Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the robust funding to electrify Federal vehicle fleets included in the Build Back Better Act.

Our climate is rapidly changing, and humans are the primary cause.

In 2019, the transportation sector accounted for 70 percent of petroleum used in the United States and was the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions nationwide.

Transitioning to electric vehicles will reduce our carbon output and improve the environment for our children and our grandchildren.

That is why the Committee on Oversight and Reform approved nearly $12 billion to transition the postal fleet and GSA fleets to electric vehicles and to charge them at post offices across the country.

This funding will help purchase more than 300,000 electric vehicles and the devices needed to charge them, making the United States a leader on climate change and building an environmentally friendly fleet of the future.

I urge my colleagues to support the Build Back Better Act and its robust funding for electric vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Build Back Better Act, which makes critical investments to green our economy and protect our environment.

The Committee on Oversight and Reform's portion of this bill provides nearly $12 billion to transition Federal fleets, including the Postal Service, to electric vehicles, making the United States a leader on climate change by building an environmentally friendly fleet of the future.

I am especially pleased that we have included dedicated funding for implementation of the President's Justice40 Initiative, a commitment to ensure that at least 40 percent of the benefits of infrastructure investments go to communities most impacted by environmental injustice.

The Build Back Better Act is a crucial piece of legislation that will promote equity and protect our environment.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support it.

Madam Speaker, our constitutional rights are under attack. We must pass the Women's Health Protection Act to firmly establish a statutory right to abortion care in every community across our country.

Our rights are no longer being chipped away. They are being bulldozed into the ground. We must act now before it is too late.

Madam Speaker, I thank our chairman for his extraordinary leadership on this issue, and I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support funding for the Iron Dome.

The Iron Dome is a purely defensive system, one that has saved countless innocent lives. Its whole purpose is to save lives and pursue peace.

I strongly support Israel's right to defend herself. Since its formation, Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East, has been under attack by terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah that deny its right to exist. The Iron Dome is crucial to protecting lives against these terrorist attacks who continue to fire thousands of rockets into Israel.

I am proud of the work that Israel and the United States did together to develop this successful defensive system, and I urge all my colleagues to support the Iron Dome Supplemental Appropriations Act. This should be a totally bipartisan effort.

I particularly thank the members of the Appropriations Committee and Chair DeLauro, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and many others for their work for bringing it swiftly to the floor. I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, on September 1, the Supreme Court allowed Texas Senate Law 8 to go into effect, which bans nearly all abortions in Texas.

Make no mistake, a 6-week ban is a ban on virtually all abortions. Most people don't even know if they are pregnant at 6 weeks. This is the latest in a series of extremist attempts to restrict abortion access.

This December the Supreme Court will consider a 15-week ban in Mississippi that directly threatens Roe v. Wade. With this recent action, the Court has shown that we cannot depend on it to protect our rights.

This Thursday, I am holding an Oversight Committee hearing on the unending threat to abortion access, and on Friday the House must pass the Women's Health Protection Act.

Our abortion rights are under threat, and we must act now before it is too late.

Madam Speaker, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this amendment, which contains my bill to increase transparency and accountability of senior leaders in the executive branch, called the Periodically Listing Updates to Management Act or PLUM Act.

This bill would require the Office of Personnel Management to maintain a current publicly available online directory of senior government leaders.

Currently, a comprehensive list of people appointed by the President is available only once every four years in a publication referred to as the Plum Book.

The Plum Book provides only a snapshot in time and does not reflect changes that occur between publications. As a result, current information about senior administration officials is often outdated and difficult to find. In the digital age, providing Americans with a list of top Federal officials once every four years is simply unacceptable.

This bill would implement recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office and the Administrative Conference of the United States by modernizing and expanding the current publication of the Plum Book and aligning it with modern data standards.

The Committee on Oversight and Reform considered this bill in June of this year, and it was approved on a voice vote.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved a similar bill last Congress with broad bipartisan support, and the PLUM Act has been strongly endorsed by a bipartisan group of more than two dozen civil society organizations and experts.

I want to thank my cosponsors on the bill: Representatives Connolly, Sarbanes, Norton, Mfume, and Castro.

I also want to thank my colleague, Representative Ocasio-Cortez for introducing the Political Appointments Inclusion and Diversity Act, which requires OPM to coordinate with the White House to make a summary of demographic information on political appointees publicly available. The requirements in her bill are included in the PLUM Act.

We should be working together and working toward making our government more transparent for the American people and more representative of everyone in our country. The PLUM Act would provide timely and transparent information about senior government officials who are making decisions impacting the lives of millions. It would shine a light on who is at the table in our government and who is not.

I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I disagree with the gentleman strongly. We need to move into the modern age. Right now all information is on the internet. It is digital and it is available. The bill would merely require the Office of Personnel Management to maintain a current, publicly available, online directory of senior government officials so that anyone could access it at any time.

A comprehensive list is already out there, as you said, but it is printed only once every four years in a book that is called the Plum Book, and it is only a snapshot. It is not up to date.

This bill is about modernizing the Plum Book and aligning it to modern data standards. That is what this is about.

Information on senior leaders in government may already be obtained by outside groups through FOIA, freedom of information requests, or paid subscription services. There are paid subscription services, and you can get it through a freedom of information. So it is available.

OPM civil service regulations stipulate that certain information from personnel records for current and former Federal employees is available to the public, including names, present and past position titles, salaries, position descriptions, and duty stations.

Federal employees generally have no expectation of privacy regarding this information. It is available on all of us. It is available by private means, it is available through other means, through the FOIA, so why not make it available and easily used by the public?

I want to answer the gentleman's claim that identifying appointees publicly puts them at risk of political demonstrations or may make them not want to serve or whatever. He mentioned that this was a negative.

My time is running out, but right now there is an exception for national security positions that is recognized and reporting on demographic information is important to get to the public, too.

I strongly support this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to Sybil Shainwald, for her unwavering dedication to advocacy for women and especially for women's health. For over forty years, Ms. Shainwald has been at the forefront of the women's health movement.

Ms. Shainwald received a Master of Arts in History from Columbia University in 1972 with a focus on the consumer movement. In 1972, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to establish the Center for the Study of the Consumer Movement at the Consumers Union, which she directed from 1972-1978. While director, she attended New York Law School and received her Juris Doctor in 1976.

As a trial assistant in the late 1970's, Ms. Shainwald successfully represented the first case that held drug manufacturers liable for the health problems of children whose mothers had taken the synthetic estrogen drug diethylstilbestrol (DES) to prevent miscarriage. Since then, she has represented thousands of people in the U.S. and globally, who were exposed in utero to DES.

In addition to her courtroom advocacy, Ms. Shainwald was also a professor of law at the City University of New York and currently sits on the Board of Trustees of New York Law School. In 2004, she established the Sidney Shainwald Public Interest Lectures at New York Law School.

Through her writing, testimony before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Congress, and her leadership of advocacy groups, Ms. Shainwald has raised national awareness of crucial women's health issues. In the 1980s, she traveled internationally to educate women on the toxicity of Depo-Provera, though not approved by the FDA for contraceptive use, these birth control shots were marketed in 80 foreign countries and, through legal loopholes, to poor, minority, and mentally incapacitated women in the U.S. Ms. Shainwald estimated that 20,000 American women were prescribed this drug, linked to cancer in lab animals, as a contraceptive and to treat PMS and endometriosis, and were not told about its side effects.

Ms. Shainwald is former Chair of the National Women's Health Network, Co-Founder of Health Action International and Trial Lawyers for Public Justice. She was a member of the FDA Consumer Consortium and a member of the Coordinating Committee on Toxics and Drugs. She is on the Board of the Hysterectomy Educational Resources & Services Foundation (HERS) and other non-profit organizations. Ms. Shainwald also recently helped establish an Immigration Clinic at the College of William & Mary Law School.

Ms. Shainwald has received numerous awards for her advocacy, including the President's Medal from New York Law School, the Dean's Award from Columbia University, the Susan B. Anthony Award from the National Organization for Women, New York County Lawyer's Association's Edith I. Spivak Award and both New York Law School and William & Mary bestowed Honorary Doctor of Law Degrees to her. Most recently, New York State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright honored Ms. Shainwald with her annual Carolyn B. Maloney Leadership award.

Ms. Shainwald has worked for decades as an advocate for women's health and can be credited with many advances in the field. Her tireless advocacy has done nothing short of save lives.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Sybil Shainwald for her remarkable advocacy for the health of women all over the world.

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to recognize the extraordinary service of Megan Barbero, who served for more

than two years in the House's Office of General Counsel as a Deputy General Counsel. During her tenure, Ms. Barbero played an integral role in safeguarding the legal interests of the House of Representatives and its Members, Officers, and employees in connection with federal court litigation involving issues of the highest institutional importance. Specifically, Ms. Barbero provided invaluable legal counsel and representation to numerous Committees of the House, greatly assisting them both in fulfilling their constitutionally authorized oversight functions and defending those prerogatives in litigation.

In particular, Ms, Barbero significantly contributed to the development and execution of a complex legal and litigation strategy to protect and defend the authority of the Committees on Oversight and Reform, Judiciary, Financial Services, Ways and Means, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to enforce in federal court compliance with congressional subpoenas for personal and business records of the President, as well as to obtain, by compulsion, official documents and testimony from the White House and other agencies of the Executive Branch. Ms. Barbero's extensive contributions to the drafting of the written briefs and her performance at numerous oral arguments in these cases were demonstrations of the finest legal advocacy.

Additionally, Ms. Barbero provided vital legal counsel to the House regarding both presidential impeachments, and with respect to the defense of longstanding institutional prerogatives, including the House's constitutional authority under the Appropriations and Rulemaking Clauses.

Ms. Barbero's work on behalf of the House has been of the highest caliber and I have no doubt that the Securities and Exchange Commission will benefit from her outstanding legal counsel. On behalf of the entire House community, I thank Ms. Barbero for her dedicated service to the House and I wish for her the very best in all of her future endeavors.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in remembrance of Susan Scanlan, the longtime president of the Women's Education and Research Institute (WREI) at the Women's Congressional Policy Institute. Susan passed away peacefully on July 16, 2021. She is known for her steadfast commitment to women's issues and her work in bringing exceptional women into professional roles here in Washington.

Susan was born in Philadelphia, where her father relocated while working during World War II. The family returned to Virginia in 1949 where they settled in Alexandria, where she attended Linconia Elementary and then W.T. Woodson High School before pursuing her collegiate education. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Sweet Briar College with a masters in modern languages from Tulane University, Susan began her career on Capitol Hill as legislative director for Representative Charles Wilson (TX-02), authoring legislation that admitted women to United States Military Academies.

Susan helped found the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues in 1977 and made WREI into an effective policy arm addressing issues crucial to women. In 1980, Susan wrote a proposal that would change the lives of more than three hundred women: to establish the Congressional Fellowships on Women and Public Policy at WREI. Since her proposal, hundreds of extremely driven, intelligent, and service-minded women have been sent to multitudes of congressional offices.

After she served as director of the caucus for five years, she pursued a new role as the Director of WREI's Congressional Fellowships program. Over three-hundred women from all backgrounds of America have been nurtured by this program, which placed them in congressional offices to pursue their passions for public service. After a brief hiatus to pursue other opportunities she returned to WREI as president in 2000. In recognition of her deep care for women and our nation's servicemembers, she was named by President Clinton to the Advisory Committee on Employment and Training for Veterans at the Department of Labor. Her dedication to her principles and values was on display even further in 2003 by her receipt of the Women's Leadership Award from the International Women's

Democracy Center, which was also co-awarded to then-United States Senator John Kerry. In November 2005, Susan was selected to become chair of the National Council of Women's organizations, a coalition consisting of over two-hundred progressive groups and representing over eleven million American women and their interests. She was a frequent presence on national media, calling out those who placed discrimination and sexism over equality and fairness for all peoples.

Without Susan's forethought and leadership in establishing the Congressional Fellowships, the Congress may never have been graced by the presence of such brilliant young women. Particularly, Susan provided my office with seventeen fellows since I first came to Congress, including Shvedova Nadezhda (1994-1995), Lisa Maatz (1997- 1998), Megan Gordon Don (1998-1999), Megan Sullivan (1999-2000), Kimberly Mason (2001), Christi Corbett (2004), Karen Persis (2005), Anthea Watson Strong (2006), Bethany Sousa (2007), Allison Adams-Alwine (2009), Pamela O'Leary (2008), Elizabeth Darnall (2010), Julie Feeney (2011), Aimee Phelan (2015), Meenal Khajuria (2012), Nina Anand (2014), and Anna Le (2018). Many of the fellowship's over three hundred alumnae have gone on to pursue fantastic and storied careers in academia, business, medicine, law, nonprofit work, and continued public service through their state legislatures and the Congress.

I will always remember Susan fondly for guiding our House and I to these extraordinary women, for her fierce advocacy throughout the years on the issues of particular importance to women, and her enduring commitment to her own principles and values--no matter the obstacle. Though she is gone from our lives now, her legacy lives on in the people whose lives she graced with her presence.

Madam Speaker, I thank Susan for everything she gave me, Congress, and our Nation. May she rest well.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize MTV, on its 40th anniversary for the cultural imprint it has left on our country and the work it continues to do as one of the world's leading global youth brands. Throughout MTV's 40 years, the brand has created reality television, expanded the creative mediums of the music industry, and inspired our nation's youth. Today, this New York-born and bred brand reaches 180 countries and 1.8 billion people around the world.

In August 1981, MTV exploded onto the airwaves with the release of the first-ever music video, ``Video Killed the Radio Star'' by The Buggies. Shortly after, MTV began to define popular culture and the music industry in an unprecedented manner with popular music becoming more visual and dance and clothing styles garnering a greater importance to the whole experience of music. MTV's popularity grew to such heights that in 1984 it hosted the network's first Video Music Awards--known as the VMAs--ceremony at Radio City Music Hall in the great city of New York.

In 1985, MTV began to air safe sex Public Service Announcements (PSAs), making it one of the first television networks to do so. These safe-sex initiatives continued over the years through MTV's It's Your Sex Life campaign and more, helping to educate our nation's youth on the importance of safe sex practices. MTV was a pioneer in the nascent efforts to ensure our nation's teens and young adults had the knowledge to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and infections, contributing to lowering the rates of such diseases in the following decades.

Continuing its work in this type of educational programming, in February 1992, MTV launched Choose or Lose during the 1992 presidential election. The awareness campaign successfully engaged young people by demystifying the political process, encouraging registration, stressing the importance of voting, and highlighting issues of daily importance to Americans. The Choose or Lose campaign contributed to a twenty percent increase in youth turnout during the 1992 general election and remains a model for encouraging youth voter engagement.

In 1996, MTV grew Choose or Lose to include a bus that toured 80,000 miles between forty-eight states to engage even more young

Americans in the political process and shed light on the issues impacting them. During this time, MTV devoted more than 100 hours of airtime to policy issues affecting young people. The campaign was successful in registering 30,000 new young voters, and when President Clinton signed the Voter Registration Act of 1993 into law, he cited MTV and Rock the Vote's role in making such a landmark law possible. MTV used its voice to promote the bill, educate the public on the bill on MTV News, and provide a platform for the bill's sponsors and proponents. In addition, MTV provided $20 million worth of airtime for Motor Voter PSAs, directing viewers to call their representatives in support of the legislation.

In March 2008, MTV broadcast an hour-long special event that brought together presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama, as well as eight young veterans for an intimate discussion on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war.

MTV also built a coalition of 3,000 partners in 2020 to launch the first-ever Vote Early Day. This new civic holiday and day of action aims to keep younger Americans informed and assist them in exercising their right to vote. Through these actions, MTV has shown the power of popular culture in motivating our younger generations to vote by using its influence to encourage millions of young people to ``Choose or Lose'' and ``Vote Early.''

In addition to its civic education work, MTV also has a longstanding history of mental health advocacy. They were awarded a Peabody Award in 2007 for their work on mtvU: Half of Us, a multiplatform campaign that includes a thorough website and numerous public service spots to help college students deal with stress and depression. And earlier this year, they launched a new multi-year initiative, ``Mental Health is Health,'' which will harness the power of storytelling to destigmatize mental health.

Inspired by the spirit of youth--from escapism to activism--MTV's impact has transcended the entertainment industry and pop culture reaching audiences and driving social change all around the world.

I ask my distinguished colleagues to join me in recognizing MTV for its contributions to society and culture. Happy 40th anniversary, and we can't wait to see what the next 40 bring.

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus for bringing us together today to highlight the importance of the Green New Deal.

Madam Speaker, climate change is one of the single most pressing threats facing this country and the global community, and our most vulnerable communities are bearing the brunt of the consequences. That is why today, as chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, I held a hearing on President Biden's Justice40 Initiative.

During this hearing, we heard from experts about the need to swiftly and effectively implement this initiative to ensure that the communities hardest hit by pollution, poverty, and public health risks receive a fair share of our Nation's climate and infrastructure investments.

As chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, I am committed to ensuring that the administration and all Federal agencies have the tools they need to implement the Justice40 Initiative. This is crucial to ensuring that our climate investments advance racial and economic justice.

Beyond the Justice40 Initiative, we need to prioritize policy solutions here in Congress that really focus on climate justice. For New York City, that means investing in a green future for public housing and for our public schools.

This past Earth Day, I reintroduced the Public Housing Solar Equity Act, which would guarantee that any solar energy generated on public housing land benefits the residents of those developments first.

Looking beyond solar energy, all public housing repairs and modernization projects should be green, which is exactly what the Green New Deal for Public Housing does. This bill will provide funding to electrify all buildings, add solar panels, and secure renewable energy sources for all public housing energy needs. In short, it will make Federal housing cleaner, safer, and greener.

Housing is a human right that no New Yorker, no American, should go without. As we work to make sure everyone has access to the clean affordable housing they need and deserve, let's expand our goals to make these communities green, too.

For the health of our residents and for our environment, we cannot afford to do anything less.

For the health of our students, we need a Green New Deal for Public Schools, a transformative and unprecedented investment that will not only make our schools greener but also expand services for our students. My colleague, Jamaal Bowman, is a former educator and has authored this important bill, of which I am a cosponsor.

We are in a state of emergency. The West is burning; cities are flooding; and extreme weather events are becoming all too common. We need to act now, and we need to act boldly.

For the health and safety of all Americans, for environmental and social justice, let's make a Green New Deal. We can't afford to do anything less.

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from New York (Mr. Bowman) for focusing on education and our environment and putting both of them together creatively with the Green New Deal for Public Schools.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership.

I rise today in strong support of Speaker Pelosi's resolution to establish a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on our Capitol. I thank the Speaker for her unwavering commitment to uncovering the truth about what happened that day.

This select committee will be critical to fully understanding the root causes of the attack on our Capitol and to passing reforms to ensure that an insurrection never again reaches these Halls or threatens our democracy.

Over the past 5 months, the Oversight and Reform Committee has made substantial progress in investigating the attack on our Capitol.

The committee has asked why our Nation's law enforcement agencies failed to anticipate a domestic terrorist attack that was planned right out in the open on social media, television, and why critical assistance took so long to arrive during the attack.

In the course of our investigation, the Oversight and Reform Committee has found that officials made 12 urgent requests for security assistance at the Capitol, yet the National Guard did not arrive until more than 4 hours after the Capitol perimeter was breached and lives were threatened.

We have found that warnings of the impending assault were passed directly to the FBI in the weeks before the attack, including that insurrectionists planned in writing to take the Capitol building. We plan to take the Capitol building. Yet, in the face of these warnings, we have found that our Nation's intelligence agencies failed to act.

Our work is far from done, and we must continue to seek the truth about the January 6 domestic terrorist attack. I look forward to supporting this select committee and its investigation and working together to secure our democracy.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 504, I call up the bill (H.R. 2662) to amend the Inspector General Act of 1978, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials on H.R. 2662.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today to urge strong, bipartisan support for my bill, H.R. 2662, the IG Independence and Empowerment Act.

The work of inspectors general, who conduct independent oversight of Federal agencies, continues to be a remarkable investment for American taxpayers. For every dollar we spend on IGs, we get $17 back. And this return could be even higher if we gave IGs additional tools, which is exactly what this bill would do.

The IG Independence and Empowerment Act is a package of critical reforms to protect IGs from political retaliation and obstruction. I want to thank Leader Hoyer for his support and work on this bill, as well as all the other cosponsors of the legislation.

The IG Independence and Empowerment Act also has the support of 14 good government groups. They wrote that the reforms in this legislation ``have been crafted to address problems with inspector general independence and authority long raised by Congress, civil society, and our inspectors general. We strongly urge Congress to pass this legislation to empower our independent watchdogs to serve the public even more effectively.''

This bill would enhance the independence of IGs in several ways. Most importantly, it would protect IGs from being fired simply for doing their jobs. The bill would only allow an IG to be removed for a documented cause, based on a defined list of nonpartisan reasons, such as a knowing violation of

the law, abuse of authority, or gross mismanagement.

These removal protections come from a bill I introduced last year, after the previous administration bullied, sidelined, and retaliated against multiple IGs.

Last April and May, in six short weeks, President Trump fired or sidelined four IGs and acting IGs who were simply doing their jobs.

On April 3, intelligence community IG Michael Atkinson was fired after he provided a whistleblower complaint to Congress about President Trump's now infamous call with Ukrainian President, part of the conduct for which he was impeached by this body.

On April 7, President Trump removed Glenn Fine as Acting Defense Department IG, which blocked IG Fine from serving as chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, a committee I helped create in the CARES Act to oversee trillions of dollars in Federal spending in response to the coronavirus pandemic. IG Fine was simply doing his job.

On May 15, President Trump removed Mitch Behm as the Acting Transportation Department IG and replaced him with an agency insider. Mr. Behm was investigating Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao at the time.

And, finally, that same day, President Trump fired State Department IG Steve Linick, who, at the time, was investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for abuse of power and misuse of resources, and replaced him with a political crony.

All four of these IGs were just following the law and the facts, yet they faced blatant retaliation. This is just plain wrong.

President Trump's actions struck at the heart of why we have IGs, to provide independent oversight and a check on executive branch waste, fraud, and abuse.

No President should be allowed to retaliate against an IG for simply doing their jobs, and the IG Independence and Empowerment Act would ensure that IGs are protected from this kind of retaliation.

In a letter to congressional leadership after the IG firings by Mr. Trump, nine former IGs wrote and said: ``Forcing inspectors general to choose between doing their jobs with integrity and keeping their positions is not an acceptable model of governance and oversight. We therefore urge you to pass for-cause removal protections for all IGs.''

In addition, the IG Independence and Empowerment Act would ensure temporary, acting IGs are independent and qualified by requiring the acting IG to be the deputy IG in the same office, or another senior official from the IG community if there is no deputy. This would protect against the appointment of acting IGs with conflicts of interest or who are acting as political appointees.

The IG Independence and Empowerment Act would further bolster IG independence by requiring notification to Congress before an IG is pushed aside and placed on non-duty status so that we in Congress can support the independence of IGs.

The bill would also empower IGs by granting them the authority to subpoena nongovernment witnesses to provide testimony. In many investigations, testimony from nongovernment witnesses is essential. So providing IGs with this authority is often the only way to root out fraud or other wrongdoings.

In 2016, our former colleague, Mark Meadows, supported a similar provision and highlighted that bill's procedural safeguards, which are essentially the same in the bill we are considering today.

He stated: ``This bill provides the expanded authority that the IGs have asked for, but with safeguards in place to make sure that they protect against the possibility that an IG's investigation would interfere with an ongoing criminal investigation, or do other harm.''

The IG Independence and Empowerment Act would also close a loophole that prevents the Department of Justice IG from initiating investigations into professional misconduct by DOJ attorneys.

This bill balances enhanced authorities and independence with new accountability and transparency measures for IGs.

For example, the bill contains the bipartisan Integrity Committee Transparency Act, which would require greater transparency from the CIGIE Integrity Committee, the body Congress set up to investigate IGs.

Supporting IG independence has long been a bipartisan issue. Congress must act now to protect and empower IGs so that they can perform the duties Congress has entrusted to them without being retaliated against.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support the IG Independence and Empowerment Act and continue the bipartisan tradition of protecting and strengthening IGs.

To my Republican colleagues who may say these efforts are about attacking President Trump, I would respond with this: Joe Biden is the President now.

I am supporting good governments reforms under a Democratic administration because I believe in accountability no matter who the President is and what party they come from.

We are talking about the future. This is about safeguarding taxpayers' money and protecting the integrity of our government.

I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will support these critical reforms as well.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader of the House, an important leader on this legislation, and a steadfast leader on this and on so many issues before this body.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez), the vice chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Porter), the vice chair of the Subcommittee on Government Operations of the Oversight Committee.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for her amendment, her hard work on this bill, and her leadership on the subcommittee and committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman such time as he may consume.

Madam Speaker, first, I would like to recognize the hard work of the chairman of the subcommittee. He authored two proposals that were included in the bill and was a major leader on it. I thank Mr. Connolly.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Raskin), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the Oversight Committee and a member of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis of the Oversight Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman, my dear friend and colleague, for having great enthusiasm for oversight and combating waste, fraud, and abuse. I would respectfully offer to him that the best way to conduct that is to give the power to the IGs to conduct legitimate investigations. What we have seen is that when there comes a legitimate investigation, they are often moved aside, fired, or retaliated against.

So, I welcome the gentleman's enthusiasm. I hope he will join with me in supporting giving the power to IGs to conduct legitimate investigations of waste, fraud, and abuse.

As I said in my opening remarks, for every dollar we spend on IGs, we get back $17, really hundreds of millions of dollars back from their oversight and work.

Madam Speaker, I want to remind the gentleman, as he knows from our hearings, there are many provisions in this bill that are bipartisan, several that Mr. Connolly just mentioned that we were working on. I look forward to working with him and passing this bill.

It should be bipartisan. Oversight and accountability should be bipartisan. I hope the gentleman joins us in voting for this important bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier), the chair of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the Armed Services Committee. She also serves on the Oversight and Reform Committee and is the co-chair of the Democratic Women's Caucus.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, Jackie Speier, for her tremendous work on this bill, and one of the major provisions was a bill of hers that was incorporated into it.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Ross), a newly elected Member from the great State of North Carolina and a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Independence is the bedrock principle of inspectors general, and this legislation would protect and enhance their critical work.

As I mentioned earlier, this legislation has the support of several nonpartisan, good government groups, including the Project on Government Oversight, the Government Accountability Project, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and many, many others. It also contains several bipartisan bills that are part of the overall inspector general reform bill. I ask that the support letters from the good government groups be included in the Record.

June 28, 2021.

Dear Representative: The undersigned organizations write to

express our support for the IG Independence and Empowerment

Act (H.R. 2662) and to urge you to vote for this critical

legislation.

Our federal inspectors general (IGs) identify and

investigate waste, fraud, and abuse within the executive

branch. The importance of their work cannot be overstated.

Executive branch officials and Members of Congress from both

sides of the aisle rely on oversight conducted by inspectors

general to inform their policy-making. These watchdogs

continually return substantial savings for taxpayers. In

fiscal year 2020 alone, inspectors general identified

potential savings of approximately $53 billion. And perhaps

most importantly, inspectors general investigate and expose

abuses of power that may infringe on constitutional rights.

If enacted, this legislation would address critical

weaknesses in laws that have limited the effectiveness and

threatened the independence of these watchdogs.

For example, most inspectors general lack the authority to

compel former agency officials, subcontractors, or

subgrantees to cooperate with IG investigations. This has

limited the ability of our watchdogs to effectively review

federal programs for waste and fraud and to investigate

federal employees accused of misconduct. The IG Independence

and Empowerment Act would address this by giving inspectors

general the authority to compel testimony from former agency

officials, subcontractors, or grantees where that testimony

would be relevant to ongoing investigations.

Another weakness is that the president can fire these

watchdogs and replace them with unqualified or conflicted

individuals, exposing the work of these offices to

unnecessary political interference. The public and Congress

depend on inspectors general to ensure our federal agencies

are functioning effectively, but these watchdogs must be

confident they will not be fired for doing that job well. As

nine former inspectors general recently wrote to Congress,

``Forcing inspectors general to choose between doing their

jobs with integrity and keeping their positions is not an

acceptable model of governance and oversight.'' The IG

Independence and Empowerment Act places reasonable limits on

when a president can remove an inspector general and who can

serve in the event of a vacancy, and will further insulate

the critical oversight offices from politics.

There are many other critical reforms in this comprehensive

legislation that have been crafted to address problems with

inspector general independence and authority long raised by

Congress, civil society, and our inspectors general. We

strongly urge Congress to pass this legislation to empower

our independent watchdogs to serve the public even more

effectively.

Sincerely,

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

(CREW), Common Cause, Demand Progress, Government

Accountability Project, Government Information Watch,

Mainers for Accountable Leadership, National Security

Counselors, Open The Government, Project On Government

Oversight (POGO), Protect Democracy, Public Citizen,

Stand Up America, Taxpayers for Common Sense, The

Digital Democracy Project.

The reforms we are considering today are only one part of the work Congress needs to prevent future Presidents from abusing power. I also strongly support the broad Protecting Our Democracy Act, which Chairman Schiff has spearheaded, and I look forward to that bill's consideration very soon.

I do want to say that the Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis, unlike the description from my good friend and colleague, has held 15 hearings of oversight. They have disclosed and recovered millions of dollars of illegal spending or corrupt spending. There is a hearing tomorrow, which will be the 16th hearing of the committee, and we welcome you to join us at that subcommittee hearing if you so wish.

The inspector general community just, in general, has been attacked in recent years. By passing this IG Independence and Empowerment Act, Congress would send a strong message in the strongest terms that no administration, regardless of President or party, can bully or retaliate or act against an IG when the IG is doing their job. They can only be removed for just cause, such as violating the law or gross mismanagement.

In passing this legislation, we will be strengthening our democracy, and we will send a strong message that Congress supports accountability and an effective government.

I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this bill. It should be a bipartisan bill.

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

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 504, I offer amendments en bloc.

Madam Speaker, the amendment offered by Congresswoman Cindy Axne would increase transparency when an inspector general is removed.

This amendment would require the President or independent agency head to provide Congress a detailed case-specific explanation when firing an

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Carter), one of the newest members of our caucus. He serves on the Committees of Transportation and Infrastructure and Small Business.

Madam Speaker, I support all of the en bloc amendments, including Mr. Carter's, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to this amendment

Madam Speaker, this amendment would absolutely gut the bill. The amendment would strike the bill's key protection for inspectors general against political retaliation by eliminating the protection that would only allow an IG to be removed only for a legitimate cause. Not for political retaliation, not because a President doesn't like what they are doing or an investigation that they have started, but only for mismanagement or illegal acts for cause.

We saw last year how unlimited authority can be abused when President Trump bullied and retaliated against two IGs who were investigating his administration, including when he fired the State Department IG. These protections are constitutional.

Last month, the Independent Congressional Review Service released an analysis of congressional authority to limit the removal of IGs and concluded that for-cause removal restrictions ``appear to be a constitutionally permissible means of encouraging independence for most IGs.''

Madam Speaker, this amendment would also gut the protection in the bill against the appointment of acting IGs with a clear conflict of interest. The amendment would strike a requirement that acting IGs come from an Office of Inspector General. The Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency requested this reform, proposed by Republican Representative Porter, as one of its top legislative priorities in order to ``enhance the independence of OIGs.''

We saw serious abuses during the last administration. In both the Department of Transportation and the Department of State, President Trump named political appointees within the agency to serve as the acting IG overseeing the same agency.

Finally, this amendment would strip from the bill an important reform that would allow IGs to issue a subpoena to require individuals outside of the Federal Government to provide testimony, if needed, for an investigation. This has long been a priority for inspectors general to allow thorough and complete investigations.

Madam Speaker, multiple IGs have reported that Trump administration officials, including Jeff Sessions, have refused to cooperate with investigations. No Federal employee should be able to simply avoid and escape accountability by leaving government and saying, ``I just no longer will testify or participate in finding the truth.''

These provisions were passed by the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the House in 2018, in a Republican-led bill, and contained carefully crafted compromises struck by Chairman Issa and Ranking Member Cummings years ago.

Madam Speaker, this legislation provides procedural safeguards to ensure that subpoena authority is not abused and it does not interfere with ongoing investigations. For example, the bill will require an inspector general to obtain the approval of a panel of three other inspectors general in order to issue a subpoena for testimony.

A few IGs, including the Department of Defense IG, already have this authority. The language I authored and that the Congress passed on a bipartisan basis, the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee was provided testimonial subpoena authority when it was created as part of the CARES Act last Congress.

There are many instances of former officials and nongovernment employees avoiding IG interviews going back over a decade. For example, IGs were unable to interview retired agents in the ``Fast and Furious'' investigation, and nongovernment witnesses to the Carter-Page FISA warrant investigation.

This has never been a partisan issue before. In fact, the underlying bill had many, many bipartisan pieces. So in a letter to the Committee on Oversight and Reform, Department of Justice Inspector General has also come out against this.

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, with each passing week, we are seeing the tremendous impact of the American Rescue Plan on our Nation, in New York State, in New York City, and in my own district of New York 12.

Included in the American Rescue Plan is the 1-year expansion of the child tax credit. Next month, families will begin to receive credits of up to $300 per month to help with food, to help with rent, to help with the cost of childcare.

It is estimated that this funding will cut childhood poverty in half. Let me repeat that. It will cut childhood poverty in half. In my district alone, New York 12, this will help 54,000 children and lift nearly 5,000 children out of poverty.

Knowing the impact this tax credit will have on our families, I am asking all of my colleagues to join me in working to make it permanent.

When families do well, our Nation does well.

Mr. Speaker, on June 19, 1865, freedom finally came for the last enslaved African Americans in the United States when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, more than 2 years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Today, 156 years later, President Biden will be signing a law to make Juneteenth a new Federal holiday. It is a cause for celebration. It should also serve as an occasion for learning and for this country to reflect on our history and recommit to doing the vital work to ensure that the lasting effects of slavery, bigotry, and racism are replaced with hope, dignity, and equality for all.

We can start with the Senate passing the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, legislation to reform policing and address systemic racism and bias within law enforcement, and finally making the John Lewis Voting Rights Act a law, passing it.

Today, we celebrate this historic designation of Juneteenth as a Federal holiday. Tomorrow, we get back to work.