Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, in our tough economic environment, individuals should not have to choose between caring for a loved one and their job. The high work participation rates among mothers and the caregiving needs of an aging population put further demands on American families. The landmark Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) has allowed millions of employees to take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave from work to care for a new baby or to care for a spouse, child under age 18, or parent who has a serious health condition. However, the law does not allow leave to care for a same-sex partner or spouse, a grandparent or an adult child. Anecdotal evidence suggests that same- sex partners have endured negative reactions and denials to requests for leave when partners gave birth or had a serious medical condition. When a loved one is in need of care, employees should not be subjected to discrimination but should be allowed to take advantage of the benefits FMLA provides.

Already, hundreds of companies, several states, and the District of Columbia have extended such protections to individuals not originally included in the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. In order to do this at the federal level, today I am reintroducing the Family and Medical Leave Inclusion Act. This legislation will allow an employee to take unpaid leave from work to care for his or her same-sex spouse or domestic partner, parent-in-law, adult child, sibling, grandchild or grandparent if that person has a serious health condition. Additionally, in light of the recent repeal of the Military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, the legislation permits leave for domestic partners of service members.

I thank Senator Durbin for reintroducing the Senate companion legislation and thank original House cosponsors Reps. Polis, Towns, George Miller, Stark, Frank, Holmes Norton, Susan Davis, Connolly, Israel, Frederica Wilson, Olver, Sherman, Capps, Serrano, Nadler, Engel, Moore, Barbara Lee, Chu, and Jackson Jr.

Almost two decades after enactment, it is time FMLA caught up to the growing demands on and changing makeup of American families.

Mr. Speaker, as a long-time advocate of women's health, I am proud to reintroduce the Robin Danielson Act, legislation that would address the unanswered health concerns regarding the safety of tampons. Given the sheer number of women who use these products and the potential cumulative adverse effects, it is time women have definitive answers about the potential risk these products pose to their health.

Today, approximately 73,000,000 women in the United States use tampons made of cotton and rayon and the average woman may use as many as 16,800 tampons in her lifetime. Rayon is a synthetic fiber produced from bleached wood pulp. During this process, dioxin, a probable cancer-causing agent, is created. Although chlorine-free bleaching processes are available, most wood pulp manufacturers use elemental chlorine-free bleaching processes, which continue to produce dioxin. Due to a lack of access to timely and comprehensive information, most women are not fully aware of the potential risks associated with use of the mainstream product. Dioxins in tampons and TSS are serious women's health concerns that have not been adequately monitored, analyzed, or reported.

Like thousands of others, Robin Danielson, whom the bill is named after, was the victim of Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS), a rare but potentially life-threatening illness that is often linked to high- absorbency tampon use. Robin's death could have been prevented if only she had recognized the symptoms. Even today, many women are not fully aware of the risks of tampon use or TSS. This legislation would direct the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct research to determine the extent to which the presence of dioxin, synthetic fibers, and other additives in tampons and related products pose any health risks to women and asks the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to collect and report information on Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS).

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, one to two of every 100,000 women between the ages of 15-44 years old will be diagnosed with TSS each year. Yet, the last national surveillance was conducted in 1987 and reporting of TSS by the states is voluntary. It is clear we do not have enough transparent or timely information to evaluate the reality of TSS today.

This legislation is necessary to provide women with accurate information about the safety of tampons and to increase awareness about the risk of TSS.

Mr. Speaker, the value of investing in early education is clear: Early education lays the foundation for lifelong learning and prepares children to succeed academically and in life. Studies show that children who attend high-quality preschool are more successful in school, more likely to graduate from high school, and thus more likely to become productive adults who contribute to the U.S. economy.

That is why today I am pleased to reintroduce the Prepare All Kids Act, which would assist states in providing at least one year of high- quality pre-kindergarten to children, with a focus on children from low-income families and children with special needs. This legislation ensures a high-quality learning environment by limiting classroom size to a maximum of 20 children and children-to-teacher ratios to no more than 10 to 1.

Introduced in the Senate by my colleague on the Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Casey of Pennsylvania, I am happy to be introducing this House companion bill.

I urge my colleagues to support the Prepare All Kids Act and further invest in our nation's great resource--our children.

Mr. Speaker, nearly 40 years have passed since the Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (also known as the Women's Equality Amendment). This historic Constitutional Amendment was intended to ensure equality for women and men in all areas of society.

The 27th amendment to the Constitution, which concerns Congressional pay raises, was accepted after a 203 year ratification period. When Congress passed the ERA in 1972, it provided that the measure had to be ratified by the necessary number of states (38) within 7 years. This was later extended to the still tight deadline of 10 years, but unfortunately the ERA was just three states shy of full ratification when the deadline passed in 1982. We believe Congress should give the states another chance.

In the past several decades, women have made extraordinary strides toward achieving equality--but this progress is not irreversible. Without the ERA, women have often been denied the ability to seek justice when they have experienced discrimination. The Supreme Court decision in the Virginia Military Institute case (Virginia v. United States) helped clarify that gender ``classifications may not be used . . . to create or perpetuate the legal, social, and economic inferiority of women.'' However, laws can still perpetuate gender classifications that keep women from achieving their full potential. Passage of the ERA is the Constitutional affirmation of the Supreme Court decision.

Our democracy rests on the principle of ``liberty and justice for all.'' We need the ERA to ensure that this concept applies equal to women. I am pleased to introduce this bill with 158 bipartisan original cosponsors and urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, today I am reintroducing the Study of Ways to Improve the Accuracy of the Collection of Federal Oil, Condensate, and Natural Gas Royalties Act, which successfully passed the House in the last Congress as an amendment to the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act. I thank original cosponsors Representatives Hinchey and Grijalva for their support.

At a time of record high gas prices, it is vital to ensure the American taxpayer is fairly and accurately compensated for energy resources extracted from leased federal onshore and offshore lands. This legislation would commission the National Academy of Engineers to study if the production volume measurement of oil, condensate, and natural gas collection on federal lands (including submerged, deep water, and Indian lands) could be improved with alternative methods.

In April 2010, the Government Accountability Office released a study showing the management of production from oil and natural gas leases has been inconsistent and inadequate in past administrations. With revenues from leases amounting to billions of dollars, it is important that American taxpayers accurately know the amount of oil and gas that is extracted on leased federal lands.

A better understanding of the best extraction measurement methods could ultimately result in increased revenue for the federal government. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation in the 112th Congress.

Madam Speaker, a close examination shows the changes that our Republican colleagues are proposing to Medicare would actually make things much worse, not better.

To begin with, the Republican proposal would add to the program's cost. Privatizing Medicare would cost 11 percent more than it would for providing exactly the same services under the current Medicare plan. And the additional cost for going private would just widen over time.

According to the nonpartisan politifact.org, under the Republican plan, those just becoming eligible for Medicare, those 55 years old and under 10 years from now, would have to pay a whopping $6,400 more per year than they would under the current plan.

This kind of foreseeable increase in costs actually works just like a tax aimed squarely at our retiring seniors. The Republican plan would be a disaster for our seniors and our economy.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the PATRIOT Sunsets Extension Act of 2011.

The bill that is under consideration today would again extend authorities under the USA PATRIOT Act known as the ``roving wiretap'' provision, the business records, or ``library,'' provision, which provides authority to compel production of business records or ``any tangible thing'' deemed related to a terrorism investigation, and the so-called ``lone wolf'' provision.

These provisions continue to raise serious privacy concerns and potential threats to our civil liberties, which is why I have voted

against extending these provisions in the past. We simply cannot continue to forgo Congressional oversight and simply extend these authorities, without amendment or debate, because we are told that these provisions are critical to our national security. It is incumbent on Members of Congress to consider the potential overreach of these provisions and the potential threat to our most basic freedoms.

In the wake of the attacks of September 11th, we rightfully committed to do what we must to protect ourselves from future terror attacks. But we must balance our security with the need to protect ourselves against unnecessary federal intrusion into our private lives, which is an essential part of what it means to be an American and must not be sacrificed.

Simply reauthorizing these provisions, without careful and deliberate debate about their potential impact, is a disservice to the American people and threatens our fundamental liberties.

That is why I vote against the extension before us today.

I thank the gentleman for his leadership and for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule, which will end Medicare as we know it, and also to the underlying bill, which reduces Homeland Security grants by 50 percent to our cities, to our ports, to our transit.

Is there any reason to believe, I ask my Republican colleagues, that there is a 50 percent reduction in threat?

If anything, law enforcement tells us that the number of threats is up since the death of Osama bin Laden. Police Commissioner Kelly, in New York City, tells me that since 9/11 there have been 13 serious terrorist attempts, and six of these were focused on mass transit, which has been cut by 50 percent.

We need to remember what law enforcement has told us: that our antiterrorist efforts have to be right every day, every hour, every second, every time. Yet terrorists just have to be lucky once.

I ask my Republican colleagues: What would be the impact on the loss of lives and on our economy if we were attacked again as they are trying to do? The chatter is up. Law enforcement tells us the threat is up, not down. So why are we cutting it 50 percent?

My Republican colleagues, I say to you that you are not just gambling with dollars; you are gambling with lives. It is not a gamble Democrats are willing to take.

I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to introduce important bipartisan legislation, the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act, which would close a serious gap in the law by requiring colleges and universities to clearly spell out their policies regarding domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, and will increase awareness and prevention of these acts by requiring transparency of information, prevention programs and assistance for victims. Senator Bob Casey recently introduced the Senate companion bill (S. 834).

Sexual violence and violence in dating relationships are a serious problem on college campuses across the country. More than one in five female undergraduates will be victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault during their time on a campus; only a fraction of incidents are reported and many victims go without adequate institutional support.

The Campus SaVE Act would increase the transparency of reports of sexual violence by institutions to include in their annual security reports statistics on domestic violence, dating violence and stalking that were reported to campus police authorities or local police agencies; promote prevention and bystander responsibility by requiring colleges and universities to develop clear statements of policy regarding domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking prevention programs; ensure victims get the help they need by requiring colleges and universities to provide clear statements regarding their procedures followed when a case of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault or stalking is reported and provide victims an explanation of their rights in writing; and requires clear procedures for institutional disciplinary proceedings and provides assistance to institutions to implement these requirements.

This legislation will help ensure our college campuses and universities are safe. I urge my colleagues to support it.

I thank the ranking member for his leadership, I thank him and Chairman McKeon for the bipartisan approach of including amendments in the en bloc, and I thank you for including my amendment in en bloc No. 4.

My amendment, No. 121, would narrow an overly broad exemption under

Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of American Jewish Heritage Month. For more than 350 years, members of the Jewish faith have lived in this country, built this country and contributed to this country.

From colonial days to the present, the course of American history would be profoundly different if it were not for the contributions of American Jews. The early settlers arrived in New York in 1654 and won official toleration, despite the objections of Peter Stuyvesant, marking America as a place where Jews would be free to practice their religion. America's toleration was unusual. Elsewhere in the world the Spanish Inquisition was in full swing; Italian Jews were confined to ghettos; Jews had not yet officially been readmitted to England or France; and they were banned from Scandinavia. Toleration became accepted practice in New England and the South as well, and Jewish communities began to form in many parts of America. A Jewish doctor, Samuel Nunez Ribiero, kept the settlers of the new colony of Georgia from being ravaged by malaria in 1733, which persuaded the founder of the colony, James Edward Oglethorpe, to allow Jewish people to settle in Savannah.

Jews played an important role in the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the fledgling United States. From the merchants who carried supplies and arms to Hayim Solomon who helped bankroll the new government at a crucial time, Jews contributed to the birth of our country. And, as the country grew, Jews found opportunities and freedom in the new towns and cities that were built in the West.

Jews began to immigrate to the United States in large numbers during the 1880s. And their language, customs and stories were incorporated into American culture. What could be more American than nosh on a bagel while watching a Woody Allen movie? Thanks to comedians like Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Phil Silvers, Jerry Seinfeld, Roseanne Barr, Sacha Baron Cohen, Gilda Radner and thousands of others, American comedy often seems to have a distinctly Jewish humor.

Jews have made their mark in American literature, music and the arts. Saul Bellow, Herman Wouk and Michael Chabon are among the 14 percent of Pulitzer Prize winners in literature who are Jewish; Barbara Tuchman, Studs Terkel and Jared Diamond are among the 51 percent of Pulitzer Prize winners for non-fiction who are Jewish. From Leonard Bernstein to Aaron Copeland, some of America's most famous composers are Jewish. And many of the most influential artists of the last 100 years have been Jewish, including Man Ray, Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko.

Jewish scientists have expanded our knowledge of the world and have helped discover new cures. From Albert Einstein to Jonas Salk, Carl Sagan to Mark Zuckerberg, Jews have used their scientific knowledge to change our understanding.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues in celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month, and the myriad of ways in which Jewish Americans have influenced our lives.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would require public disclosure of information submitted under section 847 of this act.

This amendment is about bringing more accountability and sunshine to the $379 billion average annual defense contracting business by making a revolving door database, which already exists, publicly available. It would allow the public access to important ethics information about some DOD employees who leave to go through the resolving door to jobs in the defense contracting industry, often with companies with whom they have been negotiating billions of dollars in contracts.

Current and former public servants should not be able to use their positions for private gain, and powerful defense contractors should not be able to rig the system.

But, unfortunately, this relationship is not uncommon. One way contractors gain influence in the government is to hire away civil servants and political appointees with access to inside people and information from their government positions. In some cases, highly skilled and well-connected former senior government officials enter the private sector as executives or officers or lobbyists or on the boards of directors of government contractors, a practice known as the revolving door.

It is also widely acknowledged that there are inherent conflicts of interest in the revolving door, potential ethical problems that can lead to the wasteful spending of taxpayers' dollars and worse.

For this reason, DOD currently collects ethics opinions on certain acquisition employees who go to work for contractors within 2 years of leaving DOD. This amendment would simply require this database to be publicly available online.

This amendment would not add any requirements or change the current post-employment restrictions. The law already requires DOD employees who hold a key acquisition position to obtain a written ethics opinion from a DOD ethics counselor before taking a job with a contractor in the 2 years after leaving DOD.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2008 mandated that covered DOD acquisition officials, that would be certain executive schedule, Senior Executive Service, and general or flag officer positions, must obtain a post-employment ethics opinion before accepting a paid position from a DOD contractor within 2 years after they leave DOD service. It also requires that DOD contractors ensure that new hires have an ethics opinion.

The law also requires that each request for a written opinion made pursuant to this section, and each written opinion provided pursuant to such a request, shall be retained by the Department of Defense in a central database for not less than 5 years beginning on the date in which the written opinion was provided.

But these ethics opinions are not currently shared with the public. Why should this information be secret and hidden from public view?

At times the overly cozy relationships between DOD and contractors lead to cost overruns, loose ethical standards, and lack of accountability. This problem is compounded by the dramatic increase in DOD contract spending in recent years. The inability of DOD's acquisition workforce to effectively manage that dramatic growth and increasing industry consolidation have caused DOD to become too dependent on a handful of companies to provide essential goods and services.

It has become impractical or even outright impossible for DOD to bar any of these companies from contracting or impose punishment more severe than a mere slap on the wrist.

Mr. Chair, the examples of lack of accountability are endless:

BAE Systems: Last year, BAE settled an international bribery case in the U.S. and UK for $450 million and pleaded guilty to criminal charges. But it was allowed to keep doing business with the federal government and has won billions of dollars in contracts since then. Even last week's run-in with the State Department, when BAE paid $79 million after State discovered they had withheld vital info while negotiating last year's settlement, hasn't hurt it.

BP: Last year, the EPA was considering debarring BP for its many environmental and workplace safety violations, but DoD pressured them to back off because BP supplies 80 percent of the fuel to U.S. forces.

KBR: Still a key DoD supplier despite a long history of misconduct, including incidents that put the lives of soldiers and employees at risk.

Charles Tiefer of the Commission on Wartime Contracting nicknamed five large companies that do business with DoD (KBR, Agility, Louis Berger Group, Tamimi, First Kuwaiti) the ``Flagrant Five'' for continuing to receive contracts despite claims of fraud, misconduct and poor performance.

At a time when the public is questioning the ethics and integrity of the federal government and its spending of taxpayer dollars, the very least we can do is to shine a little light on the revolving door between the government and large private contractors.

This amendment would do just that.

It would direct DoD to make the information they already collect publicly available online to increase accountability and improve the ethics in relationships between DoD acquisitions and defense contractors. Groups like the nonpartisan Project On Government Oversight have urged DoD to make the database public, to no avail. DoD is not prohibited from putting the information online, but clearly has resisted doing so.

There is no public interest in keeping this information secret or hidden from view. The only interest served by keeping this ethics information in the shadows are those of current and former public servants use their positions for private gain means powerful private corporations can rig the system in their favor. This costs taxpayers, limits or eliminates competition from businesses that may be the best for the job, and results in flawed policies and bad procurement decisions. It also harms the public trust.

Public access to the revolving door database represents the kind of open government that the public wants and deserves, especially at this time of ever-escalating spending of taxpayer dollars by the Pentagon. It will improve the integrity of the federal contracting system, shine light on the revolving door between the Pentagon and the defense industry, and act as a deterrent to overly-cozy relationship that could lead to wasted taxpayer dollars.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

This amendment is about the need to continue to make information available to the public, to keep our uniformed military safe, and ensure tax dollars are not wasted on aircraft with serious performance and maintenance issues.

It would simply narrow section 1081 of the act under consideration, and this amendment would ensure the military cannot hide subpar maintenance of military aircraft or other preventable shortcomings from disclosure under the guise of keeping important tactical information from our enemies. It ensures an adequate balance between the Defense Department's appropriate need to protect tactical information while ensuring the public can learn, for example, when the military is not putting our pilots in the best maintained aircraft in the world.

Just ask the parents of Jeffrey Smith, with whom I have spoken, one of 45 pilots who died in noncombat accidents in Harrier jets. The Los Angeles Times' reporter Kevin Sack pored through military investigative records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act to show military investigators believe a small shard of plastic clogged the fuel line of Smith's jet as it tore down the runway, leading the jet to crash at the end of the runway. The investigative series used the military's investigative records to show other problems with the Harrier jet, eventually winning a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Such reporting does nothing to reveal tactical or strategic advantages to our adversaries, but it could save the lives of our pilots, and it goes a long way to ensure our airmen and women are given the very best equipment to protect our Nation.

This amendment simply allows effective public oversight. And yet H.R. 1540 would allow the military to exempt or hide exactly this kind of information. The exemption to the Freedom of Information Act in section 1081 is extremely broad and would block access to information of public interest unnecessarily.

As in the tragic death of Jeffrey Smith, some of this information is of important public interest. The public also has a vital interest in understanding how well the aircraft their taxpayer dollars buy are performing. The uniformed military also benefits from public scrutiny of complicated multibillion dollar weapons systems in which they trust their lives.

This amendment is supported by many good government groups, and my amendment makes a simple but critically important clarification that the information from the military flight operations quality assurance systems that is exempted is information that would reveal flight patterns, tactical techniques, or tactical procedures. My amendment would exempt the truly sensitive information that allows reconstruction of flights that could reveal detailed flight tactics and the parameters of aircraft flight envelopes to enemies that could adapt accordingly.

It appropriately narrows the exemption to apply particular criteria to strike the right balance between safeguarding military flights and tactics and the public's right to know if the equipment is faulty, as was in the case of the Harrier jets.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I appreciate the gentleman's sensitivity. I certainly share his concern in protecting data points that in any way would reveal information about our aircraft and ways that people could combat our aircraft. But the gentlemen represents, I know, many military families, and I'm sure you know as I do many military people who have died in aircraft that had faulty situations. For example, the Harrier aircraft that had 45 crashes because of faulty equipment, that if the public and others had known about, the military I believe would have been brought to stop the use of this and to save their lives.

So I feel that we have the same goal. I certainly want to protect information that is very critical to our flight patterns and our military; but for information that is not such as that, but faulty equipment, that should be made available. And we feel that we have that balance in this amendment.

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

May I inquire as to the time remaining.

I support this amendment. Instead of blocking access to all of this information, a more reasonable approach is to allow the DOD to perform these missions to maintain a tactical and technical advantage and to maintain effective, efficient, and safe aircraft units and aircraft tactical information without unnecessarily withholding information about the safety--in this case of aircraft--that the public and the pilots and others have a right to know. So I support this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to likewise support it.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor Page Morton Black, an extraordinarily selfless and effective leader who has distinguished herself through her dedication to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, PDF, and its critical mission. I urge my distinguished colleagues to join me in honoring Mrs. Black and her service to others as chair of the Board of Directors of PDF. Following the observance in April of ``Parkinson's Disease Awareness Month,'' her immense contributions to the fight against Parkinson's Disease will be recognized this month by PDF supporters at its annual ``Bal du Printemps'' at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

Founded in 1957 by Mrs. Black's late husband, William Black, the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, PDF, is a leading national presence in Parkinson's Disease research, education and public advocacy. The PDF serves the nearly one million Americans who live with Parkinson's by offering critical support for cutting-edge medical research to determine the causes of Parkinson's and develop a cure, while assisting those afflicted by the disease and their families and caregivers with educational outreach, vigorous public advocacy, and a host of support services. Led by Mrs. Black and her late husband, PDF has provided more than $85 million in funding for research on Parkinson's Disease all over the world, as well as $34 million in support of educational and support programs for families and care partners of persons with Parkinson's. As the chair of the Congressional Working Group on Parkinson's Disease, I can attest first-hand to the critical role the PDF continues to play in the fight against Parkinson's.

The creation of the Parkinson's Disease Foundation is an inspirational story. William Black, an immigrant to America, was the founder of the renowned and much beloved Chock Full o'Nuts coffee and restaurant business--which was made famous in no small part due to its advertising featuring Page Morton Black singing the company's catchy jingle about Chock Full o'Nuts' ``heavenly coffee,'' a performance which quickly entered the popular lexicon. Mr. Black was moved to found the PDF after his close friend, the company's controller, was diagnosed with Parkinson's. He was greatly dismayed to learn that not only was there no truly effective treatment, but also that no basic research on Parkinson's was being conducted. Using his own funds, he established the PDF, which was the first private foundation in the United States created specifically to advance research into the causes of Parkinson's, help develop a cure, and support those living with the disease.

William Black was determined to launch a research program aimed at finding effective drug treatment for the disease. Working with some of the nation's most prominent and respected researchers, the Blacks made two major donations to Columbia University, one to help construct the research laboratory building that now bears Mr. Black's name, which houses one entire floor dedicated to Parkinson's research; and the other to endow support for that research. This close relationship between the PDF and Columbia University has persisted to this day. Following Mr. Black's passing Page Morton Black became chair of the PDF Board of Directors, helping ensure that the PDF has remained a driving force in combating Parkinson's Disease. Under her leadership, the PDF expanding its outreach, advocacy, and research funding. The PDF is making a real difference in our understanding of Parkinson's Disease, leading to new therapies and, in time, hopefully a cure.

Mr. Speaker, I ask that my distinguished colleagues rise to join me in recognizing Page Morton Black, a great American and a great New Yorker who has distinguished herself through her lifetime of extraordinary service to others.

Mr. Speaker, this week, the House majority is taking up legislation that helps the profits of Big Oil but does nothing to curb a future oil disaster or bring down oil and gas prices. H.R. 1229 and H.R. 1231 both greatly expand U.S. offshore drilling while removing crucial environmental safeguards and limiting oversight of the oil and gas industry. It has been a little over a year since the gulf oil spill and these bills ignore the lessons learned from this environmental and public health disaster that resulted from the explosion that took the lives of 11 Americans.

I fully support national energy policies that increase energy independence but these must be done in a way that protects our environment and uses our natural resources responsibly. It is important that any energy policies we put in place provide greater efficiency and accountability to the management and regulation of our energy resources.

That is not what the legislation before us will do. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''