department of Commerce if you are going to sell a supercomputer. The President decides what a supercomputer consists of; and if you are going to sell a supercomputer to China or Pakistan or Vietnam or Algeria, you give them a 10-day notice. He sends a copy within 24 hours to the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State. If nobody objects, you make the sale. If 10 days expires, you go ahead and transfer this supercomputer.

The other thing we have is in-use verification. We want to make sure when a supercomputer goes to China it is being used by their weather bureau, for example, not by their nuclear facilities. The only way one can tell is by sending a team and saying is that supercomputer where they said it would be? That is called in-use verification. The gentleman from California's (Mr. Dreier) amendment strikes in-use verification.

The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) joins me in opposing this amendment very strongly. I would ask the Members to look at the handout that the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde) and I put out together.

Please vote this amendment down and please retain notice.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the HEROES Act introduced by my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline), and thank him for doing so. This HEROES Act is appropriate at this time, as we have become very familiar over the past few weeks, watching the war unlike we have ever watched a war before. To address this very serious issue of the student loan repayment, this is altogether fitting and proper.

This is a great first step for this Chamber to make; but Madam Speaker, I believe that as we continue to watch and become aware that this war is not going to be as quick as we thought it was going to be, as this war begins to extend, and as our troops who were activated for possibly months or a year, this conflict now may stretch to 2 years or to 3 years, specifically dealing with the student loans, as we talk about forbearance in that the Secretary will have the opportunity to forbear a loan as our servicemen and servicewomen are activated, this will allow them not to pay on their student loans for the time that they are active.

Unfortunately, while they are still serving our country, making great sacrifices, the interest on their loan will still be accruing; so this is a great first step, but I think we can do much better. I think we in the Chamber, as we go forward in the next few weeks, should continue to try to extend these benefits, possibly allow these soldiers to defer their loans, and to subsidize the interest, so when they get back after serving this country, they will not owe more than when they left. I think that is a small step that we should make in order to support our troops as we should.

I have a bill that is the Active Reservists and National Guard Student Loan Relief Act which would do this, and I think we should look into it. Some soldiers who have $50,000 in student loans will accrue $2,600 in interest if they are serving for only 1 year. When they come back, they will owe $2,600 more.

Madam Speaker, I urge us to vote in support of the HEROES Act, but continue to be open-minded with other options in which we can show support for our troops.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would also like to thank the chairman of the committee for all of his work also on this effort. He has been great to work with; and I think, again, this is a good first step for us to take. And while he is here, I just wanted to mention a couple of people, one who is from my district in Ohio, Krista Rosado, Madam Speaker. She is a Reservist in my district. She has been called to duty for up to 2 years for the war on terror. She is a technical sergeant, and she has student loans in the amount of $11,400 with a 7 percent interest rate.

Now, under the current legislation that we are dealing with, she will accrue over $1,400 in additional interest on her loan. So when she does get back from service, she will owe this money. And I think the natural next step for us to take is to say to Krista, thank you for your service, thank you for your sacrifice, and we will take care of the interest on your loan while you were over serving your country.

I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman, and I look forward to working with him.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I also want to thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), who is also a colleague of mine on the Committee on Education and the Workforce. I do not think there is a Member of this Congress who has more experience dealing with some of the hardships that young people deal with when in college. He mentioned that some of the Reservists who are on active duty and who have been activated that the HEROES Act is going to help. Sixty-seven percent of the Reservists have some college education with which this bill will be able to assist them, some college education or more; 25.8 percent have some college education but not yet have received a degree; and then of which the HEROES Act will also help 12.1 percent have an associate's degree; 20 percent have a bachelor's degree; 7 percent have a master's degree; and 2 percent have a doctoral or some professional degree. So this HEROES Act is going to address a significant number of people who are currently serving their country. Again, I commend the gentleman for introducing this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to thank the gentleman for his fine work on the committee and his pledge of support to work with us. I think given the intellect of this body, we should be should be able to figure out a way to make this happen and to make sure that the soldiers over there who are sacrificing and risking life and limb for our own freedoms in this country, we should be able to work it out.

In closing, Madam Speaker, again, this HEROES Act is a great first step for us. As we said earlier, this addresses a number of people who are soldiers, who are making sacrifice for this country and really for freedom around the world.

Again, just to reiterate, the forbearance is a great first step. I think the intention of forbearing a loan, again, is for more of the shorter conflicts where our soldiers are just going to be activated for maybe a few months, where the accrual of interest would not be that significant. But as we see this conflict start to extend from a year to 2 years, or how long the President decides, we need to understand that the accrual of that interest needs to be taken care of, because these soldiers who, many as we know are making great sacrifices not only physically, but economically at home, and many of these soldiers who are over there are not earning nearly the amount that they would be earning if they were working here in this country.

They are taking significant pay cuts, taking enormous physical risks, and so the forbearance for a short conflict, the subsidies and deferment for longer conflicts where there is an opportunity to have significant accrual of the interest, I think that is a next logical step.

We are here to support these young men and young women who are fighting for this country, not just the soldiers on the front lines, but also those following whom we have seen become prisoners of war and missing in action. This is a very dangerous endeavor that we have taken.

I thank the gentleman again and very much look forward to working with him to take this to the next step and to the next level. I very much look forward to working with the gentleman and the chairman of the committee to do that.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. I support this amendment wholeheartedly in part because it contains a provision requesting a report from the Secretary of Defense which I have requested dealing with the issuance of security clearances and updates on security clearance for defense workers.

My district has literally thousands of defense workers producing the very best submarines in the world. But under a recently passed law which we refer to as the Smith Act, some of these workers run the risk of losing their clearances for activities that took place many, many years ago and, yet, under the provisions of the Smith Act, may result in denial of a clearance which for them results in denial or loss of a job.

I look forward to the report which this amendment requests so that we can work to eliminate this unintended consequence of the Smith Act.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the en bloc amendment being offered by Chairman Duncan Hunter.

This amendment contains many important provisions. It includes language I authored to require the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress on the granting or renewal of security clearances for Department of Defense personnel and defense contractor personnel.

Those Members of Congress with Department of Defense contractors in their districts know the importance of a security clearance to the men and women who work for those contractors. As someone who has held a TOP SECRET clearance for over 30 years, I fully understand the importance of issuing these clearances to defense contractors and their employees.

My district is home to Electric Boat where thousands of hard working people show up every day to design and build the finest submarines in the world. Every 5 years Electric Boat workers are put through a necessary review of their security clearances, which I support.

Unfortunately, a recent law contained language commonly known as the ``Smith Act'' which requires any person convicted of a crime and sentenced to one year or more in jail to be automatically disqualified from holding a security clearance. The law does not take into account whether the individual actually served the sentence. But, the law says conviction means no clearance, and no clearance means no job.

Mr. Chairman, over the past year many highly skilled veteran workers from Electric Boat have appeared at my district office, frightened that a conviction in their youth will suddenly come back to haunt them and cost them their job. These are men and women who have often held their security clearances for over 20 years. But because of the Smith Act, those clearances are now in jeopardy.

These working men and women have families and contribute positively to their communities, both in eastern Connecticut and around the nation. And at Electric Boat they have been safely and securely building the best submarines in the world for the U.S. Navy for over 100 years!

There are similar stories in other defense contractor facilities around this great nation. While the intention of the ``Smith Act'' was good, it is time to re-examine this law and see if there are more effective ways to update and issue these security clearances.

My amendment does just that. It simply requires the Department of Defense to report back to Congress within 60 days with recommendations for legislation or administrative steps the Secretary of Defense considers necessary to better carry out the business of granting and renewing security clearances.

In searching for solutions to this problem, I am pleased to have the support of both management and labor. Both parties are well aware of the importance of security clearances to the defense industry and the dramatic impact the loss of a clearance has on their employees.

Today I am pleased to share letters from both the President of Electric Boat and the President of the Metal Trades Council of New London County. Both letters express support for my efforts to improve the Smith Act. I ask unanimous consent that these letters be inserted into the Record.

In closing, let me thank Chairman Hunter and his staff for working with me on this important amendment. I appreciate their recognition of the need to review the unintended consequences of the Smith Act.

Finally, I look forward to reviewing the recommendations from the Department of Defense and working with both the Pentagon and my colleagues on the Armed Services Committee to craft a reasonable solution to this problem.

Metal Trades Council of

New London County,

Groton, CT, May 15, 2003.

Hon. Duncan Hunter,

Chairman, House Armed Services Committee, U.S. House of

Representatives, Rayburn House Office Building,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Hunter: It has come to my attention that

Congressman Rob Simmons is currently working with you and

your staff on ways to improve Section 986(c)(1) of title 10

USC, also known as the ``Smith Act.'' As the president of the

Metals Trade Council union at Electric Boat in Groton (CT), I

am writing today to share my strong support of Mr. Simmons's

proposed changes to the Act.

As you know, the purpose of the Smith Act is to ensure that

individuals who have been convicted of a serious crime are

not given a Defense Security Service (DSS) security clearance

at controlled industrial areas like Electric Boat. Under the

Act, any person convicted of a crime and sentenced to

imprisonment for greater than one year is automatically

disqualified from a security clearance. Unfortunately, I have

seen firsthand the unintended consequences of the Smith Act.

All too often, an Electric Boat employee, whose security

clearance is being reviewed, is denied a clearance renewal

because of a minor criminal offense where the individual was

sentenced to more than one year in prison, yet served little

or no jail time. Sadly, losing a clearance means losing a

job.

Many of these working men and women have received their

clearances prior to the implementation of the Smith Act and

have been on the yard for more than 20 years. They are

skilled workers, proud of their work and their country. And

while I support efforts to protect controlled industrial

areas through tougher scrutiny of clearances, I would urge

you to strongly consider the proposed changes that

Congressman Simmons has drafted. These improvements to the

Smith Act will go a long way toward saving the jobs of

numerous laborers at Electric Boat.

Thank you for taking my thoughts into consideration. We at

Electric Boat appreciate everything that you and your

Committee have done for the submarine capital of the world.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Delacruz,

President.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

This amendment makes a number of unnecessary and potentially harmful changes to Federal procurement law in the name of fighting terrorism. Most troubling is the authority it grants to all agencies--not just the Department of Defense--to use special simplified procurement procedures designed for commercial items for any good or service, regardless of cost. This means that full and open competition will not be used when purchasing these items. It also means that the government will not have access to important safeguards designed to protect taxpayer dollars on sole-source contracts below $15 million.

We all want to fight the war on terrorism as effectively as possible, but the case simply has not been made that we need this bill. What agencies are having problems getting material or services to fight the war on terrorism? What exactly is it that they have been enable to get?

I haven't heard that agencies are having any problems. The administration has not asked for these ``flexibilities.'' Maybe that is because existing law already has a great deal of flexibility. Waivers from almost all acquisition procedures are available to agencies for a number of reasons. Those include waivers for national security reasons, if there is an ``unusual and compelling urgency,'' and even if it is determined that it is ``in the public interest.'' All of these would seem to apply to fighting the war on terrorism.

Under current law, when the government buys a good or service from a company, the government is entitled to receive cost and pricing data if that company is the only one that can provide the product to the government and if the value of the contract is over $550,000. The laws that require this information are the Truth in Negotiations Act. The Cost Accounting Standards are also a critical oversight tool. Congress wrote those laws to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse and they are critical safeguards needed to protect taxpayer dollars in the Federal procurement process.

The amendment allows any agency--not just the Defense Department--to enter into sole-source contracts worth up to $15 million without requiring the contractor to provide accurate cost and pricing data to ensure that taxpayers are getting their money's worth. I think that is foolish and irresponsible, and I urge members to oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I seek time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is ironic, Mr. Chairman, that this amendment is made in order. It applies across the board to civil servants, but this is a DOD bill, and what the Republican leadership would not allow to be in order is a debate about the dramatic radical changes on civil service and procurement issues.

First, with regard to the amendment before us, I have concerns about this Human Capital Performance Fund because I am concerned that the fund will be used as a ruse to slash annual pay raises for Federal employees.

Mr. Chairman, three of my colleagues, though, were denied the opportunity to come to the floor and offer a proposal, which was such a common-sense approach, for restoring the fundamental rights of DOD employees

without in any way hindering the Department's ability to perform its mission.

The Cooper-Danny Davis-Van Hollen amendment would have protected due process appeal and collective bargaining rights. The amendment would have reaffirmed the importance of veterans' preferences and nondiscrimination based on political affiliation. These are the same fundamental rights enjoyed by other Federal employees and, indeed, by employees all around the country. Yet the underlying bill takes those rights away. They would not even allow the chance for these authors to propose this.

Now, let me inform my colleagues that that Cooper-Van Hollen-Danny Davis amendment will be the motion to recommit, so Members will still have to vote on it. But the Republican leadership will not allow us to debate the Cooper amendment on the floor because they cannot defend their own bill. This is no way for the House to deal with one of the most sweeping civil service changes in history.

What makes this process even more galling is that we are dealing with the rights of 700,000 loyal and hard-working DOD employees. They are the same employees who saw terrorists crash an airplane into their headquarters at the Pentagon, and they are the same employees who made enormous sacrifices to support the military efforts in Iraq.

We have our basic priorities all wrong. At the same time that the House today is going to reward billionaires with unnecessary tax breaks, the Republican majority is passing legislation to take away health benefits from veterans and strip dedicated Defense Department employees of their basic rights.

Of course, this is only the latest assault on Federal employees by the Bush administration. Federal jobs have been given to private contractors who are unsupervised and unable to do their job as effectively or efficiently as it would be public employees, and financial bonuses have been given to political appointees instead of career employees. If we are truly concerned about a strong national defense, we ought to open debate and make sure that we have a motivated workforce.

I was also unable to offer an amendment requiring sole source contracts over $1 million to be covered by laws intended to prevent waste, fraud and abuse. Who is in favor of waste, fraud and abuse? Well, we would have given the chance for Members to make sure that that sort of thing would not happen.

The approach of the leadership on the Republican side is unprecedented, and I want to use this time to protest it.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) to further talk about what is happening in this DOD bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I have some misgivings about this amendment, but the real point that I want to make is that we should have had an opportunity to debate radical, sweeping civil service changes for the DOD. It was wrong not to have that chance to offer an amendment to do that.

In the motion to recommit, an employee bill of rights will be offered which will protect veterans' preferences, protect against discrimination based upon political opinion or affiliation, right to overtime pay, due process rights, and appeal rights. I hope Members will be willing to vote for that.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1412) to provide the Secretary of Education with specific waiver authority to respond to a war or other military operation or national emergency.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous matter on H.R. 1412.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to bring forward, along with several of my colleagues, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students, or HEROES, Act of 2003. This is a bill that

expresses the support and commitment of the United States House of Representatives to the troops who protect and defend the United States.

Throughout our involvement in the war on terrorism, many thousands of men and women who serve our Nation in the Reserves or National Guard of the Armed Forces, whether the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, other than Coast Guard, have been called to active duty or active service. Many of these men and women are also college and university students who are called away from their families, class work and studies to defend our Nation. Unfortunately, due to a number of restrictions in the Higher Education Act, these individuals are at risk of losing financial assistance and/or educational credit as a result of their service.

Such a scenario is clearly not acceptable. The HEROES Act provides assurance to our men and women in uniform that they will not face education-related financial or administrative difficulties while they defend our Nation. The HEROES Act achieves this by granting the Secretary of Education the authority to address the specific needs of each student whose education is interrupted when they are called to service.

This bill is specific in its intent to ensure that as a result of a war, military contingency operation, or national emergency our men and women are protected. By granting flexibility to the Secretary of Education, the HEROES Act will protect recipients of student financial assistance from further financial difficulty generated when they are called to serve, minimize administrative requirements without affecting the integrity of the programs, adjust the calculation used to determine financial need to accurately reflect the financial condition of the individual and his or her family, and provide the Secretary with the authority to address issues not yet foreseen.

Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on our Nation, Members of this House united to unanimously pass similar legislation which helped ease the burden on students, institutions, and families affected by the attacks on our Nation. Today, the men and women serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom and in other parts of the world deserve the same support.

I am pleased that a number of my colleagues have signed on as cosponsors of this legislation. This is an indication of Congress' commitment to our military, our students, our families, and our schools. I urge my colleagues to stand in strong support of the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act and join me in voting yes on H.R. 1412.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and appreciate his commitment to the troops and his desire to extend additional benefits to those now serving. I look forward to work with the gentleman on that.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson).

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns), a member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, a man with extensive experience in higher education.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne), my colleague on the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), another of my colleagues on the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to start by saying thanks again to my colleague, the gentleman from Ohio, for his passionate interest in this bill, for his support of the bill; and I, too, look forward to working with him in the days and weeks that come ahead to make sure that we are doing the very best that we can for our men and women who have been called to active duty.

I appreciate very much the many remarks of my colleagues here today. We have had remarks from a college professor and from a college coach and from people with years of experience on this committee. I very much appreciate the work they have done on this.

I am grateful for the credit that has been given to me for bringing this bill forward, but the truth is, I am following the steps of some people who have blazed the trail ahead of me.

This is a very, very important bill. It is important for our colleagues, for families and for the men and women in uniform, and I urge my colleagues to stand in strong support of the Heroes Act and vote yes on H.R. 1412.

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.