Floor Statements

Madam Chair, I rise today to voice my support for H.R. 5019, the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act.

This legislation will help to create jobs while saving consumers money and reducing our nation's energy consumption.

It will also provide an important boost for the construction sector which has been mercilessly pounded by both the recession and the collapse in new housing construction.

In my role as chair of the Joint Economic Committee, we have been examining the sector-by-sector impact of the Great Recession.

The construction sector has seen employment drop by almost 28 percent since the recession began. More than two million jobs--in this sector alone--were lost.

We're not going to get those jobs back overnight, but policies like the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act can play an important role in encouraging growth in construction while speeding our transition to a more energy-efficient economy.

The legislation provides rebates to consumers for purchasing energy- efficient products or materials and for doing renovations to make their homes more energy efficient.

Consumers can get the rebates for buying caulk or insulation, at their local hardware store for example, or working with a contractor on larger projects, such as installing new heating or cooling systems, or replacing windows.

The larger the project, the larger the rebate.

The legislation also creates a new state-federal program to provide loans to consumers for renovations that improve energy efficiency.

The Home Star legislation builds on the energy efficiency provisions in the Recovery Act, including weatherization programs targeted at low- income families and retrofits of public housing.

The legislation helps us accomplish two key goals--increasing jobs and reducing our energy costs and consumption.

A number of studies have already shown the job creation power of retrofitting homes and buildings.

The Center for American Progress estimated that $40 billion invested in retrofits would create approximately 800,000 jobs. And these are good, high-paying jobs--construction workers, carpenters, electricians and roofers.

Finally, residential and commercial buildings use 40 percent of the energy in our country and account for 40 percent of carbon emissions.

The Home Star Energy Retrofit Act will speed the pace of home retrofits, speed up the creation of badly needed jobs, decrease our demand for carbon based fuels, and help us move more quickly to a cleaner, brighter more energy efficient future.

I encourage you to support H.R. 5019.

Mr. Speaker, this is a chart prepared by the Joint Economic Committee, which I call the V chart--not for victory, or total victory, but it certainly shows success and that we're trending in the right direction in our economy. The red bars on the chart represent the job losses under the prior administration. The last month of the Bush administration, this country lost over 770,000 jobs. The blue bars represent the record of the Obama administration as we recover from the depths of an inherited economic disaster.

There is still much left to do as we recover from the great recession. Millions of Americans still suffer. But if we wish to avoid repeating history, we should first remember and understand it. The policies of the past drove our economy down. The policies of this Congress have begun to lift it up. You can see it here very clearly in a V and in red, white, and blue.

Madam Chair, I rise in support. This legislation will help to bolster our Nation's economic competitiveness by supporting basic research, the fundamental building block for innovation and making investments in science, technology, engineering, and math.

The Joint Economic Committee released a report this week looking at the role of basic research in the R&D process. The report highlights the critical role the Federal Government plays in funding basic research. While the Federal Government supports about one-quarter of overall R&D, as you can see on this chart, it funds more than half, 57 percent, of basic research. Without Federal involvement, basic research would be underfunded because the returns the private sector can gain on basic research are smaller than the broader benefits to our overall economy.

As we recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have to look under every rock to give ourselves every chance of sparking innovations that will fuel future growth and jobs. The America COMPETES reauthorization funds the basic research that will drive a new generation of innovation, spawning new technologies and industries and leading to additional growth and jobs. America COMPETES will strengthen our economy by making strategic investments in America's future. I urge a ``yes'' vote and applaud the chairman of the committee for his many years of service.

Mr. Speaker, as someone who was actually attending an event in Times Square on Saturday night, I and the thousands of people who were also in the area that evening are profoundly grateful to the two New Yorkers who saw something--and said something.

The swift, coordinated response of New York City and national law enforcement agencies--led by Commissioner Ray Kelly and the NYPD-- yielded equally swift results.

I don't hesitate to call them heroes--they were ``merely'' doing their jobs, thoroughly and well, but that is itself a form of heroism. The NYPD, the FBI, and the Joint Terrorist Task Force all did an incredible job in apprehending this suspect quickly and preventing him from fleeing the country.

These first responders deserve the bipartisan tribute we make here today. But all first responders around the globe should take a share of this honor--without them, many more would die, and too many perpetrators would go free.

Madam Chair, I rise today to voice my support for H.R. 5019, the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act.

This legislation will help to create jobs, while saving consumers money, and reducing our Nation's energy consumption.

It will also provide an important boost for the construction sector which has been mercilessly pounded by both the recession and the collapse in new housing construction.

In my role as Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, we have been examining the sector-by-sector impact of the Great Recession. The construction sector has seen employment drop by almost 28 percent since the recession began. More than two million jobs--in this sector alone-- were lost.

We're not going to get those jobs back overnight, but policies like The Home Star Energy

Retrofit Act can play an important role in encouraging growth in construction while speeding our transition to a more energy-efficient economy.

The legislation provides rebates to consumers for purchasing energy- efficient products or materials and for doing renovations to make their homes more energy efficient.

Consumers can get the rebates for buying caulk or insulation at their local hardware store, for example, or working with a contractor on larger projects, such as installing new heating or cooling systems, or replacing windows.

The larger the project, the larger the rebate.

The legislation also creates a new State-Federal program to provide loans to consumers for renovations that improve energy efficiency.

The Home Star legislation builds on the energy efficiency provisions in the Recovery Act, including weatherization programs targeted at low- income families and retrofits of public housing.

The legislation helps us accomplish two key goals--increasing jobs and reducing our energy costs and consumption.

A number of studies have already shown the job creation power of retrofitting homes and buildings.

The Center for American Progress estimated that $40 billion invested in retrofits would create approximately 800,000 jobs. And these are good, high-paying jobs--construction workers, carpenters, electricians and roofers.

Finally, residential and commercial buildings use 40 percent of the energy in our country and account for 40 percent of carbon emissions.

The Home Star Energy Retrofit Act will speed the pace of home retrofits, speed up the creation of badly needed jobs, decrease our demand for carbon based fuels, and help us move more quickly to a cleaner, brighter, more energy efficient future.

I encourage you to support H.R. 5019.

Madam Speaker, today I am introducing the StartUp Visa Act of 2010, the companion bill to Senator John Kerry's bipartisan legislation of the same name, which he introduced with Senator Richard Lugar this past February.

What do American household names such as Google, eBay and Proctor & Gamble have in common? They are all former start-ups founded by immigrants.

In 2009, the percentage of U.S. residents creating new domestic companies fell to 8 percent from 12.4 percent in 2005. Over the same period, the percentage of residents in foreign countries creating new companies rose to 11 percent from 8.7 percent. Despite this trend, our current visa laws have made it unnecessarily difficult for immigrants to launch new companies in the United States. I am introducing the StartUp Visa Act of 2010 because the economic dynamism of foreign-born talent has always been a crucial factor in our country's growth, and we must take steps to enable it to continue. By allowing immigrant entrepreneurs greater access to American visas, we truly can drive American job creation and channel the power of innovation.

Currently, the EB-5 category visa permits foreign nationals to obtain a green card if their efforts invest at least $1 million into the U.S. economy and create at least 10 jobs. This bill creates a new EB-6 visa for immigrant entrepreneurs. After proving that he or she has secured initial investment capital (totaling at least $250,000) and if, after two years, an immigrant entrepreneur can show that he or she has generated at least five full-time jobs in the United States, attracted $1 million in additional investment capitol or achieved $1 million in revenue, then he or she would receive permanent legal resident status.

The entrepreneurial spirit is ingrained in our country's history and success. I believe that this legislation is a vital component of promoting our global competitiveness. We must ensure a strong foundation for foreign-born, highly-skilled talent to create American jobs and promote economic prosperity and this bill works toward that end.

I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership in so many ways, and I thank my good friend on the other side of the aisle for his leadership on this issue and many others.

We are united today in a bipartisan effort, Republicans and Democrats. We are united in our efforts to stop the RNC from using census mailings for political gain and to fundraise for the RNC.

Mr. Steele, in particular, the head of the RNC, 5 days after this Congress in a bipartisan vote that was unanimous on both sides of the aisle, mailed out another partisan mailer, raising money for the RNC in an envelope that looked like it was an official document for the Census Bureau. I suggest that Mr. Steele contact the members of his own party before he acts in such a way, because the Republicans supported stopping using the census mailer in any way for partisan gain.

Specifically, this Congress passed legislation to stop mailers, fake mailers, look-alike mailers, that made the document look official, like a census document, to open it up. The RNC and others were mailing fundraisers, acting like they were the census. This is wrong. We passed legislation to stop it. It is now under review by the postal department. I have every bit of confidence that they will report that it violated not only the spirit of the law but that it violated the law.

The ink wasn't even dry from President Obama signing the legislation into law, and 5 days later the RNC leadership sent out another partisan mailer designed to look like the census to mislead people. This is dangerous because the census is important to our country. It is mandated by the Constitution. It must take place every 10 years, and the census numbers are the numbers that we use to decide representation. Practically every funding formula is based on census numbers. So we want people to respond to the census. It's important. To the degree that mock, fake mailers are out there deceiving people, it will drive down the participation.

So today we are united on enforcing the law in a bipartisan way. And I congratulate particularly the leadership on the other side of the aisle that are speaking out against the leadership of their own RNC, knowing that the census is important and should not be used for partisan reasons. So I compliment Steny Hoyer and Mr. Boehner for moving this to the floor immediately so that another mailer doesn't go out.

This is a critical time for the census. It is in full swing. People are responding to their mail. There will be enumerators. There will be additional mail. To the extent that people are fundraising with fake look-alike documents, it will drive down the participation in the federally mandated, constitutionally required, and federally funded census. It is undercutting tax dollars from the public that are trying to get an accurate count and an accurate picture of where we are from the census data. So this is a very important action, and it's one that we are acting quickly on. And I hope the RNC and anyone else who wants to put out a deceptive, misleading mailing will stop and respect the law, respect the census, and respect this Congress.

I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I missed rollcall vote 219, on the Motion to Instruct Conferees on Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act-- Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Reports are clear that Iran is speeding forward toward developing the capability to manufacture and launch a nuclear weapon. A nuclear Iran will put the world's most deadly weapon into the hands of a nation that is actively supporting terrorism and is actively engaged in providing weapons and other support to terrorist organizations. Iran's leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made no secret of his desire to destroy our ally Israel--he has promised to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. If Iran develops a nuclear bomb, it will have the ability to do in a matter of minutes what it took the Nazis six years to do.

A nuclear Iran will destabilize the entire Middle East. If Iran has nuclear capability, every nation in the Middle East will rush to acquire the same capability. Although Israel has much to fear from Iran, there are many other countries in the region that have a long history of bad relations with Iran. And there is no love lost between Shi'ite Iran and its Sunni neighbors.

I salute the young people who have risked their lives in Iran in the hopes of removing this madman from power. Their courage deserves our praise and our support. But a nuclear Iran will be a threat to every nation in the Middle East, regardless of who is in power; and there is no sign that a different Iranian leader would dismantle the nuclear program. Sanctions are our best hope to pressure Iran to relinquish its nuclear program.

Tough sanctions have an impact. They have already discouraged companies from doing business in Iran, thereby reducing Iran's access to the goods it wants. Time Magazine reported that two of the world's largest insurance companies, Lloyd's and Munich Re, will no longer insure cargo going into or out of Iran. Major oil brokers are no longer willing to sell refined petroleum to Iran, a blow to a country that must import much of its oil. LUKOIL, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, BP and Malaysia's Petronas and other companies will no longer sell gasoline to Iran. Sanctions change corporate behavior--and if the corporations that do business in Iran are no longer willing to trade, it will have an immediate and direct effect on the quality of life in Iran.

The Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009 is a good bill--a strong bill. It's time to go to conference and move forward with implementing strong sanctions that can make a difference. The only nation that benefits from delay is Iran. Time is on its side--with more time, it can realize its nuclear ambitions. We can change the equation by moving this bill forward now. Accordingly, I strongly encourage my colleagues to support this motion.

Madam Speaker, today we mourn the loss of Dr. Dorothy Height, a true American hero, who worked tirelessly throughout her 98 years to make the world better as a leader, activist, and counselor in the civil rights and women's rights movements. In 2004, I was privileged to support legislation that honored Dr. Height with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress can bestow. Dr. Height led a remarkable life and made a significant difference in the lives of so many others.

After earning degrees at New York University, Dr. Height joined the staff of the Harlem YMCA. There she met human rights activists First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and educator Mary McLeod Bethune. Her encounter with Dr. Bethune led to Dr. Height's involvement with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), an organization she would come to lead as president for four decades. Dr. Height was a tremendous mediator and minister during times of great civil rights strife, such as after the 1935 riots in Harlem and then again in 1963, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she traveled to Birmingham, Alabama, after a bomb killed four African American girls in a church.

Called the queen of the civil rights movement, Dr. Height was often the only woman at key moments in civil rights history and we are indebted to her for keeping women's rights and equality in the fore. During her tenure with NCNW, Dr. Height instituted programs to establish dialogue between interracial groups of women, to expand business ownership by women, to celebrate women's history at the Bethune Museum and Archives, and to monitor human rights around the world.

In addition to her efforts to overcome racial prejudices and for full voting rights of all, she also fought for school desegregation, for access to decent housing, and for better employment opportunities. It seems only fitting that we honor the legacy of Dr. Height on Equal Pay Day, a day each April intended to bring awareness to the inequalities that still exist in our society. Dr. Height was at the White House ceremony when President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act and was there again when President Clinton marked the 35th anniversary of the legislation.

Dr. Height was apt to tell her colleagues at NCNW to continue their efforts to address issues of social concern. In gratitude for everything she has done, we are inspired to continue with her life's dedication to expand civil rights and equality for all.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and celebrate the 62nd Anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. Much like our July 4th, this day commemorates the date on which David Ben Gurion read the formal Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel drafted by a coalition of zionist leaders, voted on by the People's Council (Moetzet Ha'am) and signed by 37 founding mothers and fathers of the Jewish State.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations approved a partition plan to take effect upon the expiration of the British Mandate. The partition plan was immediately rejected by the Arabs and armies from Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria attacked to try to destroy the fledgling Jewish State before it could be established. During the War of Independence, the Jewish Settlement (Yishuv), under the leadership of David Ben Gurion, formally established the State of Israel.

The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed on May 14, 1948, which fell on the 5th of the Hebrew Month of Iyar, the date the British Mandate over Palestine expired. At a ceremony held at the Tel Aviv Museum, now known as Independence Hall, David Ben Gurion read the Declaration and 25 of the 37 signatories formally affixed their signatures before a crowd of 250 invited guests and a radio audience of countless listeners. Eleven of those who ultimately signed the Declaration were trapped in Jerusalem which was then under seige; the 12th was abroad at the time of the ceremony.

Eleven minutes after the declaration was signed, President Truman de facto recognized the State of Israel. America shares an unshakable bond with Israel, born of our shared values and our common outlook. We are both nations of immigrants that believe the path to success lies in invention, creation and investment. We are both nations that believe in the rule of law and the importance of a

strong and independent judiciary. We are both nations that were created by pioneers seeking religious freedom. We are both pluralistic nations in which what you know and what you create is more important than who you are and where you came from. And, the United States must stand with Israel and must work to ensure that Israel endures as a Jewish State.

In the 62 years that followed its establishment, Israel has survived and flourished despite the repeated efforts to destroy her. Israel is a vigorous democracy, our strongest ally in the Middle East. Her economy is thriving, in large part as a result of her agricultural, technological and medical innovations. With a free and active press, freedom of religion, free elections and a free and independent judiciary, Israelis of all religions and nationalities enjoy rights and opportunities unimaginable elsewhere in the Middle East.

Israel constitutes a fraction of 1% of the land mass and only 2% of the population of the Middle East. Nonetheless, Israel far outshines much of the world in terms of academic, scientific and technological achievement. Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees per capita in the world and produces more scientific papers and more books per capita than any other nation in the world. It is the only nation in the world that has had a net increase in the number of trees. Israel has transformed itself from an impoverished backwater to a gleaming modern nation, ranking among the very highly developed countries of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to congratulate Israel for its 62 years of independence, innovation and enterprise.

Mr. Speaker, as a proud member of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, and the Representative of a large and vibrant community of Armenian Americans, I rise to welcome His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan in his offering of the opening prayer, and join my colleagues this week in the sad commemoration of the Armenian genocide.

On this 95th anniversary of the genocide, I join with a chorus of voices that grows louder with each passing year. We simply will not allow the planned elimination of an entire people to remain in the shadows of history. The Armenian genocide must be acknowledged, studied, and never, ever allowed to happen again.

The archbishop is the head of the Armenian Church in the United States, which is located in my district. As the spiritual shepherd of several hundred thousand Armenian Americans in the Eastern United States, he plays a significant role in the life of the Armenian community. It is a great honor to welcome him today.

Madam Speaker, today we will cast a series of historic votes.

The outcome of the votes will result in 32 million people without health insurance gaining coverage and 94 percent of Americans with guaranteed health care coverage.

In New York State, close to 2.5 million people who are currently uninsured will have health care coverage once the day is over.

To get to this point, the House had to first vote on the Senate passed health care bill and then vote on a bill that makes important changes that have been negotiated by the House to dramatically improve the Senate bill--this is called the reconciliation bill.

Without a promise of these important fixes, like taking out several of these ``special deals'' I would not vote for the Senate bill. However, with the guarantee of these improvements, today I will cast my vote in favor of the Senate health care bill.

I appreciate the opportunity to outline some of my concerns with the Senate passed health care reform bill.

Most importantly, the Senate bill would have cost New York close to a billion of dollars in Medicaid funding. Unlike the House bill which saves New York billions, the Senate bill penalizes States like New York for its expanded coverage of its citizens under Medicaid. Under the Senate bill, States that have not significantly expanded their Medicaid programs would receive a large influx of Federal funding, but States like New York are penalized for doing the right thing. The House bill contained a more equitable solution to sharing the costs of Medicaid expansion under health care reform by providing increased Federal funding for Medicaid expansion regardless of existing State eligibility levels. FMAP provisions in the Senate bill would result in a significant loss to New York State as a significant number of uninsured New Yorkers who are eligible for Medicaid enroll, while the House bill fairly shares in the costs for currently enrolled and newly enrolled childless adults and parents. Fortunately, the reconciliation bill that we will be voting on, fixes this problem, and the distribution of Federal Medicaid funding is more equitable and saves money for New York.

The Senate bill similarly penalized New York in terms of its treatment of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals, DSH. Historically, Medicaid hospital reimbursement rates, on average, have been lower than the cost of providing care, and DSH payments were instituted to cover reimbursement shortfalls and uncompensated care costs. The need for DSH reimbursement will remain even after health care reform is passed since there will millions of newly eligible individuals who will receive care through Medicaid.

The Senate bill reduced Federal funding for Medicaid DSH payments by $19 billion and Medicare DSH payments by $24 billion over 10 years; reductions to DSH payments of this magnitude will jeopardize the stability and the services provided by our safety net system. The original House bill which I supported had included more reasonable reductions of $10 billion each from Medicaid and Medicare DSH and similarly, the reconciliation bill, while not as good as the original House bill, reduces the cuts that the Senate bill would have imposed.

I am also opposed to the restrictive abortion language contained in the Senate bill. The Senate bill is significantly onerous, stigmatizing abortion services and creating obstacles for those consumers who would like to purchase this coverage and to those insurance companies would like to provide this coverage. Though I am strongly opposed to these restrictions, I am voting for the final bill because overall, reforming our current health care system dramatically and positively impacts women. As Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I prepared a report that looked at the specific health care challenges facing women and how women would benefit from comprehensive health care reform. More than 2 million women have lost their health insurance since the recession began due to their own job loss or their spouse's job loss. 1.3 million women lost their health coverage when their spouse lost his job and an additional 800,000 women lost their health care as a result of their own job loss. More than 2 million women have faced the brutal double- whammy of a lost job and lost health care. While job losses

during this recession were much greater for men than women, women have fared worse than men in recent months. And this has had real consequences for women's health care coverage: in the last 6 months, the number of women losing health insurance benefits due to their own job losses has increased by nearly 50 percent. Over one quarter, 28 percent of women ages 19-24 have no health insurance at all. Part of that number is likely explained by the economic challenges facing young women. Young women have been hit hard in the recession, facing an unemployment rate of 13.1 percent, significantly higher than the national rate of 9.7 percent, and making it less likely that they will have job-based coverage. Health care reform will help us to overcome inequities at the center of the current system--where women pay more than men for the same coverage, or even, where women who are not smokers pay more for coverage than men who are smokers. My report and the reality is that the current health care system is serving women poorly, the recession has made the situation worse, and now more than ever, we need health care reform.

I have been a strong supporter of the public option and voted for the House bill in large part because it contained a public option. I believed then and I believe now that a public insurance option will increase competition and reform our current system. Every day, 14,000 Americans lose their health care coverage. A public option would have brought down costs and expanded access. Unfortunately, the Senate was unable to pass a bill with a public option, though many Senators supported the provision. While I am disappointed that the final bill that will go to the President for signature will not include it, I feel confident that the end product will achieve the goals of covering the vast majority of Americans, reduce health care costs, and reduce our deficit by trillions of dollars.

Madam Speaker, it is clear that the Senate bill had flaws and as passed was not as good of a bill for the State of New York as it should have been. If I was just casting one vote today, it would be a no vote on this bill. However, we are being given the opportunity to fix and improve the Senate bill with the upcoming reconciliation bill which is why I am able to vote in favor of this bill. With this vote, I am voting in favor of helping Americans gain affordable, quality health care they both need and deserve, I am voting in favor of dramatically reducing the Federal deficit by $143 billion in the first 10 years, and I am voting in favor of improving coverage by removing denials of coverage based on preexisting conditions or gender. I am voting in favor of a strong and healthy future for all Americans and for our great country.

Mr. Speaker, this is a historic vote. With passage of health care reform, 32 million people without insurance will now be covered and 94 percent of Americans will now be guaranteed health care coverage. In New York State, close to 2.5 million people who are currently uninsured will have health care coverage once this bill is passed. The reforms we are considering today will help improve the lives of millions of Americans--starting immediately, and continuing over the course of their implementation in the next ten years.

Starting immediately: No insurance company can deny coverage for pre- existing conditions or gender; Young people can stay on their parents' coverage until age 26; If you're self-employed or a small-business owner you'll be able to buy health coverage on competitive exchanges; If you've taken early retirement over age 55 but before you're eligible for Medicare, you'll be able to continue your employers' coverage until age 65; And if you're over 65 and have Medicare's Part D drug coverage, the ``donut hole'' has been eliminated.

The reconciliation bill we are voting on vastly improves the Senate bill's impact for states like New York who will not be penalized for having served New Yorkers and having an expansive Medicaid program. This provision will give more federal Medicaid funding support for New York State, which would have suffered a loss under the Senate-passed bill. Instead of costing millions, New York State will now save hundreds of millions in the first full year of implementation.

New York's public hospital system is the leading provider of uncompensated care to the uninsured and underinsured. Though this bill lowers the ten-year reduction in Medicaid and Medicare Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments by $3 billion, I remain concerned these cuts will weaken our health care safety net in New York. After all, while significant coverage expansions will be achieved through health care reform, there will still be populations that will remain uncovered or underinsured, and our hospitals will continue to bear the burden and cost of their health care. It seems like the best approach would have been that DSH cuts would be made contingent upon reductions in the uninsured. Instead of expansion triggers in the Senate bill, the reconciliation bill is improved with set levels of reductions per year and require the Secretary of Health and Human Service to develop a methodology to reduce states' Medicaid DSH allotments to achieve mandated savings.

More broadly, I support this bill because of the positive impact it will have on women's lives. As Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, I prepared a report that looked at the specific health care challenges facing women and how women would benefit from comprehensive health care reform. More than two million women have lost their health insurance since the recession began due to their own job loss or their spouse's job loss. 1.3 million women lost their health coverage when their spouse lost his job and an additional 800,000 women lost their health care as a result of their own job loss. More than two million women have faced the brutal double-whammy of a lost job and lost health care. While job losses during this recession were much greater for men than women, women have fared worse than men in recent months. And this has had real consequences for women's health care coverage: in the last six months, the number of women losing health insurance benefits due to their own job losses has increased by nearly 50 percent. Over one quarter (28%) of women ages 19-24 have no health insurance at all. Part of that number is likely explained by the economic challenges facing young women. Young women have been hit hard in the recession, facing an unemployment rate of 13.1 percent, significantly higher than the national rate of 9.7 percent, and making it less likely that they will have job-based coverage. Health care reform will help us to overcome inequities at the center of the current system--where women pay more than men for the same coverage, or even, where women who are not smokers pay more for coverage than men who are smokers. My report and the reality is that the health care system is serving women poorly, the recession has made the situation worse, and now more than ever, we need health care reform.

While I am speaking of women's health care, I must mention my opposition to the restrictive language on abortion included in the Senate bill which remains in reconciliation. While not as onerous as the Stupak language that was part of the final House bill, this language will directly impact a woman's right to legal reproductive health services and I oppose it. But the value to women and American families of finally achieving health care reform is far too important to risk losing it.

Mr. Speaker, a great deal of the discussion today focuses on the moral reasons for extending health care coverage. While I agree with the moral imperative, the fiscal necessity is clear. This bill cuts the deficit by $143 billion in the first ten years and then cuts the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. The bill is fully paid for and will not add a dime to the deficit. While it will cost $938 billion over a decade, it is critical to note that Americans spend nearly $2.5 trillion every single year on health care now and nearly two-thirds of the bill is paid for by reducing health care costs.

We must not let this moment pass without recognizing its historic nature. Today, millions of Americans will win basic rights--the right to health care, the right to live without the fear of chronic disease, and the right to never having to worry about losing insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition or exceeding a lifetime cap. While not perfect, this bill will hold insurance companies accountable; provide billions of dollars in tax breaks for small businesses to help them insure their employees; and, above all, expand access to quality, secure, affordable health care coverage for millions of Americans.

I'd like to thank and commend the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Chairmen Waxman, Miller and Rangel and of course, Chairman Emeritus Dingell who has been working on health care reform since he first came to Congress.

The time is now. Our current system is broken. Costs continue to increase at unsustainable rates and too many families and businesses are feeling the debilitating burdens brought on by these expenses. Too many Americans have inadequate coverage or lack coverage entirely and are suffering or dying as a result.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this momentous reform. I urge my colleagues to reach beyond the rhetoric and the politics. Instead, recognize that today we will make a lasting difference in people's lives. Today we change the health of our nation for ourselves, for our children, and for our grandchildren.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to share a resolution conveyed to Attorney General Eric Holder, from the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants in recognition of the outstanding work of the Office of Special Investigations at the United States Department of Justice.

Resolution of the Governing Board of the American Gathering of Jewish

Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants

Whereas the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust

Survivors and Their Descendants is the umbrella organization

of Holocaust survivor groups and Landsmannschaften in North

America, representing some 80,000 Holocaust survivors and

their family members;

Whereas the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) was

created in the Criminal Division of the United States

Department of Justice in 1979 in the wake of the shocking

public exposure by the then-Representative Elizabeth Holtzman

and others of decades of U.S. government inaction in the face

of the documented presence in the United States of numerous

perpetrators of Nazi crimes;

Whereas, most unconscionably of all, some of those Nazi war

criminals were brought to this country by U.S. government

agencies that were aware of the Nazi crimes that they had

committed;

Whereas OSI recently marked the 30th anniversary of its

establishment by Attorney General order;

Whereas, under the courageous and tenacious leadership of

Eli Rosenbaum and his predecessors, OSI has been, for the

past three decades, by far the most dedicated and successful

government agency in the world in tracking down,

investigating, prosecuting, and obtaining law enforcement

justice in cases of fugitive Nazi war criminals and has

accordingly won bipartisan praise from the Congress, awards

from Jewish organizations, and plaudits from the media;

Whereas OSI has won more court cases against Nazi criminals

than have authorities in all of the other governments of the

world combined during the period of OSI's thirty-year

existence;

Whereas OSI has prevailed in its crucial mission despite

(1) daunting investigative obstacles rarely if ever

encountered by other American prosecutors, (2) determined

efforts made over many years by former White House

Communications Director and later presidential candidate

Patrick Buchanan, then-Attorney General Edwin Meese, former

Rep. James Traficant, organizations of Nazi supporters, and

others to undermine, disable and even close that office, (3)

threats of violence directed at OSI personnel by Nazi

criminals' supporters, (4) the immoral and ongoing refusal of

European governments to accept the return of Nazi criminals

against whom OSI has won deportation orders in U.S. courts,

and (5) receiving funding that is but a tiny fraction of the

moneys allocated by the U.S. government to support

international efforts to prosecute a smaller number of

perpetrators of atrocity crimes in Rwanda and the former

Yugoslavia;

Whereas OSI launched the only law enforcement effort in

postwar world history to identify suspected Axis perpetrators

systematically in order both to identify them for

investigation and to prevent their entry as immigrants or

visitors, with the result that nearly 200 such persons have

been stopped and turned away at U.S. airports--a world-

leading program from which our government might learn much as

it struggles to identify terrorist and bar them from entering

this country;

Whereas the fruits of OSI's extensive efforts to assist

other nations in pursuing justice in the Nazi cases may be

seen around the world, including in the ongoing Munich trial

of former Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk;

Whereas OSI has done more than has any other component of

the federal government to restore the honor of the United

States government in the Nazi cases and to secure a measure

of law enforcement justice on behalf of the Holocaust's

victims;

Whereas OSI's efforts have also succeeded in obtaining a

great measure of historical and remunerative justice on

behalf of Holocaust victims and survivors, especially in (1)

conducting investigations and prosecutions involving

genocidal crimes committed in the former Soviet Union that

were previously little know in the West and whose

perpetrators had not previously been identified; (2) proving

and publicly disclosing the fact that Gestapo archcriminal

Klaus Barbie, Nazi V-2 program slave master Arthur

Rudolph, Eichmann cohort Otto Albrecht von Bolschwing, and

other Nazi war criminals were employed by U.S.

intelligence and military agencies after World War II and

were assisted by those agencies in escaping postwar

justice; (3) proving, for the first time, and in direct

contradiction of more than half a century of Swiss

government denials, that looted gold, some of it ripped

from the mouths of murdered Jewish victims in the Nazi

camps, was melted down by the Reichsbank and traded to the

Swiss National Bank; (4) discovering that certain artwork

stolen by the Nazis from European Jews was in the

possession of the National Gallery of Art in Washington,

D.C.; (5) laboring indefatigably from 1999 to 2007 to

locate, declassify, and disclose to the public, despite

the opposition of some other federal agencies, fully eight

million pages of classified documents in the U.S.

government possession relating to Axis war crimes; (6)

successfully leading the U.S. government's effort, in

conjunction with Israeli and German authorities, to trace

the fate of the infamous Auschwitz selector and

experimenter Dr. Josef Mengele; and (7) undertaking a

worldwide investigation that confirmed the allegations

first made by the World Jewish Congress that former United

Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim took part in Nazi

crimes against humanity and persuading the Reagan

Administration to bar him forever from reentering the

United States;

Whereas, as a result of the expansion of OSI's mission in

2004, the unit has also won acclaim for its efforts in

pursuit of justice on behalf of the victims of atrocities in

Rwanda, Bosnia and elsewhere, while it continues to

investigate and prosecute Nazi criminals;

Whereas the Department of Justice has announced that OSI is

soon to be merged with Criminal Division's Domestic Security

Section in order to consolidate the Justice Department's

human rights enforcement efforts:

Now therefore be it Resolved by the Governing Board of the

American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their

Descendants, meeting in Washington, D.C., this 14th day of

February 2010, That the Governing Board:

(1) Praises and expresses deep gratitude for the matchless

dedication and unique accomplishments of the prosecutors,

historians, and other professional staff, both past and

present, of the Office of Special Investigations, and

especially its remarkable director, Eli Rosenbaum, who

devoted his storied career to bringing justice and hope to

Holocaust survivors, the families of those who perished in

the Shoah, and the families of the hundreds of thousands of

American soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives

in the historic battle to end the nightmare of Nazi

inhumanity;

(2) Expresses abiding gratitude to Eli Rosenbaum, the

longest-serving investigator and prosecutor of Nazi criminals

in postwar world history, for his courageous, tenacious, and

extraordinarily successful efforts, undertaken at great

personal sacrifice and risk, to pursue justice--and

historical truth--on behalf of those Jewish men, women and

children whose blessed memory was summoned by Israeli

Attorney General Gideon Hausner in his opening address in the

Eichmann case in Jerusalem when he declared that he did not

stand alone to present the case, because he was joined by

``six million accusers'' who ``cannot rise to their feet and

point their finger at the man in the dock and cry `J'accuse'

. . . for they are now only ashes--ashes piled high on the

hills of Aushchwitz and the fields of Treblinka and strewn in

the forests of Poland'';

(3) Thanks Eli Rosenbaum and his predecessor Neal Sher for

being among the first to

expose and publicly refute the Holocaust calumnies of Patrick

Buchanan, long before such criticism became a mainstream

phenomenon;

(4) Considers OSI's landmark work to have been the key

post-Nuremberg American realization of the solemn commitment

to justice made to the Third Riech's surviving victims 55

years ago by former Attorney General and Supreme Court

Justice Robert H. Jackson when he first stood at the podium

before the judges of the International Military Tribunal;

(5) Deems the Justice Department's continued pursuit of

justice in the Nazi cases to be an undeniable moral

imperative notwithstanding the lateness of the date;

(6) Very strongly supports OSI's continuing efforts to

identify, investigate, and prosecute the perpetrators of Nazi

crimes and also postwar crimes against humanity;

(7) Calls on the Department of Justice to ensure that its

personnel will continue to leave no stone unturned in the

effort to pursue justice on behalf of the victims of Nazi

crimes; and

(8) Urges those nations of Europe that, despite having

provided the henchmen who massacred a third of the world's

Jews, continue to violate their moral obligation to accept

the return of Nazi criminals whom the United States seeks to

deport to observe that time is short in the Nazi cases and

therefore to desist at once from their obstructionist

conduct.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of establishing a National Siblings Day, a day in which we all reflect upon the ways siblings have enriched our lives. We have a Mother's Day to celebrate our mothers, and a Father's Day to celebrate our fathers. Establishing a Siblings Day would allow us an opportunity to celebrate and honor our siblings and would give every family member a day to be celebrated.

Claudia Evart is a constituent of mine in New York. She has worked tirelessly over the past several years to make April 10th the official day we reflect upon the importance of our siblings.

April 10th would mark the birthday of Ms. Evart's sister, Lisette, who died tragically in an accident that also took the life of her father in 1972. Lisette was only 19 years old. Just 14 years later, in 1986, Ms. Evart's older brother, Alan, died in an accident in his home at the young age of 36.

Siblings significantly affect our lives and shape who we are. Siblings are a major part of our family, and often when our parents are gone our siblings are the only family we have left. And sometimes we lose our siblings at an early age, as with Ms. Evart's tragic experience. A National Siblings Day would help us honor and celebrate siblings and aid us in remembering the siblings that we have lost.

I applaud Ms. Evart's hard work over the past 14 years to create a National Siblings Day, and with it a loving tribute to her deceased siblings. Her dedicated efforts are inspirational. Since 1998, 33 governors have issued gubernatorial proclamations in their states for Siblings Day: AL, AR, AZ, CO, CT, FL, IL, IA, IN, KS, KY, LA, ME, MD,