Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Responsible GSE Affordable Housing Investment Act of 2014.

Mr. Speaker, shame on us. Twenty kids killed in Newtown, Connecticut. You can see their faces here.

Six college kids killed this week in Santa Barbara. Guns kill more young people in America than cancer, yet we can't pass universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, or limits on massacre magazines.

Shame on us. We even have a gag order on any publicly funded health research into gun violence. As Edmund Burke said:

There is no issue that is so controversial that it cannot

be debated.

I would add that there is no issue that is so controversial that it cannot be researched, especially if such research could save lives.

Congress is failing the American people, and it is time to stop. Let's pass the Thompson amendment today. We owe it to the families who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and we owe it to the families whose loved ones could be saved by real gun safety reforms.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of Representative Esty's amendment to remove this misguided rider that will only prevent law enforcement from doing its job.

Since the ATF launched this initiative--the so-called long gun rule-- to track multiple purchases of rifles and assault weapons, it has become a crucial tool with which to investigate and prosecute straw purchasers who enable the flood of illegal guns to cities and towns across our Nation. In my home city of New York, 85 percent of guns used in crimes were originally sold in a different State.

When we see the toll that illegal guns takes on our streets, why do we in Congress stand idle, now blocking law enforcement from addressing this crisis?

In the first 8 months of this initiative, the Bureau launched 120 investigations into gun trafficking in high-powered assault weapons, and a former special agent has called this rule a huge tool to combat illegal sales.

Please vote ``no'' on this misguided rule.

Mr. Speaker, American women deserve the ability to make educated decisions when purchasing products that could potentially endanger their health and their lives. Women in America spend over $2 billion per year on feminine hygiene products. Recent independent studies led by women's health organizations have shown that some feminine hygiene products could contain additives that may be harmful to a woman's health. The FDA requires tampon manufacturers to monitor dioxin levels but this information is not readily made available to the public. Diseases such as cervical cancer, endometriosis, infertility, and ovarian cancer may be linked to feminine hygiene products in our bodies but there is no way of knowing the extent of these connections with the lack of research on feminine health today.

Women's health issues and feminine hygiene are taboo subjects in many cultures, including our own. In order to move past stigmas associated with menstrual health, leaders must unite to promote research that will educate and empower women and also ensure their safety and health. It is time to ensure that accurate information with regards to women's health is being collected and is readily accessible. That is why I have introduced legislation that directs the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct research to determine the extent of contaminants in feminine hygiene products. The Robin Danielson Act of 2014 directs the NIH to research whether the presence of dioxin, synthetic fibers, and other chemical additives like chlorine and fragrances pose any health risks to women who use feminine hygiene products. Recent studies from women's health organizations have found that they might.

We must be a leader in fighting against the challenges that confront women's health globally. This way, we can break the silence around the world by confronting taboos that interfere with the well-being of women by proving that these issues deserve our attention. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation that I am introducing on Menstrual Hygiene Day.

Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to introduce legislation to end the misguided freeze on public health research about firearm safety and gun violence.

For too long, this Congress has put political talking points ahead of real solutions, and our country is a more dangerous place because of it. Every day, 32 Americans are murdered with guns, and a recent study conducted by researchers at New York University's Langone Medical Center and St. Luke's Medical Center found the U.S. has the highest rate of gun-related deaths among a group of 27 developed countries, including four times higher than Canada.

Because of past riders on Appropriations legislation, federal funding for gun violence research came to a halt in the mid-1990s. As a result policymakers and community leaders lack the authoritative public health research they need to address the horrifying persistence of gun violence.

The bill I introduce today, with companion legislation introduced by Senator Markey, would right this wrong and authorize $10 million in annual funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through Fiscal Year 2020. This funding will allow the CDC to begin the research agenda outlined in a report issued last year by the Institutes of Medicine to identify areas in need of study to better understand the underlying causes of gun violence and best implement strategies for prevention.

We know that public health research can save lives and prevent tragedies. For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration funds research to make our roads

and cars safer--and car fatalities have decreased 36 percent in the last 20 years. Other public health crises cannot be left ignored, and I'm proud to introduce this legislation that addresses the epidemic of gun violence and develops best strategies to prevent future incidents.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce bipartisan legislation with my colleague Rep. Ted Poe.

In March of 1931 the infamous gangster, Al Capone, was indicted for tax fraud. Today the IRS Criminal Investigations division continues to play a vital role in proving criminal activity and fraud, and I believe they can play an even stronger role in cracking down on human trafficking and prostitution.

This bill is meant to enhance the Internal Revenue Service's ability to crack down on sex trafficking by authorizing $4,000,000.00 to establish an office within the IRS to prosecute sex traffickers for violations of tax laws. The office would focus on the willful failure of traffickers to file returns, supply information, or pay tax where the taxpayer is an ``aggravated'' non-filer. In addition, the office would coordinate closely with existing task forces focused on sex trafficking offenders in the Department of Justice.

The bill also amends the Internal Revenue Code to increase criminal monetary and other penalties for attempts to: evade or defeat tax, willful failure to file a tax return, supply information, or pay tax, aggravated failure to file tax returns, fraud and false statements, and underpayment or overpayment of tax due to fraud. This offense will carry a maximum sentence of 10 years and a maximum fine of $50,000.00.

The Human Trafficking Fraud Enforcement Act of 2014 the bill also establishes a new felony offense for an aggravated failure to file to include failure to file with respect to income or payments derived from activity which is criminal under Federal or State law. This will target conduct committed by those involved in the promotion of commercial sex acts--pimps and traffickers--and not conduct of exploited persons in prostitution.

Last, this bill directly benefits those that are victimized by the traffickers by revising current IRS Whistleblower provisions so that women and girls who choose to participate in the investigation will be eligible to participate in the whistleblower program and may ultimately be granted up to 15% of any fines levied against the trafficker.

While important strides have been made to address trafficking, we must still use every tool possible to take down the traffickers. I urge my colleagues to cosponsor this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this past week, I had an opportunity to tour the newly opened 9/11 Memorial Museum. It stands as a moving tribute to all those who lost their lives at the World Trade Center, in Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon.

The experience is a powerful one. The sights and sounds bring back memories, and tears, as well. But not just tears for the terrible losses, but also tears of pride for the numberless acts of courage, tears of gratitude for the acts of human compassion, and tears of pride for the way this country stood--this body stood--united and determined to rebuild.

We in this body do not say thank you to each other as often as we should. So

I rise to say thank you to all of the Members of this body on both sides of the aisle and across this country for all you did to support my incredible city during its darkest hour.

Thanks to each and every one of you most humbly from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his extraordinary work on this issue and so many others. I rise in very strong support of Congressman Poe's work and his bill.

Human trafficking comes in many different forms, and all of them are awful. The most recent twist comes from the tragedy in Nigeria. Young girls kidnapped and terrorized were sold like objects into a lifetime of forcible rape. They say they are selling them into marriage. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are being sold into human bondage and into rape.

There is no crime on Earth more appalling, no offense as terrible, no act of depravity as harmful to the community of a nation and certainly to the individuals affected.

I want to express my gratitude to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) for his outstanding work on this issue. He has been an incredible partner.

His groundbreaking work on sex trafficking is informed by his experience as a judge and as a prosecutor where he witnessed firsthand the tragic toll of human trafficking, coming face to face with both the victims and the perpetrators of this terrible crime and knowing from his experience what it is we need to do to help law enforcement get convictions.

He has been unwavering in his efforts to pass the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, and I applaud his efforts.

Trafficking is one of the most profitable forms of organized crime, preceded only by the selling of drugs and the selling of illegal weapons. Unlike drugs and weapons which can only be sold once, the human body can be sold again and again and again until they die.

The bill before us today is crucial to helping the survivors of human trafficking, like Shandra Woworuntu, who put their lives back together here. She is supposed to be here in the Chamber with us today. She was with us in meetings earlier today. I want to thank her for her courage in coming forward.

The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act will help ensure that other survivors do not find themselves in similar circumstances like Shandra. She was educated, a former manager in a bank. She came to the United States to become a manager at a hotel. She was immediately swiped, her passport taken, and thrown into a dungeon of trafficking, where she lived until she escaped.

When she escaped, there was no resources to help her. This bill will change this, with grants to States and localities to help them and to put the focus back on the demand side, to cut

down on the demand for trafficking and the selling of our children. No child should be for sale in America, and this bill will help give law enforcement the tools to win convictions.

My time is up. I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and I urge unanimous support for this important bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of Representative Paulsen's important bill, H.R. 3610, which should have passed long ago, that encourages States to provide safe harbor laws that treat trafficked minors as victims, which they are-- and provides services, support, counseling, and job training, rather than leading them into incarceration. It is the pimps and traffickers who should be put behind bars.

This important bill can help rescue more children from this shameful and shadowy underworld and lead them out of harm's way.

When I first started working in this area with the distinguished former member, Deborah Price, we were holding a hearing and listening to the stories of young women of how they were entrapped, stolen, beaten, tricked, and drugged into sex slavery. Deborah leaned over to me and said, Carolyn, as a former judge, I used to convict young girls as prostitutes. I never stopped to ask them, as we are today, how did this happen to you? How did you get into this trouble that is destroying your life and your health?

And that is what this bill is going to do. It will provide a safe harbor so that young people will be treated as young people. A trafficker is a criminal, a john is a child abuser, a pimp is someone who should be behind bars.

This starts to shift the focus away from the young, exploited people and harming them further with incarceration, protecting them and shifting more towards who is causing the problem: the demand side.

This is a tremendously important bill. We should put more traffickers where they belong--behind bars.

This change is long overdue. I look forward to working towards passing this in the House and the Senate.

I thank the leadership of both Houses, Leaders Pelosi and Cantor, all the authors, and everyone who has worked on these important bills.

I urge a ``yes'' vote.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his incredible, principled work in so many areas, and I want to note his hard work on combating mandatory sentences. I feel that he is right in many ways. But because this crime is so out of control, I am strongly supporting my colleague and cochair, Representative Wagner's bill.

We cochair the caucus on antitrafficking in the women's caucus, and this bill is designed to stop the advertising of children for exploitation in sex trafficking. And we have tried over and over to stop it.

I will now place in the Record a letter that Marsha Blackburn and I wrote addressing the online promotion of human trafficking, meetings, and letters. It went nowhere.

Congress of the United States

Washington, DC., April 3, 2012.

Larry Page,

Chief Executive Officer, Google, Inc., Mountain View, CA.

Dear Mr. Page: As Members of Congress committed to

combating all forms of human trafficking, we write to you

with concerns about reports of Google's advertising

practices. Recently, dozens of human rights groups called on

the National Association of Attorneys General to investigate

Google's advertising practices that these groups believe

contribute to the problem of human trafficking in America and

globally.

Whatever Google is doing or is not doing to prevent these

sorts of advertisements from appearing on their properties,

Google has not satisfied a significant number of human

rights organizations who have a specialized understanding of

how these ads contribute to the human trafficking of women

and girls. We are particularly concerned that these human

rights groups may have identified yet another area where

Google profits from illicit activities such as Google's

advertising of controlled substances for which your company

paid a $500,000,000 forfeiture to the United States last

year.

Accordingly, we request that you provide us with answers to

the following initial questions we have regarding these

developments:

1. Apart from Google's donations to large human rights

organizations, what is your company doing internally to

ensure that sexually exploitative advertisements do not

appear?

2. What is Google's stated internal policy regarding

exploitative advertising? What evidence do you have that

those policies are being complied with by both Google's

internal and external advertising sales teams?

3. What steps does Google take to instruct its advertising

sales managers, consultants, and other employees regarding

the evaluation of advertisers of such exploitative marketing?

4. If Google were to determine that it profits from such

advertising, what steps would you take to ensure those

profits were publicly disclosed and then disgorged? Would

that process require restating Google's earnings for past

securities filings?

Online markets provide traffickers with the ability to

reach untold customers across all political jurisdictions. As

a global leader and innovator in internet technologies,

Google is in a unique position to do its part to fight human

exploitation and trafficking, and we would encourage the

company to proactively address these concerns.

We look forward to your reply and to engaging with Google

cooperatively to stop human trafficking in America and around

the world.

Sincerely,

Marsha Blackburn,

Member of Congress.

Carolyn Maloney,

Member of Congress.

I will now place in the Record a letter that Congressman Nadler and I wrote to Web sites of the media trying to stop them from promoting our children as sex objects. They are still doing it.

Maloney and Nadler Call On Village Voice Media To Shut Down Website

Frequented by Sex Traffickers--May 7, 2012

New York, NY.--U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-

NY) and Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY) today sent a letter to

Village Voice Media, LLC expressing concerns about the

frequency with which that company's Backpage.com website is

used to advertise minors and trafficked persons and urging it

to shut down its notorious ``adult services'' section.

In a statement accompanying the release of the joint

letter, whose full text is included below, Congresswoman

Maloney said: ``Law enforcement authorities and anti-

trafficking advocates agree that the adult services section

of Village Voice's Backpage.com is the single busiest online

marketplace for the sexual trafficking of minors and

trafficking victims anywhere in the United States. It is high

time the Voice lived up to its reputation as a beacon of

progressivism, and shut down this cesspool.'' Rep. Maloney

serves as Co-Chair of the bipartisan Congressional Human

Trafficking Caucus, which works to educate people about the

reality of the trade in human lives and toward its

eradication.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler said, ``The Village Voice must

ensure that it is not in any way assisting in the horrific

business of sex trafficking. Clearly Backpage.com has not

done enough to prevent human trafficking on its site. They

should shut down their adult services page immediately,

before it is used by criminals to further promote human

trafficking.''

Background:

The sexual trafficking of minors, which is illegal under

federal and New York State law, is on the rise in the United

States and around the world, with most knowledgeable

estimates of the number of domestic under-age trafficking

victims in the tens of thousands. The U.S. Department of

Justice estimates the average age at which minors begin to be

exploited by sex traffickers is between the ages of 12 and 14

for girls and between the ages of 11 and 13 for boys.

The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act

of 2008 established criminal penalties for those found guilty

of acting with ``reckless disregard'' for the sexual

exploitation of minors. In New York City alone, the District

Attorneys of Kings, Queens and Manhattan have all pressed

charges against alleged traffickers who used Backpage.com to

market sex to potential johns.

Nineteen United States Senators and 51 Attorneys General

have joined the growing chorus of calls from non-profit

advocates and organizations urging Village Voice Media to

remove the adult services section from Backpage.com. On April

25, 2012, S. Res. 439 was introduced expressing the sense of

the Senate that Village Voice Media Holdings, LLC should

eliminate the ``adult entertainment'' section of the

classified advertising website Backpage.com. A New York City

Council hearing on human trafficking held last month included

pointed questioning from several Council Members to

representatives of Backpage.com, as well as testimony from

local district attorneys about the use of the website by a

large proportion of the traffickers they have prosecuted.

Text of Letter from Representatives Maloney and Nadler to

Village Voice Media, LLC.

I don't know how to do it unless we have a concrete law. And this law is not without precedent. Congress has passed laws to criminalize the advertising of illegal goods. They have passed laws to criminalize the advertising of child pornography, of weapons of mass destruction, and of narcotics. Surely, we can pass a law that criminalizes selling children as sex objects. We have tried meetings, we have tried letters, we have tried sanctions, and we have tried press. We have tried everything. I don't know how we stop it unless we pass a law that says it is illegal.

I want to tell a story. I first got involved in combating sex trafficking because a company in my district called Big Apple Tours was advertising online, publishing pamphlets of going to Thailand, to the Philippines or upstate New York with pictures of children. You can have as many as you want. I wrote a letter complaining. This is how brazen they were. They took my letter and put it on the Internet along with their advertising and made fun of it. Why is she complaining about the parties we are having?

So it has been out of control, and this is a step towards bringing it into control. The attorney general of New York went after them and took down their site. It no longer is up. But it shows how brazen these exploiters are. And it is big business. It is the third most profitable form of organized crime in our Nation preceded only by the selling of narcotics and the selling of illegal guns. But the selling of the human body can happen again and again until the person is sick and dies. You sell a gun once, and you sell a drug once. You can sell a young child over and over again.

We really have to do everything we can to stop it. This act adds advertising to the types of conduct that constitutes sex trafficking. It is common sense that if they are advertising the selling of a young child, it is sex trafficking. And we can stop it. This is something we can do that will literally save lives.

The FBI ranks this type of rape as preceded only by murder in terms of the destruction of what it does to an individual, and often the inability of that individual to live a normal life afterwards. It is a horrific crime, the 21st century form of slavery. I can't think of anything more abusive. And it is what is happening now in Nigeria to those young women.

It is happening right here in our backyard. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle and the women's caucus have heard testimony of foster children--of American children--that have been captured, tricked, and drugged. We heard a story on the floor today of a constituent's child, a child in his neighborhood, that was exploited.

By passing this bill, we can stop this advertising. We can cut off this form of exploitation and this abuse. I think that it is an important bill, and I am supporting it with reservation on the mandatory sentencing, which I hope will be cut out in the Senate, but it is important that we take steps to prevent it.

If we pass laws to stop the advertising of child pornography, we can certainly pass a law that stops the selling of a child in sex abuse.

I could go on all day. My time is expired. I thank the gentleman for his leadership. I know that many others want to speak on this important issue.

I congratulate Congresswoman Wagner on her persistence on this bill, and I am proud to support her.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill. It is extremely important.

I would like to underscore that there is no politics in sex trafficking. This body is often described as being bitterly partisan. But today that is not the case as voices on both sides of the aisle and hard work on both sides of the aisle have joined to work to try to make it better and try to stop this abuse.

We have already heard and know that trafficking in human beings is nothing less than a modern form of slavery and that the incidence in foster children is tremendously high.

A foster child named Angela came to my office one day and told me the story that at 10 years old the boyfriend of her foster mother started selling her as a prostitute, and her younger brother. She was horrified one day when she saw a picture of herself and her younger brother in a magazine advertising that they were for sale. She spoke out at school to her counselor and they didn't believe her. When the authorities from the welfare agency came to the home she told them she was being abused, and they told her to be grateful to her foster parents--why is she raising such problems.

So there is clearly a need for educating and involving States and agencies in being more sensitive and identifying the victims of child abuse and child sex trafficking. It is something we do not want to acknowledge that it exists in our own country. But every time you see a child on the street, a child prostitute, there is a tragic story behind that young girl or boy of intense abuse. Regrettably, too many of them come out of the American foster care system, a system that is supposed to protect them.

This bill is incredibly needed. I congratulate Mr. Doggett and Ms. Bass for their hard work on this.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his extraordinary leadership on this issue and so many others.

Great appreciation to the sponsor of this, my good friend Frederica Wilson, who spoke with great feeling on the floor. We appreciate so much your leadership in this area and other areas.

These young girls in Nigeria were kidnapped from their school in the middle of the night, terrorized and held captive, and may now be sold like so many inanimate objects into a lifetime of forcible rape. There is no kind of crime more appalling, no offense or worse, no act of depravity more harmful to the community of nations than this kind of barbarism.

As horrible as this crime is, this represents only a small fraction of the global trafficking in human beings. Just today, a report by the U.N. noted that trafficking, forced labor, and modern slavery are big businesses generating profits estimated at $150 billion a year. It is a global enterprise that we must put out of business.

They committed this terrible act in part because they wanted to send a message. Well, let's send one back to them today, a message that the nations of the West will spare no effort, no expense in helping to return these girls safely to their families. We will pursue the perpetrators of this atrocity by every legal and lawful means to the ends of this Earth or until the end of their days.

Let us declare that the children of this world here at home or in some far-flung corner of the world are not for sale. They are not to be used as slaves or as shields or as barter. All those who attempt to profit off this ancient evil will be considered the common enemies of humanity.

My time is up.

We will not stop until these girls are returned to their homes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 25th anniversary of the Look Good Feel Better program. This free non-medical public service program of the Personal Care Products Council Foundation helps people with cancer look good, improve their self-esteem, and manage their treatment and recovery with greater confidence.

In the United States alone, nearly 900,000 women have participated in the program which now offers 15,400 group workshops in more than 2,500 locations nationwide. These programs are supported locally by more than 6,000 volunteers.

Look Good Feel Better was founded and developed in 1989 by the Personal Care Products Council Foundation, a charitable foundation established by the leading national trade association representing the global cosmetic and personal care products industry. The program is available across the country and around the world in 25 countries.

Look Good Feel Better is a collaboration of the Personal Care Products Council Foundation; the American Cancer Society, Inc., the nation's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to ending cancer and saving lives; and the Professional Beauty Association, the largest organization of salon professionals with members representing salons/spas, distributors, manufacturers and beauty professionals. These organizations work together to provide free group workshops, makeup kits, individual consultations, support resources, and more to help cancer patients thrive during treatment and recovery.

I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating the Look Good Feel Better program and all of its sponsors and volunteers for 25 years of success in offering this unique and vital program for people living with cancer.

Mr. Speaker, the whole world is watching Nigeria, and the whole world is outraged at the recent kidnappings of over 200 girls from a Nigerian school.

Make no mistake, this is human trafficking. They say they are selling them into marriage. They are selling them into sex slavery, rape, and human bondage.

As cochair of the Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking, I hope the world will respond to this horrendous human tragedy with the same sense of urgency and compassion and the same level of assistance that was offered in the search for the missing Malaysian aircraft.

The U.S. Africa Command, Departments of Justice and State, and the FBI are offering assistance to the Nigerian Government; and we, as a Congress, should support sanctions against Boko Haram.

Decisive and swift action is needed to bring these young girls home and to prevent future mass kidnappings.

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

Madam Speaker, the National Women's History Museum has a rightful place in our Nation's Capital, and it is very appropriate that we are considering this legislation the week of Mothers' Day.

I believe we should all be able to agree that, when our children and their children visit our Nation's Capital, they should be inspired by the stories of the men and women who helped shape this country. Sadly, today, that is not the case.

Women's contributions to our country are largely missing from our national museums, memorials, statues, and textbooks. The bill before us today seeks to finally change that.

It would be the first National Women's History Museum in Washington and the first in the United States of Americas and, I believe, the first in the entire world that would chronicle the important contributions of American women to America.

H.R. 863 would create a bipartisan, eight-person commission to develop a plan and recommendations for a National Women's History Museum in our Nation's Capital.

The commission, which would be funded entirely with private donations, would have 18 months to submit its

recommendations to Congress and the President.

Congress will then have to consider these recommendations, and a second bill would be needed to support the establishment of a women's museum, so the bill before us enables a commission to study this and for Congress, then, to react to their proposals.

Now, I would like to stress that this has been a very strong, bipartisan effort. I am proud to have worked on this bill with Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, who has been a wonderful partner and has done so much to get us where we are today. She has been outstanding.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has been a great champion of this effort for years, along with Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis and many, many other Members from both parties whose support has been absolutely essential.

I would like to thank Speaker Boehner, Democratic Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader Cantor, and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer for their support as well.

Thank you to the leadership and members of the House Administration and Natural Resources Committee for ushering this legislation through their committees with unanimous support, Congressmen Brady and Miller and Congressmen DeFazio and Hastings.

We are all working on this together because we believe that ensuring our country's full story is told, not just half of it, is part of our patriotic responsibility that rises above party lines, and we are working hard to make sure that this is a bill that can be supported by Members of both parties.

As I mentioned, no public funds would be used to support this commission, and the commission is required to consider a plan for the museum to be constructed and operated by private funds only. No taxpayer dollars will be involved.

Most importantly, neither this bill nor the commission it would create would set the content of this museum. That part will come later, after Congress acts on the commission's recommendations and the museum is finally established.

One could imagine a museum featuring original women thinkers ranging from Ayn Rand, who authored ``Atlas Shrugged,'' to Mary Whiton Calkins. Ms. Rand, I suspect you may know about her, but you may not have heard of Ms. Calkins.

She was born in 1863 and studied at Harvard, under the influential American philosopher, William James, who believed her Ph.D. to be the most brilliant examination for a Ph.D. that he had ever seen; but Mary was not granted a degree because, at that time, Harvard had a policy against conferring degrees on women.

Despite the setback, she went on to become a charter member of the American Philosophical Association and the first woman president of the American Psychological Association.

But most people have never heard of her or her accomplishments because when the story of America has been told, the story of many remarkable women has all too often been left out.

Currently in the Nation's Capital and near The Mall or on The Mall, there is an Air and Space Museum, a Spy Museum, a Textile Museum, a National Postal Museum, even a Crime and Punishment Museum and a media museum. These are all wonderful, enriching institutions that are destinations for millions of visitors every year. But there is no museum in the country that shows the full scope of the history of the amazing, brilliant, courageous, innovative, and sometimes defiant women who have helped to shape our history and make this country what it is.

Even though women make up 50 percent of the population, a survey of 18 history textbooks found that only 10 percent of the individuals identified in the texts were women; less than 5 percent of the 2,400 National Historic Landmarks chronicle the achievements of women; and of the 210 statues in the United States Capitol, only nine are of female leaders.

As an example, while nearly every high school student learns about the midnight ride of Paul Revere, how many of them learn about Sybil Ludington? She is the 16-year-old whose midnight ride to send word to her father's troops that the British were coming was longer than Paul Revere's, just as important, and, in many ways, was even more remarkable. But her ride has been long forgotten.

On display in our Capitol Rotunda is a statue of three courageous women who fought so hard for women to gain the right to vote. And it is my hope that in 2020, on the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, that we will open the doors to this important museum.

I urge the passage of this long overdue legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, this bill, as we all know, if you read it, will not cost taxpayers one single dime. It will not cost taxpayers one single cent. It didn't cost it in the past, it doesn't today, and it will not in the future use any Federal funding. It is written into the legislation.

And the commission is not at all about determining the content of the museum. That part would come much later if the recommendations were approved by this body. The content would be determined in the future by professional curators that would chronicle the history of this great country and the great women that are a part of it. The commission would have 18 months to prepare and submit their recommendations to Congress, and then Congress, this body, would have the final say. So if Congress decides favorably, then, and only then, would a second bill be needed to support the museum and move forward.

So to vote ``no'' on this bill would basically be voting ``no'' on a cost-free, no-strings-attached conversation by a bipartisan panel on the important contributions of women to this country.

I now yield such time as she may consume to the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and I thank her for her extraordinary leadership on this issue and so many, many other issues.

Madam Speaker, I want to underscore that no taxpayer money will be used now or in the future. In fact, there is a National Women's History Museum organization with a 501(c)(3) that is headed by Joan Wages, and they have already raised well over $10 million privately to support the commission and the commission's work.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from the great State of Tennessee for her statement on the floor today and her hard work in passing this bill.

My good friend, Mrs. Bachmann, said there were 20 other women's museums. Well, there is not one comprehensive women's museum that chronicles the achievements and the contributions of women. There are many niche museums. There is a museum in Seneca Falls that pays tribute to the founding mothers of the first women's rights convention, the abolitionist movement, and the right for women to gain the right to vote. There are museums in the Capital for women artists. There is part of the Smithsonian that focuses on the first ladies and the gowns that they wore in their inaugural. There are niche museums out West for the pioneering great women who led the effort in the West. But there is not one comprehensive museum, and I find it astonishing in the United States that chronicles the many outstanding women contributions. If you Google all the women that have won the Nobel, it is astonishing, but there is no place that displays this.

So, I think it is long overdue to have a national women's history museum. Quite frankly, I can't even find one in the entire world that chronicles women's contributions.

I would now like to yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from the great State of New York, Congresswoman Meng, my distinguished colleague, which she has requested, but she can have more if she wants it.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from the great State of Maryland, Donna Edwards, the distinguished leader who is also the chair of the bipartisan Women's Caucus here in Congress.

I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains?

Madam Speaker, I would like to just point out and build on what my good friend and colleague, Marsha Blackburn, said. It was Seneca Falls in New York that was the birthplace of the suffrage movement to grant women the right to vote.

In 1920, when the 19th Amendment granting that right to vote was at last in the process of being ratified by the States, it was the State of Tennessee that put that effort over the top. Now Tennessee and New York have come together again, and we are working very hard to create a women's museum that will talk about this great achievement and many others in all fields that have empowered this country and moved this country forward--not only achievements by individual women, but I would say collective achievements by women and their hard work, such as the effort by women to create pasteurization of milk, the immunization of children, increased health care, improved health care, and improved education. These are all efforts that collectively women have worked together on.

So I ask my colleagues today to vote ``yes'' on this bill and to vote for allowing an idea to be examined and to come forward before this committee again, and let's see how it can work.

A ``yes'' vote will cost this country nothing, and it could mean everything to our young people, to our girls and our boys and our children and their children to be able to come to their Nation's Capital and to learn many things, including the many important contributions of half the population, women.

I would like to remind my colleagues that this is Mother's Day week, and I cannot think of a better present to our mothers than to recognize the contributions that they have made to the American family and to this country.

I yield back the balance of my time.