Floor Statements

I thank the distinguished gentleman from New York.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 556, the National Security FIRST Act, and I believe this bill is a good example of how we can ensure our Nation's security and still encourage foreign investment to help create and maintain jobs.

While I didn't have the honor to serve in the last Congress, I can tell you that the Dubai Ports World deal was not well received in northeast Ohio. Myself, and many of our constituents, wondered how such a concerning deal could have been approved. The answer was that there was little accountability, oversight and transparency with the way the Committee on Foreign Investment and the United States, or CFIUS, worked. The DPW deal was so concerning to this Congress last year, as has been mentioned, that legislation very similar to that which we are passing today passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 424-0. H.R. 556 ensures that these matters are addressed and gives both the administration and Congress greater responsibilities for dealing with foreign investment in our Nation.

We can have oversight, accountability and transparency and still support American businesses and workers. That is the lesson of this bill. This bill enjoys broad support, including the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and other business organizations. This bill represents another bipartisan success. I am pleased to support it, and I encourage its passage to ensure our national security.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 7 o'clock and 3 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Thursday, March 1, 2007, at 10 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, throughout the course of history, when our Nation has faced its most significant debates over matters of war, there comes a time when voices of pundits and politicians must drop away and allow the voices of the people to be heard.

Our troops are brave and capable. They have fought heroically and this resolution makes it unequivocally clear that those of us who feel it incumbent to oppose the President's escalation nonetheless support our troops. All of us, and all Americans, support our troops.

But Congress also has an oversight responsibility to ensure that they are provided a mission based on a realistic assessment and an achievable goal before we ask them to risk life and limb to implement it.

The President has asked Congress to support his escalation plan to send another 20,000 troops to Iraq.

This war is now almost 4 years long. Congress has not spoken as loudly and as clearly as its responsibility requires. As the Representative of the 13th District of Ohio, I cannot sit silent. I oppose the President's plan for escalation and I fully support this resolution.

The President's own military commanders have advised against this course of action, and in November, my constituents and the American people voted for a change of direction in Iraq. Escalation is directly contradictory to that call for change. It takes us further down the wrong path, deeper and deeper, with a policy that asks our military to perform a nonmilitary mission of creating a unified government in Iraq.

But unity in Iraq has to be determined by the people who live there. It is neither fair nor just to ask our troops to fix a sectarian civil war.

Our Nation has paid a high price: the lives of 3,000 American troops lost; $379 billion spent, with another $8 billion every month of this war.

These lives cannot be retrieved; 139 brave men and women from Ohio have been killed, 14 from my district. I have a responsibility to every one of those casualties and to every one that might lie ahead, to represent their voices, especially those that can no longer be heard.

In early August 2005, Lance Corporal Edward ``Augie'' Schroeder II was killed in Iraq. Augie and 13 other young lives from Northeast Ohio were lost that day. In January 2006, Augie's father, Paul Schroeder, shared his thoughts and feelings in a letter to the Washington Post entitled, ``A Life Wasted.'' He said, ``Since August we have witnessed growing opposition to the Iraq war, but it is often whispered, hands covering mouths as if it is too dangerous to speak too loudly. Others discuss the never-ending cycle of death in places like Haditha in academic and sometimes clinical fashion, as in `the increasing lethality of improvised explosive devices.' ''

Wiping the clinical talk away, Paul Schroeder went on to share the painful reality that he and his family face, a reality that cannot be understood when sanitized by clinical terms. He said, ``Listen to the kinds of things that most Americans don't have to experience: The day Augie's unit returned from Iraq to Camp Lejeune we received a book of his notebooks, DVDs and clothes from his locker in Iraq. The day his unit returned home to waiting families, we received the second urn of ashes. This lad of promise, of easy charm and readiness to help, whose highest high was saving someone, using CPR as a First Aid squad volunteer, came home in one coffin and two urns. We buried him in three places that he loved, a fitting irony, I suppose, but just as rough each time.''

Mr. Speaker, the growing opposition to the war in Iraq must not be whispered, hands covering mouths as if it is too dangerous to speak too loudly. Accountability and oversight require more. This resolution rings loud and clear. We support our troops and we oppose the President's plan to escalate in Iraq.

Will the President hear our collective voice? If he does not, it will not be because we sat silent

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I support this rule on a clear and concise resolution that expresses the will of the American people. Our troops are brave and capable. They have fought overwhelming odds and in the face of incomprehensible difficulty. They have engaged in many acts of heroism. And this resolution makes it unequivocally clear that those of us who feel it incumbent to speak out in opposition to the President's escalation nonetheless continue to support our troops.

All of us and all Americans support our troops. They must have and we must provide that which they need for any mission which they are sent. But Congress also has a responsibility to provide oversight, to ensure that our brave and honorable troops are provided a mission based on realistic assessments and an achievable goal before we ask them to risk life and limb to implement it.

The President has asked Congress and the American people to support his plan to escalate our involvement in the war in Iraq by sending an additional 20,000 troops, and that doesn't count the additional 20,000 support personnel that will be part of the escalation.

This war is almost 4 years long now. Congress has not spoken as loudly and as clearly as its responsibility requires. As the Representative of the 13th District of Ohio, I cannot sit silent. I am opposed to the President's plan for escalation, and, as such, I fully support this rule and resolution.

The President's own military commanders and experts have advised against this course of action. My constituents and the American people have made their position known. People across this Nation voted for a change in direction in Iraq. The plan to escalate is directly contradictory to that call for change. It takes us further down the wrong path, getting us deeper and deeper with a policy that asks our military to accomplish the nonmilitary mission of creating a viable, unified government in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I support the rule and resolution.

Mr. Speaker, there are times when the people of this great Nation need and demand things of their government that politics make it impossible to accomplish. This has been the case far too often throughout the last 12 years. Through the last election, the people of this Nation have demanded that this government reexamine and change our priorities and our direction.

The people have asked us to respond to their hopes and their dreams and their needs. They have asked us to realize that there are good citizens of this Nation, honest people who work hard and play by the rules and who nonetheless struggle and live in poverty and toil in obscurity through no fault of their own.

The people have called us to recognize the equality of opportunity, the basis upon which this Nation was founded, the means of equal access to education, equal chances to go to college. The people have demanded that we never squash the hope of science with the politics of partisan personal gain, that we never play games with the opportunity to save lives. They know that the minute that this great Nation stops being a beacon of hope and a champion of forward progress for the world, that we become something less than what we are.

The people have demanded that we never allow the concerns of special interests to collide with the public good, that there will come a day when the quality of our time will be judged not only on our ability to pioneer lifesaving drugs but our ability to make them available to all of our citizens.

The people have demanded that when you gather a group of our Nation's leading experts and ask them to take a hard look at what we need to do to keep our people safe and make our Nation stronger, that they take on that charge and honor their commitment, that you do everything necessary to implement their recommendations handed down to you; and the people have demanded that the conduct of our public officials be beyond reproach, that the great balancing act of our democracy rests upon a fulcrum of public trust that is fragile as it is vital.

But for the past 12 years, politics has demanded something different. Between the 104th and 109th Congress, 6,900 rollcall votes were taken, and politics prevailed almost every time.

In the very first few hours of the 110th Congress, the people have had their day. The people compelled us to raise the minimum wage, not politics. The people asked us to work to cut student loan rates in half, not politics. The people led us to expand stem cell research, not politics. Concern for those people made it imperative that we implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and that we take away the tax breaks for oil companies that have made their profits on the backs of recent American suffering, that we start a process for real meaningful negotiation for prescription drugs, not politics.

The people move us to make immediate changes in the ethical rules that govern this Chamber. Their commitment to a new day in America, and a new day in Congress made it vital that we restore the public trust. We saw the faces and heard the needs of the people we were elected to serve; and in this first 100 hours, we have acted. We have brought in new leadership that recognizes that this was a Nation disconnected with its government, and they have taken immediate and bold steps to reconnect it.

I would be remiss not to commend the leadership's admirable example for the past 2 weeks.

The people were at the heart of what we have done here so far, and the people will be at the heart of the legislative agenda we champion in the days to come.

Mr. Speaker, these past 2 weeks have been times of great change, historic times that herald an era of American

politics unique in its tone and compelling in its vision. You can be sure that this was only the start, and that the people will regain their rightful role in this democracy in the days and years to come.

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

Mr. Speaker, 2 weeks ago we passed legislation to end the culture of corruption in Congress. Today we consider legislation to reverse some of the harmful consequences of that corruption. H.R. 6, the CLEAN Energy Act, will repeal $14 billion in tax reduction subsidies and other outrageous benefits given to the big oil companies.

Many of these measures were included in legislation that was written in backroom and late-night meetings. With the passage of our ethics reform in this bill, we are fulfilling our responsibility to the American people to clean up Congress and reverse the past lapses that led us to where we are today.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation not only repeals the excesses given to oil companies, our bill uses the money to create a Strategic Renewable Energy Reserve. This will invest in clean renewable energy resources and alternative fuels, promote new energy technologies, develop greater efficiency and improve energy conservation. Investing in alternative and renewable energies and efficiency is not only about protecting the environment and homeland security, it is about promoting new industry and creating jobs.

This type of new investment will help create jobs and support industries in northeast Ohio, where we are already working on new energy technology through organizations like the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition, which is working to strengthen Ohio's fuel cell industry.

I am proud to say that this coalition includes the University of Akron and the Lorain County Community College in my congressional district. This investment in new energy technology, combined with new incentives and initiatives to make higher education more accessible recently passed by this Congress, will help ensure that our students have the education and the skills necessary for the jobs of the future.

That is what we are doing here today, eliminating the abuses of the past and investing in our Nation's future. Let's pass the CLEAN Energy Act.

Making in Order At Any Time Consideration of H.R. 475, House Page Board

Revision Act of 2007

Mr. Speaker, one of the greatest measures of our success as elected representatives will be the impact our actions have on the silent majority of working class poor in America.

This Congress, to its shame, has ignored these Americans for over a decade now in favor of an embarrassing collection of legislative excess that favored the connected few.

Today, we put an end to it.

During the course of the campaign that ended just a few months ago, I met a woman whose story I have carried with me all the way to Congress.

She was working at the snack bar at the local bowling alley and she was working her heart out.

As she shared her story with me, it became terribly apparent that despite valiant efforts, she was struggling mightily to make ends meet for her family.

This fine woman you see was a single mother who had a teenage daughter at home, a daughter she worried about because she just had too little time to spend with her because she worked so much.

And this fine woman also had a son who had recently graduated from high school, a son who intended to join the military to serve his country and hopefully find a way to a higher education and a brighter future.

The problem was her son had a medical condition which precluded him from military service. And by the way, as hard as she worked, this fine woman did not have any health insurance.

As this proud woman and mother told me of her struggles to build a future for her family, her exhaustion grew and her strength diminished as she tried to think of a phone number where she could be reached.

You see, this fine woman not only worked at the local bowling alley, she also worked two other jobs where she earned minimum wage.

As she talked, her dilemma was apparent--she worried that her jobs were robbing her of the time her kids needed to spend with her but she knew that she needed to work all three minimum wage jobs just to provide for them.

This is not a choice that any woman or man should have to make and our Congress over the last decade should be ashamed for not helping this fine woman and tens of millions more hard working Americans.

As you can see from this very real and personal story, raising the minimum wage is not about politics, it's about traditional American values, it's about fairness and opportunity, it's about changing the way we treat our working men and women.

It's about paying rent, putting food on the table and paying for our children to go to college.

That is why today's vote to increase the minimum wage is so important, not just for our Nation's working families, not just for that proud woman and mother working at the bowling alley, but for her children, for our future.

Today with Americans supporting us, we start fighting for those who have been for far too long neglected.

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding such time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the action we take today to cut interest rates on student loans for 5.5 million of our students most in need of financial assistance. This cut is vital because there is nothing more important than ensuring our students are well prepared to enter the workforce.

Many students in our Nation lack access to affordable higher education, and this has to be considered a crisis. While access to higher education has become more critical for our younger generation, the cost is rapidly moving out of reach for many low-income and middle- class families in this country.

Tuition and fees at 4-year public colleges and universities have risen 41 percent, after inflation, since 2001. The typical American student now graduates from college $17,500 in debt. This Congress, past Congresses, should be ashamed that financial barriers will prevent at least 4.4 million high school graduates from attending a 4-year public college over the next decade if we continue on this course. Costs will also prevent another 2 million high school graduates from attending any college at all.

Amazingly, instead of helping our students prepare themselves for a better future, recent Congresses have cut funding for student loan programs. With this step, we begin today to reverse that trend, which has hurt our students and has hurt our economic well-being as a Nation.

Despite what we may hear from some on the other side of the aisle, our proposal to cut student loan rates in half, in half, will help roughly 175,000 students in the State of Ohio, at universities like the University of Akron and Lorain Community College in my district. Starting this year, it is estimated that these students will save over $2,200 over the life of their loan, and that savings number is expected to increase to over $4,300 starting in 2011.

This is about opportunity, Mr. Speaker. Investment in our younger generations not only helps their future, but it helps our economy and our retired workers whom they will support. Cutting interest rates on student loans is not only about strengthening America's middle class and improving access to higher education for our students and families who are most in need, it is about strengthening America.

Education is the backbone of what we are about and everything that makes our Nation great. Let us pass H.R. 5 and give our students the opportunity they deserve and the American people what they have asked for through these recent elections. Today, we deliver on a promise.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Elyria Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service celebrated annually for the past 21 years. The city of Elyria, located in beautiful Lorain County, OH, has presented an award to the individual or group who best exemplified Dr. King's ideals of freedom, justice and opportunity.

Heman Ely founded Elyria, situated at the forks of the Black River, in 1817. The name Elyria came partially from Ely's own name and from his deep interest in the Austrian province of Illyria, which he visited in 1809 after its conquest by Napoleon. Elyria has enjoyed an illustrious history and has been home to a wide range of former residents.

In 1907, Elyria resident and businessperson Edgar Allen began raising money for a new local hospital in response to the tragic loss of his son in a streetcar accident. Allen was appalled at the lack of adequate services for special needs children so he sold his business and began raising money for a new local hospital. This fundraising culminated in the creation of Easter Seals organization in 1919. Other notable Elyria residents include current NFL quarterback Tim Rattay and the authors Sherwood Anderson and Robert Erwin Lee. With a wide-ranging history such as this, it is only natural for Elyria to celebrate the ideals of Dr. King.

All Americans know of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s stature as a national hero. From his celebrated ``Letter from Birmingham Jail'' to his organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King demonstrated that eloquent words followed with significant action could affect social change without resorting to violence. His ``I Have a Dream'' speech movingly spelled out his dream of racial equality and propelled the issue to the forefront of national consciousness.

In closing, I commend the City of Elyria and all the organizations that have spent countless hours organizing this celebration honoring Dr. King's birthday. These awards are given annually to recognize service and achievement of persons who live or work in the City of Elyria in areas consistent with the teachings and example of Dr. King. His dedication to racial, social and economic justice is a model that the world should emulate now more than ever and this is why I enthusiastically support this award.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the City of Akron and the 22nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture which will be held at the Akron-Summit County Main Library. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Akron-Summit County Public Library and the Eta Tau Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Inc.

Ozell Sutton will deliver the annual lecture. Civil rights and human rights are Sutton's passions. He served as an escort for the Little Rock Nine when they entered Central High School in Arizona in 1957. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington in 1963 and in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. He was in Memphis when King was killed in 1968. Mr. Sutton has been cited four times by Ebony magazine as one of the ``100 Most Influential African-American Leaders.''

All Americans know of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s stature as a national hero and we all look up to Dr. King's ideals of freedom, justice and opportunity. From his celebrated ``Letter from Birmingham Jail'' to his organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King demonstrated that eloquent words followed with significant action could affect social change without resorting to violence. His ``I Have a Dream'' speech movingly spelled out his dream of racial equality and propelled the issue to the forefront of national consciousness.

The City of Akron, which has a very rich history, is the seat of Summit County in the State of Ohio. The city is located between Cleveland to the north and Canton to the south. It was founded in 1825 near the Ohio & Erie Canal and became a manufacturing center owing to its location at a staircase of locks. The locks were needed due to the higher elevation of the area, which gave rise to the name Summit County as well as Akron, which is a rough translation of ``summit'' into Greek.

The city is home to the University of Akron, the Akron Aeros ``AA'' affiliate of the Cleveland Indians, and the Firestone Country Club, at which the PGA Tour's Bridgestone Invitational is annually played. Akron is often referred to as ``The Rubber City,'' being the home of both Goodyear and Firestone. The city is also home to the All-American Soap Box Derby which has been held at Akron's Derby Downs race track since 1935.

In closing, I once again pay tribute to the City of Akron and the 22nd Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to the Barberton Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service. The City of Barberton located in beautiful Summit County, Ohio has played host to this meaningful event. Dr. King's ideals of freedom, justice and opportunity need to be celebrated now more than ever.

Barberton originally started out as a collective of small farms owned by various individuals. In January of 1890, the Barberton Land Development Company purchased 600 acres of land that would eventually become Barberton. Over the next 2 years, William A. Johnson plotted and surveyed the land leaving an indelible mark on the city. In this short time, the population of Barberton grew at such leaps and bounds that a reporter from the Beacon Journal remarked that the city had grown by ``magic.'' This moniker stuck and to this day, the city is nicknamed ``Magic City.'' The population boom of Barberton exemplifies Dr. King's dream of opportunity.

All Americans know of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s stature as a national hero. From his celebrated ``Letter from Birmingham Jail'' to his organization of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King demonstrated that eloquent words followed with significant action could affect social change without resorting to violence. His ``I Have a Dream'' speech movingly spelled out his dream of racial equality and propelled the issue to the forefront of national consciousness.

In closing, I commend the City of Barberton and all the organizations that have spent countless hours organizing this celebration honoring Dr. King's birthday. Dr. King's dedication to racial, social and economic justice is a model that the world should emulate now more than ever.

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

Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong when we have our seniors paying record high drug prices and drug companies reporting record profits. Our seniors deserve nothing less than access to affordable medicine, which they have earned through a lifetime of hard work. This legislation helps us achieve this by opening the door for the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower drug prices.

Twenty-two million Americans would benefit from this proposal. Ninety-two percent of Americans support us providing this negotiating authority.

Mr. Speaker, let's be clear: This proposal is intricately linked to ethics reform. Last week we enacted historic changes, and now we are putting our seniors first and removing special interests from the picture.

The minority had a chance when they were in the majority to put forth a drug bill that helped seniors with the high cost of medicine. Instead, with backroom meetings, they choose to help the drug companies increase profits.

I am pleased as a cosponsor of this bill that we act today to help our seniors and keep our commitment to put their interests first.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the kind gentleman from California for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of raising the minimum wage to help our working families. In November, many Americans cast their votes for change because they were tired of the economic injustices working families have suffered over the last decade. Those who went to the polls want action on a clean bill from a Congress that has failed to raise the Federal minimum wage for nearly 10 years.

Voters in Ohio and five other States who believed in our democracy passed minimum wage increases. This is not only about increasing wages, it is about changing the way we treat our working men and women. And it is about traditional American values of fairness and opportunity. It is about paying rent, putting food on the table and paying for our children to go to college.

Mr. Speaker, the voters have given us a mandate. This is part of America's agenda. Today we act mindful of that mandate to help working families across this Nation by raising the minimum wage.

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

I rise in strong support of the rules package.

Trust is a fragile thing. It is difficult to win, but easy to lose. It finds its hold on promises kept and honesty sustained and unquestionable integrity.

As the representative of the 13th District of Ohio, I am honored to rise on

this historic day to speak for the first time on the floor of the people's House.

And in so rising, I am proud that I do so to keep the faith with the people who sent me here to serve.

With our actions today, on this first day of the reform Congress, we begin to fulfill the awesome responsibility entrusted to us by the American people.

We have heard the call for change and it shall be heeded. Today, we sever the links between those who would buy influence on Capitol Hill and those who would willingly sell it.

We act to clean up the corruption which has eroded the public trust and resulted in far too many policies that benefit the well connected and the privileged few, at the expense of the greater good.

Title II of our rules package does just this. We end the K Street Project, which took peddling of access and influence to soaring new heights. We act to eradicate the cronyism and corruption. We cut off the gifts, the perks and travel wielded by special interests. We take the darkest inner workings of government and sanitize them with the light of day.

We will work to adopt this set of anti-corruption reforms to dismantle the dark corridors and backrooms and avenues to abuse that have allowed corruption to grow and flourish.

We will beat back the culture and abuses that have hurt the American people, both in policy and in spirit.

Today, we heed the call to put a halt to the corruption that has tarnished this House.

Trust is a fragile, sacred thing. And we, in the new 110th Congress, will protect it with all the power of our office.