Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the ribbon cutting of Joliet Junior College's Tutoring and Learning Center in Joliet, Illinois.

Joliet Junior College was the first public community college in the nation, and since its founding in 1901 it has provided students with excellent educational opportunities. This tradition will continue with the opening of the Tutoring and Learning Center.

The Tutoring and Learning Center will provide students with free access to tutoring services such as drop-in math assistance, presentation training, online tutoring, and writing assistance, all under one roof. These services will give Joliet Junior College students the skills they need to succeed not only in their education, but after graduation as well.

Again, I would like to congratulate Joliet Junior College on the opening of the Tutoring and Learning Center and thank the college for its hard work on behalf of our students.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the ribbon cutting of the Veterans Resource Center at Joliet Junior College.

The Veterans Resource Center will benefit approximately 300 students that use GI education benefits every semester at Joliet Junior College. The dedicated space will provide veterans with an area to socialize, study, access computers, and attend counseling sessions.

I applaud Joliet Junior College for providing our veterans with services like the Veterans Resource Center and for its dedication to ensuring that the men and women who serve our country have access to a great education in a supportive environment.

I congratulate Joliet Junior College on opening the Veterans Resource Center and thank the college for its hard work on behalf of our veterans.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Hispanic Pioneer's Breakfast in Aurora, Illinois.

For the past ten years, Alderman Juany Garza, who represents Ward 2 on the City Council of Aurora, has hosted a breakfast to honor the members of the Hispanic community who have given back and inspired us all.

These breakfasts have honored diverse members of the community. Past honorees have included local sports figures, health care providers, police officers, firefighters, and members of the military.

For the 10th Annual Hispanic Pioneer's Breakfast, Alderman Garza is highlighting the contributions of the unsung heroes in Aurora, people who have dedicated their time and effort to making their community better without looking for praise or reward.

I would like to thank our unsung heroes for their dedication to making our community stronger. I would also like to thank Alderman Garza for her continued service to the people of Aurora, Illinois.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry as it celebrates its 100 year anniversary.

For the past century, the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry has supported local businesses with training, charitable work, and community promotion.

I would like to recognize and thank the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chair of the Board Jeff Thompson and the rest of the Chamber Board for their leadership and dedication to our community. I would also like to recognize and thank Russ Slinkard, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and all of the staff.

The Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry has been a partner to the city as it has grown and changed over the past 100 years. The Chamber plays a vital role in the economic health of Joliet and the surrounding area.

Again, I would like to congratulate the Joliet Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry for 100 years of service to our community.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 468 had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on July 22, I missed one recorded vote. I would like to indicate how I would have voted had I been present.

On rollcall No. 434, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to an issue that is near and dear to many constituents in my district.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the decades-long struggle to find a common ground between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. On July 20, 1974, Turkey deployed its military forces to the island of Cyprus, separating thousands of families from their homes and dividing the sovereign nation in half.

Today, there are still many challenges that the Greek and Turkish Cypriots need to resolve before reunification can take place. While the path won't be easy and it will take the political courage of both sides, I am confident that a peaceful resolution can be found.

On February 11, 2014, the two Cypriot leaders, Nicos Anastasiades and Dervish Eroglu, renewed negotiations for a Cyprus settlement. This Joint Statement reflects the spirit of compromise and lays down a solid foundation for result-oriented talks.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in urging for the peaceful reunification of the island of Cyprus and I call upon the United States to do everything it can to support both sides in this process.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment to increase overall spending for the Department of Energy's Office of Science.

The underlying bill provides a budget allocation approximately $40 million below the President's request for the Office of Science. My amendment would restore the funding level to the President's request. Our national labs and the major user facilities housed at those labs are some of the greatest tools that we have to offer researchers and industry. My amendment would ensure that our national labs are on a sound footing to maintain our role as a global leader in innovation and scientific research.

The greatest long-term economic and national security threat that our country faces is the prospect of losing our role as world leaders in science and technology. Nothing is more critical to preserving our role as world leaders than the fundamental and applied scientific research that is supported by the DOE Office of Science.

As a physicist who worked at Fermi National Accelerator Lab for over 20 years, I understand the productivity

and the potential of the Department of Energy's national lab system, their contributions to our economy, and the wide range of scientific research that they support.

The Chicago area is home to a number of scientific centers, including Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory. The economic impact of Argonne and Fermilab in Illinois alone is estimated to be more than $1.3 billion annually.

The work done at Argonne and Fermi national labs not only supports our local economy, employing roughly 5,000 people in Illinois, but it is critical to our Nation's long-term economic success.

Despite the economic benefits of scientific research, Federal investments in research and development are at historically low levels. In 2014, our Federal spending on R&D, both defense and nondefense, amounted to less than 1 percent of our GDP, a trend that simply must be reversed.

In fact, over the last 3 years, Federal research and development expenditures decreased by 16.3 percent, which is the steepest decline over a 3-year period since the end of the space race.

We simply cannot sustain this downward trend and still expect to be at the cutting edge of scientific research and innovation.

The Office of Science is responsible for supporting research that is too big for any single company or university to develop. Our national labs are critical research tools to academics and industry alike. For example, Eli Lilly conducts nearly half of its drug discovery research at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne.

The Office of Science is also home to the Department's newest ventures, the innovation hubs, which seek to discover and develop the next generation of energy sources and delivery systems.

Programs like the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, headquartered at Argonne, and the Fuels from Sunlight Hub, headquartered at the California Institute of Technology, bring together multiple teams of researchers who are working to develop energy advancements that have the potential to transform energy systems.

The Office of Science also invests in fusion, a safe, clean, and sustainable energy source that has the scientific potential to provide the U.S. with energy independence and a nearly limitless energy supply.

Through the Office of Science's Biological and Environmental Research programs, we have become world leaders in biofuels research. This research is laying the foundation for a revolution in biofuel production that will help to lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

And the list goes on.

The investments in the DOE Office of Science have also supported research driven by intellectual curiosity alone, such as the discovery science at the forefront of high energy and particle physics, astronomy, or the physics of ultracold atoms.

These investments have led to the development of new technology such as the construction of accelerators and detectors that enable our scientists to discover new particles, including the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter, and the Higgs boson, that help explain the fundamental nature of the universe.

But perhaps most importantly, the Office of Science has supported the training of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers for more than 60 years.

At a time of continuing economic stress, we must continue to develop the next generation of American technical workforce. As other world powers are growing and challenging our position as a global leader in science and innovation, we cannot afford to let the number of American scientists and researchers, or the quality of their research facilities, diminish.

Funding scientific research and development results in one of the highest return on investments that our Nation can make. It is essential that we continue to fully support funding for our national labs to preserve our global competitive advantage.

I rise in strong support of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am proud to offer this amendment on behalf of Representative Rush Holt, who is, even as we speak, being honored for his many years of service to science, to Congress, and to the citizens of New Jersey.

Our amendment simply transfers funds within the Department of Energy's Office of Science account with the intent of restoring the National Undergraduate Fellowship Program, sometimes affectionately referred to NUF.

The Department of Energy's FY 2015 budget request would zero out funding for NUF while increasing funding for the Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships, sometimes referred to as SULI.

Our amendment would simply reallocate the additional SULI funding back to NUF, allowing the program to continue. The elimination of NUF would reduce the overall slots available for those wishing to study plasma physics.

Additionally, the goal of NUF is to support a very specific workforce need, and an analysis of the numbers proves that this program has been remarkably successful, particularly in encouraging female participation in the sciences.

According to the data collected by program administrators, since 2000, almost three-quarters of the undergraduate students who have participated in NUF have entered a doctoral program in physics, and nearly half have studied plasma physics or related fields.

The program has succeeded in encouraging women to study plasma physics. The Division of Plasma Physics of the American Physical Society has a female composition of only 7 percent, yet 51 percent of female NUF participants enter a Ph.D. program, with almost half of those entering the plasma physics Ph.D. program.

I urge support for this amendment, which would restore the NUF program, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member Kaptur for their work on this bill and for their support of this amendment.

Before I yield, Mr. Chairman, I would like to read a section from a June 21, 2014, report by the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee, which assessed workforce development needs and the importance of a wide education pipeline:

A complete picture of the scientific workforce must be

understood in the context of the broader education pipeline.

There are many reports that discuss the challenge of training

highly qualified individuals in the so-called STEM--science,

technology, engineering, and mathematics--fields. We believe

that a robust workforce for fusion energy sciences requires a

wide pipeline that starts with precollege activities and ends

with strong employment opportunities. This pipeline should

also tap into the full potential of the American populace,

with opportunities to attract women and groups that are

traditionally underrepresented in STEM fields.

The adoption of our amendment today will help address this point in part, but we would also like to state our opposition to the Department of Energy's plan to remove precollege science education activities from its mission portfolio.

The Department of Energy labs provide world-class facilities, where students and scientists conduct groundbreaking research. These facilities should operate both as hubs of innovation and as research tools to engage students.

When young students and teachers are able to directly engage with our national labs, it inspires an interest and a passion for science beyond what any textbook or online resource could ever provide.

Both Representative Holt and I worked at a national lab for many years before coming to Congress, and we have witnessed firsthand how a young student's time spent among researchers and experiments can inspire a lifelong interest in science.

We fear that, in limiting educational activities only to the Education Department, that we will further isolate the public from important scientific research that is being conducted in our national labs and that we will diminish science education in America overall.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Herschel Luckinbill of Montgomery, Illinois, as the Illinois Veteran of the Month for June 2014. The title of Veteran of the Month is bestowed upon individuals who have been exceptionally dedicated to honoring veterans and improving our community.

A Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, Mr. Luckinbill has taken great effort to continue his service beyond Active Duty. As a member of the Aurora Veterans Advisory Council, Mr. Luckinbill represents the interests of veterans in our community. Mr. Luckinbill organized efforts to bring The Vietnam Moving Wall to Aurora in 2013, giving the community and the next generation the opportunity to honor the fallen. Working as part of the organization Honor Flight Chicago, Mr. Luckinbill has helped World War II veterans fly to Washington to view the monuments that were erected in their honor.

We can never fully repay those who have risked and given their lives in service to our country, but because of the tireless efforts of advocates like Herschel Luckinbill, their sacrifice will not be forgotten.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me today in recognizing Mr. Herschel Luckinbill for his service to our country and to veterans in our community.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the greatest legislative achievements in the history of our country.

There were so many men and women who were a part of the civil rights movement, but I would like to take this time to highlight one of them who has been especially important in my life, and that is my father, who was a civil rights lawyer and who wrote much of the enforcement language behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was one of the greatest achievements

in human rights in our Nation's history.

Like me, my father was trained as a scientist. During World War II, he designed fire-control computers for the Navy. Most of the way through the war, he started getting reports about how many people had been killed this week by his team's equipment. Despite his understanding of the justice of that war, he became deeply unhappy with the idea of his technical skills being used to hurt other human beings.

So when he came back from the war, he thought about it for a while and decided that he wanted to spend part of his life in service to his fellow man. This was the late 1940s and 1950s and the birth of the civil rights movement.

My father grew up in the South, where he saw firsthand the struggles for equality and basic human rights. He saw civil rights as the great cause of his generation. So he left behind his career in science and became a civil rights lawyer.

My father, among other things, wrote the Federal regulations for implementing school desegregation under title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were 10 years between the famous Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which established the right of children to attend integrated schools, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During those 10 years, only the Federal courts attempted to desegregate the public school systems. My father spent much of those 10 years traveling around the South, interviewing and offering advice to school districts that were struggling with the implications of Brown v. Board of Education.

My father served as sort of an informal advance man for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. He would send back memos saying, for example, that in one southern county there was one guy who runs the place, that understands the tide of history, and if you could get Burke Marshall or Robert Kennedy or whoever was running the Justice Department to give him a call, then everything would be okay; but in another county, it was a lost cause, and you should just plan on bringing in troops and filing suit.

It was while actually reading my father's papers after he passed away that I first started thinking about stepping away from my career in science and spending part of my life in service to my fellow man.

It was as a result of this work that when the Civil Rights Act was passed, my father, who had become somewhat of an expert on the nuts and bolts of desegregating schools, was called upon to write what were referred to as the Federal guidelines for implementing title VI of the Civil Rights Act. These were the detailed rules that called out what Southern school systems had to do each year to desegregate their schools in order to qualify for Federal funds.

With the carrot of Federal education funding and the stick provided by the Federal guidelines for title VI of the Civil Rights Act, more school desegregation was achieved in the year following the Civil Rights Act than had been achieved in the previous 10 years following Brown v. Board of Education.

My father had the chance to work with some of the leaders of the civil rights movement. He described having dinner at the kitchen table of Myrlie and Medgar Evers and holding their infant child in his hands only weeks before Medgar was shot down in his driveway.

My father was not an activist or a protester, but he saw a great injustice and he quietly devoted himself to changing it.

Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said:

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards

justice.

But the arc does not bend on its own.

On July 2, 1964, when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law, the arc was bent towards justice, but only because of the tireless efforts of so many who fought so long to bend it in the right direction. I am proud to say that my father was among them.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor all of those who played a part in advancing civil rights and making our country and our universe more just.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Loaves & Fishes 7th annual Day Without Hunger. Over the past thirty years, the Loaves & Fishes team has been committed to providing a hand up to those most in need in DuPage County with food assistance and other services.

This organization has grown exponentially in size and scope in order to realize their vision of ending hunger in DuPage County. In 1984, the year of their founding, the Loaves & Fishes team assisted eight households in the Naperville area, providing them with food to sustain their families. Today, Loaves & Fishes has expanded to serve all of DuPage County, helping thousands of families. Last year alone, Loaves & Fishes distributed over 3,200,000 pounds of food, serving 18,564 individuals.

The Loaves & Fishes team has helped close the gap for children who rely on school food services. Since 2004, they have assisted with school nutrition programs, ensuring that Naperville students get meals during the summer months. Additionally, breakfast assistance programs which they support give students a proper meal to start the school day.

In addition to food assistance, Loaves & Fishes has expanded to do even more to support the community. Since 2011, Loaves & Fishes has supported Pathways to Empowerment programs which provide assistance with various services, from health care enrollment to support in starting a job search.

The Loaves & Fishes team not only provides food for those in need, but they also provide an opportunity for individuals to serve their friends and neighbors by volunteering. Truly, this organization empowers both recipients and volunteers.

Today, I am proud to recognize Loaves & Fishes for the invaluable service the organization has provided and the thousands of lives they have touched.

Madam Speaker, as a scientist, it is not often that I come to the floor to speak out on works of science fiction, but I rise today to recognize the Fifth Annual Star Wars Day, hosted by the Joliet Public Library on Saturday, June 7, 2014.

The event not only brings the community together into the historic and welcoming streets of downtown Joliet, but also promotes literacy, science, technology, engineering, and math in a fun and exciting atmosphere that captivates young minds.

Thanks to the library's Star Wars Day, no Jedi mind tricks are needed to get children to read over the summer. In its 5 years, Star Wars Day has grown to over 7,000 attendees, thanks to the hard work of many people.

And as the Star Wars parade marched proudly down Ottawa Street, with Imperial Storm Troopers, Jedi Knights, and Ewoks in full costume, I would like to especially recognize the Sand People who, of course, march single file to hide their numbers.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me today in recognizing the Joliet Public Library for their efforts to promote library services, literacy, and STEM education with their Fifth Annual Star Wars Day.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Safety and Security Department of Presence Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, Illinois. Safety and security is a growing concern for healthcare facilities, and Presence Mercy Medical Center has responded by preparing their security team to prevent crimes before they begin and respond to criminal activity promptly.

The 2012 Crime and Security Trends Survey conducted by the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS) highlights the increasing dangers healthcare workers face. The survey found that in 2012 there were over 20,500 crimes committed in healthcare facilities, a 37 percent rise from 2010.

The Safety and Security Department at Presence Mercy Medical Center has responded to these recent developments by exposing their security officers to comprehensive training and preparation programs. All of their department's members have studied, tested, and received certification in Basic Training by the IAHSS, 92 percent have received Advanced certification, and 83 percent have received Supervisor certification.

These efforts have made Presence Mercy a model security team at a time when healthcare safety and security is a significantly mounting concern.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the Safety and Security Department members for their excellence in safety and security preparation:

Doug Kaiser; Robert Lea; Christian Pfister; Darin Northern; Jim Rees; Victor Jimenez; Miguel Saenz; Kerry Haggard; Tom Greiner; David Oliver; Nora Rodriguez.

Mr. Speaker, on May 28, I missed two recorded votes. Had I been present, on rollcall No. 241, I would have voted ``aye.'' On rollcall No. 242, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor John Houbolt, a native of Joliet, Illinois. He was one of the great unsung heroes of the Apollo program.

Politicians are fond of citing President Kennedy's famous speech made in this room at a joint session of Congress more than 50 years ago to ``commit this Nation, before this decade is out, to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.'' Politicians like to imagine that anything is possible if the right politician and speechwriter can muster just the right words to stir a country to action, but engineers know differently. If you do not have a workable engineering concept and a set of design parameters that respect both available resource limitations and engineering reality, then no amount of fine words from politicians is going to make any difference. Dr. John Houbolt provided that crucial engineering concept that made the 10-year success of the Apollo program possible.

John Houbolt came from humble beginnings, working 16 hours a day on his family's dairy farm near Joliet, Illinois, where he developed an early interest in aviation, building model airports in his free time. He graduated from Joliet Township High School and Joliet Junior College. He obtained a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Illinois in civil engineering. He then went on to obtain a

Ph.D. and serve as an engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center. His contributions to the U.S. space race in the 1960s were vital to NASA's successful Moon landing.

He is best known for his advocacy of lunar orbit rendezvous, the crucial mission design decision that proved essential to carry the Apollo crew safely to the Moon and back in 1969. Dr. Houbolt, along with several of his colleagues at Langley, became convinced that this relatively obscure technique was the only feasible way to land on the Moon by the end of the decade.

Initially, NASA rejected Dr. Houbolt's plan for being too complicated and risky, but like the world's greatest innovators, Dr. Houbolt didn't let initial failure stop him. Despite opposition from NASA and from leading rocket scientists at the time, Dr. Houbolt tenaciously advocated for lunar orbit rendezvous.

To convince the decisionmakers at NASA to consider his plan, Dr. Houbolt took the bold step of writing a letter directly to the associate administrator of NASA--at the time a clear breach of protocol. ``Do we want to go to the Moon or not?'' asked Dr. Houbolt. Because of his tenacity, NASA gave his idea another chance and eventually approved it.

Now, John Houbolt won that argument, despite having had all the political winds blowing against him, because he had fundamental engineering reality on his side. It was simply not possible, with the engines and boosters that could plausibly be developed in the 1960s, to launch a payload that would allow a manned rocket to land in its entirety on the Moon, including all of the fuel necessary to return to the Earth. But, as John Houbolt pointed out, if you left the fuel for the return trip in lunar orbit and rendezvoused with the command module after making the lunar landing, then a single Saturn booster, already under design at the Marshall Space Flight Center, could do the job.

NASA Administrator George Low later said of this pivotal moment:

It is my strongly held opinion that without the lunar

rendezvous mode, Apollo would not have succeeded; and without

John Houbolt's letter, we might not have chosen the lunar

orbit rendezvous mode.

The lunar rendezvous mode has been described by space historians as ``Langley's most important contribution to the Apollo program'' and is widely credited for allowing the United States to accomplish the goal President John F. Kennedy set out in 1961, to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

Dr. Houbolt received numerous awards for his work, including NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and was the first recipient of Joliet Junior College's Distinguished Alumni Award.

Additionally, the Joliet Historical Museum is home to a permanent exhibit dedicated to Dr. Houbolt and to his family, titled, ``The Soaring Achievements of John C. Houbolt.'' They have now declared July 20, 2014, the 45th anniversary of the Moon landing, as Houbolt Family Day at the museum. The museum will be open free to the public each July 20 to encourage families to learn about Joliet's local contribution to one of humankind's greatest scientific achievements.

Dr. Houbolt retired after a distinguished career in 1985. He and his family remained noted philanthropists and supporters of the community of Joliet, touching countless individuals with their generosity.

Dr. Houbolt passed away on April 15, 2014, at the age of 95. His life is an example of the impact that a determined, intelligent, and passionate individual can have. I rise today to remember Dr. Houbolt for his outstanding contributions to American science and engineering.

In a society where we seem to celebrate mainly the accomplishments of our heroes in sports and entertainment, as well as those who ride our rockets off into space, it is important also to celebrate the heroes of science and engineering who make the modern world possible.