Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the destruction caused by natural disasters across the country affirms the need to address climate change. Conservation efforts that protect wildlife ecosystems help to mitigate these climate concerns as well as provide lands for all Americans to enjoy.

Today, I am proud to introduce legislation that helps preserve the northern Rockies--one of our country's vital environmental regions. The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act will safeguard 23 million acres by establishing a system to connect biological corridors on public lands in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, and Washington. It prioritizes the health of whole ecosystems by designating all of the inventoried roadless areas as wilderness, including wild and scenic rivers. This designation helps ensure the preservation of native plants and animals.

It's our responsibility to preserve our country's natural treasures for our own and future generations. I thank my colleague Public Lands Subcommittee Ranking Member Raul Grijalva for his longstanding support. I urge others to join us in helping to protect these public lands.

Mr. Speaker, last week, America got some great economic news. Businesses added over 267,000 jobs in January, extending the longest streak on record of consecutive private sector job growth to 59 months.

We also set another record when the House, led by the Republicans, voted for the 56th time to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act.

Our economy added 3 million private sector jobs in the last 12 months, including over a million jobs in the last 3 months alone; yet instead of capitalizing on this success in order to help grow the middle class and add more jobs, the majority just continues to vote to take away health care.

Enough is enough. Thanks to President Obama and the Democrats, this economy has recovered from the worst recession on record. As you can see, the blue shows when President Obama took office, and then we grew out of the loss of jobs and have been gaining jobs.

Mr. Speaker, a million jobs were created in the last 3 months; the deficit is down, and the stock market is up; but instead of building on this progress, the Republican Party is again threatening a partial government shutdown. This time, it is the Department of Homeland Security. We don't have many days left.

Why? Because the anti-immigrant fringe of the majority party disagrees with the President's decision to address our broken immigration system. If they don't get their way, they would stop paying our Border Patrol agents, stop paying our TSA security screeners at airports, stop paying the Coast Guard and Secret Service. The men and women who work to keep us secure would have to worry about how they would feed their families instead of protecting our country.

This is dangerous to our security and to our economy. I urge my colleagues to let common sense prevail and pass a clean Department of Homeland Security bill. The American people deserve their security.

Mr. Speaker, today on February 5, 2015, we celebrate the 22nd anniversary of the Family and Medical Leave Act, a family-friendly workplace policy that has benefited millions of American families. Since its passage in 1993, this landmark law has been used 200 million times by men and women across the nation. These individuals and their families have benefited from up to 12 weeks of unpaid job protected leave to care for a new child, sick family member, or a loved one recovering from a serious health condition.

While we celebrate this anniversary we must also recognize that after more than two decades our nation's family leave policies have not kept pace with changes to America's families and workforce. FMLA provides unpaid leave, which means families must choose between foregoing a paycheck and caring for a loved one. Most families today no longer have a stay-at-home parent to care for a new child, and even before the economic crisis, few could afford to go without pay for any length of time.

We need new policies that show that we truly value America's families. That is why I recently introduced the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, legislation that provides federal employees with 6 weeks of paid leave following the birth, adoption, or fostering of a child. The Federal government is our nation's largest employer and as such should be leading the way on family-friendly workplace policy. By extending paid parental leave for new parents this bill helps diminish the risk of real economic hardship for the 2 million federal employees following the birth or adoption of a child.

I urge my colleagues to pass legislation that brings our country forward to the 21st Century

and reflects the realities of our nation's workforce.

Mr. Speaker, it is estimated that more than 60 million Americans are at risk of serious vision loss--a number expected to increase as the baby boomer generation ages. Along with my colleague Rep. Gus Bilirakis, I am proud to reintroduce legislation to support Americans with limited or impaired vision. For someone with a visual impairment, reading a book or crossing the street could be blurred or distorted even with the help of glasses or contact lenses. In many cases a physician can prescribe magnifiers or special optical devices to help an individual remain independent. While there are a wide variety of options to help people with low vision, currently, there is an exclusion from Medicare coverage for devices that include a lens to aid vision or provide magnification of images for impaired vision. Ultimately, not having these assistance devices could shift more individuals from independent living to care facilities or nursing homes.

To understand the impact of covering these devices for America's seniors, we are introducing the Medicare Demonstration of Coverage for Low Vision Devices Act of 2015. This legislation would create a five- year national demonstration project administered by the Department of Health and Human Services to evaluate the economic impact of allowing reimbursement for certain low vision devices under the Social Security Act. Coverage of such devices could help Medicare beneficiaries with low vision lead healthy, safe, and independent lives.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to admit what people with common sense all across America have known for years: mindless austerity just does not work. It doesn't grow the economy, it does not add jobs, and it doesn't unleash anything except misery.

The sequester was a bad idea from the start. The country needs to embrace its can-do spirit, and Congress has to stop saying: ``Sorry, we just can't.''

The President's budget is tailor-made to help hardworking middle class families get ahead. It will invest in education, strengthen workers' skills, provide tax relief for the middle class, and rebuild our infrastructure. This is exactly what we need to build on the record of the 58 months of job growth we are experiencing and to make sure that everyone shares in the gains of our growing economy.

Mr. Speaker, in his State of Union President Obama spoke about restoring the link between hard work and growing opportunity for every American. That link is at the very core of what made America great. And he spoke about the need to ensure that working families have a fair shot and a level playing field.

One of the places that the United States continues to lag behind the entire rest of the world is in providing paid parental leave. The U.S. is the only industrialized nation with no paid parental leave. It is only us and Papua New Guinea in the whole world that have no statutory maternity leave. This is embarrassing and it hurts hardworking American families

It is way past time to drag at least our federal workplace policies into the 21st century. That is why I am introducing the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act to provide six weeks of paid parental leave to federal employees for the birth, adoption, or foster placement of a child.

The federal government is our nation's largest employer and it should be setting an example--and leading the march into the modern era. Paid parental leave would be a big boost for the almost two million people who work for the federal government. And this won't just affect our nation's capital--86 percent of federal workers live and work outside the metro Washington, DC area. In fact, the metro region of my home city of New York City has the second highest number of federal employees of any region in the country.

For these working families in New York and elsewhere around the country, paid leave is an economic lifeline. The growing costs of caring for a new child--the expensive diapers, bottles, baby carriers-- they all add up very quickly. The U.S. Department of Agriculture found that in the first two years a new child can cost families an average of nearly $13,000. Who can forego weeks of pay on top of those new expenses. It is both crippling and cruel to ask families to choose between a paycheck and caring for a new child when costs continue to mount.

Providing paid leave helps pay for itself with the broad benefits it produces. It gives parents the time to bond with their child in those critical first weeks of life and research shows the critical nature of the first few months of life on the health and intellectual development over the lifetime of the child.

To those who would push back on this legislation, I refer you to the Congressional Budget Office findings that this legislation is budget neutral. It costs nothing--but it means everything. It requires no new money but would immeasurably enrich the lives of federal employees by allowing them to maintain their salary during the course of FMLA- permitted parental leave.

I urge my Republican colleagues to support the bill. It passed the House twice before--with great bipartisan support. Now is the moment to bring this legislation forward and in so doing, bring America forward.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend and colleague for her leadership and for yielding to me.

I want to commend the Republican and Democratic leadership for bringing to the floor a large number of bipartisan bills to address the problem of human trafficking. I particularly want to thank Judge Poe for his enlightened leadership. He has brought an informed, intelligent, effective focus on this crime, and he has brought new momentum that is helping this country address this issue.

I thank the bipartisan Women's Caucus that has made this goal, this common goal of attacking the exploitation of children as a joint priority for our caucus and for this Congress.

It is an important way to mark Human Trafficking Awareness Week, and this modern-day form of slavery happens all across the world. We don't like to admit it, but it is happening right here in America. It is happening in our small cities, our big cities, every State, every race, creed, and color.

There are no reliable estimates, but by some accounts, there are as many as 2 million minors trafficked within the U.S. alone. When they have missing children reports, many of the parents believe their children have been stolen into sex trafficking. Most of these child victims who are sex-trafficked are United States citizens or are here legally in the United States.

Human trafficking, as my colleague pointed out, is the fastest growing crime and the third largest criminal activity in the world, but unlike drugs and guns that are sold only once, human lives can be sold repeatedly over and over and over again until their lives are shattered and destroyed. It destroys lives and comes with a huge social and economic cost.

We can all agree that no child should be for sale in America--not now, not ever. Our children should not be for sale, but they are for sale under the guise of human traffickers and pimps.

I am very pleased to work shoulder to shoulder with Congressman Poe on the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. As a former judge and a former prosecutor, he knows firsthand how damaging this crime is to the lives of our young people--and it involves young boys, too--and how difficult it is to get a conviction. His knowledge in this area is tremendously appreciated, and his knowledge is in this bill. I thank him for having been the key author on it and for his passion and hard work on it.

This bill directly and specifically supports law enforcement training and prosecution of sex trafficking crimes, and it creates a domestic trafficking victims fund within the Treasury Department to support critically needed services for victims.

We know there are not enough beds; there is no treatment. Many trafficked women tell me they get saved, but then they are put in a park with no place to go, and the traffickers come up and try to get them back into it.

It goes after those who are trying to exploit children and vulnerable women,

those who would profit off the misery of others by going after their wallets. It targets the demand side: the child abusers, the child molesters.

Our victims fund will be financed through fines levied on those convicted of child pornography, human trafficking, child prostitution, sexual exploitation, and human smuggling offenses.

The bill also makes it clear that it is not the victim who is sold and exploited who is the criminal. The criminal is the john, the child abuser who solicits a minor or a trafficker who puts a woman or man out on the street to be bought and sold.

Human trafficking is harmful not only to the victims, but to society at large. Last May, this House passed this bill in total agreement, and I urge the Senate to follow it and pass it also. It is time to help the survivors get the resources they need to rebuild their lives and to punish the evildoers who purchase and sell these innocent children.

I thank the gentlewoman from

the great State of New York for her extraordinary leadership on the Rules Committee and in so many areas for this country and our State.

I rise today in strong opposition to yet another closed rule. Despite all the lectures from Republicans about how creating jobs and growing the economy should be the number one top priority for this Congress, here we are instead once again hammering away at a woman's right to make her own choices, control her own body, and make choices about her own health care.

It is insulting to women, and it does not create one single job. But what it does do is put government between a physician and its patient. That is what it does. The other side says they want freedom and they want the government off their back. Yet on the most personal health care decisions for women, they are putting government between a woman and her doctor.

This bill will not grow our economy, but it will make permanent such discriminatory bans that target women in both the public and private health insurance market.

Republicans claim on their Web site--you can look it up and see it on their Web site--that they want to ``do something for the 8.7 million people in America who are still unemployed.'' It is time to focus on creating jobs and improving the economy for Americans, yet the first bill the Republican majority puts on the floor does not create one single job but discriminates, hurts, and insults women.

I urge a strong, strong ``no'' vote on this rule and on the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert my statement in the Record that the House should be voting on proposals that create jobs and accelerate economic growth. Instead, the only thing the Republicans have accelerated around here is their attacks on a woman's constitutional rights and health care.

I thank my good friend, Diana, for her leadership on this issue and for so many other important issues and for yielding to me.

Madam Speaker, despite the rhetoric we have heard from our Republican colleagues about their commitment to focusing, laserlike, on what the American people care about most--creating jobs and accelerating economic growth--the only thing that they have accelerated in this new Congress is their attacks on a woman's constitutional rights.

In just their first 7 days in office, our Republican colleagues have introduced six anti-choice bills and brought two of them to the floor for debate; so rather than focus on jobs, we have a bill that is not only an assault on women, it is pure political posturing that is guaranteed to be vetoed, even if it makes it through the Senate. The President has made that clear.

We need to focus on what the vast majority of the American people have asked us to do: create greater economic opportunity for all Americans.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership and for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. After all the talk by our Republican friends about focusing their efforts on jobs and growing the economy, so far their rhetoric does not match their record.

Last week, we took up a pipeline bill that, according to the State Department, would only create 34 jobs, and the bill that we have on the pipeline today probably won't create one single job, but what it will do, it will make it easier to damage the environment.

The majority has also introduced six antichoice bills in the past 7 days, and what all these bills have in common is that they will not create one single American job.

Instead of a jobs agenda, the majority seems bound and determined to attack women's rights, to take away a woman's constitutional right to make for herself the most private and personal and intimate decisions.

Now, we are taking up this bill, H.R. 36, which is based on the insulting belief that women are incapable and unprepared to make decisions about their own bodies and their own health care.

Forty-two years ago this week, the Supreme Court, in Roe v. Wade, made it clear that a woman has a constitutional right to decide for herself these private issues concerning her own health and well-being.

This is not only insulting to the women of this country, it is just another pointless exercise in political posturing. It will never become law. It is a waste of Congress' time. What we should be doing instead is focusing on any idea or measure that can help create greater economic opportunity for all Americans.

The President pointed out last night that our economy is on the rise. Under his leadership, we are experiencing the strongest private sector job growth we have had in 17 years, over 11 million new jobs.

Let's not squander this opportunity. Let's work together to create real jobs, not political posturing for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the House Resolution Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, as an entity of the United States Postal Service, should issue a commemorative stamp in honor of the holiday of Diwali. I am proud to be joined in this effort by my colleagues Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Congressman Mike Honda, Congresswoman Grace Meng, and Congressman Ami Bera.

The five-day ``festival of lights,'' Diwali celebrates the triumph of good over evil, light over dark, and knowledge over ignorance. This festive and important Indian holiday is celebrated by billions across the globe. Despite the significance of this holiday to many Americans, the United States Postal Service has not yet recognized Diwali with a commemorative stamp, as it has with other major religious and cultural holidays such as Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Eid.

As one of the world's oldest religious holidays, Diwali has survived political, economic and social changes throughout history, while always carrying the universal symbolism of the victory of light, goodness, knowledge and truth. It is long overdue that we honor this significant holiday with a postage stamp of its own.

Mr. Speaker, in 2014, the American economy had the strongest job growth it has had since 1997. That is 18 years ago. We have had private sector jobs growth for 58 straight months. That is the longest stretch on record.

Our economy has once again become the envy of the world. Inflation is tame. Gas prices are low. The deficit is falling, and the stock market is up.

Consumer sentiment is now at its highest level since the early years of 2007. The economic outlook looks good, but it could and should be better. This success has been based on sound public policy.

If we stop the politicking and work together, we can make our growing economy work for all Americans.

Madam Chair, I am in opposition to this amendment and to others who play politics with the security and safety of America.

Madam Chair, this bill plays politics with the security and safety of America while holding up vital investments that will create jobs.

The House GOP refused to take action on immigration reform last year, and now they're trying to make up for that mistake by attaching poison pill amendments to the bill that funds homeland security.

They accuse the President of being lawless, but they know the real problem is their own failure to offer constructive solutions to fix our immigration system.

We should be debating comprehensive immigration reform, not hosting a politically motivated charade that will harm our ability to deter, detect, and defend from a terrorist attack.

This could not be more poorly timed.

Last week our strong ally, France, was attacked and terrorized. People died.

I am deeply concerned about the impact this delayed funding may have on my own congressional district.

New York City continues to remain a high risk area and the City relies on the federal funds it receives to protect critical infrastructure, sustain anti-terrorism programs, and enhance emergency preparedness and response.

These not only protect our people but they put people to work.

On behalf of New Yorkers I plead with my colleagues to stop holding hostage this critically important funding.

The inclusion of these dangerous amendments poisons the bill and threatens our crucial homeland security needs and hurts our economy.

We must reject these amendments and pass a clean Homeland Security funding bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership in so many ways, and I thank the leader of the Democratic Party for leading us in this tribute to our great Governor. We appreciate very much your presence and support of Mario Cuomo on the floor.

It seems only fitting and proper for us to pay tribute to the late Mario Cuomo here in this historic Chamber, here where some of the most powerful and eloquent speakers in our Nation's history have changed the course of human events, not with swords but with words and ideas.

Mario Cuomo, the former Governor of New York, the liberal lion of the Empire State, the conscience of the Democratic Party, and a cherished friend, had few peers when it came to making the power of ideas and ideals irresistible forces for good.

His faith, his passion, his values, and his unique gifts produced in him an unrivaled ability to articulate the plight, defend the rights, and engage the hopes of ordinary citizens.

I had the great fortune to be a delegate when he gave one of the most storied speeches at the National Democratic Convention in 1984. I will never forget it. When Mario Cuomo spoke, it electrified the whole convention. We were transfixed by the power of his appeal right to the deepest reaches of our common humanity.

He made all of us feel like we needed to do more, work harder, and help others because that is what really came through when Mario Cuomo spoke: his deep, unwavering commitment to fundamental decency, justice, and humanity.

He spoke to a sitting President on behalf of the forgotten and the dispossessed. He spoke to the powerful on behalf of the powerless. ``There is despair,'' he said, ``in the faces you don't see and the places you don't visit.''

Mario Cuomo was right. He spent his life working and looking out for the hardworking people who build our shining cities, who supply our food, who teach our children, who staff our hospitals, people who are too often overworked, overlooked, and underserved.

His own family had owned a store in Jamaica, Queens, and he knew full well the value of hard work and of education. He lived the American Dream and spent his life trying to build the American Dream for others. Mario Cuomo worked his way into St. John's University. He attended St. John's University School of Law in New York and graduated first in his class.

He first rose to public attention when he came roaring out of Queens back in the 1970s to challenge city hall's condemnation of a working class neighborhood in Corona. People quickly began to appreciate that Mario Cuomo had the transformative power to inspire others to demand for themselves a more just and humane society and a better government. He insisted that representative government should be just that: a government for all the people.

Whenever he was on the ballot--and I remember as an active Democrat then--Democrat registration went up because everybody wanted to vote for and help elect Mario Cuomo. They knew he would do everything in his power to give them a fair shake.

He once told me--and I always had these terrible elections. He would always tell me that he was my fairy godfather, and he would grant me three wishes to win the election, but only on one condition, that I would go out and grant three wishes to someone else and help them do a better job in what they wanted to do.

He was a wonderful friend and a mentor, a husband, a wonderful father. As a parent, there is no question he did a remarkable job. One son is a Governor, another is a news anchor, one daughter

is a physician, another active in continuing the family work in housing the homeless, and another is an attorney. If that was all that he ever did, that would be plenty for one lifetime.

Mario Cuomo did much more. He was secretary of state of the great State of New York, then Lieutenant Governor, and finally Governor for three terms. He led New York to provide health care for children. He began the Decade of the Child, an effort that used multiple health care and educational strategies to better the lives of our most vulnerable. He passed the child support enforcement bill.

Under his leadership, the most intense public health plan in the Nation was put in place to take on the AIDS epidemic. Under Mario Cuomo, New York State became the first State in the Nation to enact a seatbelt law. He was a great man, and I am proud beyond all telling to be able to say that he was a friend, a mentor, and a supporter.

I grieve his passing, and I send my most heartfelt condolences to his family and his friends. I shall miss the singular and remarkable man until the end of time. To know him was to love him.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition.

We have been promised thousands of jobs, but the U.S. State Department estimates that this will create only 35 permanent jobs. Yes, they will be construction jobs, but they are not permanent. They are for a year, maybe 2 years.

Let's be clear about what we are getting with Keystone: a dirty and dangerous pipeline running through the heart of our country which will help Canadian oil companies export their oil, and it happens to be the filthiest possible energy form.

I would like to say that if we put the same time and energy into a transportation bill as we have to this Canadian pet project, we could upgrade our crumbling roads and bridges, expand our mass transit system, provide a huge boost to the American economy, and create jobs in almost every single congressional district in this country, thousands and thousands of permanent jobs in our good country.

We don't need another pipeline dividing our country, polluting our water, pushing us closer and closer to the climate tipping point. A transportation overhaul will actually create jobs that Americans can live off of. Keystone will not, unless what they are considering with these jobs are just the 35 permanent jobs. And maybe they are considering that there will be jobs to create the leaks and the pollution and treat the pollution and illnesses that may be associated with the pollution.

I urge a ``no'' vote. We should invest in American companies. We should invest in American pipelines. We should invest in American jobs that are here in America for Americans and are permanent.

Again, the State Department estimates that there will be only 35 permanent jobs. So what are we getting? No jobs and pollution from the dirtiest oil source and energy source that is on the Earth at this point.