Floor Statements

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my outrage and my disappointment at the Oakland, California, Police Department, which reacted with brutality to those peacefully protesting. Mr. Speaker, I want to remind our Nation's law enforcement authorities all across the land that civil disobedience is as American as American pie. It is the act through which our great Nation was conceived. It required great courage to do what they did at the Boston Tea Party. It required great courage for the great American, Henry David Thoreau, to refuse to go to war against Mexico in 1849, an act that gave birth to the anti-war movement that continues today.

The equalities that we as Americans enjoy today are the result of those great, courageous Americans that fought for our liberties, Mr. Speaker. The women's suffrage movement went from 1848 to 1920. Generations of courageous women marched, they fasted, and they were arrested. Finally, in 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. It took more than seven decades of civil disobedience to achieve the change that they sought.

Let's not forget, Mr. Speaker, that the abolition of slavery, the labor movement and the eradication of child labor, the civil rights movement, and the environmental movement all used civil disobedience as a powerful and peaceful weapon to change laws and to protect all of our liberties.

Members of the Occupy Movement now emerge as yet another generation of courageous Americans voicing a general frustration that many citizens feel: It was a money-driven elite that mismanaged the American economy. They are challenging us, this Congress, our government, to reform not only Wall Street but reform a culture of selfishness and greed that has distorted who we are and made the American Dream appear unattainable. We are losing ground as a result of these individuals, this grotesque, American, greedy and avaricious elite.

The Occupy Movement, Mr. Speaker, embodies a sense of growing disillusionment with the direction of our country. I, for one, understand that feeling. With deadlock a daily occurrence in this very House, it is hard for the American people not to feel a sense of utter frustration. They see their elected representatives unable to govern at this crucial time.

Mr. Speaker, a betrayal of American values occurred last night in Oakland, California, when police fired tear gas on those peaceful demonstrators. It occurred in New York City when police maced and beat protesters. Government violence against our own people? Is this not the very thing that we condemn in other places all around the world? How dare we denounce an action when committed abroad but yet remain silent when it happens in our own, very own--our own backyards.

I, for one, cannot remain silent. History teaches us that a violent response

to civil disobedience never, ever works. It makes people angrier and turns public opinion against law enforcement, against the police. It is counterproductive, and it never achieves the goals of those who are trying to impose order.

Getting arrested is a fundamental part of civil disobedience. The Occupy Movement demonstrators expected to be arrested. Civil disobedience participants all expect to be arrested, but they should also expect that the police will conduct themselves with professional understanding and a sensitivity of the power that they possess and of the government they represent. They carry weapons. They have the power to maim, to kill, to wound, and to arrest.

With that great power comes an even greater responsibility. That greater responsibility includes the freedoms that were promised to all American citizens in that great document, the preamble to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which is the freedom from ``unreasonable searches and seizures'' as promised in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution; the freedom from ``cruel and unusual punishments'' as promised in the Eighth Amendment; finally, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps most importantly, the freedom enshrined in the First Amendment, which guarantees ``the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.''

It is the job of law enforcement to uphold these freedoms, to uphold our Constitution, to uphold justice even in the most difficult of situations. Beatings and mace and tear gas against our own people exercising their constitutional rights? That is unacceptable. More importantly, it is un-American.

I do sympathize with the tough job our Nation's police officers face now and have faced, and I can understand why they may feel intimidated by the sheer numbers or may mistake the demonstrators' passion for aggression. However, in a humble way, I ask the police officers who are monitoring these protests to act with a rational head, with soberness, with restraint. Violence only breeds violence. Such unwarranted crowd control methods will only serve to create mutual contempt between protesters and the police alike, dividing Americans against Americans and citizens against the police. We don't want that. This is not a nation that supports and encourages that type of activity.

It was only last week, Mr. Speaker, that we--this Nation, the citizens of the greatest country in the history of the world--dedicated a memorial to a man who was the embodiment, the living proof, of the power of civil disobedience and nonviolence. It is those who marched peacefully in the face of fire hoses, in the face of dogs attacking them, of police batons striking them all over their bodies, including their heads, who changed America.

Now a new generation follows boldly and audaciously with an American audacity. They follow in the footsteps of those American patriots who dared to disobey the law of the land as a matter of conscience and priority, as a matter of conscience that created this great civil society called the United States of America. They made our Nation better back then, and I believe the Occupy Movement challenges us to make America better now.

Yes, it can be done. America can be better. America must address the issues that those who are now demonstrating peacefully across the land are raising. They are only trying to peacefully redress their grievances. It is their constitutional right. How dare dogs, how dare tear gas, how dare police attack them in the wee hours of the morning.

Mr. Speaker, the mayor of Oakland, California, Mayor Jean Quan, owes the Occupy Movement a sincere, heartfelt apology. Mayor Quan owes the American people a sincere, heartfelt apology. At 3 a.m. yesterday, the Oakland Police invaded the park where the protesters were assembled.

Forty-five years ago in the same city, 45 years ago this very week, an organization that I became a member of, the Black Panther Party, was founded in Oakland, California, as a result of the police brutality of the Oakland Police Department. Forty-five years later, I as a Member of this esteemed body, the House of Representatives, am ashamed to bear witness once again to the same Oakland Police Department violating and attacking and brutalizing innocent citizens who are protesting, bringing their deep-felt grievances to the forefront and engaging in acts of civil disobedience.

Police batons, tear gas, mace, no matter what the weapon is, no matter what the strategy is, they cannot kill this movement. They cannot stop this movement. This occupy movement is going to move forward. It's going to move forward with an accelerated pace because of the actions of the police department in Oakland and in other cities across this Nation.

They have a right to protest. They have a right to make their voices heard. They have a right, as called for in the gospel of Jesus Christ in the Bible, to make their bodies a living sacrifice. These individuals, they are epitomizing the greatness in this hour. It's a thing that we celebrate all across the land.

We celebrated it in Tunisia, we celebrated it in Egypt, we celebrated it in Libya, we celebrated it in Yemen, we celebrated it in China, we celebrated it in other places all across the world. How can we be so hypocritical? How can we be so insensitive? How can we be so arrogant to celebrate civil disobedience in other places across the world and attack the same, the very same actions and attitude here in our Nation when our citizens engage in civil disobedience?

Mr. Speaker, I say that those who are involved in the occupy movement, you are just lighting the first spark in a prairie fire of peaceful demonstrations across this land. Don't give up, don't give out, and please don't give in.

Godspeed to you. We need you. You're doing the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. Keep doing what you're doing. Stand up for what you believe in. Stand up for what you believe in.

It's high time now that the American people stand up for what they believe in and take to the streets to demonstrate to all that we're sick and tired of being sick and tired. We're sick and tired of home foreclosures. We're sick and tired of unemployment. We're sick and tired of being sick and tired, as Fannie Lou Hamer once said.

We're just sick and tired. We're sick, yes, of the rising cost of health care. We need to demonstrate and protest the rising cost of health care.

We're sick and tired of the rising gap between those who are sitting high on the hog, the wealthy, the elite, and those who are at the bottom; the rising gap between those who are unemployed and underemployed, who are chronically unemployed and the 1 percent who are reaping all the wealth of this Nation and telling the rest of us that they have a right to the wealth of the Nation, but yet we as American citizens don't have a right to a decent job. We as American citizens don't have a right to decent housing, that we as American citizens don't have a right to a decent education, that we as American citizens don't have a right to decent health care.

How can they look down on us and tell us that we don't have a right to the same opportunities and to the same life-style and to the same benefits? How can they tell the dwindling, disappearing American middle class that they don't have a right to demonstrate?

These are our children, and they want a better future. These are our children, and they are willing to fight for a better future.

These are our children, and they have the courage to stand up against the government, to stand up against the elite, to stand for their rights. And I am proud that our children are standing up and standing for something to try to get some meaning into their lives and try to make this Nation a better Nation.

I'm proud of them and, again, I say to them, don't give up, don't give out, and please don't give in. Godspeed to you.

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

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, my amendment simply provides Federal enforcement authority so that if the EPA administrator determines that a structure is in violation of a State coal combustion residuals permit program and the State has not taken appropriate action to enforce such permit program with respect to such structure, the administrator may inspect such structure and enforce the requirements of such permit program.

Madam Chair, as currently drafted, H.R. 2273 fails to require States to enforce their own permit requirements. The manager's amendment only requires States to describe their ``process to enforce,'' but there is no hint, no requirement, not a syllable to actually enforce regulations. This built-in loophole in H.R. 2273 does not require adequate State inspection of coal ash ponds and landfills, and it allows States to set up voluntary regulatory programs, which will clearly not ensure the safe design, the safe operation, and the cleanup of the Nation's many toxic coal ash disposal sites.

Madam Chair, due to a well-noted case in my district of Crestwood, Illinois, where contaminated drinking water was piped into the homes of my constituents for over 20 years, between 1986 and 2007, without any intervention from either the State or Federal EPA agencies, I, for one, am very sensitive to this issue.

Since the beginning of this current Congress, the Republican majority has been on a never-ending, nonstop, forever-and-ever crusade against the EPA and our Nation's environmental protection laws on behalf of a few industries and to the detriment of the public good. However, for many of my constituents, there is no greater role for Congress to play than to protect their lives, their livelihoods, the livelihoods of their children, and the lives of their children by ensuring that all American citizens have access to clean air and clean water.

Madam Chair, I believe that it is a false choice to try to frame these tremendously important policy decisions under the paradigm of either clean air and water or jobs and employment. As leaders, it is our job, it is our responsibility to find the right balance when crafting legislation so that our constituents are not faced with these types of lose-lose situations and decisions.

I believe that my amendment will go a long way in trying to make this legislation far more balanced so that, at the very least, we allow the Federal Government, our government, to serve as the last backstop for the American people against companies that will seek to skirt the law without regard for the families and communities these companies would do harm to.

Madam Chair, many of my constituents, they don't have the money. They don't have the influence that industry has. So they're counting on us, this Congress, their Congressional representatives, to protect their interests,

to fight for them just as those who are fighting for the interest of a few corporations in this body are doing.

In fact, Madam Chair, I want to end with a quote from a letter dated July 11 that my office received from a number of ordinary American families who live by coal ash dumps all across this country.

I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment.

Hon. Fred Upton,

Chairman, House Energy and Commerce Committee, House of

Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: Tomorrow, we understand that your

committee will vote on a bill that would leave oversight of

coal ash dumps to the states, and prevent EPA from taking

action against polluters who threaten Our groundwater. We

know Congress has already heard from industry lobbyists, big

contributors, and bureaucrats. But please hear our voices,

since we live near these dumps, and put up with their

pollution year after year.

We know what it is like to suffer through the daily

onslaught of blowing ash, drink water from faucets

contaminated with ash leachate, and see our wetlands and

creeks poisoned with toxic metals like arsenic. We have

complained again and again about the endless noise, dust and

pollution from trucks dumping coal ash near us while we

become more stressed out or sick and the value of our

property plummets, with no real response from our states. Two

years ago, we were promised that the US Environmental

Protection Agency would finally set national standards to

clean up these sites, and close the most dangerous ones.

Now we face legislation that would stop EPA in its tracks,

and replace real standards with state ``plans'' that

polluters could ignore without fear of enforcement by EPA.

After what is already known about the danger from storing

millions of tons of coal ash in unlined ponds, why would you

tie the government's hands from ever stopping this practice?

Do our lives matter to you?

Is protecting coal ash ``recycling'' more important than

our health or the quality of our water? Even those who

believe that cannot seriously argue that shielding leaking

dumps from EPA enforcement somehow makes recycling easier.

And ash mixed with other wastes in leaking ponds--now a

common practice--cannot be recycled at all.

What will you accomplish by requiring federal and state

bureaucrats to review, and then approve, disapprove, and

reapprove state plans that can never actually be enforced by

EPA against polluters? If your own family's drinking water

was being contaminated, would you think haggling over

``plans'' the right response?

States have had decades to clean up these dumpsites, and

have done nothing--or next to nothing--as contamination has

spread, even after the TVA spill put the issue on the

national news. We know good, hard-working people in our state

agencies, but budget cuts, political pressure, the power of

local polluters, and the lack of any serious oversight or

enforcement from EPA make their job impossible.

Put yourself in our place. Have you lived near a power

plant's landfill or ash pond like we or our neighbors do, and

found out that the water you and your children drink may be

unsafe to drink? How long would you want to wait for your

state agency to do something about the problem? Three years?

Five years? Ten? We have waited that long, and are waiting

still.

As the Americans who live next to our nation's ash dumps,

our opinions should matter. These dumps should have permits

that we can comment on. We need the right to comment on a

solid waste plan. We should be able to object to any permit

or plan that threatens our lives and property, and the

government should be given a deadline to respond. Dumps that

contaminate groundwater should be closed, and the groundwater

cleaned up. And EPA should be able to crack down on

polluters--without having to wade through endless

``planning''--or the bill you pass will mean nothing.

As you consider this legislation, please don't forget about

us. We are not `against the coal industry.' We simply want

the laws that are supposed to protect people to be enforced.

We appreciate your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Joe and Teresa Trotter, 117 South County Road 400 West,

Sullivan, IN 47882.

George Adey, 4082 W Dunes Hwy, Michigan City, IN 46360.

Terry Miller and Barbara Handley-Miller, 4649 David Court,

Bay City, MI 48706.

Patrick Race, 1004 N. Sheridan, Bay City, MI 48708.

Saleh and Hanadi Abu-Hussein, 8424 State Road 64,

Princeton, IN 47670.

George Bink, 6125 E. County Line Rd., Racine, WI 53402.

Vicki Kuzio and Shirley Stribling, 3888 W. Dunes Hwy,

Michigan City, IN 46360.

Ron and Patricia Riley, 8329 W 175 N, Princeton, IN 47670.

Daniel Brand, 5228 County Road A, Sheboygan Falls, WI

53085.

Mike and Rachel Slunder, 8245 W 175 N, Princeton, IN 47670.

Mary Tinsley, 325 Division St., Mount Carmel, IL 62863.

Vicki Hodgson, 15466 N 2250 Boulevard, Allendale, IL 62410.

Amy Bonsall, Labadie Environmental Organization, 4467 Boles

Road, Labadie, MO 63055.

Cathy Schnur, 5337 Heatherfield Ct., Sheboygan, WI 53083.

Norm and Jill Buchmann, 6508 Running Horse Road, Racine, WI

53402.

Raymond and Yelissa Pfeiffer, 806 S Arbor St, Bay City, MI

48706.

Barbara Hugier, 8741 Foley Road, Racine, WI 53402, Oak

Creek/Caledonia coal run power plant (WE).

Michael and Martha Blann, 4919 W County Rd 25 N, Sullivan

Will the gentleman yield?

I want to thank the gentleman.

I have read the bill. And under this bill, if a State fails to do an adequate job of enforcing this program there is only one remedy: EPA has to take over the entire program. And we all know that having EPA take over a State's program is unlikely and highly undesirable.

My amendment creates an additional remedy for inadequate State enforcement that is more measured than taking over a State's program. It allows the EPA to enforce State requirements if a structure is in violation and the State isn't doing anything about it. Without this amendment, a State could fail to implement their program for coal ash disposal in a way that puts human health and the environment at risk, and there would be no discrete way for the EPA to intervene to provide the necessary safeguards.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, no one will forget the fateful day of 9/11 or those who lost their lives in those shocking, cold-blooded attacks. The bombing of Afghanistan and the subsequent invasion was our response, intended to catch those who hid, armed, and helped plan the attacks on U.S. soil. And, due to the diligence and tireless efforts of the members of our Armed Forces and Intelligence community, we have eliminated nearly all the people involved in the 9/11 attacks, including Osama

Bin Laden, and overthrown the Taliban regime that supported them. If there was justice to be had surely, we have found it.

Afghanistan has been embroiled in conflict since 1979 and there is no sign of an end to this conflict. The future stability of Afghanistan is, of course, an ideal we all wish for but with Americans deployed so far away from their homes and families, with our troop presence at an all-time high, and with the insurgency still on-going, we need to reassess why, 10 years later, we are still fighting a costly war with no victory or stability in sight.

We have spent approximately half a trillion dollars in our war in Afghanistan. It is, therefore, past time that we remember what we've learned in the past: that fighting a war against a nationalistic guerilla organization takes more than technological superiority and force of numbers. Imagine what this resource could do on our homeland.

Imagine how many schools, roads, and hospitals half a trillion dollars could build in our own country. Imagine how many hungry kids we could feed or how many of our sick we could treat. Half a trillion dollars could stamp out poverty in places like Philadelphia, Detroit, Memphis, and my hometown of Chicago.

It is perplexing to me, then, why some people would rather spend half a trillion dollars on an unwinnable war abroad rather than on solutions to problems here at home.

I sincerely hope that the Afghan people get to enjoy the benefits of living in a free and prosperous society. They should be free to pursue the education or livelihood of their choosing. I have great respect for our foreign policy and the fact that we care so deeply about the freedoms of those abroad but now is the time we need to be ensuring the economic freedoms of our citizens here at home.

Now is the time that we must refocus on our own country and reinvest in our people and their future. Not tomorrow, not next year, but now! Our rates of unemployment and poverty, if left neglected, will only further divide a nation whose principles serve to inspire the world.

The battles we should be fighting are America's war on poverty and our still-to-be-seen war against unemployment. There is terror here at home, the terror that families face when faced with the question of how they are going to pay their bills or feed their children--the terror and anxieties our citizens feel because they believe their government will simply abandon them. Once again, Mr. Speaker, that is the war we should be fighting and the one that, if we come together, I believe we can win.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the life and labor of Mr. George Timothy Evans who made his heavenly transition on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at the age of 92. For 27 years, Mr. Evans served admirably as a Court Bailiff for the Illinois Appellate Court and the Illinois Supreme Court. A native of Arkansas, Mr. Evans attended Langston High School in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he played football with former Illinois Appellate Court Justice Glenn T. Johnson, the second African-American to serve on the Illinois Appellate Court, sparking a close friendship that would be rekindled when they both ultimately moved to Chicago.

Mr. Evans met his wife of more than 60 years, Tiny Marie Evans, who preceded him in death, at the Bethel AME Church in Malvern, Arkansas and was united in holy matrimony on June 2, 1942. To this union was born a son, Timothy C. Evans, the Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County, and the first African-American to hold this office and a daughter, Sandra Marie (Evans) Johnson. They relocated to Chicago in 1957, at a time when Arkansas was the epicenter of bitter school integration battles, to seek better opportunities in the North.

Mr. Evans served faithfully as a member of the Greater Institutional AME Church on the south side of Chicago. He was an outstanding and devoted servant of God, who dedicated his life towards making a difference in the lives of all people. Mr. Evans was a shining example of how God can use us to help make this world a better place.

Mr. Speaker, I am appreciative of the life and legacy of Mr. George T. Evans and I want to encourage his family, his sons Chief Judge Timothy Evans and George Evans, daughter Sandra Johnson, sister-in-law Hazel Bailey, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren and his many friends to always remember to look to the hills from which comes all of their help. I am honored to pay tribute to this dedicated public servant and am privileged to enter these words into the Congressional Record of the United States House of Representatives.

I want to thank my leader, the ranking member of the full committee, for yielding this time to me.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 2250, the Dirty Boiler Enhancement and Enabler bill.

Mr. Chairman, here we go again. This bill represents yet another Republican unrestrained, unrestricted assault on the Clean Air Act and on our Nation's most fundamental environmental protection laws. In fact, since the new Republican majority has taken over, there's been a constant assault against the Environmental Protection Agency and the clean air policies that they enforce on behalf of a few of the most avaricious, opportunistic, and dirtiest polluters ever known in the history of mankind and to the detriment of the American public as a whole.

Since the new Tea Party-led majority has taken control of this Congress, this body has passed bill after bill that will weaken our Nation's most basic clean air and clean water regulations. One of the very first bills that this new radical Republican majority passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, H.R. 910, was a direct frontal attack to the EPA's ability to even regulate greenhouse gas emissions at all, despite the warnings and evidence from those in the scientific community that these gases directly contribute to climate change.

Last month, the radical Republican majority followed that up with H.R. 2401, the TRAIN Wreck Act, which will repeal and block smog, soot, mercury and air toxics standards for power plants that will potentially save thousands of lives and avoid hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks in this Nation.

Now, here we are today debating H.R. 2250, the Dirty Boiler Enhancement and Enabler bill, which would vacate three Clean Air Act rules that establish the only national limits on emissions of air toxics, including mercury, from certain boilers and incinerators. This bill would require EPA to propose and finalize weaker alternative rules that will allow for more pollution than the law currently permits by intentionally making substantial changes in how the EPA sets the standards for the rules.

At a minimum, this Dirty Boiler Enabler and Enhancement bill would delay EPA reductions from boilers and incinerators until at least 2018, which is a 3-year delay. Mr. Chairman, the science tells us that these dirty air toxics can cause a variety of serious health effects, including cancer, respiratory and neurological impairments, as well as reproductive problems. The research also tells us that low-income families and minorities are disproportionately affected by toxic air pollution, including impaired neurological development, as well as higher rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease because these groups are more likely to live closer to industrial power plant facilities.

In fact, by the EPA's own estimate, H.R. 2250 will allow up to tens of thousands of additional premature deaths and heart attacks and hundreds of thousands of additional asthma attacks that could have been avoided.

Mr. Chairman, it is now time that the radical Republican majority stop putting profits in the pockets of dirty polluters and stop putting dirty air in the lungs of the American people. Now is the time for the Republicans to cease their unending assault on the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. Chairman, I urge all my colleagues to oppose this egregious and dangerous bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, let us not be distracted by this confused, backward, and short-term thinking on the part of our Republican colleagues. This bill represents just another attack on the Nation's long-standing environmental protection laws in general and the EPA in particular.

On behalf of a select few polluting industries that operate under the assumption that the timing is right to permanently alter, gut, and obliterate the Clean Air Act, the law that the chairman of the subcommittee and many others have said is working on behalf of the American people.

While most businesses have been planning and preparing for these rules, which have already been delayed for years and in some cases have been delayed over a decade, some of the more opportunistic dirty industries see this radical Republican majority and their radical agenda targeting the EPA and all of our clean air laws as the perfect time to try and permanently alter the Clean Air Act.

Section 5 of H.R. 2250 disregards the clean air standards that will help reduce toxic air pollution, like mercury and soot from some of our Nation's biggest polluters--cement plants, industrial boilers, and incinerators.

Instead, this section would make fundamental and damaging changes to the Clean Air Act and would ensure that future standards do not meaningfully reduce emissions into the air.

So, Mr. Chairman, I must offer an amendment that will clarify that section 5 of H.R. 2250 is intended to supplement the provisions of and shall not be construed to supersede any requirement, limitation or other provision of sections 112 and 129 of the Clean Air Act.

This single provision in section 5 will have the effect of exempting incinerators, exempting industrial boilers, and exempting cement plants from maximum reductions in toxic air pollution emissions, in contrast to every other major industrial source of toxic air pollution in this Nation.

The majority, even after being asked repeatedly over and over and over again, has yet to explain why Congress should carve out exemptions for the Nation's dirtiest polluters, in total disregard for the public health of the American people and at the expense of those very companies that have already invested in the technology to meet the minimum requirements of this law.

Mr. Chairman, if it is truly the majority's intent to clarify the rules and to provide certainty for business, then this amendment will accomplish that purpose; but I don't believe that that is their intent, and I don't believe that that is what their goal and objectives are. They have a singular purpose in all of these bills that we have been debating on this floor as it relates to the Clean Air Act, and that is to completely nullify and gut the Clean Air Act so that polluters in this Nation can keep on polluting the very air that we breathe.

So, Mr. Chairman, I urge all of my colleagues to support my amendment.

I yield to the ranking member.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the ranking member of the full committee, and I commend him on his outstanding work not only on this particular matter but in most of the issues that come before this Congress as it relates to not only the purpose of us but the prosperity of the American people.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong, strong opposition to this bill, H.R. 2681. I call it the Dirty Cement Pollution Bill. Let's be perfectly clear, Mr. Chairman. This bill, this measure is not about jobs. For the chairman of the subcommittee, and my friend, just to try to persuade Members of this body that this is about jobs, I think that it's the worst kind of politics. Jobs now is the useful canard, but this is not about jobs. This is about an industry that is singular in its being eliminated or being not under the auspices of the Clean Air Act, and about an industry that is unique because it doesn't have to adhere to any of the provisions of the Clean Air Act. And it's about time that this industry be included with other industries in this Nation to come under the auspices, the jurisdiction, and the standards of the Clean Air Act.

Cement kilns emit nearly 8 tons of mercury each year, making them the Nation's second-largest mercury emitting source. Before the EPA issued its 2010 air toxics rule, these emissions remained essentially unrestrained due to the lack of controls for cement kilns regulating the release of mercury into the atmosphere.

H.R. 2681 would roll back existing Clean Air Act standards by revoking three Clean Air Act rules, including the only national limits on emissions of air toxics, such as mercury, from cement kilns. This Dirty Cement Pollution Bill will also require EPA to propose and finalize weaker replacement rules that will allow for more pollution than the law currently permits.

This bill is intended to significantly change how EPA sets the standards when issuing the alternative rules. H.R. 2681 would indefinitely delay the reductions of air toxics and other hazardous pollutants by prohibiting EPA from finalizing replacement rules prior to March 2013 if this bill were to be enacted at the end of this year.

Also, this bill does not include any statutory deadline for when polluters must reduce emissions, leaving the process ambiguous and open-ended. At the very least, this Dirty Cement Pollution Bill would postpone emission reductions from cement kilns until at least 2018--a 4\1/2\-year delay. In fact, the health safeguards from these standards are long, long, long, long overdue. EPA just finalized standards for cement plants in September of last year, making them 13 years overdue under the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990--13 years overdue already. They are overdue 13 years.

The science tells us that these dirty air toxics can cause a variety of serious health effects, including cancer and respiratory neurological impairments, as well as reproductive problems.

In particular, mercury exposure can cause great harm to pregnant women, unborn babies, and young children by damaging their developing nervous systems, which affects children's ability to learn and to think.

Additionally, mercury emissions can also damage the environment by polluting our Nation's lakes and streams and the seafood which we eat. In fact, EPA estimates that H.R. 2681 will allow for thousands of additional premature deaths and premature heart attacks, as well as tens of thousands of additional asthma attacks that could have been avoided.

Mr. Chairman, the public health benefits from the reduction of air toxics emissions from cement kilns have already been delayed long enough. Now is the time. The radical Republican majority cannot keep making excuses and exceptions for the largest industrial emitters of mercury in the U.S., cement plants and industrial boilers, while over 100 other industries have already controlled their air toxic pollution.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman prior to me asked, where is the common sense?

Well, common sense begins with science, and the science is clear. I want to let the gentleman know that all sense is not common sense. In this instance, common sense begins with the science, and the science is absolutely clear that EPA must be able to reduce toxic pollution from the cement manufacturing process.

Cement kilns across the U.S. produce more toxic air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, acid gases, hydrochloric acid, dioxins, and other harmful pollutants that add to the nation's problems with soot and smog. Cement kilns are the third-largest source of mercury emissions in the U.S.

Toxic air pollutants can cause cancer, impair brain development and the ability to learn, damage the eyes, skin, and breathing passages, harm the kidneys, harm the lungs, harm the nervous system, and cause pulmonary and cardiovascular disease and premature death.

Cleaning up cement kilns saves lives and protects children from hazardous air pollutants. EPA estimates that reducing toxic pollution from cement kilns can save up to 2,500 lives each year by 2013. The limit will annually prevent 1,500 heart attacks, 17,000 asthma attacks, over 1,700 hospital and emergency room visits, and 130,000 missed days of work.

The most vulnerable populations depend on the EPA to protect them from the harmful health effects of cement kiln pollution. Children, teens, senior citizens, and people who exercise or work outdoors or with chronic lung diseases such as asthma, COPD, emphysema, these are the children and the people who are most in danger.

People with low incomes or who are members of racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by air pollution, in part, because they tend to live closer to industrial facilities such as cement kilns.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. Reams of scientific studies, common sense studies, show that babies and children who are exposed to mercury may suffer damage to their developing nervous systems, hurting their ability to think, learn, and speak.

Children exposed to mercury may never ever reach their full potential. The National Academy of Sciences estimates that each year about 60,000 American children are born right here in the U.S. with neurological problems that could lead to poor school performance because of exposure to mercury in utero.

The Waxman amendment is straightforward. It is common sense. It states that the EPA can continue to require a cement kiln to clean up toxic air pollution if that kiln is emitting mercury or other toxic pollutants that are causing damage to infants' developing brains.

This amendment simplifies our choice. Allow polluters to continue to harm children, to harm infants, or require facilities that are actually harming our kids to reduce their pollution. It's not too much to ask, and I ask the Members to support the Waxman amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, this atrocious bill, H.R. 2681, will make permanent changes to the Clean Air Act by weakening health- and science-based standards.

Cement kilns are a major source of mercury pollution as well as of other toxic air pollution. However, until last year, these plants had managed to avoid any sort of requirement to reduce these emissions. Last year, the EPA finally finalized requirements for cement kilns to use readily available technology to cut their pollution. This bill that is before us today will now nullify the new health standards and direct the EPA to go back to the drawing board.

Mr. Chairman, my Republican colleagues would like to frame this as a debate between jobs and public health benefits, but I believe that this is, indeed, a false choice.

I am for jobs. The people in my district need jobs, but also we need clean air in order to be alive to get to those jobs and to work those jobs.

We know that since the inception of the Clean Air Act opponents of this law have been exaggerating the costs of implementing the regulations associated with the act while at the same time downplaying the benefits that the new rules have brought.

H.R. 2681, the bill before us, does not take into account the positive impacts on the economy and jobs that EPA regulations will have by spurring additional research and development of cleaner technologies and by making these same plants more efficient.

In a recent Washington Post article, the economist Steven Pearlstein takes issue with the Republican analysis of regulatory costs in an article aptly entitled, ``The magical world of voodoo `economists.' ''

Mr. Pearlstein correctly notes that these EPA rules spur the creation of innovative new technologies that will not only control pollution but also create new jobs to install the emissions-control equipment.

Supporters of this bill, Mr. Chairman, will also argue that it will provide certainty to industry when, in fact, this bill as currently drafted does precisely the opposite.

As written, section 5 of H.R. 2681 will raise legal uncertainty and ambiguity by requiring the EPA to select the ``least burdensome'' regulatory alternative even if a stronger standard is feasible and would provide more public health benefits.

However, under current law, plant owners already have the flexibility to select an appropriate combination of controls to comply based on the practices of the cleanest and most efficient plants that are operating today.

The Clean Air Act requires that the EPA set toxic air pollution standards for cement kilns based on numeric emission levels that cleaner facilities are actually achieving right here, right now, today in this world, the real world.

Pollution control technologies that meet the requirements are commercially available and, in fact, many plants in this Nation have already installed modern pollution control technology, even as you argue for this bill and against my amendment.

Mr. Chairman, even for policymakers that are responsible for enacting this legislation, the language in section 5 is ambiguous and vague.

I ask, Mr. Chairman, that my colleagues support this amendment.

With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I have some questions that I want to ask the Members on the other side.

How much time do you need? How much time are you asking the American people to wait? How much longer do they have to wait for the EPA to finally come up with rules and regulations that will regulate the cement kiln industry, an industry that up until this date, 13 years later--13 years later--still no regulation on the cement kiln industry? Thirteen years. And then you have the audacity to come before this Congress and come before the American people and say, after 13 years, We want you to wait even longer. Another year and a half for the EPA to act on this bill and another 5 years, another 5 years before this bill will force them to comply. That's a total of 18 years, 19 years, 19\1/ 2\ years. You want the American people to continue to breathe bad air, to get diseases, cancer, lung diseases, another 19 years?

How dare you come before the American people and come before this Congress and say you want more time. They've had 13 years, and most of the industries in this Nation have already complied. This one industry, the only one, the one you're trying to protect, it's the only one that's excluded. And I say we can't wait any longer. The American people can't wait any longer. Our children can't wait any longer. Our senior citizens can't wait any longer. We can't wait any longer. We cannot give them another 7 years.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Offered By: Mr. Rush

Amendment No. 6: At the end of section 5, add the

following:

(c) Rule of Construction.--This section is intended to

supplement the provisions of, and shall not be construed to

supersede any requirement, limitation, or other provision of,

sections 112 and 129 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7412,

7429).

Offered By: Mr. Rush

Amendment No. 7: At the end of section 5, add the

following:

(c) Rule of Construction.--This section is intended to

supplement the provisions of, and shall not be construed to

supersede any requirement, limitation, or other provision of,

sections 112 and 129 of the Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7412,

7429).

I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Thank you.

Even if this amendment passes to improve the study of EPA rules, that will not address the underlying problems with this bill. Proponents of this bill imply that it simply requires EPA to study the cumulative impact of EPA rules. That is false. What began as a bill to study EPA rules has morphed into a bill to actually block the EPA rules. In fact, the bill blocks and indefinitely delays two of the most important air pollution rules in decades.

First, the bill blocks EPA from finalizing a proposed rule to cut toxic air pollution from power plants, which are the most egregious and the largest source of toxic mercury pollution in our Nation. Mercury is dangerous in small amounts, and mercury can damage the developing brains of infants and children.

The proposed rule would prevent more than 90 percent of the mercury in coal from being emitted into the air. The rule also would reduce fine particle emissions by more than a quarter, producing tremendous widespread health benefits.

For each year this bill delays the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, it will allow up to an additional 17,000 premature deaths, 120,000 cases of asthma, and 850,000 days when people miss work due to illness.

But that's not all. The bill also blocks the EPA from implementing the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to require 27 States to reduce power plant emissions that pollute the air in downwind States.

Each year of delay in implementing this rule will produce up to an additional 35,000 premature deaths, 400,000 cases of asthma, and 1.8 million days when people will miss work or school due to illness.

The benefits of these rules far exceed the costs. For the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule alone, the pollution reductions will yield annual health benefits that outweigh the rule's costs by up to 350 to 1.

The bill still creates a new government bureaucracy to produce a study of EPA rules, but this study is just a Trojan horse to disguise the true intent of this legislation: to block and delay two important EPA rules to protect public health from air pollution.

The bill that emerged from committee already is a horrible, terrible bill. But it promises to get even worse, significantly worse, as my Republican colleagues amend this horrible and horrendous bill before us.

Mr. Whitfield himself has offered amendments that completely nullify the two power plant rules and force EPA to start all the way back to the beginning, to start from scratch--but with new limits on what the agency can do to reduce pollution. According to the EPA administrator, these changes could prevent the EPA from ever reissuing these same rules, deny them far into the future from ever reissuing these same rules.

Mr. Latta has offered an amendment that strikes at the heart of the Clean Air Act by requiring the EPA to prioritize cost over public health when setting national air quality standards. These standards form the foundation of why we have been able to clean up air pollution, and Mr. Latta wants to throw it out the window.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I claim time in opposition for purposes of debate.

The ACTING Chair. The gentleman from Illinois is recognized for 5 minutes.

Thank you.

Many organizations are on record opposing the TRAIN Act or opposing efforts to block rules to reduce pollution from the country's dirtiest power plants.

Numerous public health groups, including the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America all sent a letter to Congress expressing their support for full implementation of the Clean Air Act and opposing ``all efforts to weaken, delay, or block progress toward the continuing implementation of this vital law.''

The American Public Health Association stated that it opposes the TRAIN Act because it is ``ill-conceived legislation that would prevent EPA from protecting the public's health from dangerous and deadly air pollution.''

The National Association of Clean Air Agencies opposes this bill as well. NACAA sent a letter expressing its concern that the TRAIN Act would ``create regulatory delays that could lead to thousands of premature deaths, remove important regulatory tools upon which States and localities depend, impose additional costs on government as well as small businesses, create regulatory uncertainty, cause job losses and defund an important and cost-effective air pollution control program.''

Groups representing millions of individual Americans who believe in protecting our environment strongly oppose this bill and other efforts to weaken clean air protections. These groups include the League of Conservative Voters, the Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council, Environment America, the National Audubon Society, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. They stated in a letter to Congress that ``sacrificing tens of thousands of American lives will not create more jobs. Poisoning the air our children and our families breathe will not stimulate the economy.''

Three hundred sportsmen's organizations representing our Nation's hunters, anglers, and the businesses that depend on our wildlife and natural resources support the EPA's effort to cut mercury pollution, and I quote them with these words. They said: ``Strongly oppose any effort to weaken the Clean Air Act.''

The Evangelical Environment Network has been running radio ads expressing their opposition to efforts to block the Mercury and Air Toxics rule. Mercury can damage the developing brain of fetuses and children, causing learning disabilities and neurological problems. The president of this group stated: ``We believe that mercury offers a significant potential for hindering our children from developing a pure and wonderful life.''

The Obama administration strongly opposes the TRAIN Act. The administration plans to veto this legislation if it ever reaches the President's desk, as the bill would undermine decades of progress in cleaning up the Nation's air quality by--and this is a quote from the Obama administration--``blocking EPA's ability to move forward with two long-overdue Clean Air Act rules.''

Americans don't support weakening the Clean Air Act or blocking efforts to reduce dangerous air pollution from power plants. The widespread opposition to the TRAIN Act makes that perfectly clear.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to oppose this horrendous bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I demand a recorded vote.

I want to thank the fine ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Waxman, for his outstanding leadership on this matter and other matters before our committee and before this Congress.

Mr. Chairman, I join my friend and colleague, Ranking Member Waxman, in his declaration that this week should be known as Dirty Air Week in America based on the Republican legislative agenda.

The so-called TRAIN Act is really a train wreck for the air we breathe, the environment we live in, and the jobs we need. Just yesterday in a full Energy and Commerce Committee markup, my Republican colleagues on a mostly party-line vote favorably passed out two bills that would delay the Obama administration's new rules for industrial boilers and cement kilns--H.R. 2250 and H.R. 2681, respectively.

These two bills would delay the toxic emissions limits for both boilers and cement kilns, two of the largest emissions sources that lack Federal standards and permanently weaken the Clean Air Act so that the EPA will be forced to issue weaker standards for these polluting facilities than the law currently requires.

Now today, we're here debating the Train Wreck Act, which would delay for at least 3 years the implementation of two new U.S. EPA rules for power plants: the newly finalized Cross-State Air Pollution Rule for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, and a soon-to-be finalized rule for hazardous toxic emissions.

With Republicans holding the majority in the House of Representatives, we know that the TRAIN Act will ultimately collide with the health of the American people. It's going to pass this Chamber even though the cross-State rule alone would prevent 34,000 deaths in this Nation and 400,000 cases of aggravated asthma annually.

Mr. Chairman, since the new Republican majority took control of the Energy and Commerce Committee and this Congress, they have been on a relentless crusade against our environmental protection laws, and they have been trying to portray the EPA as public enemy number one.

According to the logic of today's Republican Party, agencies such as the EPA, the American Lung Association, the American Public Health Association, the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, and the Physicians for Social Responsibility are all actually enemies of the American people and American jobs because they oppose this radical new Republican agenda and because they advocate for policies that regulate the number of toxins and poisons that we allow industry to emit into the air each and every moment of the day.

I must remind my Republican colleagues that EPA stands for the Environmental Protection Agency and not the Evil Practices Agency, as they would have us believe.

My Republican colleagues would have the American people believe that, if Congress just gets out of industry's way and allows corporations to operate unregulated and unfettered, then they will inevitably do the right thing for the American people. The majority party also wants us to believe that we should not place standards or rules on industry because the inherent benevolence of corporations will ultimately lead them to do the right thing for the American people.

But just think of the recent past. Let me remind my Republican colleagues that this philosophy has been tested under the previous Bush administration, and it has totally failed. It has failed the American people. It has failed the American environment. It has failed the American air that we breathe.

We don't have to look any further. Just look at the financial collapse and see what these kinds of unfettered regulations have done to jobs in this country and to jobs for the American people. This approach has put our entire economy on the brink of disaster.

After a financial collapse, here you are today, trying to bring forth a collapse in terms of environmental protections--a collapse in terms of protecting us by changing the air that we breathe.

Mr. Chairman, I urge all of my colleagues to oppose this egregious and dangerous bill.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Madam Chair, during both the subcommittee and full committee markups, I offered my amendment to delete a finding that I thought was particularly misleading.

Finding No. 15 states: ``Analysis using the Environmental Protection Agency models shows that the Keystone XL pipeline will result in no significant change in total United States or global greenhouse gas emissions.''

My amendment was defeated on a party-line vote after my colleagues on the other side insisted that the statement was indeed true. Well, Madam Chair, I took it upon myself to write a letter to the EPA asking the agency to weigh in on the accuracy of this finding, and this was the agency's reply:

``EPA has conducted no modeling, nor provided any models, to analyze the likely effect of the Keystone XL pipeline on U.S. or global greenhouse gas emissions. The language in the above finding is therefore incorrect.''

The official EPA statement went on to say:

``As detailed in the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL project issued by the Department of State, the Department of Energy directed a contractor to conduct modeling on potential impacts of the project. EPA provided some data to be used in that effort, but EPA models were not used and EPA did not model any projected emissions effects of the project.''

Madam Chairman, there are some who believe that the majority does not care about facts or truth or science or climate change if these facts and otherwise get in the way of industry moving forward unfettered. Well, by voting for my amendment, we have an opportunity to set the record straight and prove to the American people that when a statement is demonstrably shown to be false, then Members of Congress from both sides, Democrat or Republican, will put their partisan differences aside and stand on the side of truth. Know ye the truth and the truth shall set you free.

So I urge all my colleagues to support my corrective amendment in order to correct this misleading statement contained in the bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining?

Madam Chair, this is simply an argument over whether or not this House will allow demonstrably false information in this bill to move forward even though we have documentation from the very agency in question stating that the information is false. This is the letter. This is the letter. It's a letter dated June 22, and it says:

``EPA has conducted no modeling, nor provided any models, to analyze the likely effect of the Keystone XL pipeline on U.S. or global greenhouse gas emissions. The language in the above finding is therefore incorrect.''

How clear can it be that the EPA states beyond a shadow of a doubt that this particular passage in this bill is false, is misleading? And if, in fact, we vote to enact this wrong piece of legislation, not only is it wrongheaded, it's wrong in its effort. If we vote to pass this legislation, then we are perpetuating a falsehood.

Madam Chair, this Congress stands for a greater and higher standard than to vote for something that we know is false. We know it's not accurate. The other side knows it's not accurate. But if industry wants it, if it's accurate or not, industry, according to them, must have it. And I say industry must not have it. We should have to stand for the truth in this Congress, and the truth is that the EPA did not conduct any model.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I stand in support of Mr. Murphy's amendment, and this amendment replaces misleading findings about the Keystone XL pipeline's critical faster implementation.

The only problem that I see was the majority's argument in that Canada has really--and I agree with Mr. Cohen--that Canada has no way to send oil to China now and no realistic prospect of ever sending oil to China. They won't do anything any time soon.

So I think that this is a commonsense amendment, and I certainly stand in support of this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, today's debate on fast-tracking the Keystone XL pipeline by 2 months reminds me of a saying that adequately sums up the fight before this Congress: Good sense minus common sense equals nonsense.

With the current crisis our Nation faces on lifting the debt ceiling and other priorities for the American people, including the economy and jobs, it is incomprehensible that we are here debating a bill that is totally and absolutely unnecessary, completely futile, and is not even worth not one millisecond of Congress' time.

Mr. Chairman, as written, this bill will force the administration to issue the Presidential permit for the pipeline within 30 days of the environmental impact statement and no later than November 1, 2011, regardless of whether or not the review process has been completed.

This arbitrary, willy-nilly time line would reduce the allocated time that the Federal agencies will have to determine the national interest in deciding this proposal by almost two-thirds of the time that they need, while also reducing or eliminating the 30-day public comment period.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment that I am offering would allow for 120 days after the final environmental impact or no later than January 1, 2012, for the President to issue a final decision on the Keystone XL pipeline.

I believe that public input is a vital and necessary part of the permitting process, and I also believe that it is important for the various departments to weigh in with their national interest determinations, which this bill would severely curtail, if not completely eliminate. In fact, in conversations that my office has held with the State Department and the EPA, we were informed that it would be close to impossible for the responsible agencies to complete their due diligence and reply by the arbitrary timeline of November 1, as this bill would mandate. Additionally, just yesterday, the State Department publicly stated that this bill was ``unnecessary'' since the agency already plans to reach a final decision on the Keystone XL by the end of the year, after first holding a series of public hearings in the very six States that would be affected by the enactment of this bill. Mr. Chairman, whether you support the Keystone XL pipeline or not, it is extremely important that all of the relevant information and consequent impacts be considered so that an informed decision can be made.

So I urge all my colleagues to support my amendment, which would allow for the appropriate time period for the public and the different agencies to weigh in, while also mandating that a decision is made within a timely manner.

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

Mr. Chairman, I really want my friend from Illinois to know that I don't have to travel to Joliet, Illinois, or any other part of Illinois; I don't even have to come down to his district in Peoria to see unemployment, to see the joblessness. I am not standing here fighting against jobs. I am fighting for jobs. But I think at the same time that we fight for jobs, we have to also fight so that the American people have input in terms of making decisions such as this. Mr. Chairman, I also believe that at the end of the day, we want to ensure that this pipeline benefits America and not China.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, it is often difficult to find words to express the depth of one's feelings with the passing of a constituent. Nevertheless, I rise today to pay tribute to the late Willye Mae Payne, who made her heavenly transition on Tuesday, July 12, 2011.

Mrs. Payne dedicated her life towards making a difference in the lives of other people. She was a shining example of how God can use even the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary. Indeed, many who have had the privilege of knowing and associating with her have come to recognize that they are much better the person as a result.

A member of the Salem Baptist Church of Chicago, Mrs. Payne worked for over thirty-five years at the Children's Audy Home and the Cook County Hospital. She attended Malclom X Community College and graduated from Olive Harvey Community College as a Licensed Practical Nurse. I have been privileged to know and work with her granddaughter, Cheryl Hyman, the Chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago.

Mr. Speaker, I want to encourage her children Katherine McMurtry, Jacklyn Payne, James Payne, Walter Payne and Christine Jackson, her brother Mr. Johnny Robinson, her grandchildren, great grandchildren, the entire family and the many friends of Mrs. Willye Mae Payne to always remember to look to the hills from which comes all of their help, trusting that their help will surely come from the Lord. I am honored to pay tribute to this outstanding woman and privileged to enter these words into the Congressional Record of the United States House of Representatives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize and honor the life and labor of Mr. Darryl Anthony Pandy who made his heavenly transition on Friday, June 10, 2011. Darryl was a gifted vocalist who elevated the House music genre to international status in the mid 1980s.

One of the most sought-after voices in the House music world, the Chicago native with a 6-1/2-octave voice range was the lead vocal on ``Love Can't Turn Around,'' a track by Chicago's Farley (Jackmaster Funk) Keith. The record was a United States club hit, but crossed over into the mainstream in the United Kingdom on London Records in August, 1986 and peaked at number 2 on Billboard's charts five weeks later. The song's surprising European success earned Darryl a coveted British Phonographic Industry (BPI) Award for dance music. In 1997, ``Love Can't Turn Around'' was re-released in the UK and peaked at number 40.

Other music hits included ``Animal Magnetism'', ``Climax'', ``I Love Music'', ``Heaven's In Your Heart'', ``Love Turns To Pain'', and ``Work Your Body''. In 1999, Darryl teamed up with CZR to record ``Bad Enough'', and reunited with Farley on the gospel house hit ``He's My Best Friend''. He released ``Joy'' with Dutch Johnson in 2003, ``Dancing'' with Laurent Wolf in 2004 and in 2005, he teamed up with Rene Suss to release ``Clap Your Hands on the Dancefloor'' on German imprint Tiefenrausch Records.

Darryl, who grew up in the Cabrini-Green public housing development, was a long-time member of Chicago's Life Center Church of God in Christ under Pastor T. L. Barrett.

Mr. Speaker, I was privileged to know Darryl and I want to encourage his mother, Beverly Garrett, his siblings William Harold Washington III and Krystal Garrett and his many friends and fans to always remember to look to the hills from which comes all of their help. Darryl's talent will be missed but through his music his legacy will live on. I am honored to pay tribute to this gifted music legend.