Expressing the sympathy and condolences of the House of Representatives to those people affected by the flooding in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi in May, 2010.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1337) expressing the sympathy and condolences of the House of Representatives to those people affected by the flooding in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi in May 2010.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks.

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

In the first weekend of May, the great storms came through from the West and struck in Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The flooding damage was record-breaking. The damage done in all States was great but in the State of Tennessee was the most severe, my home State. The most destruction, I guess, and the most damages occurred in the district of the Honorable Jim Cooper of Davidson County and environs. But in my own County of Shelby, there was extensive damage.

I joined with my colleagues in calling on our Governor to issue a request for a declaration of emergency, and that was done by Governor Bredesen. The Federal Government has responded in a magnificent manner.

President Barack Obama, in his historic speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004, said how there was not a red United States of America and there was not a blue United States of America, but there was only one United States of America. And in this particular instance where people suffer in States that are all considered politically red States, the United States of America has responded with all of its resources to help our people, and our people need help.

FEMA's been on the ground. FEMA Director Fugate was in Tennessee in no time. Secretary Napolitano has been to Nashville. Secretary Donovan of HUD and Secretary Locke of Commerce have been to Memphis and to Nashville as well. And others have been there. I had FEMA officials at my town hall meeting on Saturday. They have let

people know that the Federal Government is there to help. The people have been very responsive, and our local governments are responsive.

When I went to Millington on Monday and toured some of the damage there, the people in the neighborhood said that the Shelby County officials had been outstanding in their response. They now feel the Federal Government's officials have been outstanding.

Secretaries Locke and Donovan visited the Ed Rice Community Center that's now a shelter in Frayser, part of my district. They visited in Millington, also. There are people in the Midtown, more of the heart of my district, who had great flooding damage. And people know now to call 1-800-621-FEMA to lodge their notice of their damages and to get on the list to start to have inspectors to come out, which they're doing, to assess the damages and ascertain which individuals are qualified for the $29,900 in recovery funds that can be had for the damages for their residential establishment and/or their primary vehicle.

The SBA has been there and the head of the SBA, and the SBA is set up to help in losses over $29,900 and to businesses for their losses as well. City and county governments and State governments will be eligible to qualify for debris removal and for goods that have been distributed.

Overall, the Volunteer State has responded as a Volunteer State should, and from its naming, volunteers have come from everywhere to help the people who have been damaged, and we have been contributing.

Hillary Clinton, quoting an African proverb, ``It takes a village to raise a child.'' Well, it takes a village and a government to come together to help its people in times of great distress and natural disaster, and we have seen the Federal Government do that--and this government in particular--and I'm proud that we've done so. And I appreciate the response that I've seen in my State of Tennessee.

And I regret the damage, and I know the people have withstood it well. And I hope it never happens, and we know it will, but the Federal Government's been there.

So with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield as much time as the gentleman from Davidson County, Tennessee (Mr. Cooper) needs. He's the primary author of this particular resolution and the distinguished Congressperson from the district that suffered the greatest in our country, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Speaker, I now yield such time as he may consume to the Honorable Bart Gordon, who represents a district just south and southeast of Davidson County.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, thank Mr. Cooper for bringing this resolution, Mr. Gordon for testifying, and Mr. Duncan and Mrs. Blackburn for their testimony, all the members of the delegation who came together in a bipartisan manner and who I think, by their actions, indicated that they believe government can and is an effective tool to help people, and can, when used properly, efficiently, and effectively, as FEMA is now, be an important part of a government response to a crisis to help the American people.

As Mr. Cooper said, Nashville is open for business. And Nashville is a great city with a great tourist economy. While the Opryland Hotel may be closed temporarily, the Grand Ole Opry is still in business. There is still lots of music and lots of hotels open, and there is also the Music Highway that can take you right down I-40 to Memphis, and we would love to see you there, too.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I object.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order.

I withdraw my point of order and rise in opposition to this motion.

Mr. Speaker, let me also take just a moment to thank the minority and majority members of the Science and Technology Committee for the many hours they've put in to making this bill a very good bipartisan bill. And also I want to thank the staff members who have put in even more hours to making this good bill.

Now let me take just a moment to tell you why this is an important and a good bipartisan bill. There are 6.5 billion people in the world. Half of those that are working make less than $2 a day. Now, if we try to compete in a global economy on that type of labor, then you're going to see your kids and grandkids wind up with a national standard of living less than their parents. So we can't win in terms of wages. We have to win by having a higher technological base here.

In the last few years, you've seen that the public sector dollars have been stagnant in terms of our investment in research and development. And on the private sector level, they've actually gone down. Why does this matter? Because the rest of the world is increasing their investments in research and development, and the importance to us here in this country is that 50 percent of the growth in the GDP in our Nation since World War II has been a result of research and development. But we have to have more than just R&D. We have to have a workforce that can work at that higher level, and that's what this bill does also. There's a great STEM educational piece that will help not just Ph.D.s, but it will help those high school graduates, junior college graduates, and college graduates to work that higher level.

So what does all this mean? There's a cycle. The cycle is that you invest in R&D. R&D gives you innovation. Innovation gives you jobs, which creates the type of standard of living and revenue that allows us to reduce the deficit as well as to continue the R&D again.

Another important part of this bill is the energy independence. Right now we have to reduce our dependence on our foreign oil for our economic as well as our national defense. And I don't want to trade our dependency on foreign oil to foreign technology.

Now let me get to some of the criticisms of this bill. We said, Well, it's a pretty good bill. As a matter of fact, it's a very good bill, except that it costs too much. Well, let me remind you that in 2007, 367 Members of this body voted for the original authorization. In the other body, there were 69 cosponsors of the original authorization, and it passed unanimously. But we recognize these are difficult economic times, and so we made some changes. This bill has been cut by 10.3 percent from the bill that you voted for in 2007. That is $9.6 billion. Now tell me, what authorization has been cut by over 10 percent? This is the only one.

Mr. Hall has very good concerns about our veterans, and every day when we see him, we see him as an example of those World War II veterans. So language was put in the bill both for scholarships for individual veterans and also for those institutions. Let me read this to you, For the purposes of the activities and programs supported by this Act and the amendments made in this Act, institutions of higher education offering STEM research education activities and programs that serve veterans with disabilities shall receive special consideration and review. And on and on. So we have taken care of that.

Now let's get down to the heart of it. And quite frankly, it saddens me to have to go into this. I mean, it saddens me that when we look at our kids--I have a 9-year-old daughter, and what about her future? What about your family's future? Oh, we're going to hide behind this little bit. We're going to gut this bill for this little bit. A few days ago there were some NSF employees who were patching pornography. Of course that was bad, and they were disciplined. Throughout the whole executive offices, there is filtering on that now. Nobody seriously thinks that we don't want to deal with pornography here. For God's sake. And when it gets to the conference, we'll take care of that even more.

Everybody raise your hand that's for pornography. Come on, raise your hand. Nobody? Nobody is for pornography? Well, I'm shocked. So I guess we need this little bitty provision that means nothing; that's going to gut the entire bill. This is an embarrassment, and if you vote for this, you should be embarrassed.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

I thank the gentleman for yielding and I also want to recognize that Mr. Graves has been a real stalwart on the Transportation Committee, particularly the Aviation Subcommittee, with his wealth of experience in flying. The knowledge that he brings to it has just been invaluable. I really appreciate all that Mr. Graves has done for aviation in the Congress. That's very important because last year the Congress developed a negative impression of flying. You all recall, I suspect, that some corporate leaders came in asking for government funds, and they flew here in their private jets. That made headlines across the country. Unfortunately, the news media didn't leave it there, but continued to pursue the entire issue of flying and presented the portrait of the average flyer as being very wealthy and having an airplane as a toy to play with. That is far from the truth. Most pilots do not have a lot of money. Very few of them own their own airplanes. This negative impression that was formed here by the Congress and in the Congress really troubled those of us who know something about flying.

I am not a professional pilot. I would love to be, but I've never had either the time or the money to do it. But I recognize injustice when it takes place. It took place right here in the Congress of the United States. And that led to a lot of activity on our part to try to educate the public about flying, about who the pilots are, what they accomplish for the economy as a whole, and in particular, what good works they do. A good example of that is the tremendous amount of effort the private pilots of the United States exerted in helping the island of Haiti.

Just last week, we had Harrison Ford here to describe what he had done. He owns several airplanes and did a number of flights into Haiti transporting doctors, medicines, and so forth. He is an example of what I'm talking about. Not everyone who took part is a movie star, as Harrison Ford is, but he was representing a lot of people who expended a lot of their own money to aid the people in Haiti through the use of airplanes flying goods in and out, flying patients out to the United States for medical treatment when they were in serious trouble, etc. And this is just one example of the many things that pilots and aviation in general do to help the public at large.

So I'm very proud to stand here and say we have to help aviation and private pilots in every way that we can. And one good way is to encourage them to learn to fly. Many individuals normally would not think of flying, but when they see that they can accomplish so much good with aviation, we hope that they will take the time to learn how to fly and to at least join a flying club or perhaps eventually own their own airplane so that they can really go forth and help a lot of people.

It's amazing how many people do this sort of thing in various fields. For years, I was interested in ham radio. Again, a tremendous help to the economy and to the people at large is done during emergencies by ham radio operators. It's very similar with pilots. When the need is there, they will rise to the occasion and they will provide the transportation that's necessary.

In my area, we have an Angels of Mercy program, which has done tremendous good work flying people to hospitals. The patients cannot afford to take a commercial plane to get distant medical treatment. They're not in good enough shape to travel by car. And so the Angels of Mercy fly individuals at essentially no cost or very low cost so that the patients can get medical treatment in the right place at the right time.

It is high time that we recognize the good service that these pilots provide and that we do everything we can to help them in that effort. This resolution is part of that--simply encouraging people to learn to fly. I know there's a local group in my district that has taken advantage of this to publicize flight lessons in my area. They have a number of people signed up already who are willing to learn to fly so that they can accomplish good for other people.

So I strongly urge that we adopt this resolution and recognize the good work that aviation does for the general welfare of our Nation.

Madam Speaker, on September 17, 2009 I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 710, concerning H.R. 3221. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``no.''

On September 23, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 732, a motion to adjourn. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``no.''

On September 30, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 744, concerning H.R. 1771, the Chesapeake Bay Science, Education and Ecosystem Enhancement Act. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On November 7, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 880, concerning H. Res. 877, expressing support for Chinese activists. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On December 16, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 980, concerning H. Res. 973. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On January 27, 2010, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 25, concerning H. Res. 1020. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On February 22, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 49, regarding H.R. 4425. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On February 22, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall vote 50, regarding H.R. 4238. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On February 23, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 53, concerning H. Res, 1059. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On March 4, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 85, concerning H. Res. 1086. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On March 21, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 168, concerning H. Res. 1099. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On March 21, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 169, concerning H. Res. 1119. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On March 23, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 172, concerning H. Res. 1205. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On April 14, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 199, concerning H. Res, 1236. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On May 13, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 271, concerning H. Res. 1338. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On May 13, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 272, concerning H. Res. 1337. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On May 20, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 290, concerning H.R. 5128. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On May 24, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 292, concerning H.R. 1017. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On May 27, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 306, concerning an adjournment of the House of Representatives. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On May 27, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 313, regarding H.R. 5136. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On June 16, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 366, regarding H. Res. 1422. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On July 22, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 464, concerning H.R. 5341. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

On September 23, I inadvertently failed to cast a recorded vote on rollcall 535, concerning H. Res. 1640. Had I cast my vote, I would have voted ``aye.''

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

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 1337 was introduced by the Tennessee delegation last week to express the sympathy and condolences of the House of Representatives to those impacted by the recent flooding in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi.

As we all know, earlier this month, Tennessee and Kentucky and Mississippi experienced severe rainfall resulting in unprecedented flooding, and it hit my home State of Tennessee the hardest of all. And while my district, fortunately, was spared from any of this flooding, our official title is United States Representative from whatever State we're from, and I think that the Tennessee delegation has always worked together and joined together to try to represent the whole State even though we do each run in districts.

And on May 4, the President issued a major disaster declaration for Tennessee authorizing Federal assistance to supplement the State and local response and recovery efforts. And as our colleague, the gentleman from the 9th District, Mr. Cohen, has just stated, the outpouring of support for the people affected by this flooding has just been tremendous in, as he mentioned, our great Volunteer State of which we are so proud.

Unfortunately, as a result of these floods, in these three States dozens of people were killed and hundreds of homes were destroyed. Thousands of people were displaced and forced to take shelter. In Tennessee, the Governor declared 52 of Tennessee's 95 counties as disaster areas, and key landmarks like the Grand Ole Opry House were flooded with several feet of water. In Tennessee, it hit primarily the districts of our colleagues Congressman Cooper and Congresswoman Blackburn and Congressman Gordon.

In Kentucky, the Governor declared a state of emergency in 79 of its 120 counties and issued boiled water advisories affecting nearly 83,000 residents.

In Mississippi, nearly 250 homes were destroyed or suffered major damage, and the Governor has requested six counties receive a major disaster declaration.

But even in this tragic situation, we saw and continue to see many examples of heroism. As we have seen in previous disasters, people in the community, first responders, and volunteers have responded and in a big, big way. The State and local officials, along with organizations like the American Red Cross, continue to provide assistance and aid to those affected by this flooding. And FEMA's assistance has and will help supplement these efforts.

I strongly support passage of this resolution and urge all of my colleagues to do the same, and I'm sure they will.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn).

Mr. Speaker, I will close by saying that almost all Tennesseans have friends and relatives, including me, people who were affected by this flooding. And I want to commend all the people from my district who volunteered and who went to the aid of those people who were touched by this tragedy. And I want to commend the gentleman from Nashville, my friend Mr. Cooper, for bringing this resolution to the floor.

Again, I wish to express my sympathy and condolences to all those who were hurt or harmed in some way by this flooding or who have lost family members, and I urge support for this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.