Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding me time to speak in support of this act named after our friend, Frank LoBiondo. I thank the gentleman also for his time as chairman of the full committee.

As a Representative of Florida, the State with the second largest coastline in the country, I do have a profound respect for the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard, and as a veteran as well. It has been an honor to work on such a bipartisan committee, which likewise has been filled with members who support the Coast Guard across a diverse set of evolving mission sets.

Every hour of every day the Coast Guard protects America's waterways. They promote a healthy environment, they ensure the safety of mariners, they enforce our laws, they keep us safe from piracy, and they keep us safe from smugglers.

Day in and day out I have had the opportunity to see some of their work firsthand. Recently I met with a search and rescue team in Pollocksville, North Carolina, as they worked tirelessly on behalf of communities impacted by Hurricane Florence. I see my local Coasties in places like Fort Pierce. I see them saving mariners young and old, those lost at sea. There is no doubt that their selfless heroism and their decisive work saved many lives in the Carolinas, just as it did in Florida's Panhandle after Michael and across the Nation, wherever disaster befalls us.

I am proud to support this bill, which also authorizes $10.6 billion to strengthen and support the U.S. Coast Guard in its invaluable defense of our waterways and of our homeland.

I am especially glad to see the inclusion of my bill, the Jupiter Island Land Transfer Act. This provision will finally resolve a decades-old conservation issue in my district and transfer four critical acres of unused Coast Guard property to the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge to ensure the endangered turtles will continue to thrive. By protecting this land, we are doing our part to help ensure that the natural beauty of the Treasure Coast is maintained and continues to be the driver of our economy for many decades to come.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting the brave and hardworking men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard and their indispensable work by supporting the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the concurrent resolution (S. Con. Res. 51) to correct the enrollment of S. 140, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure be discharged from further consideration of the bill (H.R. 6793) to transfer a bridge over the Wabash River to the States of Illinois and Indiana, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6622) to designate the Federal building located at 2110 First Street in Fort Myers, Florida, as the ``George W. Whitehurst Federal Building'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6742, the Secure Border Communications Act. Every single day the brave law enforcement officers of the United States Customs and Border Protection put themselves in harm's way in order to secure our borders and ports of entry. This bill will strengthen interagency border security communication and communication within U.S. Customs and Border Protection by improving communication technologies for all CBP officers and agents.

When agents or officers are in the field, secure communications with other CBP personnel and law enforcement agencies is imperative to mission success and officer safety. Currently, communication devices and radios used by officers and agents are outdated and hinder interagency communication. I never want there to be a circumstance where a CBP officer or agent is operating in a remote area along our border and is not able to call for backup or whose location is intercepted by the cartels due to defective devices. We must not accept that as a possibility; we must ensure that our agents and officers are fully equipped with the proper technology.

H.R. 6742 will require the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that CBP personnel are equipped with secure radios or other two-way communication devices. These devices will allow officers and agents to communicate between ports of entry and inspection stations, and with other law enforcement entities operating in the same area of responsibility.

I want to thank my friend and colleague, Chairman McCaul, for his cosponsorship and leadership on this important bill. Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of a war on terror and continue to be the target of radicals who want to do our country harm. Ensuring our law enforcement officers operating along the borders and at our ports of entry are fully equipped is essential to national security. Beyond the threat of terrorism, securing our border is vitally important to preventing drug and human trafficking. Improving communication is a critical component of this mission. Mr. Speaker, let's take some decisive action to secure our border. Let's pass this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I guess I found in my time that suicide is an epidemic of purpose, and worth, and value.

I come to this line of thought because I have had countless veterans call me; reach out to my office; find me on Facebook; find me on some other form of social media; had a member of their family call my office or reach out, a mother, or a spouse, and talk about the fact that their veteran wants to take their life.

And in seeing that play out time and time again, I realize each and every time that somebody is out there searching for their value in their life. They are searching for where is their value? Where is their worth to the rest of the world? And for me, that helps me to recognize that this can be prevented.

I think veterans face this challenge in a unique way and in an elevated way, not because the challenge of war or recovering from injury is something that cannot be overcome. I think most of us end up finding in our lives that when we have overcome something incredibly difficult, those are the most memorable and purposeful moments of our life.

No person, veteran included, should have to believe that their greatest contribution to the world, or to their Nation, or to their family, or their community is something that is behind them.

That is something that is especially difficult for a veteran to overcome because their worth, and their value, and their work every single day was tied directly to serving all of those things at the highest possible level, serving their brothers and their sisters to their left and right, knowing that on any given day, they might have the opportunity to save a life, to save the life of one of their closest friends that they could ever have in life, a friend that would be willing to do absolutely everything for them, to include sacrificing their own life for that friend of them.

It is hard to replicate, maybe impossible to replicate, that purpose, and that worth, and that value. And I believe that it is in that that we find such a challenge to overcome suicide with our veterans because of everything that they have already given this country, and the drive, and the determination, and the will, and the intestinal fortitude inside of our veterans to want to go out there and find the next greatest thing in life, the next greatest way to serve.

That is the difficult challenge that we find ourselves trying to overcome. In having so many veterans reach out to me, I have learned this about veteran suicide. Each of them who were prevented from taking their life have said that there was nothing I could do, if somebody else didn't reach out to them. Because I could have not known anybody else that they could have told, that they didn't tell, they wouldn't have known.

It is in that that I believe it is important that we as veterans make a commitment to one another about being there for one another; about the fact that we had an oath that we never leave a fallen comrade. We always used to say, we always place the mission first, and that mission doesn't end when we take off that uniform. That mission, that commitment to one another, has to continue.

As veterans, we make it a point to put the most important things that we care about in word, in verse, things that we memorize. Whether it is the Soldier's Creed, or the Ranger Creed, or the Special Forces Creed, or some other ethos that we recognize as part of our service. We put it in words and we speak about it, and we say it time, and time, and time again.

And that is why I believe that it is important that we as veterans make known in word our commitment to one another; that we are never going to let one of our brothers or sisters be left behind; that our commitment to one another never ends; that we are never going to allow one of them to bring harm to themselves; that our love for each other never ends.

That willingness of what we would go out there and do for one another on the battlefield has no time limit on it, has no fuse. It will never be a wick that burns down. That has to be our commitment to one another, to demonstrate that kind of love and caring for each other as veterans. It is the only solution that I have been able to

find in my life toward helping with this one veteran, one person at a time, one commitment at a time, a commitment that never ends, and a commitment that has no limits to it.

I believe all of our veterans want that and are capable of that, and I am proud of every one of them for that commitment that I know they have inside of them.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) for holding this Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because it has been 6 years since the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi and ask that we reflect on the four patriotic Americans who lost their lives:

Petty Officer First Class Glen Doherty and Senior Chief Petty Officer Tyrone Woods were Navy SEALs, doing what they loved, serving as security personnel in Libya and working to protect United States diplomats.

Ambassador Chris Stevens and Staff Sergeant Sean Smith served for a combined 31 years with the U.S. State Department.

In honor of their memory, I am asking that our colleagues cosponsor the Gold Medal Act, H.R. 2315, to formally recognize these four men with the Congressional Gold Medal for their heroism and dedication to our country.

I am asking that every Member of the House think about their 12 grueling hours of close-quarters combat, the crack of those AK-47s firing at them and next to each one of them, the indirect fire that their compound was taking, the fires that burned their bodies, the unanswered calls for help. Think about their lifesaving actions on behalf of others and the fact that it cost them their own lives.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the passing and the important contributions of a great Floridian for his unrelenting determination to protect the Florida Everglades. Nathaniel Pryor Reed was a man whom I was proud to know, and he was one of Florida's most influential environmental leaders.

He served six Florida Governors and two United States Presidents, advising them on environmental protection and conservation. He worked instrumentally in the legislation of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. He was an avid fisherman and a conservationist. He served on more nonprofit boards than I can count, and he was a founding member of the Everglades Foundation, serving on the board of directors since its inception 25 years ago.

He championed the bipartisan saying: ``The Everglades doesn't care what party you belong to, she cares what you do.''

Nathaniel ended every phone call by sending his sincerest best wishes, and he always truly meant it. Today we send him our sincerest and remember his unwavering commitment to America's Everglades and his service to our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of this body. I would like every Member of this body to think about this: What would you do if one of your neighbors each and every day was taking their garbage and throwing it over your fence into your yard? What would you do if that were the case?

In the case of my community, it is not just the garbage of neighboring communities that enters its way into our community, it is toxic water pollution.

So if somebody throwing garbage over your fence would infuriate you as an individual, then I would ask you to imagine how you would feel if your neighbor was knowingly poisoning the kids in your backyard, your children?

I don't think that I know of words. I don't think I know of a four- letter word that would describe this for me. I don't know of an emoji that I could text anybody. I don't know an emotion that I could use to adequately describe the feeling of having my community poisoned, knowingly and willingly, year after year after year.

Now, the World Health Organization says that any amount greater than 10 parts per billion microcystin algae is poison for humans and that it causes everything from nausea to liver disease. That is a pretty broad spectrum.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection just reported that the level released into our waters is more than 150 parts per billion.

Let me say that one more time.

The World Health Organization said that anything greater than 10 parts per billion is poison. The water being released into my community that plays no role in producing this toxic water is being exposed to water that is more than 150 parts per billion, 15 times what is considered harmful to human health.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is planning to resume its poisoning operations later this week. As a result of that, I would like to ask three things:

Number one, to the Department of Defense, who is currently conducting a systemwide review of its policies: Do not release one more drop of this poison water into my community, into Florida's Treasure Coast, into the epicenter of population for hundreds of thousands of people. Our community did not create the problem or the conditions leading to this poison, and we must not be forced to have the health of each of our citizens put at risk as a result of someone else's garbage being thrown into our yard--or, rather, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releasing it into our backyard.

Number two, I would ask this of our President: The situation has resulted in a state of emergency in years past, and the Governor has already declared a state of emergency for Florida and a number of counties, including for Martin and St. Lucie Counties. I call for a Federal state of emergency to be declared right now.

I also ask this. Previous administrations had this request come before them, and those administrations did nothing. I would ask this of our administration: Bring in the cavalry. Bring in every bit of water cleanup operation you can find that can be yielded by FEMA, by the Coast Guard, by Fish and Wildlife, by anybody else that can

go out there and clean this poison, these toxins out of our waterways.

Number three, to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Federal court cases demand that everything--all the water that goes south of Lake Okeechobee, where this toxic water stems from--not be exposed to anything greater than 10 parts per billion of phosphorous. That actually slows the rate of water flow to the south, where that water actually belongs, where God designed that water to go. Yet my community is getting toxic water with parts greater than 150 parts per billion, which is, as I said, 15 times greater than what is safe for human contact. That is not equitable. That is not right.

So I would ask that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who has the emergency authority granted to them under section 7-13 when there are pollution emergencies: Use that authority now to stop poisoning my community, to protect the hundreds of thousands of people on the Treasure Coast of Florida, and send that dirty, toxic water south.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Florida Sportsman founder Karl Wickstrom, who passed away on June 26, 2018 in Stuart, Florida.

Throughout his life, he was a passionate and inspiring champion for Florida's waterways. For decades, he supported organizations like the Rivers Coalition in the fight for cleaner waters in our community. His strong legacy of environmental activism will live on in the important work that each of the organizations he supported continues to do.

In addition to his lasting legacy in the form of laws protecting Florida's environment, he is also responsible for inspiring an entirely new generation of champions for clean water. Because of his journalism and activism, his ideas for environmental protection will continue to reverberate through our communities for decades to come.

Mr. Speaker, it is incumbent upon all of us to take up this legacy, continue his fight, protect our estuaries and send the water south. While we continue to mourn the loss of this environmental visionary and pray for his family, let us also use this opportunity to fulfill his vision for a safer, healthier and stronger Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today because it is the 24th day that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has intentionally discharged toxic water from Lake Okeechobee in Florida's interior into the Treasure Coast of Florida, which is my community.

Today, I have a group of warriors with me, the River Kidz. They are here in Washington fighting to show that what is happening in our community is not okay. It is not right, and it is not just.

The River Kidz are a group of young people from the Treasure Coast of Florida whose health and community have been threatened. While many kids across the country right now are gearing up to go to camp this summer or spending their days on a boat or at a beach or fishing, our kids are doing all that they can to avoid contact with our water because every single day our water is being made more and more toxic.

As we speak, there is a toxic algae bloom over 100 miles in diameter laden with cyanobacteria. It is being drained into Florida's east coast, and, in fact, as we speak, satellite imagery shows that nearly half of the entire lake of Lake Okeechobee is covered in algae. It is a threat to the health of every single man, woman, and child who is exposed to it.

The toxic algae blooms are also devastating to threatened species like manatee who inhabit our waters but cannot escape from the water. The billions of gallons of discharge that is evacuated from Lake Okeechobee into the coastal estuary wipes out our entire estuary of seagrass the way a wildfire wipes out a forest, leaving no habitat for the rest of the sea life that is meant to exist there.

Mr. Speaker, you might be wondering: Why would anybody in Washington care about this beyond to say for a few moments what a sad situation it really is? Washington needs to care. Washington needs to care because this is a situation that is created by the fact that Florida's water system is functioning exactly the way that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers designed the system to function.

In other words, this is happening on purpose. The Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule, which is what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers uses to decide when and where water out of Lake Okeechobee will be discharged into places it does not belong, is designed to ``share adversity.''

Let me say that again. The Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule is designed to share adversity.

Shared adversity means shared toxic water into a community that did not share at all in the polluting of the source of the toxic water. Mr. Speaker, let me explain this in a way that people here in Washington, people here in the Capitol, can relate to.

It would be like if a Senator on the other half of this building flushed their toilet over there, and instead of sending that sewage into pipes that go underneath the street and into a water treatment plant, the Corps of Engineers set up a system here where they had a pipe that dumped the sewage onto the floor of the House of Representatives. That is what shared adversity by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers looks like.

In the case of my community, it is not just a pipe, though. It is millions of gallons a minute that destroys our environment, destroys our economy, destroys small businesses, and affects the health, as I said already, of every single man, woman, and child who comes in contact with the water, and it threatens our entire way of life.

The Treasure Coast of Florida can no longer be forced to share adversity that they played no role in creating. The River Kidz, myself, and the entire Treasure Coast of Florida demand that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stop immediately its willful pollution of our home that is done on behalf of others.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Major General Wayne P. Jackson, Retired, a true patriot and fellow veteran who I had the honor of joining in throwing out the first pitch earlier this month at Roger Dean Stadium.

Born in Chicago in 1929, General Jackson was commissioned in 1951 as a Second Lieutenant after several years of enlisted service in the U.S. Army Air Force and U.S. Navy. His 37 years in the service was defined by profound courage and many accomplishments.

He served in various overseas theaters of operation and has commanded Signal Corps, Military Intelligence and Civil Affairs units. As a General Officer he served as the Director of Counter Intelligence and Security, the Assistant to the Chief of Staff for Intelligence at the Department of the Army Headquarters, the Commanding General of the 352nd Civil Affairs Command, and the Deputy and Commanding General of the 97th Army Reserve Command.

General Jackson has also been awarded the Expert Infantry Badge, the Parachute Badge, and the Master Aviator Badge. His decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal and several other military awards and decorations.

However, General Jackson's life of excellence extends not only to his military service, but to his academic work as well. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts degrees in psychology at the University of Tulsa. He did post graduate work at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California. His military education includes the basic and advanced officer courses at the Signal and Military Intelligence Schools. He has also completed the advanced courses at the Civil Affairs and Infantry Schools. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Army War College.

General Jackson and his wife, Lahoma reside in Jupiter, Florida. His son Wayne Jr. and two daughters, Jacky and Jennifer, four grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren also reside in Jupiter. In the tradition of his father, his son Wayne Jr., is also retired from the U.S. Army.

General Jackson has lived a life of excellence and of many great accomplishments both in the military and as a civilian. Mr. Speaker, that is why I am honoring General Jackson and thank him for his many years of service to our country. I have no doubt that he will continue to accomplish great things in the years to come.

Mr. Speaker, today is day 22 of water exactly like this being discharged into my community in Lake Okeechobee. You can see exactly how disgusting it is.

What you cannot see is the disgusting smell that emanates from it. You cannot see the toxins that are inside of it. You cannot see the airborne pathogens that come off of it.

What you see behind me is a satellite image of the hundreds of square miles of algae bloom that are in this lake that are being discharged miles and miles away into my community.

My community did not put the algae bloom on the lake; they did not put the nutrients into the lake that caused this algae bloom; but my community pays the price, all under the umbrella of flood control for other communities.

I believe my community is owed, at a minimum, one answer: How much pollution is too much? How much danger to our community is too much? How much before this will stop?

Mr. Speaker, I have a great 5-minute speech prepared here, but I am just going to tell you the way it is.

For the last 2 weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been using my community as their own personal septic tank. That is not hyperbole. That is the truth.

Now, it hasn't just happened this way for the last 2 weeks. They just started discharging water into my community 2 weeks ago. This has actually been going on for decades where, year after year after year, the Corps of Engineers decides that it is okay to discharge water that they know is toxic into an epicenter of human population.

How do they know this water is toxic? Because the Federal Government sued the State of Florida at one point in history, saying: Listen, we don't want you to send this water down south toward the Florida Everglades because it is killing the Florida Everglades. It is too toxic for what needs to go in there.

So now the Corps of Engineers sends it to people. They send it to the kids who are out at fishing camp. They send it to the fishermen who are trying to pull fish out of the water, and they send it to the beaches where, instead, they have to put up signs that say: No swimming. Don't touch the water. Hazard to human life.

What kind of community is this where this is sent to? This is a community, the treasure coast of Florida. It is an area where beautiful waters from the Atlantic flow in. They make the water crystal clear. It used to be laden with sea grass, with sea life, and with waterfowl, and now you can find next to none of that because the water is no longer blue.

The water no longer has sea grass and thriving fish beds in it because the

water is black. It is black because the flowing waters in from the Atlantic Ocean can't keep up with the toxic waters that are discharged into that estuary, into that nationally recognized estuary, by the hand of the Federal Government, by the hand of the U.S. Corps of Engineers.

Where the water isn't black, the water is green, like this, with toxic algae and cyanobacteria, things that no person should ever have to come in contact with.

I will tell you, this body recently did a good job for what has to occur to fix this issue in the long term. We passed the Water Resources Development Act, where we went out there and put a placeholder into that bill for a southern reservoir, a reservoir south of our area to send this water so that they don't have to send this water to the epicenter of human population in our area.

We did a good job of doing something known as asking for a LORS review, a review of the schedule at which level we can keep the Lake Okeechobee water in that lake so that they don't have to discharge that water into our community. We did a good job in making sure that we put resources toward how you can clean up algal blooms.

Those were all very important things for the long term, but it doesn't help the people in my community today and tomorrow, the people who have to worry about their children coming in contact with the water because of the human health risks associated with it.

It doesn't help the business owners, whom I have to see day after day with tears in their eyes because they are closing their doors for the last time because they can't survive because of the way this devastates our economy from top to bottom.

When you destroy the environment in our community, you destroy us. You destroy every one of us in our community. This cannot continue. This has to stop.

I call on the U.S. Corps of Engineers that, until the moment comes where you can say the water you are sending into our area is not toxic whatsoever, until that day comes where you would go into that water yourself or bring your own family members for a vacation and for a swim in our waterways, then don't send one more drop of that water into my community.

I put on the same uniform as the members of the Corps of Engineers. We wore the same Army uniform, and I know that we carry the same passion for how we do things. We had an ethos: You always place the mission first; you never accept defeat; you never quit; and you never leave a fallen comrade. Right now my community is being left behind by the Corps of Engineers, and it is not right.

I could say that not one moment during my time in the military would I have ever considered risking the life of one community in the name of something that may potentially happen in the future. It is not right; it can't occur in our community; and that is why I call on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop their discharging of toxic water immediately.

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking the chairman, Chairman Shuster, and the committee for all of their work on WRDA. It has been timely, and they have been a joy to work with.

WRDA 2000, however, authorized a plan known as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan and it granted the authority to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works to provide credit to the State of Florida for reasonable cost of any work that was performed toward the completion of the project. However, current law does have some ambiguity that my amendment clarifies with respect to when the work is performed.

Now, the Army Corps ultimately has the discretion to determine what work performed by Florida is integral to the project, and this amendment makes no change to that discretion whatsoever.

Questions have been raised with regard to the scope of the Army Corps' authority to grant credit for work Florida has done that is not explicitly stated in the Project Partnership Agreement. My amendment clarifies that, so long as the Secretary and Florida agree that the work completed during the construction phase is integral to the project, the Secretary does, in fact, have the authority to provide credit for that work that is done.

I appreciate the full committee and the subcommittee's leadership working with me on this language, and I encourage my colleagues to adopt this amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, again I applaud the committee on their work, and I yield back the balance of my time.