Floor Statements

I would like to thank my colleague and my friend from Rhode Island for his hard work to bring this bill to the floor. Mr. Patrick Kennedy has been an advocate for improving health care in the Congress, a tradition that we know is a very proud family legacy.

This amendment will provide for a new pilot program that connects Reservists to behavioral health care that they need. It will establish a call center that is available to assist servicemembers and their families around the clock.

This commonsense provision helps us fulfill the promises that we have made to care for our troops. I am proud to be here with my friend from Rhode Island to offer it.

I rise today in support of this bill, and I thank Chairman Skelton and Ranking Member Hunter for bringing it to the floor and for their great work. I want to also thank Chairman Ortiz and Chairwoman Davis for their work during the subcommittee markup and the committee staff for their hard work throughout the process.

Mr. Chairman, this is an excellent bill that will have a tremendous impact on our servicemembers and their families, and I am proud to support it. As a former military spouse, I know how much our troops and their families depend on the strong support from Congress.

In this year's bill, we grow the military, adding 7,000 soldiers, 5,000 marines, 1,000 sailors, and 450 airmen to take the pressure off the current military. We add a 3.9 percent pay increase and increase existing bonuses. We provide nearly $25 billion for the defense health program without increasing TRICARE fees. We increase benefits for Guardsmen and Reservists as well. These actions are the way that we show that we do support the troops and their families, and this is the way we thank them for their service.

We designate money to keep F-22 fighters and C-17s rolling off the production line. These two programs are vital to our Air Force. We add a second Virginia class sub and the resources in our shipyard system to maintain them. We include more than $12 million for cold weather clothing systems that keep our men and women warm in the mountains of Afghanistan. In this year's bill we provide our Army aviation assets with advanced self-protection systems that keep our soldiers safe in harm's way.

We also fund programs at home, like the Swimmer Detection Network that protects our Los Angeles and Virginia class submarines at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in my district. We fund military construction projects at our shipyards and depots that are vital to our Nation's defenses, and we add billions for housing at our bases that ensure our servicemembers and their families are safe and comfortable.

I am proud that we worked together in a truly bipartisan manner to produce this bill that cares for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines and their families. I urge the House to pass this bill.

I would like to thank the sponsor of this important resolution, the gentlewoman from California, Susan Davis. Congresswoman Davis is the Chair of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, and it is my great honor to serve with her.

As we prepare to honor our military and our fallen on Memorial Day, it is appropriate to honor the women who have served, also. Almost 800,000 have served since World War I, and together, women make up almost 15 percent of our active military and 17 percent of our National Guard Reserve forces.

Sadly, many of the women who earned medals and served this country never collect those medals. They served quietly and they left quietly, too humble to tell their tale and too humble to ask for their medals.

In New Hampshire, I recently had the great pleasure to present medals to Hazel Jones, 50 years after she had earned them in World War II. The Dover resident enlisted in the Army in 1944, completed her basic training, and went on to serve her country for the next 17 months, transporting troops and the mail and protecting our national security.

I was really proud to present Hazel with her medals, and I am proud today to honor the hundreds of thousands of other women who have nobly served our beloved country.

While women may not make up the majority of our Armed Forces, they stand and work side by side with the men, and they are critical to our mission. As we celebrate Memorial Day, it is fitting that we take this moment to celebrate their service.

I urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the sponsor of this legislation, the gentleman from Illinois, Phil Hare, who's a leader and a tireless advocate for veterans.

This Memorial Day we honor the memory of so many who have served this Nation. In honor of their memory, it's fitting that we consider legislation today that will help deliver the benefits that were promised to our veterans and which they earned by their selfless service to our Nation.

The bill before us, H.R. 2790, will create the position of Director of Physician Assistant Services in the VA to manage the education, training, and utilization of physician assistants within the Veterans Health Administration.

PAs play an important part in the health care of our veterans, providing a whole range of diagnostic and therapeutic services, administering physicals, taking patient histories, diagnosing and treating patients. The first PAs were former corpsmen who had served in Vietnam. Their extensive medical training made them ideal candidates for further medical education and the perfect fit for the continuing medical care of their fellow veterans. Since the PA Advisor position was created in the VA in 2000, their ranks have grown, and today almost 1,600 PAs serve in the VA.

PAs go through a very vigorous 2-year-long certification program, and by creating a Director of Physician Assistant Services in the VA, we can help

ensure that their expertise is properly utilized and that our veterans receive the care they deserve. Their utilization may also mean in rural States like mine that veterans have greater access to health care.

It's appropriate that we will pass this legislation today in honor of the veterans who have served our country so bravely. As a proud wife of a veteran myself, working to improve the care veterans were promised and have earned is a top priority for me, and I enthusiastically support this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support this also.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 493, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, I knew that we had served the American people well when the committee passed this bill and then the House passed it almost unanimously in April 2007. Now, a year later, we are on the verge of sending this important legislation to the President with overwhelming bipartisan support in both Chambers.

Science and medicine have made great strides in recent years, especially with regard to genetic mapping and research. The potential for finding the answers we desperately seek for so many diseases and afflictions is greatly increased by the research being done. However, in order for these efforts to be successful, the public must be assured that these new discoveries will help and not hurt them.

Science will soon be able to tell us about many more diseases that individuals are genetically predisposed to develop. That information should be used only for the public good. It must not be used by companies to pick and choose who gets insurance or who gets discriminated against. They should not be allowed to charge higher insurance premiums because of somebody's individual genetic makeup.

This critical piece of legislation will protect individuals from discrimination. This is an important step that Congress is taking today, and I am very happy that we are doing this in a unified spirit. I commend Congresswomen Slaughter and Biggert for their efforts here. And I would also like to thank Chairman Miller and my colleagues on the Education and Labor Committee for their work on this and so many other important issues. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased as Speaker Pelosi decided to assert Congress' power over international trade by waiving ill- advised fast-track rules, and I hope the decision to waive the 90-day deadline for a vote on the Colombia FTA will effectively kill the agreement.

This is not a good idea at this time. Colombia has not proven that they are capable of providing the human rights that the people of Colombia so desperately need. Passage of the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement would greatly diminish our Nation's reputation as a leader in the fight to end human rights abuses worldwide. Like the Peru agreement which preceded it, the Colombia FTA is based on the flawed NAFTA-CAFTA model which also led to the outsourcing of millions of high-paying American jobs. This comes at a time when our own country is in a recession and experiencing unprecedented job loss.

All around, this is not a good idea, and I hope that we will kill this.

Thank you for the time, and I thank Chairman Spratt and the Budget Committee for producing a fair and responsible budget, a moral document that is fiscally responsible.

Mr. Chairman, I have been deeply concerned about the President's proposed cuts to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program known as LIHEAP. LIHEAP provides critical assistance to millions of families in America. Every winter, tens of thousands of families in New Hampshire rely on this program to heat their homes. Over 40,000 members each year for the past 2 years have applied to the fuel assistance program for help with heating bills. This winter, the average cost of heating a home with heating oil is expected to climb to over $2,000 per family, more than three times the $627 that it cost just 6 years ago. But LIHEAP has not failed to keep pace with the dramatic cost. It has actually dropped.

Yes.

For fiscal year 2009, the President proposed just $2 billion for LIHEAP, a $570 million painful cut from what Congress provided for 2008. This irresponsible cut could force New Hampshire to lose over $2.5 million in funding next year.

I applaud the committee for rejecting these proposed cuts and for increasing funding for LIHEAP and other programs that will help the middle-income and lower-income families in New Hampshire and across the country. And I thank you.

Madam Chairman, as a former social worker and administrator and a cosponsor of the GIVE Act, I rise today to express my strong support for H.R. 2857.

I was able to see firsthand the hard work and self-sacrifice and dedication of our AmeriCorps volunteers during the Katrina recovery effort. As a relief volunteer myself, I worked side by side with the AmeriCorps volunteers. You can't say enough about these young people who gave of themselves and worked tirelessly for many, many hours to give comfort to their fellow Americans. This convinced me how essential AmeriCorps and other national service programs really are to this Nation.

My experiences as a social worker and as an administrator and relief volunteer have made the reauthorization of this program a high priority for me, and I'm proud that it's a high priority for this Congress as well.

I'm also grateful that the committee passed my amendment to increase the minimum amount of the State formula grants. This increase acknowledges that these volunteer programs are equally important in smaller States such as New Hampshire. These programs and the participants who are in them work miracles for very low money, and we need to thank them.

Mr. Speaker, as we prepare to mark the unfortunate 6-year anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war that is being financed by deficit spending, it's important to recognize the serious effects this war is having on our military. Our generals are warning that our military has been stretched and strained too far.

Perhaps that's why in a recent poll of 3,400 present and former military officers, 88 percent of them said that the demands of the war in Iraq have ``stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.'' This is the worst readiness crisis since the Vietnam War, and military officers are justifiably worried about military preparedness. Military personnel are so concerned that nearly three-quarters of the officers surveyed in that recent poll said that their civilian leaders are setting ``unreasonable goals for the military'' in Iraq. And due to multiple deployments, the Army is facing a shortage of officers and enlisted personnel.

Mr. Speaker, the 110th Congress is listening to the military. We will continue to push for a new direction, a new change, and an end to the war in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon to voice my strong support of this bipartisan legislation. I became an original cosponsor of the Paul Wellstone Mental Health and Addiction Equity Act of 2007 because I recognize the inequities in our health insurance system.

As a social worker and administrator, I saw firsthand that insurance companies did not cover mental illnesses the same way they covered other illnesses. This created extra strain on patients, families, and health care providers in the communities they live in. Requiring higher deductibles and copayments also blocked access to health care for many.

H.R. 1424 remedies these problems by requiring mental health parity. There should be no difference between a pain in one's abdomen and mental pain or the pain of addiction, but these patients and their families do not receive the same support and help to stabilize their condition and walk the road to recovery. This is wrong and it's time to remedy this discrimination.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes.''

I am happy to be here. I am standing here tonight at 10:30 for the same reason that we are all here, because we believe that it's our obligation, our duty to defend the Constitution. This Constitution is a gift that has been handed to us through the centuries, and it's the envy of the world. This is what differentiates us from other nations.

To give you an idea of our Founding Fathers and what they thought about this, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked, What have you wrought? And he said, A Republic, if you can keep it.

So they understood even then that we would have to defend this Constitution against well-meaning people who believed that they had to give up some liberty in order to make themselves safe. This is not the first time in our history that we have faced peril, as you know. This has been an ongoing issue for us through the centuries. There are always countries that wish to do us harm, and it is our obligation to keep ourselves safe and to keep the American public safe. But that is not what this argument is about, as you know, because we have FISA, and FISA is in effect.

Now the President more than suggested that the intelligence community went dark and that they would be unable to do any surveillance. But the reality is, and the President and the Justice Department had to admit recently, that the wiretaps could still go on.

I would just like to read this so people understand what we are talking about here. This is from Reuters: ``White House Says Phone Wiretaps Back on For Now.'' Here's the quote, the statement from the Justice Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: ``Although our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the ongoing uncertainty, and have indicated they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists.'' Well, first of all, where is the patriotism there? If they believed this was for the good of the country, they should stay with this program, and will stay with this program.

Also, as my fellow Congressmen indicated, when they failed to pay the bills for the wiretap, these companies pulled the wiretaps, and we lost some critical information. So you have to wonder about that commitment there.

But there's a larger issue. First of all, we do have all the national security that we need right now. You're right that we need to tweak it, and we tried to. We tried to extend this for 3 weeks so that we could work it out. If it were so critical, why did the President and his supporters vote to let it go? We voted to extend it for 3 weeks.

So there's something that is counterintuitive and actually bizarre, that the President and his supporters would argue on one hand that we were allowing something to drop that was so critical and, on the other hand, refuse to vote to extend it for 3 weeks. So they didn't give us the time that we needed to do two things. We have to do all we can to protect Americans, and tweak this, but we also have an obligation to protect the Constitution while we do this.

So what have we done here? The intelligence community has not gone dark and the authority under this act allows the administration to conduct surveillance here in the United States of any foreign target. I am now reading from the House majority staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It's important that we cite these sources so that we know. ``In the event that a new phone number or e- mail address is identified, the NSA can add to the existing orders.'' They can begin surveillance immediately, without a court warrant. Within 72 hours they have to get one. That sounds perfectly reasonable to have judicial oversight and review.

So it's not true that people can't do surveillance. They can do surveillance. They must do surveillance. If we think that there are terrorists talking on the phone, I want them to be able to listen in, and so do you. We have families here. We want the same protection that other Americans want. And they can listen in.

But there's something else happening here, and this is called the retroactive immunity for the phone companies. What do we mean by retroactive immunity. What is immunity about? If you don't do anything wrong, you don't need immunity. Immunity suggests that something happened, and you're asking for this protection. And how can we say, sure we'll give it to you until we know what they did? Why won't they tell us what they did?

I liken it to somebody, a defendant showing up in court and saying to the judge, Well, judge, I may or may not have done something wrong. I am not going to tell you. But I want you to say maybe you did and maybe you didn't, but whatever it is, you're forgiven right away.

We would not accept that from an individual, and we must not accept it for any businesses either. We are, as John Adams said, a government of laws, not men. Nobody is above the law. Not you, not I, not any individual, not any company. They knew what they were supposed to do.

I would like to point out that Qwest knew that, another telecom company, and did not follow the President's request there. The President is not the one who sets the Constitution. He is not the one who decides. We have three branches of government. We must have judicial review and oversight. And it's our obligation, as it has been on every Congressman and Congresswoman's shoulders, to watch out for this incredibly brilliant document that is the envy of the world.

We were looking for a bipartisan agreement. If it's that critical, then we should have had the extension. But they know what we know, which is that FISA is still in effect, that they can eavesdrop without a warrant. That they simply, if there's an American involvement, they have to go get a court warrant within 72 hours.

By the way, that is not difficult to do. Over the period of years, there have been thousands and thousands of requests. I think only five have been refused. So this is not a problem. If they consider having to get a warrant a problem, I am sorry, but something stands between the President and this, and it's called the Constitution.

I come from a Republican family. My father was an attorney, and he was a very conservative Republican. I worked in his law office. And he taught me this great love for the Constitution. So the reason I point that out is because this is not a political issue. This has to do with the Constitution. And so regardless of whether people are Republicans or Democrats, what we saw here when they didn't extend it was a political maneuver. But it should not be. It is our first and foremost obligation to protect our freedoms while we protect our Constitution.

I would like to point out that if the President and his supporters managed to cut out the judicial branch, then the authority for this would go to the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. Our most recent former Attorney General was Alberto Gonzalez, and I think that we do not wish to put that kind of power into the hands of people who may not see the government's role the way that we do. So I have deep concerns about that. But, again, this is not an issue of what party you are in. This is an issue of whether you are an American and you believe in our Constitution or not.

I wanted to quote Andrew Napolitano, who was a New Jersey Superior Court Judge from 1987 to 1995, and is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News. He is upset about this as well, and he said: Those who believe the Constitution means what it says should tremble at every effort to weaken any of its protections. The Constitution protects all persons and all people. And, he said, if we lower constitutional protections for foreigners and their American correspondents, for whom will we lower them next?

And that really is the question. We stand our ground now, and we protect at least our American citizens from this eavesdropping.

The question earlier was, well, what do you have to hide? And I would say that even though you may not be placing phone calls that have anything to do with any government business, you may be having a conversation about your boss's wife or husband. You may be having a conversation about your husband's problem at work. You may be having a conversation about your neighbor. And any of those conversations, if they were overheard, could be used against you. So it is not simply the kind of setting that we are talking about right now, not a grander setting, a setting where it is national security, but simply your right to privacy and for your neighbors not to know the kinds of thoughts and the kinds of words that you share with people in private phone conversations. So we have this obligation to stand here and protect all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this bill and in honor of a great son of New Hampshire, Captain Jonathan Grassbaugh. I would like to thank my colleagues in the House for bringing this to the floor and my colleagues in the Senate for passing the original version.

Mr. Speaker, it is a special privilege for me to offer my remarks in support of this legislation and to have an opportunity to share with my colleagues in the House the story of an outstanding young man, a courageous leader, and a brave husband.

Jon was born on August 18, 1981. He and his family moved to Hampstead, New Hampshire, 8 years later and quickly grew roots in their community. His mother, Patricia, is the principal at Hampstead Middle School. Jon attended the elite Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated with honors in 1999. He attended Johns Hopkins University where he was commissioned through their ROTC program and graduated in 2003. That's also where Jon met his wife, Jenna, an Army officer in her own right. Tragically, they had only been married 10 months when an IED took Jon and three of his fellow Rangers on a combat logistics patrol in Diyala province.

When Jon finished school, he continued a strong family tradition of service to our country. His father was also a Ranger who served in Vietnam. Jon's brother is a West Point and Dartmouth graduate and an Army surgeon at Fort Lewis.

For Jon, it was not enough to serve. He excelled, the best of the best. A highly decorated officer, Jon was assigned to 5th Squad, 73rd Cavalry, 3rd BCT of the 82nd Airborne, Fort Bragg. As I said, the best of the best. Among more than a dozen of Jon's medals and honors are the Bronze Star he earned for combat heroism and a Purple Heart.

Jon was killed in action on April 7, 2007. He was only 25 years old. Our thoughts and prayers remain with his wife, Jenna. Jon was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery alongside three centuries of America's heroes, hallowed ground befitting a hero. We in New Hampshire are lucky to have had time with him and we have been blessed by the life of this wonderful man.

I urge my colleagues to join me today in continuing to honor his life by voting to memorialize his service, his dedication to his country and to his family, and his willingness to give his country his own life. Join me in passing S. 2478 for Army Ranger Captain Jonathan D. Grassbaugh.

Mr. Speaker, the President and his followers are telling the American public that the fight about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, is endangering America; but the reality is that FISA is still fully in effect and administration officials have acknowledged that.

What this fight is really about is the President wants to give telecom companies retroactive immunity for turning over private information about Americans to the executive branch without a court order. Now, some companies refuse to go along, so obviously there could be a problem here. We should not and cannot give immunity until we know what we are giving immunity for. This is like a defendant coming into court saying to a judge, I may or may not have done something wrong. I don't want to tell you about it, but I want you to say that I am not liable, and then the judge agrees.

We would not accept that for an individual, and we must not accept it for corporations or for the government either. As John Adams said, we are a government of laws, not men, and we must honor the Constitution.

I thank Chairman Miller for his leadership on this bipartisan legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today to express my strong support for H.R. 4137, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act. Last year, the Democratically led 110th Congress cut interest rates on student loans in half over a 5-year period in order to help American families pay for college.

This year we have continued our commitment to the poor and to the middle class by expanding college access. College loans are getting more expensive. By working and through student loans, I was able to attend college full time, but today, many students can only attend part time because of financial or family obligations. They also have to attend summer sessions so they can get through college more quickly. This legislation will help them by expanding Pell Grant eligibility for these part-time, year-round students.

One of this Congress' priorities is to make it easier to earn a college education. This legislation honors our commitment. As a member of the Education and Labor Committee, I proudly support this legislation and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and sacrifice of a patriot, Chief Petty Officer Nathan H. Hardy of Durham, New Hampshire, who was killed in action on Monday, February 4, while serving with the Navy SEALs in Iraq. Nate died doing what he loved. He loved our great country, and his life serves as an example to my State of New Hampshire and to our country.

We also honor the bravery and sacrifice of Chief Petty Officer Michael E. Koch of State College, Pennsylvania, who was killed alongside Nate in Iraq on Monday. They were brothers in arms and will not be forgotten.

After graduating from Oyster River High School in Durham, New Hampshire, Nate enlisted in the Navy on November 4, 1997, with the ambition to become a Navy SEAL. He graduated from boot camp at Recruit Training Command in Great Lakes, Illinois, in January 1998 and in the same month entered Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training in Coronado, California, Class 221.

Nate was a stellar SEAL, and he lived the life of a SEAL each day. His military awards and decorations include the Bronze Star, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, three Good Conduct Medals, two National Defense Medals, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Kosovo Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, three Sea Service Deployment Awards, NATO Medal, the Expert Rifle Medal, and the Sharpshooter Pistol Medal.

Beyond being a remarkable SEAL, Nate was a loving husband, a happy new father, a dedicated son, a loyal friend, and a role model to many in New Hampshire and across the country. Nate embodied the ethic of Cincinnatus who, when called upon to serve and defend Rome, gave all of his effort and determination; but when conflict ended, he returned home to enjoy his family and friends. He did not glorify himself as a hero, because true heroes do no such thing. He was as humble as he was brave.

Like Nate, I graduated from Oyster River High School in Durham. Ours is a close-knit community and Nate and his family have played an integral role in its unique camaraderie. I've spoken to many of his friends, and it's clear they will always miss him, but each will carry a piece of him forever. Because he had a passion for so many varied interests, including sports, art, books and music, Nate touched people in different ways. Each one of his circles of friends has a unique perspective on Nate that they call their own because of his eclectic interests. All of them, though, will always feel his love, celebrate his life, and remember his great passion for living.

In addition to his friends, Nate leaves behind his brother, Ben; his mother, Donna, an administrative assistant at the University of New Hampshire; his father, Steve, a professor at UNH; his wife, Mindi; and 7-month-old son, Parker. The community was called upon to support the Hardy family when their eldest son, Josh, died after waging a long battle against cancer in 1993. The Hardys showed courage at that time, and Durham rallied to their support. The community is ready to support them again at this time, united by the memories of this remarkable young man.

Mindi and Parker are especially in our hearts at this time and will always be, even after the immediate pain recedes.

Down the street from this hallowed floor is the Department of Veterans Affairs. On its side stand President Lincoln's words: ``To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.''

Our patriot, Nate, bore the battle and the people who cared so deeply about Nate will now care for Mindi and Parker. Friends and family will share stories with his wife and son, stories that they will carry in their hearts forever. Parker will know not only that his father was brave, but that his father was a good man, a man of character and conviction.

Nate Hardy enriched our New Hampshire and our country. We were blessed to have him, even for such a short while. May he rest in peace, and may his family find comfort in knowing that he was loved and respected by all.