Floor Statements

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 67: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following (and make such technical and

conforming changes as may be appropriate):

Sec. 534. None of the funds made available in this Act for

the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may be used for

litigation expenses incurred in connection with cases

commenced after the date of the enactment of this Act against

employers on the grounds that such employers require

employees to speak English.

Offered By: Mr. Stearns

Amendment No. 68: At the end of the bill, before the short

title, insert the following (and make such technical and

conforming changes as may be appropriate):

Sec. 534. Each amount appropriated or otherwise made

available by this Act that is not required to be appropriated

or otherwise made available by a provision of law is hereby

reduced by 1 percent.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I be removed as a cosponsor of H.R. 2254.

Mr. Chair, while our constituents are losing jobs and homes, H.R. 2410 would use borrowed money to increase funding by one- third in a single year for State Department operations, for the UN regular budget, and for the Peace Corps.

It would increase the State Department's basic salary and operations account by 35%.

It would add 2,200 new Foreign Service Officers, 20 new government entities, and 48 new reporting requirements.

Without requiring any reform, it would authorize all UN arrearages and volunteers the U.S. pay $100 million more for peacekeeping next year beyond what the UN is currently charging us.

The reported bill also embraces a controversial social agenda, including provisions that could allow abortion promotion.

Attempts at the full committee mark-up to affirm the genuine empowerment and protection of women and girls around the world was soundly rejected.

In addition to problems with what the bill includes, many deserving Republican amendments were excluded from the reported version.

One of those was a funding amendment I have offered which caps any account increases at 3.7 percent over current year levels.

This reasonable 3.7 percent increase is the average rate of inflation for 2008.

By taking this measured, responsible approach, my funding amendment would produce a single-year cost savings of 2.82 billion dollars in 2010, as compared to the Majority's bill.

In short, H.R. 2410 is an irresponsible bill on policy and funding levels.

Good morning, Madam Speaker. I rise today to ask a simple question that is on every American's mind; what has been done by this administration and this Congress to fix the troubled economic system we have today?

While this administration continues to pour trillions of dollars into a flawed financial system, continues to have Washington bureaucrats take control over failed businesses, and continues to appoint czar after czar to exercise government control over our free market system, the question still remains, Madam Speaker, what has this administration done to fix this broken system, and is it working?

Government control is not the answer, as our European neighbors have figured out recently and spoken through their elections to change their left-leaning programs and political regimes.

This economic crisis was created by a flawed system, a system that is in need of structural reform. However, the administration's answer to this glaring problem is to continue to throw more money, taxpayers' money, at the problem, which essentially increases this country's unsustainable debt and increases Federal bureaucratic control over all of our private institutions.

This country must stop the taxpayer-paid-for corporate welfare from being handed out and simply return this economy to what has worked for over 200 years, a system that rewards people who take prudent risks and punishes those who take irresponsible risks.

We must return to being a frugal Nation, one where the Federal Government balances its budget, encourages savings, and reins in the $12 trillion worth of debt. This Nation can no longer afford one more loan from China as our credit rating teeters on the brink of failure.

This structural reform begins with the executives that are tasked with running these institutions, banks, and corporations. What this economic crisis has taught us is that these CEOs care more about their stock options, even at the expense of hiding fraudulent assets and taking bogus risks to inflate their P&L statements.

Government-guaranteed bailouts and guaranteed bonuses allow these individuals to escape their poor decisions and sidestep the economic hardship that their risky choices have created for the average American family.

I believe this starts by giving investors and shareholders more transparency into what occurs in corporate boardrooms. Shareholders and investors need greater access to information to allow their confidence in company governance determine where their investment capital is best allocated. In addition, investors, regulators, and the American people need greater transparency into the daily operation of Wall Street. It is nearly impossible for one to find information or records of a corporation's credit default swaps--who owns them, who backs them, who has issued these complex financial tools? Vital information like this will help to prevent corporations from concealing this information in their books, what they owe and how much debt they really are in? The same can be said with regard to the subprime mortgage securities, what are they worth now?

Furthermore, Madam Speaker, there is no such thing as ``too big to fail.'' These institutions must realize that every time they make an irresponsible decision or a risky bet, the Federal Treasury will not come to their financial rescue. Financial bailouts are a slippery slope and set a dangerous precedent. When the Federal Government begins to arbitrarily pick winners and losers, fairness, equality and the free market are tossed out the window, as evidenced by Bear Stearns' government bailout and Lehman Brothers allowed failure.

This administration, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Treasury must release their TARP records and disclose in full how the bailout money has been spent, who the money has gone to, and the reason why some received help and others were allowed to fail. This money belongs to the taxpayers; we have a right to know.

For these and other reasons, I am calling on this Congress and the administration to have a series of comprehensive hearings to determine what exactly happened, who was at fault, what is the best way to restructure this flawed system, and how are the taxpayers going to get their money back from these bailouts?

Status quo is not acceptable, and neither is bailout after bailout, leading to Federal bureaucratic control of our institutions and our banks. It is time we find answers to these problems rather than continue to throw good money after bad.

Mr. Speaker, as President Obama begins to wade into the Israel-Palestinian conflict, he must remember who our friends are. Israel is America's most reliable and only democratic ally in the Middle East. Yet in his speech last week in Cairo and in statements by his administration, President Obama seems only to want to pressure Israel, while not requiring similar concessions from the Palestinians and other Arab states.

Starting with the British Partition Plan in 1937--when they were offered the western part of Palestine--then again to the U.N. Partition Plan in 1947, to the Camp David talks in 2000, and most recently in December of 2008, the Palestinians have rejected every plan to divide the land into independent states. Each time their answer was ``no.''

No outside party, President Obama included, can arbitrarily impose a peace agreement, nor can peace be achieved by setting conditions on just one party, Israel, which has been willing to take the necessary and difficult steps towards peace and consider compromise.

Madam Chair, on rollcall No. 308, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 285 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Madam Speaker, with $590 billion or 84 percent of the authorized troubled asset relief funds having already been handed out to Wall Street, the TARP Inspector General, Neil Barofsky, issued a 250-page report that recommended transparency and that all TARP recipients be made to detail how they will use bailout dollars and safeguard a new mortgage rescue effort against scams.

But 84 percent of the funds have already been given away. To call for greater transparency at this stage in the game is well beyond a day late and a dollar short.

However, what is encouraging is that the Inspector General, amid reports of rampant fraud, has realized and embraced his legal power and has instituted 20 criminal investigations and six audits.

In addition, he has begun to ask tough questions and look into who, quote, sought to influence decision-making by Treasury or bank regulators. Bold and encouraging words as The New York Times reported that Secretary Geithner has more than cordial relationships with many of the TARP recipient CEOs.

Madam Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from Tennessee, the Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology, for his hard work and his kindness and for letting me have this bill on the floor so promptly.

I also thank my colleague from Florida for his introduction and kind words.

This legislation, which I introduced with my good friend Chairman Gordon, obviously congratulates the IEEE on its 125th anniversary and recognizes

May 13, 2009, as the IEEE Engineering the Future Day.

My colleagues, IEEE is a renowned international not-for-profit professional organization whose core purpose is to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.

As mentioned, with more than 210,000 members in the United States and more than 375,000 members in over 160 countries, the IEEE is the world's largest professional society for the advancement of technology. Their membership includes engineers, scientists and other professionals whose technical interests are rooted in electrical and computer sciences, engineering and related disciplines.

The IEEE as we know it today was formed by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers, which was founded in 1912, and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, which was founded on May 13, 1884 by renowned inventor and distinguished entrepreneur Thomas Edison. Other notable past presidents of the IEEE and its founding institutions include well-known scientists Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Steinmetz, Lee De Forest, William Hewlett and Ivan Getting.

The IEEE's name was originally an acronym for the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. Today the organization's scope of interest has expanded into so many related fields that it is simply referred to as the letters IEEE.

Through its global membership, IEEE is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics, among others. Most IEEE members are electrical engineers, computer engineers and computer scientists, but the organization's wide scope of interest has attracted engineers in a lot of other disciplines, including mechanical and civil engineering as well as biologists, physicists and mathematicians.

The IEEE's constitution defines the purpose of this organization as, quote, scientific and educational, directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of electrical, electronics, communications and computer engineering, as well as computer science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences, all encompassing.

My colleagues, in pursuing these goals, the IEEE serves as a major publisher of some 144 scientific journals and magazines and a sponsor of more than 300 conferences annually. It is also a leading developer of industrial standards that support many of today's products and services, with an active portfolio of nearly 1,300 standards and projects under development in a broad range of disciplines, including electric power and energy, biomedical technology and health care, information technology, information assurance, telecommunications, consumer electronics, transportation, aerospace, and most importantly, nanotechnology, the wave of the future.

IEEE also develops and participates in educational activities such as accreditation of electrical engineering programs in all of our institutes of higher learning in this country. To foster an interest in the engineering profession, IEEE serves student members in colleges and universities around the world with more than 1,600 student branches in almost 500 student branch chapters at colleges and universities in 80 countries.

The goal of the IEEE educational program is to ensure the growth, the skill and knowledge in the electricity-related technical professions and to foster individual commitment to continuing education among IEEE members, the engineering and scientific communities, and, of course, the general public.

As mentioned by the distinguished chairman, I am an electrical engineer. I was a member of IEEE in college, and I'm now presently a member. I was an aerospace engineer in the Air Force, a captain in the Air Force during launching of satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base. I'm very proud of the background I have. It sometimes helps me in trying to understand the intricacies in analysis here in Congress.

So I urge my colleagues to join me and recognize the simple and powerful contributions and impact the IEEE has in this country and its members and engineering and technology professionals who have made accomplishments here in the United States and continue to support their goals and ideals of IEEE engineering, the future day, on May 13, 2009.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 243 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Speaker, presently the majority is developing their own energy legislation through the Energy and Commerce Committee. I serve on the Subcommittee on Energy. We have had several hearings and many, many witnesses, including Vice President Gore. This legislation is entitled the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. But, my colleagues, it imposes a massive national energy tax on every single American, especially those who are low income and elderly individuals.

Now, if reducing carbon dioxide, creating jobs and promoting domestic energy sources were truly their objective, then nuclear energy should be a central component, you would think, of this legislation. But it is not.

Nuclear power already provides the United States with over 20 percent of its electricity, and 73 percent of its CO2-free electricity. When it comes to affordable, near-term reductions of CO2 and other atmospheric emissions, the importance of nuclear energy cannot be overstated.

Like wind and solar energy, nuclear energy is emission free, which means CO2 free. However, unlike wind and solar, nuclear energy can provide vast amounts of power on a constant basis. Wind and solar certainly have a role to

play in America's energy mix, but in order to obtain clean, CO2-free energy, it seems that such a major piece of legislation should address the regulatory and policy issues that obstruct new nuclear energy power from being developed in the United States.

But what makes nuclear energy potentially transformational is its simple versatility. Today, the Nation primarily uses nuclear energy for electricity generation. Electric power production amounts for roughly 40 percent of America's total energy production. Nuclear accounts for 20 percent of electricity here in the United States. But clean, affordable nuclear power can also be used to produce energy for industrial applications, and even for transportation, which accounts for 21 percent and 29 percent of U.S. energy consumption, respectively.

For example, some reactor types could be used in the chemical industry for plastics production and for refinery operations, all of which use vast amounts of carbon-based energy to produce heat which is necessary for their industrial activities. Nuclear energy could also be used to produce synthetic fuels that could run America's cars. While these technologies are not commercially viable today, they are the types of things that could be possible, if the Federal Government would develop a regulatory and policy structure that was more conducive to growth in the nuclear energy industry.

Nuclear energy is also a jobs creator. According to The Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry has created more than 15,000 jobs in recent years, all without even beginning construction on a new nuclear power plant. These include jobs in the sciences, manufacturing and construction sectors that private investors have created as they prepare to meet future construction demand. Once construction begins, up to 2,000 workers will be required to build each new plant and approximately 600 will be needed to operate it.

The energy bill being developed focuses too much on the process of energy production, rather than on the product itself. For example, it creates a renewable energy standard that mandates only certain types of limited energy production, such as wind and solar. This approach artificially eliminates energy sources, including those that have not even yet been invented.

If CO2 reduction is truly the objective, then maximizing America's nuclear resources should be a top priority. In fact, as Secretary of Energy Chu testified at one of our hearings, nuclear energy should be part of this legislation. France uses nuclear energy to produce almost 80 percent of the electricity they have, and also they have developed methods to reprocess the waste. In fact, they have been so successful that almost all of the waste product has been reprocessed. Japan and Canada have also successfully developed nuclear energy.

So, my colleagues, the priorities we need to establish require a major restructuring effort from Congress and the administration that emphasizes market-based reforms that ensure long-term regulatory stability and policy predictability. Most importantly, these reforms can be done without additional cost to the taxpayers.

Without such an effort, the billions of dollars of private capital needed to expand America's nuclear capacity will simply not be invested. These private investments will ultimately be what is needed for the Nation to achieve real reductions in CO2 emissions and create a new, clean energy economy.

Madam Speaker, the selective release of memos on the enhanced interrogation methods of the previous administration has made us less safe.

Four former CIA Directors, as well as the current Director, advised against releasing these memos.

As ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden recently said, ``If you look at these documents that have been made public, it says `Top Secret' at the top. The definition of `Top Secret' is information which, if revealed, would cause grave harm to the United States' security.'' Furthermore, General Hayden said that the use of these interrogation techniques against these terrorists made us safe.

The release of the top secret memos were motivated by politics, pure and simple. They were designed to embarrass, not to protect. So much for President Obama's promise to look forward, not backward. These memos never should have been released.

As another former CIA Director, Porter Goss, recently wrote, ``We can't have a secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets.''

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the thousands of people in the Sixth Congressional District of Florida who stood together and told this administration and this Congress to turn off the taxpayer-funded spigot of government bailouts.

These hardworking Americans made their point loud and clear; they do not want to see our Nation bankrupt from a fiscal policy that ignores the free market principles this country was founded upon and attempts to spend its way out of record-breaking debt through increased government control and expansion of inefficient bureaucratic power.

Let me go ahead and read an excerpt from their 4-page declaration that over 1,800 people from my hometown, Ocala, signed on April 15, tax day.

``We raise our voices against the arrogance and the ruinous policies of our government, a government that ignores We the People, a government that drowns us in debt, a government that forsakes the free enterprise system that has driven the engine of the greatest economy on Earth in favor of a relentless march towards socialism designed to subvert the worth of the individual and encourage the intrusion of government into all aspects of our lives.''

Madam Speaker, I will submit the entire ``Tax Tea Party Declaration'' for the Record. And also, I have a petition signed by over 2,000 people in Ocala, Florida, demonstrating their commitment to ending this bad economic policy.

Like those who attended rallies in Starke, Trenton, Gainesville, and Orange Park, I have not and will not support bailout after bailout as sound economic policy. It is unconscionable for this administration and this Congress to continue committing good money after bad.

In October of 2008, the U.S. Government committed an astounding $700 billion in public funds to failing private financial institutions through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, TARP. However, just last week, the TARP Special Inspector General reported that the total cost of TARP will cost the American taxpayer between $2.4 trillion and $2.9 trillion.

It is evident that we can no longer allow government bureaucrats such as Timothy Geithner and Henry Paulson to use their position and the taxpayer-funded Federal Reserve to act as a safety net for their partners on Wall Street when they fail due to incompetence and unchecked greed.

I am a strong believer in free markets. And inherent in that economic model is that not every person or idea makes money. It is time for Wall Street to understand this unmistakable tenet and not rely on the Federal Reserve and the American taxpayer to continue to save them when their gambles accumulate into significant losses.

Anna Schwartz, co-author along with Milton Friedman of ``A Monetary History of the United States,'' viewed by many as the definitive account of how U.S. monetary policy turned the stock market crash of 1929 into the Great Depression and which Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has called the ``leading and most persuasive explanation of the worst economic disaster in American history,'' contends that the Treasury, through its actions, has prolonged this crisis. Let me quote here on this board:

``They should not be recapitalizing firms that should be shut down. Rather, firms that made wrong decisions should fail. You shouldn't rescue them. And once that is established as a principle, I think the market recognizes that it makes sense.''

As true capitalists, these titans of Wall Street should understand the risks and rewards of a free market economy and be allowed to fail like the rest of Main Street when they make foolish or risky decisions.

Many economists look to the past to predict economic futures; it is a tested way to learn from past mistakes and avoid making them in the future. Looking to the past, we discover that Henry Morganthau, FDR's Treasury Secretary, gave this very important quote in May of 1939 during the Great Depression. He said, ``We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say, after 8 years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started, and enormous debt to boot.''

This current economic policy of bailout after bailout and colossal government spending is just plain wrong, Madam Speaker, and the American people know it.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary

for like-minded patriotic citizens to rally as one against

the powers that threaten to alter, diminish and destroy this

country we love, proper respect for the opinions of our

fellow citizens requires that we should clearly state the

grievances that impel us to gather at this Ocala tea party to

protest peacefully, but passionately in the tradition of our

forefathers whose Boston Tea party resonated around the

world.

The history of the present government of these United

States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all

having the effect of establishing an unacceptable tyranny

over the citizens of these states. Let the facts be self-

evident and speak for themselves . . . and let these

grievances be heard in the halls of power in 2009, just as

they were heard in the palace of Britain's King George the

third, as they thundered forth from the text of the

Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776.

Be it resolved on this 15th day of April, in the year 2009,

at the Great Ocala Tea Party in the Town Square in Ocala,

Florida, that just as our forefathers at the Boston Tea Party

protested tyranny at the hands of the British Crown and

taxation without representation, we hereby raise our voices

against the arrogance and the ruinous policies of our own

government . . . a government that ignores the will of ``We

The People'' . . . a government that drowns us in debt . . .

a government that forsakes the free enterprise system that

has driven the engine of the greatest economy on earth, in

favor of a relentless march toward socialism designed to

subvert the worth of the individual and encourage the

intrusion of government into all aspects of our lives.

Let the word go forth from this time and place that we are

freedom loving Americans who cherish individual liberty, our

constitution and all that this nation has stood for over 233

years. We love our country, and we are here to take it back!

Let us hereby resolve that we have had enough of massive

government driven bailouts using our money! Stop spending

money we do not have! This is not your money, this is our

money, and we demand you stop the madness!

We have had enough of so-called economic stimulus plans

that falsely promise we can spend ourselves back to

prosperity!

We have had enough of trillion-dollar spending schemes

being passed without congress or the people knowing what is

in them. This is taxation without deliberation and we will

not tolerate it!

We have had enough of the out of control government

spending that is mortgaging our future and threatening our

very way of life!

We have had enough of both major parties being arrogant and

unresponsive to the people they were elected to serve!

We have had enough of seeing money taken unfairly from

honest hard working Americans through excessive taxation and

redistributed to individuals who have not earned the money!

We have enough of capitalism being targeted as the problem

instead of the solution!

We have had enough of government being called the solution,

when government is the problem!

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for

redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions to

our elected officials have been answered only by repeated

injury, if, in fact, they have been answered at all. A

government so arrogant and unresponsive to its people is

unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

We, therefore, the people of the United States of America,

in general congress assembled, here in the Town Square of

Ocala, Florida, on this 15th day of April, in the year 2009,

do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of

this city and nation, solemnly publish and declare that we

are a free people, in this free and independent state, and

that we have the power to demand that our government cease

serving its own interest, and whatever political and

ideological agendas it may be pursuing, and become the

Government Of The People, By The People, and For the People

to which we are entitled as Americans. And that for the

support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on divine

providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our

fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Mr. Chairman, on rollcall Nos. 200 and 201, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on both.

Amendment No. 9 Offered by Mr. Roskam