Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present during roll call vote number 393 on September 7, 2018, due to recent surgery. Had I been present, I would have vote no on roll call vote No. 393.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present during roll call vote numbers 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, and 392 on September 6, 2018, due to recent surgery. I would like to reflect how I would have voted:

On roll call vote no. 386 I would have voted NO.

On roll call vote no. 387 I would have voted NO.

On roll call vote no. 388 I would have voted YES.

On roll call vote no. 389 I would have voted YES.

On roll call vote no. 390 I would have voted YES.

On roll call vote no. 391 I would have voted YES.

On roll call vote no. 392 I would have voted NO.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present during roll call vote number 382, 383, 384, and 385 on September 5, 2018, due to recent surgery. Had I been present, I would have voted: on roll call vote no. 382, I would have voted NO; on roll call vote no. 383, I would have voted NO; on roll call vote no. 384, I would have voted YES; and on roll call vote no. 385, I would have voted YES.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present during roll call vote number 380 and 381 on September 4, 2018, due to recent surgery. I would like to reflect how I would have voted:

On roll call vote no. 380, I would have voted Yes.

On roll call vote no. 381, I would have voted No.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of an extraordinary American, a true patriot, and one of the most highly respected and beloved members of my congressional district, James P. Thurber.

Jim Thurber was born on June 3, 1928, and died on June 16, 2018, at the age of 90. He lived a full and exceptionally productive life, and he will be missed by all who were privileged to know him.

Jim Thurber graduated from Milton Academy, Stanford University and George Washington University where he received a Master's degree in International Relations. He also attended the National War College from 1973-1974.

Jim married the love of his life, Emily (Emy) Forrest in 1950, and together they raised four children: James Perry Thurber III (Debra McGibbon); Harriette Thurber Rasmussen; Alexander Forrest Thurber (Courtney Graham); and Mary Thurber Martin, and have 12 beloved grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren.

Prior to his long Foreign Service career, Jim Thurber was a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal and worked at Stanford University as an academic administrator. He served with courage, dignity and effectiveness in the Foreign Service for 23 years. When he was serving in Islamabad, Pakistan, the U.S. Embassy was attacked, and Jim earned the State Department's Award of Valor for his actions during that crisis. He served as Director of the USIA's operations in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and he retired as Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Canada in 1990.

Jim Thurber spent his entire life in service to his country. His public service included serving as Mayor of the City of Los Altos, and June 3, 2002 was designated by the City as Jim Thurber Day, for the Mayor who served the most consecutive years in that office. He served as President of the Los Altos History Museum; President of the Foothill-DeAnza Foundation; Director of the Campaign Ethics Foundation; and Treasurer of the Foreign Service Association of California. He served on the boards of many organizations, including the Los Altos Community Foundation; the Santa Clara County Airports Commission; the League of Conservations Voters; Goodwill Industries of California and many more. Jim was extremely active in the Democratic Party in California and was an elected member of the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee and the California State Democratic Central Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in extending our sincerest condolences to Jim Thurber's wife, Emy, and to his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and in doing so, honor a great, good and gentle man who loved his country and served it with distinction.

Jim made our world better, and our country and our community stronger. How blessed I am to have known him and been inspired by his integrity and patriotism.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of an extraordinary American, a true patriot, and a highly respected member of my congressional district, Ralph Arnold Kuiper.

Ralph Kuiper was born on March 29, 1939, in New Jersey, and grew up in a small town in Southern California. He graduated from Corona High School where he excelled in art, academics and sports, and went on to Stanford University where he studied Mechanical Engineering. He also earned a Master's degree and a Ph.D. from Stanford.

Ralph worked at Lockheed's New Products division where he served in management positions including Director of Research at Lockheed Technology Center. During his long career he mentored emerging engineers and high school students. After retirement, Ralph became a full time volunteer in the community, serving as a coach for children's sports, supporting the World Affairs Young Ambassadors Program and the Los Alto Youth Theatre. He was Chair of the Peninsula Chapter of the World Affairs Council for 13 years, and served 14 years on the Board of the Los Altos Stage Company. He and his wife travelled extensively and supported everything Stanford, especially the Freeman Spogli Institute, football and basketball.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in extending our sincerest condolences to Ralph Kuiper's wife, Carol, and to their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews, and in doing so honor a great, good and gentle man who loved his country and served it with distinction. Ralph made our world better, and our country and our community stronger. How privileged I am to have known Ralph and represented him.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of an extraordinary American, a

true patriot, and one of the most highly respected scientists in the world, Dr. Burton Richter.

Burt Richter was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 22, 1931, and died July 18, 2018, at the age of 87, in Palo Alto, California. He attended Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania and earned his Bachelor's degree and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined the High Energy Physics Lab at Stanford in 1956, became a full professor there in 1967, and he retired as the Paul Piggott Professor in Physical Sciences in 2006.

Burt Richter was an extraordinary scientist. For his discovery of the J/psi subatomic particle, called ``the greatest discovery ever in the field of elementary particles,'' he won and shared the Nobel Prize in 1976 with Samuel Ting of MIT. The discovery, called the 'charm quark', became part of the Standard Model of particle physics, describing how subatomic particles interact.

Dr. Richter was the Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, now SLAC, from 1984 to 1999. During his tenure he oversaw the construction of the Linear Collider and designed the SPEAR, the Stanford Positron Accelerator Ring, which is still in use today. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He served as President of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and the American Physical Society.

Dr. Richter was honored with the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award. In 2010, he published the book ``Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Climate Change and Energy in the 21st Century,'' which explains the facts of climate change to non-scientists.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in extending our sincerest condolences to Dr. Richter's wife, Laurose, his daughter Elizabeth, son Matthew, daughter-in-law Cheryl, and his grandchildren Allison and Jennifer. In doing so we honor a great and good man who loved his country and served it with great distinction. Burt Richter advanced the betterment of our world and our country. How blessed I am to have known him, to have been the beneficiary of his wise counsel, and to have been inspired by his integrity and patriotism. Simply put, there was no one like him.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today with serious concerns about the missed opportunity in this legislation to take strong action against the Chinese firm, ZTE.

Our telecommunications systems are the backbone of our national security operations, and those systems need to be protected to ensure the safety of our citizens.

Not only did ZTE violate U.S. sanctions by illegally selling components to North Korea and Iran, it also paid full bonuses to the employees who engaged in illegal conduct, and then lied to U.S. authorities about it.

Instead of sending a strong message to ZTE, the NDAA Conference Committee stripped language from the Senate bill to ban ZTE from doing business with all U.S. firms and replaced it with watered-down language that merely prohibits ZTE from doing business with the U.S. Government.

This effectively gives ZTE a free pass for its past violations, and prioritizes a foreign company's interests over the security of the American people. This is wrong. Deal-making with ZTE is bad policy, and it sends a clear message to our adversaries that America is not willing to enforce our own sanctions.

Earlier this year, I wrote to Secretary Ross raising my concerns with reports that the administration was backtracking on its recently imposed 7-year ban on ZTE. To my dismay, and I think to many others, the administration lifted the ban.

The Senate-passed version of the bill would have restored the ban in full. So I am distressed that my colleagues have succumbed to pressure from the White House and watered down critically needed security protections.

We are all public servants of the American people. The number one responsibility we have is to protect and defend them.

We must not make deals with foreign entities that have a proven history of compromising our telecommunications sector and treating our laws with disdain. When we know for a fact that a certain company or country does not have our national interests at heart, we have no business doing business with them, period.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present during rollcall vote No. 368 on July 24, 2018. Had I been present, on rollcall vote No. 368, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to be present during roll call vote numbers 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312 and 313 on June 28, 2018. Had I been present, I would have voted: on roll call vote no. 306 I would have voted NO; on roll call vote no. 307 I would have voted NO; on roll call vote no. 308 I would have voted NO; on roll call vote no. 309 I would have voted YES; on roll call vote no. 310 I would have voted YES; on roll call vote no. 311 I would have voted NO; on roll call vote no. 312 I would have voted YES; and on roll call vote no. 313 I would have voted NO.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of H.R. 6, and I thank our ranking member for yielding time to me.

There isn't any question that our country is in the midst of a destructive opioid epidemic that claims 142 lives every day. This is a national crisis, and it is our duty as Members of Congress to do everything in our power to stem the tide of addiction and the devastation that this epidemic is causing. It is claiming more lives than were lost in the Vietnam war. They are staggering figures.

H.R. 6 includes policies to expand the number and types of providers who can administer medication such as buprenorphine and naloxone to opioid-addicted patients, and it allows Medicare to pay for opioid treatment programs. That is a very important addition in the legislation. This will help people suffering from opioid use disorder to get access to the critical treatment they need on the day this legislation is signed into law.

H.R. 6 also creates a payment structure that incents rather than discourages the use of nonopioid alternatives. I think this is a very important provision in the legislation because it will help to decrease the number of opioids prescribed and keep patients from becoming addicted in the first place.

I want to point something out that I believe is deeply troubling, and the ranking member did as well. The majority has repeatedly voted to gut funding for the benefits offered by Medicaid, which is the single largest payer of mental health services, providing health coverage to 27 percent of adults with a serious mental illness.

The majority has also consistently and repeatedly undermined the Affordable Care Act, including refusing to defend the protections for patients with preexisting conditions.

Mr. Chairman, this is very serious because this would provide critical access to treatment for substance abuse disorders. So the majority gives with one hand and takes away with the other.

These policies will harm millions of vulnerable Americans and limit our responsibility to respond and recover from this epidemic.

This is an important first step. We need to do more to address the causes of the epidemic, stem the tide of addiction, expand meaningful access, and pay for it so that we can help the very people who need the most help.

Mr. Speaker, Monday, June 11, will be the first day without net neutrality protections, thanks to the Trump administration.

For the last decade and a half, the internet has become the biggest driver of our economy, of education, access to information, and the conduct of commerce. It all happened under net neutrality, because each of us had the freedom to go where we wanted to go, see what we wanted to see, and read what we wanted to read.

On Monday, the rules to protect an open internet will cease to exist. Consumers will no longer be guaranteed that they can choose to go where they want to go or do what they want to do online. Businesses can be made to pay tolls to reach their customers. The huge internet service providers can reign with impunity over the most important tool in our economy and our democracy.

Over all the years I have represented my Silicon Valley district, I have never had a constituent or a company ask me to turn total control of the internet over to the ISPs.

Congress can act to prevent this takeover. That is why I am a cosponsor of the Congressional Review Act, a bill to disable the administration's giveaway of the internet. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to stand on the right side of history with millions of Americans and do the same.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment will prevent the Army from moving forward with its plan to sell 17 acres of Federal land and 126 military housing units known as Shenandoah Square in the heart of my congressional district.

Shenandoah Square is located next to Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View, California, and houses 108 military and civilian families serving in the Air National Guard, the Army National Guard, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Marine Corps.

Established in 2004, Shenandoah Square is part of the California Military Communities privatized military housing entity, which consists of 2,900 homes located at Fort Irwin, Camp Parks, Moffett Federal Airfield, and Shenandoah Square.

This entity is overleveraged and is in hundreds of millions of dollars in debt because of the Army's decision to overinvest in housing at Fort Irwin that assumed greater than realized gains in the Basic Housing Allowance provided to servicemembers.

Now the Army is justifying its sale of Shenandoah Square on the grounds that there is declining demand for military housing in the bay area, but this is hardly the case. In fact, it is absurd.

I have met with the families and servicemembers living at Shenandoah Square who serve in the region with the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and the Coast Guard. The residents have consistently raised concerns that the property management company contracted by the Army has been working to drive out the remaining military personnel living in the Shenandoah complex to artificially depress military demand for housing to justify its decision to sell the land.

My Silicon Valley district is facing one of the most severe housing crises in the country, and the 17 acres of land that Shenandoah sits on is some of the most valuable in our entire country. Clearly, the Army is selling Shenandoah Square to pay down the debt it created and keep the California Military Communities entity from going bankrupt. This is really wrong and does a huge disservice to the military families living in this housing.

This House is already on record expressing concerns about the Army's plans to sell Shenandoah Square. I offered an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2019 expressing the sense of Congress that the Army should explore all possible alternatives to a sale, including subleasing the property to an entity that can better develop affordable housing on the property, and the amendment was adopted by a voice vote.

The Army can pursue a win-win situation by subleasing this land to one of the many willing partners in Silicon Valley seeking to develop housing and generate a regular stream of income to make this LLC whole again, but they refuse to.

Mr. Chairman, I want to make something very clear. I would support new housing for our military families if they included our military families. They are offering housing for 8 families, when we have 109. I think that this is really unacceptable.

We can't allow military families to be left without housing as they serve our country in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. That is why I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and support this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I rise in strong support of this amendment, the Beyer-Eshoo-Esty amendment, which restores funding to make it equal to the fiscal year 2018 level agreed to by Congress earlier this year for ARPA-E, which is the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

ARPA-E is housed within the Department of Energy and invests in emerging clean energy technologies to make our country more energy- secure, reduce costs, and increase energy efficiency. So it is smart. It is smart. That is what America has been known for, and we want to retain that reputation.

The Agency specializes in high-risk, high-reward technologies that are, in many instances, too risky for the private sector but have enormous potential to change how we produce and consume energy.

ARPA-E is doing for energy development what the NIH does for medical research. It provides early-stage support for new moonshot ideas that have the potential to transform the everyday lives of Americans and our economy.

ARPA-E is a product of the 2006 Innovation Agenda and was modeled after the highly acclaimed DARPA, created 60 years ago in the Department of Defense. It is credited with launching some of the most successful technologies of our time, including GPS and the internet.

ARPA-E was created by Congress in 2007 with bipartisan support, it was signed into law by a Republican President, and it has been a resounding success.

In its 10-year history, the agency has funded over 660 projects that have helped create 71 new companies; attracted over $2.6 billion in private sector funding; led to the creation of 245 new patents; and fostered over 1,700 peer-reviewed articles to further our understanding of the energy ecosystem.

Mr. Chairman, the United States, I think, is really at an important crossroads in our history. We will decide whether our country is going to continue to lead the world in innovation.

Foreign competitors, such as China, are surging investments in new R&D and threaten to overtake our country in that area. We must continue our basic investments to ensure we remain the most innovative and successful economy in the world, and this amendment helps to advance this.

This has been bipartisan and overwhelmingly successful for our country. Why would we turn the pages back?

So, for all these reasons and more, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, first, I want the House to know that this is a bipartisan amendment.

This amendment provides a $1 million increase for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to fund the development and deployment of high-efficiency linear generator technology.

Linear generators convert fuel and air into electricity with the same efficiency and near zero emissions as the highest performing fuel cells on the market, and they are superior to many legacy fuel cells. But instead of using an electrochemical process like fuel cells, linear generators use an electromechanical process that relies on only two moving parts and no oil, which reduces capital and maintenance costs and results in a life span of three to four times greater than a traditional fuel cell.

Equally as important, linear generators are dispatchable and can provide electricity even when the electricity grid is down. This is especially valuable in areas recently hit by hurricanes like Puerto Rico and Houston, Texas, and other extreme weather events like last year's wildfires in northern California.

Linear generators also provide resilient baseload power, which eliminates the need for expensive, unreliable, and dirty diesel back-up generators.

At its heart, this amendment is about investing in the future of energy production, and it is about laying the groundwork for the innovators in our country to do what they do best: outperform the status quo and outcompete the rest of the world.

The United States has been a global leader in the development of energy efficiency technology, reducing energy costs and increasing reliability for consumers. But we are in danger of falling behind our foreign competitors.

Mr. Chairman, linear generator technology was born in my Silicon Valley district by some of the best and the brightest minds from Stanford University. And although this technology is substantially similar to fuel cells, it faces an uphill battle and an uneven playing field in bringing these products to market, despite the many benefits of the technology itself.

This amendment will ensure that the Fuel Cell Technologies Office at the DOE invests in the next generation of fuel cell technologies and maintains U.S. leadership in this critical field.

Mr. Chair, it is nice not to have any opposition, so I urge my colleagues to support the next generation of fuel cell technologies and vote ``yes'' on this bipartisan amendment.

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