Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the 800,000 DREAMers, including the 200,000 from my home State of California.

Mr. Speaker, these young people are terrified about what will become of them if Congress doesn't live up to its promise to protect them.

There is a way to resolve this. There is a way. Congress can pass the Dream Act, which restores protection for the DREAMers. The act provides for undocumented American students who graduate from American high schools, who are of good moral character, have arrived in the United States as children, and have been in the country continuously for 4 years the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency for 8 years.

That seems absolutely fair to me, and I think to so many others. Now, during that time, the student must pursue higher education, serve in the military, or work lawfully for at least 3 years.

Students who meet these conditions are granted permanent residency and the ability to one day become U.S. citizens. This is not a handout. This is not a grab by unworthy people. These are very high standards, and I think standards that U.S. citizens should meet day in and day out and don't always meet these standards, most frankly.

This is bipartisan legislation. It is supported by the faith community across our country, by businesses, by law enforcement, and by 82 percent of the American people. I think that that passes a very high standard, a very high test, and I am confident that, if the Speaker of the House would allow a vote on this legislation, it would pass today if it were brought to the floor of the House for a vote.

These 800,000 young men and women are not just court cases or statistics. Each of them has a spark of divinity in them. They are young men and young women who have obtained driver's licenses. They have work permits. They have pursued higher education. They are contributing their talents, their heart and soul, to this country.

Many say: Tell them to go home. They are home. This is the only country they know. This is the country that they love. They are serving in our military. In my congressional district, Silicon Valley, where all Members of Congress want to go and visit and see what innovation is happening, what innovation is bringing about, the majority of those geniuses who are producing this innovation are immigrants to our country.

I stand here as a first-generation American. And if the tenor of some in Congress--not all--but some in Congress--certainly the White House-- were in charge when my parents were children, that boat would have had to have made a U-turn. They would not have been welcome in America because they weren't from Norway. They were from the Middle East. Yet, today, their daughter stands here on the floor of the House to address the House and the people of our Nation.

Our Nation, from its beginnings, was built by immigrants. I stand here today to say I love immigrants. They are the backbone of each generation and really the blood that flows through the veins of America. If you put a clamp on that vein, you stop the heart of America from beating.

Shortly after President Trump terminated the DACA program, Pope Francis said: ``To all people''--of the United States--``I ask: take care of the migrant who is a promise of life for the future.''

Please follow his words, Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, and we will be a better nation because of it.

Mr. Speaker, last week, FCC Chairman Pai circulated his plan to extinguish the most important technological achievement in modern history: the free and open internet. His plan guts the 2015 open internet rules and removes the FCC as the cop on the beat to protect consumers online.

Without protections against blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization, there will be nothing to stop ISPs from slowing or blocking a website or charging consumers more to access certain content. It would allow ISPs to pick winners and losers by charging small businesses tolls to reach potential customers online, and they will be able to control the flow of information on the internet.

Millions of Americans cheered for the 2015 rules to protect the open internet, rules that have been upheld by the courts. With those rules in place, ISPs have been less likely to mess with content.

Meanwhile, investment in the online ecosystem continues to grow with innovative new apps and more buildout of broadband.

I stand here in opposition to Chairman Pai's plan, and I urge my colleagues to do the same. The internet belongs to all of us, not just the big ISPs.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule, and I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that the House can vote on my bipartisan legislation, the Presidential Tax Transparency Act. This bill codifies the longstanding, bipartisan tradition of Presidents and Presidential nominees disclosing their tax return information to the American people.

The Republican majority and the President are currently working in overdrive to pass a distorted tax bill that will raise the taxes on 82 million middle class families. It takes one's breath away.

I and many others have spoken at length about the harm this bill will do to the middle class, from targeting the mortgage interest deduction, to raising the cost of higher education and graduate school for student loans, to limiting the deductibility of State and local taxes. And, at a time when our country is recovering from several natural disasters, including major wildfires in California where 14,000 Californians have lost their homes, the House-passed bill eliminates the deduction for personal property losses resulting from natural disasters, which I find to be especially cruel.

While it is very clear that the Republican tax bill will harm the middle class, it is less clear how the bill will benefit one taxpayer in particular, if he pays any taxes: the President of the United States of America.

Mr. Trump is the wealthiest President in our Nation's history, but he is also the only President, going back to Gerald Ford and all Presidents moving forward who voluntarily put out their tax returns--he is the only one--to refuse to release his tax returns, a lapse in disclosure that is made all the more troubling given his all-out push for tax cuts for the wealthiest at the expense of the middle class and others in our country.

How can Americans have any confidence in what is going on? They are not fools. They understand that we are swimming around in conflicts of interest, and nothing is being done about it.

Today, Republicans have an opportunity. And while we cannot know exactly how the Republican tax bill will benefit the President, until he releases his tax returns, we can be sure that this tax bill, which is skewed toward the top 1 percent, will benefit the billionaire Commander in Chief and his family. What an example for the American people.

The Republican tax bill cuts the tax rate for so-called pass-through businesses, which is how many of the Trump family's businesses are structured, including hotels, golf courses, and real estate developments. Specifically, the tax rate for passive business income, which is derived from licensing, royalties, and other arrangements that the Trump organization specializes in, will be cut from 39.6 percent to 25 percent in the Republican tax scam bill.

That same bill also repeals the alternative minimum tax, which we know from Mr. Trump's leaked 2005 tax return forced him to pay an additional $26 million in taxes that year. Without the AMT, he is completely off the hook and would, essentially, have a measly 3 percent effective tax rate: another great example for the American people. It is no wonder they don't trust Washington, D.C.

Lastly, the Republican tax bill doubles the estate tax exemption to $22 million, and guess who wins again? Mr. Trump.

Mr. Speaker, only with full disclosure of the President's tax returns will we know how much he and his family will benefit from this Republican tax scam. That is why I urge my colleagues to stand up for transparency, listen to the will of the American people, and vote on this bipartisan legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the tax bill being considered, H.R. 1, is a frontal assault on the middle class and it will do lasting damage to our country.

The bill is a dishonest bait-and-switch for the 36 million middle and lower class families who will see their taxes increase under this plan to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans and large multinational corporations. It is paid for by eliminating the few remaining benefits in our Tax Code for the middle class and charging $1.7 trillion to the national credit card, leaving our children and our grandchildren to pay for it.

This bill lets the middle class down at every turn, and it should be defeated. It eliminates the deduction for medical expenses, which over 9 million middle class Americans claimed in 2015, including over 1 million taxpayers in my home State of California. This is especially harmful to older Americans struggling with high medical costs and serious illnesses, like cancer and Alzheimer's, and Americans with disabilities.

It takes direct aim at college students across the country, raising the future costs of higher education by $65 billion over 10 years by eliminating the deductibility of interest on student loans.

It taxes employer tuition assistance benefits for students and tuition waivers for graduate students by treating this as income, making it more expensive for future scientists, medical professionals, educators, and other leaders to get an education.

It eliminates the lifetime learning credit and the deductibility of interest of student loans at a time when student loan debt in the United States just reached $1.5 trillion. This is a bitter pill to ask our Nation's student borrowers to swallow.

Very importantly for my constituents, this bill bulldozes the State and local tax deduction. Almost 200,000 of my constituents claimed an average State and local tax deduction of $31,193 in 2015. Under this plan, businesses can still claim this deduction. For example, the National Education Association estimates are that 250,000 education jobs will be put at risk because of this lack of deductibility. Just yesterday, the Fraternal Order of Police spoke out in opposition to this bill's dismantling of this deduction, noting that their salaries and the equipment that they use are paid for by State and local taxes on property sales and income. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that California stands to be the biggest overall loser in this plan and faces a $12.1 billion tax increase in 2017 alone.

The bill also takes aim at the most valuable asset of the middle class:

their home. It limits the mortgage interest deduction used by homeowners, and this is eminently unfair. Californians just experienced the worst wildfires in our State's history, with over 14,000 homes lost. What does this bill do? It removes the deductibility for property losses due to natural disasters. I find this to be especially cruel.

What the bill does do is take special care of the wealthiest 5,500 estates in this country by doubling the estate tax exemption to $22 million and then repealing it, removing the whole thing, by 2024.

Finally, the bill has terrible implications for the future of Medicare and the guarantee it has provided for Americans for over 50 years. Without budget changes to offset the $1.5 trillion increase to deficits over 10 years, the bill will trigger automatic spending cuts under the statutory pay-as-you-go.

The Republican majority and the administration claim that this tax plan will ``pay for itself.'' It is bad math, because we were promised in the early 2000s that jobs would be created, that the economy would grow, and the outcome was $1.8 trillion of debt.

The investments that pay off the most are the investments we make in the American people, in education, in job creation, in infrastructure. These are critical areas that always expand our economy.

This House should reject this unfair, unbalanced, fiscally irresponsible plan that dims the future of our country by attacking the middle class.

Mr. Speaker, I was not present during Roll Call vote numbers 564, 565, 566, 567 and 568 on October 12, 2017, because of a death in my family. Had I been present, I would have voted: on Roll Call no. 564, I would have voted YES; on Roll Call vote no. 565, I would have voted YES; on Roll Call vote no. 566, I would have voted YES; on Roll Call vote no. 567, I would have voted YES; and on Roll Call vote no. 568, I would have voted YES.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, Republicans unveiled their vision for tax reform, and it is not pretty.

The proposal raises taxes on the middle class and showers the wealthiest 1 percent of our country with 80 percent of the benefits, at a total cost of $1.5 trillion charged to our Nation's credit card.

The plan should be called ``Hurt the Middle Class Act.''

It eliminates personal deductions for medical expenses; it eliminates the deductibility of interest paid on student loans; it eliminates the deductibility of State and local income taxes, again, raising taxes on the middle class; and to add insult to injury, the proposal eliminates the deduction for personal property losses from one natural disaster fire.

Now, in California, we just experienced the worst fires in California's history. Over 14,000 people lost their homes, at a cost of at least $3 billion. The heck with them.

When policies weaken the middle class, the backbone of our country, they weaken our entire country. The President said tax reform will be the best Christmas present of all, but, for the middle class, this bill will be one lump of coal.

Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished ranking member.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose this bill, the so-called CHAMPIONING HEALTHY KIDS Act. First of all, we are a month late and many dollars short. It was the majority that brought it up late. We didn't have anything to do with being late.

Secondly, we are playing political games with the lives of 14 percent of the children in my congressional district who receive their health insurance through the Children's Health Insurance Program and the five federally qualified health centers in my congressional district. They provide medical, dental, and mental health services to almost 55,000 of my constituents every year.

Reauthorizing these historically bipartisan programs is critical to the health and safety of not only my constituents but millions of others across our country.

Today, the Republican majority is holding them hostage by insisting to fund these programs by means-testing Medicare beneficiaries, kicking individuals who purchase their health coverage on the marketplaces off their insurance, and gutting the Public Health Prevention Fund established in the Affordable Care Act.

Remember, the Republicans have set their budget based on eliminating the Affordable Care Act. My State of California will run out of funding for CHIP sometime between now and December. This has never happened before in the history of this program.

Mr. Speaker, the community health centers in my district have told me about the difficult decisions they have to make because Congress has not reauthorized their funding, including layoffs of physicians and closing clinics' doors. We are playing with people's lives here.

If we can't find the funding for these important bipartisan programs, then we don't deserve to be Members of Congress. I cannot support a bill that hurts people instead of helping them.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Baha'i community as they celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of their founder, Baha'u'llah. Born as a nobleman in Persia in 1817, Baha'u'llah spread a message of peace and tolerance, emphasizing the fundamental unity of all people. His teachings of peace among nations, equality between men and women, tolerance among religions, and justice for people of all races and nationalities are as important today as they were in the 19th century.

Today, there are over 5 million Baha'is around the world, including a community in my Congressional District. In California and around the world, Baha'is strive to promote the ideals that Baha'u'llah championed to promote peace and unity throughout the world. They are active members of their communities and advocate for human rights, especially those of Baha'is in Iran who are unable to practice their religion openly.

I encourage my colleagues to take up and pass H.Res. 274 to condemn Iran for its state-sponsored persecution of its Baha'i minority, and its continuing violation of the International Covenants on Human Rights

Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in sending good wishes to the Baha'i community of California's 18th Congressional District and across the United States on the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Baha'u'llah

Mr. Speaker, I rise today alongside my colleagues, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and Congressman Jimmy Panetta to honor the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) as it celebrates its Tenth Year Anniversary. The Peninsula Community Foundation and Community Foundation Silicon Valley merged in 2007 to increase their impact by creating SVCF. Under the superb leadership of CEO Dr. Emmett D. Carson, SVCF has grown to become the world's largest community foundation with more than $8 billion in assets. SVCF has been able to do this by engaging, empowering, and collaborating with families, individuals, and corporate donors to generate positive impacts and by supporting organizations within and beyond county lines and national borders.

SVCF has become a comprehensive center for philanthropy and over the last decade has continued to advocate in pursuit of public policy issues and strategic initiatives in support of those in need. It also serves as a key leader and partner to nonprofit groups and institutions who work to advance ideas and direct resources strategically toward the pressing local needs of the community. SVCF has awarded $4.3 billion in grants since 2007, and the strong support that it has from the community and donors has enabled it to award $2.3 billion to local charities in nine Bay Area counties, with an additional $245 million awarded to other California charities. In their effort to assist students in their higher education and careers SVCF also awarded close to 400 scholarships totaling $1.7 million to students in high school, community college and university programs during the 2014 to 2015 school year.

SVCF exemplifies its values of collaboration; diversity; inclusiveness; innovation; integrity; public accountability; respect; and responsiveness. It is fitting and proper that we recognize the tremendous impact of philanthropy, and the spirit of generosity and community service that SVCF has had in the Bay Area.

Mr. Speaker, I ask the entire House of Representatives to join my colleagues and me in expressing our collective gratitude to the trailblazing Silicon Valley Community Foundation for its extraordinary contributions to charities and nonprofit organizations throughout our state and nation. We offer our congratulations on the occasion of its decade of philanthropic work and accomplishments in each of our Congressional Districts.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

H.R. 36 would prohibit the performance or attempted performance of an abortion after 20 weeks, and harshly punishes physicians who violate the law. This bill has narrow exemptions for the life of a mother (rape and incest) but there are no exemptions in the bill for conditions where the fetus has conditions or diagnoses that are incompatible with life.

We have spent the entirety of this Congress defending women's reproductive rights and fighting against plans that would eliminate funding and access to the health care providers of a woman's choosing. This bill is yet another attack on a woman's right to decide what is best for her and her body. A woman, not a politician, must be able to make health decisions that are best for her own circumstances.

H.R. 36 ignores that every pregnancy is different and compromises a woman's right to the health care she is legally entitled to. It punishes women who are already in difficult situations. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that neither a state nor the federal government can ban safe and legal abortion services pre-viability.

I support a woman's legal right to opt for or against an abortion. The decision is private. It's a matter of faith and it's a matter of conscience, and our Constitution recognizes this.

What I do not support is a bill that takes away a woman's Constitutional right. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a shameful attempt to impose a radical political agenda on women. It strips away their individual liberties and puts their health at serious risk. This bill is wrong, this bill is dangerous, and this House should reject it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Illinois for yielding and for her leadership and work on the great Energy and Commerce Committee in the House.

My congressional district is home to the engineers, innovators, and developers who are pioneering the technologies that are transitioning us to a driverless world. That is why I support H.R. 3388, and it is my hope that the regulatory framework established by this bill is going to ensure that the United States of America is the leader in the world's next great revolution in transportation. I believe that we are, that we will be, and that this bill boosts the effort.

Throughout committee consideration of this bill, I stressed the need for bipartisanship on this issue so that the American people would have confidence in the steps that we were taking. And so it is. It is, I think, in the spirit of the original Federal automotive safety standards that passed Congress nearly unanimously in 1966.

This bill was improved significantly in the committee, and the final bill, very importantly, preserves the role that States have played to regulate matters such as vehicle registration, licensing, insurance, and liability, while, at the Federal level, ensuring that manufacturers submit safety certifications to NHTSA, placing the agency on the path toward issuing full safety standards for autonomous vehicles.

The bill also includes my language to require a study of the environmental impacts of autonomous vehicles, as well as the intersection between autonomous and electric vehicles. The AV

revolution is happening on top of the ongoing electrification revolution, and I think the AV advisory council can provide important insight to Congress, States, and localities about how to support growing these fleets.

For all these reasons and more, Mr. Speaker, I urge all House Members to support H.R. 3388. I think it deserves unanimous support, as it did in our committee, and that this will be good for America and keep us in a leadership position on the all-important issues that are established by this bill.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of Amendment No. 18, and I'm proud to be a cosponsor of it.

The amendment authorizes $15 million for an innovative program known as Hacking for Defense. I'm proud this was originally piloted at Stanford University in my Congressional District and has since expanded to six other colleges and universities around the country.

Hacking for Defense offers our country's best and brightest students the opportunity to work directly with our nation's military to identify our most urgent national security threats.

Students design innovative solutions using a lean-startup model that can quickly lead to the procurement of new technologies that solve real-world problems facing our military and the warfighter.

Hacking for Defense integrates entrepreneurism with public service and helps the federal government become more flexible and less bureaucratic in its approach to problem solving, something Congress has long sought to foster.

I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2430, the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 to reauthorize four important user fee programs: the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the Medical Device User Fee Act, the Generic Drug User Fee Act, and the Biosimilar User Fee Act. These critically important laws have improved patient access to important therapies and expedited the FDA's approval times while upholding the most rigorous standards for patient safety.

The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) was enacted in 1992 when drug review times were lagging and FDA simply couldn't keep up with the flood of new drug applications. Through user fees paid by applicants, PDUFA gave FDA the resources it needed to hire and support more staff. The program has been successful in reducing review-time backlogs and expediting safe and effective therapies to patients.

My legislation created the Medical Device User Fee Act (MDUFA), which was enacted in 2002 and has resulted in significant changes to the medical device industry and within the medical device center at the FDA. Through this user fee program, the device center has improved its efficiency and reduced the time it takes to bring effective medical devices to market. This legislation builds on the progress made in previous user fee agreements and will produce important developments for the medical device industry.

The Generic Drug User Fee Agreement (GDUFA) was enacted in 2012 and takes important steps to bring lower-priced drugs to the market more quickly for the American people. Finally, the Biosimilar User Fee Agreement (BsUFA), which was first enacted in 2012 through legislation I authored, is critical to supporting the nascent biosimilar industry and will lead to meaningful progress, breakthroughs and cures for the American people.

Previous user fee reauthorizations have included significant gains for pediatric populations. Before the Better Pharmaceuticals for Children Act (BPCA) and the Pediatric Research Equity Act (PREA), which I authored, the vast majority of drugs (more than 80 percent) used in children were used off-label, without data for their safety and efficacy. Today, that number has been reduced to 50 percent because of my legislation. Both programs were permanently reauthorized in 2012, and while this agreement includes important changes to BPCA and PREA, there remains a need for more meaningful improvements. This legislation lays important groundwork and provides the foundation for future progress.

Finally, I urge my colleagues in the Senate to take up this legislation swiftly. It's imperative that both houses of Congress pass this legislation and send it to the President in a timely manner for him to sign into law in order to provide essential resources to the FDA so they can continue to do their critical work.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 23 because it upends decades of State and federal water law and needlessly pits water users against one another. On the heels of the worst drought in California's history, this bill mandates that certain interests come out ahead of others.

California has just recently emerged from six years of a punishing drought that forced every resident to conserve water, caused millions of acres of agricultural land to be fallowed, and dramatically increased our State's risk of major wildfires. The drought was a massive disaster and Congress should respond by investing in long-term resilience against future droughts such as water conservation, recycling, groundwater recharge, and desalination. What Congress should not be doing is using the drought as an excuse to permanently upend a century of water law and countless protections for threatened and endangered wildlife.

H.R. 23 weakens or overrides decades of State and federal law, including the State and federal Endangered Species Acts; the National Environmental Policy Act; the Central Valley Project Improvement Act; and the San Joaquin River Settlement Act. This list should set off alarm bells for any proponent of States' rights or cooperative federalism. For over a century, the Federal Government has deferred to State water law whenever possible. The GROW Act unwinds that history entirely.

By discarding a century of water law and species protections, this bill will decimate the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem, drive the Delta smelt to extinction, and accelerate the decline of the wild salmon and steelhead runs which have been an important part of the Northern California economy since the mid-19th century.

This irresponsible bill also overrides science-based management of the delicate Delta infrastructure and would gut several of our most bedrock environmental laws. For these reasons I strongly oppose this legislation and I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no.

Mr. Speaker, Raymond Lawrence Sullivan, Jr., was born in San Francisco on October 4, 1942. He was the second of six children and grew up in San Francisco and Hillsborough. He has three living siblings, Phillip Sullivan, Mary Sullivan Ward, and Mother Agnes of the Cross, CJM, and his late sister, Sheila Sullivan Peterson. Larry was educated at St. Catherine's Grammar School in Burlingame, Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose, the University of San Francisco and the UCSF Medical School. He did his residency in Anesthesiology at Stanford, and served our country in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps from 1968 to 1970.

Larry married Victoria Growney on August 13, 1966. Together they have five children: Larry Sullivan III; Kasey Sullivan Bradstreet, JD; Loretta Sullivan Chang, MD; Brian Sullivan; and Jason Lally, their foster child, who is part of their extended family. Their grandchildren, Liam, Andrew and Thomas Chang, Oscar Bradstreet and Harley, Riona and Raymond Lally bring them untold joy.

Dr. Sullivan joined the medical staff of O'Connor Hospital as an anesthesiologist in 1975 and has served there until his retirement. From 1982 to 1988 he served as Clinical Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Stanford University School of Medicine. At O'Connor Hospital he was Anesthesia Department Chair, a member of the Critical Care Committee, President of the Medical Staff, Member of the Hospital's Board of Directors, and Chair of the Medical Staff Advisory Committee. He was honored in 2011 with the Vincentian Spirit Award given by O'Connor Hospital.

Dr. Sullivan has given generously of his time and talents to his professional community as a member of the Santa Clara County Medical Association, (CMA) the American Medical Association, the California Society of Anesthesiologists (CSA), the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the California Medical Association. He served as President of the CSA from 1999 to 2000, and from 1997 to 2006 he served on a Specialty Delegation to the CMA House of Delegates. He received the Distinguished Service Award from the CSA in 2009.

Larry also served as a referee and coach of the American Youth Soccer Association in Palo Alto, and was Scoutmaster of Troop 57, Stanford Area Council, where he guided 35 Scouts to the rank of Eagle Scout.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring an extraordinary physician, a devoted son, husband, father, grandfather, a vital member of our community, and a treasured personal friend. Larry Sullivan is a man of integrity and he lives a life instructed by his faith. I have never met a finer human being and a finer family. How proud I am to call the Sullivan Family my friends and to have the privilege of representing them. I ask the entire House of Representatives to join me in wishing my dear friend Larry, a great and good man, and his devoted wife Vicki, every blessing that retirement has to offer, and we thank him for all he has done to strengthen our community and our country.