Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I would like to include in the Record the following obituary for Mr. Bill O'Dell of Putnam County:

Friends and Family Honoring Community Leader in Putnam County Who

Suddenly Passed Away

(By Taylor Eaton)

Putnam County, W.Va. (WSAZ).--A man who dedicated his life

to preventing teen substance abuse in Putnam County passed

away suddenly on Monday.

Bill O'Dell was a community leader in many ways. He

dedicated his life to substance abuse prevention across West

Virginia.

O'Dell passed away while he was swimming in the pool at the

YMCA in Teays Valley. Friends and family say he suffered a

medical emergency.

Most of his work was centered in Putnam County. O'Dell was

the director of the Putnam Wellness Coalition, a group that

was formed to educate teenagers about the dangers of alcohol

and drugs.

O'Dell spent his time going into schools to speak to

students, setting up fundraising events for the coalition and

participating in different promotions around prom and

graduation time. That's just to name a few.

Evan Young, who worked with O'Dell for many years, says

they just wrapped up an event for Cinco de Mayo over the

weekend that was geared toward making sure kids had a safe

and fun environment. Most of the proceeds from the event went

to the Putnam Wellness Coalition.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today in remembrance of the eighth anniversary of the Syrian conflict, which resulted in the tragic loss of many human lives and the destabilization of the entire region.

This is all because of the dictator Bashar Assad, who is unwilling to step aside and heed the Syrian people's call for freedom. After destroying Syria, Assad is now attempting to attract economic investment. But in addition to killing over 400,000 Syrians of the Muslim faith, Assad has also failed to protect the religious minority of Christians in Syria.

Having personally met with the Syrian Christians for Peace, I have heard firsthand how Assad repeatedly targeted Syria's most vulnerable populations.

Few Christians continue to live in Assad's Syria, due to brutality by pro-Assad militias. That is why we must support the Trump administration's isolation of the regime and its allies in Tehran and Moscow. That is why the Senate must follow the House and pass the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution talks about not having more government shutdowns. We don't need a resolution for that. Of course, there shouldn't be government shutdowns. That is why, last year, this body passed a resolution to fund government, including Trump's border wall that he asked for.

We passed that out of this Chamber. It went to the Senate. And what did

they do? Nothing. The Senate did nothing. They did nothing for over 30 days. They just sat while the government shut down.

Why? Because the minority party in the U.S. Senate chooses to threaten to filibuster, and if they don't get everything they want, based on this threat to filibuster, they shut down government until such time as this Chamber or the President or whoever they want to bully around gives them everything. That is not the way government is supposed to work.

I had a conversation yesterday with a young man here in D.C. He said: ``How are you going to end these government shutdowns? What is going to happen now?''

Well, gosh, we have appointed a conference committee. That is how it is supposed to work. The Homeland Security conference committee meets today. There are four Republicans and three Democrats, which reflects the makeup of that Chamber. There are 10 from this Chamber, 6 Democrats and 4 Republicans, which reflects the makeup of this Chamber.

That is the committee where you meet and you work these things out. That is the system the Founders of our country set up for us here. The problem is we have gotten away from that. We do continuing resolutions like we shouldn't, and we sit here and one side has to get everything they want.

Why does it happen that way? Because one side, the Democratic side, wants to get everything they want. If they don't get everything they want, they want to shut down government and then falsely blame everybody else. That is not the way it is supposed to work.

I am glad we have a conference committee. My Senator from West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito is actually on that conference committee that is supposed to meet today to work out exactly what we are going to do with the border wall and funding Homeland Security.

That is what we should do with every bill. That is why, last year, when we were in the majority, we actually passed the appropriations bills over to the U.S. Senate. Do you know what they did? Nothing.

It doesn't take 60 votes to pass a bill. It takes 60 votes to invoke cloture. That is different than passing a bill.

The dysfunction in the U.S. Senate cannot continue to reign in this country and cause government shutdowns, particularly when the minority party wants everything.

Actually, Mr. Speaker, I have a point of clarification for the chairman.

Is this bill affecting all furloughed Federal workers, anyone furloughed, or anyone affected by the furlough in any way? Any consumer, any American that is affected?

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman.

Mr. Speaker, in West Virginia's Second District, we have a lot of Federal workers and contractors who are affected.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for clarifying that.

Of course, there are a lot of folks in my district who are affected by the shutdown and also affected indirectly because they are contractors and such. I have had them approach me over the last few weeks, wondering if their backlogged projects were going to get funded. It is important to clarify that.

Of course, we should backpay people, and the good, hardworking Americans who make this country go around need to get paid.

I understand a little bit of an obsession on the other side against a border wall that was mentioned by the previous speaker, when this is really about how government should function and appropriate funds in the appropriate way, and the power of the purse. Frankly, getting bills through the House and the Senate has become quite a problem, particularly with the other Chamber, which doesn't seem to pass anything and then wants us to do just whatever the Senate does.

We have a lot of dysfunction, particularly on the other side, and that is what has cost the workers, not this wall. The wall is something the President said he would do. It is not the wall; it is the dysfunction of passing bills around here that has caused these problems.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the leader for the extra minute.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to commend the House Appropriations Committee for passing 11 of the 12 appropriations bills out of committee. All the bills except Homeland Security have passed committee.

Here on the House floor we have passed four of those appropriations bills. The Senate has passed three. This is what we call regular order, and it is very important to the political process that every Member of Congress in this Chamber and the Senate have a chance to offer amendments, be heard, and speak. Both parties have agreed to this.

We need to get all the bills through the House and appoint the conference committees. Those conference committees are where you reconcile the differences. We have fallen away from this here in this Chamber in the past few years. It is about time we got back to the regular appropriations process.

I want to keep the positive momentum going and commend us for passing those bills. Let's get that Defense bill passed and fund our troops the way that the American people deserve.

Mr. Speaker, due to a family member's funeral, I was unable to attend the scheduled floor period on July 10, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 314; and YEA on Roll Call No. 315.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce a new internship program my district office has started. My program is designed to help individuals who are in long-term substance abuse recovery meet their programming requirements of obtaining job-readiness skills.

Along with the bills we are passing this week to fight the opioid epidemic, my office has partnered with Recovery Point in Charleston, West Virginia, to help those who have decided to get their lives back on track.

West Virginia has been ground zero of the drug epidemic, and it is important to support the important crucial recovery programs that are changing the lives of so many of our people who have fallen on hard times. This internship opportunity will help to prepare these individuals to reenter the workforce.

It is important to lead by example and help those who have decided to turn their lives around. I encourage all of my colleagues in Congress to partner with recovery programs in their districts to create similar opportunities for recovering addicts. The interns in my Charleston office have already made a positive impact and are a great addition to our team

Mr. Speaker, for 3 years, I have waited for the moment here where I want to commend my colleagues in the Senate, the majority party, for exposing the fallacious argument that you can hold hostage unrelated bills before you pass spending bills.

Frankly, we call upon them to pass the appropriations bills to fully fund the government through September.

We in this body, last year, had passed all 12 separate appropriations bills, fully funding the military and other government functions all the way through September of this year. That needs to happen in the next 3 weeks, because we have only a 3-week extension that we voted for.

I am proud that the American public saw the false arguments that are being used, particularly on the other side of the aisle, where the minority party holds hostage funding bills and demands concessions on other nonrelated legislation.

If they want to filibuster stuff over there, first of all, make them do it so the American public can see it, which happened over the last few days, and make it related to the bill on the floor at the time.

Madam Speaker, as you just heard from the previous speaker and you read often in the press about a potential government shutdown, let me just tell you how this works.

The House passes a bill, then the Senate considers a bill. In the Senate, you either vote on the bill with majority vote or the minority party may choose to filibuster that bill. If the minority party chooses to filibuster the bill, which requires 60 votes for cloture, that shuts down that bill from passing.

We have passed 12 appropriations bills out of this Chamber right here that are still sitting in the Senate waiting to be taken up. One, the Democrats need to drop the filibuster.

I wish the majority party over there would actually put the bills on the floor and make the country see the filibuster live for all to view. You might see that over the weekend. I hope the majority leader does that.

What would cause a lack of funding for the government is simply the minority party, which is the Democrats, in the Senate abusing the filibuster and causing the government not to be funded. That is what is causing it. That is a fact.

You may have different opinions on other issues, but the fact of the matter

is this is the way the process works. A filibuster means you can't even get a vote on the bill. That is being done by the Democratic Party in the Senate right now. They have done it all year. It is dysfunctional. It needs to stop.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for bringing this important bill to the floor.

We have heard it mentioned that, in 2002, in a bipartisan way, we already have law that a baby born alive, at any stage of gestation, any weeks of life, born alive, it is already illegal to kill the baby, and that was a bipartisan bill; so I can understand why my friends on the other side of the aisle want to keep changing the subject. Every vote today should be for this bill.

We have already agreed that you have to save the lives of these children. The problem is that we don't have strong enforcement mechanisms. This bill provides enforcement mechanisms. This bill specifies any medical care. This should be a unanimous vote.

That is what we need to talk about here today--in fact, life begins at conception--to have laws that protect babies born alive. Now, remember, these are babies who are born alive. There have been questions about whether or not it happens.

Melissa Ohden, who testified in the Judiciary Committee a couple of years ago, was a baby born alive. She started her own network, the Abortion Survivors Network, where she has had contact with 203 other abortion survivors.

Sometimes when they go in to start the abortion, they start the treatments, the dilation, and the chemical treatments, the baby comes out alive. I know people listening to this here today might believe that this is a horror story and that this doesn't happen. It happens in America.

We need to fight this, make it illegal, and pass this bill, so that those babies are given the same protection as any other child who is alive. This is a no-brainer. The only shame today is that when this vote is cast later, if there are not 435 ``yes'' votes on that board today, that should be the shame of this situation. These are live babies. This is a no-brainer bill.

I am proud to represent the State of West Virginia, where respect for human life is cherished. Every Member of this body should respect human life. If it is already law, you should have no problem voting for it. That is all the more reason to support the bill before us today.

The voters of this country have elected us to do the job of the pro- life majority. It is time we pass bills like this, and more bills like this, so that we can show people we care about the unborn children.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Clark Barnes for his service in the West Virginia Senate. Clark served as a State Senator from Randolph County for ten years and in 2015 became Senate clerk.

A preacher's son, he worked as a ranch hand at a camp for deaf teens, served in the Army, handled permits for a mining company, ran his own construction business, sold life insurance and worked for Miracle Ear in the hearing aid business. Clark put in 30 years as a Miracle Ear entrepreneur and operated in 13 locations.

Clark's work ethic cannot be matched. His dedication to his work life in both the private and public sector is simply astonishing. At 67, Clark has decided to retire and move to Florida to enjoy a few months fishing before seeing what lies in store. Enjoy retirement, Clark.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the following article congratulating Leah Devine being named Outstanding West Virginia World Language Teacher of the Year.

[From the Inter-Mountain]

Elkins Native Wins Teacher of the Year Honor

Elkins--A local Spanish instructor and Elkins native

recently earned teacher of the year honor.

Leah Devine, an online Spanish teacher with the West

Virginia Virtual School was named Outstanding West Virginia

World Language Teacher of the Year by the West Virginia

Foreign Language Teacher's Organization in October.

``Languages, culture knowledge and understanding

international customs all can broaden a student's perspective

and encourage the student to see the world through new eyes.

When students can reflect on the greater world, they can also

in turn reflect on their own language, communities, customs

and daily practices,'' Devine said about the value of

learning languages and developing global and cultural

literacy.

Devine teaches virtually in five counties in the state,

including Randolph, Monroe, Greenbrier, Summers and Kanawha.

Within these counties, she instructs students at Western

Greenbrier Middle School, DuPont Middle School, Mountain View

Middle School and Peterstown Middle School, Pickens School,

Summers County Middle School and Summers County High School.

``Basically, the students are on online curriculum most of

the time, but three days out of the week, I call them and I

teach them,'' Devine said. ``When I teach them lessons,

they're seeing the same things I'm seeing and we're doing a

lot of the same skills we would be doing if we were in a

face-to-face setting--such as answer this question, ask your

neighbor this or tell me what color shirt you're wearing.''

She went on to say the classes are proficiency based and

interactive while they are primarily conducted over phone or

online.

While the majority of her teaching is done virtually,

Devine said she is able to visit her students three times per

year.

Before she began teaching virtually, Devine taught for six

years in a face-to-face classroom setting. She is now in her

12th year of teaching.

``Part of what I do is I go visit my students and teach

them face-to-face, and when I'm there we do cultural

activities,'' Devine said. ``Some of the things I've done is

teach about the food made in Venezuela, and I was able to

bring the students from Pickens to El Gran Sabor for a field

trip.''

She explained students were to order in Spanish when they

visited the restaurant, and several months later, the

students made Venezuelan cuisine for their parents.

``They were taking what they learned food-wise to cook and

prepare a meal using recipes in Spanish,'' Devine said.

Devine earned a masters in instructional design and

technology from West Virginia University. She is also the

immediate past president of the West Virginia Chapter of

American Association of Teachers of Spanish

and Portuguese, and the secretary of the West Virginia

Foreign Language Teachers' Association.

When she was a student at Elkins High School, Devine

studied Spanish with Brad Martin, longtime language teacher

at EHS.

``I learned a great deal from Mr. Martin as his student,

and as I started my professional career I became increasingly

aware of how phenomenal of a teacher and role model he is,''

Devine said. ``(Martin) has inspired other language teachers

around the area and has multiple former students currently

teaching world languages.''

She also noted 20 years ago Martin was awarded the teacher

of the year award by the West Virginia Foreign Language

Teachers Association.

In March, Devine will travel to Atlanta for the Southern

Conference on Language Teaching to represent the Mountain

State as teacher of the year and compete for the regional

title.

``I'll also attend workshops to learn things that will help

to improve our profession that I can bring back and share

with West Virginia students as well as my peers and

colleagues,'' Devine said.

While she said she does not currently have plans to teach

any additional languages, she hopes to learn more, possibly

Italian and Portuguese.

``We live and teach in an interconnected world where

learning languages is a key to unlocking opportunities,''

Devine said. ``It is our duty as language teachers to help

our students build confidence and skills that they can use to

explore the world around them and the global community.''

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Colorado, Mr. Buck, for leading this Special Order effort and for recognizing me to talk about this issue and the general problem in the Senate today of having legislation considered, debated, and passed in a way that we can go to conference committee.

As the gentleman mentioned, the Senate has already failed to act, and is currently failing to act, as we stand here, on over 270 House-passed bills. One of those bills is a really important one, very important to the committee on which I serve.

I am proud to be on the Financial Services Committee. The tradition of

that position was held by my predecessor, Shelley Moore Capito, who served on that committee for 14 years. Ably led by Chairman Jeb Hensarling from Texas, we work in a bipartisan fashion, as much as we possibly can, to bring relief to the American people, give consumers choices in banking products, and the ability to get a small loan or get a mortgage for their house. We are doing very important work there.

So, as was mentioned, on June 8 of 2017, this year, here, the U.S. House of Representatives, where I now stand, passed H.R. 10, the Financial CHOICE Act, by a vote of 233-186. I was very proud to vote for that legislation, as I know were a lot of my colleagues.

The Financial CHOICE Act, if you are not familiar with the bill, after the financial crisis in 2007, Democrats held all the Chambers in the House, the Senate, and the Presidency, and they passed sweeping legislation that fundamentally changed the way our economy works for the worse; much more interference in your lives in banking, and the ability to make loans and consider requests for bank loans were done.

Basically, Dodd-Frank is to the financial services industry what ObamaCare is to the healthcare industry. It is a government-knows- better, one-size-fits-all, federally mandated set of laws that have hurt the very people they claim they want to help. It hurts the same people they want to help. So we are repealing most of that, and we are going to empower consumers, give you the choices back.

So we have passed this bill. Let me just give you one example of something in the bill, to be specific. There was something that was designated in the Dodd-Frank bill called too big to fail. You may remember that term, ``too big to fail.''

That is a situation where Washington bureaucrats had decided that certain banks--the theory is that they are so essential to the global economy that failure would be catastrophic. So it takes the ability to fail out of the banks' system, which then makes them act more risky. Big does not necessarily refer to the size of the company, just what the government decides is essential, too big to fail.

So the first bank that was too big to fail was Bear Stearns. In March of 2008, the Federal Reserve lent $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase to buy the failing investment bank. Bear was a small bank, but very well- known, and there was a worry that it would destroy confidence in other banks. So your tax dollars were used to, essentially, bail out banks.

So this bill repeals the authority of the Financial Stability Oversight Council to designate firms as systematically important institutions. It prohibits the use of Exchange Stabilization Funds to bail out banks. Most Americans I talk to don't think their taxpayer dollars should be used to bail out banks, so this bill would stop that.

So we passed that bill. We sent it to the Senate. We didn't think the Senate would pass the exact same bill, word for word, that the House passed. We thought they would consider our bill, take the parts they like, maybe change some parts, maybe add some parts, or move some parts, pass a bill in the Senate, and then we would go to a conference committee to reconcile the differences.

One of the biggest travesties I have seen around here of the political process, Mr. Speaker, is the failure to have conference committees in the Congress any longer. The House passes all these bills, over 300 over there; 270 are waiting for the Senate to do anything on. Anything. And we wait for the Senate to act so we can have a conference committee and reconcile the differences.

It is important to understand that no one in the House is demanding they get their way on every bill, every provision, all the time. We simply want to have a product sent to the Senate, have the Senate do their job, do their due diligence, pass legislation in whatever form they can get out of the Senate, and have a chance to go to conference committee, reconcile the differences.

There is some give-and-take there. They won't get everything they want. We may not get everything we want. You can reconcile those differences, and it has to go back and pass again.

Over the past 3 years, my third year in Congress now, I have taken to reminding folks things they learned in fifth grade, in fifth grade grade school, about how I am just a bill sitting on Capitol Hill, and how it is supposed to go to one Chamber; then it is supposed to go to the other, and they appoint a conference committee to reconcile the differences.

Instead, as the previous speaker, Congressman Biggs from Arizona, mentioned, the filibuster is abused. You have 48 Democrats in the Senate who filibuster everything. Everything. And for some reason, my colleagues on the majority side of the aisle, the Republicans, don't put the bills on the floor to make the American people see them filibuster, and obstruct, and shut down, avoid conference committees, avoid passing anything in the Senate that would require action, and, therefore, just stop anything from happening. It is a travesty of the political process.

Neither Republican nor Democrats should stand for such an abusive system in the Senate. So I think we should put the bills over there and make them act. We have actually started passing pieces of the CHOICE Act, one small bill at a time, in order to get other stuff over to the Senate, in the hope that they will just do something, act on something.

But we shouldn't have to do that, frankly, Mr. Speaker, because the Senate can simply pass any bill they want, or any Senate bills they want, and then we can consider it in the House as well. We have led by passing the CHOICE Act bill, which is the right thing to do.

You know, as disappointing as it was to see the U.S. Senate fail to pass anything on healthcare, maybe the one silver lining was the American people could finally see what happens if three Republicans join with 48 Democrats to vote against the bill. We did not have the votes to pass anything on healthcare, and the whole healthcare reform plan died at that moment.

We are sitting here today with a failing healthcare system that is going to continue to fail. ObamaCare is going to continue to fail. It is not getting any better. It is getting worse.

Look, our bill wasn't perfect, Mr. Speaker, but at least we did something in the House to address the problem. I am not saying this bill is perfect, the CHOICE Act for financial services, but we are doing something to address the problem that consumers are demanding, where they can have more choice and more access to funds to buy a home or start a small business. We are doing something about it, and the Senate is doing nothing. They don't pass anything.

In fact, we have passed all 12 appropriations bills in this Chamber. All 12 are sitting over there in the Senate, waiting for someone to act.

I think the first thing they should do is bring up the military funding bill. We are in November already. In December, next month, funding runs out. We have passed our appropriations bills. The Senate is doing nothing on appropriations bills.

They should bring that military bill to the floor of the Senate, right now, and have a vote. It passed this Chamber with a strong, bipartisan majority. Funding the military is not a partisan issue. There are votes, I believe, in the Senate and the House to fund the military.

But if the 48 Democrat Senators want to filibuster, abuse their power, abuse this filibuster tradition, which was mentioned is not in the Constitution, it is simply a courtesy extended to the minority party; if they want to continue to abuse that power, the American people should see them, ruthlessly, politically, try to shut down the military, and then try to blame the President or blame the House when they won't pass anything.

They should pass a military appropriations bill that helps fund our troops. We will reconcile the differences and send it to the President's desk. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how the process is supposed to work. That is what kept our democratic republican form of government, constitutional form of government, with democratic elections, the rule of law, a republican constitution; that is what has kept our country, to this point, functional and working well, having that bipartisan, bicameral process.

What is currently happening is really a travesty to this process, where it is being abused by the Senate. They have all these bills over there. It is high time for them to take action, pass

something, pass the best product they can on this issue, and let's go to conference committee and reconcile the differences.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the Senate to act as quickly as possible on the CHOICE Act, on whatever provisions they want to. We are trying to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Another part of that, the fiduciary rule, has really hurt consumers. These are other parts of the CHOICE Act that need action. The American people need and expect relief.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Hershel ``Woody'' Williams and commemorate a naval vessel, which was christened in his honor on Saturday, October 21, in San Diego, California. The ship will provide for accommodations for up to 250 personnel, will offer a 52,000-square-foot flight deck, and will support helicopters and tilt-rotor aircraft.

Woody Williams grew up on a dairy farm in Fairmont, West Virginia, and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in Charleston, West Virginia, on May 26, 1943.

Woody landed in Iwo Jima on February 21, 1945. Woody fought through the remainder of the 5-week-long battle and was wounded on March 6, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart.

As a result of Woody Williams' courageous service in the 21st Marines, 3rd Marine Division in the Battle of Iwo Jima, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Truman. Today, at 93 years old, he is the last living Medal of Honor recipient from that battle.

I join all West Virginians in congratulating Woody Williams for this incredible honor. He is an unparalleled advocate for veterans from all eras and a fine example of what it means not only to be a West Virginian but an American.