Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, if we, indeed, defeat the previous question, we will allow consideration of H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

I introduced this legislation because the Constitution clearly states that all persons born in this country are entitled to life, liberty, and equal protection under the law. The Constitution does not put age limits on those who are entitled to life.

I am horrified, Mr. Speaker, that many in the United States Senate, many Democrats, flagrantly violated the United States Constitution last night and voted down the Born-Alive Act, embracing, in fact, infanticide.

Pro-abortion politicians used to say life begins at birth. Now it is more unclear than ever when they believe that life actually begins or whether they even believe that living and breathing human beings should be protected under the law.

I would like to commend three Democrats, in fact--Senators Bob Casey, Joe Manchin, and Doug Jones--who defended the basic rights of newborn children and voted for my legislation last evening in the United States Senate.

I introduced this legislation because it is just common sense. I am shocked that there are prominent American legislators who believe in denying babies lifesaving medical care when they are born.

As a mother, a grandmother, a legislator, and an advocate who came to Congress to serve as a voice for the voiceless, I believe that life begins at conception and that it is wrong to kill a child no matter how many weeks old he or she may be. But I am grieved to find that I now must defend something that I never thought we would have to fight for: lifesaving care for babies born alive.

In response to radical legislators who are promoting not just late- term abortions but infanticide, it is essential that we come together to protect children.

So today, I am here to ask--no, Mr. Speaker, I am here to implore--my colleagues to right the wrong that the Senate has committed and defeat the previous question, and at least allow the debate to support H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Act here in the people's House.

Mr. Speaker, this should not be a partisan issue. Congress must never stop fighting to ensure that every single newborn baby in the United States of America receives lifesaving care, no matter their sex or their race or ethnicity or whether or not they are wanted and cuddled and wrapped into that first warm hug that they deserve.

The Born-Alive Act is the simplest vote any of us can take: Do you support babies receiving lifesaving care after they are born, or would you deny these innocent children that care and allow them to be left to die and be discarded?

This is bipartisan legislation, Mr. Speaker. Last year, six of my Democratic colleagues joined me in voting for the Born-Alive Act.

I hope that we will bring this bill to the floor for debate so that many more of my colleagues can go on the record and vote to stand with America's mothers and children.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend and colleague, the gentlewoman from Indiana, Jackie Walorski. We are classmates and came in to Congress almost 7 years ago. I am so grateful to her for pulling this Special Order together tonight to talk about the most vulnerable in our society and talk about the right to life.

To the gentlewoman from Washington State, I have to say her story moves us all, and we are so excited about her growing family.

I cannot thank Mrs. Roby enough for her support, her passion, and her dignity when it comes to supporting life--all of my colleagues who are here with us tonight and stand with us on this legislation.

Above all, I want to say, Mr. Speaker, that I believe our President, last week at the National Prayer Breakfast, said it best:

All children, born and unborn, are made in the holy image

of God. Every life is sacred, and every soul is a precious

gift from Heaven.

None of us could say it any better than that.

I never thought the time would come when I would have to actually argue, fight, debate, and stand for providing healthcare to infants after they are born. Yet here we are. There are, apparently, many legislators who believe it is okay to allow a child to die after it has been born.

When I first heard the news of State officials in New York and Virginia believing that it is acceptable to limit healthcare for newborn babies, I was horrified. But I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is not just in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the State of New York. In fact, only 26 States have affirmative protections for children born alive after attempted abortions--only 26 States.

In fact, in recent days, Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Mexico are considering legislation to loosen the late-term abortion restrictions that have gone forward in Virginia and New York.

In fact, New Mexico's House passed H.B. 51, which would effectively permit abortions up until birth and eliminate all restrictions thereafter.

To me, it is unthinkable that if a baby is born alive, anyone's first instinct could be anything but to try to save that precious, innocent life by any means possible.

Our babies are some of the most innocent, most vulnerable members of our society, and it is our responsibility, our duty, our calling to make sure that they are cared for.

Every year, babies survive late-term abortions and are left to die on tables, in bedpans, in operating rooms. This should not happen in the United States of America. It is a flagrant violation of our Constitution and an offense against women and children.

I implore my colleagues to support our bill, H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.

Mr. Speaker, for the next 25 days, until we can put forward a discharge petition, we will bring the born-alive act and ask for unanimous consent that it be passed by the full House. This should not be in question. This is a piece of legislation that was passed in the 115th Congress. We will do that the next 25 days until we can put together a discharge petition and force it to a vote on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

Last week, I was told, when I offered the unanimous consent decree, that it was the ``wrong time'' to fight for the most basic of human rights. Well, Mr. Speaker, I say it is always the time to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves. I ask my colleagues to join me, join us, in this fight for innocent, newborn babies.

I thank the gentlewoman for her courage and her standing up for life.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

So we can have a bit of a colloquy here.

I can say that it does happen. Next week, in Missouri's Second Congressional District, I have invited a guest. She will be traveling from Kansas City to share her story. She was, in fact, a born-alive baby after an attempted abortion through saline.

She will give her testimony about what her life has meant; that it was saved; that, in fact, she was given that opportunity to live her life and to follow in the ways of the Lord and to be productive to society.

So this has happened, and we should do all we can.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of my bill, H.R. 962, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

A parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I understand the guidelines the Chair just cited. However, seeing no objection from leadership or committee members on either side of the aisle, does that constitute clearance and allow the Chair to entertain my motion under the rules of the House?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, again, seeing no objection on either side of the aisle, can the Chair advise what is required pursuant to section 956 of the House rules to allow my motion for discharge of the Born- Alive Act to be considered.

Mr. Speaker, can the ruling of the Chair be challenged?

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Chair to rule on the motion of unanimous consent.

Mr. Speaker, if this unanimous consent request cannot be entertained, I urge the Speaker and the majority leader to schedule the Born-Alive Act on the floor immediately so we can stand up and defend the sanctity of life.

This bill, Mr. Speaker, does not impose any restrictions.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member very much for his voice on this issue and so many others, and I thank my dear friend from California, Karen Bass, for her leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the Put Trafficking Victims First Act, which I wrote and introduced in the last Congress with Congresswoman Karen Bass.

The bill passed unanimously in May of 2017, and I hope that the House will again stand with the victims of human trafficking. Too often, trafficking victims are overlooked and underserved.

In my home State of Missouri, I have met with many survivors and listened to their painful stories. They need help to rebuild their lives and that is exactly what this legislation will do.

America's courtrooms need to adopt victim-centered practices oriented towards justice and recovery. While victims technically have access to mandatory restitution in Federal courts, the sad reality is that according to one estimate, sex trafficking victims get restitution in only 14 percent of Federal sex trafficking cases. This is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker.

This legislation will direct the Attorney General to work on increasing restitution and to adopt victim-friendly procedures in criminal cases. We believe the trauma-informed care helps victims recover and cooperate with law enforcement so we may put pimps and buyers behind bars.

Lack of help for victims in the justice system can lead to revictimization, or even result in victims being criminalized for offenses that they were forced to commit.

The Putting Trafficking Victims First Act of 2019 encourages training for agencies, law enforcement, and prosecutors across the country to implement victim-centered approaches to investigating and preventing trafficking.

We also encourage law enforcement to make every attempt to determine whether an individual's participation in trafficking is free from force, fraud, and coercion before arresting or charging them.

The lack of good data on how to find and rescue victims of trafficking is another major challenge in the United States. We don't really know how best to identify and locate victims; what proportion are coming from foster care; or their ages; ethnicity; or other characteristics. We can't help victims if we can't find them, and we desperately need to improve victim outreach.

The Putting Trafficking Victims First Act of 2019 establishes a national working group to develop a public survey of survivors and robust methodologies to estimate the prevalence of trafficking. This will help us understand how and where victims are accessing help to improve service provision.

Finally, victims of trafficking are mostly served at the State level. So it is critical that States improve how they respond to victims. We need to make sure that all child trafficking victims receive the same level of care that any other child abuse survivor would receive. The bill encourages States to improve outreach, screen children entering child welfare services and the justice system, screen foreign nationals who will be labor trafficked, create safe harbor laws, and develop emergency response plans.

Together, we can get victims of trafficking out of dangerous and abusive situations and make trauma-informed services more accessible.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to put trafficking victims first and join Congresswoman Bass and myself in voting for this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of babies who survive abortions and are born alive.

The Constitution clearly states that all persons born in this country are entitled to life, liberty, and equal protection under the law.

Our Founding Fathers did not put age limits on who is entitled to life, but over the past month, I have been astounded and horrified to watch radical legislators upend the Constitution and argue that babies who survive abortions should not be given the same level of medical care that all other newborn babies receive.

New York legislators repealed a law mandating medical care for any baby born alive during an abortion. A law proposed in Virginia would allow abortions up to the very moment of full delivery.

Congress must act to protect those who cannot protect themselves. This week, I introduced the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, H.R. 962, which merely ensures that babies who survive abortions receive immediate lifesaving care, which is very simple. We choose life or we choose death.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the vice ranking member for yielding. And I thank my friend and colleague from California for his leadership and support on this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge my colleagues to support the FIND Trafficking Act. The fight against online sex trafficking has been one of the most important endeavors since I first came to Congress. I have worked with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to update our Nation's laws to effectively combat contemporary methods used to exploit our Nation's women and children.

The fact of the matter is that sex trafficking has moved from the streets to the internet. Traffickers advertise, buy, and sell women and children, using online marketplaces with impunity.

Last April, my Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, became law, and many websites engaged in sex trafficking shut down to avoid liability for their crimes. This was a tremendous step forward, but our job is not finished.

The reality is that sex and drug trafficking are extremely profitable, and there are still websites that are knowingly facilitating criminal activity. Traffickers are increasingly using the anonymity of virtual currencies, like bitcoin and others, to finance their networks of exploitation, both online and off-line. These criminals use virtual currencies to avoid detection and

prosecution, a practice that creates an unprecedented challenge for financial regulators and law enforcement.

This is a new playing field, and we need better enforcement of existing laws and more information about how criminals are using virtual currencies to finance their operations. We need to know how illicit funds are being repatriated into the formal banking system. We need to understand whether Federal and State agencies have the tools they need to stop criminal profits from entering our financial system. We also need to know how drug traffickers are using the internet to sell opioids, including deadly fentanyl. We need to understand how websites are using payment methods to facilitate the sale of illegal activities.

This is why Congressman Juan Vargas and I have introduced the FIND Trafficking Act. The legislation would give us valuable data on how traffickers are anonymously transferring money to facilitate sex and drug trafficking.

The FIND Trafficking Act will help construct a web of intelligence necessary to protect victims and to prosecute traffickers. Congressman Juan Vargas has been a tremendous leader in this space, and I thank him for all the work that he is doing to stop criminal enterprises from exploiting vulnerable populations.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join us in standing with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have been affected by drug and sex trafficking.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to stand with the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are traveling to Washington for the 46th annual March for Life.

Fighting for the rights of the most vulnerable Americans has been my most precious responsibility since long before I was elected to Congress. Most notably, I can remember marching to defend our unborn children when I was pregnant with my son Stephen in January of 1990. Last year, I was proud to march just days after my first granddaughter, Isabella Marie, was born. This Friday, the day of the March, we will celebrate Isabella's first birthday.

Again and again, I am reminded that life is beautiful, that children are a blessing, and that we must do all we can to support our Nation's mothers.

Though now we have a divided Congress, there is still so much we can do to lift up women and children. This month, my colleagues and I called on President Trump to veto any legislation that weakens Federal policies against abortion.

We are fortunate that the administration is taking action to protect life. The President has reinstated President Reagan's title 10 protect life rule, so that our tax dollars don't fund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood and others. This is widely popular policy.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, new public polling shows that millennials prefer that their tax dollars go to federally qualified health centers rather than abortion providers like Planned Parenthood by a 3-1 margin. Only 7 percent of millennials share the position of the Democratic Party platform that abortion should be available without any exceptions and funded by your tax dollars.

The administration is heeding the concerns of the American people. Just last month, the National Institutes of Health announced it will fund up to $20 million to find alternatives to using human fetal tissue in research projects. The U.S. Government should end all contracts that use baby body parts. We must preserve the integrity in scientific research by protecting pregnant women and their children.

This month, I am introducing two bills to defend life. The first is the

Born Alive Act, which will require all healthcare providers to give babies who survive abortions the same level of care as other newborns and to ensure that they are immediately admitted to a hospital. The illegal fetal tissue trafficking industry profits most from abortions that increase the likelihood of a live birth. Congress must provide born-alive infants with lifesaving care, not exploit, kill, and sell them to the highest bidder.

I am also introducing the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or PRENDA, which will prohibit sex-selection abortions or forcing a woman to obtain a sex-selection abortion. The sad truth is that victims of sex- selected abortions are overwhelmingly female. It is estimated that 117 million girls are demographically missing from around the world due to sex-selection abortions, infanticide, and other forms of gender-based violence.

Girls are targeted for abortions not only in countries like China and India, but right here in the United States. These abortions victimize both mother and daughter and have no place in a just society.

Mr. Speaker, there is so much bipartisan work we can do to protect America's mothers and babies, and I hope we can act together to serve and protect all God's children.

I thank all of those who will march for life this week. I stand with them, and I will continue to fight and pray for the day when abortion is not only illegal but is unthinkable.

Madam Speaker, we were sent to Congress to lead, but this partial government shutdown is not leadership. It speaks to a bigger problem in Washington: the reluctance to reach across the aisle and serve in the best interests of our constituents.

Playing political games should not take precedence over securing our border and keeping Americans safe, but it seems to me that is exactly what is happening right now.

I call on my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come to the table so we can find a solution to this partial government shutdown and make sure Federal workers get paid for the work they are doing and the work they have done.

This inability to come together on commonsense border security funding has gone on too long and affected too many Americans. We must put partisanship aside, secure our border, and reopen this government.

Mr. Speaker, I unexpectedly had to return to my district this morning and was unable to attend the vote series. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 26, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 27, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 28, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 29.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 500.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, I rise because today we are voting on a 1- week extension of the National Flood Insurance Program. This will be the eighth short-term extension since fiscal year 2017, and it is unacceptable.

My district floods every year, and it is imminently clear that we must reform our flood insurance program, not just repeatedly extend it. Requiring taxpayers to fund construction projects in severe flood zones over and over again is extremely expensive, and it isn't a sustainable solution. The numbers prove it: NFIP is currently operating on a $1.4 billion annual deficit, with no end in sight.

As Chairman Hensarling knows all too well, I have personally spent the better part of a year, along with the ranking member, Mr. Al Green, working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in other disaster recovery programs. We must ensure that funds go to the people who truly need them, like the disaster recovery program. The current flood insurance is broken, and we must fix it once and for all.

Mr. Speaker, it has been 1 year since the House passed a reform package that would have vastly improved the National Flood Insurance Program. It has been 1 year since the Senate has refused to act. I urge my colleagues to support the serious structural reforms that the Committee on Financial Services passed last November.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of working families across the country who are trying to make ends meet.

As a mother, a grandmother, and someone who has employed moms and dads, I know that raising a family is a great joy, but it can also be a great source of anxiety. Children are a blessing, but raising a family introduces serious challenges and costs.

In Missouri, the average annual cost of center-based infant care is estimated to be $8,632. That is $719 a month. Infant care in Missouri costs $634 more per year than instate tuition at a 4-year public college, and it is unaffordable for so very many families.

According to a study published by the Economic Policy Institute, a daycare center for two children--an infant and, say, a 4-year-old-- costs $17,940. That is 102 percent more than the average rent in Missouri. A typical family in Missouri has to spend a shocking 30 percent of their income on daycare for their two children.

In fact, it is estimated that the cost of childcare for two children exceeds annual median rent payments in every State. Paying for childcare is just plain hard for every working family I have spoken with in the State of Missouri.

In the 1970s, Congress heard America's families loud and clear and created the dependent care flexible spending accounts. These accounts allow parents to contribute pretax dollars to pay for qualified out-of- pocket dependent care expenses.

They are not only for children. These accounts can also be used to pay for adult dependents who use adult daycare, eldercare or similar services.

It is a great program, but it has not kept up with the needs of today's families. Despite rising childcare costs, Congress has not raised the FSA contribution cap since 1986. That is why, this week, I am introducing the Child and Dependent Care Modernization Act.

This bill will modernize the maximum amount a family can contribute to dependent care flexible spending accounts to track with the real costs of dependent care today. It will also index the maximum contribution limit so that the value of an FSA will increase in the future as dependent care costs increase.

Another challenge that many families enrolled in an FSA experience is the ``use-it-or-lose-it'' rule. If parents don't use the full balance in their FSA before the year ends, they forfeit their unused money, limiting the ability of parents to save for ongoing costs of care. My bill will allow unused funds to roll over into the next plan year and return a little more freedom and flexibility to America's families.

This bill is part of my legislative work to make the lives of Missouri's families just a little easier. I look forward to introducing this legislation and working with my colleagues to make it law.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Tipton. I rise today to speak on behalf of the bipartisan Empowering Financial Institutions to Fight Human Trafficking Act.

The International Labor Organization estimates that, globally, over 40 million people were victims of human trafficking in 2016. It is obvious that in order to deter the criminals who enslave and sell human beings, we need to hit them where it hurts: their bank accounts.

Right now, financial institutions are attempting to identify human trafficking activity, but many suspicious activity reports are based on false flags. Financial institutions are largely left alone to determine what information is valid. Without good, specific, verifiable, targeted information, financial institutions may wrongly identify people, overrespond, and overtarget, or fail to recognize criminal activity.

Finding the traffickers who take advantage of our financial system can be a daunting task. We need to figure out how to do it better. This legislation is an opportunity to help financial institutions wade through the muck and locate bad actors.

This summer, the Financial Action Task Force released a report that identified significant challenges in detecting, investigating, and prosecuting laundering related to human trafficking, including, ``incomplete domestic information sharing among stakeholders.''

That is why I was proud to introduce the Empowering Financial Institutions to Fight Human Trafficking Act with my colleague and fellow advocate, Congresswoman Maloney, along with Congresswoman Love, Congresswoman Tenney, and Congresswoman Sinema.

Over the past year, I have worked in the Financial Services Committee to explore how human traffickers exploit U.S. financial markets. In January, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which I chaired, held a hearing to examine how financial institutions monitor accounts and identify trafficking. We know that if traffickers can't finance their operations, they can't profit from their crimes.

This bill creates a pathway for registered nonprofits to safely provide valuable information on trafficking crimes to financial institutions, without the threat of defamation suits that could end their organizations.

Throughout the process of crafting this bill, I have found that banks are increasingly seeking actionable information from the nonprofits that specialize in gathering it. It is incredibly challenging for financial institutions to pinpoint trafficking crimes that are happening far away in mines, in fields, in factories, hotels, or boats, obscured from analysts who are trying to practice good customer due diligence.

Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker. This legislation instructs the Secretary of the Treasury to develop a process that will make civil society experts more available to financial institutions and establish transparent standards for information sharing.

The bill guides the Secretary to register only NGOs that have the rigor and expertise to substantiate their claims and correct any inaccurate information.

I am excited that we are finding ways to connect those who have good intelligence with those who are seeking it without exposing nonprofits to devastating lawsuits they can ill afford.

This system will target verified traffickers and reduce reliance on nonspecific information that can target innocent people.

I look forward to casting my vote to prevent human traffickers from using the U.S. financial system to exploit victims around the world. Together, this Congress can disrupt the networks that make modern-day slavery profitable and free vulnerable people around the world who have been enslaved.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In closing, I would like to reiterate, despite what some have said about this piece of legislation, that this legislation requires NGOs to register with Treasury in order to create a process that protects only rigorous, credible organizations that can offer verifiable information to financial institutions. This process will safeguard innocent people and entities that may currently be targeted by the broad, general patterns that are reported to financial institutions.

At present, there is no way for financial institutions to wade through all the tips and information they receive and use it to prevent traffickers from using our financial systems. We need a meaningful system that can actually identify traffickers and allow banks to verify those IDs. That is what this bill does.

I would also like to make clear that this piece of legislation does not amend or touch the PATRIOT Act and does not create any new structures for banks to share information with each other.

This legislation is supported by organizations, including, Mr. Speaker, Western Union, MoneyGram, and Liberty Asia. It also happens to be one of the key recommendations from Polaris' groundbreaking new report: ``A Road Map for Systems and Industries to Prevent and Disrupt Human Trafficking.''

Mr. Speaker, I include the report in the Record.

2. Pass legislation to provide safe harbor to facilitate

information sharing between civil society and financial

institutions

NGOs that work with survivors and vulnerable populations

often have access to critical information about bad actors.

Regulations focused on the sharing of information between

financial institutions or between financial institutions and

government agencies, such as Section 314(a) and (b) of the

USA Patriot Act or the regulations for filing Suspicious

Activity Reports (SARs), provide appropriate protections for

such sharing. No such protections are currently available to

NGOs for sharing critical information that may assist in the

detection, deterrence or prevention of trafficking.

While NGO's are currently able to report tips directly to

law enforcement, the information may be too limited to

realistically spur law enforcement action--often because the

information is obtained from confidential sources who cannot

be contacted by law enforcement. However, if these leads were

provided to financial institutions, the financial

institutions may be able to assist in providing additional,

relevant, and actionable information to law enforcement.

Addressing the liability concerns of NGO's which wish to

participate in information exchanges is an important first

step in actualizing this process. Legislation is required to

provide these protections to NGOs. Once this barrier is

removed, law enforcement, NGO's, and financial institutions

can work together to develop agreed upon processes and

protocols that govern appropriate information sharing.

Mr. Speaker, Dow Jones has said that the information provided to it from NGOs like Liberty Asia and others is relevant and actionable in its anti-money laundering work.

This bill enables FinCEN and financial institutions to gather hard intelligence that can be verified or disproven, rather than rely on, as I said, general, useless, or even faulty tips from nonprofits, private citizens, and other sources without technical experience that could lead to false identifications and persecution of innocent actors.

It is the lack of verifiable specificity and the lack of regulated accreditation that allows for the targeting of innocent groups.

This bill creates a process, run by Treasury, where responsible nonprofits that professionally analyze information and create intelligence products that help financial institutions better identify these crimes can share information without worrying about whether sharing this information is going to end their organizations.

I could go on and on, but Members of this body should never forget what we are doing today is protecting the 40 million victims of trafficking around the world.

Human trafficking is a horrific crime that represents $150 billion per year, and it is far too often funded by the U.S. financial system. This is preventable, and today, we are taking steps towards ending America's financing of exploitation of our most vulnerable.

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

Mr. Speaker, in April, my bill, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, or FOSTA, became law. FOSTA allows Federal, State, and local prosecutors to go after the online businesses that are trafficking our children.

Signing FOSTA into law has decimated the online sex trade that fuels human trafficking in America. Scores of major websites that promoted sex trafficking and prostitution have shut down, and countless lives have been saved.

Our communities are better off now because of FOSTA: fewer victims are being trafficked; buyers are no longer able to easily purchase women and children; and fewer pimps are getting their payday.

The online slave trade has never been more fragile than today.

After passage of FOSTA, global ad volume declined 87 percent from the daily average. Websites that dominated the illegal sex trade shut down for fear of being prosecuted. Websites like Massage Tolls, The Erotic Review, and Escorts in College are gone.

Household names like Reddit, Google, PayPal, and Microsoft updated their terms of service to ensure that platforms aren't being abused by traffickers.

Additionally, the Department of Justice shut down backpage.com, and its owners were arrested.

Right now, we have this criminal enterprise on its heels. Buyers and pimps don't know where to turn, and traffickers are getting 90 percent fewer responses than they got on Backpage and the other leading trafficking sites that shut down.

The bottom line is websites are doing everything they can to avoid criminal liability, while trying to keep their criminal enterprise alive. But the loopholes that they were utilizing no longer exist.

Financial institutions are also cracking down on accounts used by trafficking. CC Bill, the payment processor of these porn and trafficking hubs stopped processing credit cards for websites that facilitate prostitution.

CC Bill was the domestic credit card processor of last resort, and websites are now struggling to find a viable alternative.

Together, we are putting the online slave trade out of business. As trafficking becomes less profitable, fewer victims will ever be sold and raped.

FOSTA is striking fear in the hearts of America's pimps and online predators.

Law enforcement is seeing real results, and that is why FOSTA is being called the most significant anti-trafficking law in nearly 20 years. Experts have repeatedly said that sex trafficking will flourish until market force of risk is increased and we create a real criminal deterrent. FOSTA establishes that deterrent, and as a result, fewer businesses will ever, ever enter the sex trade.

Sex advertising is at a new low for this decade. And this Congress has demonstrated that we can and will hold accountable the businesses that profit from the sale of our most vulnerable.

It is because of the massive bipartisan majorities of both the House and the Senate that FOSTA is law today. The results we are seeing in our communities are proof that Congress can, and does, work together to achieve real results for the American people.

Lives have been saved, fewer children and women are being sold into slavery, and trafficking and prostitution websites are being shut down. We are delivering real results for real people and our country is better off now because of it.

Mr. Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise to honor the passing of Janet Marie Torrisi-Mokwa. Jan was a dear friend and a dedicated leader in the St. Louis community. While we mourn this tragedy, I would like to celebrate Janis life and her many contributions to Missouri. She was a passionate advocate for an array of issues she held near and dear to her heart, including the protection of animals, the empowerment of women, and care for those in need.

Jan recently celebrated 25 years of marriage to her husband Joseph Mokwa. She is also survived by her mother, Marie Torrisi; brother John Torrisi and his wife Claudia; nieces, Kaci and Amy; stepdaughter, Aimee Goodrich; and grandchildren, Danny, Julia, and Josephine.

Jan was one of those people who was truly larger than life. She had a warm presence, an infectious positivity, and an unparalleled effect on others. Today we honor her insatiable spirit her countless contributions to our community, and the lasting impact she had on people from all walks of life.

In His Sermon on the Mount, we are reminded by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that those who mourn are blessed and will be comforted. I pray that during this difficult time, the Mokwa family, their friends, and neighbors are graced with that blessing from the Lord. Mr. Speaker, our community will dearly miss Jan's tremendous energy and bright smile. Her upbeat attitude and persistence will continue to live in each and every person she touched.